Corporación América Airports S.A. (NYSE:CAAP) Q3 2022 Results Conference Call November 18, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Patricio Esnaola - Head of Investor Relations

Martin Eurnekian - Chief Executive Officer

Jorge Arruda - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Alejandro Demichelis - Nau Securities

Operator

Good morning. And welcome to the Corporación América Airports' Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and is available in the Investors section of the Corporación América Airports’ Web site. As a reminder, all participants will be in listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

At this time, I would like to turn the presentation over to Patricio Inaki Esnaola, Head of Investor Relations. Patricio, please go ahead.

Patricio Esnaola

Thank you. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today. Speaking during today's call will be Martin Eurnekian, our Chief Executive Officer; and Jorge Arruda, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we proceed, I would like to make the following Safe Harbor statement. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements and I refer you to the forward-looking statements section of our earnings release and recent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances.

Now, let me turn the call over to our CEO, Martin Eurnekian.

Martin Eurnekian

Thank you, Inaki. Hello everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. We reported a robust quarter with sustained growth in top and bottom line, both beating recorded levels. Total revenues were up in the low double digits against third quarter 2019, supported by a continued recovery in traffic and strong growth in commercial revenue. Along with our ongoing focused on cost control allowed us to report an adjusted EBITDA of over $130 million with positive contributions from all countries of operations. Notably, the adjusted EBITDA margin ex-IFRIC12 was also above pre-COVID levels, expanding to 38% this quarter, up from 32% in the third quarter of 2019 and low 20s in the third quarter last year. For the first nine months of the year, adjusted EBITDA already amounted to $339 million. On the balance sheet front, our leverage ratio continued to trend down with net debt to adjusted EBITDA below 3 times, reflecting relatively stable net debt levels combined with significant recovery in adjusted EBITDA. Let me also highlight that last August we also redeemed the remaining outstanding amounts related to the preferred shares in AA2000 were in amount close to $40 million. As a reminder, this is deducted from mandatory CapEx in Argentina. Finally, as part of our development ambitions, we were named prepare bidders to run Abuja and Kano airports in Nigeria this month. We are now in talks with government officials about the terms of the concession agreements and we will update you on this matter as we make progress.