CELSIA S.A. E.S.P. (CELSIA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome everybody to today's quarterly report, we have with us our top leadership. [Operator's Instructions] We thank you for being here with us, and we will now hear from Ricardo Sierra, our leader at CELSIA.

Yes. Good morning, everybody, and hello to the team as well and here to resolve any doubts, any questions that you might have and also go into detail about what we've done our first quarter and what is expected for the rest of the year. We are broadcasting to Zoom, and we are also here live on our next space. I want to start by talking about the stock repurchase program. It is very important to talk about the independent mechanism through the modality of book building that we closed yesterday, we received total acceptances for 7.1 million shares and the cut of price defined by the commission was COP 4,300 and we awarded their 4.56 million shares for a total of COP 20,000 million, which was equal to what was offered. We want to say that we received a relatively low number of acceptances to our offer. And this well, we thought that was going to be different than the range was pretty first, so the investors might be seeing more value in the company. With this award, the stock buyback program has reached 337,000 million, which is equivalent to the 12.47% of the COP 300,000 million approval by the assembly. Once we have completed a buyback through the independent mechanism, we will resume the transactional mechanism that would be on May 9. And this transaction mechanism will allow us to be present in the market to continue to provide liquidity to the stock for approximately, we can buy back approximately COP 460 million per day. We are very satisfied with the way this program has been developed and how the market has responded since we announced the start of the buyback CELSIA share price has increased more than 60%. And the average daily traded volume has grown by 3.7x compared to 2023. That is one of the most relevant factors that for the assembly when they made that decision to award resources for COP500 million for 3 years for this buyback program. This buyback program has also been accompanied through a pedagogic program, which is that through our social network, Sanex and LinkedIn, we have provided all the details of how the property is developed on a daily basis. And we've also worked hard on developing content on the company so that everybody can become more familiarized with us. As I said, we bought back COP 37,000 million and our average price is COP 4,300 per share. So let's talk about the El Niño phenomena. We are crossing a threshold and we are leaving behind the El Niño phenomena For 2024. It is a difficult time for the company. So I wanted to recall what we went through in 2015 and 2016, with the El Niño phenomena. What we learned and which we can apply to this year at the time the company went through a great challenges that led us to report a very bad results in Colombia. We had an EBITDA of only 298,000 million, with a margin of 12.7% and a net loss attributable to the parent company for MXN 82,000 million. So 2015, 2016 was a very hard year -- that led us to cash flow problems that to overcome these, we had to start decisions. We had to sell one of our portfolio investments, 2% of Gruposura and for the only onetime in history, we declare a stock dividend. The shareholders had it at COP 3,300 at the time, and that allowed us to overcome our cash flow problems derived from the El Niño phenomenon that was very tough that year. And this experience led us to rethink our competitive strategy, The Colombia operation and plan for a future in -- so over the past 7 years, we set out to make this company more resilient company. So we sold thermal assets like Sona Franca Celsia. 610 megawatt capacity. We developed sold the projects -- we were pioneers in the segment here in Colombia. We built Tesorito, a gas thermal electric with 2 megawatt capacity, but is highly flexible because it's set up. It's completely different to Sonora, which was a big thermal plant with a combined cycle, pretty complex operation. And additionally, we saw an expansion with the business in El Tolima would and this will allow us to move forward with a pretty vibrant performance. So El Niño in for the -- this -- our type of business will always bring a lot of problems -- every time we have a El Niño phenomena, we have to tighten our balance. However, because we reconfigured our assets are keen our set of our operation because we always aim to have good results even through El Nino so now let's look at what happened. This year through the El Nino in 2015, 2016, as you can see, it was pretty tough. We reconfigured and now I will compare 2015 to 2023. In May, a 44% 23% of our and water reserves in the south of Colombia. This does not even meet the minimum conditions but we are still in a better position than we were in 2015. So we expect to have better possibilities to generate interest. For our main resources, we have stabilization near the historic levels by the half of the year. Based on international climate agencies between April and June is the El Nino phenomena going to be more neutral -- it's the famous spring barrier, which makes predictions a bit difficult. And we expect to move into El Nino phenomena where a probability of 62% for this between June and August of 2024. So from a very dry period, we're going to move into a very wet period of above-average period of rate if we during the 6 months of the El Nino, our income was COP 2.9 million, 24% above 2015, 2016. However, costs were barely 8% higher and gross profit was COP 709 million, 143% more than in the previous El Nino. Our EBITDA was COP 754 million, 153% higher than -- and the margin was, on average, 25.7%, which was more than twice of that in 2016, 2015. This operational performance allowed us to go from a net loss of COP 10,000 million to a profit of COP 182,000 billion in 23'24 even considering that the financial expenses for the year indexers were twice of those in '15 and '16. Even when comparing only the first quarter of the year, with 2015 and 2016, EBITDA was 56% higher and the net result in the parent company went from net losses of 626 million respectively to profits of COP 35,000 million and COP 25,000 million. We wanted to share these results because they are a clear example of the power of our strategy, especially at a crucial moment and has allowed us to move forward with very good performance. We are celebrating that. We survived the El Nino with positive results -- and this allows us to celebrate a first quarter that cannot be compared to the first quarter of last year, logically because you cannot can only be compared to another new. So that's why I had this detailed exercise and to tell you that we are celebrating. When Esteban gives us the financial report, we can talk a bit about the perspectives for the rest of the year and a bit about how we expect things to go for the rest of the year. So in this chapter, we wanted to accompany with regulatory matters, which are -- have been on the news in recent weeks, the different Codere solution have been published at C2 increase the supply of energy in the face of El Nino, addressing the situation of reservoirs at the national level and mediating the use of energy. So we are going to invite Carlos Solano, our regulatory affairs leader Welcome, Carlos, please tell our investors and listeners what is happening on the regulatory front.

