Prosegur Compañía de Seguridad, S.A. (PSG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

July 31, 2020

Bolsa de Madrid ES Industrials Commercial Services and Supplies earnings 55 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Prosegur First 6 Months 2020 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you the conference is being recorded today. And I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker, Antonio de Cárcer. Go ahead.

Antonio de Cárcer

executive
#2

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking time to attend this conference call, setting out the company's results for the first half of 2020. As usual, this webcast will be hosted by Antonio Rubio, Prosegur's CFO; Maite Rodríguez, Finance Director; and myself. Over the next 30 minutes, we will give you a detailed summary of the key financial indicators and most significant events of the period. At the end of this presentation, we will open floor for a Q&A session, where we will be answering any remaining doubts or inquiries you may have. Prior to starting, I would like to remind you that this presentation has been prerecorded. And that it will be also available for download in our corporate web page. I will now hand you over to our CFO, Antonio Rubio.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#3

Good afternoon all, and thank you very much for attending this presentation. Like many other companies, the results we are presenting today can be considered a proxy of how much management kind of company's P&L and balance sheet withstand, and how fast they can react against such severe, unexpected and fast widespread negative circumstances. We are very proud of our company reaction, our resiliency to the COVID-19 crisis. As you will see in the coming presentation, even taking in consideration the foreseen reduction in volumes and profitability, Prosegur has been able to touch the worst part of this crisis, delivering results slightly better than estimated by market and maintaining a solid financial profile. Before entering into details, let me first give you some insight of the main impacts and reactions experienced by the company coming from the COVID pandemic, both at individual business line and consolidated group level. As forecasted at the beginning of the crisis in Q1, asymmetric behavior has been present in all business lines, with negative impact in over them, but also with some positive reactions, those driven by the demand from both governments and clients of our capabilities to provide frontline support on their social initiatives, business continuity programs and the compliance with the newly implemented inflation control policies. In this regard, Cash has experienced a strong decrease in transported volumes as most of the population in large cities, mainly in developed countries, have been confined, and therefore, barely consumption has been down other than food, retail and health care. On the other side, there has been a high demand from certain authorities in Ibero-America to support the distribution of subsidies to population affected by the COVID. As you know, in the most of those countries, the economy heavily relies on cash availability, and these extraordinary operations have become a critical aid for the population, while offsetting the negative impact seen in Europe. Security has also seen a slowdown in sales due to the reduced activity of the most of the clients, with some bigger than estimated impacts in the U.S.A. deriving from the highest pressure we have in that country to the air transportation industry, and also in Argentina, a country which economy is already showing revolutionary behavior. Also Security has been -- its profitability affected by certain legal conditions in Ibero-America, where some country had restricted to some point our base cost adjustment policies. As you will see later on, despite this negative news, Security has been able to deliver positive margins growth and all the new anti-COVID solutions have become highly demanded with good perspectives. It's also worth mentioning that in these reported results, we have fully deducted our Security activity in France that, as we announced, is expected to be sold in the second half of the year. Alarms is the business that has suffered the most. As we advised at the beginning of the pandemic, social distancing rules implemented in all countries made it impossible for us to sell a product that demands a physical interaction with customers during the sales and installation phases. Therefore, during the full confinement period, neither Prosegur nor Movistar Prosegur Alarmas have been able to add any noticeable figure to the installed base, while also, as a side effect of the close downs, churn rates in small customers have risen sharply, with not much reaction capability on our side to offset it with new sales. Finally, at group level, we are very proud to state that all the cash flow and liquidity protection measures put in place at the beginning of the crisis have delivered very good results and this reflected in a very positive increase in generated operating cash flow that remains as ensure of the strength and resiliency of our business model and its capability to overcome this adverse situation with profit. Nevertheless, as a final remark, I would like to state that the crisis is not over. Recent outbreaks and increases of inflation forced us to adopt a very