WEG S.A. (WEGE3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello. Welcome to WEG Day 2021. My name is Andre Menegueti Salgueiro, the manager of Investor Relations. In the name of that, I'd like to thank your participation of everyone in this event. This year, we're doing -- because of the pandemic to hold this event virtually as last year, taking all care. For WEG, it's important to keep a very transparent relationship with investors and analysts. That's why we involved executives and brought them onboard on WEG Day. And jointly, we are going to discuss something especially on. We're going to update you on the most important figures concerning the company and new opportunities for business and the strategic planning for the upcoming years. Presentations will be carried out by Andre Luis Rodrigues, our CFO and Investor Relationship; and by Harry Schmelzer, Jr., our CEO. The material of this can be downloaded on our investor relationship website through ri.weg.net. At the end of the presentation, we're going to have a space for Q&A. You can send your questions in the chat features, which is located on the interrogation where I can -- I wish you a very fruitful event. I pass the floor now to Andre Rodrigues to start the presentation.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for your participation in one more addition of our WEG Day, virtually. Again, it's a pleasure to update you about the financial performance of WEG and to convey information about our business. Before we start, I'll show you a disclaimer of our meeting. I will update you on the financial performance of our company. This is a capital goods company with the largest manufacturers of electro-electronic equipment. We have skilled labor, 4,000 are engineers, 36,000 employees providing products and solutions for 135-plus countries through 48 plants distributed worldwide. BRL 17.7 billion of operational revenues, which was achieved by short-cycle products developed over the last 5 years, thanks to the possibility that we have to deliver excellent products and services. Up next, I'm going to update you about our businesses. On this graph, I'll show you our growth rates over the last 10 years. Given with the adversities presented by the pandemics in 2016, like the downturn and onwards and the deceleration of the world economic performance, we were able to have a growth rate that was amazing where we're able to have a very strong growth this year. We achieved revenues very close to the one realized recently, 35.5% growth relative to the same period last year. Here, breaking down our revenues on the first 9 months of the year, we have important results in the 4 business areas, both in the domestic market and external or foreign market, industrial electro-electronic equipments. For example, good demand for our short-cycle products in the domestic market and cooperation in the foreign market and also a building of an order portfolio in generation, transmission and distribution portfolio, especially. Starting with industrial electro-electronic equipment, which is -- accounts for almost half of our growth, more exposed to the foreign market. A portfolio of product concentrates on industrial motors and industrial automation. Locally, an important sector for our business, mining, water sanitation, paper and pulp, agribusiness accounted significantly for the growth of 4% in that period. Now generation, transmission and distribution. Over the last quarters, we've been growing a lot because of the renewable power products we have. Transformers drives a full solution of equipment for solar and wind power generation and full solution for thermal and hydraulic power generation as well, both in the domestic market and the foreign market as well. And above all, in the solar distributed generation and wind turbines, accounting for 40% growth of that period. In commercial motors and appliances, we grew greatly in that period. In motors for white line products and for durable goods, it's been observed both in the foreign market and the U.S. and Mexico because of the picking up and recovery of the economies of those countries. And finishing with Paints and Varnishes, with net operational revenues in strong growth in the domestic market because of the demand of the domestic market, but also sales to Latin America, which allow us to grow 56% this period. The other point I'd like to highlight is that this growth is taking place worldwide, as we can see on this slide. With our revenues in dollars in the first month of 2021, we've seen growth rates very important on those 4 areas, highlighting 14% in North America and Latin America, which are 2 very strategic areas for us that have a huge market and business growth opportunities for us. This slide depicts important points I would like to highlight that explains our good revenue growth. Global supply chain was strongly impacted during the pandemic, increasing cost of raw materials in addition to logistics difficulties and operational difficulties. Despite this scenario, we haven't had any significant impact on our business. This was possible because of our power to negotiate. And I'd like to highlight 3 points here. Our model is based on verticalization, modular expansion and financial flexibility with more flexibility and availability of products taken revenue growth opportunities with an increase in our market share in the most important markets. We rely less on external suppliers. Subsequently, we're less exposed to the global supply chain, and modular expansion allows us to add on productive capabilities to meet the market demands more rapidly. So we are able to meet our customers' needs, and we are able to stockpile security issues minimizing risks and especially having availability of finished products to meet our customers' needs. Let us talk briefly about some other important indicators for the company. Moving on now to our operational results, I'd like to highlight our operating results. For the whole year of 2020 of accounting for the exclusion of ICMS from the PEs and cofinance calculation, basically, we had expressive results in this area. Our EBITDA is evolving, showing the biggest and highest volume in this year in spite of all the hardship in this last few months with the rationalization of costs and expenses, an improvement in the long cycle performance and other important operations in the foreign markets. But we have to stress that the recent increase in the price of materials and the highest in the price