Thank you, Ricardo, and good morning to everyone. As you said in the recent weeks, we have seen great regulatory activity on the part of the Ministry of Mines and Energy and by the clerk, which recently had and had a recent quorum to deliver it again. But we insist that the government has to name commissioners, all the commissioners so that institution can operate properly. Most of the regulations issued, as you said, are related to the condition of the low level of the reservoirs and the hydrological contributions that occurred at the end of March and beginning of April, where the main effects of these regulations were of these measures. On the one hand, we had a measure that tried to incorporate into a minimum thermal generation in a force manner where the amount that will not be achieved in the dispatch updated through the daily offers to the energy exchange by companies was programmed as a security generation, which implies that this additional generation needed to be paid for by all Colombians through the restrictions packaged independent of the level of contracting of the entity that serve these clients. The minimum thermal generation goal was once at the maximum of the available thermal capacity and recently, given the increase in rainfall, it has decreased to 0. It is important to mention that CELSIA and the majority of companies in the sector recommend to the government that it considered a pertinent intervene, it was better to do so by activating the shortage statute and measure existing from beers previous, which gathers license learning from a previous El Nino phenomenon, which allows us to include in the thermal generation that is considered necessary to be incorporated into the daily dispatch but put a more technical way. Additionally, it was decided to force the generation of hydro plants that had more than 20 days of store generation in the reservoir, a measure that is still maintain and produces the sourcing in the market. Finally, I want to highlight a measure that or to encourage energy savings by defining a consumption baseline for each client, where those consume less were rewarded and those who consume more were punished. However, the correct dismount of the measure before it could be applied by the company. We consider that in recent days, as you said, rains have been coming back. So the market should be allowed to operate without intervention so that each company can manage its resources seeking a balance between recovering the level of their reservoirs and avoiding these charges at the end of the year, given the forecast of the core of La Nino in for the second half of the year.

Thank you, Carlos. Yes, maybe in the Q&A, we can give you more detail about these measures and if somebody wants more detail we can provide it. Let's look now at the results of the first quarter, highlighting the most important factors that the Energy Services business, we had 661 gigawatts hour generated from our water plants. In Electrica reached 48 gigawatts hours, Central America, 57 gigawatts hour for a total of 766 kilowatts per hour. The generators commercial commitments were 1,249 gigawatts during the quarter, 8% more than last year, which left us with the next buyer exposure in the stock market after the contract purchase and commercial representations was 128 gigawatts hour. In 2023, the same exposure was a net seller of 287 gigawatts for the quarter. In the Marketing segment, the Mono sales from the regulated, nonregulated and photovoltaic energy markets totaled 1,064 gigawatts hours for the quarter, which is an increase of 13.6% compared to the same quarter of last year. In our asset management business, we have the results of the C2 Energia platform that with its 200 megawatts in operation recorded a generation of 97 gigawatts hour with a growth of 100 90% with an additional COP 44 million in revenue represents an increase of 152% and an EBITDA of 33,370 mill. This platform has another 308 megawatts under construction and 502 megawatts in the development phase that allows -- that will allow more connection points by the middle of this year. with the Cara platform. In this quarter, we sold 2 projects in -- remember, Tolima with a contract. These are sales that were assets that we developed and built in telco and were transferred to the CAA platform once the entry into operation. At the end of March, the platform's total assets amount to COP 2.8 billion. Revenues in the quarter totaled COP 86,000 million with a positive variation of 34.1% and an EBITDA of COP 74,196 million. For export, our thermal platform, generated energy based on compliance of its reached 98 gigawatts hour, which was less than 2023. The platform and revenues for COP 89,000 million with a year-on-year reduction of 35.8% and reached an EBITDA of COP 35,828 million. We still complied with our gas commitments with our suppliers, and we were able to act when we were required by the system to be able to comply with power requirements. For the Laurel platform, this platform is the small solar energy platform below 8 megawatts which has more than 90 for the tax systems, and we reached 3,900 million revenue, a 29% growth and this system represents 34 point megawatts of installed capacity and accumulated generation for 2024 of 10.3 gigawatt hour now. We will hear from Esteban, our financial leader who will tell us about the financial details.

