Companhia Brasileira de Alumínio (CBAV3) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to one more earnings call at CBA for the fourth quarter of 2025. I'm Amabile, the Investor Relations Manager at CBA. This call also has Luciano Alves present, the company's CEO; and Camila Abel, the company's CFO. We'd like to let you know that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The company's presentation will be available on the company's Investor Relations website. We will also be providing the company's -- the event recording upon closing. Before proceeding, we'd like to clarify that some of the statements in this presentation may include statements about our expectations, about future events or results, which depend materially on general economic, political and business conditions in Brazil and the global markets and existing and future government regulations, among other factors. Operational data may affect CBA's future performance and may lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking considerations and statements. Now we're going to move on to Luciano's presentation. And I want to invite Luciano. Please, Luciano, you may proceed.

Thank you, Amabile. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for your participation during this earnings call at CBA. As always, I want to bring in some highlights this quarter. In the fourth quarter, we registered 128,000 tonnes levered mainly by the primary segment. So the pro forma adjusted EBITDA added up to BRL 321 million after neutralizing the nonrecurring effect of the reclassification from CapEx to OpEx, and we'll be documenting this up ahead. Without this adjustment, this is a growth of 37% versus the previous quarter. I also want to highlight CBA's participation at COP 30, reinforcing the role of aluminum in the energy transition and in the low-carbon economy. Finally, Votorantim signed an agreement to sell its stake in CBA to Chalco and Rio Tinto with the completion subject to legal and regulatory approval. These are the main highlights of the quarter, reflecting the company's growth, competitiveness and strategic advancement as a whole. In the next slides, I'll talk a little bit about the scenario of the aluminum market in the quarter. In the fourth quarter of '25, the global aluminum market once again posted a slight surplus, ending the quarter with 35,000 tonnes. This result reflects a combination of resilient demand relatively high, especially in China and moderate growth in global supply, as we had already been mentioning for quite a while, especially due to the capacity cap in China. So on the demand side, China maintained solid performance supported mainly by the electric vehicle, white goods and energy infrastructure segments as well as other renewable energy sources, even with persistent pressures in the real estate sector. Then outside China, the environment remained more restricted. So import tariffs, the European industrial slowdown and effects of the U.S. government shutdowns continue to limit the pace of recovery, resulting in consumption growth of 0.1% quarter-over-quarter. On the supply side, the production out of China advanced about 0.6%, driven by higher capacity utilization and ramp-ups in different regions. And China maintained the annual limit of 45 million tonnes, which continues to restrict more relevant expansions in the short term in China and also more relevant expansions in the market. The global balance was pretty much balanced with that surplus that we mentioned, sustained by demand from China and also considering the stability in the supply of aluminum. Now moving on to the next slide. As we talk about global stocks in aluminum, they continue to be stable, but they've been kept at levels that are historically low. We've been talking about this for a few quarters. And you can see stocks are really at levels that are historically low. The days of consumption added up to 46 days once again, repeating the levels of the second and third quarter last year and recording the lowest levels ever in the historical series. This now reinforces the adjusted market view with a small gap between supply and demand, which contributes to sustaining prices over the period. So these are the prices we've seen in the last quarter. Looking at the official stocks and inventories on LME and SHFE, volumes remained largely flat in the quarter. So the cancellations continue to be at really low levels, indicating high availability of metal in warehouses. And even with this happening, considering low levels in stock in the chain. So in general, the balance between the stability of registered inventories and the low inventory consumption ratio reinforces the perception of an adjusted market in the short term. And of course, this influences the market price dynamics. Moving on to the next slide. The price of aluminum and the LME kept this upward trend and reached the highest value in the last 3 years in December. So the quote remained consistently above $2,700 per tonne throughout the entire quarter, ending the period with an average of $2,827 per tonne. This considers a combination of factors, a bit of what I just mentioned in regards to supply and demand, but also the cutoff on interest of 25 bps in the end of the year, the weakening of the dollar and increase in the risk appetite among investors globally were some of the main factors that influenced this price movement. Besides this, we also have copper as we've seen in the last -- in the end of last year, this also impacted. And there's a correlation right between both metals, as we always mentioned to you. And in practical terms, this higher price in copper contributes also to having aluminum surplus level of $2,900 per tonne at the end of December. Looking at the premiums, there's very regional behaviors as you've seen. So the Midwest and the U.S. kept going up during the quarter, still impacted by Trump tariffs. The Midwest duty paid premium was on average $1,900 per tonne, while the duty unpaid also had a significant increase in this quarter. Now the Rotterdam premium in Europe also kept the same trend, which was levered mainly by high European demand and the anticipation of volumes before the entry into force of the CBAM in January 2026, which caused some anticipations for the last quarter of last year on year. So generally, the set of macroeconomic, financial and regional factors supported a quarter of strong appreciation in the aluminum, not only in prices, but also in premiums. On the next slide, we're going to talk about Brazilian market. In the fourth quarter of '25, we started to see an accommodation in the aluminum-intensive sectors, which is really in line with the still restrictive environment of interest in credit with this maintained at 15%. But despite this tighter scenario, activity remained consistent levels in the main aluminum consumer segments we serve. So in the auto sector, the light vehicle production had a drop of 10% versus the previous quarter, but still operating at a robust level, supporting the demand of ingots, alloys and laminates. Now in the motorcycle segment, we had a new deceleration or slowdown, but this remains among the most dynamic in industry, reflecting some of the structural changes in consumer behavior in Brazil and also keeping up high volumes throughout the quarter in this segment. In bus body segment, we had stability in regard to the third quarter. There was a drop in urban and road models, but this is partially offset by the strong advances in micro buses driven by the deliveries for the Caminho da Escola program from the government. The sector of road also had a bit of an accommodation with a drop of 3% in the quarter, which is still very sensitive to the cost of financing [indiscernible] better performance of the bodies and the chassis, but still better performance of the bodies and chassis helped to kind of smooth off this drop and offset it. Then in civil construction, cement sales dropped 8% in this quarter, but they're still supported by the housing and infrastructure projects from the Minha Casa, Minha Vida programs and other public works, which are still fundamental to keep the sector resilient even in a more restricted credit environment. And finally, the packaging segment, which still is quite stable with slight growth in total production and an increase of 5% in metal packaging, reinforcing the resilience of the sector throughout the quarter. So generally, although performance was more moderate in the fourth quarter of 2025, aluminum consumer sectors continue to sustain annual growth, showing that activity remains at a solid level. Now I want to pass the floor to Camila. She'll talk about CBA's financial performance in this quarter. Just a moment, she will join us now.

