JBS (NYSE:JBS) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below.
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Summary
JBS N.V. reported a second-quarter net income of $218 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1.43 billion under IFRS, with a margin of 6%.
A strategic partnership with Mantra Investment Management was announced, involving a $2.5 billion equity investment for a 25% stake in Australia and New Zealand operations, aiming to fund growth in Southeast Asia.
The company observed strong performance in Brazil, driven by export demand, and improved results in Australia despite challenging supply conditions.
The U.S. Beef segment showed improvement, with EBITDA margins improving from -3.9% to -1.3% year-over-year, aided by operational optimizations and anticipated improvements in cattle supply.
For the second half, JBS will focus on execution, cash generation, and disciplined capital allocation, with expectations of slightly increased leverage.
The company highlighted its inclusion in the Russell indexes, which is expected to enhance its investor base and liquidity.
Free cash flow improved by $105 million year over year, driven by working capital management, despite a decline in adjusted EBITDA.
Full Transcript
Investor Relations Director
Morning, and welcome to JBS second quarter 2026 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following management's remarks, we will open the floor to a question-and-answer session, and instructions on how to participate will be provided at that time. Please note that to ensure all analysts have an opportunity to ask a question, we kindly request that each analyst limit themselves to just one question. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.
Any statements made during this conference call in connection with the company’s business outlook, projections, operating and financial targets, and potential growth should be understood as merely forecasts based on the company's management expectations in relation to the future of Jbs NV. Such expectations are highly dependent on industry and market conditions and therefore are subject to change. With us today: Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO of JBS; Guilherme Cavalcanti, Global CFO of JBS; Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA; and Christiane Assis, Investor Relations Director. Now I'll turn the conference over to Gilberto Tomazoni. Mr. Tomazoni, you may begin your presentation.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
In leading the business and ensuring a smooth transition, we have been planning this succession carefully from a position of strength, and nothing changes in our strategy, our priorities, or the way we operate. This decision reflects the strength of the company we have built over the past several years. We have transformed JBS in many ways, building a more diversified, more global, and more resilient business. Our dual listing was a defining milestone in that journey, positioning the company for its next phase of value creation.
With the strategy clear and a strong leadership team in place, I believe this is the right moment for JBS to begin the next chapter under new leadership. Turning to our results, the second quarter once again demonstrated the resilience of our global operating model in an environment that remains complex and volatile. Supply and demand dynamics vary across geographies and proteins, while currency movements, trade disruptions, and geopolitical events add further complexity.
Against this backdrop, our priorities are clear: improving efficiency, protecting margins, and strengthening commercial performance, allocating production to the markets where we create the most value. Adjusted net income was 218 million US dollars. Adjusted EBITDA totaled 1.43 billion US under IFRS with a margin of 6%, and 1.3 billion US dollars under US GAAP with a 5.3% margin. Compared to the first quarter, profitability already showed an improvement in the majority of our business units.
Net income was significantly affected by non-recurring items. While important to understand, these items do not change how we assess the business. Our focus is on operating performance, cash generation, and balance sheet discipline. Performance improved across several businesses during the quarter, although an important part of our portfolio still operates in a challenged environment. While US Beef continues to operate in a challenged environment, we have reorganized our operating structure and are very confident in the results of these changes.
I will leave the discussion of the business to Wesley, who will be providing more details on the quarter and our outlook for beef and pork in North America. In Australia, results improved further, supported by robust global demand for beef and attractive export opportunities. Before moving on, I would like to comment briefly on the strategic partnership we announced last Friday with Mantra Investment Management. The transaction includes a 2.5 billion US dollar equity investment by Mantra in exchange for a 25% stake in our Australia and New Zealand operations.
Together with the additional funding capacity expected through the joint venture, this gives us access to up to 5 billion US dollars to fund acquisitions, greenfield projects, and other growth opportunities across Indonesia and Southeast Asia. This creates a well-capitalized platform to accelerate our expansion in one of the fastest-growing protein consumption regions in the world, while preserving the strength of JBS’s balance sheet and reinforcing Australia as a strategic hub within our global operations.
Importantly, this does not change how we manage the business. Our Australia and New Zealand operations remain fully consolidated under the same leadership and operating model. With that, let's turn to our operating performance. Global beef fundamentals remain constructive, although conditions vary considerably across markets. Supply is limited in several regions. Demand remains resilient, and our global footprint allows us to direct products to the markets where returns are the strongest.
JBS Brazil delivered a strong quarter driven by export demand and disciplined commercial execution. Under IFRS, adjusted EBITDA totaled 269 million US dollars with a margin of 5.9%. Even with elevated cattle prices, JBS reported its highest EBITDA for a second quarter. As cattle availability has improved in Brazil, our focus has been on maximizing the value of every animal through our integrated commercial network. China remains an important destination, and recent shifts in trade flows reinforce the importance of maintaining balanced exposure across export and domestic markets.
By balancing volumes across China, other export markets, and the domestic market, we protect margins and maximize value per animal. Our domestic business is another important competitive advantage. Through the Friboi brand and longstanding customer relationships, we work alongside retailers and category partners, helping them to grow value across the beef category. During the quarter, our barbecue portfolio performed particularly well, and we have expanded commercial initiatives with the major retailers across Brazil.
In chicken, both Pilgrim’s Pride and Seara delivered solid results, although market dynamics evolved differently across regions. At PPC, demand remained healthy across retail and foodservice, although industry supply expanded faster than demand. Even so, results improved from the first quarter as operating conditions normalized, plant upgrades were completed, and expanded assets continued to mature. Seara margins remained strong despite a tougher year-over-year comparison, a less favorable currency environment, and changing export market dynamics.
The business grew volumes, reflecting improvements in operating quality and commercial execution. We see further opportunities to improve mix, distribution, and execution in domestic markets while converting volume growth into sustainable profitability. Our priorities for the second half are clear: execution and cash generation. We expect leverage increased during the quarter, and reducing it remains a priority. We are focused on strong cash generation, disciplined working capital management, and prudent capital allocation.