Thank you, Ricardo, and good morning to everybody who joins us on this call. As always, the detailed analysis of the income statement and other financial information can be found in the reports published in our Investors website. In the first quarter, consolidated revenues totaled COP 1.37 billion, decreasing 8.7% compared to the same period in 2023 as a result of the lower availability of water to generate electricity of which you already spoke of, which explains the lower volume of energy sold both lines of stock market and in terms of contracts. On the other hand, the use and connection of networks involving Toluviejo which belongs now to the Itau platform, and we will see them included in the income of the MPP. On the market segment side, revenues increased 23.4% due to a greater demand from both the regulated and nonregulated markets, given the high temperatures and also the entry of new clients, especially into the regulated markets. The distribution of total income by the business, 86% is contributed by the Energy Services business with. -- and the asset management business contributes 14% with COP 190,000 million. The sales cost for the quarter were more than COP 1 billion registering an increase of 6.4% due mainly to the increase in generation cost due to the new phenomenon, higher fuel consumption and higher depreciation and amortization due to the capitalization of our assets related to the loss management and also the amortization of Puft of solar farm operations. Administrative expenses were COP 87,000 Million with an increase of 5.8%. 160 basis points below the annual variation of the IPC. The increase is mainly due to fees for legal and financial consultants and the deterioration of our accounts receivable. EBITDA was COP 325,000 million, and the EBITDA margin was 23.7% for the quarter. It is important to mention that the expected margin for a quarter within an El Nino phenomenon should be in a range between 10% and 15% due to the prevalence of thermal generation and the decrease of the hydro component. Although EBITDA the margin were below that of last year, it exceeds expectations, thanks to the preparation of our assets that form the lessons learned from previous years. In total of EBITDA in is contributed by the Energy Services business with 298,000 million, and the EBITDA margin in that 76%. And in the Asset Management business contributes 8.4% with COP 27,000 million. This corresponds to the EBITDA with repay the asset management business and does not correspond to the EBITDA that each of the investment vehicles obtained for the quarter, which was COP 120 million that are not reflected in this EBIT that I just explained. In total, EBITDA that we managed, considering the consolidated EBITDA and the EBITDA that each of the investment vehicles is around COP 43,000 billion, and it represents -- and this what we are seeing is only 26% of that total. Net financial expenses, including exchange differences, reached COP 263,000 million with a decrease of 30% compared to the same quarter last year. During this quarter, we improved the credit conditions that added to the behavior of the indexers allowed for these 3 months to reduce by 150 basis points, the cost of our debt compared to the same quarter last year and puts us on a decreased trend in our debt that we expect to consolidate at the end of this year. Income taxes were COP 21,000 million, which decreased by 67.6% due to the lower profit before taxes. The results of the first quarter for 2024 led to a net profit of COP 29,000 million, with a decrease of 75.7% compared to the same previous year due to the effects of El Nino and the net profit attributable to the controllers of the holding company reached COP 21,500 million. Having mentioned, I didn't do it for the individual items, but the financial results for this year. Well, this year, we have a strong comparison to the first quarter of last year, which is the divestment of the assets in Central America last year. in pro forma if I compare this pro forma to last year, we have this for this meeting. In terms of income lower 23%. EBITDA 73 million. Financial costs -- on net traffic instead of -- it improved by 13% compared to the first quarter of last year. In terms of our leverage, -- the company closed the quarter with a consolidated debt of 270 million and a leverage ratio of 2.82x net debt to EBITDA. The average life of the company is 5 years and the quarter closed with a consolidated cash close to 585,000 -- taking into account the sale of assets in Central America and the effects of -- we estimate as an organization that the consolidated EBITDA for 2024 decreased by 20% compared to the number of 2023. However, -- it is very important to note that thanks to the investments in Eltesorito in Sesenergia in Choa as in other financial instruments that we created to face the situation and the reduction of the cost of our debt, as I just mentioned, -- we estimate that net profit and net profit for the controlling company should see similar amounts to last year, which shows us the resiliency of our asset portfolio that we have set up to be able to face a year that as Ricardo is one of the most difficult years that we have to face given the climate conditions. So that is my analysis or the financial side. Yes, we can go deeper into the expectations that you gave us, which is a decrease of 20% net EBITDA, but our net profit should be similar to last year. That for us is especially for a line year -- over the next months, we also expect Well, as I said that the weather to stabilize rents to come back and we expect EBITDA to be between 30% and 35%. And as usual, and we are also very optimistic that we will have a greater reduction in the financial expense. by the end of the year.

