Iochpe-Maxion S.A. (MYPK3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the video conference regarding Iochpe-Maxion's Second Quarter 2024 Results. I'm Rodrigo Caraca, company's Investor Relations Manager, and I will lead today's video conference. Today at our video conference and also available for the QA, we have Mr. Marcos Oliveira, CEO; and Mr. Renato Salum, company's CFO. We inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be available on the company's website. I would like to highlight for those who need simultaneous interpreting, we have this tool available. Just click on the globe icon that says interpretation located on the bottom portion of your screen. When selecting it, choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the video conference in English, the option to mute original audio in Portuguese is available. For the Q&A, the question-and-answer session, we advise you to speak through the Q&A icon on the bottom button of your screen. By default, names will be announced so that you can ask your questions live. At this point, we request you to activate your microphone as it will appear on the screen. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statement that may be made during this video conference regarding company's business prospects, projections, operational and financial goals constitute beliefs and assumptions of Iochpe-Maxion's management as well as information currently available from the company. Future considerations are not guarantees of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore they depend on circumstances. I would now like to give the floor to Mr. Marcos Oliveira. Please proceed.

Good morning and welcome to Iochpe-Maxion's second quarter 2024 results video conference. The second quarter of 2024 presented a scenario of profitability recovery driven mainly by the increase in demand for commercial vehicles in Brazil, the improvement of productivity in North America and the better adjustments of prices to the cost of our products. Despite a worsening of expectations for vehicles production in Europe where economic challenges have negatively impacted the industry, the outlook for Brazil and all the regions remain positive, which mitigate these adverse effects and demonstrate the benefits of geographic diversification of our business model. According to GHS Consultants, global production of light vehicles dropped 2.6% excluding China in the second quarter of 2024 and according to LMC Consultants, global production of commercial vehicles dropped 2.7% excluding China in the second quarter of 2024 if compared to the second quarter of last year. The company's net operating revenue grew 1.1% in the second quarter of 2024 if compared to the second quarter of last year reaching BRL 3.8 billion. The increase is due to the better adjustment of prices, cost of raw materials and volume growth. Again, we observe an improvement in gross profit when compared to the same period of the previous year with growth in the second quarter of 2024 of 12.2% and a gross margin of 12.4% or a growth of 1.2%. The improvement is related to the stabilization of raw material prices, improvement in the company's operational efficiency and better pricing of products based on inflation in recent periods. The EBITDA for second quarter of 2024 was BRL 388,000, growth of 7% compared to the second quarter of 2023. Excluding nonrecurring events in both periods, we had an EBITDA growth of 14.1% in the second quarter of 2024 with a recurring margin of 10.7% in Q2 '24 versus 9.5% and 8.9% in the first quarter of 2024. I will now follow the slides in our presentation. On Slide #2, we can see the projection for the global production of vehicles for IHS Auto and LMC Auto. We can see that in the case of light vehicles, IHS Auto represents a 2% drop in vehicle production in 2024 in regarding to 2023 or a 3% drop when we exclude China. Regarding commercial vehicles, LMC Auto projects a 1% drop in commercial vehicles production in 2024 if compared to '23 or a 5% drop when we exclude China from these numbers. On Slide #3, we can see the company's main highlights for the second quarter of 2024. We achieved a net revenue of BRL 3.8 billion in the second quarter or a growth of 1.1%. We achieved a gross profit of BRL 476.6 million with a gross margin of 12.4% in the second quarter of '24, which is an increase of 12.2% compared to the same quarter of the same period. We had a 14.1% growth in recurring EBITDA in the second quarter of 2024 with an EBITDA margin of 10.7%, which is a growth of 1.2%. We achieved a net profit of BRL 36.9 million in the second quarter of '24. Our financial leverage measured by net debt divided by the EBITDA of 2.97x in the second quarter of '24 compared to 2.72x in the second quarter of '23 