Grupo Argos S.A. (GRUPOARGOS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for joining us today. This conference will be focused on presenting Grupo Argos' financial results for third quarter of 2025. With us are Jorge Mario Velásquez, Alejandro Piedrahita, Rafael Olivella, and the executive teams for Odinsa, the Real Estate business and Pactia. Please note that all quarterly information along with the presentation, we will follow during the call. It is available on our website on the Financial Information section and then Reports. Additionally, this earnings call is being streamed via on X Space. It's presenting certain convenience, but we hope they can work during the call. I invite you to advance to Slide #3 of the presentation to begin the meeting. And now I will turn the floor over to Jorge Mario Velásquez, President of Grupo Argos.

Thank you, Carolina, and good morning to all. I'd like to express this gratitude for joining us today. On the same call, the investors and shareholders are with us today. At the close of the quarter, third quarter of the year, our businesses demonstrated a solid momentum reflected in the strong figures we will be sharing below. Before we address those, however, we would like to highlight a milestone that materialized during the past quarter. The successful completion of the spin-off project in July. Grupo Argos has now entered a new phase, focused 100% on infrastructure and construction materials, having fulfilled all premises set 1% in this transaction to the market. The cross [ participations ] between Grupo Sura and Grupo Argos were efficiently and orderly concluded. An equitable and transparent treatment was guaranteed for all shareholders, and each company will deepen its specialization and executed strategy within its respective sector. Shareholder value creation is the virtuous cycle of creation or value creation driven by the simplification of the corporate structure has been reflected in the valuation of the shareholders' portfolio since the completion of the spinoff. To compare the values of Grupo Argos' shares post spin-off, 2 components must be considered. The price of the company's ordinary and preferred shares of the BVC and the 0.23 Grupo Sura shares received by the shareholders for each title held prior to the transaction. Combining both values as of November 13, ordinary shares were traded at $30,615, and preferred shares, $23,774 which represented a 23% increase for ordinary shares and a 28% increase for preferred shares compared to the last trading days prior to the spinoff. The highest historical level for the ordinary shares. This increase has led to a shareholder portfolio valuation of over COP 3 trillion above the last prespin-off trading day. Year-to-date, the equivalent share price for both classes has grown by 50% approximately. Thanks to the portfolio simplification, corporate milestones since 2023 such as the combination of Argos USA with Summit Materials and its subsequent monetization, value realization initiatives like the share buybacks and the strong operational performance of our businesses, the price of Grupo Argos' ordinary and preferred shares have more than tripled over the past 3 years. Nonetheless, the company continues to implement measures to further review value in its share price as even considering recent valuation, a gap remains between the value of our infrastructure portfolio and Grupo Argos' market share price. 2 years ago, the company closed the period with an infrastructure portfolio valued at COP 10,660 per share. This arbitrage value results from the sum of listed investments such as Cementos Argos and Celsia and the book value of unlisted assets such as Odinsa in our real estate portfolio. It is worth noting the valuation of these unlisted investments. For Odinsa, its private equity fund investment has appreciated by over COP 200 billion this year, mainly driven by advances in the second stage of the Oriente Tunnel. However, the third party valuation does not incorporate the potential of a pipeline exceeding COP 20 trillion that the company is developing. Regarding the NDU, the book value of our land bank amounts to COP 2.1 trillion, supported by the present value of a business plan conducted by Colliers for these plots. Over the last 10 years, this business has generated approximately COP 430 million in cash for the holding and actively seeks new uses to maximize the value of this previous [indiscernible] portfolio in Barranquilla and in this metropolitan area. I'm moving on to the next picture, Grupo Argos shareholders see the value of infrastructure and construction material assets doubled to COP 22,174 per share, now with a deeper focus enabling greater future growth, yet the ordinary share trades at COP 17,500 and the preferred at around COP 13,000 per share, significant discounts to average value for both classes. We will continue working to close these gaps between value and price, benefiting all shareholders while focusing on the profitability and growth of our portfolio. In that sense, I invite you to Slide #5, which summarizes the main milestones achieved during the quarter in executing the company's business plan and those of its subsidiaries. On November 7, Cementos Argos successfully completed a share buyback from