The environment remains dynamic, but our priorities are unchanged. We are focused on execution, cash generation, and disciplined capital allocation. With a diversified portfolio, a strong market position, and experienced teams around the world, we believe we are well positioned to create value through the cycle. Thank you, and I will turn now the call over to Wesley Tomazoni.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Thank you for everything you’ve done for JBS over the past 15 years, and congratulations on the leadership you have shown. You have lived our values every day, challenged our teams to keep raising the bar, and helped us deliver stronger results. We’ve worked together for more than a decade, and I’ve learned a lot from working alongside you, and I’m very grateful for the trust and partnership we’ve built over the past years, which will help ensure a smooth transition and continuity in our strategy and priorities.
I’m incredibly proud and excited to have the opportunity to lead JBS starting in January 2027. This is a company where I’ve spent my entire professional life, and it means a great deal to me. We’re fortunate to have an exceptionally strong leadership team and an extraordinary group of 280,000 team members around the world. I’m very excited about what we can accomplish together as we look forward. My focus remains the same: operational excellence, disciplined capital allocation, customer service, and creating long-term value across our diversified global platform.
We’ll continue to live our values, strengthen our culture, and build on the tremendous work you’ve done over the past eight years. We’ll keep evolving, growing, and making JBS an even stronger company for the future. With that, let me turn to our U.S. operations. The second quarter reflected resilient protein consumption in the United States, despite a challenging environment for the beef industry where tight cattle supplies and historically high cattle costs continue to pressure margins.
Even so, U.S. Beef delivered a quarter of solid improvement. Our EBITDA margin improved from a negative 3.9% in the second quarter of last year to a negative 1.3% this year, reflecting an important step forward despite the ongoing challenges of the cattle cycle. Over the past several quarters, we have improved plant performance, optimized our operating footprint, strengthened our commercial capabilities, and increased productivity across our plants.
Many of the operational initiatives we’ve been working on are already translating into better results, and the announced capacity optimization will continue to contribute progressively as they are fully implemented. At the same time, we are beginning to see early signs that industry fundamentals are moving in the right direction. The gradual reopening of the Mexican border and the first indications of herd rebuilding reinforce our confidence that supply and demand are heading toward a healthier balance over time.
The reopening of the Mexican border is particularly important. The expected reopening of the three ports of entry should restore most of the historical flow of cattle from Mexico into the United States. Cattle from Mexico have represented about 5% of U.S. slaughter, so restoring that flow is very meaningful for the industry. We also expect many of the first cattle crossing the border to be heavier than what they used to be prior to the border closure.
That should allow them to reach slaughter weight much sooner than normal. Assuming the ports reopen as expected, we believe we’ll continue to see an increase in cattle available for slaughter during the first quarter of 2027, with slaughter volumes returning to a more normal level by the second quarter. Turning to pork, market fundamentals proved more challenging during this quarter. Even so, our pork business delivered another quarter of solid performance.
EBITDA margin reached 8.9%, compared to 6.5% a year ago. Our pork business once again demonstrated its ability to compete at the highest level. We’ll continue focusing on operational excellence, customer service, disciplined capital allocation, and continuous improvement. Those are the levers we control, and they position us to create greater value over the long term as cattle supplies recover. I’ll now turn the call over to Guilherme.
Guilherme Cavalcanti, CFO
Thank you, Tomazoni and Wesley. Before we move on to the quarter's operating results, I would like to highlight that starting in the second quarter we voluntarily began reporting results as a US domestic company and therefore reporting Forms 10-Q and 10-K in IFRS for the time being. We believe this initiative represents a significant step in our strategy of alignment with the US capital markets and may expand our eligibility for inclusion in a more ample group of stock indexes.
In this regard, I would like to highlight Jbs NV's inclusion in the Russell 1000 and Russell 3000 indexes in June. This inclusion, as well as the potential for inclusion in additional indexes going forward, is key to expand our investor base, increasing liquidity, enhancing global visibility, and unlocking value to shareholders. Let's now move on to the operational and financial highlights of the second quarter. 2026 net sales reached a record of $24 billion for the second quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA in IFRS totaled $1.4 billion, which represents a margin of 6% for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in US GAAP totaled $1.3 billion, which represents a margin of 5.3%. For the quarter, adjusted operating income was $790 million, with a margin of 3.3% in IFRS, and $866 million in US GAAP, with a margin of 3.6%. The quarter's net loss was $102 million with a negative EPS of $0.10. In addition to the year-over-year declining operating results, we also reported a $319 million increase in net financial expenses.
The main drivers were $172 million in premiums, interest, and costs related to the tender offer for the bond and the Brazilian local debentures, of which $147 million had a cash impact. It's worth remembering that this reflects the liability management we carried out in the first quarter, in which we issued $2.5 billion in bonds at more attractive rates and longer tenors; mark-to-market of derivatives net of exchange rate variation of $53 million; monetary restatements and high interest expenses related to increasing debt, which together amounted to approximately $120 million. Additionally, the net loss was also impacted by the final calculation of the bargain price gain of the acquisition of Montrique Elementos, with no cash impact, totaling $81 million, and antitrust settlements totaling $133 million. Excluding the non-recurring items, adjusted net income was $280 million and the earnings per share was $0.20 for the quarter.
Free cash flow in the second quarter of 2026 improved by $105 million year over year, reaching a positive $130 million compared to a cash consumption of $55 million in the second quarter of 2025. This improvement was mainly driven by working capital, particularly the accounts receivable line, reflecting higher receivable discounts and larger advanced payments from Chinese customers related to Jbs NV Brazil's exports. The accounts payable line also increased, mainly driven by higher cattle prices and increased slaughter volumes, particularly in Brazil.
This improvement was partially offset by a decline in adjusted EBITDA of $324 million; high net cash interest expenses of $129 million due to a higher concentration in the second quarter of interest related to the bonds issued in 2025; Real appreciation that increased interest expenses in US dollars on the Brazilian local debentures; and increasing total debt. Moreover, total capital expenditures increased by $163 million, of which $159 million to expansion capex.
Finally, we had lower tax payments year over year of $135 million. Not considering guidance, but simply updating the cash flow break-even EBITDA exercise for this year, we expect $5.1 billion in 2026, driven by capital expenditure of $2 billion in 2026, a $400 million reduction versus the initial estimate; working capital expectation of negative $350 million in 2026, a $500 million improvement versus last year driven by higher receivable discounts, as mentioned previously; legal settlements of $100 million already realized in 2026; biological assets of $850 million, flat versus 2025; interest expenses of $1.3 billion, an increase of $150 million versus the initial estimates due to higher net debt; leasing expenses flat at $500 million in 2026; and an effective tax rate estimated at 25%. We continue to strengthen our liquidity position. In August, we announced an increase in our revolving credit line from $3.5 billion to $4.2 billion while reducing the all-in cost of this line.