of the mix, especially in wind generation, should bring a pressure to the margins in the next quarters. In this way, even excluding for the favorable impacts of the ICMS credits considering the feasibility that we have today, we still have the expectation that, in 2021, we're going to have very healthy operating results. In the next slide, I would like to stress the exceptional performance of our ROIC that ended at 31.3% or '21, 9 months. Thanks to the improvement of the operating results, and that was a result of the combination of our strategy to develop businesses with good results with our discipline in utilizing our working capital through a very close administration of the capital and the optimization of the CapEx program. And now our expectation is to deliver a very consistent ROIC, above the levels of the market as it's been performed by the company in the last few years. Well, let's talk about our investments now. We have invested BRL 520 million up to September, an important increase in regards to the -- what was reported in 2020. And it's worth highlighting that we invest 3% to 5% of our liquid -- our net profit, and we still have a long-term focus and modernization and automation of our plants, both in Brazil and in the -- all over the world. I'm going to stress a few of important investments that we have made, starting by the investment in India was announced in 2019. The new plant for the manufacturing of electric motors in Hosur in India, where we have already a low medium motors in a $20 million investment in which the plant is going to have 14 -- 157,000 square feet to produce 200,000 -- 250,000 motors a year. So that was supposed to take place in 2020, but we had a few delays because of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic in that country. The work have been resumed, and we forecast that starting the operations of this new factory in the beginning of 2022, which is to start -- mark the entrance of WEG in the low-voltage motors, a market that we do not participate so strongly. Another important participation in Asia is the expansion of Rugao plant. This plant is going through a frequent increase of the capacity to reflect the good performance of the Chinese market and our capacity to gain market participation. In the next slide, we're going to stress our -- the inauguration of our fifth plant in the United States in Washington in Missouri, a 158,000 square feet. This new plant is part of the strategy to enter the transformers -- industrial transformer market as well as we increase our capacity to serve a great concessionaires, utilities and renewables market. Changing now to Brazil. The first -- third quarter of the year, we announced the new factory to produce e-houses for solar generation and industrial plants in Betim [indiscernible]. This new unit is already working and is contributing to our increase in capacity for the production of e-houses. It is worth remembering the rationale behind these investments, mainly because of the relation to the logistics advantage since the factory is very close to important mining and solar energy plants. Our most recent announcement was the amplification and the modernization of our operation in Linhares in Espírito Santo. The project forecast at up to 2023, BRL 128 million for the monetization and classification of the capacity for motor -- commercial and motor and appliance motors. Following our modular expansion program for the fabrication, the Linhares plant was forecasted to gradual increase of the capacity -- reduction capacity and meet the demands of the market along the years. In 2010 when we started the Linhares operation, we had about 450 employees in a 200,000 square meters. Today, we have 3,000 occupying 10x larger area. Our capacity has also increased 10x this year. The operation in Linhares is going to transform. It's going to be the second biggest producing plant in Brazil. We have invested BRL 250 million. Since -- as well as the investments to support our organic growth, we sometimes use M&As to increase our production capacity to accelerate our entrance or the gain of participation in markets or in some specific markets are able to accelerate the development of some new or specific technology. In the last year, we bought 2 very important acquisition in the generation and transmission was the Transformer -- Power Transformer acquisition. The acquisition was finished in December 2020, and the capacity of this new plant was fundamental to -- in order to increase our presence in this market in Brazil. Built in 2013, this plant has a 350,000 square feet area and has got 250 employees, and it is -- power transformer, shank transformers and the 800 kV transformers to 500 MVA. Balteau was the second acquisition, a traditional manufacturer of measuring of electric equipment for high and lower tension. With this acquisition, WEG increases its scope and verticalization bettering its position to serve infrastructure generation, transmission and distribution as well as to provide infrastructure equipment for electrification of industries. It's worth remembering that this acquisition is still pending resolution of the CAD. Now going towards the end, I would like to stress the distribution of dividends and interest on stakeholders equity. We can see -- as we can see here, we are going -- having a 54% payout in the last 10 years. All that has been presented is reflected in the performance of the company in the capital market. With a consistent return above the market average, I would like to highlight increase the number of shareholders in which 91,000 new shareholders entered. We also had an increase in the value negotiated, a 10% increase in regard to 2020. And our shares have increased 1,338% in the last 10 years. With that, we have become the sixth biggest company in market value of the B3 stock exchange. And to wrap up my presentation, I'd like to highlight here that we still have our long-term vision, looking for the continuous and sustained growth, certain that our business model based on verticalization and financial flexibility has contributed very much for the success of this year. We'll still invest in the increase of the productive capacity through our modular increase that allows us to add capacity to meet the needs of our clients, instantaneously avoiding idleness and reinforcing the return. And with that, we are able to return above the average returns to our shareholders. Thank you. I now pass the floor to Harry, so we can move on.

Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to join this live streaming session of WEG Day. I'd like to start my presentation, reminding you that, on December 16, we -- September, we commemorated our anniversary. The journey started back in 1961 by founding member, Mr. Werner, Eggon and Geraldo have gone through decades with a lot of work and constant transformation to get to the point we are at today. With this modest beginning as Brazilian manufacturer of electric motors, we became a global company with manufacturing plant in 12 countries and operational -- operations in 138. So we got to our 60th anniversary as one of the largest electro-electronic equipment manufacturers worldwide, providing to more than 135 countries and 56% of our sales coming from the foreign markets. Currently, we have a portfolio of product that is very wide step of more than 36,000 workers distributed worldwide, and we are known as a role model of management and high performance. We are really pleased with all the financial results achieved so far and very proud of our successful trajectory. This moment is not marked by WEG 60th anniversary, but by the beginning of a new period. A very important cycle of our strategic planning that was elaborated back in 2010. When we designed the plan, we never imagined the challenges we would be facing during this period, nor that we would go through a pandemic that would ground humankind to a halt, but we were able to overcome all challenges and difficulties. Once overcome, we have reviewed our strategic plan, and I'd like to share with you some highlights of our new horizons and actions for the upcoming years. Globally and the global scenario we have brings new challenges, but also new opportunities for growth for which WEG is ready to take on. We are now recovering from the impact of the pandemics. The demand for power continues to grow. The major challenge to be globally overcome will be to balance the growing demand for electric power and demands by society that has to increase urbanization and the reduction of greenhouse gases and other ESG practices that are extremely important for the future of society. Within this context of major global challenges, WEG has been adopting and taking excellent opportunities like motion trials, more and more efficient for electric motors and gearbox and drives because this will allow us to evolve technologically even more. Electrification will still be the most efficient use of energy, any technology that replaces other old-fashioned equipment. So energy management system for a more efficient use. The storage of energy will be key in the new electrification phase we're going to face and renewable energies. Electric mobility growth is creating a new phase in the infrastructure and the need to build an infrastructure for all. So in the future, machines will become ever more automated and digitized, always aiming at power and energy efficiency. In this more electrified and efficient world, more digital world, one of the most important initiatives of that are aligned with the global trends that have to do with sustainable growth of the planet and development of planet. The development of products and services based on innovation, technology and sustainability leads us to conclude that WEG planning for the upcoming years, months in general terms, keep focus on the following businesses: Motion drives, electrification, automation, energy generation and electric grid. In electrification, increase the opportunities of the new mobility. In automation, we are going to develop digital solutions to complement and integrate all businesses. It is with those guidelines that we present on this slide our products and activities and segments for our strategies to be implemented. Motion drives focusing on the industrial segment, OEMs of industrial equipment, durable consumer goods and automobile industry providing industrial motors, gearboxes, commercial and appliance motors, drives and soft starters, power train for electric traction and services. Electrification and automation focusing on infrastructure; OEMs of industrial equipment of electrical installers and energy providing command devices, control and protection of electrical circuits, electrification, data acquisition, supervision and control systems, machinery automation, building electrification, energy storage and recharge station for electric vehicles. Digitization focusing on the industrial segment, building and infrastructure, OEMs, energy, developing digital solution as a complementary supply connected to all WEG businesses with connectivity solutions, artificial intelligence, edge devices, gateways, condition monitoring, MES, IoT software. Generation transmission and distribution, GTD, energy, OEMs and electric installers, products and solutions, wind turbines, steam turbines, hydraulic turbines, generators, alternators, services, transformers and reactors, substations and solar generation. And finally, paints and partnerships for the industrial sector, for the automotive banking activities, power and other solutions. We will continue to seek our sustainable and continuous growth, focusing on the following strategic objective to contribute towards the building of a more efficient and sustainable world, investing in energy efficiency, renewable energies, energy storage and electric mobility: To be a world reference or role model in motors, gearboxes, generators, transformers and electric coal devices; to strengthen the industrial automation business, including solutions for the industry digitization and energy systems as well as products for electrification and civil construction and infrastructure; to develop our business globally to consistent ESG practices. Now referring to ESG practices since our foundation and established back in the 1960s by the vision of our founders, our organizational culture is aligned with good ESG practices. Over the years, these practices and procedures were perfected according to our internal and external objectives. With the evolution of sustainability over the last decade, we understand a lot better how WEG could fit into this context with the relationship with our stakeholders providing solutions with least environmental impact. Our portfolio of products are aligned with all these ESG goals. We are signatories of sustainable development, and we are recognized for being a company that has the best ESG practices. We understand that the more the company develops taking into account its ESG, the best will be the value generation in the short and long term. We understand that this contributes for controlling risks and to keep the company growing continuously and sustainably. Due to the complexity of the topic, we have organized our ESG structure, and we have put together an agenda and a Board of Director and Committee focusing specifically on that, developing all the initiatives pertaining. We are going to strengthen globally the principles and values of the company, and we're going to perfect continuously ESG practices, strengthening the culture of participatory management, intensifying internationally of the company decision-making process to encourage internal teams to adopt an increasingly inclusive culture and to establish dedicated plans through a global ESG program. We plan to continue growing our business, aiming at historic growth rates organically and non-organically. For this growth to take place, we need organic growth. Our products and services are inserted in the solutions for a more sustainable world, enjoying numerous opportunities for growth. WEG has invested continuously on innovation to improve its competitiveness in order to capture vital opportunities. Internationally, we are going to expand to new geographies and take opportunity of our strong positioning in the market to leverage the expansion of our product lines, new businesses. We will be complementing our product portfolio based on tax strength aligned to the major trends concerning energy efficiency, renewable energies, electric mobility and digital business. Now moving towards the end of our presentation. Next 2 slides, I'll show you the highlights. The corporate aspirations for continuous and sustainable growth, targeting historical growth rates. In Brazil, we hope to maintain our market positions in mature businesses and grow in new businesses to increase of our product clients and investment on new businesses on wind, solar power, energy storage, digital solutions and powertrains. Outside Brazil, we must seek double-digit organic growth in all regions through market share gains and product diversification following the model adopted in Brazil. Additionally, we're going to work in the following front to be able to achieve our strategic planning and goals: To adopt business and marketing strategy to strengthen the motion, drive solutions, including motors, gearboxes and inverters best; invest and master the most efficient motor and drive technologies; to accelerate the automation business internationalization, increasing drives, circuit breakers or residual differential switches, the production in China; keep focusing the transmission and distribution business in the Americas and sub-Sahara in Africa with investment to increase capacity in Mexico and the United States; globally incorporate the offer of digital solutions for asset management to bring performance and productivity levels to the operations abroad according to our Brazilian levels; productivity and efficiency gains through greater robotization and digitization of our operations; to structure the company; to strengthen WEG culture and increase our ESG initiatives. To conclude my presentation, I'd like to strengthen our mission of a continuous and sustainable growth as well as our capital allocation discipline. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Harry and Andre. I'd like to remind you that we're going to start now our Q&A session that you can access by clicking on the interrogation mark icon.