cautious position for the months to come, not making any assumption of full recovery and keeping our liquidity protection measures fully in place. Let's now move to a summary of the main financial indicators of the period. Prosegur has obtained a total sales figure of EUR 1,775 million during the first 6 months of 2020. In organic terms, growth has been positively up to 3.5%, showing the benefits of increased volumes in Ibero-America, coming mainly from the demand of supporting government social initiatives as well as from the contribution of the other 2 businesses. That also delivered positive organic growth H1. In fact, as we will see when analyzing the P&L, the main cause of our revenue reduction derives from translational currency effects, much more than from COVID-19. EBITA has reached EUR 131 million. If we exclude the cost of the efficiency plans being implemented by Prosegur Cash. This figure also takes into consideration the EUR 9 million revenue received from governments' aids to furloughs, mainly in the U.S., as a response to the pandemic. This better-than-expected profitability results have their main explanation in the application of cost-control measures and the contribution of the Alarm business that, as you know, is an excellent margin generator when the cost related to growth is eliminated, as it has happened during the past 4 months. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, EBITA is also heavily affected by the combination of negative FX and volumes reduction coming from COVID-19 impact. In terms of operating cash flow, we have experienced a very strong improvement. This comes from the combination of several factors: the improvement in working capital coming from the reinforce collection procedures, with adjustment of the labor cost base; a scrip dividend offering; CapEx reduction to up to 33%; and some other cash protection measures implemented in the period. And finally, we're also very satisfied with the current liquidity position and the comfortable maturity debt profile maintained. As you will see when analyzing the financial position of the group, net financial debt has remained almost unchanged in respect to the previous quarter, while cost of financing has been even decreased. In summary, better than consensus estimation business performance, easing the forecasted impact in revenues and delivering better profitability than expected, while maintaining a very sound financial position, even in the hardest of the crisis prior. We will now have more detailed view to our P&L account of this first 6 months that looks as follows. As indicated previously, total sales figure in the period is EUR 1,775 million. This implies a 13.6% decline compared to same semester in 2019. As you can appreciate, there has been a 3.5% organic growth increase in revenues in order by a 3.9% negative in organic that reflects the final deconsolidation of Security in France and Spanish Alarm business and a major 13.2% negative FX impact. As I stated in my introduction, EBITA of EUR 131 million is what the business has been able to deliver, if we exclude the efficiency plans in Cash. Including this extraordinary item, the final accounting figure of EBITA becomes EUR 106 million. EBIT, including those effects, totaled EUR 91 million, and net profit comes down to EUR 28 million, once applied financial costs and taxes that had been increased due to shift of mix. This has been another side effect of COVID-19, as the bulk of revenues has shift towards countries with higher effective tax rate. Finally, if we deduct the EUR 6 million assigned to minority interest, we end with a total net consolidated profit of EUR 23 million during these first 6 months of the year. We will move now to analyze the breakdown of revenues by business line and geography. All 3 activities are reporting revenue drop-downs in consolidated euro terms. Although all of them also report positive organic growth, as you will see when Antonio de Cárcer covers each individual business with more detail, this makes evident that besides the slowdown in volumes generated by COVID, our main impact in terms of revenues still comes from FX, as the main currencies in Ibero-America have continued depreciating during the past 3 months. Positive organic growth can also be considered a good evidence of our capability to continue passing inflation increase to prices in all markets, with no significant deterioration in the process despite the harsh conditions. Cash reports local currency growth coming from the extraordinary volumes in emerging countries, while Security, less affected in pure operational terms, is including the deconsolidation of France at negative and organic growth. Alarms is the activity that suffers the biggest reduction, given the fact that it has been barely impossible to sell any new connections during the strongest part of the confinements, due to our regulatory limitations. We believe this particular situation will revert very quickly, as all the commercial activity has recently been resumed, and new clients are being added to the customer base on a daily basis. Geographically, the strongest impact has been received in Europe, where confinements and business lockdowns have been restricted. Nevertheless, this 18.4% drop down in revenues also includes the divestment of funds. Ibero-America reports 12.6% local currency growth with very little M&A in the mix, showing a good