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Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the earnings call for the First Quarter of 2024 at Assai Atacadista. I want to highlight that if you do need simultaneous translation, we have this too available on our platform. To access, please select the interpretation button through the globe icon on the bottom part of your screen and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. This earnings call is being recorded and will be provided on the IR website in the company at ir.assai.com.br, where you can already find the earnings release. [Operator Instructions]We want to highlight that the information in this presentation and possible statements that could be made during the earnings call related to business perspectives, forecasts and operational and financial targets at Assai, represent beliefs and assumptions of the company's management as well as information that's currently available. Future statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and thus rely on circumstances that could or not occur. Investors must understand that general economic conditions, market conditions and other factors may affect the future performance of Assai and lead to results to differ materially from those listed in such future statements.Now we'll pass the phone to Gabrielle Helu, the Investor Relations Director at Assai.

[Gabrielle Castelo Branco Helu, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for participating in our earnings call for the first quarter of 2024. I want to present our executives present today during this discussion. We have our CEO, Belmiro de Gomes and our 4 VPs; Vitor Faga, the VP for Finance and Investor Relations; Wlamir dos Anjos, Commercial & Logistics VP; and Mr. Castilho, the Operations VP; and Sandra Vicari, VP for People and Sustainability.Before we begin the presentation, I'll pass the floor to Belmiro for his initial remarks. Please, Belmiro.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Gabi. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation. One more earnings call at Assai. Our VPs, I want to thank you for your presence also as they'll be participating in this presentation. And also Vitor, warm welcome. He just joined our team recently. He's going to talk about our financial aspects and other contributions. So welcome Vitor.And now as we get into the presentation, I wanted to thank our team from all the different areas. I want to thank our Board as well for their support and interaction with the company. And also, we want to thank the 76 million customers that have been visiting all of our stores during the first quarter. We had an increase of 13% in the customer flow. As you can see, we like highlighting this a lot and really looking at this in a nominal way. 76 million means a progression of over 10 million tickets within the first quarter. More than 3 million customers in these 3 first months on average per month due to the conversion work.So to summarize this, it really demonstrates the resistance in the business model, the precision and the value proposition and the strategies also for plans we've worked on with changes in the actual model. We're going to disclose this more during the presentation. And of course, within this evolution, I think Assai has been one of the main protagonists in the food market. In the first quarter, now the company reached 293 stores under operation, which means that until the end of the year, Assai will go over 300 stores in activity in Brazil.And in the first quarter, we had some openings that are very important. Our second unit in Macapa. Our first unit that was installed 4 or 5 years ago, which is a very productive unit with a -- it's a market that's very logistically challenging. And another unit in Vila Maria, which is very significant, where we had our first cash and carry store set-up when macro arrived in 1972. And it's a very important unit also in Cidade Tiradentes, which is another unit in Cuiaba. And we just opened the second store in Espirito Santo and also moving on with the expansion plan that Assai has for that market. So we just went through a huge expansion process, 28 openings and 80 openings when we add up the last 24. So there's still a good amount of the stores that are in expansion that are still in maturity phases.Considering the numbers in the first quarter, they consolidate the level of expenses. And the changes that take place in our business model did not change the proposal of our business model, which is really to be the best cost option for customers and by our consumers and also for B2B customers as well as search for ways to conquer new markets and customers and especially new social levels in different regions. And we're going to talk about this throughout our presentation.So the conversion project was basically finished. The level of EBITDA that we delivered within this first quarter, as you saw in the earnings release, really makes the company get back to the levels of pre-IFRS EBITDA margin levels that we had before we began the conversion process. It was a really important evolution, 38% in the EBITDA margin and pre-IFRS EBITDA. So we're really highlighting this because in the last strategic projects we had, they really changed our lease expenses because now we're operating within the store network with stores that are more central.And as we consider this from a real estate perspective, they're basically irreplicable in Brazil. So our EBITDA margin progression, as we're going to look it up ahead, brings the company to a consolidation of these numbers and with an advance, that's very important in the same-stores in the quarter. So this quarter has 2 important impacts. We have the calendar effect with Easter, which is not that significant in our sector, but we also have the 29th of February, which has a significant impact. So with this, we delivered BRL 18.8 billion in revenue, 14% growth compared to last year and considering the combination of the progression of the same stores that I highlighted, but also considering the progression of the 20 new units that were opened