Thank you, Luciano. Good morning, everyone here. Moving on to the fourth quarter of 2025. The total volume was 128,000 tonnes. This is 2% higher compared to the fourth quarter of '24. And in primary aluminum, we sold 71,000 tonnes in the fourth quarter, which was 8% better than the fourth quarter of '24, mainly driven by the increase in P1020 ingots. And this was -- in processed products, we had 32,000 tonnes, but this drop was 8% compared to the same period of the year and reduction quarterly. This move versus more moderate and already expected pace of industrial consumption, especially in applications that have already been stable throughout 2024. In the recycling segment, we've ended the quarter with 25,000 tons sold, and this is mainly in the self-construction sector. And on the destination of sales, the internal market, 88% and the exports were mainly for P1020 and billets for Mexico and Spain. And then on the energy balance, this reflected a lower generation due to the seasonality in the period. Generation was 3% below the third quarter and the same quarter of the previous year, especially in Juquia and in the wind farms, considering that there was less rain in this period. And when this happens, there's a lower dilution of the fixed cost of the mills, which leads to a rise in the average cost of our own generation in the quarter. The average cost of contracts increased 64% compared to the fourth quarter of '24 -- in regard to the fourth quarter of '24, but this is justified by the price variation and also the exchange rate variation in the swap contract that we closed up until 2028 mentioning the conditions. And finally, the comparison ever since the beginning of the year of 2025, which shows stability in this cost. Now on the cost of production. The cost of liquid aluminum was BRL 12,847 per tonne, and this was 6% higher compared to the previous quarter and 13% compared to the fourth quarter of '24. And this mainly reflects the higher cost of alumina and energy. The alumina costs increased considering the higher cost of sodium soda due to the -- considering the price of purchase in the period. And this is already lower than what we have seen in the results considering the average cost of stock. And the cost of energy had an increase that was higher considering water seasonality and rain seasonality, which reduced our own generation and increased the need to use those contracts in the dynamic that we consider where there are higher costs. Variable costs went up also within what's considered a normal level. And on the operational side, production was kept stable, 93 tonnes of liquid aluminum, all of the furnaces operating at full capacity and the refinery under normal conditions. When we look at the company's consolidated COGS, we ended the quarter with BRL 2 billion and a drop of 1% compared to -- due to the reclassification of CapEx-OpEx performed after reviewing some maintenance expenses we had. So this reclassification happened specifically in the aluminum business. This is related to reclassification about -- here, this was mainly in cleaning services in the furnaces and also in the accounting modifications where we had some accounting adjustments, which made us start registering these expenses as operational after the technical analysis -- the detailed technical analysis we had at the end of these projects. COGS for the energy business were BRL 133 million, there was a major reduction here compared -- 60% compared to the fourth quarter of '24. And this was mainly impacted because there was a recognition of the headcount that was accumulated that we performed in December 2024. When you look at the comparison with the previous quarter, which is pretty much the same basis. Here, you can see there's a drop of 15% in the COGS, reflecting the lower volume of surplus of energy available for sale. So regarding the consolidated results, net revenue was at BRL 2.2 billion with the aluminum business, and there was a drop in the comparisons, mainly influenced by the hedge account that was BRL 71 million in the fourth quarter. And this is debt hedge accounting, and this is an accounting effect really only of this hedge that was made in the beginning, which is at -- the original maturities of a debt that was refinanced. And this is an adjustment, which is excluded from our adjusted EBITDA. So the consolidated adjusted EBITDA ended at BRL 257 million with an increase of this -- considering the reclassification of this nonrecurring event with this adjustment of the CapEx-OpEx of BRL 64 million. So the pro forma EBITDA adjusted in the quarter with this recovery of BRL 64 million would be BRL 321 million. So here, moving on to the CapEx. We had greater redirecting for maintenance CapEx, considering the actions aimed at extending the useful life, increasing capacity and improving operational efficiency of assets. within business as usual. Now looking at cash generation, it was BRL 168 million in the quarter, mainly due to the divestment in working capital, levered mainly by the reduction in stocks. And here, you have scrap billets and ingots considering this or of relevance, the release in cash, specifically considering the working capital in the entire period, and that's really in line with what we had already mentioned. Now on debt. The net debt was practically stable. Cash generation in the period helped offset the loss in value in the debt and the mark-to-market of the derivatives. The leverage was at 2.97x and this is mainly due to the reduction of the accumulated EBITDA in the last 12 months. And still on our debt profile, we ended the average term of 5.2 years and the average cost of 5.8% in dollars per year, which reflects a really stable and well distributed structure over time without any relevant concentration in the first few years with most of the maturities from 2022 onwards, as you can see in the amortization flow. To foresee the company's liquidity position. And so following 96% of our debt is in dollars following the company's revenue generation, which -- and we also hired a new BNDES credit facility with EUR 716 million signed and a total term for 20 years. These resources are going to be funding investments we already performed in the eligible reimbursement period and that are also considering the short-term projects in the pipeline on the monetization of the assets. In this presentation, I'm going to call Luciano back as he's going to share the final remarks, and then we'll see you in the Q&A in just a bit.

