Atome Plc (ATOM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

April 28, 2026

AIM GB Materials Chemicals shareholder_meeting 53 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ATOME PLC investor presentation. [Operator Instructions] The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today and we'll publish our responses where it is appropriate to do so on the Investor Meet Company platform. Before we begin, as usual, we would like to submit the following poll. And if you could give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from ATOME PLC. Peter, good morning, sir.

Peter Levine

executive
#2

Good morning, and welcome to everyone who's on this call to our ATOME Investor Meet. We really do appreciate your time. And particularly welcome to our shareholders, our new shareholders, our existing shareholders, a particular shout out to our strategic shareholders who joined us on this placing, which we've just done. And they include, of course, Casale, our EPC contractor, a very important partner for us going forward, not just in Villeta, but the future projects. And of course, also Baker Hughes, an existing shareholder, who further enhanced their shareholding in the placing that's just taken place. And to all of you who have come in into the placing and to all existing shareholders who've shown faith in us. We thank you, and we appreciate your time and your support. So if we can now start the presentation, I apologize for not being with you during the full presentation, but I'll start it off and then introduce my colleagues. So where do we start? Well, we start with a summary really. And the Villeta Project, as you may know, is a $665 million project, and we've now effectively completed the finance. This is what we've been working for since we started ATOME in -- end of 2021, and it's now come to fruition. And now the real work starts to doing. It's a 260,000 tonne project. It's the first of its kind. It's a world leader in what we do, and we're projecting very significant EBITDA returns. In relation to our corporate development, ATOME is to invest $31 million into new shares in this project. That's in addition to our carried interest of $60 million. And we did that because we felt it was a really good opportunity to do it. We want to have a meaningful stake in our project, and we now have and that will be explained to you by my colleague, Olivier, our CEO. So we effected the placing with the benefit of some back costs as well, which we got as part of the deal. It's $5.8 million of that cost. We raised $25.6 million, of which Casale, as you are aware, came in for $17 million of that and directors and management came in for a significant sterling value of well over GBP 3 million to add to the existing management's significant holding. And we have a scalable pipeline. We are not a one-trick pony. ATOME has got the very exciting Villeta project, which is groundbreaking that will act as a catalyst and is already doing so for future work with a significant pipeline, both in our fertilizer, our green hydrogen/green ammonia projects as well as importantly, our ATOME POWER project, which is going to look at delivering power in the right places for the right clients. So this is a very significant moment in the history of ATOME. We've now completed the finance of it of the first project. We're now going to build it out on time, on budget. We are the operators of this, and we are managing it under a management contract, extending to 15 years. So with no further ado, I want to introduce my 2 colleagues, Olivier Mussat, our COO and -- CEO, sorry; and Nikita Levine, our Head of Business Development. Over to you. Thank you very much.