approximately COP 900 billion at a fixed price of COP 13,659 per share, acquiring 65.6 million shares equivalent to 5% of the shares outstanding. This mechanism efficiently distributes the economic benefits derived from the disbursement in Summit Materials among our shareholders. Notably, this distribution represented less than 10% of Cementos Argos' cash position, thus not compromising its solid financial standing or the capital deployment plan linked to the U.S. divestment. Grupo Argos participated in this buyback and received cash proceeds for COP 493 billion, which will be used to reduce net debt, granting greater financial flexibility to continue executing its strategy. Net debt at year-end in 2025 is projected to be around COP 1.1 trillion with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 0.8x. Aligned with the profitable growth strategy, Cementos Argos [indiscernible] strengthened its export platform for the United States. It's an organic growth, which it intends to grow its EBITDA in 50% when this operation stabilizes, capturing synergies with this privileged position in the Caribbean, Colombian and Central America. It's also good to mention that this week, we discharged the first testing load of 40,000 tonnes in a port of the American coast. Likewise, Celsia announced the creation of Atera, an energy efficiency company in association with Brookfield, which designs, finances, installs and operates solutions for industries such as solar generation on-site and efficient generation, compressed air pumping and thermal district. It's born with more than 500 clients and with an investment plan that's over $500 million for 2030, and it contributes to reduce Celsia's net debt close to COP 400 billion, project of paying cash made by Brookfield. Parallelly, during the quarter, Celsia advanced in the development of its renewable portfolio for more than COP 1.2 billion. Remember, the company under asset management figure includes the wind park of Caraveli of 218 megawatts. They're currently under construction with an advancement close to a 50% of the work and that will be operational for 2026. And the hydroelectrical [ central in Manta ] with 20 megawatts. The first steps in its objective of reaching 1.2 gigawatts of renewable energy in that country from here to 2028. Additionally, during the quarter, Odinsa announced the creation of Odinsa Aguas. It's an investment infrastructure platform focused on hydraulic energy that focuses its operations for roads and airports, and it's aligned with its diversification strategy, replicating its concessions model within that sector. As first step, Odinsa signed a purchase sales agreement to acquire TICSA, a company that has more than 40 years of experience in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of treatment plans and [indiscernible] in Mexico. And this line is that Grupo Argos will keep on working, focusing on infrastructure, what we better know how to do, generating and transferring attractive returns and incremental for the shareholders of the company while supporting and developing the regional development in areas that we believe that we'll keep showing strong demand in the upcoming decades. Before going into the consolidated and separated results of the quarter, we're going to be presenting a recount of the main impacts of the close of the efficient project of financial results of the company. As a result of the materialization of the investment at Grupo Argos kept for a decade within Grupo Sura. This quarter, we recorded a profit of COP 1.6 trillion and COP 3.2 trillion in separate states. This authority incorporates within other things, expenses for COP 48 billion associated to the transaction that even though it's reflected in the financial results in the admin costs as well as land plot taxes and others associated to urban development, it's important to differentiate this from the requiring expenses of the holding, which are close to COP 80 billion at the end of this year. From another side, after the transaction, the shareholders that directly own a block that's close to COP 10.8 billion of Sura shares that the company held, the asset and the equity in both consolidated and separate reduced proportionally. It's also worth to remember that the remaining portfolio of Grupo Argos is divided in a lower number of shares, part of the operation. Now I want to invite you to move on to Slide #7 before we speak about this set of results. It's important to speak about as the nonrecurring effect associated to those spin-off already discussed that has impacted the organization performance year-to-date as well as the necessary adjustments for 2024 to ensure comparability and enable analysis of variations in our businesses operating results. Key adjustments is to consolidate financial statements in 2025, include first, a profit of COP 2 trillion for the sales of the shares of Cementos Argos held in Summit Materials realized in February. During the second and third quarters of 2025, Cementos Argos recorded, as we mentioned in the previous call, a nonrecurring accounting impairment and operational optimization costs of COP 74 billion in Puerto Rico, which from another side, we recorded income for COP 454 billion for Celsia for the transaction leading to the creation of Atera. The