We're going to start by a question. Considering the international presence of WEG, what are the geographies that we have competitive edge? And what are the investment plans for those geographies? Can you please comment upon it?

WEG has 2 strategies, to conquer ever more market share worldwide.

The volume is way too low, we apologize. We can barely hear the speakers.

Mexico and the U.S. will be our largest manufacturing plants in China. But we believe that in the medium and long run, we will have a competitive edge.

We apologize. We can barely hear the speaker.

Our verticalization strategy are...

The second question, Andre, comes from Bruno Amorim for Goldman Sachs. And the question was, does the company -- did the company benefit from the fact that being verticalized and suffer less than some other competitors with the supply chain issue, this market share gains are sustainable with the normalization of the global supply chain. So maybe you're going to have the normalization.

Yes, I believe that this gain [indiscernible] generalizing that initially the supply chain by WEG team were made an exceptional job in the few months to earn that no clients of the company would suffer from the lack of the equipment that we manufacture. That was also a result of our verticalization process, as I had shown when I made my presentation, and align to the fact that when we manage to gain a new client, we offer not only the product but a differentiated quality in terms of service and care with this client. Then because of this, we can say that it is a sustainable gain.

The next question that has appeared here is about our strategic planning. We have a question from Marcelo Motta from JPMorgan, asking whether we can update on the expected revenue with the strategic planning and what made you expect CapEx in this period. And a similar question from Lucas Marquiori from BTG that in the previous 2020 strategic planning, the company has adopted an organic expansion, 17% a year. Looking forward, what can we expect in terms of organic sustainable growth for the long term for the company?

Well, we do not forecast. We do not show our long-term objectives. But as was presented, the expectation of the company is to continue to grow according to the historical track record of 14% in the last -- if we expand to 25 years, 17.4%. So the expectation for the growth of the company is -- for the next 5 years is to grow by two digits. That's what we are looking for. Historically, what we have made our investments that varies from 2% to 5% on our operating revenue to sustain all this growth process. So sometimes, it is closer to 3%. This year, it's going to be closer to 5%. Perhaps next year, it's going to be also closer to 5% because of all the investments that have been announced late. So we can expect that it is going to continue to be something between 3% and 5%.

Next question has to do with the strategic planning as well by BTG Pactual Bank. What is the outlook for development in Brazil of 2 markets, electric vehicles and energy storage? And when will we start seeing growth of this segment in Brazil?

The outlook for the electric vehicle market and energy storage in Brazil is extremely positive. The world is moving towards the electrification. In general terms, electric mobility will provide a huge infrastructure for recharging stations and other opportunities. How long will it take for this to occur? It's hard to foresee. We are on a journey moving towards these new technologies and applicability. WEG has been investing in that. As you know, energy storage is a new business. Brazil is entering strongly on the renewable energies development. But after this trend starts overseas, it also starts in Brazil. And we're going to go after those markets in Brazil. But in energy storage, we started differently. We have acquired a company in the U.S. We are testing that market there. We are evolving. And from there, I'm sure we're going to bring expertise to be able to boost this energy storage segment in Brazil and market in Brazil. And the other one is electric mobility. As far as electric mobility goes in Brazil, that's questionable. But no, not question. It was going to happen, but not very soon as far as utility vehicles is going to happen more often faster. For example, the advantage of having electric shuttle buses in towns is very important, but the speed this will occur is really hard to determine and to foresee. We are getting ready to take advantage of those opportunities, but to play a optimistic role in the development of this new market.