Our cash liquidity combined with the revolving credit facility totaled approximately $7.7 billion. Our average debt term reached 15.3 years and an average cost of 5.7%. As we anticipated in our last conference call, due to the $1 billion dividend payment in June and the typical cash consumption of the first half of the year, our net leverage ended the quarter at 3.1 times, slightly above our long-term target of keeping net debt/EBITDA between two and three times.
It's important to highlight that we have no significant debt maturities for the next five years, until 2031 and up to 2032. All the coupons are below the current depreciation rates, and 35% of our gross debt is beyond 2035. With that in mind, I would like to open up the question and answer session.
OPERATOR
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions from investors and analysts. As previously mentioned, we kindly request that each analyst limit themselves to just one question. If you have any questions, please press the raise hand button. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, our first question comes from Thiago Bortolucci with Goldman Sachs. Mr. Bortolucci, you may go ahead.
Thiago Bortolucci, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Yes. Hi. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Good morning, Thiago.
Thiago Bortolucci, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
My question. Thank you, Wesley. I can't start this call other than say congrats to Tomazoni on what has been a remarkable job not just in Jbs NV, but also in the animal protein industry. And also wishing you, Wesley, continued success on your extended responsibilities in a chair that I think is sensitive not only to your investors, but also for the country, right. We'll be looking forward to keeping up with the conversation. My question on how you are seeing, Wesley, the state of the US demand, right.
Throughout your press release, I see comments of sticky demand on beef and poultry. But then on the other hand, I also see you mentioned that inflation is weighing down on pork. You had negative chicken sales growth on food service and retail. And some of your peers, like Tyson, Smithfield and even Gruma are cutting their guidance, right. When I look to the beef cutout, it seems it has reached somehow a ceiling, not necessarily following the seasonality.
And this is the reason for my question, right? What gives you comfort that demand remains healthy? And why should we think that spreads can't erode more prominently going forward? This is the question.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Thank you, Thiago. Good morning. So, we still think that demand is very strong. What we have seen, and we can tell this by everything we look [at] on protein trends in general, there is plenty of data in the market about that. And we can see that when we talk to our customers and what we see in the marketplace. We have found out, actually, that we used to think that proteins had more of a substitution effect depending on prices, and that was a big surprise — the inelasticity of protein demand when it comes to demand for beef, demand for pork, and demand for chicken not being so substituted to each other.
And we see that in demand a little bit. We see pork demand a little bit weaker than chicken and beef. Beef demand is very strong, and I actually think that — again, I keep on saying — a few years ago a cutout about $300, I would have thought it was going to be very tough; we would have a tough time achieving that. And we've reached way above that, almost into 400. So look, I think demand is still pretty strong. What we are seeing is where the consumer is consuming that protein changing and going more into retail, more eating at home than away from home and food service.
That's something we've seen. But again, for the time being, as we see the marketplace right now, we think the protein demands will continue to be strong.
Thiago Bortolucci, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
That's helpful. Thanks for—
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes from Mr. Ricardo Alves with Morgan Stanley. Mr. Alves, you may go ahead.
Ricardo Alves, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Hello everybody. Tomazoni, Guilherme, Wesley, congrats to both of you — Tomazoni on the great tenure for sure and Wesley on the CEO appointment. Looking forward to continue the interaction. This is great news for everybody. I have another one on the US, but specifically on the side — the question that we asked the last time, you know, the spreads indicated a much tougher second quarter versus the first quarter, but your numbers obviously showed actually a pretty significant improvement.
So I wanted to explore more of that. I remember, Wesley, during the Jbs NV Day, you know, you spent quite some time talking about the in-house initiatives that you guys were looking at to improve the beef margin. So I'm just wondering if there are more details that you can provide there — you know, some of the initiatives that may have already kicked in and helped the quarter — and if you can specifically say what you're doing differently, that would be helpful.
Or even if there were a couple of issues in the first quarter that were not present, if we were able to quantify that, that would be helpful just so that we have a better base now to model the US beef going forward. But it does seem like there has been a significant de-risking of a division that some people were really concerned about. Thank you very much.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Morning. So first, when we look at the comp, obviously last year, the same quarter we are comparing, last year was a quarter where we had some extraordinaries. It was a tough quarter and had some other impacts like hedging that kind of mixed the number a little bit. And the second quarter of 2026 does not have anything that's very material. There are only minor things and nothing related to hedging or anything like that. So the comparison is something to keep in mind.
But even when you just compare the second quarter to the first quarter, and just the business in general, it was relatively solid performance given the market conditions. So, look, we used to run our business in two different business units, and the reason for that is when we acquired Swift and afterwards the Packerland acquisition. Packerland focused on a completely different type of cattle, different sizes of plants, different kind of cattle procurement.
And so we used to run those two business units very separately. The market has changed, and has changed quite a lot, and actually that separation didn't make sense anymore. So we went ahead and put those two business units together and run the business unit as one nowadays. And, look, on both sides of the business there are strengths that one had and the other one didn't have, and we think that there are going to be a lot of synergies there. A lot of them are on the sales side.
We've done a lot of work over the past three, four years in terms of yields. There is always a little bit more, but most of the plan that I presented in New York was not related to yields; it was related to being able to sell more ground beef, sell more value-added ground beef, sell more value-added items. You might have seen that we actually had announced the plant closure of Souderton, but now we have reversed and decided to run that as a value-added facility.
That just shows the size of the demand that we have for value-added items and that we can continue to supply. So a lot of that's going to be in terms of sales where we're going to get most of that difference. I actually had the breakdown there in the presentation that talked about that, but we are seeing that and we are very confident. Actually, after we've done this integration, we're even more confident. The last thing I would say is most of the capture has not been seen yet and we are just beginning.
So we've delivered this result that we had here, but this is without—we are just getting started on that 3% improvement plan that we think we have.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Leonardo Alonsar with XP Investimentos. Mr. Alonsar, you may go ahead.
