Raízen S.A. (RAIZ4) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Raizen Third Quarter of 2023 and '24 Crop Year Earnings Presentation. This presentation is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's IR website at ri.raizen.com.br/en and at Raizen official YouTube channel. We would like to inform you that all attendees will only be listening to the presentation, and then we will start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. This call will be presented in English with Portuguese transcript. For the Q&A session, there will be a simultaneous translation to Portuguese. To change the audio, you can press on the globe icon located on the lower right side of your Zoom screen and then choose to enter the Portuguese room. After that, you can select your traditional auto for a better experience. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of Raizen Executive Board using curing information available. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore, depends on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors and analysts should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario the industry and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements. Today, we have the presence of the following company's executives. Ricardo Mussa, CEO; Carlos Moura, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; and Phillipe Casale, Head of IR. Now I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Casale. Please, you may begin your presentation, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you once again joining us to our results presentation. I'm Phillipe Casale, Director of Investor Relations, and I'm here with our CFO, Carlos Moura. I would like to remind you that this presentation is being broadcast live on our YouTube channel with Portuguese subtitles. To kick off this presentation, I invite Carlos to talk about the key advances we made in the third quarter of the 2023/'24 crop year. Carlos?

Good morning, Philippe, and good morning to everyone. We are presenting another quarter of outstanding performance and robust results, keeping up with the trends in this crop year. I'd like to go over the progress in our priorities and the value creation drivers at Raizen. Firstly, in Mobility. Profitability is advancing consistently in Brazil and Latin America, demonstrating the evolution of the Shell integrated offer. In Brazil, we are operating in a healthier competitive environment, contributing to a current level of margins and encouraging further investments in the expansion of our network with a dealer-centric approach. In Latin America, we maintain consistency in our positioning adding resilience to the regional macroeconomic and political scenario, while upholding our principles of safety, operational efficiency and environmental management. The second pillar is agricultural productivity. We proudly concluded the main production period of the crop with record of yields and crushing volumes. As you know, our top capital allocation priority is the recovery of agriculture productivity. The figures reported reflect the success of this journey, generating operational leverage. We remain disciplined in achieving our target potential for sugarcane within a maximum of 2 years. Regarding sugar, our third pillar, supply and demand fundamentals continue to point to future prices that uphold a superior profitability cycle with hedging position that provides predictability. For ethanol, with sustained resin prices premium based on our product mix, differentiating ourselves in the industry. Even in a scenario of lower prices in Brazil, geographies and application expansion add more value to our products, mainly due to its certified quality, sustainable management and technology development connected to the end customer. That [indiscernible] inventory positioning allowed us to operate with more exports, fully beating domestic demand and confirming a better price environment especially in these recent weeks. The fifth pillar is Raízen Power. We are keeping up the pace of energy generation and trading building a robust platform for customers and electro mobility. Last week, we have probably announced a significant agreement with BYD to deliver 30 electric charging hubs and offering solutions to the brand's dealerships with our clean and relievable energy. Now let's move to our E2G program. Operations at Costa Pinto Biopark, the plant #1, are running at full capacity. Our plant #2 at Bonfim BioPark is expected to achieve production corresponding to approximately 60% of the plant's capacity in its first year of operations totally commercialized. We are continuing the construction works on plants 3, 4, 5 and 6, while advancing design and planning projects for plants 7,8 and 9 without any constraints. I would like to reiterate that the E2G program is progressing as planned with a backlog of long-term contracts exceeding EUR 4 billion. These advancements reinforce our leadership as the only global player in cellulosic ethanol, large-scale production. It's also worth highlighting our consistency in maintaining a healthy balance sheet, investment-grade status with a commitment to a capital structure consistent with Raizen growth cycle and [indiscernible] show leverage. Now -- let's move on to the highlights of the results announced yesterday. The figures presented in our report reinforced the consistent progress of our operations. Sugar and Mobility boost robust margins expansion supporting a quarter of consolidated EBITDA growth. On the other hand, in the renewable segment, these lower sales pace and lower ethanol prices due to technical positioning affected the profitability in this quarter. Our capital allocation continues to focus on the journey to recover agricultural productivity, the E2G program, the share integrated offer to our clients in Mobility, asset integrity in Argentina refinery and the expansion of Raízen Power businesses. Leverage follows the crop dynamics. And we expect ending the fiscal year with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of less than 1.8x. Free cash flow for shareholders and [indiscernible] have also evolved supported by our business results, tax credit monetization and current capital allocation. Now I will turn the floor back to Phillipe to highlight each of the business segments.