[Interpreted] We have also received some questions about renewable energy sources. Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco is asking, how do you see wind offshore energy generation? Within this same context, [ Mr. Fernando Cunha ] asked, within the alternative or renewable energies, which one do you think will have the best growth horizon in Brazil? And he asks to compare the benefits or lack of renewable energies comparing solar and wind power generation, which one brings the most benefit to WEG? And Ms. Cabral from Citi asked something about that. You will see that GTD has a very interesting growth agenda in wind power generation project in Brazil and worldwide. I'd like you to comment upon the growth plan for solar energy in Brazil and eventually, overseas. Can you please comment upon those perspective of renewable energies?

[Interpreted] Today, wind and solar energy power generation has been a strategy for WEG, thanks to new technologies in specific market niches and not starting globally initially. WEG today is focused on Brazil both for wind power as well as solar power generation. WEG sees and envisions an internationalization operation in the wind power generation front. So the internationalization of these businesses, that is renewable energies, will be implemented incrementally. The potential for the Brazilian market both for wind power and solar power as well -- and of course, we have the 10-year plan for the company, but the government 10-year plan is a little modest, we believe, because they believe 2 giga per year over the last 10 years of wind power should be generated in Brazil or to be installed and solar power has more potential for growth. We have not necessarily different vision but we have a similar perspective of things. We believe that wind power will grow in larger volumes than solar in Brazil. Whereas the solar, the potential, it is a little different because of distributed generation. When we talk about wind power, we are referring to wind parks that depend on free markets operations and transactions of power and whereas in solar power, it's not only the provision of power to the market, but also the possibility that end consumers have in distributed generation and the possibility of generating its own power, household power that is. Solar has a higher potential today, but we believe that for WEG, they're potentially different. Back to internationalization, we are taking steps towards wind power and solar energy likewise, we are going to take steps towards internationalization, picking 1, 2 or 3 markets and implement our strategies, which is moving. These are important business potential lines for WEG. But I'd like to highlight something important. As we've been seeing in our evolution, WEG evolution has been adding new opportunities to move towards new markets, but its profile doesn't change dramatically. Why is that? Because WEG continues to invest on all fronts. In addition to the solar and wind power, which is the most important renewable package that we have solution for also storage of power to complement of -- this package of solutions, solar and wind, we also focus on motors, generators, transformers, and we've been investing heavily on that, too. We have started putting together a new strategy, market strategy, a new market approach, so to speak, which is the motion drive as we're calling it. WEG was moving with motors and then drives entailing that market, and we invest heavily on the [ blue line ]. And this motion drive package is mature enough not only in Brazil but worldwide, but many parts of the world that is, so we have to change and tweak this structurally to focus not only on motors, but motors with [ reduction ] gearboxes and inverters. This is going to pick up and continue to grow in the near future.

[Interpreted] Andre, we've received a follow-up from the supply chain question from Renata Cabral from Citibank. And she asks, how do you see the supplying scenario getting -- normalizing and it has impacted to a lower degree WEG, but if the scenario goes on for a longer time may it impact WEG's clients and consequently, demand? How do you see this scenario?

[Interpreted] Well, it is very hard to make any forecast on this issue. We had a tremendous rearrangement on the global supply chain since the beginning of the pandemic. And I think it's too early to say that it has been solved. Everyone is following what is going on with electronic components and we are still far from a normalization. Many say that this is only going to take place at the beginning of 2023. And I think on WEG's part, as I said on the first question that was addressing this issue, and also on the issue of sustainability and recovery of clients, our team has worked in order to make sure we weren't impacted. And I'll say a little more on how this work is done, we were contract for -- the electronic components that we need for the next year, we have it guaranteed. We have it secured for the coming years. So in the first moment, we took -- we made the decision to reinforce the inventories of -- company working on increase of the working capital wherever it was necessary, and this is actually -- has worked so far. But it is still early days to say that this is a solved issue, and that the company is not going to suffer any hardship through this problem. Up to the moment, we are doing a good job, and we are maintaining still everything, thanks to what we have done in the past in order to guarantee the operations and to go on growing.

[Interpreted] Andre, we received a question from Nelson [ Santos Netto ] from Safra Bank and he asks whether you could comment on the evolution of the digital businesses and he mentions of WEG knowledge? And how do you think on the relevancy of this businesses in the coming 5 to 10 years?

[Interpreted] Whose question is this?

[Interpreted] Nelson.