Leonardo Alonsar, Analyst at XP Investimentos
Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I was only—congrats for your move and also for you, Wesley. I've been enjoying discussing US beef with you a lot, and sticking with that point, Wesley, just to understand it better. So the Mexican border is open now—well, it's expected for the first few cattle to arrive by the end of the month, right—and it's just one port open. I wanted to hear from you both on the volume that is expected, the pace of this volume growing.
You said already that you're expecting even heavier cattle to come from Mexico. But if we talk about the pace of imports and connect that information with capacity utilization, would you say this opening is relevant for any changes in strategies? Would you say, talking about the historical level of 1.5–2 million head per year, would you expect that number to happen by the end of this year, only ’27, or at least the volume will be enough for us to expect a higher capacity utilization?
Just to understand how you're seeing the pace of impact from the Mexican border opening that just happened, or if it's more like since it opened there's a ceiling for the cattle prices and that is already helping margins, but then no direct, not real impact yet. Just to get your ideas on that. Thank you.
Adrian
Good morning. So, yeah, obviously we are forecasting the market, and there are a lot of things that we don't know. But what we know is the first port is going to open here on the 24th. That's the port of Douglas, Arizona. That port by itself could probably handle 300–400,000 head. That's just an estimate—it's difficult to predict—something around 300–400. So a third of what the usual amount that used to come from Mexico can come from that port. But then in the announcement that the USDA made, they're going to analyze how that port opening in Douglas looks and open two more ports in New Mexico, so Santa Teresa and Columbus. With those three ports open, we are going to have right around over a million head of flow capacity. So those three ports should be able to handle a big part, if not 100%, of the normalization of the border. Again, these are all estimates that we have. We're looking at historical numbers provided to the public.
So I think it's going to be possible, with those three ports opening, to have a big part of what Mexico used to trade flow through the U.S. Only two Mexican states got approval to export to the U.S.—Chihuahua and Sonora. Those two states are the biggest states; both of them are over two-thirds of the Mexican flow of cattle to the U.S. The other thing that I would mention is, yes, we have information from the market that cattle used to be very young when it came to the U.S. and got backgrounded in the U.S. Once the border shut—and especially after two years of the border shut—that cattle had to be backgrounded somewhere else, and it was backgrounded in Mexico. So there is cattle that's in the process of being backgrounded, or cattle that's backgrounded and then just waiting to go to a feedlot and to get finished in Mexico. So, obviously, there will be feedlots in the U.S. actually buying that cattle and having that flow happen, and we don't see any reason why that wouldn't happen.
We also think that because the 1.2 million head of cattle that came were just the calf crop that was destined to the U.S., on top of that there is the cattle that's being fed. So we think that the cattle that's available is bigger than the traditional 1.2. So on one hand you only have two states—about two-thirds of the cattle—being able to come to the U.S.; on the other hand, you probably have a little bit of a bigger number of cattle in further phases of the cattle feeding and cattle raising process.
So, bottom line, we think that because there is a lot of cattle that's already in further stages of cattle production and are heavier, we're going to start seeing flows obviously end of this month and into the end of the year. And expecting that the two next ports in New Mexico open, we think somewhere in the first quarter we should start seeing cattle ready for slaughter that were born in Mexico. And if all goes according to plan, we should go back to a much more normalized—if not all, most of—the volume, or a big part of the volume, that we had coming from Mexico and into ready-for-slaughter in the second quarter.
Leonardo Alonsar, Analyst at XP Investimentos
Okay, that's great information. Thank you, Adrian.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Purhan Sharma with Stevens. Mr. Sharma, you may go.
Purhan Sharma, Analyst at Stevens
Hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. And Tomazoni, congrats on a successful tenure here, and Wesley, congrats to you on the new role and really looking forward to continuing to work together here. I really wanted to get your thoughts on U.S. beef, and I know everybody's asking about Mexican border flow, so maybe I'll ask just updated thoughts on heifer retention. And can you maybe give us your thoughts—any updated thoughts—on the timeline for fed cattle supplies to be rebuilt?
Was what you saw in the report, was that a surprise, just given all the commentary with drought concerns regarding heifer retention in the U.S.?
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Good morning. So, yeah, we obviously think that heifer retention and U.S. cattle herd rebuild is more timid than we expected, and than obviously we wished for to get back to a more balanced situation in cattle supply. But at the end of the day, what really matters is, number one, it seems like it has now stopped dropping, and that's a big deal, and I think we're going to start seeing—we see—signals that we might start going up. One thing that I'll just mention—and not to keep on going back to Mexico, but I think it's super relevant—is that for us to wait for cattle herd rebuild that takes a little bit longer, with another one million head, one and a half million head, whatever ends up coming from export, is a much different situation than without that. So it gives us a lot more balance and a lot more structure for us to see and wait for this cattle rebuild without the margins that we have seen in 2025, 2026. I think it probably brings us more to a little bit—if all goes according to plan, and all the ports open—we should go back to an equilibrium more like what we saw in 2024, maybe 2023, depending on the amount of cattle that comes.
So I think it brings us a lot more, and it gives us more patience to see what's going to happen. Weather is a big deal—weather is a big deal for sure—and we will have to see what comes out of that. One part of the number that doesn't get shown in the program that I think is relevant—and we have anecdotally heard it, it seems pretty promising—is the heifer retention and just cattle rebuild that we're seeing in Canada. We don't see it in those reports, but it's very relevant because it's an open market—U.S. cattle goes to Canada; Canadian cattle goes to the U.S.—so that's a big deal. And, look, I think we should see over the next years—couple of years, three years—starting to see much stronger rebuild. But again, it's a very different situation having the Mexican cattle and waiting for a more longer-term herd rebuild in the U.S. The other thing that I'll just mention, not to take this too long here, but when you look at it, there are two things that you need to look at: heifer retention, but also the amount of cows that get processed to slaughter.
And that number has been going down very fast as well. So if you look at the number compared to 2026 or 2022, we're processing half of the beef cows that we were processing in 2022. So I think that's relevant as well.
Purhan Sharma, Analyst at Stevens
Great. Thank you for the color.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes from Henrique Brustolin with Bradesco BBI. Mr. Brustolin, you may go ahead.