resiliency and growth capability for all business lines, only shadowed by the negative translational currency impact when converting into euros. And finally, also interesting positive growth in the rest of the world region is coming from both the full inclusion of the U.S.A. within the consolidated perimeter and a very positive increase of volumes generated in Singapore. We are now going to analyze profitability and cash flow generation in the period. As previously explained in my introduction, EBITA of EUR 106 million is the pure accounting figure obtained when including the effect of all efficiency programs that Prosegur Cash is performing. EUR 131 million figure is a more precise way to report the profitability the Prosegur business model is able to deliver, even with the strong turmoil oil companies are facing. Keeping that in mind, we can see that the underlying EBITA margin has only deteriorated by 30 basis points, down to 7.4%, in comparison to the 7.7% reported in the same period last year. As you can see in the chart, we had also isolated in our profitability, the impact directly coming from lesser volumes and client losses generated by COVID-19 and if we also exclude this effect, our profitability should have been shown positive growth in respect to the first half of 2019. Looking now to the cash flow generation side, it's fully appraisable the strong positive effect that all the cost control and cash flow potential measures have delivered. Operating cash flow has increased by almost 46%, boosted mainly by the optimization in working capital and also from other several cash-out containment measures, like CapEx reduction or the scrip dividend offered to shareholders, amongst others. Alarm sales stoppage during the confinements had also notably contributed to cash flow, leaving this a tangible proof of the excellent cash flow generation capability of that business, as we have always stated. Our Finance Director, Maite Rodríguez, will give you more insight on the main cash flow generation drivers when commenting the financial highlights of these results. I would now like to take some extra of your time to comment on our innovation projects prior to handing over the presentation to our Head of IR for the individual business breakdown. Innovation is a key element in Security. Quick adaptation of our products and services to new challenges and opportunities is always a priority. In this regard, and even considering we have put on hold several of our digital transformation projects during the pandemic, we have developed and sent into production several new innovation initiatives in all business lines, some of which I would like to give you some insight. We have been very active in the security business, building a full suite of solutions to guarantee our clients COVID-19-free environments once the confinements are over and people will gradually come back to work. Special emphasis has been made in those population segments of higher risk, such as school or public infrastructures and the outcome is a comprehensive suite of different tools aimed to guarantee that those spaces will remain clean and all visitors will comply to certain hygienic measures, all of this using the less inclusive, but most accurate detections and monitoring measures. Therefore, remote monitor thermal scanning and intelligent video recognition, combined with specially trained persons of support, work together using our proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms and able to detect people not wearing a mask, visitor with higher-than-normal temperature, frequency of use and disposal of hygienic measures, while also monitoring compliance of social distancing protocols. These solutions are already in operation in all countries of our footprint, anticipating customer demand and providing a highly efficient solution. This has been possible via the final consolidation of all our control rooms into a global Security Operation Centre framework that has recently gone into production, with the inclusion of our new stocks in the U.S. and Brazil. This will guarantee scalability and seamless high-end monitoring capabilities to our clients. That, as you can see, now count in thousands, being this a solid proof of the success that the market is having of our integrated Security solutions model. On the sake of Cash, there are several transformational projects that we'll be unveiling in the coming months, being the 2 stated in this slide is a sample of many more things to come. As you can see, we have initiated a service of cryptographic custody of tokenized digital assets, taking advantage of the combination of our unmatched custody capabilities and the skills of our Cybersecurity division. This new service is already reassuring customers that want to ensure that information assets are kept safe and with guarantee of fast availability when needed. And finally, we had added a new member in our wide range of Smart Cash solutions for retailers, being this the entry point of this new product for small shops and commerce that want to benefit from the use of cash without the hassle of its custody, accounting and deposit in bank. This is all on my side for now. I will now hand the presentation over to Antonio de Cárcer, who will provide you with further information on the performance of each business line. I will join you again at the end of the presentation for my closing remarks and Q&A.