[Interpreted] Well, the digital businesses is going to move on along with the demand of WEG. So how does WEG seize this digital business. WEG is a company. Within our business, it is a automation company that within the automation context is coming -- the digitalization and this digitalization goes through new sensors, software programs, new products that help to bring all the information together, all the dashboard systems connected, all the management of plans and the very use of artificial intelligence. So this, it's -- a sequence is a way that just moves towards the strategy of WEG and we do not have a bigger -- our projections and our investments are also divided along all our business units. So for instance, in the electric motors, a unit -- the conditional monitoring, so -- but we already have sensors, the applied platform for all of it, which is WEG knowledge. We also have a product called the Motor Fleet Management that manages the whole fleet of motors. And we have very positive expectations in regards to the growth of this business all along with our offer also along with mass manufacturer in system to complement our offer. It's going to bring positive results. But what is important -- which is important -- but what is more important is that it's part of the strategy to complement the offer in terms of automation and management.

[Interpreted] Andre, also had a question regarding this but with more internal view from Juliana from Gauss Capital and she asks whether you believe that factories from WEG should benefit from 4.0 Industry and IoT? Could the solutions become more efficient, reducing the cost with labor and personnel?

[Interpreted] Well, obviously, WEG has 2 fronts in which it's operating, it is investing in new technology and to apply within its own factories and also the front in which it takes to the market WEG solutions in order to make other people's plants more efficient. So all these tools and all these offers that we have to the market, obviously, we also take advantage of the WEG for 2 -- more than 2 years. Actually, for 4 years, we have started a very important movement within WEG. And obviously, we start with mechanization, more automation, more robotization. And we are at a level today that we are using artificial intelligence. In our plants, we are using camera systems, same as we are offering to the market with artificial intelligent vision in order to control quality to survey the operations in a company. So WEG has been implementing all this in their own plants as well. So without the shadow of a doubt, we have an expectation of to gain capacity, knowledge and everything within WEG itself.

[Interpreted] There are 2 questions concerning automation. One of them focusing on household automation. Renata Cabral from Citibank asks about automation. Can you please comment upon WEG's plans for this business, and where does WEG act and have an interest in portfolio of solutions? Lucas from XP Investment, concerning the recently launched WEG Home, what is the potential of this market? And does the strategy foresee an organic growth or do you consider inorganic -- nonorganic or other growth plans?

[Interpreted] All WEG strategies, we consider organic growth. In addition to organic growth, acquisitions. WEG has been using acquisitions to bring new technologies, to gain access to new market segments, but these despite not being a large acquisition, they are important to complement our businesses and access to new markets. And one thing that is extremely important, oftentimes, we have to make some impact to bring skilled people who have more expertise and more practice or in order to put together and team up faster. This has been important. If you want to put together a team faster, you bring expertise and this is something that we've been using quite a lot, as we did in the digital area on the digital field, on the camera system and AI that I referred to recently in imaging technologies, which is AI basically. But as far as WEG Home is concerned, that was asked, WEG is moving gradually by complementing its product lines, by complementing its product portfolio, something that was announced with is the entry of WEG in Building. The Building segment. WEG was always very strong in the manufacturing industry and all circuit breaker technologies and circuit protection technology is now being transferred into the building or construction area, and we are faring very well working on this protection, electric protection for buildings, trading items of the digital field as well. This has to do with surveillance camera, analysis of imagery. So we are doing that in this strategy for building. To ask me specifically, what we have concerning WEG Home, this initiative is inserted within this whole strategy of building and -- in growing in building in general terms.

[Interpreted] Andre, this question is by a legal entity investor, personal investor and individual investor. Will dividends be increased for investors, shareholders?

[Interpreted] Our practice is more than 50% of the last year, 54% of net profit distribution to shareholders. We do not intend to change that policy. We're working to increase our financial results and to provide profit, more profit, create more value to our shareholders. We're working for that.

[Interpreted] The next question is by Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco about the recent news by General Electric that it's going to invest on new companies, GE Power. How will this change the competitive environment with this new player in the market?

[Interpreted] To separate into 3, but they will be part of one single company. What is the question then?

[Interpreted] How can these changes impact the competitive environment? Is there any space for a strategic move relative to this new company?

[Interpreted] What we've been following concerning General Electric, is that for different reasons, how companies are splitting, large corporation are splitting into other companies and how this is changing the competitive world. I don't think this is what's going to change the competitive environment in my opinion. What's going to change the competitive environment is the focus that these new and our most important competitors, what is the new focus for our new competitors, and that's how we define competitiveness. They will be dealing with what digital turbines and what else. GE Renewable Energy have an independent line of action. And I don't think it's going to change the competitive environment much because of those reasons.

[Interpreted] The next question has to do with [ Goldman Sachs ] competitors, do you see major players like ABB and Siemens as direct competitors in the most important products manufactured by WEG? Or do you think they have more added value products? In case of a direct competition, how can WEG set apart from those competitors?