previously mentioned profit of COP 1.6 trillion from the spin-off closure. It's also important to remember the nonrecurring operations that influenced the same period of 2024. During the first quarter last year, 2024, the company recorded a net profit of COP 5.3 trillion product of the combinations of Argos USA and Summit Materials assets. This was reflected in 2024. In addition, we recorded a profit that came from the exchange of shares of Grupo Nutresa that reached COP 1.4 trillion. And finally, the reclassification of the participation method of Grupo Sura as a discontinuous operation due to the spin-off project, which meant for that result to appear under the line of the financial results for that period. If all of the described operations are nonrecurring and need to be considered in order to analyze the operational results, I want to mention that these are part of this holding core that continuously wants to mobilize the value of its portfolio and benefit of its shareholders with those types of operations. And besides this, represent the tangible and real materialization of an economic value that is not always seen within the financial results of the period while we kept the investments. This has been more than clear in the profits that have been generated by the company in the last 2 years in 2024 and 2025, the company has consolidated a net profit of COP 11.7 trillion, which reflects the capacities that Grupo Argos has in terms of value generation. Our upcoming analysis is focused on the returns of the recurring profits of our businesses, which is the most loyal performance indicator instead of the consolidated figures without adjustments that have been affected by nonoperational effects. At the same time, we need to emphasize that the last year's transactions evidenced once again the materialization of successful investments in the United States, Cementos Argos consolidated as the largest Colombian investor in that country and this investment -- and this invested a mature platform in positive multiples, receiving [ $ 4.1 million ] and we also led a cross participation with Grupo Argos, with Sura and Grupo Nutresa, materialization a decade investment, which allowed the materialization development of the company in which this investment was executed, guaranteeing an equitable treatment and generating value for Grupo Argos and its shareholders that once again received close from COP 10.8 trillion for the Grupo Sura titles. Bearing this in mind, I want to invite you to look at the consolidated results. In consolidated results year-to-date, Grupo Argos reported revenues of COP 8.9 trillion, a 2% decrease compared to the same period of 2024. An EBITDA of COP 2.3 trillion, up 11% year-over-year and reaching an EBITDA margin of 26%, 300 basis points above 2024. And simultaneously, a profit of COP 4.1 trillion and a net profit attributable to controlling shareholders of COP 2.6 trillion. Notably, consolidated net financial expenses decreased 27% year after year, which, together with the strong operational performance of our businesses, led to a 122% year-over-year increase in profit before taxes, excluding discontinued operations, reaching COP 1 trillion. Furthermore, after making the aforementioned pro forma adjustments, EBITDA grew 13%. Consolidated net profit was COP 939 billion, grows up to 197%, and the net profit attributable to controlling shareholders rose to COP 402 billion, showing a growth of 363%, higher than the adjusted result for the same quarter last year. These positive results are mainly explained by a better operational dynamic in the energy business contrasting with 2024. Remember that Celsia was affected by low hydrology to El Nino phenomenon. Additionally, growth in the concession segment driven by the private equity fund managed by Odinsa increased profitability in the recurring operations of this construction material businesses. In line with the company's efforts over the recent quarters, our highlight, all the effects will be detailed further below. All these steps will be approached in the upcoming slides. Regarding stand-alone financial statements detailed on Slide 9, the company reported revenues of COP 1.8 trillion, which is an EBITDA of COP 1.6 trillion with a net profit of COP 4.3 trillion, a historic figure for the company, including the profit of COP 3.2 trillion corresponding to the spin-off closure. This stand-alone profit equates to over COP 6,100 per Grupo Argos share, and represents a 53% increase compared to the COP 2.8 trillion result in 2024, which already includes the profit from the combination of Argos U.S.A. and Summit Materials, a high standing point. Similarly, after adjusting and observing only results from our recurring operation, stand-alone pro forma revenues accumulated through third quarter were COP 806 billion, up to a 9% growth year after year. EBITDA was COP 604 billion, up to 189%. And the net profit was COP 428 billion, 304% higher than the pro forma results for the same quarter last year. In summary, while the year presents distortions from extraordinary transactions, realizing profits from the actively managed investments over several years, when isolating the infrastructure business' operating results, these are solid and show growth compared to comparable 2024 