Henrique Brustolin, Analyst at Bradesco BBI
Hello everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. And Tomazoni, Wesley, congratulations on the transition and wishing you both all the best. My question is on Seara. We see another strong quarter, right, but margin is weakening relative to Q1. So I'd just like to hear a little more if you could qualify where the sequential margin drop came from—if we're mostly talking about export markets or the domestic market—and what are the main trends you are seeing for both of these going into the second half of the year.
Thank you very much.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thank you, Ricardo, for your question and thank you for your words. Seara, I would say, still, if you compare the quarter, a little bit below, but it's still a healthy margin. That 14–15 is really a healthy margin for this business, it's what we look for for this business. When you compare quarter to quarter, there is some difference. The main difference is pork price in the domestic market was below. Some of the market ticket was below. The other will be higher.
But look, in reality there were many changes across the one category to the other category. But if I make a summary, it was weaker in the domestic market.
Ricardo Alves, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Thank you very much, Tomazoni.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Benjamin Thurer with Barclays. Mr. Thurer, you may go ahead.
Benjamin Thurer, Analyst at Barclays
Yeah, good morning. And I'll follow suit with those wishes to you, Tomazoni and Wesley, looking forward to working more with you together. Just coming back to the US, and we haven't talked much about the pork business. So if you could maybe explain to us a little bit more what you're seeing within the pork. You've highlighted that you expected it to kind of gain a little bit of these replacement dynamics, but it hasn't turned out to be the case. So the demand picture for pork — so maybe just talk a little bit what you're seeing.
What are the differences across the different cutouts, and what's been a little bit of a headwind, if you want to call it this way. Not major, just a little bit, obviously, in terms of profitability in pork, as we look into where it is, where it stands right now, slightly below what usually the target is for you guys, closer to the very high end of the high single digit.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Thank you, Ben. Good morning. So pork has had a weaker demand than chicken and beef, for sure. And look, I think the biggest thing is, you know, first of all, if you look at just the volume processed by the industry, it's kind of stable and the cutout is lower. So that just tells you that demand seems weaker, because it's the same amount of supply and lower price. And we think that part of that comes from a little bit of a weakness in our prepared — not necessarily our prepared foods, but just in general the market of prepared foods.
Just the demand that we're seeing from customers and internal as well being a little bit more pressured, and consumers deciding to cut back maybe a little bit on those options. You know, it's a quarter, so I wouldn't say that that's a long-term trend that we should expect for the coming quarters and years, but that's something just to keep in mind — that we've seen a little bit more weakness coming from processors that we sell to and just in our prepared foods business in general, a little bit weaker demand than usual.
Benjamin Thurer, Analyst at Barclays
All right, thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from Lucas Ferreira with JP Morgan. Mr. Ferreira, you may go ahead.
Lucas Ferreira, Analyst at JP Morgan
Hi, good morning everybody. So, first of all, congrats, Tomazoni, on the tenure, and Wesley for the new position — very well deserved. My question is on the US poultry industry, which clearly is suffering from lower spreads, especially on the commodity part of the business, on the big birds. So my question to you guys is where you think we are in this cycle. Do you already see some sort of a capacity reduction and volume production cuts in the industry?
When do you think we should see that happening, especially on, like I said, the most commoditized part of the business, especially in the big bird? So that's my question. Thank you very much.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thank you, Lucas. In Q2, chicken supply grew 4.5% in US — was above expectation, above expectation of the industry, because the growth was driven by the higher egg sets and chicken placement. But the most significant was the better bird survival rates compared with last year, when respiratory disease and low-path avian influenza increased the mortality. It means that the industry, taking historical rates of the survival rates, and based on that, placed the chicken for this year, and how the rate was better, we had more chicken.
What we expect from — we expect the industry to be adjusted in the coming months. It's what we've been — if you look for historical, the industry is very disciplined in terms of managing the supply and demand in this business.
Lucas Ferreira, Analyst at JP Morgan
Thanks, Tomazoni.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Thiago Duarte with BTG. Mr. Duarte, you may go ahead.
Thiago Duarte, Analyst at BTG Pactual
Yeah. Hello, guys. Good morning, everybody. Wesley, from me, congrats on the transition, and good luck to you both. So, I'll stick to the chicken business, but in a different way. It's interesting to see how Pilgrim's has been suffering from this higher supply of chicken and translating into lower chicken prices and hence margins, while Seara doesn't seem to be suffering from the same phenomenon. You guys mentioned in the press release strong export markets, and the Middle Eastern market in particular, sustaining good profitability in the chicken exports out of Brazil.
So my question to you is how you see those two moving parts unfolding in the coming months and quarters. Do you see this chicken price pressure at some point spilling over into Seara's export business, or do you expect the other way — you expect Pilgrim's margins to eventually improve before any erosion on the Seara business? So how do you expect this global chicken price environment to unfold into the two subsidiaries? That would be my question.
Thank you.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thiago, thank you for the question. And I think you mentioned that — as you compare Pilgrim's and Seara, they are really different. Even both of them export, but they export different types of products. They compete in very few markets, mainly in Africa with the — otherwise there is no competition on that. And for Seara, exports are very important; for Pilgrim's, less important. That shows this — comes a little bit the explanation about what's the difference.
The US has a diversified portfolio. I think you had the opportunity to hear from Fabio. But what is suffering in the US is the category of Big Bird. This is a commodity product that we sell for processors. We increased too much the volume, and the demand is not enough to meet the supply. And because of this, in Pilgrim's, as a part — 25% of the business is — around 25 of the business is commodity. And this part of the business, even before, we transformed two factories from Big Bird to case-ready, because case-ready demand is strong as well.
As I mentioned when I talked about the US market for beef, consumers eat more at home, and then, because of that, the demand in retail for chicken increased. But of course, as we have a balanced portfolio, we suffer with the commodity. And we see that this — I mentioned in the question that I answered before — if you look for the historical, normally the industry, they have been very disciplined in terms of supply and demand in the US for these last, I think, many years.
And this we are expecting for the future, because the additional supply we have in the market was because, mainly because of historical — we planned to be parked — the survival rates for chicken lower than was, in fact, in the quarter. Because of that, there is oversupply. When you go to Brazil, we see now that the last numbers of the Brazilian association — that the production grew 6.5–6.6%. I think this. But exports increased 20%. It means that, because of that, the availability in the domestic market was 3.1.