and 2.95x in the first quarter of '24. Negatively affected by the devaluation of real at the end of the period, our liquidity rate shield reached 2.52x in the second quarter of '24 compared to 1.6x in the second quarter of '23. On Slide #4, we can see the company's consolidated operating revenue of BRL 3.845 billion in the second quarter of '24 million or a growth of 1.1% and a consolidated operating revenue of BRL 7.444 billion (sic) [ BRL 7.440 billion ] in the first half of '24 or a reduction of 4.6% compared to the first half of '23. On Slide #5 now looking at revenue per product. We can see an increase in the share of structural components for commercial vehicles in the second quarter of 2024 as the segment reached 22% of the company's consolidated revenue compared to 20% in the second quarter of '23. On Slide #6, we can see revenue per customer. Once again showing the importance of the commercial vehicle segment with the participation of the main customers in this segment. On Slide #7, now looking at the company's operational performance in South America. We can see a growth in net operating revenue of 6.2% in the second quarter of '24 reaching an operating revenue of BRL 1.069 billion compared to the same quarter of the previous year. In the second quarter of '24. South America represented 27.8% of the company's consolidated net operating revenue against 26.5% in the second quarter of '23. This happened due to the growth in the production of chassis and side rails for commercial vehicles, an increase in the production of aluminum wheels for light vehicles and a drop in the production of steel wheels for light vehicles. Now looking at the performance of the Brazilian market in terms of vehicles produced. We can see a drop in the production of light vehicles in the second quarter of 2024. The drop was 2% compared to the same quarter of the previous year and we see a growth of 53.3% in the production of commercial vehicles. Now Slide #8, we see the company's operational performance in North America. We see a growth of 13.6% in the company's net operating revenue in the second quarter of 2024. Revenue is BRL 1.201 billion compared to BRL 1.057 billion in the second quarter of '23. North America's share of the company's consolidated revenue grew from 27.8% in the second quarter of '23 to 31.3% in the second quarter of '24. This happened due to the increase in wheel production of aluminum and steel for light vehicles and steel wheels for commercial vehicles, an increase in the production of structural components for commercial vehicles and a positive exchange rate variation of BRL 84.4 million. When we look at the performance of the North America market in terms of produced vehicles, we see a slight increase in light vehicles production of 1.7% in the second quarter of '24 and a drop of 6.4% in commercial vehicle production in Q2 '24 compared to the second quarter of the previous year. Now Slide #9, operational performance in Europe. We can see that the company achieved a net operating revenue of BRL 1.251 billion in the second quarter of '24, which also means a drop of 10.1% regarding the second quarter of 23%. Europe's share was 36.6% in Q2 '23 and it dropped to 32.5% in Q2 '24. We can see this variation impacted by the increase in the production of steel wheels for light vehicles, a reduction in the production of aluminum wheels for light vehicles and steel wheels for commercial vehicles, a positive exchange rate variation of BRL 51.5 million in the second quarter of '24. Now looking at the performance of the European market in terms of produced vehicles. We see a drop of 7% in the production of light vehicles in the second quarter of '24 and a drop of 9.6% in commercial vehicles production in the second quarter of '24 if compared to the same period last year. Slide #10, we see the operational performance of Asia and Other Markets. We achieved a net operating revenue of BRL 323 million in the second quarter of '24 or a reduction of 6.4% compared to the second quarter of 2023. The share of Asia and Other Markets in the company's consolidated net operating revenue decreased from 9.1% in the second quarter of '23 to 8.4% in the second quarter of '24. The main factors in the share of Asia and Other Markets were related to the increase in the volume of steel wheel for light vehicles, the reduction in the volume of aluminum wheels for light vehicles in South Africa and Thailand and steel wheels for commercial vehicles in India, we had a positive exchange rate variation of BRL 4.5 million in the second quarter of '24. Now looking at the market performance in terms of number of produced vehicles. We can see a growth of 3.7% in the production of light vehicles in India, a drop of 15.5% in commercial vehicle production in India, a 