figures. Now I want to invite you to move on to look at the results of our businesses found on Slide #14 in order to analyze the construction material segment of Cementos Argos. Cementos Argos is decisively advancing its strategy to reenter the U.S. market with the consolidation of its aggregates platform. During the quarter, it completed preparations for a trial shipment in the fourth quarter and obtained quality results, maintaining the DOT certification process at destination. Today, the unloading is coming to an end. This platform will integrate competitive reserves, standardized operations and long-term port contracts, enabling an efficient maritime corridor with predictable costs and reliable delivery times in a market that requires quality aggregate distribution in certain states and localities that Argos knows due to the presence of more than 20 years in that country. Additionally, the successful completion of the buyback of 65.6 million shares equivalent to 5% of shares outstanding reflects the commitment to reveal and distribute value to all shareholders. Notably, this distribution represents less than 10% of Cementos Argos cash reserves, thus not compromising its solid financial position nor the capital deployment plan linked to the U.S. divestment. For Grupo Argos, as the main shareholders of Cementos Argos, reinvestment of these resources is fundamental as they represent the most valuable asset managed by the holding. Therefore, we have worked exhaustively with management and the Board of Directors to ensure optimal capital allocation in construction materials in a deliberate process. On the other hand, the company continues to report financial results focused on the profitability of its operations. Year-to-date revenues reached COP 3.9 trillion and EBITDA of COP 928 billion with a margin of 24%. Moving on to the results of the third quarter, Cementos Argos reported revenues were COP 1.37 trillion and EBITDA of COP 361 billion with a margin of 26%, an expansion of over 300 basis points compared to 2024, thanks to a consistent pricing strategy and disciplined execution seeking efficiencies. By region, the balance is positive. In Colombia, the gray cement market showed clear signs of recovery in the third quarter, accumulating close to 9.4 million tons by the end of September, nearly 4% more than last year, reversing the downward trend. This recovery was mainly driven by the strong performance of the retail segment, which accumulated growth of 10.5% year-to-date. Likewise, housing sales, as we previously mentioned, maintained positive momentum, increasing 25% year-over-year, supporting expectations of continuity in the local market medium-term. We also need to mention that for the fourth consecutive quarter, the behavior of the cement volume in Colombia is in an upward trend compared with the previous year. With this, the Colombian region achieved revenues of COP 2.1 trillion and EBITDA of COP 586 billion, 2% above comparable 2024 with a margin of 28%. This performance reflects a consistent focus on efficiencies and lays the groundwork to capitalize on the market recovery. In Central America, the quarter results were $64 million with an EBITDA of $22 million, and a robust margin of 35%. In the Caribbean revenues for the quarter, something $70 million, 5% more than 2024 and the EBITDA reached $15 million with a margin of 21%, thanks to the efficiency during all the value chain. With this operational discipline and with a solid financial position, we are well prepared to keep on capturing opportunities in key markets where we have presence. The different geographies that the company covers in the Caribbean makes its perspective benefit from certain improvements on the growth rate of the region towards the future. And under that sense, we see with optimism that the Venezuela would recover and will drive cement demand in our region. We also need to mention that under the responsibility we have with our shareholders, we keep on advancing in the legal process against Venezuela with the trust that the law that supports all the alternatives and mechanisms that will allow to achieve the fair compensation to the compensation of our assets in that country coming from an inappropriate process done in 2006, and that has not yet been paid. Now I want to invite you to move on to look at the results of the energy business found on Slide 17. During the quarter, Celsia continued to capitalize on the normalization of hydrology with more efficient and profitable generation operations, supported by the greater hydro contribution and lower thermal requirements. Year-to-date, EBITDA was COP 1.3 trillion, up 14% growth and the EBITDA margin was 32%. As previously mentioned, Atera commenced operations and is advancing its deployment as an industrial energy efficiency vehicle, which also optimizes Celsia's structure. With the launch of this company, Celsia's asset management business reaches AUMs of COP 1.5 billion. C2 Energia, its investment platform developing and constructing solar farms over 8 megas closed the quarter with 355 megawatts of power in operation, generating 372 megawatts year-to-date, 12% more than 2024. This is complemented by a pipeline of 224 megawatts of power currently under construction and 346 megawatts of power ready to