Now to summarize here, in the international scenario, the global demand for aluminum demonstrated resilience throughout all of 2025, not only at the end of the year and with a more stable supply. So the fourth quarter ended more balanced, and the year ended with a global deficit of 241,000 tonnes. This movement contributes to sustaining prices at healthy levels. We've viewed this throughout the last quarter and up until the current moment. And besides this, the Chinese demand had a recovery over the year. So the PMI in China went back to reaching the limit for expansion in December, and that reinforces a bit of the optimism also for 2026. So at CBA, that trajectory of the recovery operationally, we had announced to all of you guys remains, created a stable basis that was favorable to improving margins and more controlled costs. With the recovery in production and advances in operational initiatives we developed, we continue to demonstrate results that are consistently better, and we're prepared to capture even more value in heated demand scenarios with better prices that we're experiencing now. So now moving on to some caution points for the future. The regional premiums, as I mentioned in my presentation, they continue to be pressured or influenced by commercial and regulatory measures. So Midwest continues to reflect the tariffs applied by the United States at really high levels. And the Rotterdam premium continues to be at a peak due to the beginning of the CBAM, which benefits the CBA premium dynamics and also because of the market scenario and dynamics. Here in Brazil, our demand follows the slowdown of the main segments in the fourth quarter. And still, it's a positive year in closure and this also demonstrated a bit of resilience in some sectors such as light vehicles and civil construction, contributing to keeping healthy levels of aluminum consumption in the country. And finally, even with the operational recovery at CBA and resumption of production at the furnaces, the cost of liquid aluminum is still at a high level. And we're all -- we're still working towards bringing this level to more sustainable levels downwards. So thank you all. Now we're going to call Amabile back for final remarks and we can start the Q&A.

