Vidrala, S.A. (VID) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning to everyone, and thank you for the time that you dedicate to attend this call. As announced, Vidrala has completed the full acquisition of Vidroporto and that's why we are organizing this call to provide further information on the transaction and the acquired business. The presentation that will be used as supporting material to this conference call is available both at the webcast and our corporate website. Following these documents, we will dedicate the first part of our exposition to give more details on the end market, the acquired assets, the strategic rationale and the deal itself to devote afterwards as much time as necessary to the Q&A session. Let's start with some demographics. Brazil population is already above 200 million people and is expected to continue growing in the coming years, as shown in the graph on the left. More importantly, the young age structure with only 10% of the population being above 65 years old, which is quite differential. If we compare it with more developed regions, represents an even greater potential, considering that the relevant mass of people will be at the target age for food and beverage consumption in the near future. Brazil represents a region that we have identified as strategic. It is a huge country, full of opportunities where consumption grows at the pace of the development of middle classes and large cities and where there is a shortage of glass container supply infrastructure to adequately meet a growing demand. As you can see on the charts, Brazil has a big potential to increase both in terms of glass packaging production and GDP per capita. And on the right, you can see an evolution of glass container demand for food and beverage in Brazil, which has been growing for the last 10 years at an estimated compound annual growth rate above 5%. Indeed, some of our large customers, particularly global players in the beer segment, are executing expansion projects in Brazil that will create additional demand for packaging in the immediate future. This process will therefore strengthen our strategic commercial relationships with these clients who will dynamize the future of the packaging industry. If we take a look at the charts, it is interesting to see that Brazil is the third largest beer market in the world. On the left chart, it is not even within the top 20 in terms of per capita consumption, as you can see in the chart in the middle. On the right, again, you could see the potential for population growth especially for those that are today below 18 years old. Vidroporto is a particularly attractive player within Brazil, a priority target which we knew in detail as we were providing technical assistance for years. It operates 2 plants located in Porto Ferreira, state of São Paulo, Southeast region and Estância, state of Sergipe, Northeast region from where it supplies packaging to some of the main brands in Brazil in segments such as beer, spirits or softdrinks. Turning into some key metrics. These charts demonstrate Vidroporto's proven business model, driven by strong customer relationships, solid operational performance and cost competitiveness. For the full year 2023, Vidroporto expects to achieve sales of around BRL 850 million and EBITDA of around BRL 300 million, which is equivalent to EUR 56 million at current exchange rates. Moreover, the Porto Ferreira plant has received a significant expansion of investment, which came into operation at the start of the second half of this year. The new facility will increase Vidroporto's total production capacity by around 35% through the highest technological standards in terms of efficiency, competitiveness and sustainability. So it is expected to still have an effect, a positive effect on 2024 results. In these graphs, you can see the first effects of this capacity increase. And finally, with a current market share of around 20%, as it is shown in this slide, Vidroporto is one of the most competitive glass manufacturers in a market that is leaded by the 2 largest global players, which should also be a guarantee of its industrial discipline in the region. And now I pass the word to Raul, who is in Brazil, so that he can do some final remarks.

