Compañía Cervecerías Unidas S.A. (NYSE:CCU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: Sure. Question is what is your vision of the HC Rebond covenant if the covenant change is not achieved?

Felipe Dubernet : All right. Yes. We expect to achieve the change of the government in order to align with all the other bonds, local bonds that we have. And if it is not achieved, we will take surely actions on this bond, but nothing to announce. We prefer to — and we expect to achieve the change of the government for the time being.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mr. Fernando Olvera from Bank of America.

Fernando Olvera: Very quickly, my first question is for Colombia. If you can give us a breakdown of how much of top line growth came from pricing and how much from volume? And also, how do you expect this top line to behave in 2023, would be great. And also, can you share what will be your CapEx this year and the main projects in which you are going to invest?

Felipe Dubernet : Yes. Colombia. Yes, Colombia was a year, we started very well in the first quarter. And then we have experienced some industry deceleration. I would say that mostly of the top line came from price as our volumes were a little bit lower than expected; However, still building a scale there. Going forward, we are looking at repositioning of some brands, such as, for example, with a new value proposition in the market, and also continue to improve or increase the brand equity of while sustaining the performance of Heineken. So that’s Q4. Regarding your question on CapEx, our CapEx of 2022 was CLP 190 billion. We expect the CapEx level to be reduced going forward this year. And one of the main projects is the construction, the building and construction of resin recycling, model recycling plant to be built in This is up to $40 million.

This is the main CapEx project in order to fulfill the sustainability and also the single-use plastic by 2025. So this is a key project and one of our main projects for the year, the construction of the resin recycling plant in Chile with an investment up to $40 million.

Operator: We have one more text question here from Mr. Sergio Winter from Falcom Asset Management. Do you know if the competition in Chile has followed the price increases you did in the fourth quarter. Those price increases used in Chile were at the beginning, mid or end of the quarter?

Felipe Dubernet : I think the question — I would answer the question in that in a different way, let’s say, we have increased prices in all our and at the same time, we have increased market share from November. So let’s say, we are in a positive trend of market share. So it seems that all the industry increased prices in the last month.

Operator: We’ll give another few seconds for any additional questions to come in. Okay. It looks like we have no further questions at this point. I’ll pass the line back to the CCU team for the concluding remarks.

Felipe Dubernet : Thank you, you all for attending this conference call. In the last quarter of 2022, we still suffered from the impact on our cost and expenses from negative external effects and also high companies on base in terms of volumes and financial results. However, as I said, against previous quarters, we are experiencing a sequential improvement. We are entering 2023 in a good shape in terms of prices, business scale and brand equity. This, together with the HerCCUles 2023 plan will be the key driver to recover profitability. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all CCU employees as for the effort and dedication in a particularly challenging year. I am confident that we will continue putting all our efforts to recover the path of profitable and sustainable growth. Have a wonderful day.

Operator: Thank you very much. This concludes our conference call today. We’ll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and good day.

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