Loma Negra Compañía Industrial Argentina Sociedad Anónima ADS EACH REPR 5 ORD SHS SPON (USD) (NYSE:LOMA) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 7, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Diego Jalon - Head of IR

Sergio Faifman - CEO and VP of Board of Directors

Marcos Gradin - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Daniel Rojas - Bank of America

Jorge Vinas - Latin Securities

Diego Jalon

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Loma Negra's Earnings Conference Call. By now, everyone should have access to our earnings press release and the presentation for today's call, both of which were distributed yesterday after market close. Joining me on the call this morning will be Sergio Faifman, our CEO and Vice President of the Board of Directors, and our CFO, Marcos Gradin. Both of them will be available for the Q&A session.

Before we proceed, I would like to make the following safe harbor statements. Today's call will contain forward-looking statements, and I refer you to the forward-looking statement section of our earnings release and recent filing with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new or changed events or circumstances. This conference call will also include discussion on non-GAAP financial measures. The full reconciliation of the corresponding financial measures is included in the earnings press release.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to Sergio.

Sergio Faifman

Thank you, Diego. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. I would like to begin my presentation with the discussion of the highlights of the quarter, and then Marcos will take you through our market review and financial result. After that, I provide some final remarks. And then, we will open call for your questions.

Starting with Slide 2, I'm delighted to share with you our performance for the final quarter of the year, despite the current challenges resulting for the political transition and involving economic environments, which impacted second semester activity level. The industry concluded the year with dispatch volume that ranked only behind the record year of 2022. In this context, Loma has once again demonstrated its resilience, delivering another solid set of results despite the decrease in our top line, which reaches ARS99 billion, marking a decrease of 13.2%. This decline was primarily due to the volume contraction in our core segment, cement. Adjusted EBITDA stood at $61 million for the quarter or ARS22.7 billion. The year-on-year comparison is affected by the sale of non-core assets for $19 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Excluding this effect, EBITDA decreased by 25.8%.