[Interpreted] First thing I wouldn't like to do in this meeting is to comment specifically upon competitors' names, naming them, it's really hard. Well, this is an internal affairs thing. Without mentioning any names, WEG is on the front line in world-class business side by side with major players. We have to separate by lines of business. There are some products in which we are globally present, and we are world-class players in that particular case. In some other areas or businesses, we are #1 in Brazil, Latin America, entering the U.S. market. For example, in distributed transmission, we -- our focus is in the Americas. And GTD is a well-renowned brand. But some other business lines, we are not very well known worldwide. For example, automation, which is something we're moving towards, as we have seen, this is an important line we are investing on. So inverters, for instance or drives and inverters, we are doing business with China and manufacturing, and we're going to grow that segment and become as important as electric motors of other manufacturers, but drives and inverters is important too. And we are moving step-by-step towards all those business lines. But differentiation today is by products. In different lines of our competitors, I wouldn't be able to -- but we've been present in some markets. The presence of WEG in each market and all the support environment, this is what sets one company apart from others. And this is going to determine your market share.

[Interpreted] The next question is by Andressa Varotto by UBS about this motion drive strengthening strategy. Is there a potential to expand the participation of WEG in some markets? And what type of clients you are not so present, what are those?

[Interpreted] I will provide some examples. I will compare Brazil to the world. When you see Brazil, WEG is present in all markets. All equipment manufacturers have our products, not only in motors, but drives and controllers and everything. And the motion strategy outside Brazil, we are not present in all OEMs and machine manufacturers worldwide. We are present worldwide, but those that use more automation, reductor, drives or gearboxes and everything else, we have to strengthen our strategies, providing full package with technical solution, the whole package and the application for machine manufacturers and equipment outside Brazil and the distributors themselves, we have to start developing new distributors, not only for motors, but also for drives and gear motors and commercial motors because of the new products like the gearbox motors and inverters and drives in general.

[Interpreted] Andre, next question is by Victor Mizusaki, Bradesco and it has to do with the following. Do you see the opportunity of investing new segments overseas? What segments are these that you have revenue targets for the domestic market and overseas market?

[Interpreted] WEG has never stopped considering opportunities for growth through [ M&A ]. All the time we are studying new opportunities. So much so in the main regions, as we have shown, North America, Asia, the main regions for the growth of the company is we intend to be present in main markets. But obviously, other businesses and other regions, all the strategic planning of the company considers the possibility to grow through M&A. What has happened recently is that with the pandemic, we sort of lowered our speed of that compared to the previous years. When we talk about acquisition in Brazil, as we have -- as we did in 2020, that is a much more simplified process in order to do a due diligence process to take care of the integration, which is very important issue for WEG. And when we talk about other locations, that is a little bit more difficult to imagine to make such an integration, the same due diligence, exhaustive process in a country that you cannot even travel to. So that becomes more difficult. So now with the situation of the pandemic becoming a little bit milder, I think that we have the conditions again in order to consider other geographies. But still, we are searching new opportunities in Brazil when they come along and as recently has been announced about acquisition in Minas Gerais as well as in other regions. And in the past, we've had an indication that the growth of WEG would come from M&A to the extent of 30%. We do not have such a rule nowadays of how much this is going to answer for, but the message is that M&A is always going to be considered to be an alternative to carry on with the growing process along with all other investments and the capacity to start new businesses in new geographies as we have seen and considered lately.

[Interpreted] The next question comes from Cassio Lucin from NEO Investment in regards to the infrastructure planning of the United States. The infrastructure area foresees 70 million for power and infrastructure. From this amount, do -- can you have a visibility of how much could be captured by WEG?

[Interpreted] Well, that is an exercise that we do not have the habit of carrying out, not at least in such a way as it has been asked. But one thing we are doing and that is the United States has shown imports and infrastructure involvement movements in a general way and WEG and not -- it's not a recent thing. From some time backwards, has started to invest into the United States in order to take advantage of 2 very important movements. One, the first was the very -- the investment in a general way in the motor drives, geared motors, fraction motors that as you've seen in the presentation, we have increased and grown a lot, including in the American market, commercial infrastructure. We are investing a lot because we believe that the United States is going to have and show very important growth in the short term. And the energy sector has also been very much incentivized in the United States, specifically the renewables, and we invest. We bought transformer factories in the United States. It's not necessarily to manufacture them, but it's to increase our presence because we have factories in Mexico that supplies the plants in the United States, and we're investing in that. And this factory is actually fully taken, it's at full capacity, and we are making investment in order to increase the capacity there. And that doesn't mean that we are going to manufacture there. We complement the products that are been -- so we can complement with Mexican-made products some, products for short cycle, short delivery times. We have to do there, but we are very well positioned today in order to advance and take advantage of all the opportunities that come up from these new investments that have been announced in the United States. So just as a detail, I think that it has already been said, obviously, WEG has positioned itself strategically. Some time ago, we have put a lot of focus on renewables and including on transformers for that end. We focus on investors of renewable energy generators. And we have a very important position in this market that in -- that invests in renewable energies. And what is going to happen, as you can see, is going to -- there is going to be more stimulus for this sort of energy in the United States.