Antonio de Cárcer

executive
#4

Thank you, Antonio. We will now cover some more detailed information on the breakdown of sales by nature in each business line as well as some additional insights on the main drivers of profitability evolution and other key performance indicators. Initiating this analysis with Prosegur Cash, we see that sales have totaled EUR 772 million. This implies a drop-down slightly above 13% in euro terms, in line with the forecasted estimations we anticipated in Q1. In local currency terms, the business registered an increased close to 6%, being the reduction in sales in euros assignable solidly to the strong 19% negative translational effect of the depreciated Ibero-America currencies. In fact, only in Ibero-America, Cash has grown revenues by 13.5% organically, being driven this growth mainly by the extraordinary volumes of cash transporting, mostly in Brazil, to support certain subsidy distribution programs put in place by the government. On the other hand, Europe is the region that has suffered the biggest proportional volume reduction, due to the strictness of the lockdown of business and confinement of population instructed by the authorities. Nevertheless, volumes in Europe are progressively coming back to normal since the ease of the confinements. On the profitability side, if we exclude the efficiency programs currently undergoing, the business has obtained a total figure of EUR 101 million. That implies a 13.1% EBITA margin. Profitability reduction in absolute terms is still driven by the reduction of volumes of cash transported because of COVID prices. While in margin terms, EBITA margin of 13.1% also reflects the impact of FX in the product mix. Finally, new products and solutions have shown a certain resiliency to the pandemic effects and have remained in 18.2% of total sales. In this regard, Brazil, once again, leads the growth of the Smart Cash solutions, while Asia Pacific has experienced an interesting boost on the new ATM services in Australia that has grown by 50%. Looking now at Security business, we also find an almost equal sales reduction ratio that the one seen in Cash. Sales have reached EUR 892 million in the first semester of the year. Again, like Cash business, in pure organic terms, growth has been positive, although varies slightly, as close of 60% of our total business revenue comes from Europe and U.S, and as Antonio Rubio indicated in his introduction, those regions have been more affected by COVID-19 effects in terms of clients' closedowns and economic activity reduction. Nevertheless, both Spain and Brazil have shown some above estimates volumes increase in traditional guarding demand coming from certain clients to support their anti-COVID procedures, such as social distancing control or temperature measure. But on the other hand, there has been a higher-than-expected deterioration in U.S. revenues, due to the high exposure of our Security business in that country to the air transportation clients. It's interesting to note that this increase of traditional guarding demand has also brought some margin enhancement, as those services are required to perform higher value-added tasks for the clients, and therefore, price scheme is more profitable. This links to the new products penetration figures. As you can see, there has been a noticeable increase in these type of solutions that combine a high degree of technology, mainly remote monitoring, with traditional guarding services, to reach now 33% of total sales. Reasons for this rely heavily on the demand of new anti-COVID or COVID-free solutions that our CFO explained to you some minutes ago, and we believe most of them will end up being of regular and continuous use in many customer premises. Moving on to profitability of Security in the period. We can see that EBITA in absolute terms have been almost equal to the same period in 2019, even with some slight 0.3% increase. This has uplifted our EBITA margin from 2.1% to 2.4%, a good result, considering the very adverse environment suffered by all companies in Q2, and a good proof of the fast adaptation capabilities of the Security business when having to face cost control measures. In fact, besides aforementioned higher demand of higher profitability services in the period, this margin improvement can be also explained by the beneficial effect of the cost control measures implemented, even taking into consideration that some of them could not be fully implemented, due to the very intense legal restrictions in some Ibero-American countries related to cost adjustments and furlough policies. To conclude this business line breakdown analysis, let's look now at the performance of the Alarms in the period. As indicated by Antonio Rubio, the commercial activity of the Alarms has been severely impacted by the lockdowns and confinements, in conjunction with all the social distancing measures since the beginning of the pandemic, to almost last weeks of June. These measures imply that no interactions with clients in their homes was low, and therefore, not much new sales activity could be performed during the period. The result of this is clearly visible on the total contract base figure in the chart that has been reduced on nearly 11,000 connections during this period. Our Spanish joint venture with Telefónica, Movistar Prosegur Alarms has also been affected by this situation and although they initiated operations at the beginning of March, real sales activity has been restarted in mid-June. All efforts in the last business in both MPA and Prosegur have been focused in the period towards client retention and churn rate control, being this another challenge to face, as churn rate in commercial and small business alarms has sharply increased as a consequence of all the closings and lockdowns that have severely affected this tier of clients. Nevertheless, when looking at revenue generation, we can still appreciate a sound almost 12% organic growth. This is a good indicator of the capability of the business to transfer inflation increase to prices with no issues and the strong cash generation profile of the business as collections from clients are done in time with no problems on the remaining installed base. In organic revenues dropped down of minus 26.6% refers solely to the deconsolidation of the Spanish Alarms from the consolidated perimeter, while adverse FX also has a noticeable effect as now more than 2/3 of the existing connections are based in Ibero-America. ARPU has also remained on the same figures of previous quarter, with no noticeable variations. Being our current average ARPU of EUR 33 per month on the alarms directly managed by Prosegur and 39 on the ones under Movistar Prosegur Alarmas' perimeter, the compound combination of both income still throws the EUR 36 per month average ARPU of past years. In summary, a sales stagnation of purely temporary nature that has had a negative effect in number of connections that is being very quickly corrected as commercial activity is being resumed, and that has a very positive impact in cash flow, as we have barely incurred in cost of sales during the period. That was all on my side regarding the evolution and performance of our different business lines. I will now hand over the presentation to our Finance Director, Maite Rodríguez, who will cover the main financial parameters of this first half of 2020 results.