15.7% drop in light vehicle production in Thailand and a 3% growth in light vehicle production in South Africa; all in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the same period of 2023. On Slide 11, we can see the company's gross profit in the second quarter of 2024 and that was BRL 477 million meaning a growth of 12.2% in the second quarter of '23. We had a growth of 1.2% in our gross margin in the second quarter of '24. When we look at the first half of 2024, we can see a gross profit of BRL 861 million or a growth of 12.4% compared to the first half of 2023. Our gross margin grew from 9.8% in the first half of '23 to 11.6% in the first half of '24. Slide #12, we see the company's EBITDA of BRL 389 million in the second quarter of '24 or a growth of 7% concerning the second quarter of '23. Our EBITDA margin grew from 9.6% to 10.1% in the second quarter. Over the first 6 months of the year, we can see an EBITDA of BRL 706 million in the first half of '24 or a growth of 8.5% compared to the first half of '23. Our EBITDA margin grew from 8.3% to 9.5% in the first semester of '24. Now looking at the company's adjusted EBITDA margin. Excluding the low recurring effects of both periods, we can see a growth in the adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.5% in the second quarter from '23 to 10.7% in Q2 '24 and an EBITDA margin of 8.2% in the first half of '23 growing to 9.8% in the first half of '24. Slide #13, we see the company's net profit of BRL 37 million in Q2 '24 compared to BRL 59 million in Q2 '23. Over the first 6 months of the year, we can see a growth in net profit of BRL 43 million in the first half of '23 million to BRL 87 million in the first half of '24. The net result was negatively impacted by the constitution of a provision for noncash deferred income tax related to the exchange rate variation in the company's subsidiaries in Mexico, Czech Republic and Turkey in the amount of BRL 27.1 million in the second quarter of '24 and BRL 33.5 million in the first half of '24. Slide 14. Company's investments were BRL 142 million in the second quarter of '24 compared to BRL 99 million in the previous year and BRL 241 million in the first half of '24 when compared to the first half of '23. The main investments in the period were related to the increase in capacity to meet demand in the vehicle segment, commercial vehicles in North America and the construction of the new aluminum truck wheel plant in Europe. Slide #15, we see the company's financial leverage. We reached in the second quarter of '24 a financial leverage of 2.97 [ fold ] compared to 2.95 fold in the first quarter of '24 and 2.93 fold in the end of '23. On Slide 16, we see the company's liquidity ratio reaching 2.52x in the second quarter of '24 compared to 2.02 fold in the first quarter of '24 and 2.12x at the second part of the year '23. On Slide 17, we can see the composition of the company's gross debt reaching 40.5% of gross debt in reais, 37.6% of gross debt in euros, 17.9% in dollars and 4% in other currencies. The composition of short-term and long-term debt changed in the following way. Long term, which represented 70.7% in the second quarter of '23, now represents 82.5% in the second quarter of 2024. We can also see the cost composition for the different debts between Q2 '23 and Q2 '24 as you can see in the chart on the right side. On Slide 18, we can see some of the company's main launches in the second quarter of 2024. Steel Wheels VersaStyle in India, technology VersaStyle, its flexibility and its presence around the world. Steel wheels for commercial vehicles in South America showing lightweight solutions for new urban mobility. Aluminum wheels, SUVs electric acting as specialists for new OEMs. Aluminum wheels in the premium market for Europe deliver excellence in the prime market. On Slide 19, some other launches in the area of structural components in the second quarter of '24. Launches of side members for commercial electric vehicles in North America showing our ability to offer solutions in the electric commercial vehicle market. Also chassis for commercial electric vehicles in North America, a solution in electric logistics vehicles last mile and chassis for light vehicles in South America showing a history of quality and excellence. On Slide 20, we see the company's main awards and highlights in the second quarter of '24. The 2023 Quality Award by Mercedes-Benz in Brazil. The 2023 award Quality by PACCAR offered by DAF in Brazil. The acknowledgment in logistics received by us given by Mitsubishi in Brazil related to the year 2023. And the PROFEPA Clean Industry certificate coming from Mexico. And also the Supplier Performance Leader award in 2023 awarded by DAF in Europe. We will now open up for the Q&A. Thank you.