In export markets — sorry — in export market demand remained healthy even at prices below previous level. We believe that when you look ahead, I can — it's difficult to predict or forecast what we have. I take just the number of the association — means that they forecast for 2027, the production will grow 2.8% and the export will grow 2, the availability 2.7. If those numbers are the normal numbers that the market could accept, because it's normal growth of the market, it means I see — we see that today we have the level of placement of chicken is higher, but we see that the demand for export in Brazil is high, and I believe that it will be possible to compensate — not all of them, but industry should be normally — if you look again for the historic, you see that industry normally rebalances when we have this disbalance in the market. We see this quarter, the next — the coming quarter will be — I think we are confident in terms of what market — what we will be able to do with Seara. And it's something that we do not manage, something that we do not control. We focus on what we can control.
We control the mix, we control the price, we control the diversification of chains, and what we are doing.
Thiago Duarte, Analyst at BTG Pactual
Thank you so much, Tomazoni.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, our next question comes from Mrs. Isabella Simonato with Bank of America. Mrs. Simonato, you may go ahead.
Isabella Simonato, Analyst at Bank of America
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. So, echoing my colleagues, congratulations, Tomazoni. It's been a pleasure interacting with you in the last years. And Wesley, congratulations as well. We wish you all the best in the years ahead. And my question is on Australia. I think we saw a very important growth in top line, which you mentioned about JBS Brazil — how China quota impacted exports — but I wanted to understand if we can assume this is the same reason why Australia's top line has been so strong this quarter.
And on top of that, how can we think performance ahead, not only in terms of revenues, but in terms of maybe the impact on the profitability of this division? Thank you.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Isabella, Australia — we see that we are very excited with the business in Australia. We are in the middle of the cycle. We see two, three years very positive for our Australia business and all of the business in Australia is performing well. When you look for the Australia results, a bit below the comparison of the same period last year, mainly because of the currency, but business — and because of the climate, we had very — we dried a lot in Australia, right, and we were not able to bring the cattle to the plants.
And because of a little bit the volume — we can — we are able to produce more, and this is what we are seeing in the next quarter. And as you saw, with this joint venture we have done with the entire — we're creating a platform for growth in Australia and Indonesia and South Africa. Australia is really well — Asia — sorry, Asia and Australia — is very well positioned. It's close to this market and we have a strong team. And so, look, we are bullish in Australia.
Isabella Simonato, Analyst at Bank of America
Thank you, Tomazoni.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Heather Jones. Ms. Jones, if you're speaking, you may be muted. As we wait to get connected with Ms. Jones, the next question comes from Gustavo Tiano from Itaú. Mr. Tiano, you may go ahead.
Gustavo Tiano, Analyst at Itaú BBA
Hello, everyone. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats, Wesley, on your new position at the company, and best of luck to you both, and Tomazoni, in your new role starting next year. And my question actually relates to free cash flow going forward. A couple of months ago, in the JBS Day presentation, it was mentioned the capex for 2026 should be slightly lower than previously stated in other conference calls, reaching something close to $2 billion.
But my question is on what to expect for 2027, and if you understand that the current cycle conditions at this point, especially with the Mexican border reopening, enables a re-acceleration of the expansion capex agenda for next year. And if the JV in Australia changes your appetite towards accelerating the consolidated investment level going forward, since this new variable was added into the equation last week. Thank you very much.
Guilherme Cavalcanti, CFO
Thank you, Gustavo. So beginning with the joint venture, that's a way for us to continue with the agenda of growth and accelerate this agenda in that region of the world without putting more pressure on the balance sheet. So bear in mind that it is to put $800 million in first place and then adding up to $2.5 billion in equity. And then after that we start to raise that. So basically there will be no pressure in terms of free cash flow from the investments in that region given this capital structure that was designed.
Now, coming back to Jbs NV consolidated free cash flow. Remember that last year we had a working capital consumption of $850 million mainly due to increasing prices, which continued to happen. This year we see that this second quarter we had record revenues of $24 billion. So increasing prices, increasing revenues drag working capital. However, we had anticipation of Chinese and we had receivables discount. So with that, that's why we are forecasting that this year the working capital consumption will be $500 million better.
For next year, again, we should—well, because of the US Beef—and if we don't have inflationary pressure, it should be a good year in terms of releasing working capital. But of course that all depends on grain prices, cattle prices, and cutout prices. With all the other lines already in line, I think interest expense is also in line with what we've been presenting. So this all depends now on each one's estimates of EBITDA to plug into this equation.
Gustavo Tiano, Analyst at Itaú BBA
Thanks. That was clear.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And for the next question, we will go back to Mrs. Heather Jones. Heather Jones, you may go ahead with your question. Mrs. Jones,
Heather Jones, Analyst
Good morning. Thank you for the questions, and my congratulations to Tomazoni and Wesley as well. My question is for Wesley on US Beef. So in '24, Douglas represented about 15% of imports from Mexico. So I was just wondering if there's been some expansion there that would allow for greater flows through that port. And if Mexico cattle flows return to levels approximately two thirds of where they were prior to the closing, is that factor alone enough to return Jbs NV's US Beef EBITDA levels to break even?
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Thank you. Heather, good morning. So, yeah, for sure it wasn't as much as what I'm predicting, but obviously there were many options, right? There were options all over Texas. All of the options were open. So obviously if you have just Douglas opening, it's going to be more than if you have Douglas plus five more ports, or I don't know how many there were back then. So we expect, especially for a while it's going to be the only port, that it's going to be more than usual.
And the way that we are looking at that volume is pretty simple. We're basically looking at what was a high-volume day back then, you know, what was a very high day for Douglas, how much could Douglas handle? And we're just multiplying that and trying to estimate how much that means in a year. So that's how we're getting that number. Look, it's obviously we're dealing with a lot of assumptions here and things that we're going to know pretty soon if they're going to turn out to be as expected or not.
And we're going to know pretty soon actually how this all is going to look. But we think that with another, let's say, just another million head of cattle in the balance here, if we're right now at around 1:1 and, you know, between 2 and 1% negative, we should be closer to break even. I don't know if it's going to be enough for us to be at break even or above break even. I'm pretty sure that a million head makes a big difference. It's the size of a two-shift plant.