Maite Sedano

executive
#5

Thank you very much, Antonio. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you very much for attending this presentation. I want now to briefly comment on our consolidated cash flow statement, financial position and the balance sheet. Starting with the cash flow statement. You can appreciate the strong operating cash flow generation, above EUR 140 million. This implies a significant improvement when compared with the already good first half 2019 figure. In terms of EBITDA to cash conversion, in June 2020, this ratio reaches an outstanding level of 88.3% after normalizing the purely accounting impact of the IAS 16. Cash generation during the second quarter of the year has been especially remarkable considering the adverse circumstances Prosegur has faced since the COVID-19 outbreak. Due to the pandemic, EBITDA has suffered a severe deterioration above 25% versus same period in 2019. However, thanks to the rapid and efficient response to the crisis coming from Prosegur, cash flow generation has not been damaged. As a consequence of several measures taken, such as constant collections follow-up across all main geographies and top clients, a good working capital optimization has been successfully achieved. On top of that, provisions and other noncash items shows certain temporary improvement, mainly driven by some payments deferrals to minimize the COVID-19 effect. When it comes to the interest payments, there is a slight increase explained by the full disposal of the syndicated revolving credit facility and other short-term credit lines as a cautious financial strategy just in case of tougher macro situation could occur in the future. As of CapEx, the lockdown period has resulted in a significant decrease, both in client CapEx because of a lower sales volume, and in maintenance CapEx due to the strict cash protection measure implemented. Another good example of liquidity protection action applied during the second quarter of the year is the scrip dividend offered to Prosegur and Cash shareholders for the second and third installment in April and June, respectively. Both programs were well received and have meant a significant cash savings, higher than 50% of the committed amount to be paid. As far as Others is concerned, it keeps broadly in line compared to March '20 and mainly contains adjustments driven by the consolidation of the Spanish Alarm division, which from March on, is being consolidated under the equity method, together with temporary operating effects coming from certification systems. To conclude, the priority of Prosegur is to protect the working capital and the optimization of the cash flow generation. Therefore, we will maintain all measures needed to achieve these goals. Looking now at the group's financial position, we can see that at the end of the first half of the current year, total net debt amounted EUR 855 million, including both deferred payments of EUR 107 million and treasury stock at market price of EUR 96 million. If we furthermore include additional IAS 16-related debt of EUR 97 million, total net debt reaches to EUR 949 million. Regarding the debt, the most important aspect of the second quarter of 2020 is taking full control of the debt and keeping it within limits, in line with the same levels of March, even though April and May have been the toughest month in terms of lockdown impact. This achievement has been accomplished, thanks to the cash protection measures implemented immediately when the health crisis appeared. Dividend reinvestment plans, CapEx reductions and focus on working capital improvements are, among others, some of the actions taken which have been fully accomplished. As far as leverage is concerned, you can appreciate a slightly increase in the net financial debt-to-EBITDA ratio during the quarter, reaching to 2x. This evolution is driven by the EBITDA decrease because of FX and the pandemic mainly. Having said that, the group maintains a comfortable headroom in this regard, being well below the internal leverage limit of 2.5x and even further to the banking covenants of 3.5x. When it comes to pure cost of debt, our group's average keeps evolving positively, with a reduction of 25 basis points when compared to the same period last year. In this respect, cost risen due to funds repatriation process has been considered as FX cost, since it is a direct consequence of the highly volatile current currencies environment. To conclude with our financial information review, let's now have a look at our consolidated balance sheet. In general, there haven't been any significant changes during the second quarter of 2020. The only exception worth mentioning are assets and liabilities related to Prosegur Security operations in France, classified as available for sale ahead of the imminent disinvestment transaction agreed with the local player. As mentioned before, the protective liquidity measures applied during the period to face the dramatic health crisis have meant significant savings and efficiencies that you can appreciate in our balance sheet. I wish to highlight that our debt maturity profile remains very solid, since close to 85% of our financial liability are considered of long-term nature. As a final remark, treasury stock as of June 2020 reached EUR 45 million of own shares, representing 7.52% of share capital of the group. This is all from my side. I'd like now to return the presentation back to our CFO, Antonio Rubio, who will share his final conclusions and remarks with you. Thank you very much for your attention.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#6