Floor open for the Q&A session. We kindly ask you to pose your questions all at once and wait for the company's input. For you to ask questions, please use the Q&A button on the lower portion of your screen. Your names will be announced so that you can open your microphones to ask your questions live. You will be prompted to do so when time comes. First question is from Fernanda Recchia from BTG Pactual.

Marcos, at the beginning you mentioned and you updated the outlook for commercial and light vehicles. I would like to dive a little bit deeper in regard to Europe and Brazil. We saw a slight change and it was different from what was expected. If you can explain further how do you see the perspective for Brazil and Europe for the second semester? Although the tendencies are numbers going up. But looking to the second semester, do you think we see a trend that is similar to what you see in the first semester? What can you tell us about the second semester? And second, in regard to margin, we saw that in the second quarter we are getting to the 2-digit margin. I would like to understand a little bit further from you in regard to the next semester. When you mentioned the driver and the mix of perspectives and productivity in the United States, do you think this should continue for the second semester and how do we see the profitability trend? This is what I wanted to ask.

Fernanda, thank you for your question. In regard to market and production in general, we see the third semester starting very consistently and very similar to the second semester. As you mentioned, we see an even better performance with the production for light and commercial vehicles in Brazil. We also see a drop in light vehicles in Europe and commercial vehicles and this drop -- this decrease would mean that it's a little bit smaller than the one we saw at the beginning of the year. But in general we see that for the whole year of 2024, we're going to have a growth for the production for light vehicles of around 3% if you compare '24 to '23. As I remember, we had a drop in the first semester of light vehicle production. So we expect that this is going to increase for the second semester especially for Brazil. Now in regard to commercial vehicles, we see second half that is going to be very consistent and similar to what you saw in the first semester. Of course when we compare semesters, they are going to be a little bit different because the first half of '23 had very low productivity that was due to the change, the transition from Euro 5 to Euro 6. So this is why we are going to have a larger growth for this second half. But in general the production for light vehicles 2024 should grow around 30% if compared to 2023 numbers. When we started the year, we were thinking of the growth of around 20%. But now due to the performance seen in the first quarter and the vision that we have, we believe we are going to grow 30% 2024 if compared to 2023. In the case of Europe when we look at 2024, we see a drop of 4% to 5% in the production of light vehicles for '24 if compared to '23 and with commercial vehicles, we see a drop in production of around 10% in 2024 if compared to '23. If we get back a little bit to the beginning of this year, we had a projection of a drop of around 10% in the segment of light vehicles in Europe. It's still a drop year-over-year, but it's going to be a different and smaller change. In North America now, we work with different projections and we see a growth of around 2% in the production of light vehicles in '24 against the numbers of '23. And for commercial vehicles, we see a drop of around 5% to 8% in the production of light vehicles in 2024 over the numbers of '23. Let's just remember that what we see now at the beginning of the third quarter when comparing our numbers here to the numbers from the previous quarter, numbers seem to be very similar and obviously we are looking into the year as a whole. We had a very strong year of 2023 with production of light vehicles in Europe. We are going to have a lot of adjustment in the production, but with still very good interesting volume numbers. Of course there are differences regarding the perspectives of what we envision for '25. And as we are talking to our clients, they still expect prominent growth in 2024 for North America. This is due to the greenhouse gas emission law that is being implemented for 2024. So they are already envisioning a prepurchase for 2025 and '26. So we are still going to see important periods coming in and we are increasing in our capacity -- increasing in investing in our capacity preparing for this expected growth for '25 and '26 in North America. Now in regard to the margins, they are very consistent to what we saw before. We are looking to get into the EBITDA margin of 2 digits and we are following and we've been working hard in what we consider important as far as structure so that we can increase productivity and price adjustment to consider the different costs in different regions. We are still doing this as planned. And I could say that internal actions in the company, whether regarding productivity or capacity alignment to the different demands in the different markets and pricing, they are happening according to plan and this means we should keep the trend working with 2-digit margins and we should get back to our historical margins along the year of 2025. I could say that we are walking towards a very positive path as we mentioned in the first period of '23 comparing that number to '24 and we are going to keep our eye on it considering the macroeconomic aspects in North America, in Europe or Asia due to the future demand that we see for the rest of the year. Brazil is still performing well in light vehicles and commercial vehicles positively very consistently and according to the perspectives for this year, which indicates a very promising and positive scenario for our second half especially for Brazil.