Thank you, Carlos. In the Mobility segment, the major highlight was once again the level of profitability. Starting with Brazil, I want to highlight 4 points that contributed to these robust results. First, we maintained our focus on optimizing our supply strategy with assertive pricing approach, ensuring the competitiveness of our dealers. This strategy ensured higher profitability even with the inventory loss in December after the price reduction announcement. Second, we continue to expand our base of contracted customers and dealers while operating in a healthier competitive environment, which has also contributed to these better margins. The third point, we have increasingly emphasized our centrality of customers with investments in the Shell integrated offer is strengthening our value proposition. And finally, in lubricants, we are rapidly increasing the penetration of Shell products, reposition our business to capture higher margins. In LATAM operations, we had an unusual quarter due to the macroeconomic and political environment, especially in Argentina, the expansion of the Shell network in recent years, investments in Shell Box, lubricants and in logistics services supported the level of demand, also contributing to the EBITDA evolution. The capital structure in Argentina resulted in reduced net leverage due to our exposure to pesos devaluation. Moving on to renewables and sugar, we are excited to share the great results of the intensive journey to recover agricultural productivity at Raizen as this is the main driver of capital allocation. We ended a crushing December with record numbers. And as you can see, we have already surpassed 2/3 of this journey. In another 2 years, all of sugarcane foods will be within its potential, generating greater product availability for sale, operational efficiency and consequently, cost dilution. Speaking of dilution, this effect is evident in the results for the first 9 months of the crop year, as shown in this chart. Our operational leverage was able to absorb inflationary effects in the period as well as other costs. However, our costs were affected by the greater number of crushing days and the evolution of the CONSECANA. Now moving to our sales strategy, which has proven effective this season. We ended the quarter with above average inventory levels, both for sugar and ethanol in line with our technical market position to capture better returns. In sugar, the hedge towards the end of the crop should guarantee higher margin and return. Despite future price volatility, we have progress in future hedge with higher year-over-year prices, supporting our bullish view on sugar prices. In the case of petro, we also maintained the high inventories for the intercrop period, aiming to capture better prices. As we have been seeing in recent weeks, local market prices have reacted positively, which should contribute to a favorable fourth quarter given the higher sales volume at a superior price level. Regardless of this scenario, our integrated position with a portfolio exploring different applications and markets moving [indiscernible], aiming to capture better prices as we have been seeing in recent weeks local market prices have reacted positively, which should contribute to a favorable fourth quarter given the higher sales volume at a superior price level. Regardless of this scenario, our integrated position with a portfolio exploring different applications and markets contributed to capture higher prices. Well, now I hand over it for Carlos for his final remarks. Thank you, Carlos.

Thank you, Philippe. I'll highlight some elements of the cash flow for the quarter, which shows a strong expansion in cash generation, starting with operating cash flow. The behavior of working capital lines is still impacted by the increase in inventory positions, offset by positive results in Mobility and Sugar segments. It's important to note the monetization of tax credits as a complementary source of funds to our company and strengthening our balance sheet. The cash flow of investing activities shows total coverage with our capital allocation priorities, especially regarding the journey to recover agricultural uses in the construction of E2G plants. This quarter was also affected by lower intercrop maintenance CapEx due to the increased crushing base, leading to a larger scale maintenance CapEx in the next quarter. The cash flow from financing activities reflects the liability management during the period, in line with our commitment to maintain a robust balance sheet considering seasonality and seeking to extend the average debt term going forward. It's important to remember that our indicators are likely to converge at the end of the year crop, aligned with the pace of inventories, commercialization and margins. To conclude, I'd like to assess with you the opportunities and risk scenario for this last quarter. In opportunities, I highlight results from the Mobility segment. The improvement in the operational environment over the last 2 quarters in connection with our supply and marketing strategy is positioning our company with margins at a sustainable level. The declining interest rates in Brazil is beneficial for Raizen in country, incurring not only lower financial expenses, but also in a different appetite for consumption and investments by our B2B customers. Our cost management program denominated Conta Comigo, which seeks to reduce expenses through matrix management by packages and entities along with the organizational simplification carried out in the company based on the expanding span of reports has shown significant results and will continue to contribute to margin reliability. In short-term challenges, I highlight the volatility and external factors that can impact our business, such as the ethanol market price requiring resilience to sustain our product mix with a premium, taking advantage of the recent price recovery trend as well the attention with the macroeconomic and political scenario in Argentina. Raizen presented another quarter with a clear evolution and consistency in our capital allocation commitments. This energizes and motivates our team reinforcing the commitment to the guidance, delivering the crushing volume and looking into the bottom point for EBITDA, which means BRL 13.5 billion and CapEx around BRL 13 billion according to our material fact published on last May 12, 2023. Now we move on to the Q&A session with the participation of our CEO, Ricardo Mussa.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from [indiscernible] from [indiscernible]. Can you hear me well?