Thank you, Iñigo. Thank you for your excellent explanation. And thank you all for your time attending this call today given the short notice. Well, you all can imagine that today and yesterday are quite important days for us, okay? It's a particular moment for Vidrala. Probably one small change for our financing position, but one relevant leap for our study. As Iñigo said before, Brazil is a growing region for food and drinks consumption, a really big, big country in all the sense. We large demographics, growing middle classes, rising urban cities, and new consumers entering the marketplace every day in every moment. The evidence, the proof of this is that Brazil is defined as a developing market for most of our more strategic global customers, global brands in the food and beverage space. Rio, where they, our customers are putting the focus for future growth. And from a glass industry perspective, Brazil is a developing area, where we will find opportunities to deploy competitive and sustainable glass making technologies. And finally, as we said before, we knew Vidroporto well since many years. We know where we are going. We have been good industrial partners for years, and we were well aware of its quality industrial assets and impressed about the legacy of its management team. They all in Vidroporto deserve, really deserve a lot of credit. So that summarizes the basics of our static analysis so far. It's quite simple, probably easy to explain. We like the market where we found the structural long-term growth factors. We understand the industry and the level of development and the competitive landscape where we will find opportunities to replicate our manufacturing model to produce glass containers in the most competitive and sustainable way. And we are quite well connected with Vidroporto and the customers they serve, customers that have reacted quite positively to the news so far. Now to help us understand the economics behind the acquisition, let us provide some further details about the price, the business trends we are seeing so far and our resulting financing position. First, the price. I hope in this slide, you appreciate the level of detail we are providing. To remind, we had acquired at the beginning of this year, the minority stake for a BRL 297 million, which is approximately EUR 53 million or approximately 30% of the shareholding stake. And now we are acquiring the remaining controlling stake for BRL 859 million, approximately EUR 160 million at current exchange rates, an amount that fully includes all the additional costs related to the transaction, including those needed to remove the litigations that had affected the majority shareholder to sell the stake to us. And finally, to complete [indiscernible] value, we are assuming the local debt of approximately today, BRL 900 million. So that comprises the real value, approximately BRL 2.05 billion, equivalent to EUR 384 million, as we detailed yesterday in the public release. Let me remark here that Vidroporto is expected to recur approximately BRL 850 million in sales this year. This is around EUR 160 million, and the business will generate this year 2023 an EBITDA of approximately BRL 300 million equivalent to more than EUR 56 million at prevailing exchange rates. Next slide, let's go [indiscernible] to update our business conditions, okay? We are providing you an update for trading conditions and update to our previous guidance so we can help you better analyze our results in group pro forma financial position in the next slide before going directly to the Q&A. Well, nothing surprising. We are today among the highest ahead of the end of the year, specifically reiterating our previous guidance. Typically, that means that before the acquisition of Vidroporto, this chart is excluding the effect of Vidroporto like-for-like, we expect our sales to reach EUR 1.5 billion for the full year 2023. We expect our EBITDA to slightly exceed EUR 380 million, and we expect our free cash flow to meet the target of EUR 150 million. You will agree that this nothing but reiterates our previous guidance. And we are using this trading update, these figures to give you more detail about our financial position, okay? As a result of this in the next slide, we will see our existing financial position, where you can see that our net financial position, our total is still below 1.1x debt-to-EBITDA pro forma. You will also see that [indiscernible] that approximately 45% of the total price paid for Vidroporto is the assumption of existing debt. So as a result of this, approximately 1/3 of our total debt today is denominated in local currency in Brazilian reals. This is a necessary change for our financing strategy as you can imagine. All in, the transaction is expected to be earnings and cash accretive since the beginning of this integration, since today. We expect to consolidate Vidroporto's numbers with Vidroporto's financial statements since December 1, so that will contribute to 1 month on our financial statements this year, December. And that's basically all. Let me try to finally remark the rationale behind our strategic journey over the last years before going to the Q&A. I think that it's useful. It's worth an understanding for all us. We have deployed a very deliberate corporate strategy over the last 7 years, okay. Back in 2015, we acquired Encirc, a leader in the U.K. market. 2 years after we acquired the then most competitive asset in our traditional Iberian market, that was in 2017. At the end of 2019, just weeks before the pandemic, we divested our structurally less competitive asset in Belgium, a moment when we started a capacity realigning plant that made us replace this capacity in Belgium with new strategic lines in Manchester, in our Italian site and a new furnace in Portugal. And finally, at the beginning of this year, we acquired a large bottling facility in Encirc located in the South of England, capturing new demand and making us an even more different player. We -- here you understand our rationale, we are behaving more global, but we are acting regional. Our strategy is quite deliberate, and we are deploying our strategy step by step. That's all from my side. Inigo, maybe we can now go directly to the Q&A.

Perfect. Thank you, Raul. So this completes our explanation. We now give way to the Q&A session.

[Foreign Language] [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas Exane.