Our next question is coming from Andre Mazini from Citi.

My question is concerning products. You mentioned you're going to have several new products, the e-bus for Volkswagen. So if you could mention a little bit more about the potential products that you have with larger margins, the ones that have more margin than the others. For example aluminum wheels that are forged for trucks. I don't know if you have this product at the moment. We looked at how Metalcolor has this product, they have very high margin with this. What are the new products that you're going to have with good margin, whether with structural components or wheels? I believe these are more of premium products than this one in particular, aluminum for trucks. And the second is just a follow-up on what you mentioned before. What are the operational efficiency improvements? You've already mentioned these, Marcos, but is this just for Brazil or any other geographic area?

Andre, thank you for your question. We are clearly gaining space in the electrification world, whether for purely electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles with the participation of our products whether for structure or wheels. And as you saw during our presentation in which we showed you some products and some systems we have been delivering especially in North America, but also in South America, we have some options. Historically what we've been saying is that we are transitioning from the fossil fuel vehicles to electric vehicles and to us, it is a positive change because it doesn't matter what type of products they are talking about where they still need the structure or they still need the wheel; but with this opportunity, we have our own opportunities of including different products. We have opportunities with the existing clients and with the new clients in Asia, in Europe, North America and South. In regard to the light wheels aluminum and light vehicles wheels, we are investing in the construction of our first wheels plant with forged aluminum for our commercial vehicles so that we can meet the demands of the European market. It's still under construction as we speak. We intend to produce from that plant in the second half of '25 and it's an important path we are walking so that we can keep on growing our presence. We can serve in the future with aluminum wheels for margins. They pose for very good margins and they are above the ones that we see today in our company. So it's definitely a pathway for growth in the future. Our growth in structural components in South America and North America considers this change from diesel engines to electric engines and the fuel cell vehicles too. So our structural components are still important and they are generating new market opportunities for the company. And as you saw in our product portfolio, we are adding new segments, segments we were not actively participating in. For example trailers for American vehicles. This is a segment that is growing in the company. We haven't seen a very prominent growth year-over-year. But for the company, this is an important segment for us to grow in the future. And also other subsegments. The segment for example of transportation in Europe and Asia, which are important for the company especially in the future. The energy transition itself and the need to be able to offer solutions in aluminum or in steel allows us to have flexibility for the adjustment of our portfolio to meet that demand specifically and it's growing especially in Europe with an effect of the greenhouse gas emissions and sustainability. And our global footprint for this reason and our footprint with the product, which is the most complex in wheels in the world, can meet the different demands from the different clients and will allow us to have our margin growing in time. Now in terms of operational efficiency, we can see in different parts of the world and let's talk about Brazil first. The operational efficiency increase is coming from the efficiency of our own plants, but also comes from the increase in demand in the Brazilian market in terms of production and it's important. Last year when we had the commercial vehicle production dropping compared to the first year means that this recovery that we see of 30% as the year goes by is important because it can improve productivity in our plants in Brazil. It's same happening in North America. Last year we had a very high increase in demand, much above expectations and it was above our installed capacity. So we had to operate in 2023 for several months with the production 24/7, which is very interesting in terms of volume, but it's not interesting in terms of productivity because we are going to have to operate with a level of overtime that is way above and the maintenance is not ideal for the company and this level changed in 2024. We have increased production capacity gradually for North America and this allows us to operate 24/7, but this only happens 6.5 days a week instead of 7 days. Our normal production model would have only 6 days of production. We are leaving this 24/7 scenario getting to 6.5 days and this is allowing us to reduce overtime, allows us to program maintenance and this can increase our performance and efficiency. This is still going to happen in the second quarter of 2024. And as we get to '25 when this capacity is already worked on as far as structural components is worked with, we are of course increasing our operational capacity in the side of [indiscernible] in the north of Mexico and this allows us to increase our capacity at 30% in structural components in North America. And the fixed costs are going to be similar because it's going to be the same site, but we have 3 plants inside that area on that same site producing structural components for the commercial vehicles market in North America. This effort in gaining productivity is continuous. It's going to be in all regions; North, South America, Europe and Asia. And when you have moments of growth the same way you see in Brazil, it allows us to see the productivity growing even faster. And in the case of Europe, we see a reduction in the demand and in the production and this passes for a specific adjustment in specific plans to meet the demands that are present. So with vision for growth in Europe and Asia and we see this positive for '25. They are not going to be astronomic, but they are going to be continuous if compared to 2024. We believe we are going to gain productivity in these regions too in '25. Thank you for your question, Andre.