Yes, we can.

I'm [indiscernible]. I wanted to dive a little deeper regarding this ethanol strategy. I understand that you've been following this for 2 quarters already, and the ethanol prices were still going down. Looks like the market has changed. The trend has change. So it could be a very, very interesting strategy for you guys. But then I wanted to understand connecting the production with inventories and also what the other players are doing. If -- when we look at the trading strategy and also the trading volumes also decreased, are you finding some good opportunities on buying third-party ethanols or other players as to holding this strategy. So I wanted to get a better understanding of this. If not only Raizen when other smaller players not because of vendors, but sometimes because of this longer season, they are also carrying more ethanol to the off season. So this is my first question. We are optimistic regarding prices, but then it looks like that the inventories, the market inventories are still really high. And I wanted to get a bit understanding as well regarding the Mobility. It was a very strong quarter and it looks like it could hold these levels. But when we look at the volumes imported by Russian diesel, for example, they continue to increase. So if you could give more details to better reason this, I would appreciate just to get the understanding why you expect this good moment to continue.

Thank you, [indiscernible]. So first of all, on the ethanol strategy, of course, we don't open our strategy. And that's why it's trading as it's a really good team doing that. So I won't talk too much about that. What I can tell you is that we are an integrated company. We can clearly see the consumption at the pumps really moving up considerably. So I think the same way -- I think a big difference that we had from last year is that the consumer now is really pushing demand much higher than we had in the previous year. So that's a big difference from what we had before. And of course, we understand the trend. We have a very good, say, awareness of what's happening, and we try to do the best supply we can. But I will not be able now to give you more details on our strategy because this could jeopardize our strategy at the end of the day. What I can assure you, we have been very good on the supply side and on the trading desk but really because we have the integrated portfolio. So that's as much as I can share. Sorry for that. On the Mobility, you're right, still since December, we're seeing more -- and that has been the -- if you look into the history and the recent history of how Petrobras is behaving. So there is less price fluctuations, local in Brazil. So normally, what we're seeing is more fluctuations on the imports and margin. So it depends, of course, on the import parity. There is some things that are very difficult for the market to read. It's how much inventory was built because of the increase on taxes. So when you see all these additional volume, I think it was based on that. But having said that, we also saw a lot of fluctuation on the international prices of diesel more recently. I think for me, I think the overall message is we are seeing a more as I always said, since the IPO of the company. I think there is a structural change on where the margins of this segment is going to stabilize. I think the risks that anyone that is importing are higher than it was before. Therefore, they also want higher margins. So I think that's the reason why you see even in a scenario with more product coming in I think all the players independent, the small ones. Everybody is looking for a higher partners because it's somewhat risky than it was before with all the international, what's happening with the Red Sea, Ukraine and so on and so forth. So I think the overall message is the market is moving to, in my view, the company's view, into more stable but higher margins overall.

Our next question comes from Lucas Ferreira from JPMorgan.

Yes. Sorry. I think now you can hear me. So my first question is on the sugar and renewables, actually on the let's say, sugarcane part of the business. We know that it's kind of contracted right at improvement in your yields, given your first cut and second cut, very good results. But we have been seeing pretty dry weather since the end of the last year and some consultants reducing expectations for overall crush in the center south of Brazil. So I'm wondering, given your size, if you're selling something like that, if you have already sort of a first view of the '24, '25 crop, if eventually you could see some impact or kind of an anticipation of what could be the crushing in this season? If you're seeing any impact at all? And then just a follow-up on that is the cost per tonne, which is falling. How to think about that next quarter. I know that probably this will improve a little further given the size of the crushing and the inventories you're forming just to how to pretty much like to think about your cost per tonne ex CONSECANA going into the next quarters?