Thank you, Luciano. Thank you, Camila. Well, guys, now we're going to begin our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We'll start with our questions here. The first one comes from Guilherme Nippes at XP Investments.

I have 2 questions on my side. The first one is about costs. Could you talk about how returns on the refinery have taken place and what we should consider as the evolution of these costs up ahead. I can see that that's a breakdown from the third to the fourth quarter, there was an impact in the alumina and energy costs. So how should we imagine this evolution throughout the next quarters? And my second question is on the mix of products. This quarter was really marked by performance that was relatively better in primary and maybe a little worse in process and recycled. But could you talk about, especially in recycled products, what really moved this performance into a worse scenario? And what you could also mention as things that are happening also at the operation with this line -- impacting this line. I think that's it.

Thank you for the question, Guilherme. First, on costs, we still have the effect that was a little smaller in the cost of the refinery in the fourth quarter. But I'd say it may be around BRL 30 million in EBITDA -- BRL 30 million to BRL 50 million, depending on all of these segregations we perform on all of the lines, even if reflected and influenced mainly by the reestablishment of our refinery throughout 2025. If we just consider this factor, the rest should keep the same levels for the cost of 2026, and that's kind of what we see in the market with even more global uncertainties that are very volatile. But when it comes to price, I actually mentioned we suffered a bit with the COGS of the alumina, and that was actually a bit higher in the beginning of last year and the end of 2024. but now the price is already higher. So it was a price issue besides the KPI of recovery in the refinery. So what you see a standard price is a reference even for the rest of the inputs, considering I want to highlight, again, the uncertainties we can't control here in these market dynamics, of course. But that's how we created the budget for 2026. The rest, I would say, is really just power seasonality. We had EBITDA in 2025 that was a lot less negative. And that, at the end of the day was because we use most of our contracts to cover costs since it's less rainy period and also because we manage this -- this is something we did in the fourth quarter, actually, we expected to generate less and have a better reservoir stock. That was very good because the average price is really high for power, right? So we're including the normal seasonality of generation throughout 2026. And then once again, I think I want to highlight here that in the fourth quarter, we had the closing and we signed a partnership with Casa dos Ventos, 60 megawatts on average. And this is the PPA that starts off in 2027, that's 15 years. We had a swap operation, and we were able to anticipate this volume in the balance sheet to start commercializing it due to the reality of the market, and that's going to help with this margin for the power business, the energy business. But on the other hand, with the exceeding of the surplus, once again, that only affects our mark-to-market in our P&L. In the EBITDA, we don't see this because we adjust for this effect. So these are the main factors that I could mention when it comes to cost. Is that clear? Do you have any other questions before I move on to the recycling market?