Olivier Charles Mussat

executive
#3

Thank you, Peter. I think we can indeed not understate the excitement of where we are today, which is having proven that ATOME can deliver first-of-a-kind projects and finance them and bring the right type of partners in. So I think if we go, I think, to the next slide, obviously, it's never been as important as today. It's an opportunity we identified nearly 4 years ago. And the coming, let's say, disruption of the fertilizer market. And what we are seeing today is actually the problem that we face is that we have -- we are highly dependent on a few number of places, namely around Russia, around the Middle East, some of it in the U.S. as well. And in Latin America alone, half of the fertilizer supply in Mercosur comes from behind the Strait of Hormuz. So we are actually at the right place at the right time, which is in the heart of the market at the time where the markets are the most disrupted and the supply and the security of supply of fertilizer to ensure that we put food on our table, it has never been as important as today to ensure that indeed some of these places can actually have reliable access to fertilizer. So if we go to the next slide. And the way that we do it, as you will remember, is we have a proposal that doesn't rely on our bank or subsidies. We are competing head-on, and we are lowest cost to market because what we have proven is that in the right places, in the right environment, you can actually produce fertilizer and of course, low-carbon fertilizer cheaper than what it costs to import them, right? I mean, over here in this particular slide, what we show is that we have over 100% cost advantage versus the imports. And obviously, it's largely due, number one, that we have fixed the price of the inputs. In our case, obviously, it's renewable power. And also, and this is what you see in the gray and the black that our OpEx and our logistics cost is significantly lower, right, than the competing. So what we are able indeed in here is that we are able to put together bankable projects, get them financed, get them derisked and supply them long term to the market because we have low-cost input price of power, which makes sure that we can produce it at a low cost. And we have a huge market on the right. Obviously, Yara is a long-term off-taker that can ensure that we will always find a market for our products as we are the lowest cost. If we go to the next slide. Obviously, it's all about having the right management team with the right incentive, right? All of us collectively have worked on billions of dollars of projects and financing them, developing them, selling them as well, but also worked across the fertilizer value chain, across the technology value chain in the countries that we operate. And this is a management team which also is incredibly incentivized because that's a management team that has participated in every single fundraise at the prevailing share price as have all of the public shareholders. And we see it as absolutely key to be aligned as a group, as a company among shareholders. We go to the next slide, please. So the project overview itself. I mean, obviously, you've just seen the video that we have put together with Casale. And it really shows you about how do we go at the end of the day, about developing projects, right? So you go and you look at it exactly like you would an infrastructure project. So it's all about derisking, right? -- derisking to have long-term supply of power with -- and as a partner, buying the land, doing all of the environmental social impact assessments necessary, ensuring that you have, obviously, the operating licenses so that you can start building the project. But obviously, doing all of the technical side, we have also the express report of the Paraguayan government who have provided a free trade zone. On the contractual side, we've mentioned that before, Casale is obviously a partner and has been a partner for a couple of years now in putting together a fixed EPC contract in a lump-sum turnkey, which derisks the project and provides us guarantee of cost and guarantee of time of supply. They have also become a shareholder, as Peter mentioned, which again continues to further the alignment between ourselves to ensure that the project is successful. Obviously, also a long-term supply -- I'm sorry, offtake with Yara International, Yara being the equivalent of Shell in the fertilizer world with a long-term take-or-pay for 100% of our capacity. That's a minimum of 10 years of supply with a highly structured offtake, which provides us some downside protection as well as the premium sharing on the upside. And what we had announced last Friday is that we have now closed the financing, which allows us to declare, obviously, the FID of the project itself, where we have done the debt, we closed the debt, and we'll talk about it a bit later and obviously closed the equity as we put together the group. And so the next steps for us, obviously, it will be to start the early site works which means we're going to clear the site, start the piling so that then we can start the construction of the plant itself. Casale has already started the detailed engineering and all of those to be in first production by the end of 2029. And so that we can start then producing at full speed, 260,000 tonnes of low-carbon calcium ammonium nitrate, which is going to displace the equivalent of 500,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. And this is one of the reasons that Sustainable Fitch has given us and the project and the financing of project an excellent rating as far as its impact both on low-carbon, but as well as its ability to really transform the way that fertilizer projects can be developed. So the project itself, so we mentioned just about a month ago that we had closed the senior debt with concessional financing with IDB Invest with IFC, so which is the World Bank's private investment arm, the European Investment Bank, FMO, the Dutch Development Bank and the Green Climate Fund, which is one of the UN funds. And on the equity side, we have Hy24, the largest low-carbon hydrogen fund in the world. That's about EUR 2 billion in management as well as IFDK, the Danish Government Authority, DEG, the German Development Bank, IFC again, as well as Sudameris, which is the second largest financial institution in Paraguay. So you really see an alignment across, obviously, money, policy and as well as investors in the country itself because it is indeed a project of large impact and national importance. And what we have obviously announced as well is our raise, which will allow us to increase our participation into the project itself because, of course, it's a project that we know well, that we will continue to operate after having developed it and having been provided about $60 million worth of common share as part of our carry. And obviously, we are coming alongside the equity consortium to take a larger stake of the project that we know well and that we know is very profitable. Next slide, please. So -- and when I mentioned about the profitability about it, remember, I've talked a lot about risk and having derisked the project. to make sure that we have the most -- the least amount of risks, the most amount of certainty when it comes to cash flows. And on the right, you see basically on the 100% project side, the management base case, which is looking at about $510 a tonne of CAN in our markets, you would be looking at revenue at around $129 million using our management case apologies and an EBITDA of about $84 million. If we were to take today's prices, actually, this obviously are a little bit higher, not as high as they were back in 2022 during the first Ukraine war, the second Ukraine war, you would be -- which would have given us about $160 million of revenue and about $112 million of EBITDA. And ATOME itself, obviously, as you will remember, the strategy of ATOME is we are the developer at the PLC level, and we put together projects that we put within an SPV, a single-purpose vehicle where we bring investors and lenders. And ATOME PLC obviously manages this project and has basically cost allocation where it provides us revenue through a management service agreement of around $2.8 million per year as the project is constructed so that PLC can continue delivering the value, delivering the project. And clearly, for us, the priority is make sure that Villeta is on the rails and is on the rail to be successfully completed and in production by the end of '29. Next slide, please. So it was obviously all about partnerships, right? So as we derisk projects, as we put the best sponsors, the best engineers, the best financiers and the best basically partners all around into ensuring that the project is a success. As we mentioned, right, it's a first-of-a-kind project. It's not the first green fertilizer project in the world. Actually, 100 years ago, Casale used to make green ammonia from renewable energy and Yara used to make low-carbon fertilizer as well. But to do it on an industrial-scale, this is indeed a first of a kind, which needs extremely strong partners that can follow us, obviously, be partner with us on this asset, but can follow us on the next generation of assets as well. So it is actually key that to have these partnerships put together to be able to continue to grow as we look at obviously unlocking further the low-carbon fertilizer opportunity. And so when we go to the need for low-carbon fertilizer, I think the first slide really in here really talks about the fact that half of the world today is being fed by chemical fertilizers. And that obviously, we have population growth. We have an environmental cost attached to it, which is these chemical fertilizers are made from hydrocarbons. And the carbon footprint represents not only more carbon than both shipping and aviation combined, but also it means that we are highly dependent on places where you have very cheap hydrocarbons. So obviously, we need to do more with less as we need more food. And this is -- there's an entire thesis, an entire change going on today in the fertilizer industry, which I will pass on to Nikita.