Our next question is going to come from Gabriel Rezende, Itau BBA.

I only have 1 question. If you can please comment on the expectation for the third quarter especially in regard to the dynamics of the price of aluminum. Maybe this could pose some differences in your profitability or this could trigger the pricing increasing on the clients' end. Can you tell me a bit more about this?

Gabriel, thank you for your question. In regard to the price of aluminum, we have seen that the raw material has increased especially at the beginning of this third semester and then it's going to stabilize and then it's going to drop, which is close to the levels of the beginning of the first quarter. I can say that this oscillation was more prominent at the beginning of the first and second semester and now it's going to stabilize. Now in the case of the aluminum, most of the contracts we have are -- the contracts are automatically adjusted according to the raw material price increasing or decreasing, implementation can have some delay. But usually they are automatic and they are fast. We don't expect a prominent impact especially with the prices that we have today for the raw material.

And if you could elaborate further in regard to the pricing dynamics. You mentioned that it was optimized before, but I would like to hear a little bit more from you about this. What are the new policies applied? Are they going to continue for the second half of the year? Should we see any difference in regard to pricing strategies? Are you going to transfer price to clients? And how far are you going to do this?

Gabriel, I can say that in general in regard to the transfer of price, whether you use preestablished formulas for aluminum or steel or in a negotiable fashion, the transfer of price will occur globally and consistently as it has happened in the last years. We transfer the price of raw material with some delay depending on the formula applied or the negotiation process. But yes, the price of raw material ends up being transferred as the prices are transferred and changed. The impact is more prominent when these oscillations are significant and as we saw in the last 2 to 3 years when we saw oscillation of 40%, 30% in the price of steel. Today, we see some stability in the price of raw material with oscillations above or below 5% and they are not as prominent, but they are transferred in a planned fashion and they don't pose for an impact in our results. The main concern in regard to raw material is when we have significant oscillations above 20% to 30%. This is when you start seeing positive or negative impacts in the margins of the periods of increase and reduction of raw material prices. An effort we worked very strongly with is to work in the transfer of prices of other economics. When we talk about inflation of around 1% or 2% in the developed markets, for example Europe and the United States in the past, there was always this expectation from the automotive sector that this would be absorbed by the suppliers especially with productivity. It's being present in the OEM industry and when we talk about low inflation, they were not very prominent and the gain in productivity helped us administer this. Now when we talk about the levels of inflation as observed in the last years, when we see inflation of around 4% or 5%, 8%; this is not a logic that is going to work constantly. What we have to do with our client is to be able to transfer this increase in inflation to be able to adjust the cost structure so that we can keep this competitive. This is the effort that we've been making and we've advanced a lot. Some adjustments are still being made, but we have advanced and this should lead the margins to the historical numbers we had before. This should happen by 2025.

Our next question should come from Gabriel Tinem, Santander.

I have 2 questions. First, it's just a follow-up on something you've mentioned. But on the client side in the North America market and envisioning a scenario of change in legislation, how can you see the clients' movement in general? Is there any specific stock information? And second question, explore the electrified vehicles. I would like to understand how you see this market and the opportunities in general. How is Forsee Power performing with this?

