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Key metrics
📘 Market Capitalization
📈 What is it?
Market capitalization shows how much a company is currently worth on the stock market.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps classify companies by size (Large, Mid, Small Cap) and indicates their market presence and relative stability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Large-cap companies tend to be more stable, often pay dividends, but may grow more slowly.
- Smaller firms may offer higher growth potential but come with more volatility.
- Market capitalization is a useful indicator of company size — but not a measure of whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.
📘 Enterprise Value (EV)
📈 What is it?
Enterprise Value represents the total cost to acquire a company — including its debt and excluding its cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(= Market Cap + Net Debt)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV gives a more complete picture of a company's value than market cap alone and is used in key valuation ratios like EV/FCF or EV/Sales.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Enterprise Value shows the true cost of buying a company, including all financial obligations.
- It is more accurate than just looking at market cap, especially when comparing companies with different levels of debt or cash.
- Professional investors prefer EV-based multiples because they better reflect the company’s full financial footprint.
📘 Net Debt
📈 What is it?
Net Debt shows how much debt remains after subtracting a company’s available cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It indicates how dependent a company is on borrowed money and how easily it can service its debt in the short term.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low or negative net debt signals financial strength and flexibility.
- Companies with strong cash positions are better positioned in crises.
- High net debt increases financial risk — especially in environments with rising interest rates or economic downturns.
📘 Cash
📈 What is it?
Cash represents all liquid assets a company can access immediately — including cash, bank deposits, and short-term investments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It reflects a company’s financial flexibility and resilience — enabling investments, buybacks, or buffer in downturns.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A strong cash position means greater room for maneuver and crisis resistance.
- Cash-rich companies can invest, pay down debt, or repurchase shares.
- But excess idle cash might indicate a lack of growth opportunities.
📘 Shares Outstanding
📈 What is it?
Shares outstanding represent the total number of a company’s shares currently held by investors — excluding treasury stock.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s the basis for key metrics like Earnings Per Share (EPS), Market Capitalization, or the Price/Earnings ratio (P/E).
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Fewer shares in circulation typically increase earnings per share — making each share more valuable.
- Share buybacks reduce the number of shares and boost per-share metrics.
- Issuing new shares does the opposite — diluting shareholder value and lowering per-share figures.
📘 Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
📈 What is it?
The P/E ratio shows how many times a company's earnings per share are reflected in its current share price — in other words, how "expensive" the stock appears relative to its profits.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The P/E ratio is one of the most widely used valuation metrics. It helps investors assess whether a stock appears cheap or expensive compared to its earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
📊 P/E (TTM) = Based on earnings from the last 12 months (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/E may indicate undervaluation — or signal underlying issues.
- A high P/E may reflect strong growth expectations — or an overvalued stock.
📘 Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S)
📈 What is it?
The P/S ratio shows how much investors are paying for $1 of the company’s revenue – regardless of profitability.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/S is especially useful for evaluating growth companies or businesses not yet profitable. It reflects how the market values the company’s sales.
🧮 Calculation
Market Cap = $7.98b | Revenue (TTM) = $29.41b
Market Cap = $7.98b | Estimated Revenue = $30.84b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/S may indicate undervaluation — or low profitability.
- A high P/S can reflect strong growth expectations — or excessive optimism.
- Especially helpful when evaluating companies where profits are low, volatile, or negative.
📘 Enterprise Value to Sales (EV/Sales)
📈 What is it?
EV/Sales shows how much investors are paying for $1 of revenue — considering not just equity, but also debt and cash. It’s the capital structure–adjusted version of the P/S ratio.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s ideal for comparing companies with different levels of debt. It reflects a company's true cost relative to its revenue.
🧮 Calculation
Enterprise Value = $9.96b | Revenue (TTM) = $29.41b
Enterprise Value = $9.96b | Forward Revenue = $30.84b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EV/Sales allows for capital structure–neutral company comparisons.
- A lower ratio may indicate undervaluation; a higher one may signal strong growth expectations or overvaluation.
- Especially helpful when evaluating high-growth companies with low or negative earnings.
📘 Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow (EV/FCF) | ex SBC
📈 What is it?
EV/FCF compares a company’s enterprise value with its free cash flow. The metric therefore shows the multiple of current free cash flow at which a company is valued. EV/FCF ex SBC additionally accounts for stock-based compensation (SBC). While SBC does not represent a direct cash outflow, issuing shares as compensation can dilute existing shareholders. Therefore, SBC is deducted from free cash flow in this adjusted version.
🧮 How is it calculated?
EV/FCF ex SBC = Enterprise Value ÷ (Free Cash Flow (TTM) − SBC)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV/FCF provides a valuation based on free cash flow and therefore complements earnings-based valuation metrics such as the P/E ratio. The ex SBC version additionally accounts for the economic impact of stock-based compensation and provides a more conservative view from a shareholder perspective.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low EV/FCF means that enterprise value is low relative to current free cash flow. The reasons should always be considered in the context of the company and its industry.
- A high EV/FCF means that enterprise value is high relative to current free cash flow. This can, for example, reflect high growth expectations or temporarily weak cash generation.
- When SBC is positive and adjusted free cash flow remains positive, EV/FCF ex SBC is generally higher than the standard EV/FCF.
- The metric is particularly useful for companies with relatively stable and predictable cash flows.
- If free cash flow is negative or very low, EV/FCF has limited usefulness and should not be interpreted like a standard valuation multiple.
📘 Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
📈 What is it?
The P/B ratio compares a company’s market value to its book value — showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of net assets.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/B is commonly used for asset-heavy industries like banks or industrials. It helps assess whether a stock is trading above or below its net asset value.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A P/B below 1 may signal undervaluation — or weak profitability.
- A P/B above 1 implies the market expects future value creation (e.g., brand, IP, growth).
- Best used for companies with tangible assets and strong balance sheets.
📘 Dividend per Share (DPS)
📈 What is it?
Dividend per Share shows how much cash a company pays out to shareholders for each share they own – usually on an annual or quarterly basis.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
DPS is the absolute value of the payout per share – crucial for income-focused investors and dividend strategies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable or growing DPS often signals a strong, shareholder-friendly business.
- DPS alone doesn’t tell you how attractive the payout is – the stock price also matters (→ see Dividend Yield).
- Long-term dividend growth is often a hallmark of high-quality companies – like the dividend aristocrats.
📘 Dividend Yield
📈 What is it?
Dividend yield shows how large a company’s dividend is in relation to its current share price.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It allows investors to compare dividend payouts across stocks, regardless of price or payout size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable yield can reflect reliable distributions.
- Comparing 1Y and 5Y yield shows whether dividend growth keeps pace with stock price appreciation.
- A low yield isn’t always negative – it can signal strong past performance or growth focus.
📘 Dividend Growth
📈 What is it?
Dividend growth shows how much a company has increased its dividend per share over time.
🧮 How is it calculated?
5Y: Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
🏛️ Why is it important?
Consistently rising dividends are often a sign of financial strength and shareholder orientation – especially relevant for long-term investors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stable dividend growth is a sign of sustainable earning power.
- High dividend growth can significantly boost your total return:
- If a company pays $1 in dividends and increases it by 15% annually over 5 years, you’ll receive $2 per share in year 5 – twice as much as at the start!
📘 Payout Ratio
📈 What is it?
The payout ratio shows what percentage of a company’s earnings (per share) is distributed to shareholders as dividends.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess whether the dividend is sustainable – especially in relation to the company’s profitability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low payout ratio means the company retains more earnings for reinvestment – typical for growth companies.
- A moderate payout (e.g. 25–50%) indicates a healthy balance between returns and reinvestment.
- High payout ratios may seem attractive but can carry risk if earnings decline.
📘 Consecutive Dividend Increases
📈 What is it?
This metric shows how many consecutive years a company has raised its dividend per share – without any cuts or pauses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(Special dividends are not considered.)
🏛️ Why is it important?
A long track record of increases reflects financial strength, consistency, and shareholder commitment.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A long dividend increase streak builds confidence – especially in volatile markets.
- Such companies are seen as reliable and income-friendly investments.
- The longer the streak, the stronger the company’s dividend discipline.
📘 Revenue
📈 What is it?
Revenue shows how much a company earns in total from selling its products and services – the gross income before any costs are deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Revenue is one of the key figures to assess a company’s size, market position, and growth potential.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing revenue indicates rising demand and can be an early signal of future earnings growth.
- Comparing actual and expected revenue reveals trends in the market environment and analyst sentiment.
- Note: Strong revenue alone isn’t enough – margins and profitability matter just as much.
📘 EBITDA
📈 What is it?
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.” It reflects a company’s operating profit before the effects of financing, taxes, and accounting depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBITDA is widely used to evaluate a company’s operating performance – especially across capital-intensive sectors or international comparisons.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high or growing EBITDA indicates strong operational profitability – independent of taxes, interest, or accounting methods.
- It’s especially useful for comparing companies across sectors or geographies.
- Important: EBITDA is not a net income figure – it excludes key costs like depreciation and interest.
📘 EBIT
📈 What is it?
EBIT stands for “Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.” It reflects a company’s operating profit after depreciation, but before interest and tax expenses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT is a core profitability metric that shows how well the company performs in its main business operations – independent of capital structure and tax environment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT indicates strong profitability from the company’s core business – before financial and tax effects.
- It allows better comparison between companies with different debt levels or tax structures.
- Compared to EBITDA, EBIT already accounts for depreciation and reflects capital intensity more clearly.
📘 Net Income
📈 What is it?
Net income is the company’s total profit – the amount left after all expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation have been deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the most comprehensive measure of a company’s profitability – showing how much actual profit remains after all business and financing costs.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing net income indicates that the company is managing all of its costs efficiently.
- It directly influences valuation metrics like P/E ratio and the company’s dividend capacity.
- Over time, net income trends reveal how resilient and profitable the business model really is.
📘 Free Cash Flow (FCF) | ex SBC
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow shows how much cash remains after a company has covered its operating and capital expenditures. FCF ex SBC additionally deducts stock-based compensation (SBC) to adjust the cash flow for the effect of non-cash SBC.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free Cash Flow ex SBC = Operating Cash Flow − SBC − Capital Expenditures (CAPEX)
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF reflects a company’s actual financial strength – independent of reported accounting earnings. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction. FCF ex SBC also deducts stock-based compensation and shows how much cash generation remains after SBC.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High free cash flow indicates that a company has strong financial strength – independent of reported earnings.
- It is often a solid basis for sustainable dividends and share buybacks.
- Declining FCF can be a warning sign, even if reported earnings remain stable.
📘 Revenue Growth
📈 What is it?
Revenue growth shows how much a company’s sales have changed compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on forward projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected revenue ÷ Revenue in prior year − 1) × 100
Forward growth is based on analyst estimates for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Rising revenue signals growing demand, business expansion, and market share gains – especially important for growth-oriented companies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growth is the engine of long-term value creation – especially in tech and growth sectors.
- What matters is not just current growth, but its sustainability.
- Forward projections reflect whether analysts expect continued momentum – or a slowdown.
📘 EBITDA Growth
📈 What is it?
EBITDA growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) has increased or decreased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBITDA ÷ EBITDA from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Growing EBITDA indicates improving operational profitability – regardless of financing or accounting effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Strong EBITDA growth signals operational efficiency and scalability – especially during growth phases.
- EBITDA growth can be an early indicator of margin and earnings expansion – but should be assessed alongside revenue and EBIT.
📘 EBIT Growth
📈 What is it?
EBIT growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (after depreciation, but before interest and taxes) has increased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBIT ÷ EBIT from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT growth is a direct indicator of a company’s business performance – taking into account capital intensity through depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Rising EBIT signals improving operating profitability – even after accounting for depreciation.
- It’s especially important for evaluating companies with significant capital expenditures.
- Combined with revenue and EBITDA growth, EBIT growth provides a well-rounded view of operational progress.
📘 Net Income Growth
📈 What is it?
Net income growth shows how much a company’s bottom-line profit has increased or decreased compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on analyst projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected net income ÷ Net income from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate reflects analysts’ expectations for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the ultimate measure of profitability. Growing net income signals stronger efficiency, cost control, and sustainable earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stronger net income boosts valuation, dividend potential, and investor confidence.
- If profits stall while revenue grows, it may signal margin pressure.
📘 Free Cash Flow Growth
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow (FCF) growth shows how a company’s available cash – after covering operating expenses and capital expenditures – has changed compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Free cash flow reflects real financial strength. Growing FCF indicates more flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, and reinvestment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Declining FCF may point to rising investments, increasing costs, or weaker operating performance.
- Especially for dividend investors, FCF growth is critical – since dividends are paid from actual available cash.
- A negative trend isn't always bad, but it deserves closer attention.
📘 Gross Margin
📈 What is it?
Gross margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains after deducting the direct costs of goods sold (like materials and production). It represents the company’s “raw profit” before fixed costs, taxes, and interest.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Or simply: Gross Margin = Gross Profit ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
Gross margin indicates how efficiently a company can produce or procure what it sells. It is a key measure of product-level profitability and pricing power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high gross margin suggests strong pricing power and efficient production.
- Falling margins may signal rising input costs or competitive pressure.
- Compared to peers, gross margin offers insights into the quality of a business model.
📘 EBITDA Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBITDA margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.It reflects operating efficiency without being distorted by financing or accounting factors.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBITDA margin reveals how much operating income a company generates per dollar of revenue – independent of capital structure and tax effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBITDA margin reflects strong core profitability – before accounting distortions.
- It allows for effective comparisons across companies and sectors.
- A stable or growing margin signals efficient cost control and business scalability.
📘 EBIT Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBIT margin shows what percentage of revenue remains as operating profit after depreciation but before interest and taxes.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBIT margin reflects a company’s core profitability while accounting for capital intensity (e.g. machinery, infrastructure). It’s especially useful for comparing businesses with different levels of depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT margin shows that the company remains efficient even after factoring in depreciation.
- It’s especially relevant for capital-intensive industries.
- Stable or rising EBIT margins over time are a strong indicator of pricing power and business quality.
📘 Net Margin
📈 What is it?
Net margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as bottom-line profit after deducting all costs, interest, taxes, and depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net margin reflects a company’s overall efficiency – across operations, financing, and taxation. It shows how much actual profit is generated from each dollar of revenue.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high net margin means the company is not only strong operationally but also manages financing and taxes efficiently.
- Peer comparisons reveal business quality and competitiveness.
- Declining margins despite revenue growth can be a red flag for rising costs or inefficiencies.
📘 Free Cash Flow Margin | ex SBC
📈 What is it?
The Free Cash Flow Margin shows how much free cash flow a company generates relative to its revenue. In simplified terms, free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures. The Free Cash Flow Margin ex SBC additionally accounts for stock-based compensation (SBC). While SBC does not represent a direct cash outflow, issuing shares as compensation can dilute existing shareholders. Therefore, SBC is deducted from free cash flow in this adjusted metric.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free Cash Flow Margin ex SBC = (Free Cash Flow − SBC) ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
The Free Cash Flow Margin shows how efficiently a company converts its revenue into free cash flow. Strong free cash flow can provide financial flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, debt repayment, or further investments. The ex SBC version additionally accounts for the economic impact of stock-based compensation and therefore provides a more conservative view of cash generation from a shareholder perspective.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high Free Cash Flow Margin shows that a company converts a high proportion of its revenue into free cash flow.
- This can provide greater financial flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, debt repayment, or investments.
- The Free Cash Flow Margin ex SBC additionally accounts for potential shareholder dilution from stock-based compensation.
- The long-term trend is particularly important. Declining margins can, for example, result from higher investments, changes in working capital, or weaker operating performance.
📘 Equity Ratio
📈 What is it?
The equity ratio indicates what portion of a company’s total assets is financed by shareholders’ equity – in other words, how much it relies on its own capital.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
A high equity ratio reflects financial strength and stability, especially during downturns. It’s a key indicator of a company’s solvency and long-term risk profile.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Companies with high equity ratios are generally more resilient and less dependent on external debt.
- Low equity ratios can signal higher risk or aggressive financial strategies.
- Important: Always assess the equity ratio in combination with the return on equity (ROE). This shows not just how stable the company is – but also how efficiently it uses shareholder capital.
📘 Return on Equity (ROE)
📈 What is it?
Return on equity (ROE) shows how efficiently a company uses its shareholders’ equity to generate profit. In other words: how much net income is earned per dollar of equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROE is a core profitability metric. It helps investors understand whether a company delivers attractive returns on the capital provided by its shareholders.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROE indicates that the company is using its capital efficiently and profitably.
- It’s especially meaningful for capital-intensive businesses or firms with high equity bases.
- Important: A very high ROE can also result from high debt levels – always interpret it alongside the equity ratio to assess financial health.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 What is it?
ROCE measures how efficiently a company generates profits from its total capital – including both equity and interest-bearing debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It evaluates the return on all capital employed, regardless of how it’s financed.
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROCE is ideal for comparing companies with different financing structures. It shows how well management uses capital to create value for both shareholders and creditors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROCE means the company uses its capital efficiently – regardless of whether it's funded by debt or equity.
- The higher the ROCE compared to peers, the more value the company creates with its invested capital.
- Especially relevant for capital-intensive sectors like industrials, energy, or infrastructure.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 What is it?
ROIC measures how efficiently a company generates returns from the capital invested in its core operations – regardless of whether the capital comes from equity or debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
- NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Taxes
- Invested Capital = Operating assets minus non-interest-bearing liabilities
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROIC is one of the most accurate indicators of capital efficiency. Unlike return on equity, it is not distorted by leverage and shows how much value is created for all capital providers.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROIC shows how effectively a company uses the capital that is truly invested in its core operations.
- Unlike ROCE, ROIC focuses only on the capital that is actively used to run the business – and that requires a return (i.e. interest-bearing).
- Especially useful when comparing companies with large amounts of excess cash or non-interest-bearing liabilities – giving a more realistic picture of capital efficiency.
📘 Leverage Ratio (Debt-to-Equity)
📈 What is it?
The leverage ratio indicates how much a company relies on interest-bearing debt (such as loans and bonds) relative to its shareholders’ equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This ratio helps assess a company’s financial structure and risk profile. High leverage can enhance returns – but also increases exposure to interest rate changes and financial stress.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low leverage ratio signals financial strength and independence.
- A higher ratio can improve returns in good times but increases risk during downturns or rising interest rate periods.
- 👉 Always interpret in the context of industry, capital intensity, and interest rate environment.
📘 Earnings per share (EPS)
📈 What is it?
Earnings per Share (EPS) shows how much profit is attributable to a single share – and is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a company's performance.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The diluted share count reflects potential new shares that could be issued through options, convertible bonds, or other rights.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EPS is the basis for many key valuation metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, or payout ratio. It enables comparisons of profitability across companies, regardless of their size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EPS captures per-share profitability and is especially useful for comparisons over time or with analyst estimates.
- Rising EPS may signal consistent growth or share buybacks.
- Important: Always use diluted EPS for more realistic valuations – especially in companies with stock-based compensation.
📘 Free cash flow per share (FCF per share)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow per Share shows how much free cash flow a company generates per outstanding share – after investments, but before dividends or debt repayments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures (CapEx).
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF per Share reveals how much real cash is available per share – useful for dividends, buybacks, or reducing debt. Unlike net income, free cash flow is harder to manipulate and often seen as a more reliable metric.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High FCF per share signals strong financial flexibility.
- It shows how much capital the company can effectively reinvest or return to shareholders.
- Particularly relevant for dividend payers and capital-efficient businesses.
📘 Short interest
📈 What is it?
Short interest indicates how many shares of a company are currently sold short – that is, borrowed and sold by investors who expect the price to decline.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It reflects the percentage of a company’s shares that are being shorted relative to the total shares available.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Short interest serves as a sentiment indicator: A high value may signal skepticism or bearish expectations – but also increases the potential for a short squeeze if prices rise unexpectedly.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low short interest usually indicates market confidence in the company.
- High short interest can be a warning sign – or an opportunity if sentiment shifts.
- Especially relevant in volatile markets or ahead of key earnings releases.
📘 Employees
📈 What is it?
The employee count shows how many people a company employs worldwide – offering insights into its size, structure, and business model.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess operational scale, labor intensity, and cost structure. Combined with revenue and profit, it enables key metrics like revenue per employee or productivity.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high headcount can signal operational complexity – but also significant growth capacity.
- Revenue per employee is a key indicator of efficiency.
- Especially useful for comparing tech, industrial, or service-heavy companies.
📘 Revenue per employee
📈 What is it?
Revenue per employee indicates how much revenue a company generates on average per employee – a key measure of efficiency and productivity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The employee count is typically taken from the most recent annual report.
🏛️ Why is it important?
This metric helps compare business models – especially between labor-intensive and technology-driven companies. A high value suggests automation, operational efficiency, or strong value creation per head.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high revenue per employee indicates a scalable and margin-strong business model.
- A low figure may reflect labor-intensive operations or lower value-add.
- Especially helpful when comparing tech companies to industrial or service sectors.
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR Stock Analysis
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Past Events
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OCT
2
Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
one day ago
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AUG
13
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
about 2 months ago
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MAY
7
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
5 months ago
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MAR
5
Q4 2025 Earnings Call
7 months ago
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NOV
13
Q3 2025 Earnings Call
11 months ago
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SEP
19
Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
about one year ago
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Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
1. Management Discussion
Good morning, good morning. Good morning to everyone who's joining us here today and joining us online. It's a cold and rainy day in Sao Paulo. And before we begin the presentation, I've got some safety for those of you who are here in person. We won't have any fire drills or emergency drills today. So if you hear a siren, we do have a team ready to direct you to make sure that you leave the premises safely.
We have a full morning and we'll start with our CEO, Rodrigo Pizzinatto, and then we'll have the business presentations. Alexandre Palhares talking about finance and then Alexandre Lutz (sic) [ Marcos Lutz ] will also make the closing remarks.
Then we'll have a Q&A session. If you're here, you can ask your questions on the mic. And if you're online, you can send us your question through the chat box on the platform. And if we have enough time, we'll answer those as well. So have a great morning, and we'll start with the video.
Rodrigo Pizzinatto, can you come up to the stage for the opening remarks.
Thank you, and have a great morning. Ultrapar doesn't just allocate capital. It allocates knowledge and values. For close to 90 years, we have accumulated ethics, experience, management techniques, market interpretation and the ability to think ahead.
[Presentation]
Fantastic. Good morning. It's great to have you here with us again for Ultra Day. Ana talked a little bit about what we're going to do this morning. We'll have 4 presentations about the businesses, but we'll have one additional one, ICONIC. It's our JV with Chevron for lubricants. So we'll have some information about that business as well.
So without further ado, we'll start by talking about Ultrapar, we got some feedback on Ultra Day last year to have more objective presentations. So our challenge today is to have Ultra morning. The presentation should be shorter. And even with ICONIC's presentation, we'll have a shorter agenda.
So to start with Ultrapar, we'll start with safety, which is a nonnegotiable value and our condition is to have a license to operate. And the pursuit for excellence and value creation is what we always aim for. You can see that our lost time incident rate has worsened this year. This is a consolidation for TRIR at Ipiranga and Hidrovias, which have a rate that is higher than Ultrapar. And we also had something happened at Ultracargo and Fulvius is going to talk about that in a minute.
This has been our journey over the last few years. I'll try and summarize the last 5 or 6 years in a slide. Everything started with our portfolio in '21, '22, we sold Extrafarma, Oxiteno and ConnectCar. We've changed a lot. Our capital allocation has made great progress. We have a lot more discipline. We've made acquisitions over the last few years across the different businesses, Ultragaz with new energies and bulk, then network infrastructure, the delivery -- bulk fuel delivery business and also Opla, new terminals at Ultracargo and Virtu LNG as well as the acquisition of Hidrovias, we've consolidated more than 70% there.
In addition to allocating capital, the HoldCo also creates value. And this is how our managed model has progressed. We've got some macro principles here in terms of solidity, institutional power, how we conduct our teams and changes we've made to the business, simplification, compensation model, new leadership. So we're going to zoom into these topics over the next slide.
And to start with capital allocation. When we think about cash flow and generated cash, these are the five main cash allocation decisions we make, investing in the core businesses, investing in adjacent, which are around the existing businesses, thinking of a new business. And these are the three main things we consider in new businesses, an industry with good potential for growth and value creation. And we, as shareholder has a leverage to create value and we'll make that business better by going in. And if it's an actual tangible opportunity to go in. If the price is compelling and if the risk is reasonable.
Another option when we were highly leveraged was to decrease that if it makes sense in terms of risk. And when we have cash left over and we don't have enough options to have better allocation, you can do a dividend payout or interest on equity or share buyback. And this is the beauty of the whole process. A funnel with discipline and patience allows us to select the best projects with the best potential for value and return on investment.
And this is what happened over the last few years. We had over 100 projects that we looked into and we concluded 14. So some figures, '21 to '26, Palhares is going to show you the return on these investments. I'm just going to give you a macro capital overview. In the last few years, we allocated BRL 28 billion across these 5 fronts. About BRL 1 billion a year is just to keep businesses going. That's about BRL 1 billion. That's why the dark blue doesn't change. So BRL 1 billion a year in maintenance CapEx. And in the last few years, we invested BRL 10.5 billion in expansion and productivity, adding up CapEx plus growth M&A and productivity.
So this includes IT platforms to increase productivity, the expansion we mentioned in service stations, bulk at Ultracargo and Hidrovias and adjacent businesses is everything we've done around the existing business. So we have the allocated capital in biomethane, renewable gas at Ultragaz, electricity at Ultragaz, Krispy Kreme service stations at Ipiranga. So all of that adds up to about BRL 1 billion. And new businesses BRL 2.9 billion, mainly coming from Hidrovias, which joined the company. So in expansion, we've got about BRL 10.5 billion expansion and profitability. We paid BRL 7.4 billion of interest on debt, then we consolidated Hidrovias debt, which was much more leveraged. So we're going to deleverage that.
And we paid out also BRL 5 billion in dividends and buyback. BRL 570 million was buyback at around BRL 18 million -- close to BRL 19 million. And out of the BRL 5 billion, BRL 2.5 billion was in 2025. And this doesn't include the dividend payout this year because it was only for the first half of the year and the first one was in August. But it shows the rationale as we generate more cash, dividends keep up with that. So that's the return to shareholders of the additional generated cash. Palhares will be sharing more financial information with you. But this is an overview, and then we can share all the figures in the IR website because it was going to make it very confusing here.
So the capital -- to execute on capital allocation, you need a top-shelf team. And this is how we've been working on renewing the leadership. It all started in 2022. There was a succession at the Board. In 2025, we had succession at the Ultrapar leadership. And these are the 10 main mandates that summarize what the Ultra leadership is thinking about, how it's acting. It all starts with the license to operate with ethics and security, humility, focusing on the long game, growing with value, aligned incentives, continuous improvement, and that's what's in everybody's mind when we think about the Ultra leadership.
In terms of incentives, how can we make sure that the team at Ultrapar leadership is on the same page. This is for Ultra N1 and N2. In terms of compensation, 30% is fixed and 70% is variable for that group. Out of the variable, 30% is an annual target based on EBITDA and cash flow and 40% is a 3-year target, and it has 2 components at Ultrapar. Delta EVA, which is a value creation target for 3 years and the return to shareholder target, which is the share price plus dividends plus the TSR. So for every 3 years, we have a new value creation target measured by Delta EVA plus share valuation plus dividends.
If we take the 100 people in the senior leadership, and we add up all the shareholders that were received by the long-term incentives plus the partner plan at the company, and that includes the Board plus executives. There are 25 million shares which accounts for 2.3% of the company's capital. So that is what ensures we're all on the same page between the leadership, shareholders and investors.
So to conclude my part, we try to summarize the 7 pillars that summarize how Ultrapar creates value. It all starts with a high-performing team to ensure that the strategy is supported and that we have growth management. The implementation of the Ultra model with capital discipline -- with a robust capital discipline, focusing on the long-term governance and incentives ensuring a commitment with the best.
So that was my summary to you of how we see Ultrapar, how we have positioned the company to create value. And now Linden is going to come up to the stage to talk about Ipiranga. Thank you for your attention, and have a great morning.
[Presentation]
Great. Good morning. Pleasure to be back here. I think this is my sixth Ultra Day or maybe the fifth, I'm not sure. I think it's the sixth. And I'm going to show you the continuity of the work we've been doing, and we've been reporting on that work with a great deal of transparency.
So we'll start with safety. As Rodrigo said, safety is our license to operate. We've been making considerable progress at Ipiranga, which is a key matter to what we do. And the challenge lies in the businesses we're bringing into the Ipiranga system, as Rodrigo said, because there is a cultural safety gap, and we need to catch up. But as we acquire more experience in bringing in new businesses, working with new teams and creating that safety culture, those indexes will definitely improve.
It's been a very busy year in fuels. I'd like to say that it's been affected by 2 main factors. We don't know exactly how much each one of them will affect our business. But the first one is the crackdown on illegal trade. We've talked a lot about that over the last few years. A great deal of progress has been made as of the second half of 2025 with benefits to everyone across the chain. Consumers, distributors, obviously, producers, importers, everyone who does serious work in this industry.
And to the government, I was with Governor Ricardo Couto 2 weeks ago, and he said that in Rio de Janeiro alone, ICMS tax in the fuels industry in 2026 has grown by 87%, and it's no different in Sao Paulo. If you add up Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, it's a 40% growth in fuel ICMS tax, which goes to show the size of the problem we had to deal with and the opportunity that lies ahead. If we can make sure that this is indeed a new and safer business model in Brazil.