Thank you, Lucas. I think the weather, as you said, this last crop season that we had that is still with a fantastic one on weather-wise, when we are doing our forecast for next year, we always use normal weather. We do not expect even lower or higher so far, it's still early to tell. So December was dryer, but January was a little bit better. At this time of the year, we have excess water independently. So when you have a little bit less rain, it does not impact us much. But it's early to say, Lucas, we have wait a little bit more we are only going to have our numbers on the -- by end of March, beginning of April. What we can see, as you said, our recovery it's already there. So we expect the fourth cut next year be much, much better than this year. So we are keeping our base exactly the same way as we did before. That's why the cost -- going to your second question is still going down. We still, I think 1/3 of what we wanted to be on the cost reduction. It's in the numbers. We still have a lot of potential to reduce basically improving productivity moving ahead. That's, as you said, taking away all the consequent, all of the variable costs on the table. But we are more confident now than we were before because it has been very consistent now for 3 years in a row what we planted and how it performed. So very good. I think there are some good signs on inflation being under control, especially on everything that we buy for our product. So I feel we are more optimistic, I would say, in that sense. But for me, the biggest point here is our -- how we are performing and how we are recovering. So that has been our #1 priority -- still #1 priority and very happy with the results so far, very happy what we're planting this off-season, everything is on the right track, okay?

There is a point regarding the cost per tonne right, Lucas?

Yes.

If I may, if you are right, Lucas, due to the intercrop, the CPA may be stable or a little bit higher. However, it's important to note, in the next quarter the effect of the CPV because we will expand the commercialization. And naturally, we will drive the turnover of the inventories or the inventory costs into the P&L. Having said that, this quarter, we had a decrease in the CPV per tonne in 50 basis points. We expect to achieve at least this level of reduction or higher for next quarter.

Our next question comes from Bruno Montanari from Morgan Stanley.

I have some quick questions here. One, on sugar prices, if you could help us try to reconcile something. It seems like the gap between your calculated prices and the release price is widening. So if you could talk about the reason why sugar prices were so healthy in the quarter, that would be super helpful. Number 2, Mussa, I know you are not giving much color on the commercial strategy. But when we think about the destocking and given that your inventory still looks a bit on the high end, is it fair to assume that it could take longer than a quarter for us to see maybe a more normalized level of inventories? And then a third one, sorry, looking at the guidance. So if we assume that you successfully destock and then you have this theme of costs being lower as the inventory turnover gets into effect, wouldn't it be possible for you to pursue something closer to the midpoint of the guidance rather than the bottom end?

Thank you, Bruno. First, on the first question, one thing is what we hedge on the sugar. But remember that we have a strategy to go to the final clients. So we have been able to really entertaining and have very good contracts on the sugar side. So one thing is how much we hedge, the other thing, how much added value we have by going to the final client. So when you see that difference, it shows that our strategy is paying off. We have been really good on making -- because 3 years ago or 4 years ago, we had 0 of our -- of sugar going into the final clients always to trading companies. Now we have our own production 100% going to final client. So that's the benefit of this strategy that you see on those different all those numbers. The same thing that you see on the ethanol side, we started to see now on the sugar side. So that's the explanation. Inventories level, we -- of course, there is a lot now to go on this quarter off of sugar. Very confident on the logistics. You -- I think something that also surprised not only Brazil, but also the globe was the capacity of Brazil to dispatch so much sugar in December also now in January. So this is -- we are confident that we can do it. It's a big volume, you're right but we are confident that we can do and deliver to our clients what we agreed upon. On the guidance side, we are still on the bottom of the range being very careful here and give you indications on that, but we're still not comfortable to go into the middle, and we are keeping at the bottom of the range on the guidance.

Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte from BTG.