in the last 12 months.And if we were to calculate this, we'll see that from the 28 units, 14 of these are organic and 14 are conversions that we reached an average sale of BRL 18.2 million or BRL 18.5 million in these units that were recently opened. Of course, they come into the curve also for maturity and progression, but a level that's higher than what we noticed in the market. The company also registered an increase in the market share in the same-store vision, which we believe really demonstrates its precision, especially with the conversion project.The net income that Vitor will also highlight a little more, we have 2 points to highlight here with the layer evolution. In the first quarter, the base was really impacted by the conversions we had recently worked up at the end of 2022 in the first quarter. As we'll see, we had about 60 new stores that had started their margin curves. And another highlight in the quarter is demonstrating the capacity to generate cash in the company and the business model, which really makes us reduce the level of leverage and related to the fourth quarter even because we know there's a seasonality effect that's very strong. And all of this allows us to re-estimate the net debt to EBITDA levels now for the end of 2024. We talked about this in the Investor Day with a net debt to EBITDA ratio above 3.5, which will now allow us to re-estimate a whole other level. That's lower than 3.2 and we're going to make sure this can be even lower than this in the next quarters.We can move on to the next page. So here, we can see we have an evolution in the conversion project, as we all know. We highlighted this and other opportunities with the purchase of the extra hyper points. And this was all part of a strategy at Assai with our entrance into the central regions with a more challenging project, where as I've mentioned, we even had 18,000 people sometimes working simultaneously in civil construction. These stores are in regions where our model was not that present yet. So it really considered an increase of consumers and increase in capacity for sales and margin generation.When we look at the profits in the first quarter, we have a progression in that group of 47%, which were 23% and the pre-IFRS margin doubles from the first quarter to this one now and a progression in the sales of about 20 -- about 18%, which leads to an average level of BRL 26 million. So the store network -- the extra store networks that are still in the beginning, they still have been around for less than 24 months, but they deliver a pre-IFRS margin level that's in line with the company overall. And that's visible when we look at the pre-IFRS EBITDA. If not, we wouldn't have had that progression of 90 bps that you all saw.We can advance on to the next page, please. So the gross profit. Here, we really demonstrated the capacity to generate value because the EBITDA will have a combination, but then you have the gross profit that really demonstrates the strategy adopted. The gross profit in this period went up from 186%. And so in '19, we were doing BRL 1 billion. In the first quarter, this went up to BRL 2.8 billion. And with an increase in the gross margin of 15.3% to 16.3%. And that was all part of the strategic rationale for the evolution because this increase in the gross profit was necessary to cover the model where some modifications made in the last few years, which included an increase in the product mix and the search for improving purchase experiences and the deployment of stores in the central regions where the cost of lease and IPT property tax were greater than what we had already considered. But in our plan, there was already a change in the cash and carry format to be able to enter these higher social levels.And also, as we include these new services, besides improving the purchase experience, we also consider the increase in replenishment. So when we look at Brazil, we have -- when we divide both public, between the 40% B2B and 60% B2C, we've been trying to besides the monthly shopping or bulk shopping also be a replenishment purchase option. So we don't rely that much on inflation periods when this big bulk shopping is the best option for most families. But when we look at the Brazilian market, we see an increase in labor and the amount of informal workers as well and really small businesses. So we can see it kind of labor that doesn't receive like a monthly salary, but a daily payment, right? So this went up to about 15.3% of [ Mais ] which is like an individual company.The Uber drivers where they make daily wages. It's normally more difficult for them to have like one big bulk shopping. So a lot of the operations made in this model with those [ drivers ] present a better purchase experience. They intend to keep this resilience, be an option for prices of our businesses, bakeries, grocery stores that are going to supply themselves in the food service, but also the -- regardless of the final consumer, the B2C customer also have a smaller amount in a replenishment purchase. We want to be positioned and well in this. And this made the company a lot more resilient to be able to face any scenario or any adverse scenario or external turbulence you may face.You can advance, please. I think this is really visible with all of the changes. So the fourth quarter always has this kind of seasonality effect. And we had a lot of discussions about the changes made in the business models, the stores in downtown areas, including new services and all of this. So it provides us kind of a level of disclosure, right? So if you discount the lease and the pre-IFRS, you'll see that the level of expenses at Assai that was 9.5% now closed at 9.4%. Even with all of these changes, the increase in the mix, the increase in the services that we place in the stores and the rental calculations reflect the company's position, having stores in more central regions.And I think this [indiscernible] is very precise, especially for customers in Brazil where we have a metropolitan area with major density, logistical challenges and traffic. And having these more downtown stores becomes