Of course, there are still challenges. The positive side is that we are all creating that culture. We're all keeping an eye out to illegal practices, organized crime, tax evasion. ICL is highly active. A lot of progress has been made, and they're still very active, especially looking at the ethanol chain. Serious businesses are also very active and keeping an eye on that ball. And we hope that this improvement continues. There's no turning back.
And the second thing that has an impact on our business and everybody is going through that are the conflicts in the Middle East, which came after the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, which went unsolved. And the impact that has on our business in Brazil is a disruption to pace. So cost price, everything is a consequence of that disruption in the product flow. And it's a very tight chain.
Let me give you an example. A while back or a few years back, resellers used to work with a 10-day inventory. Now they have a 2-day inventory period. And that efficiency went to the chain. It's efficient from end-to-end, from the service station to the consumer end. And if there's a disruption, if the Strait of Hormuz becomes an issue or if there's a logistical problem, if there's a deviation on the route, it does affect the business very significantly. And the world has to find different options. What we're seeing are countries looking for alternatives to mitigate the impact in different ways, but the fact is that there is a disruption in the pace and that leads to instability in supply.
Brazil, like most of the regions has been finding different ways to do it. Ipiranga has been working hard on that, always prioritizing supply, especially to our clients, but also playing the role of a structural supplier in the Brazilian market. You keep up with the market. You're all familiar with that. At a certain point, Petrobras left the market. And the companies that have the structure to import and are able to, had to cover that space that was left in the market. And that's what we've been doing. We've been focusing on ensuring supply, insurance on efficient flow and focusing on meeting our client needs because that's when we show how important it is to have a brand like Ipiranga.
Now all this dynamic seen in the market doesn't change what we define as our working journey with these 4 pillars that I've already mentioned. This is the North Star of our philosophy in the company. One, we need a supply that generates different options, competitiveness. We need logistic efficiency and extremely competitive value proposition because of everything that Ipiranga can deliver, and we can use our brand as a great driver of engagement that our stakeholders that go to the end customers and our shareholders. This is our working proposition, and it doesn't change. It only strengthens us for dynamic disruptive moments like this.
In terms of supply, I already mentioned a couple of things. When we go to the past during the 5, 6 years, this was one of the best decisions that we made to create a sound trading area. And today, we can see the great value that it offers. Our capacity to originate products in different places in the world, efficiency, our intelligence system. To have a good view of all the dynamic in the world regarding fuel supply. This helps us in our business. It's not by chance that we grow 50% in the spot market in consumption volume, the volume of network, and this is leveraged because we have a good supply model, be it internal or through imports, especially during these moments.
Now from the logistics point of view throughout the past 5 years, many times when we had a project to create BRL 800 million in efficiency, we just wanted to catch up. And we thought that this was necessary regarding best practices. Now this effort was done, but this doesn't mean that it has come to an end because logistic efficiency is something continuous. You are always with the opportunity to improve processes, to optimize your fleet, to improve contracts. And this is what we have done in the past 5 years.
Now we're embarking in a journey year-on-year, and we're finding different opportunities here in logistics and distribution. Now the network has harnessed this moment, and we've benefited a lot from this moment. The major companies and the Ipiranga brand has a very -- is a very important brand in the market. With this, we're growing our network, the adjacent program like AmPm fuel and jet oil, but there's a qualitative effort behind this.
As you can see, we have service stations with a new image. We're talking about 60% of the 6 (sic) [ 6,000 ] service stations. Our product sales profile is growing. These are premium products. We're improving our products profile. We remodeled our KMV. It has gained momentum in the market in terms of creating more loyalty amongst our clients. And this is a good moment for the network, but it is a good moment to pay attention to the network.
As this is favorable for our brand. This does not mean that we have to lower the bar in terms of quality. This means that we have to raise our compliance bar. When you undergo moments like these, there are many people that operate under the shadows of the illegality and trying to find cover to operate their business. We cannot let this happen. We have to pay attention. We need investment with quality. We need discipline in compliance to maintain the quality of our network because this is a long-term growth.
Now regarding convenience stores, we follow the same journey. I've mentioned this a number of times. We focus strongly to add value to the AmPm brand through strategic partnerships, and we've done this throughout the year.
Krispy Kreme is a good example of this. We brought the initial idea, and we wanted it to be an important offering in our convenience stores. The success of Krispy Kreme has been so great that we haven't been able to do it fully. We have events every now and then, but we've had a specific event because we cannot produce what we need to sell. And it is a great success and this delays the offering in the store. Now Krispy Kreme always offers us an agenda of retail knowledge. It's very important because we've tried to understand this much better in that.
Now in B2B, no novelties, I've outlined a number of times. What we always pursue is the decommoditization of our offering in this industry, this was seen in a marginal way with low margins. It was important to dilute your cost to generate volume, but it doesn't work this way anymore. We've reframed our customer portfolio. We've improved. We've seen segments that were more profitable. We participated very little to have an aggressive entry plan, the maritime diesel is proof. We are growing in business volume, profit and in market share. And together with this decommoditization concept of B2B, we see the diesel retail operation that is no novelty.
These were regional investments together with local partners. The partner gives the operational expertise. They contribute with the knowledge of the region and we provide governance structure, including long-term planning that we discuss with the partner, and we put it into play jointly.
Our story has been very successful. We have 4 businesses distributed throughout Brazil, all strictly within what was planned, if not better, with good figures, and this is a business line that you will see evolve in Ipiranga in the upcoming years.
We always stress efficiency and what touches the efficiency and ERP platform much more updated than what we have today. This is a project that has been within Ipiranga for more than 2 years. Now -- but more than an exchange of ERP to gain efficiency, this is redefining however we want to improve processes. We want to adjust culture. We want to readjust our organization. So we have a much more efficient operation using this new ERP as a catalyst of this story.
Now regarding people. This is the backbone of our business. I remember that during my first Ultra Day, when we were analyzing the different opportunities and the difficulties that we were facing one of them was the difficulty in succession or successions that were necessary for the company. We worked strongly on the succession agenda and talent development. 84% of important positions are mapped with successors to take over these positions up to 3 years. We exchanged 45% of the executive team. 45% of -- so we invested strongly -- we have invested strongly in talent development. So Ipiranga today is a company that is prepared to follow its quality journey.
Now the reality, you can see in the organizational environment. This has always been a strong point, but we want to continue evolving in the environmental climate being excellent to excel on this point. Now the result of all of this is a year, which has been very important from the financial point of view, and as I mentioned in the beginning, there is a market dynamic that helps us. But this is not just because of a conflict we have in here what represents practically a free fuel market in Brazil from the worst scenario, from the regulatory point of view and tax evasion. We are facing -- we are focusing to face these moments, but I believe the results have been very positive in 2026, and we're doing everything to close an excellent year in Ipiranga.
Well, what I had was this. Thank you very much for your attention. I will meet you again throughout the Q&A session. I would like to call Bassaneze.
[Presentation]
Good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here this morning. He said he's at 6 Ultra Day. It's my first Ultra Day. I will give more color to ICONIC's numbers, starting with safety. ICONIC since its creation, has safety as a value. This is a characteristic that came from our partners. And we've had excellent performance in the past years.
We value 3 points: one, people, how we train and qualify our teams and strengthen the safety culture, equipment as well. We have many equipments in our operation, how we specify, install and maintain and put them into play, maintaining our operations running with availability with not causing accidents or incidents. Three would be process safety. How can we anticipate risks in our operation, reassuring that we implement safety barriers in order to prevent catastrophic events.
Talking about the strength, we've identified 4 great strengths. One would be -- it would be an infrastructure that you can't copy because of the assets that were applied here. Two, that would be technology. ICONIC, since the beginning has a center of technology, has the competency of R&D, and I will deep dive regarding the meaning of them because this is a strength, and it's the only dual brand enterprise because we were with Texaco and Ipiranga that are 2 iconic brands that are very present in the life of Brazilians that have allowed us to develop important competence that is brand management.
And number four would be -- it would be the ecosystem of our partners. We have Grupo Ultra, with Ipiranga with 6,000 gas station, B2B that allows us to explore all the opportunities to sell lubricants and gas and other businesses. During certain moments, we are customers. For example, Ultragaz has strongly helped to decarbonize our operations with biomethane in our Duque de Caxias plant. And we also have sales opportunities with businesses that are connected to lubricants.
And we have Chevron as a partner, a verticalized oil company that is present in the 3 elements that make up lube-based oils, additives and the finished lubricants. So here, we support each other. And this is a global company with a global relationship with its customers, and we have state of the art technology that is incorporated in Brazil in our products and in our businesses.
Now when we see our infrastructure, as I mentioned, the contribution of our partners' assets allowed us to be independent regarding the infrastructure to supply our customers. Therefore, we have a terminal in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Cristovao that gives us flexibility and independence to import our inputs. Now Brazil, for example, is undersupplied in inputs. So it's important to import products and many products needed for lubricants, we don't even produce this. So we count with imports, and we have a complete infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro.
Now this asset was the old Ipiranga plant. It has allowed us to create new businesses with an investment that is marginal today. And we also have another industrial complex in Duque de Caxias, is where we produce all our lubricants. And the third industrial center complex that is coolants and grease plants in Osasco.
In addition to this, we have an authorized distributor network -- and this was excellent because when we consolidated our operation, we had like 50 authorized distributors and the consolidation allowed us to choose which were the best business partners. We do have a network with 18 distributors with scale and capillarity to service 100% of the country, but ICONIC is present in 4 other countries that is Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina and also servicing these geographies from Brazil with our distribution, and this allows us to reach over 100,000 customers in our country and Southern Cone of South America.
We have the Duque de Caxias plant, and to discuss the technology center, because ours is a Brazilian company, we had to develop our R&D expertise, and we kept that at ICONIC. And in 2024, we opened a new tech center, which is state-of-the-art in Rio de Janeiro and allows us to work together with our clients, identify business opportunities and also understanding the different specificities and characteristics in Brazil to do with how to use machinery and equipment, the different characteristics of our fleet taking into account the Brazilian fuel matrix, which is very different to other geographies.
So developing the ability to work with our clients has been something that sets us apart. It's allowed us to be innovative and to take innovative products to the market because we have over 50 professionals who hold doctor -- doctorate degrees, masters degrees. And we also provide services to our clients to identify how our products are performing. And we monitor their life cycle, enduring our relationship with our clients to work out how we can continue to improve our products.
We also have a services department in the technology department that helps us monitor our relationship with our clients. So 2 ICONIC brands, as I said, we have great brand management to find the right position for each of the brands. Ipiranga is very active in retail and in the everyday life of Brazilians. It's a very well-known brand. And Texaco, which is a well-known brand internationally. It has a lot of technology. It's a high-performing brand, and Chevron, considering global trends and also including their technology in our products. And most of our distributors, official distributors are also dual brand, which allows them to have the right scale and to operate more efficiently.
So given the fact that we have 2 brands, we have a wide-ranging portfolio. We operate in over 20 different sectors. We have products for motorbikes, cars, trucks, the maritime industry, steel industry, different plants and mills, practically every industry that requires lubricants. And we want to be a one-stop shop for our clients when it comes to lubricants, greases and coolants. And that's why we have a wide product portfolio and our infrastructure has allowed us to start working on new businesses as well. And this is an example of something that happened precisely because we are part of our partners' ecosystem.
In 2023, we realized that given the inefficiencies in the Brazilian market when it comes to inputs, we could go into a new business, which is base oil distribution. So in 2023, we went into base oil distribution through Chevron, then we started working with additives through Oronite, and that has allowed us to bring in new business partners to add to our offerings in this new business.
Acelen is an example of that. They are our partners for base oil I and Nynas, which is a Swedish company. And that has allowed us to work all of those areas through our partnership with Chevron and to develop new partners here in Brazil. And the combination of those elements have led to very positive results.
ICONIC was founded in 2017. In December, it will be its ninth anniversary and its journey can be split into 3 stages. First, consolidation. We had to consolidate our teams, our assets, organize the company so that the JV could work well. The second stage was optimization. That's when we started to work on synergies and benefits from the many initiatives and projects that were launched since the joint venture. And more recently, the third stage is the stage of expansion. And that's where we are accelerating ICONIC's development.
So as I said, we've had some very positive results over the last few years with positive cash generation, which has allowed us to reinvest in the business and to continue to update our assets and compensate our shareholders. In 2026, specifically, there's been a lot of cost volatility due to the geopolitical conflicts, but because we have a robust business, that means at times of volatility such as these, we are ready to continue to supply, provide reliability and trustworthy operations and to continue to meet the needs of the Brazilian market and all other markets where we operate.
Well, that's it for me. And now I will turn it over to Tabajara from Ultragaz.
[Presentation]
Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Over the next few minutes, I'm going to be talking to you about Ultragaz. And as Linden said, this is also, I think, my sixth Ultra Day. Actually, I've never counted it. Rodrigo challenged us to be much more to the point. So I'm going to talk about Ultragaz's recent journey, what's been affecting our organization in the last few years. And then I'll take some time to talk about future prospects and what we'll be doing. So like everybody else, my presentation won't be very long, I'll go over a few points and share a few highlights with you.
So I'll start by focusing on safety because safety is extremely relevant to the Ultra Group, and it's the same at the Ultragaz business. Because our main product is LPG, that means we have a great deal of responsibility. Our journey started in 2020, '21. We had a huge challenge. Our product has considerable operating risk, but it is an industrial business and household delivery business. So we monitor the product the whole time. We do have our LTIR. We've done very well, and we believe we can continue on the same track.
Our company largely works with gas cylinders, gas bottles over 10 million bottles are delivered every month, loading and unloading at a filling base and at the reseller. So we move filled bottles 40 million times, full bottles. So any incident, any accidents, if anybody gets hurt, that affects our indicators. So we are continuing on our safety culture. And there's the benefit of safety per se, which is considerable, but that also leads to operating efficiency and excellence, which is one of the principles to keep to our long-term objective. So we're highly motivated, and we're also very respectful and careful when it comes to safety.
Let me share a few highlights about the LPG market with you. There are some specificities to our industry. First, the size of the market. The household residential market is one of the largest in the world in terms of the number of gas bottles and the proportion to population, one of the highest. It's used by 90% of the population. So the gas bottles or cylinders play an important social role.
The Brazilian energy grid is also a highlight because it provides dignity to families, efficiency to businesses. So it's a core product to our operation. And something specific to our market is how complex the logistics are. It's hard to see a similar operational model that relies so much on road transportation. It's highly intensive, low inventory levels, so huge turnover. We always like to share key numbers. In Brazil, we delivered 13 gas bottles or cylinders per second.
And we conduct surveys all over Brazil. We ask people how long are you willing to wait for a gas bottle and it's close to 15 minutes. Nowhere in the world do people expect for a gas bottle or cylinder to be delivered in less than 15 minutes. And that happens across Brazil. In the Brazilian countryside, if you don't deliver it within that time frame, you lose the client. And we're present across all municipalities.
And I'll conclude the LPG market by talking about the progress we've made. There's still a lot to be done in terms of regulation. It is the most up-to-date and pro-consumer legislation we know of. It ensures safety and quality to everyone. And there's open trade and competitive market. And we need to make progress in the regulatory framework, but we do have the right ecosystem for that to happen. And we've had it for the last decade.
Now let me share some details about the Ultragaz operation. We've got some excellent figures here. And the key message is our go-to-market and our relationship with our clients. It's clearly a very strong brand. It's a pioneering brand. We're highly -- we have a great deal of capillarity in terms of operations and resale. We want to -- we're going to give you more details about our strategy. And this is what we've been doing over the last few years. We've been generating positive results using resources intelligently, reinvesting in the business to extract more value and to ensure its longevity. So that's a summary about Ultragaz, and it's a great asset for years to come.
As I said, our challenge is to be objective. So I want to share the 5 drivers behind our strategy. I'll take a deep dive into a couple of them, but this is a key slide to our conversation here today and to address what we do. We start with safety as a value. And to the energy and LPG business, in particular, that is the basis for the development of our organization. Then a relevant footprint in key industries. That's the driver that has most changed the organization in the last 2 or 3 years. Our journey started 4 or 5 years ago and we realized that the market is not as efficient and reliable across all regions and segments. So we've been positioning ourselves.
And Ultragaz was more dedicated to retailers, finding solutions to resellers that are closer to the end consumer and moving away from nonprofitable segments. And in the business segment, we focus on some target segments that add more value to the clients, and we have been expanding that. I'll give you some more details about that in a minute, focusing on recognized efficiency by the client in retail, and there's more segmentation.
So operations are more complex. There are new launched products, and we need to make sure that our operation is efficient because this is a market at scale. So we've been doing a lot over the last few years, and there's more to do. And we make sure that it's long lasting through infrastructure and technology. We've been structuring a lot across the company that has been creating value, but there's still a lot more to happen. And we want to have a top-level team focusing on our strategic model that can support the growth we've had and that we want to continue to have.
Now let me highlight some of these points, especially beginning with the bottled segment. We realized that the LPG market is a highly competitive industry. There's not much value to be extracted from it. And we realized that the retail market is where you can last a long time and add value to the resellers consistently. So we have been dedicating ourselves to that. We went from 5,800 resellers to 6,300. When we started in 2020, we had fewer than that. So we've added a lot more resellers, focusing on retail, and the main change can be seen here. In 2022, we had 66% of our volume in retail and the other channels are more wholesalers.
Now if I take a step back, that used to be 50-50. Half of the volume, which is what the LPG market looks like in Brazil, and 50% through wholesale, which means it's commodities. You're just selling price, you're not selling products or differentiating your offering. So we've made progress. We still have a long way to go, but that model is close to ideal, but we've made some positive progress. And we have that operating efficiency challenge, reducing gate-to-gate time. Even though we have more capillarity and more resellers, our efficiency has been greater as well.
Reseller NPS, we monitor many different NPSs. All of them have made positive progress in 2026. So we're very careful to make sure that we're continuing to do things well done. And a digital relationship using AI is already happening with resellers and end users. So we'll probably get a great deal of value from that in the future.
Another segment that's really interesting is the bulk segment. We are the leaders by far in the Brazilian market, although we're not trying to increase volume here. So the main transformation came from choosing segments where we can add value, develop specific solutions. Every year, we add new segments, and the idea is to work to have segmented sales, segmented products, segmented operations. And that brings in a lot of loyalty in this kind of market, which is interesting to us, considerable operating challenge because this -- the operational scale is crucial. So we've been making progress in the segments that are interesting to us and ensuring positive progress in the NPS across these clients.
Now a highlight I want to share with you, we launched the new individual measuring system for apartment buildings and gated communities. We got to our operational capacity limit. We launched it in the first 2 months of 2026. We have 650,000 direct clients. So we have a direct relationship with them. We meter it, we bill them. We provide technical assistance directly to them. It's a very valuable segment.
And [indiscernible], I'm sure you've all been seeing the approval of some users that are still restricted in this market. So we still have that to come. As I told you, we have individual metering and agribusiness, which is a segment we believe in especially because we've been making a great deal of investments, and there's a huge potential for growth.
I wanted to highlight the other infrastructure pillar, and we've made progress because we're closer to our customers, be it retail or corporate, we need a proper structure. We've evolved a lot, especially in the operational consortium that we created with Supergasbras. Our bases are closer to our customers. We are benefited because of the service quality and operational costs. We are very close in an optimum point in terms of suppliers service.
Now the logistic complexity that we discussed this year, now we have 100% of our logistic operation monitored by the control tower in this building. We have practically 2,000 trucks that work directly and indirectly for Ultragaz, and this provides us relevant operational efficiency, and we have a major infrastructure.
We have the biggest bobtail infrastructure that is the truck that delivers our product in over 26,000 cylinders with our brand, and we will grow more in the upcoming year. We've expanded it and our real operational cost has dropped because of the deployment of the operational consortium. We are closer and we have better -- we offer better quality without adding any cost to our operation.
And we have an important plan to implement up the same terminal to improve our operation, and we will inaugurate the new base in Rio Verde developed for agribusiness. We already have a relevant share in the region, and it will be opened in the coming months, and this will impact our participation in the Agro segment.
Now together with infrastructure, I want to show technology. This is undergoing a lot of transformation, very similar to other Ultra business. We are reviewing our architecture. And currently, we have a major project to replace ERP and the satellite project. We have maturing this project in the company, and it's time to deploy this, and there is great potential to improve agility, proximity relationship with our customer and the cost benefit.
At first sight, we can drop operation cost on a yearly basis when deployed in 2028 above BRL 100 million. We are adopting AI in the relationship with resellers and customers and we already have an architecture for communication with all of these clients, multicanality to sell the cylinder. We have contact with our corporate customer. We have a good relationship with reseller, the customer. We have an app for relationship, and we have a relationship platform with the reseller with lots of data, lots of customer information, and we can improve the experience, which is the target to develop resellers so they can make progress. And we have been growing in the market in all these figures in terms of percentage.
And now everything that we've mentioned are highlights for LPG, but we're aiming at Ultragaz as an energy platform, adding to the offering portfolio, other solutions. Here, we have biomethane, electric energy, natural gas. We have consolidated the third operation of special gas, special use of LPG. It is not broad as the propellant like when you use aerosols probably they use an Ultragaz product. We have infrastructure, laboratory, technical knowledge, and we develop this together with our customers.
And we're consolidated in the market, and we're paying attention to other innovations. We always offer our service a good vehicle that can offer good things to our portfolio. Electric power, we're maturing the integration and the evolution. We're very happy with everything that we've been able to materialize combining business as a special with prospects of opening market. We are selling more energy. We're the second biggest, highest -- high-tension retail seller. So this is a market that we do understand that has an important connection with our core operation and an interesting growth potential.
Now in biomethane, we're even more consolidated. We started this journey 2, 3 years ago, focused on the industry. So we were able to do a lot. Opportunities have emerged in the segment of dedicated fleet and Ipiranga helps us allow we have an adequate supply level to grow in the upcoming years over 45 contracted clients. So more than half are in operation. We recently opened the first internal operation station to work with our fleet that works with biomethane. In the upcoming months, we shall have an operation in a gas -- in Ipiranga gas station because they don't have strategic places to supply. So we have a good perspective with this Ipiranga service station.
Now my conclusions and I'm running out of time, I believe that the entire journey that allowed us to evolve positively with great results. This strengthens a number of things that we did right and we corrected what we were very assertive but the -- an investment capacity and deliver differently, and we're very excited.
So I thank you once again for your time, and I would like to call Fulvius.
[Presentation]
Well, good morning to everyone. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to talk about this company that I'm so proud of and it celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. And to talk about Ultracargo is to talk about fuel logistics, the energy, energy transition through biofuel logistics and a number of logistics chain. And Ultracargo is part of an infinity of products that are essential for our country for packaging, things that we consume in other industries. And Brazil has exceptional vocations like Agro, the productivity in the agricultural segment that translates into fuel. We have a consuming market of continental size vocation without logistics it's a waste.
So we want to move all of these products that we store in the best way possible with efficiency to reach the consumers. It could be consumption, energy distribution, the best way possible. This is the role that Ultracargo has had in the past 60 years. And our most important role, what is it? We have safe operations because the products that we store have a potential to explode and to pollute and we have to maintain high-level safety operation because safety speaks with operational efficiency. This is why our operations are intense and repetitive, and they can only be safe through well processes, well -- good controls and people that dedicate to meet rigorously the norms and procedures that are the same attributes that make an operation safe.
According to the lost time incident rate, we saw a deterioration in the past 12 months. Although all these accidents were low, people sprained their ankles and no process accident incurred in pollution to the environment, but this doesn't drop our responsibility to see each one of these incidents so that we can improve our processes, identify things and to create controls and processes so that they never happen again. And this is why we've evolved in this agenda because our target will always be 0 accidents.
And to talk about our strategy, we like to use this Mandala that represents the union of all factors and pillars that are part of the strategy. Number one would be our operational efficiency in our country, Brazil spend 15% of GDP in logistics. When we compare it to countries like the U.S. and European countries, this is a 1-digit figure, very close to 8%, 9%. And this is because there is a lot of friction in our logistics system. What we pursue here is to diminish friction, guarantee efficiency to connect producers and consumers the best way possible. And this is done through improvement of our processes, pursuing how we can better use our terminal that will provide better return to our investments and the safety of our operations.
This is so that Ultracargo can have 15% more turnovers in our ports than the market. This shows more productivity. We have indexes like loading, unloading time, flow out of boats gate-to-gate to guarantee that our operations can translate this efficiency not only to us, but also to the value chain of our customers. And this has to be replied in the unique platform at the end of the line.
Ultracargo is the biggest independent player of net grains. So all terminals where we work in may show the same efficiency and have to translate the principle of operational efficiency. And to do this in a number of terminals requires connections through efficient models. This is why we have partnership with waterways and highways, not only to store the -- our molecules, but their connection.
That translates in placing this molecule the best way possible with 2 pillars that are fundamental and they follow our values. One is safety and the ethical commitment. This is why Ultracargo is the only enterprise of the logistics sector that is associated to the Institute Legal Field (sic) [ Institute for Legal Fuel ], Instituto Legal. And this is why we've achieved all of this in the past years.
And to translate better what Ultracargo's strategy is and why it's a leader in the market. We have 1.2 million cubic meters in capacity. We have nine operational terminals throughout the entire country, and they are located in strategic corridors that allow us to connect production and consumption, import and consumption. And the production can be exported.
And we also work with cabotage. This is why we've been able to handle 11 million tons, which represents 17 million cubic meters sold. And another thing that I will mention here is our Miritituba terminal that is under construction and will complete the logistics of this region in the Northern Arc with resiliency for the fuels that are produced in the center west.
And just to map, this demonstrates our strategic position, but all these arrows that you can see here identify our business's target. In our essence, we store a number of products mainly in the 6 port terminals where we're present. These terminals are above most importance for the country's logistics. This is the entry and the exit gate to a number of net grains.
And when we talk about import of fuels today, 1/4 of the diesel used in Brazil has to be imported. And this trend -- and this percentage will only grow in the future with the growth of our economy, with the more transportation, more machinery and so forth. So more and more the entry gate will be important to foster the entry of the fuel needed in the country.
Now the growth of this fuel is mainly connected to the new Agro frontiers. The area is in the interior of the country where economic development is fast, and you have the consumption of diesel even greater because these are regions bereft of refineries. This is why we have to position our terminal so the diesel that goes to the port have to service these consumption centers the best way possible. And the regions that produce biofuel, they should be able to use the same terminals and logistics models taking products back and forth, and this can be used for cabotage taking products to other regions.
So the same molecule that goes to Ultracargo terminal, goes to other 2 terminals. Therefore, the molecule will reach the consumer with low friction and this diminishes transport cost and enables the production of biofuels and other products. And that's what we do in the central corridor in Brazil, which is connected to ethanol from corn, which is produced in Mato Grosso. Everyone here knows 25% of the ethanol we use comes from ethanol from corn, which is an industry that practically didn't exist 10 years ago in Brazil, and it's been growing at a 2-digit rate every year. That's why in 2036, an additional 10 billion ethanol from -- liters of ethanol from corn produced in the South will have to be transported to reach consumers in the Southeast, and that will happen through the central corridor.
So that ethanol is connected to the rail network and it gets to the Paulinia terminal, so it can get shipped to the Southeast. It can even go to Santos to be shipped along the coast to other ports and then other countries. And then that same outflow receives the same byproducts, essentially diesel so that it can supply the different machinery and trucks in the Midwest.
So byproducts and biodiesel are transported as efficiently as possible, and that means value not only to our value chain, but to consumers, our clients and everyone has access to fuel and biofuels with lower emissions and more efficiency. That's the problem that we need to solve across the country. And to complete that solution, I talked about the Miritituba terminal. It creates another connection in the North Arch, connecting the Vila do Conde terminal in Barcarena, in Para, to the new Miritituba terminal, all of that through waterways. So the ethanol production that comes from Mato Grosso, especially in the North of the state, goes by a road on BR-163 to the Miritituba terminal and it gets to Vila do Conde on barges. From there, it can go to the Northeast of the country or even for export.
Let's not forget that such a huge production and with massive growth products such as ethanol in Mato Grosso, it cannot just rely on one logistics mode, whether by road or waterway. If we have options, we can provide more resilience and capacity to meet the needs of production of this key product to energy transition, not only in Brazil, but maybe in the world one day. And that's how we think about it. We want to translate more -- translate that into more efficiency in our chain. And that means responsibility and cost discipline. And we can see that in this chart.
Since 2019, our cost and expenses per static cubic meter has been dropping at an average rate of 6% a year, which is a result of our pursuit for continuous improvement and discipline in execution. By doing that, despite a 39% increase in our capacity in the same period, we've had a 154% increase in our EBITDA in the same window. However, let's not forget that what we're doing is literally moving the entire country. So the first thing you need is infrastructure, then the industries and the flows get developed. So many of these terminals where we've added capacities like Rondonopolis, Paulinia, Santos and Palmeirante are still ramping up and maturing. As flows become more established, as production increases, there will be a gradual process of occupying those terminals, and it will favor economies of scale, which is what we are pursuing.
And let me point out that there's been a great deal of delay due to licensing red tape. You know that there's a huge -- that's a huge challenge in the country, which delayed the beginning and ramping up of these operations. 2026, as Linden said, has had many challenges and disruptions. And that's what we see here on this chart. There's been a reduction in our EBITDA comparing 2025 to 2024. Let's not forget that in 2025, we had the conflicts in the Middle East, a reduction in attractiveness and importing Russian biodiesel because of the conflict and pricing policy changes in the country. So that led to disruptions.