Congratulations for the deal. I have 3 first questions, and then I will let the floor for my colleagues. First one is it caught my attention that the northern plant only has one furnace. I don't know if this is a quite efficient one. Or do you expect to enlarge in the future or it's not core because it doesn't look like a good equilibrium between the northern and the southern one. The second question is on the market shares that you have given us. I would like to know if this is production import in Brazil or its sales in Brazil, including all the exports from neighbor countries like Colombia. And the third question is about the debt. If you could give us more detail about the 2 that -- I mean the new debt that you are assuming in euros and the debt in Brazilian reals, what is the cost. If you plan to hedge, what is the maturity.

Okay. Thank you, Paco. Good morning. Thanks for your questions. Well, first, regarding the production capacities of the 2 plants, okay, it's quite [indiscernible] in the North. The plant in the Northeast, our Northeast unit, as we name it, is smaller. It was acquired after the start-up of the first site, and it is located in a more -- even more emerging, growing area, okay. It's true that the site will have theoretically and physically space for further growth but we will see, okay. And there is a different end market conditions, different demand conditions between the South and the North. The South has concentrated most of the end profits and the expansionary CapEx so far, particularly the new state of the art furnace that you can see in the picture regarding this site that started production at the end of July this year. But the second factory so far is similarly profitable in terms of margins. It's smaller in terms of capacity, sales and profits, but it's quite profitable. It's a different region or similar customers, but under different, I would say, macroeconomic circumstances and dynamics. And yes, we do have in our mind the possibility, the physical possibility to expand capacity but this won't happen soon, or at least in 2024. Just please consider that we do have a brownfield project to expand capacity that probably should be now our priority before analyzing any other opportunities, opportunities in Brazil. Your second question is regarding the competitive landscape and market shares. Yes, that's true, you're right. This slide explained by Inigo explains markets in terms of installed capacity, okay? Please consider that approximately 5% -- 5% to 10% of the total demand in Brazil is imports coming from, not only from Colombia, also from countries in the proximities, Chile, Argentina. But these import covers the areas in Brazil in the proximities to the border of these countries, okay. Brazil is a big, big country. And to better understand the demand from the neighbors of Brazil, we need to split Brazil by regions. The plant in the South and the plant in the Northeast are serving different markets, quite different markets, okay? And that applies also when you try to analyze in [indiscernible]. And the third question is regarding the debt level. You are right, a significant amount of our debt from now is comprised by existing debt in local Brazilian real currency, BRL 900 million so far. And this debt needs to be redefined. This will be one of our first priorities. We need to -- and we plan, and we have already evolved a little bit on this plan. So we do feel comfortable and confident in the likeliness of this to happen soon. We want to extend maturities and reduce cost, cost or financial cost that need to be more proportionate to the Vidrala credit metrics that are particularly better after the integration of Brazil. Today, the cost of this debt and the maturity is above or beyond our expectations. And soon, we will redefine all this -- in all these terms, okay. But if you want to make your numbers for 2023, please consider that the average cost of this debt today is approximately 15%, but we will reduce this soon significantly.

But do you expect to maintain the debt in reals?

Yes, Paco, this is part of our strategy, okay? We will now trying to meet the cash flows generated in Brazil in Brazilian reals with local debt. So we will match from a cash flow perspective, cash inflows with debt repayment. And this is something that we have decided after a deliberate analysis, but this simple idea is probably the most convenient idea, okay. As soon as we are able to extend maturities and reduce the cost of this debt.

And just for modeling purposes, could you give us an idea of what is -- or what could be the average cost of debt for next year? Overall, not only this debt, overall for the company.

Well, yes, that will depend on the mix of debt between euros and Brazilian reals, and that will depend on the speed of our cash flow generation and our debt deleveraging, okay? So please try to consider this when you analyze the financial expenses in our P&L because I will only provide you an annual cost per existing debt, okay? The cost in euros will be approximately in the range of 1% to 1.5% annually. The cost in Brazilian reals should be aligned with the cost of get money in Brazil, the CDI rate that today is approximately 12%.

The next question comes from Alberto Espelosin from JB Capital.

First of all, congratulations on the deal. I have 2 questions, if I might. First one is that on February, you expect expansion of investments, increased capacity sales by EBITDA by 25%. However, this number has now risen to 35%. This is due to higher efficiency than anticipated, can you please elaborate a bit on it. And also, if you could please provide the EBITDA boost provided by this capacity increase in second half '23. That would be great. And my second question is, if you could please provide Vidroporto's exposure to each end market, meaning beer, wine and food as a percentage of sales.