Thank you, Maite. Now for my closing remarks, I would like first to restate once again our deepest appreciation to all our professionals that have spent the worst of the pandemic on the frontline, helping our clients and society to stay safe. Their attitude and willingness have been remarkable and all of us feel extremely proud of working alongside with them. Unfortunately, the situation is not yet over. The pandemic effects so far have been of greater impact in developed countries, but they could be of longer duration in emerging ones and as I stated in my forewords, we prefer to maintain a cautious stance in our estimations and forecast for the rest of the year. Our business model continues delivering resilient results. And the COVID solutions had helped growth and profitability in Security. Cash is showing a progressive and fast recovery as the general economy is coming back to normal, and Alarms has experienced a commercial slowdown that is currently being corrected with renewed sales teams and intensive marketing actions. Profitability begins to recover its growth path, as it is implicit in its underlying results, although we are still under the effects of several temporary positive and negative influences that may be normalized in the coming future, and that's, once again, our prudent approach to any type of outlook. Lastly, extraordinary cash flow and liquidity protection measures have yield a very good results, being proof of this, the strong operational cash flow generated in the period, as well as the sound financial position the company holds today. We are very proud of the high professionalism of all our staff when applying those measures even in the complex labor situation we have been living in the past months, and therefore, many of those measures will become a permanent nature within our group's financial discipline. Nevertheless, please note that some of the achievements obtained are of temporary nature, and thus, we cannot include them in future quarters' estimations. Finally, a few words about our ESG commitment. As we shared with you 1 year ago, ESG compliance is a structural part of all our actions and plans. As you can see, even in these hazardous times, we have continued implementing and reinforcing our sustainability policies, to point that we are proud to quote that we have been ranked by Sustainalytics as the lowest ESG Risk Rating of our industry in 2019. We will continue improving in all these areas within in the same constructive attitude we have always applied to everything related to our exemplary governance model. No more on my side. Thank you, once, again for your participation in this call. And now I will be glad to take all your questions.

Operator

operator
#7

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Pedro Alves of Caixabank.

Pedro Alves

analyst
#8

Three questions, if I may. The first one on the moving parts on your margin. In terms of the efficiency plan, this had already an impact in terms of savings in the quarter, and what is the expected payback for the EUR 25 million cost? And how much your margin benefited in the quarter from the government support schemes, apart from the EUR 9 million of subsidies? And the second question on Cash. You mentioned a recovery of the past month. Can you give us an idea in terms of the volumes transported as a percentage of the pre-COVID level and where do you stand right now? And lastly, on the Security business, what was the impact of the legal restrictions on your cost adjustments?

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#9

Pedro, thank you for your questions. About the margin evolution, in this moment, we have different effects. It's difficult to -- clearly to define what are the origins of these different drivers. The company is doing its best for adjusting the cost and some of the saving measures with the accompanying structure and nature. In the case of Security, we are seeing that they're losing some contracts due to the lockdowns. But at the same time, the new kind of offering and the new products are of different margin. So we consider that in the long term, in the long term, we should see a recovery in margins. I think the short term, it's very difficult to say, but this is depending of the recovery and the moment in the following quarters in which normal activity will come back. About Cash volumes, in the worst moment, in the worst country, we saw a reduction in volumes close to 60%, week -- against the same week in the year before. The average in the group have been different. And in this moment, in most countries, we are between 80% and 90% of the normal volumes. And our Security. Pedro, excuse me, I didn't understand your questions. Can you repeat it, please?

Pedro Alves

analyst
#10

Yes, sure. Just what was the impact of the legal restrictions that you mentioned to your cost adjustments in LatAm?