No, that's very clear.

Okay. Great. And then about the market, we've seen the domestic market very resilient, a bit heated in some sectors with a price combination that's very good as well. So we're experiencing a reflex of prices that were already higher in the end of last year, would take about 1 to 2 months or 45 days that passes long-term revenue. So we had -- additionally, we also have the screen price, the standard price that's a little bit better still. So it's good for some sectors and resilient considering a price level, and we have pretty good commercial perspective here in the beginning of the year. And when it comes to recycling, no, nothing very new. It's just a reflect of self-construction, which is a very specific sector. And this is something we always explain in this way. And from the rest, I think it's just continuity, right? We've been considering this in the update strategically that we shared last year. We changed a bit of the order of investments, and we postponed a bit of the recycling plan so that we can really keep up with the market maturity process. So we're still following this process of waiting on the tax reform arrival. So it's not something that's going to change a lot in the short term. We want to be more competitive on how we do business. And additionally, we'll have more available scraps. We have been advancing a lot in our partnerships locally and internationally have access to these scraps, but it's still very scarce and price at some moments in the market don't make it feasible when it comes to comparing with liquid aluminum production. And the last point would be like the green premium or the economic recognition considering more recycled aluminum in our products, but that didn't evolve much. It's still just a reputational difference still. So we have this in all of our different CBA product lines, but the economic translation of this benefit is slower than what we expected, and the cross-border mechanism implemented in Europe was only following Scope 1 initially as a reference of fees per country and per plant or specific generation, which kind of postponed things. It's a movement that's going to get here at some moment. There's a bit of evolution, but it's slower than what we expected initially. So that's why it's moved a little more sideways out of the business.

We have one more question from Pedro Melo at Citibank.

My question here is maybe a little more difficult to answer. But considering the transaction that's coming on the control of the company, do you have any expectations about the closing of this transaction when it comes to timing? And a second point on the pace of deleveraging during this year with the current levels in the company.

Okay. I'm going to answer the first one, and then you can get into the second question. In practical terms, we can't foresee the timing for this transaction because it really depends on the authorities and the regulators. But what I can't say the main limitation we have for disclosing is the approval from the authorities, right? So there are some countries due to the operations of the potential buyers, but this is just the timing required for these authorities to analyze the requests and the processes related to the transaction, right? So this should take a few months because it really depends on each authority and the time required to analyze these operations.

And then about leverage, with the normality of the EBITDA in the sense that you wouldn't have the effect of the recovery of the refinery and also operating 100%, as we mentioned today, ever since the beginning of the year here in the operation, along with the attractive volume, the mix combination and a level of LME that's really good. We had an EBITDA that was stronger. And this combination is really going to help us reduce this leverage until the end of the year. So we should recover this. We had already mentioned this till the end of 2025. Our plan was to be below 2x net debt to EBITDA. We don't have financial covenants, it's no contractual obligation, but it is a commitment considering our public financial policy to be below this leverage, understanding that this would be a healthy level for our business, and that's how we direct this movement, prioritizing the reduction of our leverage before receiving this or even before defining other things. So we always really consider this sequence, and this is how we should keep on. We have a very comfortable cash position. We closed with BRL 1.2 billion in cash. And so we could even use part of this excessive cash to prepay more of our debt and continue all of the liability management to improve this profile, but it's not going to change for the net debt. So besides the contract of the BNDES with very attractive conditions and a term of up to 20 years, but the rest with the EBITDA recovery to make this index drop as well.

Anyways, we have no other questions now. And we would like to let you know that IR is always available to clarify any other points. And now we'll pass the floor on to Luciano for his final closing remarks. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Amabile. Thank you, everyone, for your participation in another earnings call. As Amabile mentioned, we're available to clarify any issues, and we'll see you all in our next earnings call. Thank you very much.