an important option for consumers as they also become consumers and businesses in the surrounding areas. So in the conversion process, most of the leases should consider a dilution curve still since most of our leases consider fixed values. And as you reach maturity and they reach -- they continue in this maturity process, this expense continues to be diluted, but more than offset by the increase in the gross profits.Moving on to the next slide. Before I move on, all of this combination is visible on the pre-IFRS EBITDA. So the company had levels of investments that are really high to be able to reach this sort of positioning. And the company is the second biggest food sector player in the Brazilian market. We've been having a constant sales progression, but we've also considered balancing out the growth of our sales, but also balancing out the results.So we always mentioned the hypermarket project was a project with the beginning but no end. And now when we have the stores contributing margin and cash, Vitor will talk about this process -- in this deleveraging process, and this is going to really be visible and return to a new level, right? So we go to BRL 670 million. And this demonstrates the fact that the strategy adopted and with the correct strategy and precise strategy, the company becomes a lot stronger to continue advancing from now on with organic projects and new opportunities as well. As we mentioned last year, we became the company that's most present in the Brazilian households, 1 in every 4 buys at Assai store in the Sao Paulo region. So we still see a lot of opportunities in many other states.So then finally, you have the EBITDA issue, and we'll pass this on to Vitor, and he's going to get into more of the financial details.

[Vitor Faga de Almeida, executive]

Thank you, Belmiro. Well, guys, now we're going to talk about the impact of our financial results because understanding this impact is fundamental to also look at the layer and the net income and the variations compared to the last period. So in the first quarter of this year, the financial results were impacted by 4 main events. And they also bring a pretty big difference and considerations when we consider the same period in the previous year.First of all, the completion of the payment for the acquisition of the hypermarkets. Besides this, the MTM of the swap instruments we have for some debt tools we have that are considering IPCA+ or the pre-swap to CDI. So the swap operation also was adjusted. And the third factor is the non-capitalization of some interest related to stores that were in this conversion process. And finally, the reduction of CDI in this period. I want to highlight that 2 of the factors, the MTM as well as the capitalized interest are non-cash effects. And these 2 effects jointly add up to over BRL 100 million in the first quarter.When we take a look at the layer, this is mainly impacted. Layer would be the profits before income tax. And this is mainly due to the maturity of the new stores and the control on expense dilution, as we can see in details. And also when we consider the growth of the financial results that I provided in details considering these 4 factors. And this growth is important as it demonstrates the results in the profitability of the company due to the store maturity process and dilution of the expenses.And finally, we reached the net income, which had a growth of 19%, as Belmiro mentioned in the beginning of the presentation. As a consequence of this evolution in the financial results and the profits before interest that we just observed, but also considering the comparison with the previous year, it's impacted by the end of this subvention for investments which modified a comparison basis and leads to this growth of 19% in the period.Next slide, please. Now we're talking about cash generation. So we had a cash generation that was very significant in the period. We were able to have operational cash generation of BRL 4.9 billion in the last 12 months. And one important point to highlight is the growth considering the cash generation we had in the end of the first quarter last year of BRL 1.7 billion. So this was a significant cash generation growth when we compare 12 months for the same period. And even when we compare this in a sequence, the cash generation that we had, which ended in December 2023 throughout the year, this cash generation we noticed now in the first quarter is BRL 300 million higher. So this demonstrates that the evolution of the conversion process in the stores and the EBITDA growth was really reflected in the cash generation.And besides this, it's important to also notice that we had an improvement in the working capital cycle, an improvement of almost 5 days, 4.6 days, impacted mainly by an improvement in the levels of stock. We described this movement and the details in this process in the release so that you can get a better feel on this evolution. As a consequence of all of this cash generation and the CapEx and the cost of the debt, we have -- when we compare the 12 months, we have a net debt that's pretty much stable, BRL 13.7 billion to BRL 13.8 billion. And the main factor here is the deleveraging process the company is experiencing, as we can see on the right side of the graph.So the reduction of the leverage where at the end of the first quarter was 4.69x EBITDA and now it goes on to 3.65x EBITDA. So it's almost a reduction of almost 1x, 0.94x. And it's important to see that this reduction in the leverage was due to the evolution of this EBITDA. So we can see in the bottom part of the graph, there's an evolution of BRL 2.9 billion in the accumulated EBITDA in the first quarter to BRL 3.7 billion now. So the deleveraging has been taking place through the strong operational evolution and the growth of the EBITDA. And as you can see, the net debt was kept pretty much stable in this period.So these were the comments guys about the financial expenses and results and cash generation and leverage. And now I'll pass this on to Sandra, as she will be talking about the ESG initiatives in the company. Sandra, please.