Gabriel, thank you for your question. In regard to the year 2025 and the transition of emissions and transitions, I believe it's too early especially in Europe and North America. It's difficult to talk about stock now because they are now having a hard time meeting clients' demands from '23 and '24. The OEMs still see orders not being delivered. They are delivering everything very late and they're starting to plan 2025. But what we see with the OEMs and our clients in the segment of commercial vehicles in North America is that the planning of production volume of 2024 is above the numbers of '24. So although they are still planning for '25 and the scheduling of these increases, they are going to see an increase in demand for '25 and they are starting to work with us on how we are going to allocate our capacity, including the new capacity we are adding with structural components in North America for 2025. So it is a positive scenario and it's early to say anything about numbers because we're going to start seeing the second part of the third semester because this is the moment in which they are planning for the next year. But the number what we see is very promising. We see that the efforts to increase capacity are -- this is going to bring fruitful events for '25 and in 2026, the allocation of this capacity is going to be carried out for the demands we see in the future. Now with electrified vehicles, one of the characteristics we see that is making us stand out in regard to our company's competitors is our engineering capacity in wheels and in structural components and our adaptation to the products that we have to what the new OEMs need which is positive and this allows us to adapt the portfolio for future demand. We can generate new business opportunities with this. This is why I see this transitional to electrified vehicles as something positive. We usually say that we have agnostic products in regard to the engine that they have, but it's positive because it generates new business opportunities. Last year we established a partnership to develop new products for the electrified vehicles market. We are working together in the offering of such solution to the clients. We are showcasing one of the solutions in 1 fair, 1 product that can be used on buses because this can be integrated among the many Maxion products and with Forsee Power products. And this is a continuous process that should continue for the next quarters.

Our next question is going to come from Lucas Laghi from XP.

I have 2 points to explore with you. I don't want to be repetitive, but I would like to get back to the raw material effect on profitability. When you mentioned the aluminum, it was very clear with an increase in pricing now getting back to the numbers of the third quarter last year. But I would like to understand the dynamics for North America. If you think the prices of aluminum dropping, we saw a more relevant drop and we see another drop in this third semester. So I question myself. What is reflecting the unit price when we see this oscillation in prices of raw material? Maybe you can think of profitability having a higher price and you're capturing this raw material, which is consistently dropping in price. I'd like to know what's happening with your pricing in the sense. Still same thing is happening for South America and North America, the price in raw material and we don't see an impact in margin. I just would like to understand this impact in regard to pricing in raw material in North America. We see a more prominent drop here though. When we compare the performance of light vehicles and we look into steel, we see the difference in North America and the rest of the markets. When you look at the aluminum products in South America performing better than steel when compared annually and when we look at North America and Europe, we see better performance of steel wheel better than aluminum wheels. So it's important that we understand this difference. Is this a structural difference? What is the difference coming from? It would be better for us to understand this difference between the performance of aluminum wheels and comparing what we have with North and South America.

Lucas, in regard to the first question you asked in regard to the drop of pricing in raw material. As most of you know, every time we have a drop in raw material cost, we transfer the price to the end client. If it increases, we also do the same. So it happens whether it's with a reduction or increase in raw material price. This is what we agree with most clients. But when we are talking about stocks, we are talking about the accounting rule. It's a pondered cost estimate. And when we buy raw material costing less, it means it's going to take me around 50 to 55 days with that product in the stock and although you may not have that stability, you may end up having an average risk a little bit above what we see. Of course we transfer the price for a period and this is applied to a formula. But when we have this trend in decrease and not price stability, it just shows that the purchase is going to be more aligned with the production we expect for the next weeks or months. We don't see this within the margin because if we had an increase in raw material price the way we had before in the previous year, we're going to have a little bit on stock with the average price and the price is going to be smaller because the transfer is going to be smaller too. And if this is happening a little later, this impacts margin better. So this is why the drop in raw material price is not perceived at first within the margin numbers.