Maybe Esteban, we didn't mention this -- the estimate is that we have our -- that should be the yes, net debt should be at the same of last year, I think. So now let's move to ESG issues. We want to tell you that we are carrying out an ecological protection program for the Telematic and the River Basin -- this work seeks to take care of the water levels, protect our forests and repair. We estimate to add 2.5 million trees in Tolima. In total, around the country, we have planted 16 million trees. -- and we are planting many more -- in this region of Colombia, we have 1,000 inhabitants in the wound rural area. In the Santo where we operate the El tesorito. These are 2 towns to which the arrival of our productive Activity has changed the social conditions and the infrastructure conditions that they usually have. And we had a big success, which was to deliver a 24/7 water service. They had very bad aqueduct. Now it's very much better -- and now they have drinking water at their home. And also Aqueduct service regularly. We have a lot of social and environmental investment projects in that area in place among which we have free community Internet for those 2 towns and road improvements, sewage and we are also working on another switch. We are creating sports field. And we are also providing water filters and school kits, as I said, and among others. Training, education, et cetera, and also job creation, which is quality job creation, which is very important for that area. We have an upcoming new phase, which is the improvement or maybe the rebuilding of a school that allows the kids to take the next step in their lives. So we concluded the first quarter report here. We invite you to have a Q&A session.

Thank you Esteban, Carlos. [Operator's Instructions] So we have a first question here through Zoom, which is by Jose Litvand he is asking -- he's talking about the buyback program at what is the percentage of progress for the buyback program? And what are the price expectations for the first quarter?

I can tell you that, as Ricardo said, I think we have already published the award. COP 4.6 million shares which means we bought back COP 37 million of the COP 300,000 million that the assembly. As Ricardo said, the important thing is that with multiply the daily average trading volume by 4x. Liquidity is important in the market and in this process. So we -- and by Thursday of this week, we will start again. The transactional method for further buybacks.

We will hear from Ricardo Sandoval through Zoom.

Good morning, everybody. Can you hear me. Conference. I have several questions. several doubts regarding El Tesorito I wanted to know if the decrease of thermal generation at Tesorito for the first quarter of '24, had something to do with the decrease of gas supplies in the Caracoli production fields. I wanted to know if you have guaranteed the supply of gas for Tesorito with kind of coal in spite of the decrease in gas production by that company. And my last question regarding El Tesorito is given that Caracoli wanted to sell their shares in El Tesorito, would you be interested in acquiring them? And if that is so, at what EBITDA would it be reasonable to do so -- those are my first questions regarding Tesorito. The second question is more for Carlos. I want to know if the correct resolution that forces daily generation on thermal plants has some sort of negative effect for you in terms of real income or accounting or if it's just in accounting terms. And my last question is it is possible maybe to give us an update on the execution plan for sales that as I have understood it, has had a maximum goal of 600 in megawatts of solar capacity, but I'm seeing that you're aiming at 1,130. So I want to know that difference of 130 million, what's the execution for that? What is the CapEx that you are expecting? What are the -- what's the time line? And those are my questions.