But considering an even more challenging scenario in 2026, where we had the most restricted arbitration in the history of fuels, we've still had positive results in the period. And obviously, our operational cash flow has followed our EBITDA and our results. And that's what we want to continue doing, having discipline in execution, diversity in products, especially in biofuels, but also working on new fronts such as ethanol logistics.
We've been looking for new solutions, and that product goes hand-in-hand with biodiesel production as well as other products such as water coming from oil prospection and exploration, liquid fertilizers to meet agricultural demand. Through diversity, we'll achieve resilience, not only in logistics in Brazil but also our results over time.
I think I've been able to convey a little bit about Ultracargo, which is a key company to logistics in Brazil. And now Hachem is going to talk about how Hidrovias has been navigating in the last few months.
[Presentation]
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I'm here representing Decio today, and I'll start by talking about safety. As we've heard previously, safety is a nonnegotiable value to the group and it's our license to operate. There's been an increase in LTIR in '24 and '25, which has to do with a culture adaptation process across the group, but the group does believe it's a nonnegotiable value.
More reports has given us a clear diagnosis of our operation, and that has led to more effective action plans, which has been reflected on the 2026 rates. We've made progress, but we are still far from the levels of the other companies in the group. A well-defined process and a well-designed process is a safe, efficient and productive process. A lot of our journey has to do with that, having better processes, better practices and more efficiency and productivity. And you will see that safety will come with that.
We've had 2 intense transformative years, and I'm going to share with you the progress we've had since we've joined the Ultra Group. I'll talk about our portfolio optimization, capital structure, financial discipline, institutional and regulatory frameworks, governance and alignment and people and culture.
Starting with our portfolio, I think the main starting point was reviewing our strategic plan. We looked into the company's competencies, strengths, synergies, and we grouped our business into 2 main categories. Navigation, which consolidates the navigation assets in the North and in Paraguay, and there are plenty of synergies here across knowledge, processes and maintenance because a large part of the Paraguay fleet is the same as the North fleet, and terminals where we have Miritituba, Barcarena and Santos. They also share a great deal of knowledge. And in review of our portfolio, we realized that the coastal shipping business wouldn't be our best partner, wouldn't have a great deal of leverage and synergies with the other businesses. So we divested from that, and we concluded that process at the end of last year.
Moving on to capital structure and financial discipline. We had a BRL 1.2 billion capital injection with that. And with the Ultra Group coming in and joining our risks, we reviewed our financial management and our indebtedness as a whole. Right now, our debt profile is longer at lower costs and our FX exposure, which used to be a detractor and destroyed a great deal of value in the past, our exposure is hedged through instruments and derivatives.
So our leverage has gone from 7x to 2.4x, supported mainly by better results. We've also managed our working capital with key reductions in time to receive payments and now we are focusing on inventories. We've had better tax planning by restructuring our ownership structure and we'll have a simpler structure. We'll see that next year. And by doing that, we've reduced expenses a great deal.
Now moving on to the institutional and regulatory agendas. The last couple of years have seen a great deal of progress. The whole industry has become a lot more present on the government agenda and the public agenda in Brazil as a whole. Last year, the Para (sic) [ Pantanal ] Environmental Act was approved creating legal safety for maintenance strategy, which is key. And this year, the main technical agencies have been approved concerning the need to dredge the Tapajos River especially considering the more extreme climate scenario we've had around the world and super El Nino, which is coming.
Right now, we have the legal and regulatory framework we need for dredging to take place. All we're missing is the execution. There's been a great deal of mobilization of different links in society and in the media. And the North Arch right now is extremely relevant to Brazilian exports and Brazilian agriculture as a whole. It's no longer about a business agenda. It's about an agenda for the country and for the country's agriculture.
Now moving on to governance and alignment. This -- there's been a great deal of change here as well. But it's important to remember that Hidrovias has only been around for 16 years. It started from a PowerPoint, and it had to overcome a great deal of obstacles. Its culture has a lot to do with entrepreneurship and start-ups. It's not focused so much on governance and discipline. Now it's scaled up very, very quickly. So now that culture and that lack of processes has become an obstacle to gaining economies of scale. So we have been improving the company as a whole.
Agility and simplicity is probably the key factor. Our main project is Simplifica. And Hidrovias is not complex. It can be complicated though. So we need to accelerate a lot of things. We've reviewed our governance process, our structures, our guidelines, our policies, and this project is going very well.
Now considering management discipline, we are working on continuous discipline. We are focusing on indicators and having financial discipline, which is a lot closer to what the group does with all the invested companies. Focusing on clients, as you saw in Ipiranga and Ultragaz, is a focus of the group as a whole. And since the beginning, there is a specific area focusing on working closer to clients.
And last but not least, there's been wide change in executive alignment. Rodrigo touched on some of the group's values and creating value in the long term and renewing leadership, which is this probably one of the main charts. Hidrovias has undergone a great deal of leadership renewal. The average time in the leadership is 1.3 years and across leadership as a whole 2.7 years. We have people who came from the market, bringing best practices from other companies, people from the group itself and internal promotions. As was to be expected, such huge changes in a company with a shortage of processes requires time and adaptation so that the teams can work together and so that we can rebuild some key learnings that may have been lost along the way.
Now let me talk about 2026 and what happened in our operation in Brazil. The year started at the peak of the season with a lot of corn. There was a great deal of rain and transport was difficult. There were externalities, but there were also internal factors that affected that. It was very hard to receive cargo at our transshipment terminal. So it was hard to increase our integrated system, and we partially offset by increasing the unloading in the external terminals. There were a lot of key learnings. And over the second Q, we were able to recover those rates.
Results at the end of the day was that the peak of the season, we were unable to capture the volume we wanted from the integrated system. There were major key learnings for next crop. Right now, we have third-party capacity to diversify our transshipment terminal to feed the integrated system. We also have more players in Miritituba, so we'll be able to organize the flow better and we are expanding our receiving capacity at the terminal so that we can receive more trucks. So key learnings from this year will lead to a much better 2027.
Moving on to Paraguay. Also major key learnings here. We started the year redesigning our operation and migrating practically the entire fleet to iron ore. As you know, iron ore volume is what adds the most value to our system. The assumption was, if we can mobilize the entire fleet to iron ore and we have a shorter cycle, we'll be able to have scale enough to justify cost increases. There was appetite on the client side. We were able to increase iron ore, but the cycle time fell short of what we needed to achieve the scale we wanted. There were some internal factors, some key learnings and externalities to do with receiving time at client port terminals, which have led to some key learnings. Revenue went up in the first half but so did the cost? So it offset all the gains. Now next year, there will also be some key learnings. Can we do more iron ore? Yes. And probably at the scale we had anticipated.
Now let me talk about growth and the future. The way we look at Hidrovias or the way we split our North market is into three blocks. First, navigation. We have some idle capacity in navigation, and we can navigate for third parties. That's something we are beginning to develop now. We've done some pioneering cargoes to begin with for our route and third-party routes, but there will be a great deal of value in developing that in the future.
Now looking at the BR-163 and the integrated system. We can unlock value here as well. When we look at Origin products at 163, in addition to corn and soybean, there can be soybean meal, sorghum and DDG, which are also expanding in exports. Now considering destination on 163, there's the fertilizer market, which is developing and where we are increasing share. There's a great deal of opportunity in capturing more share here. Now on the 158, and this is basically road transportation cargo. This opportunity for growth, considering Origin products at 158, the demand is much higher than the supply. We are rejecting demand because we are prioritizing the integrated system. Now we can capture more volume.
Now considering the 158 destination, we're talking about fertilizer cargo. Unfortunately, our private terminal can do that. And the fertilizer business, in addition to being profitable, it makes a whole route more compelling because you can develop also a cargo on the way back for partners. So let me talk about our expansion projects.
Reallocation of our floating tipper, to go to our private use terminal with very little investment. We can receive things through the highway, especially for alternative low cargo. When we see this in a broader way and discussing the other -- it would be the private use Road terminal. Here, we have a drop of 50% of the original project basically through a combination of structural assets and modular assets. This new way of a project allows us to do this in stages and we can bring capacity in modules according to the demand curve. So we don't have to invest strongly and run with idleness, we can capture alternative cargoes. We can work with more than one product without the current problems that we face in our storage is this is a license project. And if you work with infrastructure, you understand the value of this. It is already part of our growth acceleration program. And we want to put it into fruition by 2027.
Now I've mentioned this year, we started below last year's results. Here, we have a learning curve that we are analyzing. We expect next year to be better in the peak of the harvest. We can see sound figure because we have a good cash profile.
With this, I bring my presentation to the end, and I will hand it over to Palhares.
Well, good morning. I'm very happy to be with you to have you in our place. This is my second year spearheading Ultrapar's Financial Department. Welcome, and I hope that you're enjoying today.
In order to start, I believe that last year, I demonstrated 2023, we reached a new result level of our business and during 2025, both Ultrapar and Ultracargo reached a new level but here, we have Hidrovias to consolidate. And this is a consolidation of the result of Hidrovias that was positive in 2026. Here, we have the effect mentioned by Linden but, we have structured effects that is the crackdown against illegality and this is aligned with what we delivered last year in terms of results.
So the improvement of results Hidrovias together with a great discipline of capital management and working capital. Our cash was very strong since 2023. We have reached a new level but this sum up together with Hidrovias increase our cash in 2025 and 2026 because of all the working capital that was necessary in Iconic and Ipiranga with the results of the first quarter. Now when we see the company's leverage position, the discipline in capital management.
As Rodrigo mentioned, the divestment of Oxiteno and Extrafarma, ConectCar together with the improvement of the results of our businesses. But this accelerated deleveraging process that starts in 2021 and 2023, we're slightly above 1x. There's a capital [indiscernible] to have a good position and [indiscernible] consolidation of [indiscernible] in the result of our company that is highly leveraged.
And our leverage is slightly above 1.7x and 2026 strong results, strong cash generation put our leverage at 1x that in the context of today with lots of volatility and uncertainty, I believe this is a comfortable level. There is a target between 1.5x in an environment of uncertainties is an environment where we feel comfortable to operate. And the strong result and improvement of operational results and a business cash improvement. This gives us net revenue, which is highly relevant, not only since 2023, but also now during the first semester of the year, which -- of course, the fuel market was good.
And here, we had the effects of the entire situation. And when we see the return here, there -- we interact with you and we insist on the importance to see this in the long term. So the trend when we see this window is positive. Now when we see in the long term, the risk is to have a positive or negative bias. This is why it's important to see a long cycle.
2026 offered an extraordinary result. Nonetheless, during this period, it's important to remember that there was a carryover because of tax credits that went to our balance. But when we see the value generation delta here, we're talking about BRL 2.5 billion of delta value that was added to the company.
Now this [indiscernible] in cost management efficiencies in the business cannot be different in Ultrapar. Therefore, this pursuit for efficiency applies to us when we see throughout this period, we didn't only reduce the amount of people overhead because of a constant pursuit of simplicity and simplification, we've reduced the cost of the holding from BRL 260 million to BRL 220 million in a context where we increased the portfolio of our companies. We improved the result. We created cash, but always focusing on efficiency and simplification.
And at last, sustainability is a theme in evolution and connected with the evolution of Ultrapar. We also focused on updating our matrix regarding relevant subjects. And I would like to underscore to the importance of capital allocation and the relationship with our customer base.
This is important, because this reaches the broad concept of corporate sustainability. We tout environmental, social points. How do we guarantee that sustainability is long-lasting within the company? And we like to show this information.
Here, we have the performance of our share since the IPO. Here, we have a temporal perspective, a window of 1 to 5 years, we had had good performance. There was a complex context because we reached the peak of the regularity level, This -- when there was uncertainty regarding the role of Hidrovias, could we create value within this context that has been corrected because of the market.
And now we've seen this share valuated, I would like to thank you for your participation.
Now, I would like to call Marcos so he can make his final comments and so that we can spend the afternoon together.
Well, well, good morning. I'm going to be very brief because I believe everything has been said here. I just wanted to tell you how I feel regarding this company. I started working here as a trainee in 1994, so 32 years ago. That just flew. And this has been an important evolution in the company. And you just saw a chart regarding the value creation. And here, we could see, you can blame the field sector that faces problems of taxation. This is not the only point to blame.
We have a lot to learn as an organization. We made lots of mistakes, one of the things that was underscored here. Yes, we really have to underscore here would be -- I believe that things that we strongly built within the group's culture is to recognize and to learn through our mistakes. Again, this is a, "I never lose. I either I win or I learn." And this wasn't something strong. This is something that we're strengthening more and more till you make a mistake, you make a mistake quickly, you correct.
And this is necessary for all organization cultures, things are ever changing. Things change rapidly. If you always want to be assertive or you will not do anything or you will do anything, which is not good because I wanted to strengthen this because we've made lots of mistakes. We've made more good decisions than bad decisions. So now we talk more about the problems with the opportunities to improve.
And this is clear. Now I wanted to state this. because this is part of a lot that was presented here. Very briefly, I would like to talk about the regulatory part because we interact a lot. The Brazilian economy depends more and more with the regulatory agencies, and in order to build a new terminal of Ultracargo, you need at least four complex licenses. And when I started working for the company, you only needed one license. You needed -- well, you needed a license from the environmental agency, sometimes installation and operations. Now you have a whole bunch of agencies that have to provide you a license.
And on one side, you have a barrier of -- this is a barrier of entry for other players as -- but as a country, this can slow down. As investors, you take more risks to be part of a business or -- well, the fact is for a long period of time, we've been structuring and strengthening the regulatory environment with and we need to support these agencies. We need better and stronger regulators. There's no use in saying that it's bad that it doesn't work. It works, it has to improve. We have to improve the efficiency. We have to help them improve this. And we've made an effort to do this.
When we talk about [indiscernible] underwent a process of regulatory review, Brazil is a worldwide benchmark. For LPG, we have 10 million or 11 million residential clients. We haven't heard of a cylinder explosion for a long period of time and let alone Ultragaz. The fact is that we have very special things and many times are threatened, and you also have to defend this within the LPG consumers of Brazil, perhaps the -- this is the best service of LPG consumption at very low cost because of the scale and the efficiency, although we have good margins. The return of overinvestment is of high quality. So when you for -- this is a properly structured industry with high levels of efficiency and safety.
Now when we think about Hidrovias, as a matter of fact, one of the first meetings that I held in Hidrovias, I said we have to change it. This has to be navigable beds of Brazil because you don't -- we don't have lots of maintenance when you start saying that you need maintenance. This means taking out sand from the banks of the river. And well, Hidrovias has decided to do this and to invest in this that is incomparable. In comparison, it is much low -- it's a low cost.
We had to talk a lot in Brasilia to explain in Brasilia how important this is -- everything is organized today. In Brazil, we have a regulatory structure that allows us a lot of environmental approval that excludes maintenance. So now this work because today, for instance, you need an environmental license to cover a highway, for example, a hole in a highway. So things are evolving right now.
And I just wanted to mention this because obviously, when we think about fuel, well, this appeared a lot in the newspapers. The other day, I was with the Governor in Sao Paulo, and he said is ICMS increased by BRL 300 million because of this. Now what the -- and this was a competitive advantage of the legal competition. So we cannot think that this is resolved. There is lots and we still have lots of people interested on this money, and we have to continue supporting these agencies.
But I wanted to say something that I'd like to repeat. We human beings have the bad tendency to overestimate in 1 year and overestimate something that we can do in 10 years. You can do anything in 10 years. If you want to be a doctor in 10 years, you can't be a doctor in 1 year, you can't. So we're building and transforming an organization because we want it to be more modern, more nimble. There is a great effort in infrastructure.
Rodrigo and his team have focused on governance management with a focus on a change of culture. So now that we're almost celebrating 90 years so we will pave a good 90 years in the future to create value. I would like to thank you once again for being here. We will have lunch, we will be able to talk. It is excellent to organize this event in our office. This is our -- the roots. This is where we're rooted. So we're very pleased to receive you and I hope you can make the best of this day. Thank you very much.
We will go to our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]
We'll have an opportunity to ask questions of the executive. Vicente, please go ahead.
2. Question Answer
This is Vicente from Bradesco BBI. Congrats on the event. My first question is the impression I get from talking to investment funds here and abroad is that depending on the results of the elections, the case rotation will be less leveraged, less cyclic.
And I think Ultra fits into that with category of being more cyclic and more leveraged. If that happens, will Ultra -- and Ultra shares end up suffering because of that technical shift? What about the company's willingness to buy back shares? I think this year, that was something new in your case, right? The share buyback.
And the second question is I've been reading in the media about Rumo's purchase process, apparently two buyers decided not to go ahead. Will that change your capital allocation process?
Vicente, thanks. I'll start. About the decision-making process. We talked a little bit about what we consider when we are thinking about capital allocation. And that doesn't change depending on the scenario. What does change is the ability of closing on a good project, a good transaction.
If the economy is thriving, obviously, that means there will be more investment projects. So we do have a more resilient portfolio. I think that helps in the event of an uncertain scenario. But we'll still have the opportunity to leverage growth if the economy means we have more of an opportunity to grow. And buyback is always an option just as dividends are. So we'll look at the different transaction opportunities and the excess cash that's generated.
In addition to project options will be distributed via reallocation or dividend payout. So the scenario is part of the context, but that doesn't mean we'll have an opportunity to use it if the economy picks up.
Now about transactions, and that goes to any kind of transaction. We have three factors. The industry has to have good growth prospects, value perspectives, and we have to do better through our management and a good entry equation. Entry equation means price risk and governance. If we find that in a project, then we'll go ahead with it. If not, we won't. So that goes to any goes for any investment opportunity or transactions we are considering.
I won't go into any specifics, but that's what we're looking for, and that's what we are pursuing.
I think there are three here.
Eric from Itaú BBA. I have two questions. The first is considering the M&A opportunities we've been discussing. I don't think this is a watershed year. But looking at the next 3, 4, 5 years ahead, how will the company navigate leveraging, considering 2027 and potential differences?
And the second question is about imports. As a segue to Linden's presentation. We've been seeing some different strategies and distribution companies when it comes to using subsidies or not. So I'd like to hear from you what you take into consideration, when you go into it or not, what were the upsides and downsides you considered, and that's it.
I can begin talking about leverage and then I'll turn it over to Linden. A while back, 1.5 to 2x was a comfortable leverage level. We've taken that down to 1 to 1.5x for 2 reasons. First, because we're in a more uncertain macro scenario, geopolitics is more uncertain. And second is that given a more uncertain scenario, there may be other opportunities to use cash. There may be opportunities to make good investments.
During cash scarcity is when you see good acquisition and investment opportunities. So there are both sites, the same story, uncertainty and opportunity. And we're working with the scenario. Right now, it's not clear to us what the winning scenario will be. So that said, we have to be ready for both scenarios. How we're going to position ourselves if things move left or if things move right? And given that our company invests BRL 4 billion in Brazil a year, how will that company continue to make investments and to grow regardless of the -- of who wins the elections?
When it comes to subsidies, our rationale is simple. It's all about market dynamics. It's a large part of the market is using subsidies and price at the end is being composed considering the subsidies, then obviously, you're going to use it because you're going to have to come to that price to sell.
Prices in Brazil don't follow the cost of imported molecules because Petrobras affects the price and there are subsidies when it comes to imports. Otherwise, it will be much higher. So you need to compete at the same price level. And to do that, you can use the subsidies. That's what subsidies are for to make sure that end prices are more competitive. It's a simple equation, really.
Tasso from UBS. I have two. First, we talked about regulatory conversations across all businesses. We started with Linden at Ipiranga then LPG, Ultragaz, Hidrovias as well. So I'd like to hear from you, how over the next 2 years and considering elections the next weekend will bring risks or opportunities in that context? Some of the decisions have been more political than rational. So what might be the risks or opportunities as these discussions move forward?
And my second question is to Lutz as a segue to your presentation. The company has been making a lot of mistakes in the last few years and learning from its mistakes. Could you give us some examples or tell us a story about what you've learned in the last few years? What have been the key learnings and looking forward 5 to 10 years from now, where do you think there's room for improvement or key learnings and improving processes?
Well, the second question is more complex. I could give you some examples, but it's all about culture. You have to live the culture.
When it comes to the regulatory environment. Whenever there are elections as a serious large-sized company with an institutional footprint, we need to have a technical discussions with the technical departments of the government because they won't necessarily change depending on who wins the elections. Often, they're far away from Brazilian. I mean these are technical people.
I think a mistake people from Sao Paulo make is that we keep our distance. We complain. We're not there. We don't explain things, and we put it all down to ill faith. That's not true. There's a lot of serious technical professionals who want to get it right, and they need technical support to understand what the issues are, so that they can come up with regulations that make sense.
I can give you an example that most people are familiar with, we invested in distributed generation. And our assumption wasn't confirmed, which was that the market was going to deregulate in a way that we could bring Ultragaz clients electricity with the Ultragaz service standard and the way the regulation was implemented, that couldn't happen. So we discontinued it at a loss. It wasn't a huge loss, but the acquisition contract had an earn-out clause which didn't pay -- wasn't paid. I mean there was a cost, but the Ultragaz team raised its hand and said we have an opportunity to get out at a low cost. So we just wrote it off and that was, I think, last quarter.
So that's an example. But the main thing is if you have an assumption, if you make an investment, based on some rationales and they're not confirmed, you shouldn't try and come up with reasons to pretend like you got it right. And it ends up being more expensive than you had anticipated.
Let me just talk about the legal market. There's a difference between what we're going through now to other times when they try to fight it more solidly. Right now, the entire chain has realized the size of the hole that was there. When you talk to resellers, now they know how much they were losing. Distributing companies, the regulatory agency, state governments, now everybody clearly realizes the magnitude of the losses.
And as we heard, and as I said, even though we cannot lower our guard and we have to keep our eye on the ball because this is an industry that is prone to tax evasion. But now awareness has been raised about how beneficial it is to everyone -- for everyone to work in a fair way.
I think she wanted to ask a question.
Regis Cardoso from XP. Just a short one. Well, a couple of things on to Ipiranga and the other one to Ultrapar.
Ipiranga we talk about price composition because based on marginal cost, right? So there's an influence on import parity of import parity on price composition. So if you could comment on that and compare that to domestic supply, that difference between the two?
And Linden, if you could comment on the buildup on margin expectation, recurrent margin and the beneficial effect on the distribution chain, fighting illegal practices will also have other benefits to society, not only to the distribution company. I have no doubt.
And Ultrapar now that Hidrovias had a few years of experience with the portfolio. What is it like having minority shareholders? Is that something you would do again in other group assets what have been the lessons learned advantages and disadvantages, maybe the flexibility to go up or down to reallocate capital. So I'd like to hear from you on that.
Well, Price is not based on the cost. Price is based on the market. It has to do with our ability to invest, and we'll look for the best alternative possible to supply the operation with efficiency, so you can have the lowest cost possible and be competitive at market prices.
The market rules when it comes to price composition. In Brazil, obviously, even if you don't consider geopolitical events, one of the characteristics is that a part of your business is based on Petrobras pricing policy and part of the business, which is key, maybe 20%, 30% is based on imports, which have a completely different rationale and are much more volatile.
Our plans are long term. If you're planning for imports, you're looking at November and December because we can have that predictability. We can look at our client and our portfolio and think, well, we have a regular portfolio, so I'm going to be ready to meet the needs of that portfolio, and you'll import based on your needs and then you work with an average cost.
Now when there's a lot of volatility and prices are detached from that, then you can work based on the spot market and then prices based on marginal cost. So within the business itself, there isn't a single rule, you go with the flow, but it is volatile. Sometimes you're working with more and other times, you're working with less imports.
Just to provide some clarity, we are in Brazil. Places are very different. In Bahia, they're selling they use international prices, and there's also imports. So the market is based on international prices with subsidies.
As Linden said, we adjust our price to the average of what's going on with a slight Ipiranga brand premium, the cost might have an impact on the average price, but tax evasion in the past would have more of an impact, for instance, market suffered a lot. So we had to help resellers so they wouldn't go broke, and our margin was often negative because of that.
Regis, as for your question about being a public company, we don't follow any dogma or a single model that will be replicated across all the companies in our portfolio. So that said, Hidrovias, this is the second Hidrovias. It's going through a learning curve and taking a company from the inertia of a model and moving it to a different model, means an exponential curve. It's hard. It takes time to move away from inertia. There's a learning curve. When it comes to people, the team, the mindset, being on the same page, governance. So the company has to go through an adaptation to the new cycle.
Now being an open -- being a public company, I mean, that was a public company. We like the principle of a public company. First, it's easier to align the company's management in terms of value creation. Second, the shareholders have greater scrutiny than a private company with no partners. So the company is more disciplined. There is the cost of being a public company, but we think it's less than the benefits it provides. But it doesn't mean every single company in the portfolio will go public. It has to make sense for that company's reality. And if it's the best way for that company to create value, there has to be clarity about that.
But the starting point for Hidrovias is that it was already public. And there's a great deal of benefit to continuing to be a public company. And there's a learning curve. And over time, once the plan is clear, once the targets are clear and in line, we need to increase liquidity because it doesn't make sense for a company that size to have the current liquidity it has. So we need to work on that. But it's not the main thing about the company. The main thing is for the company to evolve as a company and not as a share.
You were waiting, right? She's tense, she wants to ask a question.
Milene from JPMorgan. So I'd like to hear a few more details about Ipiranga. We heard about all the gains in 2025, but I'd like to hear more about what happens at the end? Things are going to get tighter. There should be more export bans. And I'd like to hear about your strategy. Is there an opportunity for more branded service stations? What's happening in the industry? And what part of that can be translated into a supply risk?
Second question is the first time Iconic has provided more details about their operation, more figures, the company strategy, how much of -- what does that mean for the next 2 years? Will there be more growth? Is there an opportunity for a spin-off?
Okay. I believe you -- if I forget to answer something remind me, please, as a matter of fact, the international market is volatile. And it is a volatility that impacts the flow and this creates problem in supply. Although you've seen national inventories dropping these figures are public. Brazil is importing half of it. Would it use to import in terms of diesel? So this is a more adjusted inventory about our role and our strategy is to find an option.
I don't know if we -- there will be export bans from the U.S., it will be total partial, but we have to be prepared. What we're doing today, we don't have capacity to originate in other parts of the world. We have products coming from Saudi Arabia, from India that we don't activate because the cost of the molecule is -- it doesn't make sense, but this is something that we can do in the future.
This possibility is open. It will depend on how countries react? How long this geopolitical stability takes place? Because as countries diminish the impacts of their finite in terms of the use of reserves or control of demand, these are finite measures, sometimes they become tighter.
But our role is to have options, and we do have options, we have good supply practically until the end of the year. What else did you ask, by the way?
Now okay, branded service stations. There are markets where we cannot harness all the opportunities. You can't just -- you just can't go and do things. First, you have to maintain the quality of your investment, which is something clear. Second, now you have to be very careful to whom you bring to the network? Because when you think there are lots of people in the market, working in the informal market and they are supplied by markets that work in the informal market there are companies counting with the coverage of a good company to commit another type of fraud.
So I do not want this type of partners with our brand. I want a partner that believes in the value of the brand and now is realizing how important it is to work with a company that can guarantee supply that has a good value proposition. I'm not against other brands. I'm against those that don't pay taxes and those that work in the informal market. So this will be a good year for Ipiranga from the business growth point of view. But this does not mean that we are open to just to flexibilize our compliance rules.
Now regarding Iconic, disclosure is -- has no way back. There's no return from disclosure. We've shown the evolution of the companies in the past year. This is extremely relevant. And we have a relevant growth of potential. Can you imagine next year to separate Iconic and Ipiranga's result? Can you imagine what would happen if we would separate the results?
I see Iconic in three major blocks. The assets are assets that are modernizing itself, but they still have space to gain more operational efficiency. We are also implementing a new operational system in the company that will simplify and our processes will be more agile. So the pillar of efficiency is of utmost importance for our business.
Number two, we are market leaders, but we are not leaders in all the segments, in all the sectors. So how can we fairly participate in each one of the sectors in each one of the product class. The third good pillar, great pillar as we can innovate, as we innovate, we can explore new industries, and we can develop new molecules and new products to meet the needs of our customers.
So I would say that the Iconic journey will continue being efficiency, core strengthening and trying to see where we can create value to our customers.
Congratulations for your presentation. Very clear and highly objective. But I would like to pose a question that up to the moment, no one has posed, it seems obvious that the growth of the use of the electrical vehicle will intensify in an unpredictable way. I can't assess this right now, but I would like to know if you have already seen the growth perspective of the use of the EV and how can this growth interfere in the performance of the fuel that you distribute, have you done a study?
As you mentioned, it is predictable, but some things are unpredictable. One part is predictable. Some parts are unpredictable. Every year, we see the future curve of demand. We are still in the moment of growth. So obviously, the EV has slowed down the growth of gas and ethanol consumption in Brazil, especially the heavy users.
Now the CNG in gas, natural gas this fact, the car conversion, the conversion to gas was practically 0 because the taxi drivers and the Uber drivers, they're buying more EVs. And there's still a problem with EVs in Rio de Janeiro because lots of EV cars are being stolen. Yes, because then they could take it up to the mountain that they don't have to take the car down and to fill it up in the gas station. We do have these problems in Brazil when we see diesel that is a relevant side. I believe it's 2/3 of the Ipiranga's volume. We don't face this problem in the long term. As a capital allocator, I'd like to give you an example that for me is very emblematic. For how long did we talk about the end of smoking so the tobacco companies would be extinguished, and they're there, making lots of money. Probably less money with slower growth, but they will last. They will continue generating cash and making money for some time.