Nikita Levine

executive
#4

Thank you, Olivier, and good afternoon, everyone. So that's really putting, as Olivier outlined, the Villeta project, which we have just achieved FID on into the wider context of the market. And what we see is great support and momentum for our product and the type of projects we are looking to develop across the food and agriculture sector because we must realize that the products we buy on the supermarket shelves up to 50% of emissions of those products come from the use -- the production and use of fertilizer. And so you see that a lot of the major and largest consumer goods companies today have already set out targets on Scope 3 reduction and net zero. So they're not just looking to also green their supply chain and provide more sustainable products in the value chains, but also looking to secure supply because of the current market, because of the current situations and dynamics. It's important to have a secure supply of stable fertilizer into those producing regions, key producing food baskets in the world. And so whether it's a local bread or coffee, significant amounts of emissions come from that fertilizer. However, if we look at the final price of the end product, the employment of low-carbon fertilizer only contributes to a small or not a very material amount. And therefore, these consumer goods companies are looking further upstream than ever before. And this is what we call the pull effect. They are pulling the market into producing and needing demand for this type of product. And at the same time, we do see the tailwinds from the regulatory aspects from other policymakers as well. And for instance, CBAM was recently introduced at the very start of this year, which taxes imports of fertilizer and a few other products into the EU according to their carbon intensity. So there is really a shift and there really is a momentum to seek out sources of low-carbon fertilizer and ATOME is in a prime position to do so as a first mover of low-carbon fertilizer at industrial-scale. And a bit about our low-carbon product itself, green calcium ammonium nitrate from Villeta on top of the fact that it is made from 100% renewable baseload power. CAN itself also has superior agronomic properties. It's a nitrate fertilizer, meaning it delivers nitrogen to the plant, to the crop more efficiently than urea, for instance. And more importantly, is the strategic location that we're in. We're really in the heart of the world's largest fertilizer import market. Latin America has a demand of 30 million tonnes a year. Over 95% of that is imported. And where Villeta is located is within a very short distance from the key crop segments and key industries, whether it's maize, coffee, potato or barley that can be accessed either by truck or by barge thereafter. And of course, with our offtake and marketing partner, Yara, we are best positioned to tap into those segments, not only providing our fertilizer physically at competitive prices, aiming at cost parity with traditional fossil fuel-based fertilizers that are imported, but also having access into the global green markets as we are making a sustainable product and having a positive environmental impact from the production of the process slide we touched on earlier. And into the project pipeline section, I will continue. What we're very excited about is actually what Villeta brings us, which we believe will act as a springboard into our next projects. Villeta has been a proof of concept that as a team, as a company, we are able to originate projects, take them through the FEED stages through financing and be able to take them to the point of final investment decision, whereby we then start construction. And throughout that process for this first project, we have developed built capabilities across power, PPA structuring, rightsizing, across engineering together with our EPC contractor, offtake with Yara and understanding the right product for the right market as well as actually executing this first-of-a-kind project finance. And through the development of these, we have really created precedents unique to us that we can leverage into the acceleration of our pipeline and other global prospects, which we currently have. And as Olivier mentioned, each project will be developed on its own SPV basis. ATOME will support and provide the early-stage development of such and retain, of course, interest in each of those SPVs as they all grow in their own respect. And this is just an example of some of the opportunities that we see and that are coming our way. Again, this is just an illustrative map of the global prospects. But I suppose one of the benefits of being a public company is market. People can actually see the progress. So for business development, it is very good, and we see a lot of opportunities, 25 projects at least that we're currently evaluating to take on into the next stage of our development, which equates up to 9 gigawatts, that is 75 Villetas essentially. And of course, the bandwidth is not there to develop 75 Villetas, but we are looking at the ones which we can deliver the quickest, where we can add value to the most and where we can, to an extent, copy and paste the lessons learned at Villeta into those projects because no 2 projects are, of course, the same. But again, the precedents that were mentioned in terms of the engineering, the power and the offtake, those are all key to being able to accelerate projects 2 and projects 3 and beyond, thereby both saving costs and saving time and bringing ultimately income quick and accumulating income into the PLC as it owns each of those SPVs. And again, 2 examples of those are projects that we've announced previously already, which is Yguazu, which is twice the size of Villeta. The next stage there is to enter into the PPA and complete going into the FEED stage of that particular project and similar in Costa Rica, which is at an earlier feasibility stage, which caters to the Central American market. And separately, as mentioned before, in 2025 (sic) [ 2023 ], so last year, we announced ATOME POWER as a stand-alone renewable power and battery tech infrastructure division. And this was again, borne out of the fact that through developing Villeta, we really understood that there is an opportunity to develop solar and to develop battery in Paraguay and in the region, but ultimately to diversify the region's energy matrix, a lot of which is currently reliant on hydro. And there is demand, significant demand for more capacity, twofold, both for industrialization of certain economies in the region. And of course, a lot of demand from data centers and other data incentive technologies and users that are coming into that particular region at the same time. And currently, we see that it is very much a complementary business to ATOME's fertilizer and chemical side because as ATOME grows and as ATOME looks at developing green fertilizer projects elsewhere, there is a possibility, of course, of also co-locating additional solar and battery tech in those projects, thereby with the aim of lowering the ultimate overall levelized cost of electricity, which, again, renewable power is 70% of the cost of production. So wherever we can optimize that, lower that, that will, of course, make each project bankable and financially robust. And just last point on that on power, of course, is that with batteries, the cost coming down on the cost curve and the maturity of the technology itself, we do see that it can be developed quite quickly. So with our first project in Paraguay, we will be doing -- which is an up to 400-megawatt renewable solar and battery storage project, which we have an option on the land for as well and those initial DD studies being done. And we do believe that we can get that online fairly quickly and a further update on that will be given in due course. Olivier, back to you.