Thank you, Alberto. I will take the first question, and Inigo will take probably the second. Well, regarding the expansion of investments, okay, I really have the interest that you understand this clearly. Vidroporto has invested over this year, it has been a quite a remarkable year in the big facility in Porto Ferreira, the state of Sao Paulo, the Southeast unit in a new state of the art new furnace that will increase total capacity of Vidroporto by more than 100 million tons of glass per year. That's something that is equivalent to an increase of 35% on a full year basis, okay? This is the numbers. The total amount invested in this furnace is approximately BRL 600 million, equivalent to more than EUR 100 million. That will give you a picture, some color of how big this investment has been. The CapEx is fully paid, fully included in the debt. The main reason why debt levels of Vidroporto are today, BRL 900 million is because of the execution of this CapEx. But these new furnaces only contributing to results this year during 5 months. So this is a point to consider when you try to analyze where we are going for 2024. The new furnace so far, our customers are reacting quite well. Capacity -- or production is going well. Efficiency is going well, and everything is on track and in operations. Okay. Inigo, second question, please?

Okay. And the second question, Alberto, you can assume that the main market of Vidroporto is the beer market, okay, around 80% of the sales are in beer. And the rest is basically other alcoholic beverage in Brazil. There is a very small portion that is focused on non-alcoholic beverage and food.

Yes, I think it was 80%, right? 8-0?

Right. Exactly.

The next question comes from Bruno Bessa from CaixaBank.

I will start with the dynamics in terms of demand and supply. I'm just wondering if you could give us a little bit more granularity on what are your expectations in terms of demand evolution in Brazil over the coming years. If you could give us kind of CAGR will be appreciated. And also how this compares with the supply because we know that there are a lot of new capacity is expected to come to the market. Just trying to understand here how will be the balance of the market over the coming years in Brazil. So this will be my first question. My second question, well, we see that the market in Brazil and at least looking to the margins of Vidroporto, profitability there seems to be much higher than that in Europe. My question here is what are the drivers explaining this high level of margins in Brazil and if a relevant part of this is related with the fact that the part of the market is controlled by imports. Just trying to understand if imports decline due to the new capacities coming to the market, if this could put at risk the high level of profitability that Brazil has as we speak. Third, if I may. And just to end, you should end this year with a 35% EBITDA margin. Next year, you will have the full impact of the new capacity in the South. So imagine -- I imagine that margins next year should be even higher than 35%, but correct me if I'm wrong. Just trying to understand here, what will be your long-term target in terms of margins in the country. I've seen other players running that business at 40% margin in the LatAm region as a whole. Just wondering if this could be a good reference for Vidrala -- for Vidroporto as well.