Yes. First question is on the agricultural improvement journey as you put it. You mentioned that last crop, you had 2/3 of the sugarcane under higher productivity potential. So my question is actually where you see that ratio heading into the next crop. And the reason why I'm asking this is because if -- when you look at the harvested area of your own cane, it's down, I think, 36,000 hectares versus a year ago levels and more than 100,000 hectares versus 2 years ago. So it appears to us that you guys have renewed your sugar cane at a very fast pace in the last 2 years, particularly last year. So it appears that you might be heading very, very soon to the point where you have the majority, the vast majority of your cane in a more healthy situation. So that will be the first question. And obviously, what I'm trying to assess here is whether we could expect or start to expect the CapEx for planting coming down next crop relative to this crop already. So that would be the first one. The second one is regarding what you call customer advancements, right, as we see on the balance sheet. I mean, this number continues to rise. I think it's now over BRL 7 billion. So just to make sure, is there -- is that number any advancement from E2G sales that you guys may have already anticipated the cash down payment or that's just for regular sugar and ethanol at this point? And if I may, a third quick question. We saw this quarter a reduction in your total dealer base in Brazil, I think, for the first time in a few years. So just if you could comment a little bit on why is that? It's just a punctual adjustment in your fuel distribution gas station base this quarter? Or is that something that we might start to see going forward? I mean we saw other players in the industry making big debugging of their network. So just to hear from you where you guys think you are in that regard.

Thiago, thank you for the question. I'll take 2 questions and Carlos will take the -- I'll take the first and the third. So let me answer those 2 questions first, and Carlos will answer your second question. On the planting, we expect next year to be between 80% and 85% already done. So we're still on the -- of course, Thiago, the first years, we had to plant more. There were several parts of our plantation that we had to -- couldn't go to the sea for 6 cuts we had to anticipate that. That's no longer the case. So that's why you see the drop on the planting side. You should expect some reduction on the CapEx going ahead because the majority of the major problems are behind us. Of course, we still need to keep the pace, small adjustments need to be done, but the biggest ones already -- was behind us already. So to your point, you should expect next year, 80% to 85% of our sugarcane already under the potential. And again, we are very confident on that sense that we are going to meet that, especially what I'm seeing right now in this intercrop how much -- how good and the quality of the planting and that we are doing and very, very happy with the results. Nothing here to report Thiago that will move away from this strategy and it's paying off big, big time. To your point on the service station, that's really marginal. We are talking about 5 service stations reduction in the last quarter. On the year, we have 140 positive. So there is nothing here. We still -- there is no debug in our resellers here in our network, rate network, we have -- if you see, we have expanded our marketing efforts. We have been spending more and more on the digital side, providing a better offer to our dealers. So all the volume that you see the fluctuation is not on the dealer side, they're healthy, happy. We are doing record renewals on volume this year so far on the dealers. So again, this strategy pretty much in place. We're not going to change. And we are going to keep investing more and more marketing to keep offering our dealers a better offer, so they can make more money. That's very important. And we can make more money in that set. Of course, the fluctuations by quarter by quarter, but nothing here, and this quarter keeps a good pace of renewal, but it's margin on almost more than 6,000 service stations, talking about 5, it's really, really low. So Thiago, regarding the advance of E2G revenues, we are concluding the operation that we announced until the end of this month. But on top of that, I would like to highlight the importance of tax credits monetization in this year. We are completing over BRL 3 billion in monetization turning into the benefit of the balance sheet. Only in this quarter was BRL 1 billion. And especially if you compare the monetization of Pestrofines, the base nowadays is completely different. And we already started to recycle our portfolio. Recently, we announced a deal at [indiscernible], one of our subsidiaries exactly in order to also monetize the value implied in our assets and direct investments for the priorities that we are putting in our commitments.

Okay, Carlos. So in the -- what we saw in December 31, there is no advancement for E2G sales, right?

Exactly. Confirmed, there is no advance of E2G sales.

Our next question comes from [ Mattias Enfield ] from UBS.

Let me start congratulating on the results despite of the headwinds on ethanol. My first question is on fuel margins in Brazil, you disclosed the impact for supplier agreements. And I wanted to see if we understood how to see this properly. If we're looking to past results, we're talking about BRL 25 per cubic meter or some BRL 700 million to BRL 800 million per year in our estimates. So I wanted to understand if this is a balance, right? You can either do this or you can take the $7 billion to $8 billion in financial debt but potentially at a higher cost for Raizen, but leverage would go to 2.2%, 2.3%. So I'm really trying to understand like what is the alternatives for using the supplier agreements and how this would translate into higher financial costs, but perhaps higher EBITDA? How the company sees this balance? And then my second question is on the E2G ramp-up. So the Bonfim plant was concluded and at least we had expectations for production to start still last year. And we wanted to understand the dynamics around the commissioning of the plant if our expectations were wrong and the plant was always to start producing in early 2024? Or if commissioning has been more complex than expected and it's taking longer for Raizen or if this is a licensing issue with the regulator. So I'm trying to understand really what's the usual time line for the commissioning and where you're seeing most challenges in this point.