Olivier Charles Mussat

executive
#5

No. I think on the -- obviously, the next steps, right? And I've been enjoying reading some of the questions, I will answer them later. So clearly, the summary is let's not underestimate the fact that we have been able to raise financing, which is worth about 15x our current market cap for our first project. And this is really the -- let's call it, it's not the destination, right? Actually, this is the beginning. We have shown that you can develop green fertilizer, low-carbon fertilizer project, make them bankable, bring them to FID to the point that they are fully financed, fully engineered, fully ready to build and that the only way between basically revenue and today, it is just through execution with a partner like Casale. And of course, from an operational point of view, we will be there. And the important thing also is to show that these projects can bring early cash flow to PLC to ensure that the costs that we will have to run the projects are going to be fairly covered, which means obviously freeing resources for growing the team to go after the next generation of projects and delivering that pipeline. As you heard from Nikita, clearly, there's been a lot of interest, people coming to us, wondering how we have been able to do it and trying to get us to obviously look at their project and to partner, right, whether it's on the equity side or just on specific projects in specific regions. So clearly, for us, it's one, delivering Villeta, making sure it's totally under rail; two, taking advantage of that 4-year head start we have on anybody else and leveraging these tier 1 partnerships that we have put together because obviously, it takes a while to get the trust from somebody like Yara or from IFC or from Hy24 and IDB and so on, right? So that gives us a real advantage that we will basically use to leverage and to grow as a company. So I think from that particular point of view, we really want to go back is it's a world first. It's real. It's not theoretical, right? We have done it. We have reached FID. This was a promise that we made to all our shareholders, and this is not a policy story, right? It's commercially viable. We also explained that it's about food security. This is not about green ideology, right? We always say that the green side is the cherry on top. That brings extra value. But we are able to be competing head on with all of the imported fertilizers, assuming they can make it into our region because at the moment, a lot of it is stuck behind the Strait of Hormuz. And indeed, Villeta is the blueprint, right? It's not the one-off. So it's replicable. And obviously, there is a little bit of a moat because of these partnerships, because of these contractual agreements that we have put together and that are our own. So we are incredibly excited. It's a moment for us to celebrate for another day, maybe. But actually, now it's all about execution. And so we want to thank you again, as Peter has expressed earlier on, for the shareholders who have been here from early on, who have believed in us. And our aim now is to continue delivering and obviously, getting new shareholders in as well as we intend to grow. So with that said, I'm happy to pass on to the Q&A.

Operator

operator
#6

Perfect, I may just jump back in there. [Operator Instructions] I would just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published Q&A can be accessed via your investor dashboard. Guys, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this morning, and thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But at this stage, guys, if I may just hand back to you to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that would be great. Thank you.