Okay. Thank you, Bruno, for this long pack of questions, okay, very, very interesting. And your first question, if I remember well is regarding demand dynamics and demand fundamentals in Brazil. Well, let me try first to clarify that Brazil is on the other side of the planet. So the circumstances that we are seeing in terms of demand dynamics and demand performance are completely different than the circumstances that we are seeing in more mature markets like our traditional markets in Europe and the U.K. And that probably also give you more -- some color about how good is -- the timing is for the start of our operations of our venture in Latin America and Brazil. But that means that this, that the Brazil -- demand in Brazil is growing where demand in the rest of the development world is probably more weaker, okay? Demand in Brazil is growing because of socio-demographic circumstances, because of macro factors, because of rising middle classes and because from a macroeconomic perspective Brazil is play. That could change in the future, obviously, it's today living good times. Just take a look at macroeconomic indicators rather for consumption, like unemployment, API and you will agree with me that Brazil is living quite good times today. And what I can say, that this is giving a result in the demand for our products, okay? Next -- or linking to this competitive dynamics in Brazil and the recent expansionary projects that we have seen in Brazil is fully liquid, it is, okay. We need to understand that demand in Brazil needs to be understood different by regions. Brazil is probably a combination of 4 or 5 different markets. We cannot serve from our units the entire country. And a big country is naturally or structurally served through imports. Other parts are more concentrated in terms of population or consumption and where our sites are gives you a lot of color about what is our commercial positioning, okay? So the competitive dynamics in our regions of activity in Brazil, I will say that is quite solid. The numbers -- or sorry, the names behind our competitor #1, our competitor #2 are global players in the glass space, global players that we know well and global players that will behave as disciplined as we will. In the recent years, total capacity has been added in the Brazilian market. And in my view, the most remarkable capacity added in the Brazilian market is our new furnace that started operations back in July this year in Vidroporto in the state of Sao Paulo. This is by far the most relevant in terms of capacity and in terms of profitability. So this is just to remark that Vidroporto is another example of a quite competitive player in the Brazilian market. As it was for us, the acquisition of Encirc in the U.K. back in 2015 or the acquisition of Santos Barosa in Portugal back in 2017. Our strategies are clear. We like structurally competitive assets. And let me say that Brazil -- Vidroporto, sorry, will be probably the most evident case of these 3 acquisitions completed by Vidrala over the last few years. It's a quite competitive player in comparison with its competitors in Brazil. This linked with your last question, profitability of Vidroporto today is 35% EBITDA. EBITDA margins in 2024 should be higher because of the mathematical effect of the contribution of the new capacity if demand dynamics keeps on being healthy as they are today. We will prefer, please understand this, we will prefer today to avoid giving you a specific number for 2024. We will provide level of detail of our guidance in April at the date of our Annual General Meeting, including the specific details about Brazil. But the numbers that you are mentioning in terms of margins for Vidroporto in 2024 are -- looks fine, are aligned with our expectations so far. And that is probably something natural for the case of our Brazilian glass player. We need to understand not only -- the profitability not only in terms of EBITDA margin over sales, but in terms of cost of capital, okay. The cost of debt, the cost of money in Brazil is higher. The structural risk of the market is also higher. The return of our capital employed to be similar to the return of our capital employed in our traditional market need to be comprised by higher operational margins, okay? I would invite you to understand -- or to take a look at the numbers in terms of margins over sales, operating margins over sales of our competitors in South America and please combine these numbers with the message that Vidroporto, Vidrala in Brazil is a particular case of a quite competitive player. And probably, you will have some more color about the expectations in 2024 and beyond this in terms of [indiscernible].

Just to follow up, if I may, sorry for bothering you with this. Just trying to understand in terms of the demand/supply dynamics, from what I've understood, you believe that basically the supply will follow the demand growth, and you don't expect any kind of mismatch and increase in terms of supply above demand over the coming years, right?

Yes, that's actually what I think. But obviously, I can't control the competitive landscape and Brazil and every markets where we are quite competitive markets. We do face with tough competitors and Brazil won't be an exception, okay? And we are there to compete with our competitors and to propose our customers competitive proposal in the long term. But as soon as I do understand with my numbers that Vidroporto is by far, really, by far, the most competitive player in Brazil, in comparison with the existing competitors. As long as I see the quite supportive reaction of our bigger customers, and our bigger customers in Brazil are particularly big. I mean they concentrate a lot of our sales, something that is purely deliberate. We are very conscious of this. This is part of our plan, but it is something that you also need to consider, okay? We need to keep competitive in Brazil because our customers are bigger there but that also will give us more visibility than in the rest of our areas in terms of secured volumes in 2024 and beyond. So if I try to understand the competitive dynamics after the acquisition of Vidroporto by Vidrala, I will tend to think that the most likely expansionary investor in the glass space in Brazil, should be Vidroporto, should be Vidrala because of our natural advantages, okay? So that's why we do feel comfortable in that. I will say that probably the competitive landscape in Brazil has changed since yesterday and this is good for Vidrala.

Okay, that's clear. And just a second follow-up. Just to clarify, I believe you mentioned that the EBITDA margin that I mentioned could be a reality already in 2024 or you were referring more in the long term?

Thank you for your second try. We would prefer to avoid giving specific details until April 2024, please be patient. We'll give you more details of our guidance. What I said is, I remember very well your numbers is that these numbers looks like aligned with mathematical expectation for 2024, only if you consider the contribution of the new capacity on a full natural year basis.