Thank you, Mattias. Great questions here. On the -- first of all, the idea of opening that was on the first question on the -- what we did with suppliers was to help the market to make the right comparison in the end of the day, that sits in our all the notes, you can have all the details that we had before. The idea here is to really help the analysts make the right comparison. That's what was behind that. It's a very good way. It's a very cheap way for us. So if you're looking to our profile, it's very interesting what we're doing. I think that adds value to our shareholders by doing that, reduce our total cost, and that's the best way despite the fact it's affecting the margins of the fields. But it was a better way to help the market make the comparisons that we might like to do.

No, just to add, Mattias, thank you for the question. Raizen has one of the top bankability in Brazilian market due to its credit rating and ability to assess this kind of structure with a differentiation condition when you compare with other players. And naturally, meanwhile we have more advantageous conditions than another source of funding, we will continue to do so. And for next quarter, we are adhering to a voluntary disclosure to put more details regarding the forfeiting transactions in order to consolidate our reputation of a top-tier company in terms of capital structure.

And, Mattias, to E2G ramp-up, E2G, the commissioning has been fantastic so far. Nothing here to report. There is no issues. We are -- of course, by the end of the crop season here, we are going to share some numbers. But so far, we are in a process now of the licensing of the plant that have to be done. But really, of what we have planned, the major challenge we always have with the first plant was the pretreatment and what took us almost 2 to 3 years on the initial plan to get ready on this plant. We've got only 2 weeks. So it was really phenomenal, especially on the most critical part of the process. It's a ramp-up. It's a commission, you have to make sure everything is right, and we are very careful on doing everything in the right way. But nothing here to report, Mattias, so other than that, it's been a great ramp up. The other 2 plants, the on-schedule on-budget issued by September, have all the other 2 plants up and running. So the plan, we are really in good shape, I would say. I think it's better than even as here in [indiscernible], we were anticipating. So let's go ahead.

Our next question comes from Isabella Simonato from Bank of America.

I have a couple of questions. First of all, it's on the leverage guidance, Carlos, you mentioned ending the year at 1.8x net debt EBITDA. I recall in the Raizen Day, right, you were targeting to keep net debt EBITDA in reals flattish, right, year-over-year between BRL 20 billion, BRL 22 billion. So if we take the end of the low end of the guidance, right, of EBITDA of BRL 13.5, billion it implies a little higher leverage than that. So I wonder if anything changed, right, versus what you were expecting? Or this is just ballpark numbers? The second thing is on the Mobility side, right. I wonder if you could explore more a little bit what you mean by the assertive supply strategy, right? If you're talking about local supply imports and how you're seeing competition on this because we -- of course, there is all this debate right about [indiscernible] and et cetera. So I wonder if you could explore a little bit more what the assertive supply strategy meant for this quarter?

Thank you, Isabella. I will start with the second question, then the leverage, I'll give to Carlos to answer. On the -- what we mean by assertive. It was amazing how well we perform against the market in our measure metrics here, not only on the diesel side, people look a lot into diesel. But ethanol is a big component too, gasoline is a big component. I think I was very proud with the integrated process from my team here, Del, Paulo, everyone doing a terrific job on the supply side, combining our understanding of what's happening in the market. And we -- it was a big differential. I think it's -- remember that we have great logistics. We have a great trading desk. And every time there is some volatility in the market, we have a lot of fluctuations on inventories, fluctuations on taxes that gives us even more opportunities to show the strength of an integrated company as we are. So this Isabella over time, if you look into the years has always been the case, but it was better this last quarter. And in this quarter, again, I think we -- also in this first -- last quarter of the year that we started in January. I still see this performance in doing great. So very happy here. Of course, we cannot share all the details, as I said to [indiscernible] from XP at the beginning, how we are doing on to give up all the secrets here and all the strategy behind it because we're still playing that strategy. But what I must say is that a good job for my team from everyone, from the logistics, from the trading on the Mobility team, everyone working together as we never did before. So this is a merit of an integrated strategy that we have right now, Isabella.