And people always talk about Kodak as a company that didn't have success when it came to adapting itself to these -- to the new technology. In theory the digital camera was developed by them, and then they got lost in the middle of the way. So basically, they disappeared. But as a share, I believe that the Kodak shareholder was happy with the management, because if Kodak wanted to be the new digital camera producer, it was going to lose to Sony or to Apple and they were going to spend all the capital that could be paid out as dividend, trying to change things.
So here, I'm talking as Ultrapar, the role of Ipiranga is to generate cash and create value in the sector where it makes sense with efficiency, quality operating better, and in proving its indexes year-on-year without trying to become the next Tesla. We're not going to be the next Tesla. So at the end, if we say EV is going to be a fantastic business so where can we allocate our capital in the company that will benefit from EV, but we cannot transform ourselves in the EV company. We will always be a reference in Brazil for fuel, for mobility, for a number of things.
Perhaps we'll make some money. I don't know, in service station and convenience store, we have to see how we're efficiency with what we have without creating something that is unknown because as a matter of fact, this is an industry that is under disruption.
China is different from Brazil, but we compare ourselves to China. We're extremely different from China when we think about the political side and the regulatory side. For example, everything -- they say everything is going to be EVs. We can't do that. Brazil will be one of the last combustion engine cars in the world because we lose a lot of fuel. I believe that our horizon is quite long when we think about this industry because it's an industry that is extremely important for Brazil, and Ipiranga has a very important role and a highly profitable role.
I agree with you. But Ipiranga has access to 6,000 retail points in Brazil that are very good.
Two final questions. the EV also use fluids. For instance, in Brazil, we already supply fluids to EVs. When we see the lifespan of the amount of fluids is smaller. But the margin for our business is higher, and you have the hybrid car that in our case, it uses lubricants, you start using other fluids. So there are good prospects for Brazil in this area. And as Marco said, we will have a diverse matrix in terms of fleet.
I'm Jorge from Bank of Scotiabank. Could you talk about capital allocation central business adjacent to new business. I would like to understand because when you think about perhaps you have more certainty on your central businesses or projects then adjacencies and new projects are more uncertain, so the level of return increases in each one of these boxes as you analyze this. What is -- what's your starting point? Is it ROI?
So you're going to start building on the central project to compare it to other projects or an ROI that in the long term because now it's difficult to prove anything because of the extraordinary things that we've seen, I would like to understand what you think about each one of these three blocks.
I believe the rationale is the further from what we do greater is the return, a business can generate value. How long will it take to be in the black? Or will we reach a breakeven point in the project?
And the third element would be, we have a long-term mark, which is the minimum requirement. So you will have a project -- the technology platform in exchange from Iconic, Ultragaz and Ipiranga. These are projects that should be done regardless of the return because we have a JD Edwards, a system that doesn't even have maintenance today. It's not a matter of choice. It's a matter of need.
And the exchange will give us more efficiency. We have a VPL, which is positive and everything is positive. When we pull out of necessary investments that are investments that don't change the strategy or the competitive advantage of the business, then yes, you need more an investment that is necessary or increases a broader competitive advantage you accept lower return. When it's discretionary, you're going towards a new business.
Today, we don't need to build a new business. It's not going to improve Ultrapar because it creates synergies and gives benefits to the existing businesses. A new business has -- well, we don't need a new investment in order to improve our portfolio.
Bruno Montanari from Morgan Stanley. Two follow-ups. What about the minorities? You said that this would be public company. And if this would be a strategic investor in the same dogma process. What could a strategic partner -- how could a strategic partner help Ultragaz, Ipiranga and the opportunities of new businesses. If something major emerges that checks all the boxes regarding what you mentioned, if this level of leverage could be forgiven in a short period of time because you have a good opportunity ahead of you.
Now, thinking about your second question because I forgot your first question. Now, our leverage level, we are below 1x, we're 0.9. This is just a reference, okay? It's not a straight jacket. There is an investment project that increases our leverage. We have a good visibility of deleveraging in the short run, there is no problem in being above. This is not a straight jacket, okay? Right now, we believe that this is the best leverage point.
It's not going to depend on the circumstances if there is a project and there's an investment where we can deleverage quickly, we can surpass this level.
And your first question I can even answer at the end, when he is the partner we need discipline. Our governance is complex. The new market is an [indiscernible] partner, you know what kind of reports come with it, a strategic partner, a bad strategic partner, is really bad.
So you can verify, understand to see if this partner is aligned. We have no bias here against the strategic partner, if it's a good partner that adds to the company because extra money is always valuable, two additional points. We can do this. We don't need to do this and to bring a partner in just because of capital doesn't make sense because of our level of leverage. We don't need the capital if we -- of course, if we bring in a new partner is to do something is to do better what we already do. Now if we have a partner that can contribute, well, okay. But we have partners in our operations of Chevron, Ipiranga, and we also have partners, and we operate very well with them.
We are coming to an end. Our Q&A session has come to an end. I would like to thank all the officers for the presentation, all the participants in person, everyone that is online. We have over 400 people connected online. Thanks very much for your availability. I hope this was a fruitful presentation. Questions that weren't answered will be answered by the IR team. We are at your disposal, and it was a pleasure to be with you.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Earnings Release Call of Ultrapar to discuss the Results referring to the Second Quarter of 2026. The presentation will be conducted by Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, CEO of Ultrapar; and by Mr. Alexandre Palhares, CFO of Ultrapar. The question-and-answer session will also have Mr. Leonardo Linden, CEO of Ipiranga; Mr. Tabajara Bertelli, CEO of Ultragaz; and Mr. Fulvius Tomelin, CEO of Ultracargo.
This call is being recorded and will be accessed through the website, ir.ultra.com.br. After the presentation, we are going to start the question-and-answer session, when further instructions will be provided. We'd also like to let you know that this earnings release call will be conducted in Portuguese and there is an option for simultaneous translation available by clicking on interpretation. For those listening to the call in English, there is the option of muting original audio. The presentation will be shown in Portuguese, and there is a version in English available for download at the company's website or through the chat.
Before moving on, we would like to clarify that forward-looking statements that may be made during this call with respect to business prospects, forecast, operational and financial goals of the company are all based on beliefs and assumptions of the company's Board and on currently available information.
These forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances, which may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, the market and other operational factors may affect the future performance of Ultrapar and lead to results which may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements.
I would like now to hand it over to Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, who will start the presentation. Mr. Pizzinatto, you can start.
Good morning, everyone. It is great to be here with you for another Ultrapar earnings conference call. We delivered another quarter of strong operational results at Ultrapar with significant growth in EBITDA and net income. We achieved a record operating cash flow generation of BRL 4.8 billion, driven by solid operational performance and working capital release at Ipiranga.
This significant cash generation contributed to the reduction of our leverage to its lowest level since 2008. This improvement in our results enabled us to anticipate this year's dividend distribution. We approved the distribution of BRL 1.85 billion in dividends relating to the first half of the year, equivalent to BRL 1 per share or dividend yield of 3.8% in addition to a share buyback program of up to 18 million shares, returning part of the value created to our shareholders. We also continue to advance our growth and productivity agenda.
At Ultracargo, [Foreign Language] to highlight that for the first time, Ultrapar was included in the Dow Jones Best-in-class Emerging Markets Index.
With that, I will now hand over to Alexandre to detail the results of the businesses.
Thank you, Rodrigo, and good morning, everyone. Before discussing the performance of our businesses, I would like to briefly remind you of the criteria and standards used in the analysis in this presentation, which can be seen on Slide 3.
Moving on to Ultrapar's consolidated results on Slide 4. Once again, we present results that combine operational consistency, cash generation and capital discipline, reflecting the quality of our portfolio and the execution capabilities of our businesses. We ended the period with recurring adjusted EBITDA of BRL 3.657 billion. This result reflects improved results across all businesses. and especially Ipiranga's strong results, as I will comment on shortly.
Net income was the highest ever reported by Ultrapar, totaling BRL 1.677 billion, an increase of BRL 527 million or 46% compared to the second quarter of last year. This result was driven by higher operating results of the businesses, partially offset by higher depreciation, amortization and financial expenses, reflecting, among other factors, the consolidation of Hidrovias in May 2025.
CapEx for the quarter totaled BRL 570 million, reflecting lower investments at Ultracargo as we approach the conclusion of its expansion cycle and lower investments at Hidrovias, partially offset by higher investments at Ultragaz and Ipiranga, mainly related to the implementation of new ERP. We achieved record operating cash generation of BRL 4.789 billion in the quarter compared to BRL 939 million cash generation in the second quarter of 2025.
These results reflect strong operational results, the working capital release mainly at Ipiranga and the additional contracting of BRL 833 million in draft discount for suppliers, which preserves liquidity in an environment still marked by volatility in international markets. Excluding these effects, operating cash flow would have totaled BRL 3.956 billion.
Moving to Slide 5. We see that we ended the quarter with net debt of BRL 8.864 billion and leverage of 0.9x, the lowest level since 2008, as Rodrigo mentioned earlier. Strong operating cash generation enabled a reduction of gross debt through the payout of debt in Hidrovias and Ipiranga. Before discussing the business figures, starting with Ipiranga, I would like to provide some context regarding the environment in which we operated during the quarter on Slide 6.
As we discussed during our first quarter earnings call, the conflict in the Middle East brought significant volatility to global oil products markets and required rapid adjustments across the entire supply and logistics chain. In this environment, distributors with supply capabilities, logistics scale and the long-term commitment to serving the market became increasingly relevant.
As shown in the chart on the left, Ipiranga doubled its diesel imports during the first half of the year, increasing its share of total imports in Brazil despite lower overall imports compared with the same period last year. Brazil recorded one of the lowest pass-through fuel price increases to consumers. As we can see in the chart on the center of the slide. This reflects government efforts through subsidy mechanisms and Petrobras pricing policy. Our ability to ensure supply under these circumstances, supported by a significant increase in diesel imports strengthened Ipiranga's competitive position and contributed to 8% volume growth in the first half of 2026 compared with market growth of 3%.
Moving to Slide 7, we can observe the positive effects of the government's effort to combat irregularities in the fuel distribution sector. Unlike the temporary impacts associated with the conflict in the Middle East, this represents an important structural improvement that contributes to a very competitive environment. The chart on the left shows the reduction in the market share of distributors classified by ACL as legal operators. Their market share declined from 24.4% to 20% during the period. This loss of share by irregular players allowed tax compliant distributors to regain market share.
Ipiranga stood out in this context, gaining 0.9 percentage points of market share. Beyond creating a fair competitive environment, reducing distortions and illegal practices benefit society as a whole through higher tax collection and consequently, greater public resources. The government of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro alone estimate that these initiatives may generate approximately BRL 6 billion in additional annual tax revenues.
The chart on the right shows the average retail fuel price in Brazil during the first half of the year, which stood at BRL 6.14 per liter. Taxes accounted for BRL 1.53 of this amount while Ipiranga's EBITDA margin was $0.36 per liter. It is important to note that this margin does not include financial expenses, depreciation, amortization or income taxes. Although distributors' profitability represents only a small portion of the final pump price, it is what enables the sector to continue investing in infrastructure and ensuring fuel supply throughout the country.
Moving to Slide 8, we present Ipiranga's second quarter results. The total volume sold was 6.173 million cubic meters, an 8% increase compared to the second quarter of 2025 with an increase of 10% in diesel and 6% in the auto cycle. This result reflects the positive effects resulting from the recovery of the competitive environment in the sector in addition to the effects related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We ended the quarter with a network of 5,855 service stations, 29 more than in March of this year, resulting from 101 stations opened and 72 closed in the period.
Ipiranga's recurring EBITDA totaled BRL 2.782 billion in the quarter with a margin of BRL 451 per cubic meter, reflecting the combination of the structural and conjunctural factors I mentioned earlier. For the third quarter, we continue to face the effect of the conflict, although we expect a lower impact from short-term factors.
On the other hand, we continue to see the structural benefits arising from the ongoing improvement of a fair competitive environment, driven by the continued progress in combating irregularities across the sector. As a result, we expect margins to be below the level reported in the second quarter of 2026 and closer to those observed in the first quarter of this year.
Moving now to Slide 9 with Ultragaz results. The volume of LPG sold in the quarter was 3% lower when compared to the same period last year, with a 4% decrease in the bottle segment and a 2% decrease in the bulk segment. The decline in the bottled segment reflects lower market demand in the LPG and competitive dynamics, while the decrease in the Bulk segment is due to lower demand from the industrial segment.
Even so, we presented a consistent recurring EBITDA, totaling BRL 468 million, a 6% increase compared to the same period last year, reflecting a more favorable sales mix in LPG, which offset the lower volume and the effect of BRL 70 million in asset write-offs in second quarter 2025. For the third quarter, we will continue our efforts to recover market share. As a result, we expect EBITDA to remain at a level similar to that reported in the third quarter of 2025.
Moving to Slide 10, we present Ultracargo's results. Average installed capacity reached 1.156 million cubic meters, an 8% increase in the annual comparison, reflecting capacity additions in Palmeirante, Rondonopolis, Santos, and Opla. The cubic meters sold increased by 19% compared to 2025, mainly reflecting the ramp-up of newly installed capacity despite lower demand for fuel import storage due to the conflict in the Middle East with import windows remaining closed since March.
Net revenue totaled BRL 265 million a 7% year-over-year increase, reflecting higher cubic meters sold, partially offset by a less favorable sales mix as we have a greater share of inland basis, which have higher turnover and lower average price. The adjusted EBITDA was BRL 159 million, a 13% increase compared to the second quarter of last year, reflecting higher volumes handled and lower expenses, partially offset by a less favorable sales mix and higher operating costs associated with increased throughput. For the third quarter, we expect market dynamics and results to be similar to those reported in the second quarter.
Finally, on Slide 11, we present Hidrovias results. Total volume handled decreased by 14% compared to the second quarter of 2025, mainly due to the sale of the coastal navigation operation in November 2025. Considering only continuing operations, the volume was 5% higher, driven by stronger cargo handling in Paraguay and Santos, which more than offset lower volumes in the integrated Northern system and weaker fertilizer demand in the region. Recurring adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 322 million, 8% below when compared to the second quarter of 2025, also reflecting the sale of Coastal Navigation.
Considering continuing operations only, recurring adjusted EBITDA was 1% below, reflecting the higher volume handled, offset by higher operating costs and expenses. For the third quarter, we expect market and navigation conditions to remain similar to those observed last year. As a result, we expect performance to be in line with that reported in the third quarter of 2025.
Thank you all for joining us today. We remain available together with our Investor Relations team to address any questions and continue our discussions. We will now open the call for the Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions]. First question coming from Vicente Falanga with Bradesco BBI.
2. Question Answer
The first question is, the company has been providing excellent results, very robust cash generation. I would like to understand about shareholders' compensation. You've announced some dividend sharing. But in terms of capital allocation, would you think -- or have you been considering speeding up, considering M&A opportunities or the possibility of reinvesting in your own cases because of very attractive ROIC?
My second question is Rio de Janeiro seems to be improving a lot the illegal practice, informal practice as a result of the governor's effort. There will be a number of tax solidarity and repeated debtors, a number of opportunities to transform the informal market into a formal market. How are you prepared or how well are you prepared to take the opportunity of what's going on in Rio de Janeiro?
Good morning. Rodrigo speaking. Thank you very much for your questions. In terms of shareholders' compensation, we've just announced BRL 1.100 billion in dividend to be shared plus BRL 500 million with the sharing buyback. This progression is going to follow the profit rates of the business. I think this is the main driver. In addition to that, we are always considering opportunities of investments in the existing business and in new businesses. And it follows the process that we have already addressed before.
We look for investments in which we can have strong long-term generation potential. We do not have to increase CapEx or to make really adjustments. We are looking for good projects that make sense. If we cannot really obtain that as fast as we are improving our operations. We increased the dividends and keep on working on sharing buyback. This is our mindset.
Now Linden to answer about Rio de Janeiro.
Yes, it's a fact. The state of Rio de Janeiro is showing major improvements because of everything that you've mentioned and something that we've been monitoring closely. We are very active in the market. We've been branding more stations than had been before. We've been very active on spot supply, if necessary. And we've been very active in closing stations that used to operate within illegal rules that we do not agree with.
It is a market going through major transformations, as you said, Governor of Rio de Janeiro deserves to be recognized as being a driving force in these activities, and we are paying attention to them.
Next question comes from Milene Carvalho with JPMorgan.
Great results. We have very positive results. I would like to talk more about Ipiranga's margin. You said that we should expect margins going back to the levels of the first quarter. I have two points to ask. In the third quarter, there are going to be subsidies. How is that going to impact margins, working capital and the competition?
Looking towards the midterm as of 2027, can we expect results close to that of the first quarter of '26 or more to what we had in '25, BRL 200 per cubic meter?
Let me set the context first. The guidance has been given. Palhares was very clear about it. But setting it to understand it from now on, it's quite clear that we've been dealing with double effect impact. On the one side, we are exposed to positive impact resulting from the fight against illegal practices. On the other hand, we have been impacted negatively by middle -- the Middle East conflict, which impacts the international supply.
We can see a very competitive environment, but it's fair because everyone is investing and paying taxes. The recovery we can see in the business in terms of volume and margin is a result of volumes and sales that have been lost to illegal market. And it's an effect that is here to stay now. But because there is this double effect, we cannot account for what is exactly the turning point or the stability point, but there is a positive effect on volumes and margins, which are here to stay and will be carried over into the future.
Concerning the Middle East conflict, it will depend on supply and demand. The volatility of the price is impacted because of the disruptions in supply and international supply, but we do expect to have a healthier market from now on because of this fight against the legal practices, of course. This is better to everyone.
The next question comes from Monique Greco with Itau BBA.
Great results. I'm going to build up on what Vicente said about capital allocation. It's quite clear about your search for additional investments and observing the levels of profit. Now what is the level of leverage would be considered optimal to you during this capital allocation journey.
My second question is, considering the third quarter of Ipiranga and Palhares was very clear about margins, but I would like to talk about working capital. There was a relevant swing in this demand in the first quarters of the year. So I would like to know what you anticipate for working capital in the third quarter.
Monique, thank you for your questions. Concerning leverage, I think you have made reference to an important topic, and Linden talked about that and Ipiranga's results. We have the results of the first half of the year results impacted by two effects that are going to be maintained in the half year.
We have to bear in mind when we talk about leverage. What we've been observing is leverage of 1 to 1.5x EBITDA. This is our level of comfort, especially during volatile situations and with high interest rates. If it gets outside this expected margins, we will maybe buy back or change our dividend share.
Concerning working capital, with the beginning of the Middle East conflict, we've made significant investments in the first quarter of the year. You probably recall that. Part of the investment has already been booked in the second quarter, and it will impact because of imports. As the mix of import goes up, it reduces the need of making working capital investments because the payment terms are longer. As there is a reduction in the imports mix, there is going to be additional investments in working capital.
Second level is the price ranges. As prices have been fluctuating significantly, it's about BRL 3 billion between inventory, accounts payable and accounts receivable. Every 10% variation in price, it means BRL 300 million in working capital. So it's some sort of reference for you to understand our working capital dynamics.
The next question comes from Leonardo Marcondes with Bank of America.
The first question about Ipiranga is the following. How do you see the opportunities of branded stations in the current market? And if you can make reference also to what has been asked about capital allocation, could we expect some additional branding operations from now on? And about Ultragaz, I would also like to ask about that. We've observed a significant reduction year-over-year and a reduction of market share as well. And just correct me if I'm wrong. Could you please tell us more about competition in this industry?
Leonardo, because of everything that's going on in the market, there has been more requests of branding the new stations. Because Ipiranga is a supplier of high quality, well known. It has a strong brand. So yes, we have had more requests of branding new stations are having white flag conversion, but always maintaining our investment discipline in terms of capital and quality. We do not expect major capital variations. We hope to keep on making investments at assets of quality according to the criteria that we've defined and been used for a while.
Leonardo Tabajara speaking here. Answering your question about market share, you are right. I could focus on bottle because the corporate B2B is just related to economic variation. In bottled products, our main driver is how healthy our resellers are. We are in a process of expanding our resellers just in the organized retail market. And we've lost some space because we operate outside our target segment. And in upcoming months, we are very much focused on maintaining this level of operation to all our resellers, supporting our programs, our initiatives to move on towards obtaining more and more customers.
We are working very hard here. We believe we can improve the number and the quality of our resellers, which ultimately interact with the high-value market. This is what we've been observing and probably it's going to be sustained in upcoming months.
Our question-and-answer session is closed now. I would like now to hand it over to Alexandre Palhares for his closing remarks.
Well, thank you all very much for your participation. Unfortunately, we couldn't have all questions answered, but our Investor Relations team is here to support you. Thank you all very much. See you next time.
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the earnings release call of Ultrapar to discuss the results of the first quarter of 2026. The presentation will be delivered by Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, CEO of Ultrapar; and by Alexandre Palhares, CFO of Ultrapar.
Our question-and-answer session will also have with us Leonardo Linden, CEO of Ipiranga; Tabajara Bertelli, CEO of Ultragaz; and Fulvius Tomelin, CEO of Ultracargo. This call is being recorded and will be accessed by the website, ri.ultra.com.br. After the presentation, we are going to start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided.
Would like to let you know that this call is being conducted in Portuguese and there is an option of simultaneous translation available by clicking on interpretation. For those listening to it in English, there is the option of to mute the original audio. The presentation will be shown in Portuguese, and the version in English is available to be downloaded through the company's website or through the chat. Before moving on, we would like to clarify that forward-looking statements that may be made during this conference call related to business prospects, forecasts, operational and financial goals of Ultrapar are all based on beliefs and assumptions of the Executive Board as well as currently available information.
Forward-looking statements have no guarantee of performance. They involve risks and uncertainties since they relate to future events and depend on circumstances, which may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions and other operating factors as well as industry factors may affect the future performance of Ultrapar and lead to results which may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements.
I would like now to hand it over to Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, who will start the presentation. Please, Mr. Pizzinatto, move on.
Good morning, everyone. It is great to be here with you for another Ultrapar earnings conference call. I would like to draw your attention to some highlights from the first quarter of this year. We remained on Ultrapar's path of solid operating results, driven by Ipiranga and the consolidation of Hidrovias even in an environment of high volatility and challenges across the different sectors in which we operate. Palhares will shortly provide further details on the composition of our results.
We generated BRL 1.103 billion in operating cash flow, supported by solid performance of the businesses and a higher balance of draft discounts for suppliers despite the significant working capital investment we made at Ipiranga, mainly driven by the sharp increase in fuel prices.
This powerful cash generation scenario allowed for a reduction in leverage, which decreased from 1.7x to 1.5x. If we include the balance of draft discount for suppliers, leverage would remain at 1.7x at the same level as at the end of 2025.
Amid the conflict in Iran and the significant volatility and sharp increase in fuel prices, I would also like to highlight Ipiranga's investment of more than BRL 2 billion in working capital to ensure supply to its service station network and consumers. We continue to advance in our growth, productivity and value creation agenda. During the quarter, we completed the expansions of the Rondonópolis and Opla bases at Ultracargo, which combined added 25,000 cubic meters of capacity. On the institutional agenda, we continue to make progress in strengthening the regulatory framework and promoting fairer competition in the country. I would like to highlight the publication by the Federal Revenue of the regulation addressing persistent debtors, as well as the conversion of the Gás do Povo into law, important advances for legal and regulatory certainty.
Finally, I would like to remind you that we published the 2025 sustainability report, including the new 2030 sustainability plan, already available on our Investor Relations website. This material reflects the evolution of our corporate sustainability agenda, increasingly aligned with Ultrapar's long-term value creation strategy. Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand over to our CFO, who will detail the results for the quarter.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Well, before we start, I would like to remind you of the criteria and standards used in the analysis in this presentation, which can be seen on Slide 3. Moving on to Ultrapar's consolidated results on Slide 4. Recurring adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 2.3 billion, reflecting mainly the higher operating results at Ipiranga and the consolidation of Hidrovias' results, which until May 2025 were accounted for in share of profit, loss of subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates.
Net income for the quarter was BRL 914 million, representing an increase of BRL 551 million compared to the first quarter of last year. This result reflects the improved operational performance of our businesses, partially offset by higher depreciation, amortization and financial expenses.
CapEx for the quarter totaled BRL 558 million, higher than in the same period of last year, reflecting the consolidation of Hidrovias and higher investments in Ultragaz and Ipiranga, partially offset by lower investments in Ultracargo as we advance in completing capacity expansions.
Operating cash generation reached BRL 1.103 billion in the quarter compared to BRL 3 million in the first quarter of 2025. This result reflects the higher operating performance combined with higher working capital investment, which were partially offset by the contracting of approximately BRL 1.150 billion in draft discount. Excluding the effects of draft discount in the 2 comparable periods, the cash flow from operating activities showed a consumption of BRL 43 million, reflecting the company's financial effort to keep the fuel market supplied in a scenario of high volatility, high international prices and market uncertainties.
Moving to Slide 5. We can see that we ended the quarter with net debt of BRL 12.275 billion and leverage of 1.5x. Also considering the effects of draft discount and vendor, adjusted net debt totaled BRL 13.479 billion, with stable leverage at 1.7x, in line with the level observed at the end of last year.
Before discussing Ipiranga's results, I would like to provide some context on the atypical environment we faced in the first quarter, driven by the escalation of the conflict in Iran on Slide 6. Inventory gains and losses are an intrinsic part of the business. As we can see in the chart, fluctuations in Brent crude oil prices have a direct impact on the fuel prices and consequently, on Ipiranga's results.
During periods of sharp oil price declines, such as at the onset of the pandemic, lower prices combined with reduced volumes significantly pressured profit margins and EBITDA. In that scenario, Ipiranga reported adjusted EBITDA of BRL 167 million, close to 0 with margins of BRL 36 per cubic meter or BRL 0.036 for each liter sold, mainly driven by significant inventory losses. In the first quarter of 2026, we experienced the opposite dynamic with a sharp increase in international oil prices. This significant price increase generates relevant inventory gains. This effect was further amplified by higher inventory levels as we maintained increased inventory levels, supported by a substantial increase in fuel imports to meet higher volumes across our service station network and consumers' demand following the exit of opportunistic importers from the market.
Inventory gains and higher volumes contributed significantly to the results presented in the quarter with margins of BRL 275 per cubic meter or BRL 0.27 per liter sold, which represents an increase of just BRL 0.09 per liter.
Moving to Slide 7. We can see how this environment led to a significant working capital investment at Ipiranga to ensure supply to our customers. As conflicts escalated, we observed a sharp increase in international fuel prices, along with a relevant change in supply dynamics. International producers and trading companies began requiring more restrictive payment terms, often cash in advance in order to supply products.
In addition, the increase in fuel prices in Brazil was significantly lower than the increase in international prices, as you can see in the chart in the middle, reflecting Petrobras' pricing policy. In this context, opportunistic importers refrained from nationalizing cargoes, which required a prompt response from distributors with greater logistical, financial and operational capacity.
Ipiranga as one of the main structural suppliers in the Brazilian market, nearly tripled its imports in April to ensure supply to its service station network and consumers, as you can see in the upper left chart. Our imported diesel volumes previously represented between 6% and 7% of total diesel imports in Brazil before the conflict and reached 12% in the first quarter of 2026.
This movement was essential to ensure market supply but naturally had relevant financial impacts. The significant increase in international prices and the higher imported volumes combined with higher inventory levels and shorter payment terms for imported fuels resulted in a very substantial working capital requirement, exceeding BRL 2 billion in the quarter.
Taken together, these effects led to a BRL 0.09 increase in EBITDA margin in the first quarter compared to last quarter of 2025. As a result of this context, Slide 8 shows Ipiranga's results for the quarter. The total volume sold in the quarter was 6,021,000 cubic meters, an 8% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025, with an increase of 9% in diesel and 7% in the Otto cycle. This performance reflects the gradual recovery of the market with a lower level of irregularities in the sector in addition to the effects of the atypical market dynamics related to the international conflict I mentioned earlier.
We ended the quarter with a network of 5,826 service stations, 21 more than in December 2025, resulting from 48 stations opened and 27 closed in the period. Ipiranga's recurring EBITDA was BRL 1.665 billion in the quarter with margin of BRL 276 per cubic meter. We continue to see the impact of the conflict in Iran, which bring the volatility and challenges to the sector. At the same time, we continue to observe a gradual recovery of the market, supported by initiatives to combat irregularities.
In this context, assuming this environment is maintained, we expect results to remain at levels similar to those observed recently.
Moving now to Slide 9 with Ultragaz' results. The volume of LPG sold in the quarter remained practically stable compared to the first quarter of 2025, with a 1% increase in the bottled segment and a 2% decrease in the bulk segment, mainly due to lower demand in the industrial segment. Ultragaz' EBITDA totaled BRL 385 million in the quarter, a 2% decrease compared to the same period last year, reflecting higher LPG costs and a reduction of BRL 14 million in other operating results due to the reversal of the earn-out related to the acquisition of Stella, which had been recorded in the first quarter of 2025.
In this quarter, we will intensify our efforts to recover market share. Even so, we expect results to be better than those reported in the same period last year.
Now let's move to the results of Ultracargo on Slide 10. The average installed capacity reached 1,152,000 cubic meters, an 8% increase compared to the same period of the previous year, reflecting the capacity additions in Santos, Rondonópolis, Opla and Palmeirante.
The cubic meters sold increased by 11% in the annual comparison, reflecting gradual recovery in demand for fuel storage related to imports, especially in Santos in addition to the ramp-up process of the new installed capacity. The net revenue totaled BRL 276 million, a 2% year-over-year increase, reflecting higher cubic meter volumes, partially offset by a less favorable sales mix with a higher share of lower average priced terminals, albeit with higher throughput.