Olivier Charles Mussat

executive
#7

Thank you very much. So I think I'll go -- I'm realistic that we only have some more time. And also, there's been a number of questions submitted, you know, who are talking about -- which are talking about numbers. So on those, I think we would definitely ask you to look on our website where we have our brokers and our analysts who have submitted their analysis and their view of what is the value and what are the numbers that are, I mean, that are basically net to PLC and the impact on the shares. So I will start with the first one. So what is ATOME's strategy for electrolyzers derisking? And is it part of Casale EPC? So what we have discussed from day 1 is that we don't want to take technology risk. This is -- we are able because we have baseload power to use alkaline electrolyzers, which have been in operations for over 100 years. There is nothing inherently new about that technology. So what we have done is we have gone obviously far and wide. We have tested and discussed with all of the tier 1 alkaline suppliers. And once we had made, let's say, a short list, we had a discussion with Casale about working together and ensuring that we were happy with the choice of electrolyzers. Of course, it is part of Casale's EPC. They provide a fully wrapped EPC. But what we have done as well is negotiated long-term service agreement with the electrolyzer supplier to ensure that beyond the first couple of years of automatic warranties that you have under an EPC contract, we have full visibility of service, of reliability of those electrolyzers. And to give you a sense of what entails going through raising $600 million plus, we've had a number of external consultants such as DNV for the lenders who have looked at all of the technology that is being used and all of the suppliers that are part of the project, including one of our shareholders, Baker Hughes, to ensure that it was, one, fit for purpose; and two, had the right amount of risk and risk mitigation to ensure that this was project financeable. I think the next question, it's about, okay, any movement on other projects like Yguazu or Costa Rica. I mean you heard from Nikita, clearly, our priority to date has been to ensure that we were going to deliver Villeta because it is the proof of concept. It is the one that underpins the entire business. And so the focus for the management in the short term, obviously, ensuring that Villeta is delivered. But of course, in the medium term and in the longer term is looking at all of these opportunities and being more proactive about them, including expanding the team to ensure that we can obviously deliver the growth that we expect to have as a company. So I think expect more news later. But yes, I mean, we are not dropping our eye off the ball. We are going to be looking at expansion. So as far as when will the plant construction commence, complete, delay hiccups, what's the plan in place to avoid it? Of course, as we mentioned, right, you only get to a full FID and a project finance project when you have done all of that specific derisking. And as I mentioned before, over the next couple of months, we are going to start land clearing and the intention, obviously, is that the project will be delivered within about 38 months and in production. So with a plan with Casale, of course, is they have given us and themselves very strict time lines to deliver the project. And we will say, of course, at Casale, this is not their first rodeo. They've built a number of plants globally. So they have a good sense of what it takes to deliver plants. Obviously, we talked earlier about permitting, all of the permitting to do construction is already in place. And it's one of these things where we've seen other projects around the world in any infra projects, which sometimes fail on permitting. So we really wanted to get ahead of any potential problems or hiccups and that it will be taken care of. And of course, there is also -- even though we have fixed lump sum turnkey price, we also have buffer. I see. We have raised contingency money so that if there were any delays, there is a financial plan in place and ready to go so that we can comfortably complete the construction of the project. So then there's a question of how is the CAN price estimated? Is this the offtake price by Yara? As we mentioned, it's a structured offtake. It's not a fixed price offtake. But it's basically the market price that we have. Remember, we're sitting in the heart of Mercosur. And by the time fertilizer gets into Mato Grosso do Sul, which is Western, Southwest Brazil, Northern Argentina or Paraguay, you have a huge amount of logistical cost attached to it. And so this is really where our project shines, right? We're in the middle of the market, which is basically nearly 100x our size, right? 