CCR wins in business, but loses in finance.
Increased debt and exchange rate losses cause the concessionaire's profit to fall by 1,1%.
247_Pedagio, Sem Parar, and Controlar are three services belonging to CCR. It's impossible not to know all of them, or at least one of them, since the impact of each one directly affects the consumer's wallet during leisure time (road trips), convenience (avoiding tollbooth queues or leaving shopping malls), and vehicle inspections. Combined, they yielded the company a net profit of R$ 175,2 million in the first quarter of 2011, a 1,1% decrease compared to the same period last year. During one of the most important periods of the year, the company was less profitable. What could have been the problem?
You might think this reduction was driven by a drop in prices. Quite the opposite. Of the nine highways under CCR's concession, only one saw a reduction in toll prices. ViaOeste registered a 1,4% decrease to R$ 6,20, while all the others experienced an average increase of 2,8%. Vehicle traffic grew by an average of 9,1% on the highways, with the Rodoanel seeing a 25% increase in vehicle flow. As a result, the gross toll revenue for the Rodoanel grew by almost 40%. The average for all highways was 23,1%, reaching R$ 1,06 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The company's other two businesses were also quite positive. The number of active users of the Sem Parar system reached 2,73 vehicles, a 35% increase over the same period of the previous year. And Controlar inspected 111% more vehicles in the first three months of this year, which generated a 45% growth in gross revenue to R$ 19,1 million.
If the problem isn't revenue generation, it's cash flow. And it was the financial results that hurt the company in the quarter. The loss in the period was R$ 205,7 million, 40% higher than in the same period last year. CCR claims that the average 2,2% appreciation of the real against the dollar generated losses in foreign currency hedging of R$ 51,4 million. In addition, the 34% increase in interest and debenture costs occurred mainly due to the rise in the Selic rate and the issuances of Nova Dutra and SPVias, totaling R$ 1,3 billion. And for the acquisition of SPVias, the company needed to increase its debt to R$ 5,5 billion, or 2,3 times its cash generation.