The adjusted EBITDA was BRL 165 million, remaining broadly stable compared to the first quarter of 2025, reflecting higher volumes handled, which partially offset the costs associated with expansion still in the ramp-up phase. The current context of the conflict in Iran brings additional challenges to port terminals, reflecting volatility in the pace of imports. Even so, we expect results in line with those observed in the first quarter of 2026.
Finally, moving to Hidrovias' results on Slide 11. Total volumes handled decreased by 23% compared to the same period in 2025, reflecting one-off challenges in the northern corridor and the sale of the coastal navigation operation in November 2025. Considering continuing operations only, the reduction was 6%.
Recurring adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 182 million, 29% below when compared to the first quarter of 2025. This performance mainly reflects operational challenges in the North corridor, less favorable navigability conditions in the South with a higher number of voyages carried out and consequently higher costs as well as the sale of the coastal navigation business, partially offset by lower expenses.
Considering continuing operations only, recurring adjusted EBITDA was 23% below when compared to the same period last year. We have observed improvement in cargo reception in the northern corridor, although still subject to restrictions.
In the southern corridor, operating conditions remain similar to those of the previous quarter. In this context, we expect results to be in line with those reported last year.
To conclude, I would like to thank you all for your participation. We remain available together with our Investor Relations team to continue the conversations and clarify any questions you may have. Let's now move on to the Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions]
First question is by Monique Greco with Itaú BBA.
2. Question Answer
[Interpreted]
Great results. Kudos to you. I have 2 questions. First, about the imports. How have you seen that in the current quarter, April, May in terms of cargo availability, payment conditions, payment terms and what we should expect from that into the working capital structure of the current quarter?
Building up on the effects of the inventory levels that you shared with us, thinking about the current quarter, as we've seen a price decrease in April and a decrease in import costs, how can we understand that inventory effect in the second quarter? What would be the kind of guidance we can expect? And do you expect any par shooting dynamic? How is it all going to play into the second quarter?
[Interpreted]
Monique, this is Leonardo Linden speaking. In terms of imports, what we can observe is very similar to what we observed in March. At the end of the first quarter, we are having expected origination levels. We see no risk of difficulties or disruptions of our businesses with our clients. Terms are reduced, though, and this has an impact on working capital. I think there are 3 key effects that we observed in the first quarter. One, volume, 8% increase in volume. Second effect is cost of product, but we have increased mix of imported products, which costs more.
And thirdly, suppliers because we have a reduced terms. This has been managed. And I suppose that as the market situation resumes its expected level and dynamics, the working capital will go back to its original levels. In terms of inventory levels, I have 2 comments to make. I think there are also 2 effects here. First, price increase over the physical inventories.
And secondly, replenishment cost pricing for a longer period of time with increased prices. It does generate an impact as Palhares pointed out. But once again, as the situation, the conflict in the Middle East resumes its previous levels and as they used to be, I think everything will go back into normal.
Second question comes by Gabriel Barra with Citi.
[Interpreted]
I have 2 quick points. The higher margin is a result of a number of things, including the improvement in the formal market, but also a non-recurring effect considering what we've all been experiencing in Brazil in the world in terms of supply, et cetera. Looking inside Brazil, there have been a number of measures imposed by the government of Brazil for the whole industry, providing subsidies, and it has impacted the activities of imports, as you shared in your presentation.
Said that, I would like to hear from you how you've been considering this impact in the industry because of the uncertainty and the dynamics of the local market as opposed to the international market, especially considering the subsidies of fuel in Brazil impacting not only Ipiranga, but also Ultragaz.
My second question is about capital allocation. Looking back into 2024, considering the holding, the capital allocation was more active, looking inside and outside and understanding capital allocation flows, investments made in assets now owned 100% by you, bringing more diversity, investing in other businesses, adding value to shareholders.
We've seen the news, and I would like to hear from you what is the current status? The company has had a very strong leverage position, very relevant cash position, considering the payments you have ahead. So, I'd like to hear more about these investments and also investments in other business lines by Ultra. These are my 2 questions.
[Interpreted]
Let me answer the first question, and then I'm going to hand it over to the team. As you said, the effect of margin that we've seen results from a number of things. First of all, there is a continuous market progression, excluding the Middle East war. If we have the margin, discount the effects of gains and losses of inventory, margins in February and March is higher than the margins we had in the second half of 2025. This is no big news. It is a market that has been improving in terms of fighting irregular operations.
Secondly, there is the effect of the work we've been doing, and you've been following up the plan we have to improve efficiency. And thirdly, yes, there is the effect of the Middle East conflict, which is a reorganization of the market. We analyze cost of products, but the market has changed in terms of supply, logistics, terms, freight, insurance levels.
A number of variables have been impacted by the situation. I think the good news is we have reacted and adapted at Ipiranga quite well. We've prioritized supplies with some costs for turnover for expenses, but the result is very positive. I think that excluding the effect of Middle East war, it's a market that has been progressing as well as Ipiranga.
And this is the given situation. Concerning the government initiatives, we support everything that has been discussed in its end goal, so to speak. There's still a lot going on, and we've been talking to the representatives of the government, regulatory agencies. We've been having very fruitful discussions. There are still pending issues, but I really don't know what kind of impact it will have ahead, but it will depend on how these discussions unfold and how the market is going to deal with all these topics of subsidy.
Let me now hand it over to Rodrigo, who is going to talk about capital allocation.
[Interpreted]
Thank you for the questions. Let me reinforce a point here and something building up on what Monique has said. In this quarter, there is a combination of factors that have impacted the industry and Ipiranga as a consequence. But at Ipiranga, we had a strong increase in volume, together with the effect of inventory gains, but there are 2 structural points as well that have been benefiting us that will be maintained.
One is the fight against irregular players. Even in the quarter, the first 2 months of the year, before the war started, they were better than the second half last year. The other effect that has gained more power from the war is exactly the strength of our brand. So, maintaining supplies of our whole network of service stations, considering the complexity of the current situation and doing it competitively with good supply, good supply levels, it really reinforced the importance of the brand Ipiranga for all its resellers.
These are factors that will be maintained. Concerning capital allocation, you know us. We don't talk about the news, but I can emphasize what we've been saying. We are going to keep on looking into possibilities of investments. Possibility of recycling capital is part of the nature of our holding. And if we don't find good opportunities for recycling or investments, we increase dividend and payback of the shares. This is our mindset.
The next question comes from Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS.
[Interpreted]
I have 2 questions as well. The first one, Pizzinatto, still talking about capital allocation and building up on what you've just said of looking inwards, recycle the portfolio. When we analyze all the different businesses you have, what do you think about maturity level of each businesses? Which of them are more mature, which run at good operational levels as expected that would require fewer adjustments? And which are the businesses do you still run at lower levels than you would expect it to be?
Secondly, I suppose that you have regular interactions with international players, maybe even with Chevron because you have an association with lubricants, right, with Texaco. But I would like to hear from you your impression and the interest of international players in the local industry. We've been observing some [buys] in downstream. In Argentina, for example, there is an ongoing attempt along these lines.
So, it would be good to hear your interactions with international players and get your feedback about Brazil.
[Interpreted]
Maybe you didn't get my answer to Barra. We don't talk about the news. But speaking about growth, -- there are some industries which are at higher growth levels. For example, northern corridor has increased throughout the years, handling, also Hidrovias. We've been observing growth in the area of fuel, especially diesel, which benefits Ipiranga. And as we've been fighting irregular players, Ipiranga has been gaining more market share in our own network, which is a strategic market to our company.
Bulk of Ultragaz as the industry has been subject to some more pressure, but it's an industry that historically has been having more allocation because of the growth it generates. And we've just closed the historical cycle of investments in Ultracargo, which increased the company's installed capacity. So, we've been looking for opportunities for capital allocation opportunities to expand all businesses.
If we see opportunities of further expansion in specific industries, we'll keep on doing it.
The next question comes by Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley.
[Interpreted]
Let me talk about margin and regulatory agenda. This quarter is very noisy, right, because of the war effects. But thinking about what we talked about during Ultra Day, where you would try to obtain margins greater than BRL 200 per cubic meter in the long term.
Do you think that the scale-up of margins that have been reached will speed up this sustainable recurring level of 200 up in terms of regulatory affairs, I think that almost all topics that had been in the agenda have been addressed.
Well, the repeated debtor and also naphtha, a single-phase taxation. Is there anything new coming? Or is it simply obtaining increased compliance levels and reinforce and enforce all measures to be fully respected so that there would be no further irregular practice. What do you see?
[Interpreted]
Well, Bruno, margins. As you said yourself, it's difficult to create scenarios based on the effects of the Middle East conflict. Let's exclude that then. And as I said in my first answer, we've been observing an expansion of the market, healthy market, I would say, healthier market really. I don't want to work with hypothesis whether the conflict will get worse. I don't know. But I think the market is getting better. And I can anticipate even increasing margins.
And this is what we've been working on to strengthen regulatory affairs and to improve our own operations inside. Margins above 200 are very feasible in this business, and we are always trying to have 20% capital on investment returns, capital returns, right? From a regulatory perspective, I can -- I have seen some evolution. But this is something that we should never take for granted.
And we cannot get distracted by other factors because there is still a lot to be done. First, we have to be absolutely sure that everything that we've done throughout previous years has to be implemented, has to be enforced. We have to make sure that laws are complied with and everything that we've obtained can and should be really enforced. There are still some topics that need further evolvement. For example, ethanol single-phase taxation is one of them. We've seen a lot of tax evasion, products being sold without invoice. So, we really need to go further with single-phase taxation for ethanol.
Biodiesel imported diesel is more expensive than local diesel, but there is an item of the mix, which hasn't been dealt with yet. And now there is the new law of the repeated debtor that we want to see in action. But I'll say that it is a positive landscape. It shows progression. And I suppose it's going to bring benefits not only to Ipiranga, but to resellers, they are going to have fair competition to consumers.
We're going to have the guarantee of receiving good products and for the government, which is going to increase revenues from taxation. So, we cannot really get distracted by the Middle East war because there are some foundation elements that are still under work and require our attention and dedication.
Our Q&A session is completed. Now I would like to hand it back to Alexandre Palhares for his closing remarks.
[Interpreted]
Thank you all very much for joining us. Unfortunately, we couldn't have all questions answered, but our Investor Relations team is available to support you. Thank you very much. See you next time.
This call is closed now. Thank you all very much for your participation. Have a great day.
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning. Thank you for holding. Welcome to the earnings release call of Ultrapar to discuss the results referring to the fourth quarter 2025.
The presentation will be conducted by Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, CEO of Ultrapar; and by Mr. Alexandre Palhares, CFO of Ultrapar. Our question-and-answer session will follow, and we will have with us Mr. Leonardo Linden, CEO of Ipiranga; Mr. Tabajara Bertelli, CEO of Ultragaz; and Mr. Fulvius Tomelin, CEO of Ultracargo.
This call is being recorded and will be accessed later through the website, ri.ultra.com.br. After the initial presentation, we are going to start the Q&A session where further instructions will be provided. [Operator Instructions] Presentation will be provided in Portuguese, and you have the option in English to be downloaded later.
Before moving on, we would like to clarify that forward-looking statements that may be made during this conference call with respect to business prospects, forecasts and operation and financial goals of the company are all based on beliefs and assumptions of the Executive Board of Ultra, as well as currently available information. These beliefs and assumptions involve risks and uncertainties since they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances, which may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market and other operational factors may affect the future performance of the company and lead to results, which may differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements.
I would like now to hand it over to Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, who will start the presentation. Mr. Pizzinatto, you have the floor.
Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here once again to share Ultrapar's results. 2025 was another year marked by significant growth at Ultrapar. Clear strategy and disciplined execution are the base for the continuation of good operating results. We ended the year with the highest recurring adjusted EBITDA ever recorded in the fourth quarter. This improvement was directly reflected in cash. Ultrapar had a record operational cash flow generation of BRL 5.500 billion. This allowed us to end the year with a leverage of 1.7x, even after the anticipated payment of BRL 1.1 billion in dividends in December. Without this effect, leverage would have been of 1.5x, a very comfortable level.
Considering the anticipated payment and the regular dividends, we paid BRL 1.4 billion in dividends in 2025, equivalent to BRL 1.30 per share and a dividend yield of 7%. I also highlight important progress on the institutional agenda, such as the approval of the persistent debtor and the single-phase taxation for naphtha, which strengthened fair competition and regulatory certainty and the Gás do Povo Provisional Act, which reinforced safety and regulatory framework of the LPG sector.
We continue to advance our growth, productivity and value creation agenda with the completion of expansion of the Rondonópolis base of Ultracargo and the acquisition of a 37.5% stake in Virtu GNL, both in January. In February, we completed the migration of Ultracargo's SAP system to the SAP 4HANA platform, a significant step towards increasing our operational efficiency. We also announced our investment plan for 2026, which can reach BRL 2.6 billion intended for the expansion, maintenance, safety and efficiency of our business. And we continue to strengthen our capital structure with raising about BRL 260 million in incentivized credit lines for expansion projects at a weighted average cost equivalent to 87% CDI.
We entered 2026 with a global scenario marked by geopolitical tensions and economic volatility. We are prepared to face this context and seize opportunities with an engaged team, strengthened business and a constant focus on operational efficiency, financial discipline, innovation and sustainable growth. Thus, we continue our journey of value creation. Thank you for your attention.
I will now hand over to Palhares, who will detail the results for the quarter and the year 2025.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I would like to remind you of the reporting criteria and standards used in this presentation, which can be seen on this Slide 3. Now let's move on to the results for the fourth quarter and the year 2025, starting with Ultrapar's consolidated results on Slide 4.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to BRL 1.6 billion in the quarter, a 34% decrease compared to the same period of last year due to the nonrecurring effects highlighted on Page 2 of the release that we disclosed yesterday. For the year, adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 6.8 billion, a 2% increase compared to 2024. Recurring EBITDA was BRL 1.7 billion in the quarter, a 36% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, mainly reflecting the better performance of Ipiranga and Ultragaz in addition to the effect of the consolidation of Hidrovias. For the year, recurring EBITDA totaled BRL 6.2 billion, 15% above 2024, reflecting the results of Ipiranga, Ultragaz and Hidrovias, whose consolidation began in May.
Net income for the fourth quarter was BRL 256 million, a 71% decrease compared to the same period of 2024, also impacted by the nonrecurring effects that I mentioned. Without these effects, net income would have been BRL 439 million, a 49% increase in the quarter. In 2025, net income was stable at BRL 2.5 billion, reflecting the record operating result, partially offset by the increase in depreciation and amortization and higher financial expenses resulting from the consolidation of Hidrovias. This result level allowed the distribution of BRL 1.4 billion in dividends in the year, considering the anticipated payment of BRL 1.1 billion made in December.
Moving on to the next slide. Let's talk about the cash generation for the year. On the left, operating cash generation reached BRL 5.5 billion, Ultrapar's historical record. This result was mainly due to 3 factors: higher operating result; consolidation of Hidrovias, which contributed BRL 855 million; and lower working capital needs, especially at Ipiranga, partially offset by the effect of settlement of draft discount for suppliers in the amount of BRL 1 billion.
Regarding CapEx, we reached BRL 2.5 billion, a 15% increase compared to 2024. This is explained by higher investments of Ipiranga in addition to the effects of the consolidation of Hidrovias of BRL 235 million, which was not included in the initial plan. And at the same time, we had lower investments at Ultracargo.
Looking more closely at the capital allocation, we completed some transactions, mainly the capital increase and the increase of our stake in Hidrovias, which totaled BRL 693 million, acquisition of TRRs in the total amount of BRL 103 million, and Virtu's transaction in the amount of BRL 36 million in the year. Throughout the year, the sale of the coastal navigation operation by Hidrovias in the total amount of BRL 715 million was also completed. In addition, we completed Ultrapar's buyback share program and made a relevant distribution of dividends.
Moving to the next slide, and talking about debt and leverage. We ended 2025 with net debt of BRL 12.1 billion, an increase compared to September, but still keeping leverage steady at 1.7x, exactly the same level as the previous quarter. This possible stability is explained by the record operating cash generation, which offset the anticipated payment of dividends in December. Excluding the effect of the anticipated payment of dividends, leverage would have ended the year at 1.5x. The increase in net debt when comparing year-end 2025 to year-end 2024 mainly reflects the consolidation of Hidrovias, with an impact of BRL 2.2 billion. It is also worth highlighting the additional effect resulting from the reduction of BRL 1 billion in draft discount over the period, as shown at the bottom of the table.
Now let's move to the results of Ipiranga on Slide 7. In the quarter, Ipiranga's volume grew 7% compared to 2024 with an increase of 8% in the Otto cycle and of 6% in diesel with a higher share in the spot market. This is due to the beginning of the market recovery after intensification of measures to combat irregularities in the sector. For the year, sales volume grew 1% with an increase of 2% in the Otto cycle and of 1% in diesel. We ended 2025 with a network of 5,805 service stations, resulting from 271 stations opened and 326 closed.
Ipiranga's adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, 37% lower when compared to last year due to the recognition of nearly BRL 1 billion in extraordinary credits in the fourth quarter of 2024. Recurring adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 1.1 billion in the quarter, a 26% increase compared to 2024. This performance mainly reflects higher sales volume and better margins, partially offset by higher expenses. For the year, adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 4.3 billion and recurring EBITDA totaled BRL 3.5 billion, a 4% increase compared to 2024.
Operating cash generation was once again a highlight and reached BRL 4.3 billion, an increase of 41% in the annual comparison. This result reflects efficient working capital management and operational discipline. The first quarter began with the import arbitrage window open, which led to greater product availability. That window closes at the end of February and with the Middle East conflict, import parity turned much less favorable. In this context, we expect continued growth in volumes and margins.
Moving to Ultragaz' results on the next slide. The volume of LPG sold in the fourth quarter was 2% lower than the same period of 2024 with a 5% decrease in the bulk segment, mainly due to the lower demand in the industry segment and with stability in the bottled segment. In 2025, the volume sold was also 2% lower than in 2024, with a decrease of 4% in the bulk segment and of 1% in the bottled segment. This performance is explained by the competitive dynamics of the market, impacted by the pace of pass-through of increased costs of Petrobras auctions throughout the year, in addition to lower business demand mainly in the industry segment.
Recurring EBITDA reached BRL 474 million in the quarter, a 7% increase compared to the previous year. The result reflects the pass-through of cost inflation and a favorable sales mix, and on the other hand, the lower volume of LPG sold. For the year, adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 1.8 billion, 5% increase compared to 2024. This performance reflects the effects of the pass-through of cost inflation, a more favorable sales mix and the contribution from new energies, which offset a lower LPG volume and higher costs and expenses. For first quarter '26, we see continuity of good results and an EBITDA similar to that observed in first quarter '25.
On the next slide, we move to Ultracargo's results. The average installed capacity reached 1,131,000 cubic meters in the quarter, a 6% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, resulting from the additions of capacity in Palmeirante, Rondonópolis and Santos. For the year, the average installed capacity was 1,090,000 cubic meters. The cubic meters sold was 5% lower in the quarter and 9% lower in the year compared to 2024. This decrease is mainly due to the lower demand from our customers for tanking services related to fuel imports, an effect partially offset by the increase in handling in Opla.
Net revenue totaled BRL 261 million in the quarter, an 8% decrease compared to the previous year, reflecting the cubic meters sold and less favorable sales mix. For the year, net revenue amounted to BRL 1.021 billion, a 5% decrease explained by the lower cubic meters sold, partially offset by higher tariffs in the period.
Adjusted EBITDA was BRL 144 million in the quarter, a 15% decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. This performance mainly reflected lower cubic meters sold and higher costs with operations still in the ramp-up phase, partially offset by lower expenses. In 2025, adjusted EBITDA was BRL 585 million, a 12% drop compared to 2024. This result reflects lower cubic meter volume and higher costs associated with new operations, which are still in their ramp-up phase, partly offset by higher tariffs and lower expenses.
We continue to see a gradual recovery in demand from customers of terminals at the beginning of the year, challenged by the closed import arbitrage window since mid-February. I also remind you of the negative initial effects of the ramp-up of some expansions. In this context, we expect first quarter volume and recurring EBITDA to be higher than in the last quarter of 2025.
Now let's move to Hidrovias results. The total volume handled increased by 65% in the quarter compared to 2024, reflecting better navigation conditions in the North and South in addition to operational improvements. For the year, the volume handled increased by 22%, reflecting the same, more favorable navigation conditions, operational improvements throughout the year and higher volume in Santos, with the beginning and consolidation of the salt operation.
Recurring EBITDA amounted to BRL 160 million in the quarter, reverting the negative result recorded in the same period last year, highlighting the positive effects of better navigation conditions and operational improvements. For the year, recurring EBITDA totaled BRL 1.1 billion, a 95% increase compared to 2024. This advance mainly reflects better navigability in the regions served, operational improvements and better average tariffs. I remind you that in November, we completed the sale of the cabotage operation, which contributed to the results of 1Q '25.
Looking now at the first quarter, we have seen greater challenges in receiving cargo from the North operation, navigability conditions closer to normal levels in the South, although with some restrictions on iron ore loading. As a result, we expect results to be lower than those of the first quarter of last year.
Finally, to conclude the presentation, we will look at the composition of investments made in 2025. We invested BRL 2.5 billion in the year, about half allocated to business expansion and the other half to maintenance and other investments. The total was in line with the announced plan, even considering BRL 235 million in investments at Hidrovias, which were not included in the original plan. Excluding this effect, investments would be 9% below the plan. We announced in the 2026 investment plan of up to BRL 2.6 billion. Of this total, approximately 42% will be allocated to expansion and the remaining to maintenance and business efficiency and safety initiatives. The highlights are in this presentation and in the market announcement.
Well, with that, I conclude my part. Thank you all for the participation. Let's move to the Q&A session. To ensure better dynamics of this moment, I would like to reinforce that questions related to Hidrovias will be answered from the perspective of Ultrapar as the controlling shareholder. For specific operational details, the appropriate channel is Hidrovias' IR team. Thank you.
[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Monique Greco with Itaú BBA.
2. Question Answer
Great results. I would like to explore further the margins for Ipiranga. You've had very strong margins in the fourth quarter, especially because of strong December. What were the main reasons for these stronger margins obtained in the month of December? I'd also like to understand whether there is some relevance, the fact that you have favorable arbitration for import or some other factors along these lines. And I would also like to ask about the share because in January, you've been subject to some more pressure in terms of market share because of an oversupply in the chain.
What can you tell us about that? Do you think that January was just one-off effect? I know it's too early to talk about that, but especially with the perspective of a very short window for import. What can we expect in terms of market share from now on?
Linden speaking. Monique, thank you for the question. You are right. The fourth quarter showed this journey of progression. December was stronger, similar to November, October was somewhat weaker. I think this is very much aligned with improved landscape. We've all been seeing what's going on in Brazil in terms of regulatory affairs, fighting the legal market. So throughout the quarter, we've noticed a positive trend. When you talked about market share, January indeed showed an inverted position of the share. It's probably due to the fact that inventory levels went up in the last quarter when inventories go up with open arbitration, there is a lot of speculation, and it applies some additional pressure to the system. In my opinion, it was a one-off effect with a better commercial scenario, Ipiranga might recover the share that it had lost throughout the years.
And finally, about what's going on in the Middle East, you are right. It's still too early to talk about that or draw conclusions. But we know that arbitration will be more limited. And if it's significantly closed, it means less speculative supplies, which favors companies which have a substantial supply in Brazil, such as Ipiranga. The whole infrastructure and our capacity would generate positive aspects to our own businesses.
Let me pick back on that and talk about this topic a bit more. Rodrigo speaking here. That window of import affects the whole market, up to February, there was an open window of imports. So levels of inventory of industry have reached very high levels. But as of mid-February, the windows closed. And now they are even more closed because of the Gulf tension. This is going to affect negatively the market and positively depending on being closer or open and favoring companies, which can really supply the market in Brazil.
The next question comes from Rodrigo Almeida with BTG Pactual.
My question is more focused on Ultragaz to start. You've talked about the perspective for the first quarter, but I would like to hear about the trend for the year. 2025, there was an increase in volume. But how do you anticipate that, especially for bulk, which had worse performance than we expected last year. Can you see any possibility of gains of volume, new clients or new initiatives? Can you also see an effect of the program of the Brazilian government [Foreign Language]? Is it also impacting the bottled market?
And my second question concerns your strategy and the possibilities of growth. What are the main characteristics that you consider when you are trying to lever your businesses or drive further your business? Do you just intend to operate your own assets or maybe go into additional investments? It would be great if you could tell us and share with us the investment strategy you currently have.
Tabajara speaking, Rodrigo, thank you for the question. I'm going to start with the point concerning Ultragaz. You've asked about volume trends. We don't expect any major changes to our plan. We are still focusing on operational excellence, operation-based initiatives. We have performed quite well last year, and this is what we anticipate for 2026. There were some variations, especially in industrial segment because of characteristics of the segments themselves. And these are fluctuations that we've seen happening before. Our perspective is that everything will go into normal operations as months go by. We focused on segments that we believe are the best and strongest, and we have been delivering all results in them.
[Foreign Language], this government program. It has been fully approved, and it's already in its initial implementation stages. It's a very smart program because it direct subsidies to the needy population. It's at the implementation stage. I've been -- we've been really involved in it. And it's something that will come in full operation within the next quarters. But now it's fully approved with a clear definition of pillars really -- which is good for the official players and something really important for all of us as a society.
Pizzinatto speaking. Asking about strategy, we have 3 main pillars that we considered when we are considering any transaction: first of all, industry where the company works, perspective of growth and consolidation; second pillar, is how close is it of what we already do and our management model, really getting synergy and generating value; and thirdly, someone who is willing to sell at interesting price range that would really prove to be good on return on investment. This is what we came across in Hidrovias. And this is the kind of analysis that we take into consideration whenever considering new investments.
The next question comes from Gabriel Barra with Citi.
I have two points to make. The first one about Ipiranga CapEx. It was below what you had planned. The actual number was lower than what had initially planned for 2025. I would like to hear from you the reason behind it. We've seen a very favorable market because of the discussion of fighting illegal practices. So official brands are getting favored. But a lower CapEx at Ipiranga is something that attracted our attention. And I would like to try to understand why did you want to have less investments upfront in your branding -- in branding new stations? Or are you operating in a more competitive market and decided to take a step back and just wait for more aggressive players to set their game. So what were the reasons? If you could shed some light into that, that would be really helpful. So why have you invested less than was initially planned?
Secondly, it's about Ipiranga and capital allocation as well, building up on what was asked before. I know we cannot talk about market rumors. But last week, someone talked about -- started hearing the news about the divestment of Ipiranga, sales of Ipiranga. So I'd like to hear from you, not only in terms of acquisition, but also looking inside and considering adjustments. You've been talking about having a more active understanding of the company, revisiting its own thesis and also looking outside because you've been generating a lot of cash. And in our perspective, you are going to have even better cash levels this year and in a very comfortable leverage level. So what is the equation now? Should -- are you going to sell it now? Are you going to sell it later? So if you could please tell us more. So these inside, right? So these are my two points.
Rodrigo speaking. Let me answer those two questions. About CapEx and the other issues. Let me remind you, and we've said that a number of times before that Ipiranga has been through a cycle of CapEx before -- greater than expansion. And there are two points of fluctuation. So investments in infrastructure and technology. And for '26, '27, we are going to replace our technology platform at Ipiranga, very relevant investments. We've talked about that during the Ultra Day.
Infrastructure is also closing some terminals and some expansions that we have put in place. These are why there are oscillations between the years. Some postponement of investments were made, especially because of the technology platform. As projects are completed, we are going to return Ipiranga's CapEx to the level of maintenance unless we see new opportunities of branding stations, but then we are going to revisit the plan. But this is what we anticipate for '26.
Now concerning the news, the rumors in the market, we have nothing to talk about it. Whenever there is anything relevant, we have a formal communication of the market as the law expects. Cash generation has 2 main purposes, either we're going to find good projects to keep on expanding our company or share dividends. And this is an agnostic economic decision. We are going to keep on doing as is.
The next question comes from Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley.
Well, let me go back to the topic of import window, especially for diesel, a closed window benefits the well-established players. We know that. I know it's too early. But with the price of diesel in the international market, do you think you can have an average price and really execute it in the Brazilian market? We'd also like to hear from you what are the next steps in the regulatory agenda to fight further against the regular market? What is the time line that you expect it to progress further? And could you please tell us more about the strategy of funding debt versus working capital and also your draft discount, that would be very helpful.
Well, Bruno, concerning the import window, Brazil has a structure dependence on diesel imports. We have a commitment with our clients, and we are going to import and guarantee supply. And the cost in our profile of supply will be just build to customers. Concerning the next steps of the market regulation, we really have to make sure that everything that we've seen in the new legislation is really enforced. For example, persistent debtor and other initiatives have to be enforced, and we have to see the practical result of these changes that were really an important achievement for all of us.
Yes, there are a number of things to be done. For example, single-phase taxation for ethanol. Part of the regular market lies in the hands of ethanol. Biodiesel, also a challenge. Not now, of course, because there was a change in the cost of byproducts, but biodiesel tends to cost more, and there are problems of non-mixture. Still a lot to be done in our agenda. It's not something fully resolved, and we really need to focus on improving competitiveness scenario as a whole. The government is very much willing to support these changes. The government of São Paulo increased the taxes because they've been fighting legal practice and now they have more legal players. So especially now when we deal with critical budgeting, all the governments are more than interested in having that in place.