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#11

Pedro, very significant because we -- the impact of different restrictions received by the company, despite the furlough in the U.S. and Singapore, are not significant. In the case of Spain, for example, you know that we have more than 33,000 people, it's less than EUR 0.5 million, but we have been able to adjust our level of people in -- of our businesses, but in countries like Brazil, Argentina is nearly impossible. So this is the reason because in the short term, the impact in the margin have been so significant. But depending on the volume that we will see after our summer, we continue adjusting the structure. But the problem is that the law in Argentina, for example, at this moment, it's absolutely forbidden to fire any people, and it's something very similar in Brazil.

Operator

operator
#12

The next question comes from the line of Paco of Exane.

Francisco Ruiz

analyst
#13

I have a couple of questions. The first one is regarding the margin on Security that in the Q2 has hiked a lot versus the previous quarter. So apart from this change in mix, I would like to know if it is -- we can maintain this margin of about 3% in every terms for the full year. I understand that you said that it's difficult to predict, but if the mix effect continues, should it be maintained? And also related to this, and despite all this restriction, could we see a restructuring plan similar to one seen in Cash for Security? And the last question is on your corporate center contribution to EBIT, which it is -- or it used to be negative, around EUR 10 million to EUR 15 million every quarter, and this quarter, it's around 10% positive. So give us an explanation of this.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#14

Paco, thank you for your questions. About the margin of Security, you know that we are really excited about the improvement of the money in the activity, and we were awaiting many results in all these new offerings in this year, and the reality is that the situation is different, but the result very similar. What is happening is that we have seen a reduction in volumes coming, for example, for football stadiums or Rock in Rio. But at the same time, the increase in volumes, for example, what we are seeing in the supermarket is coming more than a standard gap of security, with the typical people in Spain, and a different price of what we call ancillary services. So these are very important in services. It's of a better margin. And all the new products related to the COVID-free spaces is the typical integral solution, where we are using thermal cameras, we are using video analytics with artificial intelligence and sophisticated software behind for analyzing the -- using the network of cameras for the customer, for example, in paying a station for analyzing the application of the security -- the new security protocols and all these kind of integral solution had a better margin. At the same time, we are working within the Security activity in plans very similar to that the Cash activity is applying because the future of Security is with more technology, with more software, with the integrated solution or consulting. And it's a duty to transform, basically, the activity and probably to all these thing that are happening will shape a different industry in the following years. And about the corporate charge is mainly related to the collection of something coming from the insurance related to the cybersecurity attack we suffered last year, and we have collected it in this quarter.

Francisco Ruiz

analyst
#15

Antonio, could you give us an idea of what does the corporate center look like at the year-end because of this volatility, it's a little bit difficult for us.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#16

Paco, in this moment, our best estimation is a figure very similar to that of the last full year in this year, too.

Operator

operator
#17

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Rahul of HSBC.

Rahul Chopra

analyst
#18

I have 2 questions. One on Alarms. Could you give us more color in terms of what were the churn rates? And maybe if you can give split across Spain and other geographies, that would be really helpful. Secondly, in terms of Cash business, can you just give us a bit more color in terms of the volume increase due to delayed packages, which is greatly what was probably the [ cause ]. Just some color in terms of what that impact was.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#19