The next question comes from Inigo Egusquiza from Kepler.

Raul, just a few questions from my side as a big part of them have been already answered. So the first one is if you can give us a breakdown in terms of installed capacity of the 2 plants from Vidroporto? You mentioned that you are increasing total capacity by 100,000 tons, steady 35%. So I guess it's around 400,000 tons total capacity. What's the breakdown between the 2 plants. The second question that I have is I'm trying to build my numbers for Vidroporto. You mentioned the financial costs you are paying, what is the tax rate at Vidroporto as Brazil companies are paying huge taxes. So if you can give us the tax rate at Vidroporto. Then a third question. In terms of pricing in Brazil, if we can -- if you can give us a better view in terms of pricing in Brazil versus pricing in Europe? How is the difference gap. If this partially explains the better margins of Vidroporto compared to Europe margins. And a final question on the management team. What is the idea that you have for Vidroporto? You are maintaining the management team, I mean, you're buying 100% of the company, what's going to be the strategy of somebody from Vidrala will go there? What's the idea?

Okay. I'll take the first question, okay, in terms of capacity. As you were seeing on the slide of productions capacity this year amounted to around 340,000 tons. The furnace -- the plant in the Northeast region is around 120,000 tons per year. The rest is Porto Ferreira and consider that next year, we will still have a positive impact from this increase in capacity. This will, the increase will be fully due to Porto Ferreira.

Okay. Thank you, Inigo and the other Inigo. Let's go to the second question, tax rate. Well, it's true that the taxation in Brazil is particularly complex. We have made our own work in that sense. And so I will try to simplify the answer, giving you an expected tax rate on a consolidated basis. And that should be 25% from now, okay, on a full year basis after the integration of Brazil, something that is good guidance for, to use for 2024, Inigo. This 25% would be slightly better as long as we will be affected by the higher tax rates, of these tax rates in Brazil, but we should be also benefited by some tax credits to be captured in the mother company after the integration of Brazil. Here in Spain [indiscernible] country, 25% is a reasonable number globally. If you need further details about the specific case of Brazil, please give us some weeks and in your group, we'll be able to provide this detail, okay? But please use 25% on a group basis. The next question is regarding pricing. Pricing in Brazil. Well, first, competitive dynamics -- well, actually, demand dynamics and consequently competitive dynamics and the customer base and the existence of long-term supply agreements priced at [indiscernible] are particularly relevant and differential in Brazil, if we compare Brazil with traditional markets like Mainland Europe. And this is fully reflected in our commercial position in Brazil, okay. As we said before, our 2 biggest customers in Brazil, our customers in the beer space accounts for approximately 2/3 of our total capacity and this is a big level of concentration. And you can imagine that we need to -- we are forced to offer them a competitive proposal, and we do have a number of long-term supply agreements with some rights and obligations, take-or-pay clauses with specific, sophisticated and mathematically defined price adjustment formulas. So pricing will be -- visibility on prices and visibility on sales volume will be particularly high in Brazil, at least for the next 2, 3 years, okay? So in terms of pricing prices in Brazil will be in 2024, similar or slightly higher than in 2023 because of the result of these formulas and because of the result of this demand dynamics and relationship with the big customers. So we will see higher prices in Brazil, slightly lower prices in our existing business, and that will give you some color about our pricing in 2024. Brazil is a different space, okay. Regarding the integration of the management team, you probably remember or took note that I mentioned some specific words regarding the credit that the management team Vidroporto deserves. And yes, we plan to maintain the name of Vidroporto to preserve the industrial legacy, particularly in the sense of the solid relationships that Vidrala -- that Vidroporto, sorry, have with existing big customers, big customers that are global brand names, customers that are actually good customers and steady customers for Vidrala in our traditional markets, okay? That explains a lot of our commercial strategy something that has been a big factor for going there. So we want to -- or we have the idea to preserve the management team, particularly the CEO of Vidroporto. Obviously, in the future so in the future, we will make our best to strengthen the management team to give them support and to improve the future of Vidroporto and the sustainability of its operation.