Now concerning the strategy of funding, we have access to a marginal cost of debt, which is highly competitive. Throughout last quarter, we've noticed there was an opportunity of anticipating the refunding of the company for the upcoming year. The marginal cost, even carrying over into the cash, it will have a positive carryover, and it's very much comfortable with our position of liquidity to really pay all our needs this year. As we've been emphasizing, funding is an alternative of investment, which is highly competitive in some specific situations, and we are very comfortable in using it more or less depending on the needs and mismatch with our cash levels. It's been so in recent quarters, and we do not expect to have any differences in upcoming quarters, but always considering the cost attractiveness in our analysis.
Next question comes from Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS.
I have two questions. First, Ipiranga. Linden, I recall at the end of last year in the Investors Day, you said that you were going to discuss the micro perspective and not the macro perspective. I would like to go back to Ipiranga's expansion plan and try to understand, based on the changes that you started implementing your business in 2022, what is still pending? What do you still see at the operational level, really putting aside all the improvement of the legal framework, but where can you still see value extraction this year and upcoming years in-house?
Second question to Palhares or Pizzinatto. Going back to what Rodrigo has talked about in terms of capital allocation. You've had a very strong cash generation in the quarter. But looking at your balance sheet, despite this cash generation, there was still an increase in gross indebtedness, which was compensated by your financial assets, about BRL 2 million, BRL 2.5 million. I would like to hear a bit more about the reconciliation of resources and how all these initiatives are part of your capital allocation strategy at the level of the holding.
Well, Tasso, what I said Ultra Day is that I would rather discuss ways of improving Ipiranga and make us sell more rather than discussing irregular market, of course. The agenda of the regular market is always with us. But by having that, we can look closely into our sales, improving our own operations, focusing on things that we really have to fine-tune. We have an expansion plan for 2026. You've seen the CapEx for expansion. We are talking about 300 branding stations, working on our infrastructure plan, technology, which is extremely important. The plan has been maintained. In addition to qualitative issues that we've been working throughout the years, and I'm sure you're all familiarized with them.
Considering what's still pending and all the different drivers that I'll be able to list, there are two of them. Logistics, something that we've talked about a lot, the logistic plan. We still need 2 years to complete the journey, and it will mean a lot in terms of value capture. And the migration of ERP, the benefit is not a new operating system, but something that really changes the way we've been operating all our processes and internal elements, which will generate more efficiency. In terms of the main effort lines for 2026, these are the two.
Pizzinatto speaking, Tasso. Concerning financial investments, let me make 3 points here: first, we always follow the principle of discipline and prudence; our average cost of debt, excluding bonus, is below 100% CDI. We have no cost of carryover of debt; and thirdly, 1 day of operation in Ipiranga is BRL 300 million, BRL 400 million. We are dealing in a moment of great volatility, and we have BRL 4.5 billion of debt to be paid this year. So what did we do last year? We anticipated somewhat the funding of debt that would mature, so that we wouldn't have to go to the market considering the conditions that we have. And this is why we have an increase in our investment line.
The next question comes from Vicente Falanga with Bradesco BBI.
I also have two questions. First, in addition to that open window, Petrobras auctions for fuel, which impacts some of the competitive landscape and the share, do you still see an opportunity to improve profitability in the fourth quarter? And what is the feedback that you get from resellers in relation to your competitors?
Secondly, Palhares said that it's going to be an increase in volume and margins as is. Is it year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter? What is your expectation there?
Vicente, having a better commercial landscape is not something just for Ipiranga, it's for our whole industry, of course. So we can see healthier margins in reseller, healthier margins in distribution and the government collecting more taxes. When the whole industry is benefiting, we can see opportunities of improving our own profitability, of course. It's not trying to be more profitable. It's being part of an industry which has been evolving positively. And the margin is still not paying back the invested capital. There is still room for improvement. In terms of volume and margin, we are comparing against the fourth quarter last year. This is our reference when we say we're going to increase it.
Well, our Q&A session is completed now. We would like to hand it over to Alexandre Palhares for his closing remarks.
Well, thank you all very much for your time, for your interest and participation. Our team is here at your disposal for any follow-up or additional questions. Thank you all very much.
The earnings release call of Ultrapar is closed now. Thank you all for your participation. Have a great day.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q4 2025 Earnings Call
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Good morning. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the earnings release call of Ultrapar to present the results referring to the Third Quarter '25.
Our presentation will be conducted by Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, CEO of Ultrapar; and by Alexandre Palhares, CFO of Ultrapar. The Q&A session that will follow will also have Mr. Leonardo Linden, CEO of Ipiranga; Mr. Tabajara Bertelli, CEO of Ultragaz; and Mr. Fulvius Tomelin, CEO of Ultracargo.
This call is being recorded and will be accessed later through the website, ri.ultra.com.br. After the initial presentation, we are going to start the Q&A session where further instructions will be provided. I would also like to tell you that the conference is being conducted in Portuguese and there is an option for simultaneous translation by clicking interpretation. For those listening to the earnings release call in English, there is the option of muting original volume. The presentation will be shown in Portuguese and there is a version in English to be downloaded through the company's website and through the chat.
Before proceeding, we would like to mention that forward-looking statements made during this call refer to business perspective of Ultrapar. Forecast and operating and financial goals are based on beliefs and assumptions of the company management and on information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks and uncertainties because they refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors can also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.
I would like now to hand the conference over to Mr. Rodrigo Pizzinatto, who will start with the presentation. Mr. Pizzinatto, you have the floor.
During this quarter, we recognized BRL 238 million in extraordinary tax credits at Ipiranga, resulting from the remaining portion of historical ICMS tax credits included in the PIS/COFINS calculation basis. Furthermore, we made significant progress in the fight against illegal practices in the fuel sector. We have been following with optimism that work carried out by the authorities in recent months, especially the Carbono Oculto Operation at the end of August. It represents a historic milestone in this fight, reinforcing the need for stricter legislation to fight crime and the legalities in the sector. We continue to support authorities and regulatory bodies in fighting crime, strengthening market integrity and ensuring fair competition.
Another highlight of the quarter was the rapid reduction in leverage. After assuming control of Hidrovias and starting to consolidate its results in the second quarter, leverage stood at 1.9x. With the strong cash generation in this quarter and Ultrapar's EBITDA growth, we reduced leverage to 1.7x even after paying BRL 326 million in dividends in August. We also continue to advance our growth and strategic positioning agenda.
In October, we completed the expansion of the Ultracargo terminal in Santos, adding 34,000 cubic meters of storage capacity. On November 1, we completed the sale of Hidrovias Cabotage operation for BRL 750 million (sic) [ BRL 715 million ] which will enable Hidrovias to focus on more synergistic and complementary businesses while strengthening its financial position. We announced the signing of an agreement to acquire a 37.5% stake in Virtu which operates in the LNG logistics for BRL 102 million. This transaction is aligned with our strategy to invest in sectors where Ultrapar can contribute to value creation with high growth and profitability potential.
We also received CADE's approval for the LPG terminal in Pecém for Ultragaz in partnership with Supergasbrás. This project reinforces our commitment to safety and efficiency in LPG supply in the Northeast and North regions of Brazil. Finally, for those who were unable to attend Ultra Day 2025 held in September for the first time at Ultrapar's headquarters, please note that the presentation is available on our Investor Relations website.
I will now turn the call over to our CFO, who will walk you through the quarterly results. Thank you.
Thank you, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. Before starting, I would like to remind you of the reporting criteria and standards used in this presentation. Now let's move on to the results.
Ultrapar's adjusted EBITDA was BRL 1.9 billion, including the recognition of BRL 185 million in extraordinary tax credits at Ipiranga representing a 27% increase year-over-year. Recurring adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 1.8 billion, an 18% increase compared to the third quarter of last year driven by Hidrovia's record performance. Ultragaz also reported higher EBITDA, which together with Hidrovias, partially offset the lower results from Ipiranga and Ultracargo.
Net income for the quarter reached BRL 772 million, an 11% increase year-over-year, mainly driven by the higher operating results and the recognition of tax credits already mentioned which were offset by higher financial expenses and higher depreciation and amortization, mainly due to the consolidation of Hidrovias.
CapEx totaled BRL 756 million, 46% higher compared to the same period last year, highlighting the consolidation of investments in Hidrovias and increased investments in Ipiranga, especially for the expansion and maintenance of the service station and franchise network, in addition to investments in the evolution of the technological platform with the replacement of the ERP system.
Operating cash generation was BRL 2.1 billion, almost 3x the cash generated in the same period last year, even with BRL 258 million for the settlement of the draft discount. This reflects a better operating result, the consolidation of Hidrovias and lower working capital investment at Ipiranga and Ultragaz. And now moving to the next slide.
We ended the quarter with BRL 12 billion in net debt and a leverage of 1.7x compared to 1.9x last quarter. This improvement reflects the strong cash generation during the period, which more than offset the payment of BRL 326 million in dividends in August in addition to the impact of BRL 258 million from the settlement of the draft discount, as I mentioned earlier.
Now moving to Ipiranga's results. The volumes sold in the third quarter was 1% higher compared to last year due to the increase in the Otto cycle, mainly in gasoline. It is worth noting that we observed the market recovery following the Carbono Oculto Operation, which has been tackling regular companies in this sector with an acceleration in sales volume in September. We ended the period with 5,812 substations. We added 70 new substations and closed 84 to our network throughout the quarter.
Ipiranga's EBITDA totaled BRL 1.85 billion, 12% higher than the same period last year, reflecting the recognition of extraordinary tax credits of BRL 185 million. Recurring EBITDA totaled BRL 892 million in the quarter, a 5% lower compared to the third quarter of 2024. This result reflects a more challenging scenario given the irregularities in the sector, mainly due to the high level of naphtha imports for irregular sale as gasoline and inventory gains in the third quarter of 2024. These effects were partially offset by higher sales volume and lower expenses during the period with lower allowance for expected credit losses, marketing and personnel expenses due to a smaller head count.
As a highlight, we also had cash generation zreaching BRL 1.453 billion, more than twice the BRL 723 million in the third quarter of 2024. This performance reflects working capital management, strengthening value creation for Ipiranga. For the fourth quarter, we expect a continued market recovery with volume growth and profitability similar to that observed in the third quarter.
Now moving to Ultragaz. The volume of LPG sold in the third quarter was 6% lower than the same period in 2024, with a 3% decrease in the bottled segment and an 11% decrease in the bulk segment, reflecting the competitive dynamics of the market, which continued to be impacted by the pass-through of increased cost of Petrobras auctions. Furthermore, we are seeing signs of an economic slowdown with lower demand in the volumes sold to industries.
Recurring adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 463 million, a 3% increase compared to the same period in 2024, mainly due to pass-through of inflation and the positive contribution from new energies despite lower LPG sales volumes. The fourth quarter is seasonally weaker. We see a gradual recovery in volume and bulk segment is below last year's levels. We also expect EBITDA to be higher than that observed in the third quarter.
Now moving to Ultracargo. The average installed capacity reached 1,097,000 cubic meters in the quarter, a 3% year-over-year increase, resulting from the addition of 23,000 cubic meters of capacity in Palmeirante and 7,000 cubic meters in Rondonópolis. The cubic meters sold was 12% lower year-over-year, totaling 3,845,000 cubic meters. This decrease reflects the lower demand from our customers for tanking services related to fuel imports, which resulted in lower handling in Santos, Itaqui and Suape. This impact is partially offset by the higher volume of handling in Opla. As a result, net revenue totaled BRL 243 million in the quarter, a 9% decrease compared to the same period last year, reflecting the lower volume even with better tariffs.
Ultracargo's adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 134 million, 20% below the third quarter of 2024, impacted by lower volumes and higher preoperational and initial costs at Palmeirante, which is still in its ramp-up phase, partially offset by better tariffs. For the fourth quarter, we see a recovery in demand from our customers and the effects of the expansion. As a result, we expect a recovery in EBITDA compared to the third quarter.
Finally, going Hidrovias. The volume handled in the quarter grew by 30% when compared to the same period last year, driven by the normalization of navigation in the South corridor, which allowed higher handling of iron ore. Adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 332 million compared to BRL 169 million in the same period last year. Recurring EBITDA reached BRL 361 million, more than twice the BRL 169 million recorded in the third quarter of 2024. This record performance mainly reflects better navigation conditions in the South corridor, as I mentioned earlier, and a better sales mix. On November 4, the Cabotage sale was completed, which will affect the results of the fourth quarter and reduce the company's debt. It is important to note that there is also the seasonality of the fourth quarter, which significantly affects navigability in the corridors. We expect an EBITDA similar to the fourth quarter of 2022.
With that, I conclude my presentation. Thank you all for the participation. Let's move to the Q&A session. To contribute to the dynamics of this moment, I reinforce that questions related to Hidrovias will be answered from the perspective of the controlling shareholders. Other operational details should be directed to the Hidrovia's IR team.
[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Gabriel Barra with Citi.
2. Question Answer
I have 2 questions. First, let me focus on Ipiranga and all the changes you've mentioned during the data presentation. We've seen a sequence improvement and when we talk with the industry at large, there is an expectation of sequential improvement for the upcoming quarters in terms of volume margin and fighting illegality. I'd like to hear about the end of the quarter and the trend for the fourth quarter, the new events that were observed probably they can be translated into better volumes, better margins. And I'd like to hear about the company's strategy. Would it be to recover the lost market share to the informal market? Or would you thinking about optimizing your margins? What is your strategy? Maybe Linden can help us out.
Now looking from a broader perspective at Ultra, you've been making some investments in terms of capital allocation, which is a very important point considering Ultra as a vehicle of investments. So what are the next steps? You still have got a lot to deliver in Hidrovias, of course. But the company has already made all the incorporation of investments and all that. So what is the strategy for the future? Where would you consider future investments, exactly when, what would be the timing? Would you think about greenfield, brownfield, something that would bring results in the short term? So these are my 2 questions.
Good morning, Gabriel, Linden speaking. The first question is -- would be probably asked by others, so I'm going to answer it broadly. First, hidden carbon operation, Carbono Oculto has been a very positive movement to our industry. It has contributed to Brazil, to consumers, for those that make investments in the area. But we have to be aware of the fact that it's not over. Investigations have to move on. And we have 2 important projects, one of them of bad debt provision and the other one of the one single phase investment. And these are projects that really have to move on and become law.
Similarly to hidden carbon there are 2 points, volume and margin. The volume is coming stronger, and you can see that there is an increasing trend. The end of the quarter was better. The first initiative of hidden occult operational was on the second half of August. And since then, we've been recovering volume. Not only volume really, but we can see selling our gasoline with additives being sold more with an increased share of it in the mix, meaning that consumers are aware of quality, positive news from volume. It's important to regain scale because of lost scale throughout months and months due to the irregularities of the industry.
Margin is important, but it's not the only indicator. And the margin in terms of volume has been showing slower recovery, especially in B2B and highways, which is expected because these are markets exposed to problems that still persist, such as non mixing biodiesel. And they tend to be more resistant to changes in prices, at gas station levels, large consumer contracts have parameters. So it takes longer to have adjustments. That's all predictable, and we are okay with that. We have to keep on fighting illegality. We cannot simply assume that everything is solved. No, we have to keep on hitting the regular market because there is still a lot to be done, even though we have already observed significant improvement.
For Ipiranga, it's important to recover scale. It's been a number of years with loss of volume due to irregular market, and we want the volume to be back, of course. Thirdly, margin is a consequence of the reaction of the market and how we work internally. We should stick to what we've always done, focusing on internal efficiencies, better processes and those who have been following our results know how much we emphasize that, especially in logistics and smaller operational expenses. Something that we've been working on, reducing and also emphasized by Palhares presentation. So very positive landscape, I have to say. We had been waiting for this action for a long time. But of course, it's not over, the problem is not over.
Volumes are picking up, especially in Rio and Sao Paulo, where there was most of the irregular activities and margins are going to naturally be recovered, but of course, depending on market reactions as well. But of course, we are also endeavoring all our internal efforts.
Barra, Rodrigo speaking. Thank you very much for the questions. Capital allocation, our next steps, right? In general lines, we are going to try to look up for companies and projects that have similar characteristics to what we found in Hidrovias. In other words, a good potential to create value that depends on us. So what we can do with a company with an asset, unlocking growth, optimizing operations and assets. But if we don't come across good projects, that's okay, we just increased dividend sharing. We have these 2 options, either we come across good projects or we increase dividend sharing. That's it.
Our next question comes from Gustavo Sadka with Bradesco BBI.
My first question concerns cash generation, which was strong in the quarter, and we've seen deleveraging. Now considering the new taxation of dividends, and the profit reserve you have in your balance sheet, should we expect more dividends to be distributed this year?
Second question about capital allocation. As the company has been showing interest and have had exposure to the Agro business, do you think about by a stake at Rumo because the partial investments of that can be offered in the market.
Good morning Gustavo. About cash generation, you're right, it was a very strong quarter. The second half of the year tends to be stronger and probably that's going to be repeated in the fourth quarter. It is following the constant discussion of legislation changes and the taxes on dividends. And yes, this is a possibility, anticipating dividends in the fourth quarter.
Concerning capital allocation, I'll just repeat what I've just said. We are always looking for good projects where we can create value, unlocking growth and optimizing operations. If we find these assets, we are going to do that. If not, we increase dividend distribution. That's it.
The next question comes from Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley.
Quick follow-up with Ipiranga. Could you please quantify in a ballpark figure of inventory variation so that we get an ideal about normalized margins. And could you please tell us more about CapEx, especially in the third quarter, CapEx tends to be high in the fourth quarter. You've anticipated somewhat in the third quarter. So I'd like to know what we can expect for the fourth quarter at Ipiranga?
Second question about cash flow. It's been a year of a number of adjustments in working capital because of the draft discount. But in working capital, the level we've seen in the third quarter. Is it sustainable? Or is there still more to be done to unlock somewhat more capital to the company.
Good morning Bruno. Thank you for the question. About inventory levels, we don't talk about the levels of losses or gains because it's a result of our supplies policies. But I also remind you that there was a price oscillation in the third quarter of '24 and not '25. So the variation is more due to the fact that there was a change in '24.
Concerning CapEx, in the year, the CapEx would be below what we had announced, probably 10% less than what was announced in our plan for 2025.
Palhares speaking. Concerning working capital, this is a very relevant topic to all our businesses. There are some efficiencies which are captured and they are onetime possibilities included in the ordinary working capital of the company and some of them which result from market dynamics. These are the ones that we can repeat and maintain throughout upcoming periods.
The next question comes from Rodrigo Almeida with Santander.
Good morning, Ultra's team. I'd like to talk about Ultragaz. Recently, there were new reference prices published. I would like to understand the net effect of this discussion, a lower reference price, some potential of gaining additional volume. Maybe you can tell us more and help us understand what is the net changes you expect in terms of volume and price? Can you also please tell us more about the compliance of -- with resellers because in the end of the day, prices change at the level of the resellers, right?
Hello, Rodrigo, Tabajara speaking on behalf of Ultragaz. Thank you for the question. The focus of Gás do Povo, Gas to People, it's a program of the government. I think it's the right program to direct the benefit to the population that really needs it, really fighting against the so-called energy poverty, things which are going into effect in a few weeks, starting in some cities and then being scaled up, but something very positive. We've been supporting the program. The model is direct payment to resellers. We are exactly at the level you talked about communicating the project and trying to get more and more compliance. If the resellers have some questions, we answer them. The government has been presenting data.
The last one, there were over 3,000 resellers already on board, showing more and more companies join and it will be maintained until the first to second quarter next year. It takes time. It takes some learnings, but it's following the initial design that was imagined. And we see it very positively as a social benefit of addressing a very important issue to our country. And we believe prices and volumes are going to gradually increase. If the reseller is compliant with the program, they are committed with all the elements of the program and it's a product that is going to be picked up. It's pick and collect, not delivery not delivered at homes. Each reseller is considering how to operate, how the program works and how well it fits their operations. It's been doing and believe it's going to be maintained.
In a nutshell, we still see the program with the same perspective. This is just step one of implementation. There are more things to come, certainly.
The next question comes from Gustavo Cunha with BTG Pactual.
My question is about Ultragaz as well. Trying to understand about the change in LPG. Ministry of Mining and Energy called an extraordinary meeting to talk about this issue. And I'd like to see your perspective on this topic and what do you expect in terms of time line?
Thank you for the question, Gustavo. There is still an ongoing process. You are calling it the reform or the regulatory review of LPG. In the beginning of the year, there were some initial inputs shared with the government. The national agency will probably launch a new review in upcoming months. And in the current schedule, it is expected to be completed in the first half of 2026. So there is still a lot to happen. Different players are getting on board, they're discussing. I think it's following the expected path. We are highly convinced of what is the best for society. It's a model of a high level of safety, well balanced, and that's what has been in place. But that's still an open-ended process inputs are being made, and there are still a number of steps until the final decision regardless of what it is to really change the regulations.
Next question comes from Regis Cardoso with XP.
Good morning. Thanks all of you for your availability. In Ipiranga, I understood that you expect a similar level of profitability in the fourth quarter. Can you tell us about one-off effects, especially inventory levels, also the draft discounts of the margin, competitive improvement that we've observed in October. So reconciling really the development of the fourth and the -- third and fourth quarter.
And finally, in Ipiranga, could you please tell us about the offenders that you still see to margins. Maybe you can make comments about direct sales to refining entities? And what about CBOIS? How do you see it? And how has it contributed to the operation?
Concerning the fourth quarter, the guidance is clear. And once again, it's market dynamics. This is what we've been observing happening in the market. As I pointed out, there is volume impacting the fourth quarter and margin picking up slowly. I don't think I have much to add.
In terms of offenders, part of the offenders are still irregular activities that we observed throughout the market and have been covered by the hidden occult operation, Biodiesel, CBOIS, certainly still a problem. But once again, the perspective is better now. We know there's still a lot to be done. And I emphasize once again about bad debt provision and single-phase taxation, which are both essential to address the root of the problem. But we are doing our work as best as we can, fighting irregularities together with the market. But that's it. No big news there.
Let me see if I got that straight. There hasn't been any relevant losses of inventory levels, right?
Yes. Right. None.
Our Q&A session is completed. Now I would like now to hand it over to Alexandre Palhares for his closing remarks.
I would like to thank you once again for your interest and participation. Our Investor Relations team is here to answer any questions that we might not have answered. Thank you very much. See you next time.
Well, the earnings release call of Ultra is finished now. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a great day.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
1. Management Discussion
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[Presentation]
Good morning. All of those who are with us online. There are over 500 people. Another addition of Ultra Day, first time here, hosting you here in our own facility. Before we start, I would like to share with you safety measures. There is no safety drill today, that have been scheduled. So if for any reason, you hear the fire alarm, our fire brigade team is properly trained to take us out in a safe way.
This morning, we have organized our activities to hear from all our business units, followed by Ultrapar's presentation and then we close with a Q&A session. And with that, we close our morning activity, and I'm going to tell you more about it later. Welcome, everyone. I would like to call Linden to start the presentation about Ipiranga.
Good morning, very good moment to talk about Ipiranga, right? The fuel market has been hot news, but before talking about Ipiranga, I would like to talk about safety. Whenever we start operating a business, we always have to provide our permits, even before we start working. And safety is our license to operate.
Just for you to have an idea of how big we at Ipiranga. We unload a large amount of trucks with a huge amount of fuel. So we invest in infrastructure, processes, maintenance of our assets mitigation tools and also the culture of safety. So that we can continuously progress in our safety agenda. It's never ending really. We are never going to be over with it. There will always be something else to do. But I think we are doing fine at Ipiranga. We have progressed significantly in the past 4 years. In August, for example, there was no single reportable incident in Ipiranga, and it was not the first time. It has been repeated. No strained ankle, no problems with fingers and hands and anyway, it means a lot to us.
Well, our market, I'm sure you've all been following it closely, but just to set the context of our numbers, for the past 4 years. And even before that, I have to say, about 4 years, that's when I joined Ipiranga, the market has grown 4% above GDP, driven by bio fuels, which have been driven by the different mandates that have been set in place in Brazil. But it's also a marketing transformation.
In 2021 when I joined the company, that was the time in which Petrobras was not only -- was distributing to agents what was not Petrobras' business really. And at that time, I said, well, that's a very relevant change. Probably one of the most relevant that I've seen being in the market for over 30 years.
First, it changed the whole logic of it, with a very relevant role of import, which also applies to price volatility. And secondly, whenever you open the market because some lack of stability, until things get into the regular pace, so it kind of shakes banks, right?
So what has happened? Petrobras is still a relevant distributor in the Brazilian market, the main supplier in Brazil but it has lost some of its share to private refineries in Brazil, but primarily to import. The market has been growing, and it depends extensively on imports. Petrobras is losing relevance, therefore, imports gained relevance and new players came into the market.
Especially in terms of origin, new agents, new traders in orders, and they also drive regional companies leading to distribution. And let's say this lack of orders, so to speak, has disrupted the whole market, and it has led to some further irregularities because of tax issues. This is a key problem in Brazil. We have tax asymmetry resulting from import. The regional companies that worked with asymmetries have gained more market in the period.
Ipiranga has maintained stable market share, but [ IBP ] has lost a significant portion of the market. And this is what has been lost by some regional irregular, especially regular regional operations, the ones that are part of the list of E&P or the ones that have some kind of injunctions which are too difficult to explain. But this is the market we work with -- this is the market we have to be prepared for.
Even though this is a very fierce fight that you've been watching for a while, for the past 18 months, I have seen significant improvement, single-phase taxation of ethanol is one of them. We've seen some companies closing down because they were operating regularly, but here in Sao Paulo, we've seen the special taxation regimen, and also tax solidarity which have inhibited to some extent, the Illegal activities, especially for those that would buy from irregular sources.
But we've also seen 2 or 3 weeks of code carbon. Since I've joined this business, I've never seen such a relevant operation. It is an operation really of identifying inappropriate actions with great coordination of all the different agents and players. Therefore, it has become a very good operation. However, we shouldn't stop doing it. This is an operation which has started investigating illegal players, bribery inappropriate operations, but it's just the first step so that we can really create a business environment which is more symmetrical and encourage companies that operate appropriately in the industry.
In this operation, in the Mega operation of code carbon as they call it, the company's amounts to 7% of the market share of Brazil, 33% of ethanol market in Brazil alone. So as you can see, extremely relevant and part of our operations. But as I told you, these are very positive signs, things that probably we can improve on. What has to be fought against here?
First, hydrated ethanol. The single-phase taxation with ICMS tax. Naphtha, which is also a serious problem in Brazil. In September, there were 300 million liters of naphtha coming into Brazil, paying taxes at the petrochemical import, but not directed to petrochemical industry. 300 million liters of naphtha benefiting from lower tax rate and it impacts, of course, the gas distribution in Brazil.
Biodiesel mix, today, as we speak, 1 liter was 1,700 cubic meter more than unmixed diesel. If you decide not to mix, you have BRL 0.24 per cubic meter for not mixing. Of course, it has to be fought against, right? It's so obvious. It goes without saying. It impacts the government itself. And it's something that has to be fought against because it really leads to asymmetry.
Another pending issue is the CBIOs, the carbon BIOs. There was a legislation that has come up with stricter sanctions for not complying with CBIOs. But there are lots of injunctions and the law ends up not being enforced. CBIOs now have more affordable prices because nobody trusts it in the market, right? But Ipiranga, which has invested between BRL 400 million, BRL 700 million per year in CBIOs, it's impacted by companies that has -- that have not invested 1 single BRL. That's the problem. And finally, those repetitive debtors in the operation of code carbon, we've seen a bill passed in the Senate. Now we have to see how long it's going to take to be fully approved by the whole Congress, but that's a very important project.
Anyway, I'm not going to go into details about the benefits of fighting against the irregular market because it goes without saying really. But the illegal market favors only those that would not deserve it. The investors, the government, consumers, nobody benefits from it. It just favors those who do not deserve to be benefited at all. Yes, it is a doggy-dog fight, it is very important, but there are plenty of reasons to believe that we really should embrace this fight, and this is how we have to work, of course, take care of our business and focus on what really matters. For the past 4 we've been very consistent on focusing on our pillars of activities which I have emphasized a number of times before.
Efficient logistics, and there is still room for improved gains of efficiency. Supply and trading, that resulted from market opening, At first we had more competitiveness to Ipiranga. But now it's seen as an area that generates for the business, and I'm going to elaborate. Then focus on competitiveness, it results from cost discipline, our very good understanding of the market and having good mechanisms with good market intelligence.
Also appropriate pricing process, agile, to the point, and it all leads to the so-called engagement by charming people, by charming all of those players, which eventually interact with our company. So this is our work platform. And we work based on this pillar and most of our initiatives rely on them, and we are going to go further into details soon.
6,000 stations and more or less 17% of market share B2B, and here, we have basically everything. We have railway, industry, mining a large area, of business options, whatever we have engines. We have Ipiranga. This is what I usually say. We also have a portfolio of added products that we encourage being used -- it is beneficial for resellers. We have 85 operational units and Ipiranga has wonderful infrastructure. It grows where the country grows. We have an NPS of 57%. It had an increase of 65%. This is the result of activities we have with resellers and activities we've been carrying out over the years, and we are now struggling for place in the market. We are leaders in convenience and leaders in lubricants. And now going into the elements of these pillars, logistics and distribution are objective to add value or generate value in logistics and distribution is something we've been discussing for a while now.
We've made important progress. We've reduced our expenses with storage. We've reduced loading time, our expenses with stay. We have increased the productivity of our freight. Also, we're growing where we have to grow. Our level of service has improved in the past year, and that has an impact on NPS and reducing our logistic costs has become almost like an obsession. We have these chapters. We have had BRL 250 million in benefits to be captured in the next 2 years, and they are evolving it, Ipiranga.