Rahul, thank you for your question. On Alarms, the behavior of the Alarms business have been very special in the situation. In one side, you can see, yes, we had increase in profitability because it's a very profitable business with very healthy gross margin. But when you are investing all the profit in acquiring new customers, you are not seeing in the short-term in the P&L. So what are happening in this situation is that their residential churn is very similar to normal rates, around 11%, slightly increased. But the small businesses, the commerce, the shops that are suffering a lockdown in the short term, the first thing they are doing is disconnecting electricity supply and the ordinary suppliers, for example, the alarm. And we are seeing extraordinary churn rate, but that we consider they are only for a very short period of time. In Spain, for example, close to 17%. That is something extraordinary. It's depending on the mix of residential and commercial alarms in every country, that's -- the impact in the broader churn is different. In Spain, for example, we have more than 17% of alarms of the residential nature and only less than 30% in commercial. But in any case, this impact, we consider that it's only a short-term effect and as soon as the lockdown will disappear, the normal churn rate will be recovered. And about the Cash business, if I understand well your question about the extraordinary volumes, we have suffered a reduction in volumes in Europe, clearly. Depending on the use of cash in every country, more significant, for example, in Portugal or Spain than in Germany, but clearly, the process of less use of cash for any activity with payments have been a little bit accelerated during this pandemic in Europe. In fact, coming from Rome and false news related to the cash like a driver for contagion, but that is absolutely false. The cash is safer. The credit card, because -- you should wash your hands after touching banknotes, but no one, I think, can [ just do ]. But to touch the TPV and to use our credit card in different devices is a driver more significant for spreading the infection. But it's clear that we have seen a reduction in volumes in Europe. And probably, we will recover in the future than on the past. We will see a volume probably 95% of the traditional one. In Latin America, people need cash for their day-to-day activity. At the same time, the governments are distributing money to the people and this kind of aid in LatAm have been distributed using cash and we have seen extraordinary volume, but nothing significant. Probably, the main impacts is not coming from the -- not probably sure, the main impact is not coming from the -- these extraordinary package of aids coming from the governments. For example, in the case of Brazil, it's only air transportation for distributing cash to the ATMs because the people in LatAm, when they are worried about the situation, they are using more cash, not less.

Operator

operator
#20

The next question comes from the line of Miguel González of JB Capital Markets.

Miguel González Toquero

analyst
#21

Two questions on my side. The first one is regarding the Alarms business. We have seen a decline in the number of subscribers in the quarter, well, essentially, given the low commercial activity during the confinement. On one hand, I would like to know if you have registered a solvency provision in this segment. And also, I don't know if you could give us an indication of the evolution of the Alarms business in June and July compared to April and May and also whether you have any target on the number of subscribers for this year. And my second question is a follow-up on a previous one. I don't know if I heard it properly, but I understood that EUR 9 million subsidies will receive in the U.S. in Security. So I don't know if you will give us what will have been the EBITA margin in the Security, excluding positive and negative one-offs in the second quarter.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#22

Miguel, thank you for your question. About Alarms, we don't have any provision because we are collecting the Alarms in 1 month in advance usually. So if we lose a customer, we don't have a collection problem or of a debt problem. But in any case, despite this shortened effect coming from the lockdowns and the cost for being in the commercial activity, what we can see in June and July is a recovery. And in the specific case of Spain, and extraordinary behavior of the new acquisition in Alarms, we are matching our records day by day, week by week and month by month and in the coming, we can maintain our budget for the full year, but I think it's not an exaggeration to consider that this year, we will achieve a figure in new connections in Spain, more than 3x the historical path, 3x. So we are very happy with our joint venture with Telefónica and the behavior of Movistar Prosegur Alarmas in Spain is really, really a success, even in the present environment and considering that only 1 week ago, we had all our full commercial infrastructure working at a street level and probably the capacity of the Telefónica network is close to half of their normal standard capacity. So we are very, very optimistic about the growth in Alarms. We are very worried about the economic situation and the social consequences of this situation for the next future. And we had our internal department analyzing security in the world and we are -- we probably will suffer in the following year, a less safe world, in some cases mainly in the countries of our footprint, mainly in LatAm. So we are not foreseeing any reason for a reduction in the demand of domestic alarms. If at the same time, we are adding more value-added products in the offering, we consider that the scenario, the next scenario for Alarms business is really, really good. And at the same time, if you have the collaboration, the participation of a partner of the size and commercial strength, like Telefónica, is really, really a promise of success for the following years. And about the facility in the U.S. The portion corresponding to this is month is in covering to the P&L and in the profitability of Security division in this quarter.

Operator

operator
#23

We have no more questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Antonio Rubio for final remarks.

Antonio Rubio Merino

executive
#24

Once again, thank you very much for attending this presentation in this special day that here in Spain is the beginning of our summer holidays. Thank you very much for your attention. I would like to remark once again the extraordinary effort done by our people and all our people dressed in uniform in the supermarkets, in the train station, in many places, guaranteeing a safer environment for all of us and certainly, for that, they have developed. And we consider that we remain in a very complicated situation in the months to follow, but that the strength of our balance sheet and the strong capacity of our teams will provide Prosegur with many opportunities in the next months and in the next year. Thank you very much, and have a nice holidays.

Operator

operator
#25

That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.

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