260,000 tonnes per year in a 30 million tonne nitrogen market in Mercosur gives you a sense of the scale and of the price that you can see in different places. So for us, it was all about finding these places where you have, let's say, some of the highest fertilizer premium and also the places where you have some of the best customers that you can have. So another question, what is the moat of ATOME? Where is the IP? What will stop other companies coming into the market? I think indeed, because we are public, as Nikita mentioned, we have a certain visibility, but also it brings us a credibility that nobody else has. And going through FID is also one of those. We've seen many, many projects being discussed and who started much earlier, let's say, with very strong private equity backers and they have either disappeared or are not going anywhere. And some of them are talking to us. So our moat, I think it obviously -- it all starts with the fact that we have put the right team together because it all starts with people. And when we look at other opportunities, whether it's in -- obviously, still in Paraguay or in Costa Rica or Brazil or anywhere else, it's also about people there and choosing the people who have the expertise to deliver and the credibility. And so I think our moat, of course, is from a contractual point of view, we have done something which is very unique. From a partnership point of view, again, right, extremely unique, whether it's with Casale or with Yara or even our finance partners, right, going through 7 development finance institutions, KYC is not exactly a small feat. And this is really where all of these combinations that creates a natural moat, right? We basically have a head start. We were the first, and we will continue to be the first. Then a question about how Casale has implementing all of the processing stages used for Villeta. So Casale, obviously, it's over a century old company, right? They've got a number of nitric acid plants. They've done ammonia plants in the hundreds and so on. So none of the stages in there are new tech, right? If anything, that it's a relatively small fertilizer plant, right? The standard fertilizer plant from hydrocarbons is over 2 million tonnes a year at the moment. So what -- there is nothing unique in what we do. The only unique part is the fact that we have 110 megawatts of electrolyzers at the beginning of the system. But guess what, in China today, you have systems of over 500 megawatts of electrolyzers. So there is nothing unique, nothing technologically unique, but it's putting it together in the way we have, which is unique, right? It's basically the right size, the right place, the right contracts and of course, with what we're seeing today at the right time. Then there's a question about the debt, repayment terms, time scales, interest rate. So it's 15-year of senior debt. We are looking at an interest rate, which is what we call SOFR, -- it's the old LIBOR. So SOFR today is about 3.8% at about 1.9% over SOFR. So we're looking at a cost of debt all in of under 6%, which, of course, is extremely competitive, right? Again, we have a project with extremely high development impact. which obviously has climate benefits as well and which is innovative, which is why we were able to get excellent traction from our lenders and excellent support from our lenders to have a price, which obviously is extremely competitive, especially if you're taking into account that, yes, Paraguay is now investment grade, right? And that has also helped ensure that we optimize the cost of the debt. We have another question on some of the key senior management roles will be assigned to roles in the SPV. Will we have the bandwidth to develop the pipeline to achieve a similar milestones? So I think it is very clear, right? The SPV is where we have the new investors. We have a duty of care to ensure that Villeta is delivered to them. So we will dedicate the necessary time to make sure that Villeta is on the rails because as we mentioned, this is the crown jewel. We have to be absolutely focused on that. Yes, we do. At the same time, obviously, we mentioned before, we will be building up our capacity from a business development point of view in order to have the right team to continue growing at home because now we are in the position to do so. And I think this is also part of the exciting bit, right? As we have proven that we can do what we said we would do with the FID, that is going to make the rest of the business development, obviously, a lot easier on one side as we will be able to leverage these partnerships to grow the next generation of assets. So I think we have another question, which is redundant. So I just leave it -- so yes, I think a lot of questions around those. So the project itself, as we mentioned, right, the debt is -- what we have is the debt is at the SPV level. So basically the -- what we call ATOME Paraguay. And it is all down at the debt level, right? So there isn't a recourse back to PLC. And so the project itself, right, where we have investors like Hy24, like DEG, who are not invested at PLC, they are investors in Paraguay and the debt and the debt leverage is also within Paraguay. So that really makes it quite controlled and contained and it manages the risks, both from ATOME Paraguay point of view and from ATOME PLC's point of view. And it's a very usual way of developing large-scale infrastructure projects and isolate the risks and ensure that then we can continue to grow. And whilst at the same time, as we mentioned before, the project itself will provide some management services payments to ATOME PLC as we dedicate resources, of course, as the operator of ATOME Villeta. I think there's one question, can you confirm that Iceland is not going to be developed? I think we confirmed that over a year ago. So yes, I think we came to the point where we realized that the environment in Iceland was difficult to scale. And although