Another important chapter. I mentioned in the beginning, the supply and trading. As I commented initially, this is something that we started and we organized it to generate efficiency and competitiveness in Ipiranga's business. Since then we acquired the capacity to originate in a large part of the world being close to producing markets. Today, we are already the largest independent operator of biofuels in Brazil.
We've also had some business opportunities. They are very interesting and they are supported on this capacity we have to originate. The spot market in Brazil is volatile, according, is not to our traditional ways and it is related to supply intelligence, and now moving on all of this effort to gain efficiency that we've made has to do with changes in our ERP and we've talked about this. This is a very important project at Ipiranga. We do have a systemic gap.
We have inefficiencies that are generated and they demand that we have a control mechanism. And of course, our ERP is in advance in terms of process and efficiency gain. It has been on time and on budget, and our expectation is to have the go live in the beginning of '27. It will be an important contributor for efficiency. And we think that for this last access, we will have about BRL 200 million in benefits of optimization with costs and CapEx expenses.
And of course, all of this gain in efficiency has an impact on the business. This capacity to compete results from efficiency gain, but it also results from improvement in our assets. This is something that we've been doing from the very beginning. We remove what is low performance and impacts our efficiency or we remove the stations who are not compliant. We have removed almost 1,000 stations from our network. You've seen that. But we've also qualified our business -- we are working very closely so that added product becomes relevant in our network.
We have lubricants as an important contributor, and of course, our brands are very strong. And you can see in our average sales, important evolution -- we are now a little bit below 40,000 liters. And then if you use the data that is published in the sector, this is the largest average and has been achieved so that we can qualify our network.
But we don't want to have the best station network in Brazil. We want to have the most complete one. AmPm, our franchise is an important element of this concept as well as in the stations, we've had important advances. We've restructured AmPm businesses. Looking at the franchise, trying to generate value for the reseller, we've changed AmPm's image, and we've tried to establish strategic partnerships to our business where resellers can see a clear value. We did this with Pizza Hut, which is offered exclusively at our stores.
And now we have Krispy Kreme which is a joint venture in Brazil and Krispy Kreme was conceived so that we could supply our stores with exclusivity, the inauguration of our first store at JK was so successful. We produced 60,000 doughnuts per day and everything is sold at the store. But because sometimes on Wednesdays, we have some left over we are working more specifically with the stations, but as we're able to balance that out and as new plants are added to our business, we will be taking Krispy Kreme to AmPm, the concept is to have a renewed and strong franchise with efficient distribution with the strategic partnerships so that both the consumer and the reseller can identify the value.
Lubricants is another important part of a complete station. And of course, the benefit is not only for the station, but for the business market, and I will talk about it later. ICONIC is our joint venture with Chevron. It is the largest producer and distributor in Brazil. ICONIC started operating in the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. It's been growing, and it's been going to other markets such as the distribution of additives, power generation, special products and the success can be seen here on the screen. We have multiplied the EBITDA of the business 10 fold. It really is an important part of our value proposal.
Ipiranga Empresas and the B2B segment has always been seen as a marginal segment where it was important to have clients with a lot of volume and low contribution but they helped us to have scale, but we are somehow changing that at Ipiranga. And if you look at the evolution of consumption and the client base, we had an increase of 35% since '21. And why? Because we are moving to the clients and sectors that demand more services because they are the ones who perceive it, Ipiranga wants to deliver a complete package, lubricant, services and we can operate with client installation, if necessary. But more than that, we have a team that can supported technical support to our clients being in the area of lubricant and especially in the area of lubricants actually, but we want to expand our portfolio, look for segments that will value rendering services and decommoditize our offer.
I have another example here. Maritime diesel is a complex sector. It's not simple at all. And this is a segment where we want to be and add value to our capacity of offering services, simulating it to the concept that we apply at Ipiranga Empresas. We have the new diesel company. It is at the mobility, ultramobility Holding. It was created to work with the TRR investments that we've made. So we have a project where we identify relevant companies in the TRR segment in different regions in Brazil.
And then it contributes to governance capacity of expansion business structure. We did this in the South first. It is now a successful case. This year, we added [indiscernible] in the North -- and others in Midwest. We add this structure behind governance of the business, and we expect that in this sector, we can be an agent towards advance and transformation in the TRR sector.
Very well. This only happens if we have a strong team. Ipiranga is a wonderful company to work for. The environment is very collaborative. You can see this based on the variability index or favorability index. But in the past, we have suffered a gap in capacity and succession. And today, 80% of our critical exposures are mapped for 3 years, and sometimes we have even more than one successor. And this has been a focus for us in the past years. Of course, in this sector, you have to work with people trained. This is what we've been doing -- and I always like to share these examples of our social actions. I like this one. [indiscernible]. It is a truck which travels throughout Brazil to provide medical support for free, be it for drivers, for the population of the municipality by means of a partnership with the municipalities. We've had this truck since 2007. We see 50,000 people per year for free. It is a very nice program held and organized by Ipiranga.
Having said all of this about Ipiranga, this is all under the umbrella of a fantastic company. It is amazing, the good feedback that we have on a continuous basis. We're very connected to Brazilian culture, but the brand is possibly our most valuable asset. And then finally, our results and everything we're saying here must be seen in numbers. We've evolved. We have a process, a profitability process, which is very stable, has been growing steadily in a sector that faces all of the challenges that are widely known, doubling our EBITDA -- and of course, we have favorable market conditions, but a lot of work is put into it. And I think that this is, in fact, a journey that requires full-time attention.
Now I would like to share with you a quick video with the images. 2025 is a year with a lot of novelty, which completes our journey.
[Presentation]
Thank you for your attention. I will be back here shortly. Thank you very much. And I'm going to invite my friend Taba to the podium.
Well, thank you very much, Linden. Thanks, everyone. Good morning. I'm delighted to be here, as Palhares pointed out, welcoming you here in our facilities. Great. I started working here 30 years ago. So it's great after the renovation and really the new area we have here to be able to show you that. For those of you who have been interacting with us for a while, we have a strategic plan that we've been following for a while.
And today, we can talk about significant breakthroughs that we have had, reinforcing what we have been doing, but also seeing new perspective, things that we have really bet on and turned out to be successful. The main value that involves all the different areas and businesses of the group is safety, safety and operational excellence. And these 2 things are important in all our companies. For us, it's even more important, being successful in executing our operation is very important.
We have a highly diversified model. We have third parties, we have logistics. So we really need to focus on cultural changes. And as you can see, we've been progressing significantly, but we still see a number of challenges. We still have what we've done so far with people and operation. But since last year, we've been focusing on the value chain, service providers, transporting agents. We have lots of third parties working to Ultragaz; 60,000 corporate clients, 90,000 support to those clients. So really 9,000 filling up of all these clients. These are hazardous products, heavy-duty products. So we really have to operate responsibly.
We already have in Brazil very safe products because of regulation. We don't have illegal products. So our operation, of course, supports that as well. NEOgas is a company that has been acquired recently with a different level of safety, but we have been raising the bar so that they can operate at the same levels as we do. The market of LPG is a peculiar market.
I have here the 4 main characteristics that really sets us apart. First, the fact that we have a mature market. Brazil is a world reference. We are the 10th largest market in terms of volume. Next week, we are going to have the World Association of LPG gathering here in Brazil to understand how you can deliver to households with such a high level of efficiency. 90% of our population depends on LPG for their activities, be it corporate or household.
It is a market that has been experiencing problems of supply and demand, but this is not a problem in Brazil. We've maintained the level of supply -- it's a relevant market with social impact. LPG is clean accessible energy. The product is available here in all different cities of the country.
It's clean energy, clean cooking, which is very relevant especially in Africa and Asia, the governments have been facing a number of challenges, but we do not have that because LPG is an option. And also, the government has launched a social program, which is called gas to the people, addressing the situation of low-income population who cannot afford an LPG bottle. Rather than subsidizing all the operations, they are just having a focus on specific regions. So we really believe that Brazil can also become a reference in the operations.
I would like to highlight the aspect of logistics. We have concentrated supply in Brazil. The primary supply for Ultragaz, more than half of that is done by trucks. We don't have LPG ducts or pipes just have from the refining to the operation. In our cast just half of that. So the inbound side of the process is done through trucks. And this is done throughout Brazil. It's a logistic challenge, of course, but it involves security and also efficiency.
80% of our gas bottles are delivered at home and customers expect to get it within 17 minutes on average. They call a company, they send a WhatsApp, they use the app, and they want to get the bottle within 17 minutes. It's not standard, but our industry is so developed and robust that this is the customer expectation. And this is why there are just so many important steps in the supply chain.
And finally, robust regulation. Ultragaz has taken a center stage in advancing the regulation. It gives freedom to our end consumer. They can choose the brand they want, supplier they want. And the whole cost of quality of product lies in the hands of distributors so they can compete and make long-term investments. It's an important achievement that we have made, and we really have to make sure that we move on and forward as is.
Let me emphasize a very recent topic, which is a regulatory review. This is something common for all the different Brazilian management agencies and ANP, the Brazilian gas agency is not different from that. Some of the things we are highly supportive of, the main problem is to respect really the brand in the bottle and section filling. We know how these solutions work. No place in the world has succeeded.
These are some pictures. I've visited some of these places. When the responsibility lies in the hand of distributors, you end up having poor quality bottles, really not good. In Brazil, we have all these bottles operating in very good level, 180 million specific -- I'm sorry, 133 million bottles. There is no irregular product being sold, thanks to our model of branded bottles. At Ultragaz, we inspect the bottles, we replace it, and it costs about BRL 3 per sales. BRL 3 is what is spent -- if you lose -- if you have a problem with the bottle, that's fine. You just return it to the distributor and distributor is going to take care of having it replaced. So that's good. That's what guarantee top quality in all different settings.
Here, we have some price evolution. In our case, we have a profit per bottle of BRL 2. It's net profit, and it's not higher because of competitiveness. All companies are expanding their strategies and then price is a relevant issue. If you buy from a brand and you are going to replace by a different brand, we have this operation and our cost is BRL 0.50 per replace of bottle. That's fine. This is very efficient in Brazil. So that's fine. Consumers can really change brands as they may seem fit because there are those replacing centers.
And finally, we've just heard Linden saying you are not going to attract serious companies to operate in the market unless you have very well-regulated markets. So we are really against these changes of branded bottles and all of that. We have invested over BRL 3 billion in all our activities in the last decade and investments are expected to be paid back in upcoming decades. And if you don't have that perspective, of course, it would go against the investments that were made.
Let me tell you a little bit about our operation. We emphasized that last year. We always want to use our brand to rely on our great distribution and relationship with our consumers, both in bulk and bottled. And we also offer new energy.
This is the model that we have put in place, and I'm going to tell you a little thinking about innovation and expansion, we want to have a unique operation in the bottled and also bulk market. Bottled market is retail market, and we've really evolved in it. We don't work wholesaler because they sell a product that's not your brand, and we've preferred really operate closer with sellers.
Bulk is by segment with operational efficiency, but always rely on technology and good infrastructure. Of course, there are new solutions in terms of energy for the same chain of resellers we work with, and we deliver perceived value with operational efficiency. We have to interact closely with our customers so that they can really see the benefit of working with us.
So speaking of the bottled gas and this year has been really unique. We want to be a company operating more in retail, as I told you. This year, the percentage of wholesaler is half of what it used to be 5 years ago. And we constantly measure these indicators. We are the market share leaders in retail. not in terms of volume, but in the market that we understand there is a brand valuing appropriate delivery. We are the leaders, and we are going to reinforce this model further. And we have been developing that in this network.
The number of resellers is extremely relevant, and we've been getting closer and closer to our resellers. We have an academy, for example, to develop them, to train them, and we've been progressing significantly, always relying on technology as to work closely with our customers.
In bulk, completely different from bottled, it's a different business model. To sum up, we can say we work in segments. We offer segmented solutions for all the different industries. And here, there are some of them, but there are a number of others. And we also have operational excellence.
There are different solutions for bottled, for household, corporate and the same applies to bulk, generating really solutions that add value to our customers, something that we strongly believe in. And to wrap up, our LPG operation all the supply that I've mentioned, this differentiation, closeness with our resellers. It all depends on operational excellence for value to be perceived and to be able to be captured. We've progressed significantly in recent years. And I have here 3 highlights. All our work of the consortium developed with our competitor of ours, just sharing some basis. We still need some additional investments that are going to be made in the next 2 years, but it has really put us closer to our end customers.
Logistics. We have centralized logistics, which has significant gains and process automation. We have a specific solution to our customers without adding or inflating our prices. Now let me speak about something new. There was the approval of the implementation of a product terminal at P100. All the import of Petrobras goes through swap port. And there is an idea of having an import for private because today, this is done in a separated vessel. But that's going to be a terminal placed there. And we want to have a P100 terminal or Pecem rather.
Import for Pecem, we are going to change the flow, I'm saying, rather than having cabotage from Rio to North and Northeast, we're going to change that. And it's going to add efficiency. And it's going to unleash really the power of receiving our products, very important driver that is going to bring us closer to our clients through the import through the future Pecem terminal. We have also expanded the range of options to our consumers. These are not separated businesses. This is within our portfolio. And these are all the different business avenues that we've been operating on. I would like to talk about one of them. Electric energy. We started with distributed generation 2 years ago. Last year, we started work a distributor and transmission. We are going to combine both companies by the end of the year with one single energy solution adjusted to profile of customers.
This month, we started working with LPG and energy teams approaching customers differently for LPG and electric energy. Regardless of being through commercialization or generated distribution, we have created a strategy. And something that was the opening of free market. And this is happening, the opening of free market in restaurants and hotels, services. And this is going to be a very important leverage for our progression in the future.
In addition, biomethane. We started with NEOgas working with fossil fuel 2 years ago. Last year we had the first client of biomethane. This year, we have about 20 customers operating with biomethane. We are going to finish the year with 30 customers, 1 million cubic meters of contracted supplies of biomethane, very interesting market. We are working with industrial solutions and fleet solutions.
The model that we are going to put in place is together with Ipiranga to supply the customers very interesting new solution and a number of things that will come into fruition.
Now coming to the end of my presentation. The combination of all our initiatives. The main leverage of going into retail has changed our operation. We deliver more value to our end consumer, and we can capture that through our operation. This focus of operational excellence in bulk and focus on new energies has led to consistent increase in profitability, and we have the expectations of keep on moving ahead.
Well, that's it. I hope I have given you a good overview. We are very satisfied with the results of our company. And just to give you some visual highlights of what I would say, I'm going to show you our video. Thank you very much.
[Presentation]
Thank you very much. Let me invite now Fulvius to carry on. Thank you.
Good morning. It's a great privilege to be with you here today. And I thank you for having come here. We work and we make our day-to-day happen. It is a huge privilege for me to be here talking about this company, Ultracargo, which is a leadership that is translated into our capacity to integrate different logistic modalities, starting different products, including fuels, biofuels, chemical products and so many other things that are part of the day-to-day that our country needs to be able to operate.
And now talking about our value and about safety, and we like to start with our colleagues. Ultracargo has evolved on a constant basis. We have had a decrease in our rate of accidents with sick leaves. And we're doing this together with what we're doing, and we will show you the large construction site that Auto Cargo has been transformed into.
We were constructing and at the same time, reducing our accident rate, improving safety. And I wanted to show you how this works on the day-to-day.
Talking a little bit about our strategy to explain how we work and where we are headed to, I would like to show you in the circle here that we want to be our -- the preferential option of our clients so that they have Ultracargo as an important partner in logistics. You do this using 3 basic pillars, scalability of the business. We want to continue going with the same operation and management model to have scale gains and that this is translated into greater efficiency. We do it with assertiveness, product diversification.
And to support all of this, we have safety as #1 among our values. All of our operations are very efficient, and they are integrated with roads, railways in a unique ecosystem throughout the country. A very important aspect and Linden commented about hidden carbon. We are the only logistic companies to be part of this with fair competition in an honest market, which will enable the country to grow.
To show you how it works and how Ultracargo operates in the country, the map of Brazil represents the size of our operation. We are present in 4 regions. especially starting with the coast, we have 6 port terminals, which enable auto cargo to receive different products above all fuels. We need to import fuel more and more. And it also enables us to export different products outside Brazil. For example, different countries have ethanol mandates; in Japan in 2030, they are also going to have ethanol mixed in their gas, and it enables us to export.
We also want to follow the development of the country. The agri business is an engine for the development of the country. And therefore, our strategy is to go into the inner regions of the country such as Paulinia, Rondonopolis, so that we can be where they need us, taking the field that agribusiness needs, but also being a point of capture where the biofuels are produced and taking it to the consumer markets.
This is our strategy to be where Brazil needs to have storage. We've had a very important expansion circle, Rondonopolis, Itaqui, Paulinia, and we had a significant growth year-over-year, totaling 16% in these 3 years. This has represented BRL 1.2 million in investments. 85% has been completed above all because Brazil needs it.
But why do we want to grow and why do we want to be close to agribusiness? I think all of us here can see that every week, we have announcements of new businesses, for example, in [indiscernible] our partners communicating the construction of new corn ethanol plants in Mato Grosso. This is very important for the diversification of the Brazilian energy matrix for the migration to a more and more sustainable industry in Brazil and corn ethanol is something that is going to grow a lot in Brazil. And a large part of it is located in the state of Mato Grosso, which is where we have decided to be located. 2/3 of the anticipated growth in this area will come from this state of Mato Grosso.
And this is what we want to support. And we want to have this connection with the agribusiness and the consumer markets using the logistic corridors, promoting an efficient system that will enable us to take the feel and come back with the product from those regions. The best example is the so-called central corridor connecting Rondonopolis to Paulinia, and it will be extended to the Santos Terminal.
We have the Rondonopolis terminal. It was recently expanded. We have concluded the expansion construction and are only waiting for authorization by AMP to start operating. And this is connected to the Paulinia terminal, where we're also expanding. We have 10,000 cubic meters to be delivered.
This is a railway connection and it enables biofuel produced in Rondonopolis with this very large amount of producing plants to be taken to Paulinia and in areas where we've inaugurated in June. This enables us to reduce transit time in 2 days, and that's not even counting the number of trucks that have been removed from the road. So we have a reduction in gases and CO2.
We're also expanding our Santos Terminal with 34,000 cubic meters so that we can store the fuel that arrives in Santos. This is one of the largest ports in the country where fuel comes into, and it also enables us to store ethanol. I would like to remind you that in the Northeast, we have an increasing need of ethanol. These regions are growing faster than in the Southeast, and they need to have biofuels since they do not have local production.
But we want to improve conditions for our partners, and this is why we have the Vila do Conde terminal, which integrates our northern corridor. The ethanol produced in Mato Grosso can also be taken by rivers and delivered to our terminal in Vila do Conde. And from there, it can be transported to other places in Brazil and also to North America and Europe. So in addition to guaranteeing this transportation we have options so that we can provide complete logistics.
Also, we have the Northeast corridor. It is now integrated to our Palmeirante corridor. It's very strategic in the [ Matopiba ] area. Palmeirante is in the central access, and this is why we have constructed this terminal. We concluded it in July this year, according to Ultracargo standards, and it is connected to our Itaqui terminal. And it's being expanded so that we can keep up with the demand with additional storage area. It is essential for us and the country. It represents one of the largest entry ports in the country. And that's why we are expanding, but we're also connecting this region in an efficient manner.
It has a lot of agriculture. They're also producing biofuels, which enables us to once again have an efficient transportation corridor, taking fuel for the consumption of the farmers in the region, but also taking biofuels that are manufactured in that region in the most efficient manner possible.
And before moving on to this other slide, I would like to ask you for a video because a video sometimes speaks more than numerous words.
[Presentation]
So everything that is being built turns the company into a construction site, but also a company that can provide the country what the country needs. We have all of these graphs to show exactly how the distribution takes place and what contracts we have in place here. And of course, because of the energy demand in Brazil and the greater need of fuel consumption as the country goes, we have increasing imports in this area, as shown before, and we have 55% of our contracts are related to fields gas and diesel, but we're also present in energy transition.
Today, it represents 8% of our contracts, ethanol-related contracts for export, storage and transportation. We also have different chemical products. I'd like to give you this example. Every time you drink a soft drink, you remember that it has sulfuric acid, which has probably been stored in our tanks.
These chemical products include other products and beauty care. We have products related to the export of oil. And this is all done in partnership with our clients. And this is why we have 2/3 of our contracts, which have a duration of up to 3 years, and this is the contract aging, demonstrating the partnership we have for the construction of everything we're showing you.
We still have 14% of our contracts for greater than 5 years. And we still have 14% of spot contracts so that we can make the best use of our contracts. To do all of this, if we want to be our clients' preferential option and remain as leaders, we must be efficient at all times in our business. And this is why we have the SOUL center, which focuses on the safety of these operations, but also on their efficiency.
SOUL is based on the lean methodology with continuous improvement. And between '21 and '24, we had over 1,200 improvement opportunities in our terminals in the field, trying to analyze how we can contribute so that Ultracargo is more efficient, safer and better. And this is one of the things we have in Ultracargo. We use robots for the cleaning of tanks. Sometimes we also use for internal cleaning that adds efficiency, increases the durability of the tanks, but it also preserves the life and safety of our workers as we eliminate these activities.
Also for those of you who visited us on the 10th floor, you will see the CSI, the SOUL center of intelligence to center the monitoring and to standardize operations, unified operations, demonstrating our commitment with operations.
We're also going to leave some information for you with sweet cream or the sweeter side of it. We have also to talk about artificial intelligence. AI has dominated so much in the area of innovations, but we also have this language that supports us evaluate contracts, client performance. But we also have an SOP to optimize the use of our tanks. And that's why all of these innovation projects have rendered over BRL 48 million in cost reductions with some tax benefits as well. This is all connected to our ESG goals. We have a goal to have zero landfilling and generation of waste.
But the focus of innovation also lies on efficiency. That's why the maritime ability to load and unload the ships operating at Ultracargo terminals has been expanded in 21%. Likewise, this time spent on road transportation was reduced in 28%, which is translated into direct efficiency for our clients who also spend less with stays and so on and so forth.
I'm very proud to work for this company. The company received the GPTW for the second consecutive year, and we are very proud that we can deliver the best logistics in this country. According to the seal, we have an evolution. We have had an improvement of 14% in our maturity of leaderships and our current rate is 53%. But also, in addition to this, we train people. We build capacity. We have a capacity building program, not only for our team, but for those who work around our terminals, translating it into trained professionals, leading to improvement in the communities where we are located.
Also, as part of our accountability, the company between 2019 and '24, we had an increase of 44% of our storage capacity. And because of the assertiveness of this sector, we have had a 15% increase per year in our profitability. We do this with a lot of discipline with efficiency gain, as I commented, with a scale economy. And this is why despite all of this in the terminals with our operations, we've been able to keep the number of employees constant. So that the employees could improve their performance. And that's why the growth rate of our costs and expenses is almost 1/3 of our revenue growth, demonstrating efficiency, scale economy. And between 2019 and '24, our EBITDA grew from BRL 230 million to almost BRL 670 billion, showing our capacity to have assertive investments and disciplined execution translated into increasing EBITDA, demonstrating our commitment with discipline.
2025 was a more challenging year. Of course, we've had an impact on import arbitration on import was much higher than in previous years. But we also had higher inventory levels of the distributors. They end up using their inventory levels more. But especially for Ultracargo, there was a period in which -- we had commissioning of new terminals, which started in 2025, which means associated cost, but the revenue started increasing gradually as we delivered the terminals in second half of '25 and 2026. This is why we've been working. We want to provide sustainable continuous growth with safety because country needs logistics of Ultracargo.
Thank you all very much. I hope to welcome you with the doughnuts of Krispy Kreme in our floor. And now I'm going to introduce the person who has led the growth in recent years, who has a new mission now, which is working with Hidrovias. Décio, please.
[Interpreted] Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here to talk to you about Hidrovias do Brasil. Wonderful presentation, by the way, my friend. But it's important to start talking about safety. Safety is a nonnegotiable value because you cannot negotiate the lives of people. And safety is the basis over which we can create a culture of efficiency, productivity, et cetera, not only safety of people, but also security of assets. There was an accident in the terminal of Barcarena, barges hit a sustainable pillar and the company stopped work. And of course, it impacts the lives of so many people. So safety of people and assets is always a priority.
To do that, you have a robust system where you identify all the risks that may lead to catastrophic accident to people, to assets and you allocate resources of the company and projects that would bring safety to your people, assets. And based on that, you create really the structure you need.
We are in the initial stage of implementation of a robust system at Hidrovias. At first, we expect an increased rate of accidents because we are increasing the reportable rates, but we want to get to an accident rate below 1.5, which would bring us to the quartiles and to the rates that all the other companies of the company have.
2025 started a new cycle at Hidrovias, and there are a number of very relevant models. First, Ultra is a controlling shareholder, and it changes the idea of creating windows of opportunity for this investment of the previous partner. And now we have a long-term shareholder, someone who is constantly focusing on generating value. And this is great for management because then we can have better capital allocation. With this new shareholder, there had been a significant inflow of capital, which has provided the readjustment of our capital structure, cost of indebtedness, having our balance now at the right level to get more investment is required and identify opportunities.
We identified that cabotage business had low synergy and had a different level of possibility of development and we decided to disinvest, and that's going to be completed by the end of 2025.
We've also changed a little bit the leadership. We have a senior leadership, which is ready to implement this new growth phase. And this team has already identified a number of opportunities for better use of our assets. This is going to bring gains in capacity and productivity with lower capital allocation than we had initially thought.
And on top of that, Hidrovias is part of the government agenda. Waterway system is extremely great in terms of sustainability. We use what, maybe 3% of the capacity of river waterways system that we could have. The government is considering now concessions and grants of waterway systems, probably as of this year, beginning of next year, River Tapajós as well, Sao Paulo speaking about waterway transportation. So that's going to open a great window of growth that we are all going to benefit from.
Maybe you are not very familiarized with Hidrovias yet. So I'm going to introduce to you our operations. In the north system, we receive grains from Mato Grosso through BR-103, railroads. We have a system Miritituba in Pará in our terminal. It's taken to Barcarena in Paraná, which is our terminal near Vila do Conde. And we have b load for silos and then load into the vessels. We also receive grains through highways there coming from the Southeast of Pará. This is the North Arc system.
In the South, we have the operation of just waterways for ore from Minas Gerais. It's a high-quality iron ore mine with very high capacity. We takes it to Itaguari. And in Paraguay, there are also some loads from grains produced in our neighboring countries. We have a joint venture in Uruguay called TGM. They receive grains from Uruguay, and they load it for export in vessels and the terminal in Santos, which has an operation of salt and fertilizers sending it back to Mato Grosso and receiving the trucks back with grains.
I'm going to show you a short video so that you understand how our operations are.
[Presentation]
[Interpreted] In 2020, 2021, I presented this strategic framework and I make an analogy with soccer, even though my team just succeeded in Argentina, supports Palmeiras here in Brazil. But it's good to engage people in the company. Of course, we have to improve the capital invested in Hidrovias.
How can we do that? We cannot do it without the social license to operate. I have to take care of the safety of people, sustainability, social, the community I really need a culture of people development that really can see the talents that focus on. If it works, the whole system generates productivity and efficiency. Price cannot be controlled. We control cost. So we have to be the lowest cost operator, and that's the operator that suffers the least because of volatility.
Part of the value that you generate from efficiency and productivity, you can create competitive solutions to your customers. And this continuous generation of value to our customers makes them become loyal and you become the preferred option of your customers. Once customers are satisfied, you make investments and you grow new routes of growth, new avenues of growth. And it creates a continuous improvement cycle. You define KPIs for each initiative, you create -- you have brainstorms, new projects coming. And that's exactly what we are going to do as we did at Ultracargo, and Fulvius kindly reminded us.
We have our very good team in the leadership of Hidrovias, some people coming from the market, some people who were at Ultra, some people at Hidrovias, such as [ Mariana ], who has been there since the beginning, and she has history, technical competence. It's a highly experienced team. But it's a team that is connected with long-term value generation. So the compensation is related with ROIC, EVA, cash flow generation to make sure that we have full alignment and talent development and also the creation of successors. A good team is the first step for this journey that we've been building.
Now speaking about efficiency and productivity, I would like to show you that even though we've had a first half of the year with good performance, we've done better in the past. And there are a number of external bottlenecks that we've been focusing on that will help us keep on growing. North corridor, in '23, '24, there was a problem of drought, and it interrupted the operation. Even though this year, the water level is better, we cannot just rely on luck. The government is creating the program for bidding and concession of Tapajós. They are preparing a three-year grant that would be the time for the concession to be granted to ensure navigability. There are solutions helping to reduce one first external bottleneck.
Product receiving in Itaituba, which goes by road, there is called Transoceanic road, which is still dirty road with increased volume and our trucks going and coming there are slopes. So interruption of the road is getting more and more frequent. On average in the first half of the year was nearly five hours per day of interruption of traffic. Even with that, we are gaining volume. Imagine when we have it solved. The concessionary has already started the construction of asphalt of pavement. There is another bottleneck here, you can see on the chart, percentage of hours per year that we cannot operate. But we have, of course, revenues coming all the time. There was a restriction of times to get the vessels docked or undocked. If it was not on time to be docked, it would -- the vessel would be closed. So Hidrovias has performed the necessary studies. We've already sent that to the Navy and to the captain of ports, probably by the end of the year, we are going to have more flexibility, both for the transloading station and private use terminal. Vila do Conde happened the same. That's going to increase the capacity.