The next question comes from Luis de Toledo from ODDO.

Congratulations on the deal, 2 remaining questions on my side. And the first one, regarding potential legal disputes that are covered, including the price, I don't know if you could provide more detail. I -- closing the agreement with these spending issues, it's not too risky. I assume the potential risk is limited. I just want to know if the company would be at additional risk or covered. The second question may be a remark on the recycling glass percentage at this operation.

Thank you, Luis. Hope you are well. Well, first, we know that this process has taken longer than expected. So I will try to make my best to be very clear in that sense. Okay. The majority shareholder, the founder family that it serves under the holding company whose change of ownership was limited by a legal case with a third party. That has been the reason for the delay in the -- in completing this acquisition, okay. All these litigations with no exceptions have been fully removed and the cost related to this removal for Vidrala is included in the price. So hope you also understand transparency on that sense, okay? And that's all. There are no pending litigations, no other condition, pending authorization or similar. The transaction is signed, closed and paid. And let me clarify again that in the price, we are assuming a debt level that includes a new expansionary investment that is not fully reflected in our numbers, in our full year numbers 2023, okay? Second question regarding recycling rates. Brazil, there is a big opportunity in Brazil. Brazil is a developing country in terms of sustainability. We do have our experience that includes the usage of recycled glass that will include some plans to improve in terms of energy transition, more efficient furnaces and the rest of things. And we can see in our recent experience in Europe and the U.K. that we have reasons to be optimistic about our capacity to replicate some of our learnings in Brazil, particularly in these 2 points, okay? There is a big opportunity to increase and their cost competitive conditions, the usage of recycled glass in Brazil, and that will be one point of focus for us.

The next question comes from Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas Exane.

Just a follow-up on [indiscernible] questions. Raul, let me try to understand how -- why the price for next year is going to grow. I mean, what are the -- I mean, driving these prices up. Also, if you could give us a percentage of utilization, apart from the new furnace of the system production? And the third question is if you could give us an idea of what is the breakdown in cost in personnel, energy, raw materials, et cetera. Is it similar to the European one or there are some differences?

Thank you, Paco. Very good questions. Well, first, regarding prices, speaking exclusively about Brazil, about Vidroporto regarding prices. As we said before, most of our sales volumes are dictated by price adjustment formulas and the result of these price adjustment formulas are to be calculated soon at the end of this year and basically covers GPA rates in Brazil and some additional factors like energy, raw materials. The result of this for the specific case of Brazil, where energy markets and inflation conditions, inflationary conditions are quite different than in Europe is giving us a result, a positive result, modest positive result in Brazil on prices for 2024, okay. Your second question regarding utilization, we are basically at full capacity in Brazil. This is not the case, unfortunately, in Europe, as you are aware of. That will -- that gives you some color about how healthy demand dynamics in Brazil are so far. We have started operations with the new furnace, the coal furnace in Porto Ferreira, the Southeast unit from one day to the other at the end of July. This is a big increase, a sudden big increase, fully deliberate, fully under our plans. And this increase is today solved. Our customers are behaving quite supportive to this new capacity. Obviously, that doesn't mean that demand is growing by 35% as our capacity is being expanded or has been expanded. That means just to give you more illustrative details about that, that means that the price -- the long-term supply agreements behind the customers that promote us the idea to invest in this furnace are quite supportive, okay. Our customers are meeting their obligations. And third question is if I remember well is regarding the cost structure. I don't know if Inigo will be able to help me, but it's quite differential to our existing, or our traditional regions, okay? Let's say that personnel is much less relevant than it is in Europe. Energy is far much less relevant than it is in Europe. And raw materials is particularly more relevant. And the last comment on this is, please do consider almost all, more than 95% of our sales in Brazil are made as works. So we don't manage transportation. We don't have a cost of transportation. Inigo, don't know if you want to provide more details about the specific percentage of this cost breakdown.

Just happy to give some detailed numbers that you prefer, but maybe after the call.

Okay. Okay. That will be great. Just as a reminder, I know that you have mentioned it during the call that what is the percentage of your main clients of -- to sales?

The top 2 customers account for 2/3 of our sales. Top 2 customers are 2 global beer brands. You won't be surprised about their names.