Right. So it's a big deal. So we think that it's going to be much better. How much—if it's going to be above or right below break even—I'm not quite sure yet. It's going to be much better than where we are right now. That's what I think.
Heather Jones, Analyst
Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. And our next question comes from Matthias Enfield with UBS. Mr. Enfield, you may go ahead with your question.
Matthias Enfield, Analyst at UBS
Hi. Morning. Thank you for the time, and also wish both Tomazoni and Wesley success in the new positions. On my question, I know you touched a bit on this for Seara, but I want to get a sense of the demand landscape in Brazil. Retailers are quite negative on the outlook for 2H26 and early 2027. So my question is how you're seeing that—if you're already seeing some impact on demand weakness throughout the operations—if there is some shift from beef to pork to chicken to eggs.
And what's your perception around that? And the risk on margins if we do see the consumer sort of downgrading their protein consumption. That's it. Thank you.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thank you for the question, Matthias. I think we are not seeing so far weak demand for our products. We see strong demand for all of the proteins. Price of pork is a little bit depressed because the supply is higher than demand. But for chicken and the value-added—our value-added business—the demand is strong. I'd say it's normal. We are not seeing the present—we don't see that people will downgrade in terms of one brand to the other. We see that protein now is on the top of the priority for all of the population.
Many reasons, you know, many reasons for that; protein has become very strong globally and in Brazil. Even with GLP-1, in Brazil it's spent a lot now with the new brands coming to the market of this GLP-1. I believe the accessibility of them will be higher. And we are so positive on that. Of course, we see that we have today, when you look at the market—as I mentioned, I answered Thiago before—there's a higher production volume of chicken, and I think the industry should be rebalanced.
Even the domestic export of chicken is very high and the global demand is high for chicken. But I think the level of the chicken price in Brazil will be rebalanced. And about the margin, look, we are not giving a forecast of that, but you can see that we have a strong gain of efficiency inside of the company, innovations, and the new mix. And we are confident that Seara will keep continuously delivering good margins.
Matthias Enfield, Analyst at UBS
Thank you.
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Renata Cabral with Citi. Mrs. Cabral, you may go ahead.
Renata Cabral, Analyst at Citi
Thanks for taking my question. Good morning everyone. Congratulations to Wesley for the appointment, wishing you every success in the role. And Tomazoni, congratulations on the extraordinary run as a global CEO. So my question is, I'm going to shift to Brazil. The company had a strong quarter with record second-quarter EBITDA growth, and the exports were clearly an important part of that performance, particularly because of the purchase of China.
And now we have July export data for the industry that gives us a first indication of the post-quarter environment. So my question for you is if you could help us to understand whether what you have seen so far in terms of export volumes for the company and pricing is broadly in line with your expectations for this environment. And looking through the remainder of the year, the second half, how should we think about China demand and the ability to redirect volumes to other markets?
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Thank you, Renata. I'll give you an overview about the beef in Brazil because it's a very complex environment now with the China quotas. Based on the current expectation, Brazil should resume production for China in October with shipment restarting in November, and given the normal transit times, the commercial impact of those shipments will be reflected primarily in 2027. As always, we continue to mention our commercial strategy—dynamic optimization and production allocation across the spot market in order to maximize.
But there isn't a market that can accommodate the volume of 150,000 tons that China was exporting this period. That will be when China restarts, and now we have this volume. The harvest of the animal has fallen 20% in the first month, but the price of the live animal did not fall and should fall because the animal is in the field—the corral. And I believe that the farmers have prepared for the end of the quarter in the corral, as I mentioned before, and the price should fall and then they will recalibrate the cutout and the margin in this business.
Because, of course, Brazil will be without the quota of China and probably with the European restriction that we have. I believe that you need to reduce the number—the number of cattle harvests in Brazil for this period we don't have the quota of China. When the quota of China restarts again in October, that will be different. But so far, until October, we see that the price of cattle should fall because the number of harvests will fall. And I think Friboi has unique conditions, because we have brand, we have category management with the retailers.
I think when you combine this category management and the brand that we have, it provides for us a very competitive advantage in the sector. So, look, we see a tough market now for this period of time, but we believe that the market will be back in a healthy situation very soon in the coming months.
Renata Cabral, Analyst at Citi
That's helpful context, Tomazoni. Thank you so much.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Guilherme Polaris with Santander. Mr. Polaris, you may go ahead with your question.
Guilherme Polaris, Analyst at Santander
Good morning. Wesley, Tomazoni, Guilherme, thank you for taking my question again. As everyone mentioned, congrats on the move, Wesley, and Tomazoni, you will truly be missed as one of the key executives in the protein space, and not only for Jbs NV, but for the entire sector as a great voice defending the sector globally. Wesley, I know that you have not taken office already, but you have been with JBS in any part of the organization, I think now, right?
So you have been all over the place in many divisions, and you get a company now that is a company listed in the US, a global player, which in the last couple of years changed a bit the strategy from M&A and integration as it was in the past towards more of an organic growth, value-added. So I want to take your thoughts. Having experience in all divisions so far, seeing every operation, what do you think lies ahead for the organization? What is the agenda that you will try to pursue?
What will be the JBS of Wesley Filho from now on?
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Guilherme, thanks for the question. The good thing about a transition that's internal like what we're doing is that there is a lot of continuity. When you get a new CEO that comes from the market, or that's not on the day to day of the operations, and the guy is new, they have to come up with something completely new and something completely different sometimes. Right. Just to, you know, maybe Mark, you know, kind of what direction that they think is relevant, and that's exactly not the case. Right. I mean, Tomazoni and I have been working together for the past 10 years. So a lot of what has been done within Jbs NV for the past, you know, for the past decade here, in a lot of ways I've had the privilege to be part of that team that was doing that, and it was alongside Tomazoni all the time here doing that. So you should not at all see Jbs NV have a big change in the strategy, in the way we do things, again, because we are just one team.
And we've been working together for all of that time. So there is a lot of alignment in terms of leadership and in this transition here. The other thing too, I would not at all consider a Jbs NV of Wesley or Jbs NV. You know, Jbs NV has 280,000 team members and a very, very strong leadership team. That's, I think, maybe I'm biased but I think it's the best in the industry. So I think that's something else that I just mentioned now. In terms of where we're going to go, Guillermi, for sure we have a lot of new avenues of growth that have been opened in the last few years that need to continue to mature and need to continue to evolve.