Lucas, in regard to your second question. In each different subsegment's performance; I mean aluminum, steel wheels; they depend on the mix of our clients and they depend on the performance of the different products that we have for the different clients in the different segments. So during the second semester, we don't see a change in mix of product in the market. We see a change in performance coming from the different clients with the different participation and the different products that we have with the different regions. When we see growth that is larger in steel wheels for light vehicles more than the aluminum numbers, what we see is exactly this dynamics of where the clients are and what products they purchase or what cycle of product there is for each of them, whether they are purchasing different products if they are at a peak purchase movement or not. We haven't seen this as something important. At least we don't see an important change in the mix. But as we said before, we'll be able to serve clients with flexibility with aluminum and steel wheels allows us to meet the clients' demand better in the future in case they decide to change their mix. They want to change from aluminum to steel for example. We have very good capacity for that type of product to meet these clients' demands and this is what we've been observing in regard to the planning of new products; whether with cost, with CO emissions and some products see in other platforms an insurgence of more steel wheels than before. They are looking into having a cost balance in CO2 emission. Steel wheels pose for less CO to emission if compared to aluminum. This is about the raw material characteristics and this is going to allow us for some flexibility. But I see that for the second quarter, we see this more of a segment development or the different clients being in different phases with their own products.

We have 1 more question from Andre Silveira from Bradesco BBI.

I have 2 questions. One, concerning electrical vehicles and I know you mentioned this before, but I would like to know what the conversation is like with the OEMs, specifically those working with electrified vehicles. I mean new contracts for steel and aluminum wheels specifically in Brazil considering the 2 main competitors from China. And also we have seen some attempts with private equity in the sector. I would like to understand if you see space for consolidation in the sense or not.

Andre, thank you for your question. Now in terms of electric vehicles, we've been working with this in a very constructive fashion with our clients globally; North America, Europe, Asia. And to be able to offer steel wheels and aluminum wheels according to the strategy and according to the clients, we have been gaining space, new contracts and new OEMs. We saw the examples in our presentation. And this is happening with the current OEMs because they are changing into a hybrid product or an electrified product. I say this is very positively. We've been talking to these OEMs from China so that we can keep on offering our services. We negotiate with some of these OEMs in the Chinese market because we are present there and it poses for an advantage as far as technical ability and product integrations are concerned. And we are working with them in the new global strategy of growth. As you've seen, some of the Chinese OEMs, they have announced they are building all their plants in other areas; for example in Thailand and in Europe, in South America. They are either purchasing other OEMs so that they can use the space and technology. But yes, we see an effort of local production and we have this goal of purchasing outside so that we can have a local and adequate position. We are working with them, whether they are from China or any other -- they come from any of the nationality in the world and we believe we are going to be able to evolve the way we've been evolving in the last months. In regard to the M&A and private equity, our clear focus for 2024 and 2025 is to keep on reducing our indebtedness so that we can be in the reduction of the financial leverage. We are decreasing the debt little by little. We want to improve our margins and the allocation of capital to have products developed organically and strategically is happening. Of course we are observing the many possibilities in the future, in the midterm, long term; but this is not our focus on '24 and '26 and '25. But this is very much aligned to what we see as far as debt is concerned. We are going to keep on improving our margins and we are going to invest in products and projects that can generate better margin for the company in the future.

Well, due to the short time available, we have closed our Q&A and we would now like to give the floor to Marcos Oliveira so that he can give his final statement.

Once again thank you very much for taking part in this webinar. We are going to keep 1 eye on our inflation, geopolitics aspects of the product and company development. We are going in to tackle everything in the different areas we operate to meet our demands, whether demand reduction depending on the segment, we are going to have it adjusted to mitigate impact in the profitability of our business units. We are focused with gaining productivity and product efficiency in the launching of new products, the development of our advanced engineering, the digitalization which is also important in the projects, innovation and in the strengthening of our finances. So we are going to keep on adding value sustainably as time goes by. So thank you very much for being here with us. Have a wonderful day.

Our video conference is now closed. The investors department is available to address any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Thank you for taking part. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]