I'm going to paraphrase your questions because I think that our next -- we didn't hear you well. there are very 3 relevant questions. The first is on the situation of the generation capacity at El Tesorito, given the decrease if this was due to the gas supply from Caracoli. The second question is then is the gas supply is guaranteed by Caracoli. And the next question then is kind of decided to share the 10% stake that we have in Tesorito, if we would be interesting to buy it. I'm going to start answering your questions -- and we will give Carlos Solano the opportunity to answer the other questions and also about the solar plans. Well, we have a gas contract with Caracoli that is activated when we are at 95% of the hearing threshold for scarcity price. When we touch that scarcity price, we've always had that gas available. And additionally, when we had to create -- to security generation, we also had available gas. So what this means is that at no time, El tesorito was not compliant with their obligations given the promise I can occur. So that is very relevant, yes. We built Tesorito so that it could kick in when the system required. So that's what it was designed for. It's been working very well. But what we did not have to cap off the question is that we did not have a lot of available gas to compete, delivering energy when the prices were high, not at the scarcity level, but at higher prices that could provide good income to El Tesorito. And there, we did have problems to solve the problems of availability for merit, not for -- not for our main obligations, we are talking with different producers, which are in the area. -- looking at the possibility of ensuring plan any potential expansion in the gas plant in the North Coast, we are talking with the thermal teams and generation teams to ensure gas that will allow us to have a competitive position when prices in the stock market are good. So that's on the supply side. We are good there. Through El Nino, we passed the test. And I wanted to say it again, the Colombian system definitely showed its resilience in the matrix where we have different technologies. It is an ideal energy matrix. This is what we should have in all our countries to be able to go through the climate variability these weather -- the less climate issues that are going to be more prevalent in the upcoming years. So that's an important factor. And I think that we need more thermal plants for the '27 '28 period Additionally, if Caracoli if they would sell, yes, it kind of according decides to sell their stake I think that the partners that test would be interested in acquiring it. But I couldn't tell you at what EBITDA we would consider it -- so on the second question, which is for Carlos on the crack resolution in terms of thermal generation plants.

Yes, to be able to talk about the effects of this resolution, we have to divide the periods into the first period, which coincided with low rain and the market naturally was having a lot of thermal generation. So at that time, the effect of that resolution in the market, even for Celsia was practically in accuse -- but as hydric came in, there was a distortion because there was less space for hydro and that competition for the hydro competitors distorted the stock price and artificially lowered it -- and this meant that a hydro generation was security generation -- so for us, in Tesorito at the time at that plant that normally because of its efficiency has important good margins, well, the margins came down basically to 0 and we had some negative impact because of that. Well, this just was for a short period because after a few days, the government reviewed the thermal goal to 0, which is where we are now. So that's why we are not suffering any impacts of that measure that is still valid up until the end of this month.

Yes, Carlos, this measure is very complex because when thermal generation moves into a security generation, all of our Colombian pay that cost.

Yes, Ricardo, Yes. I mentioned it when I talked about the regulatory issue, this intervention is not the most adequate intervention because thermal generation that we want to force to guarantee supply in the country is not creating the price that it needs to be paid, but it needs to be paid out through restriction payments, and this is going to be paid by our Colombian... And this will be reflected in the energy bills next month.

Let's explain to our listeners in the CELSIA platform. which is going... Very well. Yes. So is at 300 megawatts in operation. We are in the process of building 300 megawatts. This includes several solar farms which includes the biggest complexes, which is a complex of 6 firms in Colina 120 megawatts. So those are the firms that are under construction that are added to the farms that in operation. That means the 600 megawatts by the end of the year. And by the end of the year, -- the extra 443 megawatts, well, the development plan of the company includes this and it is -- we have different phases there. And we expect to have approvals for connectivity this month. Given the conditions of today, the market conditions of today we have to say because the solar panel price is variable, can be at $705 a kilowatt hour, which would depend on the complexity of the solar farm, which could be the 600 mg dose addition that with the dates of entering operation that we have asked for will be by 25 2026 -- so the next wave of construction would be after we put into operation the 300 megahertz that we are currently building.

So just to clarify, by the end of this year or beginning of next year, we will have 600 megawatts of solar energy built and between 25 and 27, we have the second wave of construction, which will be the 143 additional megawatts. Yes, almost 530 megawatts. Our strategy has been a B2B strategy and a large part of the solar farms that we have built are directly connected to industrial clients or commercial plans -- this allows us to generate a lot of competivity for these plants. So we have to invite the clients to jump on to this bandwagon. This is the most efficient technology -- and that in a position for this energy not to have to go into the stock market when we see our contract level are below 90% of energy generation, which means that we are highly contracted. If you look at and the stock price is at 90% contract and stock price variability. does not impact us a lot more than 1,000 homes that we serve in Badalona throughout the El Nino phenomenon have any variation on the generation cost because we were highly contracted. That's another success of our strategy.