build, which are being deployed. In Peru, as previously mentioned, Celsia is advancing the construction of the Caraveli wind farm, which has begun turbine assembly and has reached 50% completion. Commercial operation is projected for the last quarter of 2026. Additionally, during the third quarter, Celsia launched within the country Celaris, a platform for marketing 100% nonconventional renewable energy and at the corporate segment. This initiative, part of the local investment vehicle, seeks to monetize the generation from its plant and especially serve industrial clients. At period end, the company's consolidated net debt was COP 5.2 trillion with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 3.1x. During the period, COP 720 billion in cash were received. The realization of the receivable from the asset sale in Central America in 2023 for $50 million, distributions from investments in Peru of COP 142 billion and resources from the creation of Atera of COP 400 billion. This cash was used to meet obligations with local banks of COP 370 billion. So the reduction in financial expenses will be more evident in coming quarters. Additional actions will contribute COP 640 billion to the deleveraging process by year-end. With this ongoing initiatives, Celsia projects net debt below COP 400 trillion by the first half of 2026, a reduction of COP 1.5 trillion compared to December 2024. Within the financial front in terms of consolidated results for the quarter, this represented COP 1.8 trillion enabling -- with a drop of 8%, explained, as I mentioned, due to the high comparison base that we had in 2024 when higher thermal sales coming from the El Nino phenomenon drove revenues, but this had a higher cost given this was thermal generation. Nevertheless, with water generation coming back to normal climate conditions, EBITDA reached COP 382 billion, and the margin was almost 5 percentage points higher than the previous years. Now let's move on to look at the Odinsa results found on Slide 18. During the quarter, the Oriente Tunnel project secured financial closure for its second phase with COP 1.8 trillion, enabling the activation of all construction fronts and existing debt prepayments. Financing includes participation from Bancolombia, Grupo Aval, Financiera de Desarrollo Nacional and Davivienda with a sustainable credit transit. To date, the concession has advanced in the preliminary activities agreed with the Antioquia government, such as social and environmental management and early works, including the foundations of the [indiscernible] in Rionegro and [indiscernible]. Financially, Odinsa reported solid results, driven largely by the higher valuation recorded through the equity method of the private equity fund due to the increased value of its assets from the second stage of the Oriente Tunnel. Consolidated revenues reached COP 275 billion, representing a 40% year-over-year increase. EBITDA reached COP 194 trillion, up to 45% year-over-year and consolidated net profit rose to COP 175 billion, up 54% year after year. Odinsa's consolidated financial debt at the end of the third quarter was COP 248 billion, reflecting a 12% year-over-year decrease. Of this total, COP 131 billion correspond to Green Corridor and COP 117 billion to Odinsa SA. Notably, commercial papers issued by the company in 2024 were liquidated in August. So the company currently maintains a single debt of $30 million maturing in 2029. Moving on to the operational results of Slide 19. The road concession platform recorded a daily transportation of 111,000 vehicles, which represents an increase of 5% in terms of units, total traffic of passengers for the airport platform detailed on Slide 20 reached 13 million during the quarter, from which 11.7 million correspond to El Dorado Airport. From its side, revenues and EBITDA of the platform measured in dollars grew 12% and 14%, respectively, compared with the same period last year. From another side, as I previously mentioned, the creation of Odinsa Aguas marks the beginning of a new vertical for the company leveraged in the developed capacity in terms of the road management concessions and airport concessions. The water platform will focus in 2 main fronts. First, in treating and reusing residual waters with the objective of reducing pressure over natural sources. Second, decarbonization of water for -- as mining in countries which have a high water stress. In this framework, we signed a contract for the acquisition of Ticsa in Mexico for an approximate value of $84 million. This is an operation which closure is estimated for the first quarter of 2026. And that is mainly subject to regulation approvals in Mexico. Ticsa has more than 40 years of experience, has presence in more than 20 states and 160 constructed plants with an EBITDA that's close to $29 million for 2024, consolidating a platform that can be scaled up and that has the necessary know-how in order to replicate the Odinsa model in terms of infrastructure. I need to emphasize also that this is a first impression that will allow the construction of an investment platform for water infrastructure that will be a larger scale. The payment sources of the Ticsa acquisition initially are considered as internal with the Odinsa's portfolio without the need of going into