And we just announced really just last week about this HoldenAntara deal and all of the potential that we have in Southeast Asia. That's a market population of 700 if you consider the Asian block plus, you know, Oceania, Australia, New Zealand. Or New Zealand as well. You're talking about 750 million people. So it's a huge market that we, you know, we trade a little bit but not very, very much. That opens a whole new avenue of growth for us. Australia is a huge platform for us to get started in that, you know, huge competitive advantage for us to grow in that area of the world. We have the project in Oman that continues to grow our business in the Middle East. And obviously I'm talking about new geographies, but even in our traditional geographies like the US and continuing to evolve our agenda on brands, like what we're doing with Just Bare in Brazil.
You know, a lot of the growth that we've done in Seara has been matured but there is still some to go and there is a lot for us to get done there. Our business in the UK is a business that gets talked relatively little about but it's a great business — you know, about a $5 billion business within Pilgrim's that we don't talk quite as often. But anyway, we're going to continue to grow on the avenues that we have been growing, and you'll see a lot of continuity and alignment going forward.
But thank you for your question.
Guilherme Polaris, Analyst at Santander
Thank you, Wesley,
OPERATOR
And our next question comes from Ricardo Boyari with Safra. You may go ahead. Mr. Boyari, you may be on mute if you're trying to speak.
Ricardo Boyari, Analyst at Safra
Hi, good morning everyone. I'd like to join the crowd here on the compliments. So, Tomozoni, congrats on a job well done. Thank you for the interactions during these years. It's been a pleasure and hope to keep in touch. And Wesley, congrats on the new role. Truly a well-deserved step and wish you all the best on the new position. My question is on Australia. I'd like to continue this conversation, Wesley, about the potential of Australia as a production platform.
Obviously you are relevant there but in terms of Jbs NV's global platform it's not that relevant. So in the scope of the partnership with the Nantara, and when you look at the country's potential there in terms of grain production, land availability and so on, how big an opportunity Australia could be, especially for the production of chicken in the future? I mean, logistics-wise it seems to be very competitive to have Australia as a production platform in chicken.
So how do you think about this and how is this being considered in the scope of the deal with the Nantara? Thank you.
Wesley Batista Filho, CEO of JBS USA
Thank you, Ricardo, for the question. I think it's important to discuss a bit what is the long-term strategy. This partnership is to expand our investment capacity in Southeast Asia while we preserve our operating model and maintain financial discipline and full operational control. The priority these first two years is to invest in the region — for Indonesia. Indonesia is the focus and is the main focus for us with this partnership in these first two years.
Then after that we can invest in Australia or the other places in South Asia. You mentioned that in Australia we are a very diversified platform — we just miss chicken. Of course, chicken is something that we have all the time considered, the opportunity to enter this sector, but we didn't find the right conditions that we believe are accretive for us to go in. But it's still open as an opportunity. We don't have a pipeline of investment or acquisition to announce, but in reality we are looking for opportunity that could be M&A or greenfield, with a focus in Indonesia now.
And why are we so confident? Because of the size of the market. We talked about 640 million population in this area. And we cannot go alone in this — something that is safe — and the way that we have organized this deal is creating conditions that we do not stress our balance sheet. I think we have access to additional capital; it does not change our investment discipline. At the same time, you can catch the opportunity in this growing market and the growing consumption of proteins — that, I think, this is.
And we have a strong team there. We didn't change business and Jbs NV remains fully responsible for managing the platform, and we will retain full operational control. I think this was a perfect move in the strategic area for the increase in the consumption of protein.
Ricardo Boyari, Analyst at Safra
Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Carla Casella with JP Morgan. You may go ahead, Mrs. Casella. If you are speaking, you may be on mute. Moving to our next question, it comes from Priya Ori Gupta with Barclays. Mrs. Ori Gupta, you may go ahead with your question.
Teresa, Analyst at Barclays (for Priya Ori Gupta)
Hi, good morning, this is Teresa on for Priya. Thank you for taking our questions, and congrats to Tomozoni and Wesley on the transition to your new roles. We're really looking forward to work with you and wish you both the best. So our question is, will we continue to expect that net leverage will end the year at or below three times? And in support of this, how should we think about the potential for any debt repayment over the rest of the year?
Thank you.
Guilherme Cavalcanti, CFO
Thank you, Teresa. Yeah. Bear in mind that on a last-12-month trial we are replacing very strong, especially from the Chicken US EBITDA of last year, to a more normalized margins for Chicken US this year. So this statistical effect tends to pressure the leverage. However, second half of the year is where we generate the bulk of our free cash flow, so one thing probably tends to balance the other. So we're thinking that we'll be finishing the year in the levels more or less the same as we got in the second quarter, slightly above three times.
And as we generate free cash flow, and given we have no debt maturities in the short term, and because all of the coupons up to 2032 are below Treasury, the efficient debt to be repurchased, I would say, probably the '34s which have a 6.75 coupon — we should have still $300 million outstanding there — and some '33s or '35s. But let's see how the second half behaves, and then we can make a decision of repaying or not those more expensive debt.
Teresa, Analyst at Barclays (for Priya Ori Gupta)
Great, that's helpful. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, there being no further questions, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Gilberto Tomazoni.
Gilberto Tomazoni, Global CEO
Before we close, I want to just thank all of you for your kind words and congratulations today for me and on behalf of Wesley. I also thank you for the attention, respect, and support you have shown me. Over these past eight years, our interactions have always been very productive. Your questions, your perspective, even your challenges have helped us improve the way we communicate, sharpen our focus, and become better companies. I have learned a great deal from all of you.
And of course I want to thank our entire team around the world. Everything we have accomplished over these years has been a team effort, and I'm very proud of what we have built together. We still have a few important months ahead of us, and my focus remains fully on Jbs NV continuing to deliver strong results, and working closer with Wesley as we ensure a smooth, successful transition. Thank you again for your trust, for your engagement, and your partnership over all these years.
Thank you.
OPERATOR
This is the end of the conference call held by Jbs NV. Thank you very much for your participation and have a nice day.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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