Taking into account the pension reform, how can this affect us if the pension funds have hold a large number of shares.

I can tell you that -- we have been keeping an eye on the impact that the capital markets -- the impact on the capital markets, given this reform, capital markets are a source of funding that is very interesting for us. Not only because as you said, we have the pension funds there -- but also we have exposure through our bond issues -- they are important as well. We have been reviewing what different analysts have been producing -- with regard to the investment issue and what we foresee is a relatively low. We have been trying to gather several opinions from fund managers, investors on the issue -- and it seems that if the current stock of pension funds continues as is, there should be no impact by the pensions migrate to the government, they would develop a new investment regime, and we clearly expect that there will be more T bonds issued and lower exposure to foreign assets. But at the end of the day, we expect not a lot of impact on the position of -- or the stake of pension funds in us is about 25%. So they are maxed out. I don't know, Esteban, if you have -- if you can add something.

I think that in the most important point and at least from the bill of the reform. What we see is that we are talking about COP 70 billion that will continue to be managed by Colombian pension funds with some adjustments. And we don't expect a lot of movement in those portfolios. The government has said that those resources become part of the market. And as Ricardo said, in more participation of T-Bonds. So we expect that one of the assets that could suffer or the investment assets outside of Colombia. Which involves stocks in other markets and those sort of components, those could suffer the upgrade. We stand back on this context.

Right now, we are getting an eye on it and how the ball passes through Congress and to see if it is modified or not and how it will be passed as well.

I want to know if you can give us a bit more detail on the environmental costs of the Alba and Pro plants. Is this initial with regards to licenses is the question. Will answer this question.

I want to say that people might think that operating thermal plant has a lot of cost, but the social and environmental cost economy have gone up in Colombia, but in these plants. So what we are seeing is the reflection of a new decision as a country to provide more importance to these environmental issues. Yes, Central en Yes. These plants were built before 1999, and so they have an environmental management plan and they do not have a license -- we are forced to do water quality issues. As Ricardo said, those measures are being complied by giving security issues and community issues. -- the work is suspended, but that represents most of the cost in Para. This also involves the environmental management plan that involves building roads around the reservoirs. So those are the 2 issues that you can see reflected in the cost. With regard to what Ricardo said, effectively between mandatory and voluntary investments, we have increased cost in last year, we closed with an investment of more than MXN 1,000 million between mandatory and voluntary investments. So the investments have increased and that does not even include the development of new projects.

I think that, that is interesting. -- our environmental plan is very good in this company, but we have to look at it within certain limits because eventually, some projects could leave the viability range.

Is there some projection about the impact that the El Nino phenomenon will have on the results of the company.

I think this phenomenon will be very different. -- because the company's contracting level is very, very high. In terms of our historical NIM, which is around 70% of our engine to be contracted out. Right now, we are closer to 90% of our total energy being contracted out -- and most of our NGT is delivered to long-term contracts. This El Nino phenomenon comes after an El Nino phenomenon, so it will help the recovery of the reservoir level. So we need to see how long Test will be because when we talk about an to phenomenon, one of the variables that we do not know in the intensity or the duration of it. So we have to wait to see how El Nino phenomena behaves. What we can foresee is that we are very high contracted energy production.

Number one, can you give us your opinion on possible processes wind farms in Guajira -- and can you share the medium-term strategy for the platforms? Could we expect divestment from these vehicles? Or how can we achieve that the market recognizes these assets and revaluation of Celsia.

About wind farms and what is happening in Peru. Yes. In Guajira projects, we are moving on in terms of licenses. We had some bad trusts, but we managed to get some licenses that we want -- we're expecting -- and we are still on our time line. The authorities are reviewing the information to finish the licensing process. We are optimistic for the end of the year. or maybe in the first quarter of next year to have all of the licenses.

Yes, we have 2 licenses pending one in Corpo Guajira for the Casas project -- this was the license that Ricardo just mentioned that has been issued, and we expect to get it before the end of the year. And the other licensing process, which we are undergoing right now is for the transmission line for Camellia, which in the worst case scenario, we will have by the end of the year -- in the worst case scenario, second quarter of next year, once we have those 2 licenses. These environmental licenses, we could start building the project.