There are no further questions by telephone. I return the floor to Mr. Gomez and Mr. Mendieta.

Okay. Thank you very much. So there are several questions via the webcast. We'll try to answer all of them. First, Raul. There is one question that says the following. What are the reasons that made Vidroporto structurally more competitive than its peers?

Well, it's very easy to understand. Vidroporto is a very competitive player because of the average scale per site, the site in the southeast with the new 4 furnaces, probably the larger glass container of manufacturing site in operation in South America. Obviously the largest, sorry, in Brazil, is located in a specifically competitive region in terms of proximity to the customers, in terms of competitiveness of an access to labor force and economies of scale, quality investments, efficiency in terms of operations and geographic allocations explains why this unit is particularly profitable. The unit in the Northeast is -- it was a greenfield, started there only [indiscernible] years ago. So it's a new state-of-the-art site. It's smaller but located in areas where the level of industrial development is lower, okay? This is the case of the Northeast of Brazil. So it's particularly competitive also if you compare that level of competitiveness with existing competitors in this region, okay? It's a combination. The competitiveness of Vidroporto that is quite high, as I said before, is a combination of quality investments, geographic allocation and economies of scale.

Thank you. There are some other questions. I will try to go through all of them to check that they have been answered, okay? But please, if there are some of the questions that you feel hasn't been answered, do not hesitate to contact us after the call, okay? There is a first one that says that asks about the recent decision to close the furnace in Llodio if this is related to demand weakness, cost competitiveness or other reasons, okay? The closure of this furnace was already planned since a couple of years ago. It was part of our plans to realign production capacity, okay, since we exit from Belgium back in 2019 and with the capacity increases Raul has mentioned in U.K., in Italy, in Portugal. The impact at the group level is not relevant. It was a small furnace that was reaching end of useful life in a plant that is less competitive than others. And let's say, the only news is that the closure has been anticipated, okay, as an efficient measure to control capacity in a more weak demand context. Second question asks about the difference of the implied valuation enterprise value to EBITDA of the first minority stake and, let's say, the closure of the transaction. As mentioned through the call, the difference is due to the debt of Vidroporto at this point, which includes the CapEx for expansionary project in Porto Ferreira. It's due also to movements in exchange rates. And please consider that the amount that we are announcing for the full acquisition of Vidroporto includes transaction costs and includes also the price adjustments due to the value of money, okay? There are some questions about main customers of Vidroporto and commercial exposure. As mentioned before, Vidroporto is mainly a space to beer segment. Around 80% of the sales are executed on this segment, and we cannot reveal the names of our customers. But as mentioned also by Raul, as you can remind, basically, our main customers are global beer brands, okay. In terms of free cash flow generation, both as explained by Raul, yes, the idea is that Vidroporto finances itself. So cash will be used to finance investments in Brazil, the same asset that will remain in the -- that remain in Brazilian reals. The next question is on margins. It says if there might be a long-term risk in terms of margins, which are in the range of 30% to 40%, it seems unsustainable given the fact that 80% of sales come from beer or is this really due to supply/demand gap? And similarly, there is another question that speaks about the dynamics of prices in Brazil and how we can introduce new capacity without pushing prices down. I think these both are linked. Margins -- or we're expecting margins to remain safe at this 30%, 40% level as a combination of factors. First of all, that the expansionary projects are related to growth projects of our customers and growing demand. Second of all, because of our solid commercial relationships that are based on well-structured commercial agreements with price adjustment formulas. And finally, there is also still a tight supply structure and a rational competitive landscape. And there are also some questions on cost that I think have been already explained by Raul. I'm happy to follow up and to give some further numeric details after the call. Okay. With this, we should have answered all the questions received through our webcast. Again, if somebody feels his or her question haven't been taken or fully addressed, please feel free to contact us after this call. Nothing else. Thank you very much for your attendance. Raul, not sure if you want to make some additional remarks from the distance, from Brazil.

No. Thank you very much, Inigo. Thank you all for attending this call. And now that we are entering good times, the yearend, the Christmas season, please keep on drinking anything in glass. Enjoy. Thank you very much for the time.