Isabella, about leverage, thank you for raising this point, exactly. Your reading is correct. It's a ballpark, and we are seeing this as a conservative approach due to the interest rates abroad, and we are defining to extend the duration of our debt. And naturally, with this behavior of treasury in the U.S., this may affect our interest rates and financial results. And naturally, in the end of the crop, you have a lot of movements, and that's really a conservative approach. But there is no change in terms of pursuing to reach at the same level of that net debt in reais, okay?

Our next question comes from Gabriel Barra from Citi.

I have, let's say, 3 follow-ups, quick follow-ups here. The first one E2G, you have mentioned here several times about this anticipation of the receivables to have like BRL 4.5 billion. My point here is to understand is what's could be the role of proceeds for this anticipation? If you discuss a little bit about that. Or maybe it could be a self fund for future projects on E2Gs or maybe paying dividends return this for the shareholders or only deleverage the company role. If you could talk a little bit about that. The second point I remember back in like 2 -- 1 year ago, we're talking about the distribution sector in Brazil. We have Mussa saying several times that the margin -- the sustainable margin was really, really wrong. And we are, let's say, a much better trend for the cycle a whole , not only you guys, but with the whole cycle, right? So my point here, you have said a little bit about the sector, but I trying to understand what should be the sustainable margin at this point. We have seen third quarter 2023, a really good shape 2024. The beginning of the year seems to be another good trend for the sector. My point is that this 180 or even the 200 that you printed in the normalized margin. This should be the stable number? Or we could see even a higher number for the sector from now on. Third follow-up here on the guidance. We have seen -- we have discussed about EBITDA but not about CapEx. And we have seen some lag here when you compare the guidance for CapEx for this year and what we have until this point. So if you could discuss a little bit if the guidance -- do you keep the guidance for CapEx or maybe you could see a lower number than the bottom of this range. So those 3 points here.

I will start here and then but Carlos will help me on that. First of all, if the -- E2G anticipation for me is also -- it's a very important strategy here, Gabriel, and a great question because a big difference from these E2G investment overall, it's being able to attract and have fantastic contracts on the side. It's very -- in my experience here, you don't normally -- don't have for big project, big investments in the industrial sites, the guarantee of price, the guarantee of volume. So by doing this, we want to create also a model. So this is a way, if you want to expand and bring new contracts, our self-funded. So of course, the use of procedures for E2G itself. So that's, of course, we're going to reduce our debt and so on and so forth. But more than that, it's a way because not many people understood yet the value of having such contracts. Those countries are phenomenal. You have no risk. It's a counterparty, AAA counterparty. There is no volume risk, no price risk. There's a minimum price guarantee. So the anticipation of those revenues, it's quite amazing because you can show that E2G is self-funded. It can grow and grow. So if we have huge expectations by doing that, even outside our own production going to third party. That's another way. You can go to a third party and say, here is a technology. Here is the contracts, and here's the money to do it. So it's a great way. That's why I'm always -- I see that not only as a financial tool to reduce that on the short term, but also it's a way of even expediting or showing to the market and going to other third parties with a program to expand it to beyond the boundaries of Raizen. So that's an important point. I don't know, Carlos, if you have anything to add here.

Yes, yes. Just to add, Gabriel, thank you for raising the question. The use of proceeds will be 100% oriented for the plant construction, and they will sustain naturally the expansion of our program. And the rationale behind the movement on top of that as Mussa said, is to take advantage of the rating of our counterparts. We have EUR 4.3 billion in contract backlog with the top-tier clients in terms of credit and rating. And why not to use this long-term contracts that you have very specific conditions to develop of solution in order to make a back-to-back funding for this expansion, maintaining a healthy balance sheet going forward. And naturally labeling this transaction with green stamp in order to enhance our sustainability initiatives.

And to your second question, Gabriel, on field distribution, you're right, I always said that I think when I compare and I always compare Brazil to other countries, Brazil has always been one of the bottom market for fuel, it doesn't make sense to have all that. What we've seen now is reflection of these, the markets are. And I said, I think even the risk involved when you are importing products from wherever it's coming from. You have seen what happened with prices in -- with the price in the Red Sea. What's happening here in Brazil of one of the major suppliers, Petrobras, changing the dynamic of the price adjustment fluctuations on taxes. So many things. So I still see potential growth on those margins, if I compare to other places. So I don't know if you reach the level we should be. There is going to be volatility, of course, on the margins as it should be. But I'm confident that we still haven't reached the level that I think is a reasonable level for the risk involved on this. So I'm still bullish looking ahead for margins for sure. And then your third question here was talking about the guidance, right? On the...