from a, let's say, a small scale, there are things to be done over there, and we are not dismissing. I think there's been a number of projects discussed around green fuel or sustainable aviation fuel. And I think this is great that this is going ahead with the -- for these companies. But for us and what we wanted to do, we see that going into low-carbon fertilizer for first projects is the right thing to do. And in Latin America, where the market is there at home with the right scale. I think there's another question around here. So I think from a -- I mean there's a pattern in the comments. So clearly, what we are seeing about is, yes, the idea for us is that we will continue to grow. We will continue to ensure that we reach completion on time, on budget. And that obviously, we will update the market as not only the construction steps of the projects go further as well as how the how the -- sorry, project itself is going and what is the status of our business development, both obviously on the power side, as Nikita has mentioned, because these projects are -- take a shorter time to develop, and so they can bring revenue much quicker, but also on some of the other projects that we are looking at on early stage. But also -- and we've been very transparent about it, is that we will also be looking at other opportunities, which may be more mature, where you have obviously cash-generating opportunities. The reality is we are publicly listed. We have shares. We have a share price. There is a lot of options for us to go and see what is best for the company and including from an acquisition point of view, looking at things which are producing cash today. So I think from us -- from our point of view is we are always looking at what is best for the company, for PLC and what can bring the most value to all of us as collective shareholders. So all I can say is watch this space. It will be relatively reasonably busy. But yes, I think it's -- we will -- we are definitely not dropping the ball on this one and making sure that we have the right resources within ATOME PLC to develop them. Another question is going about do we intend to produce CAN at the other factories in our development or talk about the CAN market in general. So the -- when we look at projects, we always look at, okay, what is the best product. I mean, fertilizer, you have many, many, many different types of fertilizers. The reason we chose CAN 27 is because obviously, it's the fact that it's a mature fertilizer. It is well understood in the regions that we are in. So there's no need to educate farmers or customers to use it. It is also a premium fertilizer, and it relies solely on local sources of calcium, i.e., dolomite, calcite and so on. So it's very controllable, very easy. But there could be other projects where we think that we can actually do more complex fertilizers like what is called NPK. So when you look at potash phosphates, which are higher premium fertilizers. So when we look at business development and we look at what is the right project, we look obviously at do we have the right environment? Do we have the right infrastructure in place? Do we have the right logistics and what is the right market? And sometimes, it can be different things, right? So clearly, CAN is a product that we understand well. So it's the easy one, but it may not be the best one for another place. So it is part of, let's say, our secret sauce and the fact that we have an excellent team on the fertilizer side, which really helps us iron what is the product that gives us the most bang for our buck. And the CAN market in general, what we are seeing it's a growing market. I mean it's a very, very mature market in Europe, which uses a lot of it as it has decided to really lower the use of ammonium nitrate and even of urea for its carbon footprint. So it really is one of those fertilizers, which has -- which is in a lot of favor today. And there's another question, will ATOME play a role in the construction and oversight of EPC? And do we have sufficient resources? And the answer is yes, right? We will be continuing to play a role. We obviously have immense trust in Casale. I think they have been incredibly good partners for the past few years. We share the same philosophies, right, of both size, scale and respect of the people and the partners, and we cannot -- we cannot say it enough. But that said, like any good relationships, there's a bit of trust but verify. We have our own fiduciary duties. So we will indeed be overseeing the construction and ensuring that things go the way they are supposed to go. And obviously, as always, in an extremely respectful manner because they are key for our success today and obviously, for our success tomorrow, right? And as far as the resources, we have grown also our engineering resources as well, and we will continue to have the adequate number of engineers, not only to look at our current projects, but also as we grow our projects, plus we do have our relationships that we use to leverage, right? I mean earlier on, ATOME was our owner's engineer during FEED stages. And now during the construction phases, we will be working with [Thia] to obviously oversee the delivery of the project. So I think that brings a little bit of an angle of the Q&A. As I mentioned, I'm leaving aside a lot of the questions, which can be answered through our broker researches.