Yes, I want to talk about if we are going to build on that, well, we want to have all of the options available to us as a company. We have opened option like is building its partnering or selling it. Those are the choices that we have which leads into the next question, which is what should we expect in the medium term for the platforms, Yes, this is platform management because if in these platforms, we have the opportunity to sell the which are interesting options that allow to bring in good value for the company, for you, the shareholders, we would logically develop these. This is important because what you're asking is if the stock price is reflecting the value of these platforms, then desyvalue, which is clearly not -- we did an exercise with ESA and the leaders here with the investors of transmitting to you what these platforms mean what assets we have there, what is the future of these assets because we have a lot of value there that is very interesting for you to understand and be aware of what could exist there in the medium term. So the cherry on top is twofold. We started to build a small wind farm in between Atlantic onboard a 10 megawatt to 2 generators, which should be built by the end of the year. This is interesting because it's an experiment that we have to hold in that area to see how construction goes to see how operation goes. -- in an area that has less strong wins have more certainties in terms of construction. -- and operation that what we have in Guajira. Esteban will talk about what is happening in Peru.

Before I talk about Peru. I have something with regards to the platforms and value, which is that we want to invite you as we have in the past because there is a lot of value there. We said that 26% of our EBITDA comes through the platforms, and that is not for our consolidated EBITDA -- on the back of your question, please ask us more questions about the platforms. We want to help you understand the value that we have there. You heard the EBITDA reports, so I invite you -- there will be more work for the PR team, but we are ready because we understand that a large part of the company's value lies with those investment vehicles -- we continue to have progress in the Peru strategy. We are closer to executing when the project is there -- we overcame an important hurdle that we had in the purchase of the Caravelle project, and we were able to present it together with the seller and together with a company that had land rights in the place that we needed. We were able to present to the Peruvian government for them to award the land concession, the land use concession and thereby close the sale or the purchase of the project -- we are very ready to build those wind firms there in. I would say that we were developing that Peru strategy, we're increasing it. We are bringing more -- and we are in a very interesting process that we expect to finish by the end of the year to maybe have a platform that evolves more than 1 project in Peru.

I have 3 questions. And you have a leverage of 2.8 to 1x net debt to net EBITDA. Do you have goal for the future to have a lower indicator. In the financial segments of the first quarter, we have an increase of the pressures of the debt under short-term data. What is CELSIA planning on this? And in respect to commercial debtors or that's payable.

Yes, the 2.8x debt to EBITDA. According to Faine -- we have a AAA rating -- and we will continue with the AAA if we do not cross that 3.5% threshold, we will continue to deleverage as planned. Now that the debt cost will come down. We will see that, that component of the net debt will decrease for this year, as we said before. We expect net debt to be at 4.1, this will involve debt repayment, which leads to the second question, which is short-term pressure, yes, we have capital working for 2 fronts. One is those debt for the rest of the year, which are going to be repaid as part of the use of the cash flow for the company. And in terms of the best use of resources, we have to see if we extend the debt payments or if we pay them this year. Our structural debt is the debt that represents the 5.8 year horizon that corresponds to debt that normally cannot be repaid. For example, the corporate bond program where we have COP 2 billion in bonds issued which is the customer in this market, they are not be payable -- and in terms of other debtors, one of the effects of El Nino that we haven't mentioned -- but one of the big effects that the El Nino has is the effect on working capital because we are buying a lot of energy to cover shortages in hydro and fulfiller contracts. So we transform our working capital through this period. We are seeing a snapshot of this period now. But as an organization, we expect that this was a short-term effect and when we go back to normal and we have a El Nino, the working capital will come back slowly to normal.

In terms of the buyback. What is the threshold for the stock buyback program?

The strategy and the mandate that we have from the shareholders' assembly is to provide liquidity in the market so that we have correct prices. this objective. Well, we think that we are doing very well in this. We moved from a liquidity below COP 300 400 million daily now up to COP 2,000 million daily. We multiply liquidity by 5x. This is very important so that we don't have those pressures again that we had in the past where transactions below COP 50 million could drop the price of the stock which were completely tied to the lack of liquidity. So that's the main objective -- the commission is reviewing the -- what we are doing -- and we will continue to act and consolidate our liquidity plan. We still have COP 260,000 million to invest as mandated by the assembly, and we will continue to use them as a source for liquidity, but we are not correlating at the time the thresholds but we see that the value of the company has room to grow the fundamental value -- so we emphasize that you should look at the energy services and other business lines that it should be -- it should increase the value of the company. That would allow you to determine -- what is the threshold for the buybacks so that it does not destroy value for the program for the company. What we want to add is to provide liquidity for the market, which is our main mandate.

Why do we see a low collection form -- so what is being done about it.