The guidance of CapEx. Yes. The guidance of CapEx. Remember that we that we have the commandments of our capital structure that the first commitment is to maintain our investment-grade status and the prudential leverage going forward. And keeping this in mind, the second commitment is the capital allocation, which we are driving for something around BRL 12 billion in this year. We had BRL 3 billion in this last quarter. It's likely to reach something about BRL 12 billion to BRL 12.5 billion. We do not expect something over BRL 13 billion. I would like to remind you that we have the effect of crop days in our expenses that we highlighted in the CPA, which naturally the counter effect is the reduction of the pressure over cap. Cash-wise, the effect is the same, okay?

Our next question comes from Gustavo Sadka from Bradesco BBI.

My first question is about Mobility Brazil. You had an outstanding result in this business in terms of margins, especially. But we saw that inventories increased by a significant amount and the inventory days also increased a lot. Do you see this as a concern going through this June '24 calendar year, given that inventory seems to be higher and probably are higher for other player in the industry, too? And this destocking movement that's going to happen probably this year is a concern for you. And also, in terms of margin, we saw that the normalized margin increase versus the previous quarter. And I think the perception of the market was that probably the previous quarter was top. And now -- and this quarter, we would have a bit of reduction and that doesn't seem the case looking at your numbers. Do you see this as a more company-level effort that you guys did? Or do you think that there was an improvement in terms of margins this quarter for the industry as a whole? and we're likely going to see margins stabilizing around these levels.

Thank you, Gustavo. First of all, no concerns that's the -- I was talking to -- explain to Isabella Simonato on the strategy here on the supply side everything that you see on the inventory side is based on our strategy, and it's paying off had, of course, tax differentiation ethanol prices. So this is really based on our strategy. Nothing no concern at all on the opposite side. I think we're very, very happy with the performance we are seeing recently because of our supply strategy and how we are talking to our dealers and all the B2B business. So no concern at all that sense. Even the sugar side that you didn't ask our logistics here have to be able to dispatch everything. On the margins, I -- difficult to comment on the overall market, talking about ourselves. That's what we control here. We have -- I don't know if you noted what our cost discipline is very high also being very focused on cost, reducing our costs, being more efficient. That has been also outstanding this year. Carlos show on the presentation, the Conta Comigo program that we have really, really disciplined on the cost side. The only thing, of course, marketing, as I say that very often. That's where we're spending more. We want to give our dealers a better value proposition. But the efficiency on the logistics people, SG&A clearly paying off and it's also helping the results in the end of the day.

We have one question here from the audience that I will read and Carlos can take that one, which is regarding the debt for 2023, '24. What is the strategy, what we intend to do a rollover, is that using revolving credit facility or any other ways for 2023, '24 crop year.

Okay. Thank you for raising this question. There is no hypothesis to use our renewable credit facility -- the revolving credit facility, sorry, is an instrument of less resort of our capital structure. That's not the case. The amortization going forward in this quarter will be completely normalized with the effect of our inventories that will push the commercialization in this quarter as long as we are working in a liability management in order to expand the lens of the debt duration. And there is no concerns regarding this, and we will continue to work and naturally disclose to the market to developments regarding this matter.

The Q&A session is now over. We would like to hand the floor back to Mr. Ricardo Mussa for his final remarks. Please, Mr. Mussa, the floor is yours.

Thank you, everyone. It was a really good quarter, but it's just another quarter. So we have to focus now for the end of the year. I think as I said, the major message hasn't changed, very consistent with what we've been talking about is focus on the productivity, improving margins, very disciplined on the cost and the capital structure of the company, delivering good results on the trading side. So it hasn't changed. I think in the end of the day, the results are showing up. I think we are getting closer and closer now to have E2G already showing some good results and not beyond the numbers and becoming a cash machine to us. So we are getting that. I think the plan, the strategy is very clear. And now I think the market will see more on the execution side what we are going to deliver moving forward.But thank you, guys. See you next quarter, probably now going to be a great end of the year for us, and we are going to have a long debate about how we close the year on the next quarter. Thank you very much. Take care.

The Raizen S.A., third quarter of 2023, '24 crop year conference call is now concluded. The Investor Relations department is available to answer further questions that you may have. Thank you, and have a wonderful afternoon.