Operator

operator
#8

Perfect, guys. If I may just jump back in there. Thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors this morning. And of course, if there are any further questions that do come through, we'll make these available to you immediately after the presentations and just need to review. But Olivier, perhaps before really now just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and to the company. If I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that would be great.

Olivier Charles Mussat

executive
#9

So I think for us, the real comment is -- and maybe we don't look that excited, right? But really, it's just that let's not underestimate. This is really a world first, right? This is really proof of concept that it is possible to be done. This is 15x our market cap, right? So what we have done is deliver a promise that we have made. And it really is showing that our business case is real business. and that there is growth into that because this is -- Villeta is just the blueprint, right? We really -- it's the beginning, right? It's not the destination. I think for us, there is a lot of space for growth with the partners that we have, with the relationships that we have, with the contractual understanding that we have and with the credibility that we have. So I think we are thankful to our shareholders, all the new to continue being on this path of growth with us. And clearly, we are very excited now to spend most of our time into delivering, right, going through the financing for the past year was obviously a long road, which was a necessary road to ensure that we had the right type of financing to take care of ensuring we can deliver the value of Villeta, but also deliver the growth of the business and the next opportunities.

Operator

operator
#10

That's great, Olivier and Nikita. Thank you once again for updating investors this morning. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it will be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of ATOME PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good morning to you all.

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