additional structural debt. The 5th of November, the Quito Airport, Quiport made a successful operation of debt restructuring where they brought the cost of their indebtment from 12% to 8.7% annually, which will allow to carry out a cash out close to $120 million in 23.25% of those resources correspond to Odinsa. Additionally, in Opain, reserve accounts were substituted for credit accounts, which will allow to release cash from close to COP 160 billion to Odinsa and the private capital fund with Macquarie has 32.5% of these resources. Finally, there is the possibility of extracting an important cash from Pacifico and refinancing Ticsa as soon as the transaction is closed. With these sources, Odinsa has the necessary resources to pay this investment without increasing its structural indebtedness and without requiring to Grupo Argos contribution. And depending on the moment that the operations will happen, there will probably be a treasury operations with bridge type indebtness. Now I want to invite you to move on to look at the Pactia results. Revenues of Pactia were COP 113 billion, which represents a drop of 9% year after year. And the EBITDA for the quarter was COP 57 billion, which represents a down of 16% year-over-year. However, on the same asset basis year-to-date, gross effective income and EBITDA grew 6% compared to 2024. Let's remember, there was an important asset disinvestment that allowed to reduce the leveraging and retribute the shareholders. At period end, the non-hotel portfolio occupancy was 93%, an increase of 202 basis points versus the previous quarter during the year through September 2025, contracts for 97,000 square meters were renewed and new contracts for 45,000 square meters were placed. Compared to the third quarter of 2024, the retail sector registered the highest growth in gross effective income to 8%, followed by the office sector with a 5% increase in the retail sector. In the retail sector, brand sales per square meter grew 10% year-over-year, while foot traffic remained stable. This fund continues its active management to optimize its capital structure. Over the last 12 months, Pactia has reduced its debt stock by 17%, closing the period with a loan-to-value ratio of 30%, a decrease of 376 basis points compared to the same period last year. Now I want to invite you to look at the figures of the urban development business found on Slide 19. In the third quarter, the business reported revenues were COP 48 billion, up 50% year-over-year accumulating revenues for 2025 thus reached COP 102 billion in cash. In July, 2 purchase agreements were signed for COP 110 billion, COP 14 billion have been received from these deals to date. By year-end, another COP 40 billion is expected to be received. And the details for both transactions will be signed, positively impacting fourth quarter results as if we don't sign the deals, the revenues won't be entered into the accounting system. These advances, combined with other ongoing deals allow us to anticipate a favorable year-end for the urban development business with results exceeding 2024 both in the income statement as in cash flow. Now let's move on to Slide 26 to analyze consolidated debt evolution. With the inflow of cash from the U.S. disinvestment, the group's consolidated net debt has been negative since February 2025, meaning the company currently has more cash than debt, a clear demonstration of the financial strength and flexibility Grupo Argos holds to execute its strategy in the future. Stand-alone debt -- stand-alone net debt detailed on Slide 28 closed the quarter at COP 1.4 trillion, excluding the COP 493 billion received this month for the Cementos Argos share buyback. The company maintains a leverage level that preserves a broad financial flexibility to execute its corporate strategy. This trend is confirmed by the affirmation of the highest credit rating by both Fitch Ratings and S&P Global, underscoring the company's ability to develop its new infrastructure-focused strategy. Before closing, we want to highlight that Grupo Argos was recognized by Merco as a conglomerate with the best reputation in the country for the 6th consecutive year, ranking 6th overall, its best historical position. This is in addition to the AA rating received in October by MSCI ESG Rating, placing us at leader levels and above the industry average. Also the highest rating Grupo Argos has received since the rating agency began evaluating us. These milestones confirm Grupo Argos' commitment to sustainable development in all the countries where we operate. Our reputation and sustainability are not only recognition but a competitive advantage supporting the financial results we have just reviewed. Thank you all for your presence. And let me give the word to Carolina Zuluaga so she can help us coordinating the Q&A session questions doubt or queries that you might have. We have the Grupo Argos, Grupo Argos Pactia, Odinsa officials available for any questions, doubts or comments that you might have.

Thank you, Jorge. First question comes from [ Simon Antonio] from Bancolombia. The question goes as follows, asking about the upcoming steps relating with the Odinsa Aguas consolidation after knowing about the Ticsa acquisition. He's asking, which will be the upcoming targets?