These are three really elements that prevent having more development. For example, turnover rates, '22 in terms of productivity, transported grain or the barges, we performed much better than in 2024. Can you see it? Once we resume things that we used to do and if we eliminate some bottlenecks, we can expect 50% increase. The same for terminal turnover. The turnover of our terminals in 2021 in Miritituba or Porto was 21%, 28%, last year, 26%, 36%, respectively. So we can get productivity and we can get much better results in the system.
South corridor. There, we can see the advantage of dragging. Yellow line is the level of water in Ladário, which is a critical point. It's always below the blue line, water level in 2022. We have less draft and less water, lower draft and less water. So the level is greater than 2023. You see we already see the advantage of the activities that we've been doing in the South corridor because sometimes there is an interruption of the convoy. Once we finish, there is going to be much more resiliency in this dredging because of dredging activities, we can really have full capacity. And based on that, we would also have the concession of more waterway systems. So these are all gains that we can come from that by reducing our all specific bottlenecks.
In Santos, we operated better than last year, better operation of fertilizers. But Santos this first half of the year received less fertilizers than in its history. Grains were taken to Paranaguá this year, resulting in return of fertilizers. So it has got part of the market share of fertilizers in the first half of the year. But it's probably going to be something cyclic and we are going to keep on growing in this terminal.
Now speaking of customers, we have a portfolio of customers almost half of them over five-year contract, which gives us resilience of revenues. And we really want to benefit from this gain of capacity to grow with our customers and to attract new customers. We are going to generate capacity to grow with them and to attract others, improving the level of services by reducing the different bottlenecks that we've pointed out.
Now new avenues of growth. We see huge potential in the North area, potential of volume. And the news are good. The government, the conciliation chamber has recommended the approval of the contract of concession of that highway that I mentioned, which means investments in the pavement of a number of these roads. The government is also talking about iron and railway. But just by making these improvements in the pavement conditions, that's going to be a lot. And by doing that, we can also support the distribution of all the products come to us through Miritituba or the south of Pará.
How can we just benefit from the short-term growth? There are two investments which are ongoing. We have a floating -- like a floating scale. So the truck gas, it turns the system -- the load into our system into a silo from the silos to the barge. It's a floating really. It's like a floating scale that just flows the whole cargo. low investment, which adds 1.5 million tonnes of load capacity in Miritituba. It is being completed in the second half of '26. It's going to generate benefits as of '27. We are talking about 1.5 million tonnes of additional capacity of receiving. The other investment is ongoing. It's going to be completed in the first half of '26. It's a floating device. We just closed put it close to the vessel, the barge does not unload into the terminal and then go into the vessel. But no, it goes straight into the vessel.
Those two investments mean 1.5 million additional tonnes of capacity with a very competitive CapEx level. It's a short-term strategy to add volume into the system in addition to gains of productivity.
And now looking at a more robust capacity growth, we are in the final phase of the authorizations required so that we can double the capacity we have there, but we are evaluating a modular investment instead of trying to work with the bottlenecks only. We're trying to work with two simultaneous ships. We're still validating it, but the idea is to invest in modules, which makes it easier to allocate capital. The government has provided a license for Lourenço Pedral, and this may enable us to have a new road. We have the land already to do that and also the river concessions, river transportation concessions, we're also waiting for that. The South corridor very quickly, the expansion points are very large. We want to allocate a good part of our capacity by gaining the transportation market share. And this is very clear and will enable us to grow very quickly.
So now talking about profitability, productivity, lower costs, we have to take care of our financial expenses. We have a reprofiling of the debt. We also had a cost decrease and debt decrease with the adjustments made in exchange rates. And also we have improved our EBITDA rate last year, we concluded the year in more comfortable levels, and that enables us to resume investments.
Now talking a little bit about figures. In the first half of the year, we had better results than throughout '24. But then when we look at the return on invested capital, this is still very low. With the strategic guidelines I mentioned and new opportunities for growth, productivity, good capital allocation in a reasonable period of time, we want to have the minimal capital we believe that a company should have so that shareholders are in a better position. So this is it.
We are going to move on to the Q&A. And I would like to call my colleague, Palhares now.
[Interpreted] Thank you very much. Well, once again, it's a pleasure for me to be here for the first time ever. I'm going to the presentation on the finances of the group. When we look at the results here, '23 consolidated a new level of results for the company in '24, we kept the same pace, and that has an impact on the results of Ultragaz and Ultracargo and also the profitability of Ipiranga.
So when we look at the first quarter this year, the trend remains the same. And this is translated into very strong working capital and both in '23, '24 and now the trend for the first half of the year, we are going to have strong cash generation based on the results of the business, but also credit generation, which is very important for us. And then when we look at this in terms of leverage added to our cash incoming resources from the results that we've already made, we go from a leverage of 3.5x and now deliver twofold. This takes into account the consolidation of our results, investments in [ Hidrovias ] and rebuy of shares in the first half. Even so, we are still in a very comfortable level between 2.5x to 3x our EBITDA levels.
As Decio has already mentioned, in parallel, with favorable market conditions, we try to reduce the cost of our debt, reaching or starting from a higher level in 2020, therefore, improving cash profitability without any additional risk factors and that therefore, we decreased the spread of our debt. In combination, this all enables us to have good credit rates. We are investment grade with two levels higher. We do not have any revenue in dollars. This strengthens our position. And then when we look at this, it is also translated at a different profit level since 2023. And this results from the business cash generation, operational results, contention of leverage, lower costs, and then we reach another level of net profit that helps the company with profitability, ROIC at levels that are totally different from what they were five, six years ago, but still below what we expect for this kind of business, which should be greater than 20%.
So how is this translated into the price of shares? We used the window immediately after the divestment strategies. And there is an increase and price adjustment since the end of '23. But before that, we had already incorporated better profitability of the business. Recently, as a result of what Linn has commented and also because of the results of the business, we have improvement in the short term. But even so, our shares is doing substantially better than IBOVESPA. And we also have a return that is much higher now again compared to IBOVESPA.
The market is evolving, not only here, but all over the world. Ultrapar, it is the same. Since our last meeting last year, we have evolved with our materiality matrix and a new portfolio of the group. And that leads to a review process of our ESG project, which is related to long-term processes, and we will soon share that or share the results with the market.
I wanted to show this slide. This was first presented last year by Rodrigo. This is the result of extensive activities where we have reviewed Ultrapar's role to generate a long-term results. This is used as a basis for discussions that we often have. Also, it has to do with our role as Ultrapar.
I'm not going to talk about everything. I will talk about some highlights. Discipline is very strict in the discussions and capital allocation. We focus on optimization, our capital cost, working together, focusing on long-term value generation and a simple and agile management model. This is the result of these activities. They are the pillars of what we do here at Ultrapar.
The idea for this presentation was to make a quick one. And so with this, I close my part, and I will now invite Rodrigo so that we can move forward.
[Interpreted] Well, good morning. It is a pleasure to have you here with us today. We thought about having Ultra Day in this year, we decided to do it here. This is very symbolic. First of all, because we're going to have a session in the afternoon with the Q&A with the different business sectors, and you will have an opportunity to get to know and observe the characteristics and the values of the different business, and that also reflects our business model. This building was built in the '60s. So we've been here for over 60 years, just as Ultra, this building has modernized. And all of this has been done without losing our items.
But right now, I think it's clear to everyone. Safety is not negotiable. You've seen all of the businesses, the different segments saying the same thing. Here, you can see the consolidated results and the reduction in the accident rate with leave of absence and accident rates of processes tiers 1 and 2. So we have an opportunity to improve our process with a more advanced safety culture here at Ultra.
In this slide, I try to summarize the journey we've had in the past years, preparing us for the future. It all started in 2021. That's when we chose to sell Oxiteno, Extrafarma and Conectcar. This review enabled us to do two things. First of all, we focus on the areas that we believed were going to be better for us. And then in the second stage, we wanted to allocate capital to generate more value.
My colleagues have already presented a little bit of what we've been doing in terms of developing growth, strengthening businesses. And also, we talked about new energies, investments we've made, also investments in bulk. Linden mentioned what we did to renew the station network and more recently, TRR, our new value generation opportunities. Also, we talked about the expansion and Opla and new Ultracargo terminals. In the past couple of years, we became the controlling shareholder of Hidrovias. This is the largest capital allocation we've had since Ipiranga was acquired. And this also is related to the review of our portfolio.
Palhares talked about the rethinking of the role of the holding and how we can help focus on the management to optimize our management and generate more cash while maintaining our financial solidity. It's important to strengthen our institutional capacity so that we can move in the right track. I will get into the details about this later on. But people, everybody has spoken about this, how important they are. We are having a very good moment for development.
To wrap up. The remodeling of our management model. And last year, we already talked about governance between our different segments. We redefined our policies and guidelines to make them simpler and more pragmatic. We've also reviewed our payment model to reinforce long-term incentives, transforming executives into partners in value generation. All of this is done with significant leadership renewal. I will share some indicators immediately after. And then going back to the Ultra essence, which is the spirit of an entrepreneur and the mindset of the owner. This is very strategic because we play this role, we have this management model, and we allocate capital efficiently.
Now I'm going to share some data about what I've just said. starting with the portfolio review. In the first graph, you can see that today, when compared to the last five years, we have a diversification of our result sources. Ipiranga was the main driver of results for Ultrapar. But for the first time ever, it has less than 50% of our EBITDA. We had a significant growth in Ultragaz and logistics. And here, we're taking the pro forma results. You can see that 1/3 represents 1/3 of our results. In combination to that, we have cash, cash generation, which has enabled us to have this transformation and at the same time, deleveraging the company. So this is the allocation adjustments we've made in the past years, in the recent past.
In 2025, with the updated data, we had the largest leadership renewal we've had. Almost half of the positions are now occupied by new people. What is really nice, and you can see here in the first line is that this is done for the first time ever with the high level of internal readjustments that helps us preserve our culture and long-term values. The transition has been significant, but it was all well planned so that we can make best use of our people. And it enables us to develop our internal capacity. This is a slide we shared in Ultra Day last year. There's nothing really new. The new thing is that we have implemented this. Last year, we said we were going to do it, and now we've already done it. So all of our business boards have been formed. We have two members of Ultrapar people in these boards and the governance also enables us to make faster decisions to guarantee that this is done with responsibility. And in Ultrapar's Board, we can have holding decisions, optimization of portfolio governance, talent. So this has all been implemented, is working well this year, and I wanted to share this with you.
And now talking about capital allocation. We are sharing some data. Since '21, we evaluated 85 opportunities for acquisition. These are things we evaluated carefully. If we evaluate only what is offered to us and then we give up, this is not included here. This is what we have done some level of investigation, discussions. And of these, eight of them are already concluded transactions. This process where we have a long pipeline enables us to choose the best projects according to our design. Our M&A team is small. And this is done on purpose that helps us have discipline to choose the best projects.
Zooming in our main project, Hidrovias, after Decio's presentation, we've tried to sum up what we've been doing in our holding. So that Hidrovias can really reach its potential of generating values and results. And I'm going to go through all elements.
People, first of all. We have renewed 90% of the senior leadership of the company. In this renewal process, we try to identify who was really well aligned to the future of the company, who had the right culture for the future of the company and someone who could use the opportunities. The company has huge potential of growth. So we really need to be able to benefit from that from expansion of capacity, but also from commercial relationship. We also have a new model of incentive, much more focused on financial goals and for long-term value generation.
In terms of capital, we've increased the capital and the ultra risk when we took over the company has provided a lower cost of capital, what's important for a capital-intensive company such as Hidrovias.
Now speaking of focus and simplicity, there was a huge remodeling in terms of report levels. We have a very complete comprehensive report now, but we've reduced the number of committees and boards. And we have also reviewed policies and procedures. The company now the administration doesn't need to dedicate to governance because everything is organized. So now they can focus on the business. Remodeling is part of this value-added proposal. This is really important for everything that I'm showing you.
Within a discipline of cost and capital, we have implemented a policy of investment in the company, the same as we have for Ultra, really to learn what has to be improved in the process of decision-making, assumptions, return on investment.
We have also excluded most of fiscal inefficiency that we had in our social organization, and we're really focusing on efficiency and efficiency on all different areas. At the same time, it includes operational excellence. As you pointed it out, a complete review of all steps, identifying the bottlenecks of each of the steps so that we can reach the maximum efficiency of everything we do. It's something done day after day, right? You have to broken -- break down the company, work on step, go into the next one to optimize assets, of course. And of course, safety is part of the whole process of operational excellence.
And finally, but not less important, focus on client and institutional strengths. Hidrovias is part of the country's agenda really to focus on transporting the grain crop. So it's important to think about efficiency of waterway systems and that mindset of creating value to our customers. We want to serve our customers. The company didn't use to have a commercial department. So we created that commercial department. And now we've been working on expanding the focus. We really need the right people, right capital and long-term vision to reach efficiency and growth. Hidrovias shows the application of that Ultra model in practice. It's something really advanced, and we expect to obtain the results shortly. And the potential has even exceeded our initial forecast when we decided to invest in the company.
Now what can we expect of Ultra at large? We are going to keep on developing our management model using capital and discipline, working with a robust capital structure because we have to be well positioned to make movements whenever there are opportunities. Sometimes these are situations in moment of high interest rates. We really have to do it when the right time comes. always thinking about long term, respect to minority shareholders. And Hidrovias is a very good way of how we've done that. and we should always focus on governance, alignment of incentives. We treat executives as our partners, as our shareholders, but always thinking what's the best to the company.
Thank you all very much for your attention. Let me now hand it over to Marcos, who is going to wrap up our presentations.
[Interpreted] Well, yes, I'm going to wrap up because everything has been said so far. I would just like to make two brief comments. First, something that I always emphasize is what is a valid company. Everything that we do is within this concept.
What do I mean by it? A company that adds value to society, to customers, to employees, to the government, all players. And if the company no longer existed, the society would be worse.
Why am I saying that? This is a company that is a valid company. All the businesses that we've seen are businesses that add value to the country, to the society, et cetera. But this is an environment where there are lots of nonvalid companies. So we've been working towards creating the good business environment for fair competition with good players. And what we've heard from the executives is exactly that.
We are moving towards that as a country. I really believe that the government in Brazil will eventually charge taxes. We know. But taxes are important for the operation of such heavy-viewed government such as Brazilians one is. And everything that we do, especially in Ipiranga, this system is extremely harmful. So I believe that this is why we have to keep in mind some important elements in this agenda of efficiency for the country, which are really emotion, but it would be extremely beneficial for the country and for Ultra in its strategy.
The waterway dredging has not to do with fuels, but it produces such a huge return on investment. If you dredge the waterways for the country, it's going to produce great benefit with very low capital invested. It has been ignored, but now it's back in the agenda in the capital of Brazil, different ministries are talking about that, understanding that with a few dozens thousands Brazilian real, that's going to generate millions of benefits to the country.
Also having strong regulatory agencies is something really important. We are talking about strengthening the quality of the people that work in these regulatory agencies, and we've seen some progress there. Also fighting illegal players in the fuel market. Since the recent operation of the hidden carbon that we alluded to, we've seen some changes. I'm sure there are going to be waves of actions resulting from it. And I believe things are going to succeed.
Also regulatory improvements in the operation of LPG, LPG could be better and have an important role for the country. Of course, there are some regulatory risks, as Tabajara pointed out. And this is getting clearer and clearer. When we hear Tabajara speaking, for example, it's a no-brainer. We have a good market. We are proud of it. We are a leader in the world. So we cannot really take stepbacks. And whenever he shows data to people, to all the players, they really understand that.
And finally, some of those constant approvals that are being discussed of repeated debtors and some other actions that would have a very important impact on fair competition. I am an optimistic, I have to say. And I believe that we are going to have some changes in the upcoming months and years.
Now this is my last slide. You've seen the quality of the leaders that we have in this company and the quality of results they deliver. But ultimately, we are here to tell you that we have a very well-organized governance. We have a Board of Directors at Ultrapar, very well organized and disciplined fully aligned of our shareholders, majority shareholders as well, working in a cohesive fashion at the C-suite, at the Board of Directors so that the operations can really run efficiently and smoothly.
2027 is going to be a difficult year regardless of the elections or results. We will need cost reductions, and we will need to deal with more challenging conditions, '27 and the upcoming years, regardless of who wins the election next year. But we have a very resilient portfolio. It's less exposed to GDP variations. Maybe Krispy Kreme doughnuts will be impacted, but that's not relevant to bottom line of Ultrapar. But we are always open to opportunities. We are going to have a deleverage balance, fully aligned team, talented teams in place and really ready to support the Brazilian society in gaining more efficiency, things that we believe we can do and Brazil deserves it. We have all the necessary characteristics to really take this leap in productivity.
Well, said that, let me invite Palhares to come back. And let me thank you all of you to have joined us this morning. It's great to have had you all here. And it's also good. We've saving hotel expenses. So we didn't have to rent the venue.
[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Marcos. Let's start our Q&A session now. I would like to invite our executives to come to stage.
Those of you who are with us online you can ask your questions through your screen. You just have to click there then ask you question. And those of you who are here, if you want to ask a question please raise your hand. When you get the microphone tell us your name and the company you work with, so that everyone can identify who is speaking.
Shall we start?
2. Question Answer
[Interpreted] I'm Luiz Carvalho with BTG Pactual. Great to be here. Great presentations. I would like to ask two questions. The first one, Lutz and Rodrigo, you have given us an overview of the strategy of the holding in this new period. What are you thinking about diversification of portfolio? You've talked about the framework of your businesses, but do you think about expanding geographically? Based on what you've said, Lutz, about the challenges and everything that we have here in the country, you've talked about the Ipiranga's share, which was higher, now it's 50% in terms of the whole company. What would be the ideal share of your current companies in the future portfolio? And what is the threshold of return that you expect to have in the investments you are going to make?
My second question to Lindon. We've been seeing the regulatory environment for decades. I started at Shell and at that time, ethanol was our main problem. And we've been seeing that the agenda seems to be in the right area. I would like to understand what do you see in terms of upside in terms of margin if these actions are implemented, for example, as repeated debtors, CBIOs, what can we expect? Not for Ipiranga specifically, but what can we expect overall? And if you can please tell us about the competition with, let's say, legal players, right? Yes, there are valid companies. But when you talk about other companies in the area, there are companies which are highly professionalized operating regionally, Petronas, for example, companies in the South and North, not only distribution, but also in the reseller network. They have access to capital, governance. So if you can please tell us more about the current competition, that would be interesting.
[Interpreted] I'm going to start by answering the first question and then someone can take over.
When we think about business, we want at least 20% return on investment. That's the return range we expect. But businesses have cycles, Ultracargo right now, highest cycle of expansion ever. So it brings capital before breaking results. But we don't have a goal of share of each business in the total business of Ultrapar. What we try to do is maximize the potential of each business. Ipiranga has the potential of result, which is somewhat reduced because of the business environment. If the business environment improves, Ipiranga would have an increase in its possibility. But that's not a problem. We try to maximize results. We've shown you the case of Hidrovias because it shows how we think about this new industry. There is a number of levers that we can put in motion to have better businesses when it is under our control. Some businesses are closer to us. We can use the levers. Others are further. This is what we've been thinking about for new business.
The market issue, you're right. This is something we've been struggling for decades now. And it changes the whole configuration. We have different decisions, legal decisions, but they always have something to do with product alteration or tax evasion. But the difference we had back then and now is that today, I have a feeling that it's more ingrained and it's more difficult. It is more troublesome to get around this, and it requires more mobilization. And this leads to more results. We have stronger states, and this is more in the sense that you can go against evasion, but also against the incentive of those who are trying to survive ending up going to the irregular market. It's always existed. It's changed a bit, but it's there. Over time and with the difficulties we have in making the rules of the game really being forced, sometimes you need a shock therapy to solve things.
Regarding the margins and future speculations, honestly, first of all, I would like to see volume because volume is distributed and it went to this irregularity pathway. But of course, in an environment where you have less illegality and less tax evasion, everything works better in any sense. Users will have better product available and then adequate investments will be made and the margin is part of this.
But honestly, and also because of the behavior we've seen here in the beginning of the post hidden carbon issue, I want to see volumes. I want to see volume distribution once again in the chain and that will happen before the margin, in my opinion. Regarding competition, regional companies because regional companies in our sector have always existed, and they are an important value proposition. They've been able to survive also because of the regular market, in a company like Ipiranga. If it's hard for us, can you imagine what it's like for those who do not have the same access to capital and to whom it takes longer to grow.
Sometimes the region they are located in are impacted by irregular activities and you end up killing these businesses. We have a lot of competent and good people working in this market. As we've always said, actually, Ipiranga was a regional company in the past. We started in Rio Grande do Sul and the first liter of gasoline produced in Brazil was produced by Ipiranga in 1934 by Destilaria Rio-Grandense. Regional companies have always existed.
Regional competition is healthy. It forces you -- when you have good regional players, it forces you to be good in the region and not only thinking about the country at a regional level, we have to operate our businesses in the different regions according to the mindset of those regions and that forces us to be better and better. But once again, we go back to our agenda where we have to fight irregular commerce so that we can have regional competitors to establish in the market in a solid manner.
Congratulations for deal today here [indiscernible]. This is Vicente from BBI. First question is, I wanted to understand whether you feel that ANP has decreased its willingness to interfere after the all of the issues with hidden carbon? And my second question, Rodrigo, you mentioned you want to have volume recovery first. July was very emblematic. All 3 gained share. Of course, it's early. It's been only a month, but I would like you to comment how you see the month of August and what share recovery would make sense.
Thank you very much. Well, I'm going to start with the recovery of LPG. In practice, we've gone through the first step, but we have different ones. We have delayed some of this. This year, we will continue and then we will advance. Today, we had the first step of the contributions. This was a more internal contribution. And with dissemination of this activity, I think the society is participating and everybody wants to better understand. Different agents have tried to dive into this topic and relevant information for me in this process in the analysis of the regulatory impact.
So we received 350 contributions. 247 are against to what we're saying. They deny the advance. And this has to be dealt with. So we have the civil society participating and now we've had a movement where a lot is happening. And I think this is the right way to go. We are convinced and going back to what Marcos said, what is better for the society. We want to advocate for this, regulate so that we have more competition with better products, improve the well-being of our society.
But there are things that should be taking place. We will continue participating and inviting everyone to participate. We believe that this is the way to go. The society has to understand what's going on. Of course, sometimes you see headlines in the news, the regulation has evolved over time. But we are very positive about this and hope that we will keep on evolving in the right track in terms of regulation.
Well, regarding the share, I do expect to have a large gain in August and September, but it's not going to be uniform throughout the country. The impact has been stronger. We see greater volume in our businesses. And all of this is driven by the consumer. Those who were using illegality to have volume in their stations, they probably have a very low income, and they do not really affect us.
Consumers seem to behave differently, and therefore, the Ipiranga network as a whole in the city of Sao Paulo is selling more. And of course, we relate this to all of this movement. But of course, this is not uniform throughout the country, honestly. And of course, we have our projections. I'm not going to try to guess numbers here. I think we will see share behaviors varying according to the state also because of the impact that we saw in the shares in the different states.
I am from [ TPG ]. And you commented that the effect on consumers has been -- has happened already, but I would like to know what you think about resale. You're very close to it. And what is the impact of hidden carbon on the interest of resellers and the amounts brought by them? And my second question to Tabajara, is the program called Gás do Povo. And I know that we have more questions than we have answers. But what could you share with us about the expected impact, financials or not for Ultragaz shares in the upcoming months as a result of the evolution of the program?
Well, Monica, if we, as Ipiranga are troubled with the situation of the Illegal market, can you imagine what happens to serious investors. For them, this is harder. And of course, serious entrepreneurs who really invest their money, they are seizing the moment. It's a matter of survival for them. Those who are beginning to see some more volume in their business, even more so. And therefore, there is a positive impact. Yes, indeed. And it is too early. We can see some positive indicators.
For example, we've been looked for by resellers or companies that bought from us but no longer do and are trying to renegotiate with us again. I'm looking forward to the day where I can come here and discuss retail practices with you without having to discuss the illegal market so that we don't have to keep on going to Brasilia showing the sector's agenda because I have to pay attention to my business, be more productive, more efficient, reduce costs, have better sales, tools training, people training, my team. This is what everybody would like to happen.
All of the serious entrepreneurs want that to happen. Of course, there is a lot of expectation, but we all know that we have to remain careful. We have to remain vigilant. And we know that this business has to keep on getting more space for discussions so that we can attack this issue in a definitive manner.
Well, I like your comment in your question when you said that we have more questions than we have answers, I agree with you. Right now, and once again, we are very active in the LPG market worldwide in Africa and Asia in the business. This is shocking. 85% of the sub-Saharan Africa population does not have access to LPG. They do -- they cannot buy it. So different countries have very complex situations.
Here, because of the evolution of the industry, it is different. We have the infrastructure in place. We can buy the bottles, but some people have to cope with rudimentary products all the time. Sometimes they alternate it with LPG. The product is there, but people can't afford it. In the past, we subsidized all of our LPG, but this is absurd amount spent by the government. This movement now is very intelligent because you, in fact, focus where you have to. We already have a program by the government to support with these expenses.
The amounts will be expanded. In practice, these things end up not happening. And there is a lot of negative impact on this -- on health care and others. India had a project like this some years ago. The cost was much higher because they didn't have the tools in place. We have the capacity to do it. This is something that troubles us as an industry. We have all of this quality. We are a reference, and we cannot reach this population.
Now with this government program, and of course, it's difficult to carry it on but we do want to support the program. There is a lot that is going to be published about this. There's a lot to happen. And I think that there is an impact on volume. It is an evaluation of the success of the program. Our perspective is still marginal. The first account we had with the government would be to add 60 million bottles or they would be available in the program.
And a program that is aimed at supporting them. Those who already receive it already buy the gas bottles, but you have to take into account how much you're going to capture of the market. We are prepared to make the program work. We are fortunate at this movement we had to focus on the retail and invested in bottles because our model requires more bottles.
We are now at a comfortable position without this program. We could even reduce our perspective and keep the investment level with increments to make the program work. But possibly we would not see a significant transformation in absolute results. When we talk about the company's profitability, we have bulk supply, bottle supply and then we have to take into account geographic location. So the profitability is not the same according to each one of the products. There are regions where the level of competition is also higher. And the impact may be limited in terms of profitability. But as an industry, this is something that will take us to even higher levels so that we can reduce the irregularities in this market.
Well, thank you very much. I'm sorry. Unfortunately, we will have to wrap up here so that we can comply with our agenda. I wanted to thank you all for your participation. I'm sure that we have a lot of questions from the audience here. We also received some questions in writing. But we have to comply with our agenda. We will deal with these pending questions later. Rodrigo has already announced we will go to the ninth floor for lunch. And then after that, we're going to have the meetings on the different floors. Behind your badges, you have the program. You know what floor you have to go to and what times for each one of the meetings.
I also wanted to thank the communication teams, IR and all of our partners who have helped us organize this event, and we will keep on talking throughout the day. Thank you very much.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]
Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR — Analyst/Investor Day - Ultrapar Participações S.A.
Financial data from Ultrapar Participacoes S.A. Sponsored ADR
Revenue
Revenue is the sum of all sales generated by a company, e.g. for its products or services.
Revenue (TTM) metric explainedDirect Costs
Direct costs are the costs incurred directly in connection with the manufacture of the product or service.
Gross Profit
Gross Profit indicates how much of the revenue remains in the company after deducting direct production costs. If the percentage share of sales is calculated, this is referred to as the gross margin.
Gross Profit metric explainedSelling and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) include all expenses for marketing and sales as well as the general administration of the company.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development costs (R&D) provide information on how much the company invests in the research and development of its products. The costs are particularly interesting as a percentage of revenue and in comparison to direct competitors.
EBITDA
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The EBITDA margin is calculated as a percentage of sales.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation represents reductions in the value of the company's assets (e.g. due to wear and tear on machinery).
EBIT (Operating Income)
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is the company's profit before interest and taxes, also known as the operating income. The EBIT Margin is calculated as a percentage of sales at
.
Net Profit
Net Profit represents the profit or loss after deduction of all costs.
Net Profit metric explainedStocksGuide Premium
| Jun '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Revenue | 29,414 29,414 |
11%
11%
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | 26,945 26,945 |
9%
9%
92%
|
|
| Gross Profit | 2,469 2,469 |
31%
31%
8%
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 1,001 1,001 |
16%
16%
3%
|
|
| - Research and Development Expense | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 1,791 1,791 |
38%
38%
6%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 337 337 |
36%
36%
1%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 1,454 1,454 |
39%
39%
5%
|
|
| Net Profit | 664 664 |
18%
18%
2%
|
|
In millions USD.
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Company Profile
Ultrapar Participaçoes SA engages in the distribution and retail services including, fuel; liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); retail pharmacy; specialty chemicals, and liquid bulk storage businesses. It operates through the following segments: Ultragaz, Ipiranga, Oxiteno, Ultracargo, Extrafarma, and Others. The Ultragaz segment distributes LPG to residential, commercial, and industrial consumers. The Ipiranga segment operates the distribution and marketing of gasoline, ethanol, diesel, fuel oil, kerosene, natural gas for vehicles, and lubricants and related activities. The Oxiteno segment produces ethylene oxide and its main derivatives and fatty alcohols. The Extrafarma segment trades pharmaceutical, hygiene, and beauty products. The Other segment includes the parent company and subsidiaries Serma-Associação dos Usuários de Equipamentos de Processamento de Dados e Serviços Correlatos and Imaven Imóveis Ltda. The company was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
StocksGuide Premium
| Head office | Brazil |
| CEO | Mr. Pizzinatto |
| Employees | 11,481 |
| Founded | 1937 |
| Website | www.ultra.com.br |