[Interpreted] Next topic here. And I think that it has somehow been addressed in few -- some answers, but we had 2 answers in regards to the market share in the foreign markets. The first is from Daniel Gasparete from Credit Suisse, asking whether you can comment a little bit more on the strategy to gain market share in the international market and from Renata Cabral from Citibank talks about specifically on the electric motors, how can you increase your market share in foreign markets?

[Interpreted] Well, this question is -- there are so many things to do, including in the electric motors unit. That's why we are changing our marketing and commercial strategy for a motion drive because these are segments. For instance, the electric motors and where we have the great opportunities for growth is in the big markets, the United States, China, Europe, these are the markets at our major -- WEG has already a very strong position and -- but WEG is not present in all the segments of this market. So it has an important participation, but not in all sectors. There is a very important participation in the United States -- in the U.S. market, but you have to have a strategy in order to advance in very specific markets, such as I mentioned previously in the February in the manufacturers of automated machinery. We're not talking about pumps, fans. When we talk about this, it's the main market of WEG, and WEG has a significant participation in this, but does not have the same participation in the manufacturer, for instance, of transporters or conveyors, carriage, agricultural implementation does not have the same sort of presence, not for bottling plans for any kind of liquid, soft drinks or whatever. So -- and why is that? Because they offer as not -- must not be all it [ motor ] because you have to have the drive, the geared motor and the motor, so this is the talk. And we were already working again. We already have been working on this segment, but perhaps not with such a approach in order to furnish the whole package more aggressively. And when we talk about the foreign markets, apart besides from the one already well developed by WEG, some markets such as the Eastern European market or the Southeast Asian market, Central Asia. These are all areas that WEG needs to advance and strengthen its position, which is relatively small. And we are structuring ourselves. I'm not sure, have we announced the Turkey investment? Have we mentioned that investment that we're making in Turkey? This is still for some commercial investment. But in order to become stronger in Eastern European markets. And so we are advanced. There's a lot to gain and conquer in the electric motors issue. We have a strong position. It's important, but there is a lot more market to be gained out there.

[Interpreted] The next question is also connected to the foreign market but related to 2 specific products [indiscernible] asks whether you intend to extend the electric powertrain and photovoltaic kits for the exchange -- for the foreign market, the recharger market for...

[Interpreted] Well, the question has been made. The simple answer is yes. But then comes the second question is when to do it? At which moment should we do it? WEG is -- we want to be a key player in Brazil. Obviously, the Brazilian market does not develop at the same speed as the European market and the U.S. market, but you need to advance this market in order to consolidate your product. And without a shadow of a doubt, this is a product that we are going to take to other markets.

[Interpreted] Next question from [ Alan ] on new businesses, which are the new businesses that WEG is starting that you could share with us today?

[Interpreted] I don't think this is possible or you shouldn't at least. But it's important to see is what WEG has developed now. We created a slide to show the places where we are present, electro-electronic products, industrial electro-electronic devices, distributed generation and so on and so forth. But we provided in details, for us internally, to spark internal discussion on how we're going to strengthen each of the areas mentioned there in the plan. And the strengthening of those areas implies undoubtedly, new products, new markets, complementary products in motion drive, electrification, automation, digitization, power generation and distribution, digitalization today. So a number of complementary products will be there as it's been throughout WEG's journey. But always, we have to do something that makes sense. We are either strong on one given channel commercially or in technology. This is what brings opportunities for new business. For instance, today, I should imagine that WEG is probably starting to move forward in powertrain for electric mobility. So we are getting ready for this new mobility world, undoubtedly.

[Interpreted] We're getting to the end of our Q&A. And this is the very last question that we got, and I thought it's interesting because it is slightly different. He has asked about other than financial and economic potential, can you talk about one of WEG's pillars? And how are you deploying that overseas?

[Interpreted] Talking about culture, we have to be careful in order not to fail to mention something important. There are numerous factors involved that strengthen a company's culture. But one thing that sets WEG apart from others is number one, to be a company that is moved by a pursuit of growth because when we want to grow, we need -- we do need to invest on technology, on innovation, invest on the development of people and to have everyone's involvement from management all the way to the shop floor. So if we are to take on new challenges, we have to have it all well developed in a company, a culture within this aspect. Our culture is sharing knowledge. It's about sharing knowledge. Our discussion processes and people training and development, my people, the ones I lead. This is the most important thing we have at WEG, is to share knowledge, share expertise. And we've been quite successful because this is not done through the slides but through behaviors. So we have to have a mix. For example, in China, we have a mix there. We have Brazilian executives providing ways of working to ensure all these factors that I've just mentioned. This encourages newcomers, our new staff in China. We have our WEG Chinese, we say in Europe, we have our WEG European, so to speak. So this is all about culture, and we are quite successful in that front. And when we think back how many important executives quit WEG, just a few. This means that our culture is conveyed to everyone in the company, worldwide.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Harry, to you and Andre, for your insightful comments, speaking to our investors and analysts, I'd like to express my appreciation to everyone who put together this meeting, our marketing and IT teams, all our suppliers and providers for holding this meeting. We thank you for your attendance. Thank you. See you in next meeting. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]