Well, let me take the floor, the beginning of the conversation. And afterwards, I can give the word to Mauricio so he can help me complement the answer. As we were previously explaining, Ticsa is a first investment in 1 of 2 segments that we have defined as strategic for developing a robust, strong and representative platform in water use, treatment and reuse. That's the case of Ticsa. Ticsa, as we previously mentioned, it has 10 treatment and reusage plants located in several states of Mexico. The other vertical that desalination has not yet starting its capital deployment nor its construction, speak about the strategy that we have defined. And I want to be clear on this. We want to go into the water business because of 2 reasons. Those 2 points of the water value chain, desalination and treatment and use are a segment that have very important growth, growth that actually are over the country's GDPs, which have the need of capital -- of private capital investments that are considerable in Latin America and in the world and this is a business that's more important as years passed by. And if you look at the business, it's very similar to the road or airport infrastructure. These are businesses that are regulated, which have predictable due dates, mainly dollarized and which have a few players within the region. So the fundamentals of contractual stability and growth complement perfectly the strategic capacities that Odinsa has developed in these types of businesses. In order to answer the question of where are we headed towards, let me start and give the word to Mauricio afterwards. We will be following a step-by-step, but a firm step-by-step in order to build the platforms that will allow us once we get into this business build greenfield or brownfield businesses. If you think about this, it is more or less the same strategy that we have developed by Odinsa in terms of airports and roads. When we acquired Odinsa between 2015 and 2016, we began with a series of assets that we started organizing, standardizing, leaving aside those that didn't have a seat, and building platforms with which we have been growing. This is just to give a framework, a strategic framework that I consider important because what we're doing in Ticsa is a relevant move for us. It's an operation with a very nice and complete company, but it is the beginning of the building blocks for a much more complex platform. Let me turn the floor to Mauricio.

Thank you, Jorge, and thank you, Simon, for the question. I think Jorge Mario was very broad in his explanation, but I would add 3 additional elements. First, that perimeter between Mexico, Peru and Chile initially are places where there's a double -- a simultaneous condition. There's scarcity and high industry investment. So Ticsa, besides contributing credentials that we're looking for, besides the assets, which are operational plants, which have the possibility of presenting a growth over the volume of what they're generating today, is located in one of the countries where there's a strong water stress in order to keep on developing that industrial zone of the U.S.-Mexican border. And simultaneously, there is a plan led by the Mexican government in 9 strategic zones from which Celsia has presence in 3, with plants that we have been operating since some time now. And we will be in a condition where we could support in terms of water reuse, the relocation or expansion of that industrial part that wants to be developed by Mexico. That's one element. So this contributes with credentials and experience, but also has a broad administrative portfolio. Second important thing to say is that effectively, the water plan, water management and more particularly, the desalination process are strategic within the same perimeter, and there's a conversion between private capital interest in the public agenda and politics and the need of those that require a growth expansion. So we're seeing within this first step, as what Mario knows, a Mexican location, once we close that transaction that as we said, we're expecting to be closed in the first quarter next year and grow from Mexico towards Latin America in terms of water treatment, pretty surely, desalination that we're still starting and researching, we found a broad interest and a great need in Chile. We had the occasion of sharing this with some of you previously, mentioning that the development of the mining industry and the expansion of that level of production requires non-continental water in order to support the project's growth. And currently, we are studying in detail the expansion of these mining companies and working with some of them in order to identify opportunities and trying to understand if this would make sense or not. So these are the 2 elements, treatment and desalination, and that geographic perimeter that I previously mentioned, but a great possibility of counting with the necessary capacity with the experience with the credentials and with an asset portfolio that's currently operational. So it's a strategy, but that's the first step, but the first step of an upcoming steps that are being studied and research that will allow us for the next 3 years to get involved in this dynamic of growth that since now, we anticipate it will be a platform that will be equal to what we have in terms of roads and airports.

Thank you, Mauricio, and thank you, Simon, for your question. The upcoming question is coming from [ Santiago Villamera from Corredores ] asking for more detail of the Pactia's EBITDA drop.

Well, we briefly mentioned this while we were going over the slides. We basically need to -- we need to compare equivalent assets because there was an important asset disinvestment in order to reduce leveraging and in order to have retribution possibilities for the shareholders, as I mentioned. But I don't know if Andres maybe wants to give us a bit more light on this EBITDA comparison between both periods.

Perfect, Jorge. The additional data that could be useful for this is that this investment area was around 12% of the rentable square meters of the fund. And this obviously has a conclusion or as a result, sorry, a drop in the EBITDA. But when we compare the EBITDA in the right form, we have a healthy growth.