Compañía Cervecerías Unidas S.A. (NYSE:CCU) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 28, 2024 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Claudio Las Heras – Head-Investor Relations
Felipe Dubernet – Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Felipe Ucros – Scotiabank
Fernando Olvera – Bank of America
Ulises Bolio – J.P. Morgan
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to CCU’s Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call on the 28th of February. Today’s conference call is being recorded.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Claudio Las Heras, the Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Claudio Las Heras
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for attending CCU’s fourth quarter 2023 conference call. Today with me are Mr. Felipe Dubernet, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Joaquín Trejo, Financial Planning and Investor Relations Manager. You have received a copy of the company’s consolidated fourth quarter 2023 results. Felipe will review our overall results, and we will then move on to a Q&A session.
Before we begin, please take note of our cautionary statement. The statements made in this call that relate to CCU’s future performance or financial results are forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual performance or results to materially differ. These statements should be taken in conjunction with the additional information about risks and uncertainties set forth in CCU’s annual report in Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and in the annual report submitted to the CMF and available on our website.
It is now my pleasure to introduce our CFO, Mr. Felipe Dubernet.
Felipe Dubernet
Thank you, Claudio, and thank you to all for joining us today. During 2023, we posted a recovery in our operating results and profitability in spite of the volatile business environment, a particularly difficult year for the wine export business and Argentina’s macroeconomic conditions.
Our consolidated EBITDA in the year grew 6% and the EBITDA margin improved 159 basis points, driven by our main operating segment, Chile, which expanded EBITDA by 24.8% more than offsetting a 37.4% drop in the Wine Operating segment and a 16% contraction in International Business Operating segment, which includes Argentina.
Consolidated net income contracted 10.6% versus 2022. The driver for the better operational result was the execution of our regional plan HerCCUles, which encompasses six pillars: Number one, maintain business scale; number two, strengthen revenue management efforts; number three, deliver efficiency gains through our transformation program; number four, optimizing CapEx and working capital; number five, focusing on core brands and high-volume margin innovations; and number six, continue investing in our brand equity.