Our collection is from our distribution business. That portfolio has no problems. That portfolio collects 98% without any problems. And it's one of the best that we have in the system, our clients in Tolima are very good clients -- and here, I would like to talk about what happened in the quarter. I think that as Dean touched upon it. which is that we had the Easter at the end of March, and that led to our collections for March to come down and to like around 94%, 95%. And today, we are up to 97% again as of April, we are recovering our collection without any problem. Logically, we have some areas in some towns where we have problems with regards to losses. But I think that they could be understood in light of the bio-economic situation of some vulnerable groups. And -- we also have to collect a commercial portfolio that we have at CNC, which was completely resolved. Yes, from the technical point of view, Horacio, I can tell you that when the company... In the... We do not have a lot of portfolio losses, we estimate collections -- we averaged them on a historical basis. So this is a recurring exercise. Following the technical rule, -- it is a projection of collections, but it is not -- well, actual numbers -- and as I said, we had some issues, but we solved them already.

Financial costs were above 170,000 million and profit below COP 30,000 million. Do you have a way to be to step that stock has not grown over the past 3 or 4 years. And if you look at the growth of our EBITDA, it has multiplied Ratings are AAA. So our level today is 2.8 million net debt over EBITDA, which is very healthy and very manageable. When you look at the impact we had last year of COP 800,000 million in financial cost, that is very painful, yes, because that is more than twice what we usually have. So we are convinced that we will reach a financial expense that is manageable with regards to a sizable company, which is around COP 250 billion or COP 400,000 million, and this will allow us to recover our net profit -- so the answer vision. If we look at the next 2 or 3 years with the growth of our platforms and we look at the investment requirements and how we are funding them. Clearly, our operating cash flow, which is positive and is very interesting possibly, we could have resources coming to strategically lower some of the debt some of the debt, but that is more of a 2-, 3-year horizon.

We have a question from Ricardo Sandoval.

Indexed financing strategy, would you like to change after the market conditions come back to normal. The stocks that have been bought back what treatment they've given, are they kept or they eliminated or brought back into circulation in the market?

With regards to the indexed financing strategy. The index strategy corresponds to our indexed income, both in terms of contracts and they all have an annual indexation formula. So this Is tied to our income. We always are looking at opportunities to provide more coverage and fix some of rates in the short term. Well, we have to recall that debt -- the structural debt is 20-year bonds and other bonds. So those Yes, we can't do much about that. Our indexation corresponds to normal income cycles. It is very correlated -- with regards to the stock what we want to do with those stocks. We have Ricardo.

Yes. These shares are suspended, especially their rights, the right of these shares to be -- receive dividends and political rights are not part of the company today, which means that the company is not a shareholder of theirs of itself, we can sell them again, we can cancel them and decrease our equity, but we haven't decided yet on a mechanism or what we are going to choose. So as I said, these shares are suspended.

I have a question from go Pacheco with regards to the buyback of COP 20,000 million in the book building strategy, you approved a price of COP 4,300 per share. Why is not this price reflected in the value of the platform.

Yes, it's a very simple explanation, which is that the independent or the book building mechanism is considered in off market operation. It is not part of the price or the volume of the platforms. This is on the margin of the stock market. need to comply with regulation. You won't see this COP 20,000 million on the price of the platforms because these are buybacks through independent mechanism.

Final comments because right now, we don't have more questions.

I want to thank everybody that was here with us today -- we have a very interesting times ahead. We have the regulatory issues that we had to sort out. We have to solve structural problems in the system -- this will surely be discussed. But from the point of view of the company, we are convinced that this country needs much more of an energy availability. We need to build more generation plans. If we want the energy transition, we need a lot of transition energy because -- and more transmission because there's no transition without transmission because the demand for energy is high around the world, the world is electrifying, -- we are talking about 2 to 3x the energy demand. We are in a business where the future is very interesting, where we will have a lot of opportunities to grow. And in this company, we will surely have the first projects in wind farms. -- beyond which is an interesting outlook for the country. And I can also tell you that our projects in a bit, our digital and our Internet home Internet business show important progress there reaching their goals and operational progress, and that is very good for us. In our energy front, where we are having annual sales between COP 200 and COP 200,000 million end if we include solar or not, this is another business where we look at the energy prices where what people start to ask for energy. Which becomes an obligation for the commercial and industrial businesses. So we have interesting strategies in that segment that we expect to be able to share with you shortly in. We believe in this country, we believe in the future, so we will leave it on that note, we thank the team and all of you on this call -- and have a good rest of your week, everybody.