Ambipar should increase appetite for acquisitions after Response capitalization

Ambipar hopes to conclude the capitalization of Response within the scope of the merger with Spac HPX this year, which should bring room to the company’s balance sheet to continue with the growth plan via acquisitions, said financial director Thiago Silva, in an interview with Mover .

“Our prediction is that the capitalization will occur by the end of the year”, said Silva, citing that the regulatory negotiations for the transaction are advanced.

In this sense, the entry of new capital into the cash of Response, Ambipar’s environmental emergencies arm, should reduce the company’s total leverage, which stood at 2.8 times the net debt to EBITDA ratio in the third quarter – compared to 2.4 times in the same period last year.

According to the executive, Ambipar is still seeking to grow quickly and is evaluating the purchase of other companies in Brazil and abroad. For Environment, the group’s waste management division, Silva said he is “mainly looking at companies that bring the possibility of cross-selling and expansion to other geographies in Latin America”.

At Response, “we continue to look at North America very deeply,” he said.

The priority will be to find companies that bring a very fast integration, at attractive prices. This model allowed Ambipar to record a gain of 1.9 percentage points in the third quarter’s EBITDA margin, reaching 27.8%, even in a scenario of rising costs.

As disclosed yesterday in the balance sheet, the expansion of the indicator reflected the capture of synergies between acquired companies. “We made several acquisitions in the American market and these companies had assets for certain services. What we are doing now is a structure of shared assets managed through a single center, increasing efficiency between operations”, explained Silva, referring to Response.

At Environment, this efficiency gain occurs through cross-selling. “The acquisitions allowed us to have access to raw material for the group’s industries, in addition to accessing sectors that we did not have access to before”, said the executive.

Around 5:15 pm, Ambipar’s common shares (AMBP3) advanced 1.88%, at R$30.84. In the accumulated result for the year, the shares fall 26.21%.

Text: Artur Horta
Editing: Allan Ravagnani
Art: Vinícius Martins/ Mover
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