[Sandra Vicari, executive]

Okay. Thank you, Vitor. Good morning, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, as Vitor mentioned, I'm bringing the vision of our sustainability initiatives in this period where within our strategy for sustainability, we've been trying to evolve more and more with our commitment to the best responsible operational practices, trying to minimize our impact environmentally. Our strategy has also been to leverage the prosperity to everyone, and this is sustained by 3 pillars.So first, I want to highlight the pillar of official operations, where in this quarter, we had an important highlight considering reductions of emissions where we were able to reduce 9.5% of the Scope 1 emissions. We continued in line with our target of 38% reduction till the 2030. We also considered over 40% less waste coming from operations through recycling practices, composting and reduction of food waste. And here, I want to highlight our Correct Disposal program, which avoided over 370 tons of fruit, vegetables and produce would be sent to landfills and that also demonstrates our commitment to this. And in this period, we also performed the third edition of the premium -- this award for the Top Log Assai and it considers the suppliers that support this process for supplying the stores with access. And we also consider the sustainability category this year, where we're able to also recognize the best practices of our suppliers in regards to fighting climate change.In the development -- people development and community pillar, we've been investing strongly in the training and development of our over 80,000 employees. And we've also been promoting initiatives constantly that contribute to the very diverse labor environment where we can provide the resources so that everybody can be valued and respected. As you can see in our slide, our numbers reflect this. And I wanted to highlight, there are over 43% of black people in leadership positions, which is something that makes us very proud. We also have amount of people with disability that's above the legal quota for over 8 years. And 25% -- over 25% women in leadership positions. We were also recognized for the second year consecutively in the ranking diversities, reaffirming our commitment to equality and inclusion. And we are also committed to food safety and food security in the communities where we're present. This quarter, we donated over 140 million tons of food. And we also became signatories to the Pact Against Hunger, reinforcing our commitment towards fighting hunger in our country.And finally, in the ethical and transparent pillar, we had the disclosure of our annual report for 2023. And it demonstrates our results and how we reach these throughout the year. And it also reflects how our strategy for sustainability permeates the entire company, reinforcing our transparency towards all of our stakeholders. Our commitment to sustainability is an ongoing process. And we plan to continue to evolve and especially contribute to have a more sustainable future with greater prosperity for everyone.So that's what I wanted to share. And I'll pass the word on to Belmiro.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Well, thank you, Sandra. I think that brings to end an interesting chapter. When we look up ahead, we can see in my presentation and also Vitor's presentation with the leverage issue in other calls, which is the biggest focus, the company is a big cash generator. And Assai has always -- the last time we received resources was in 2010. We were always able to grow and grow a lot becoming one of the biggest companies in most present in households with our own cash coordination and the biggest risk we had for payment to GPA was just done now in January 2024. So we have no more payments.And now the company has a stronger cash generation considering the maturity as we can see this together. And also this reduction, of course, now the interest curve is stressing us a bit and we have a reduction in the interest rates as well, which should help reduce our levels of financial expenses. We have 15 stores expected for this year, 2024. And then we'll go back to a level of expansion of about 20 stores or so for 2025. So this year, as we mentioned, we have a lower level of investments compared to what we had in previous years and within this process of balancing our ongoing growth, but also the deleveraging.And we also have major opportunities when it comes to digital as well as category adjustments, as I mentioned, we still have about 30% or more than 20% of our store network is still in maturity. Most of these stores have some opportunities that the company has been searching for ways to explore in different projects, and we've been working on these in certain regions in Brazil. And our size and capillarity allows us to work on different tests, and this model should continue advancing. So there's still some category adjustments. And I think there's opportunities in some of the commercial galleries as well that continue to have this deployment process and now an initiative for commercialization as well for advertising spaces.So when we look at 2024, of course, we have all of the uncertainties. We still see consumers quite pressured. Although we did see constant drops in unemployment rates, the purchase power of the population is still pressured by debt levels, most of them with high quantities of delinquency, but that makes our model continue to be attractive because saving money is important regardless of the social level or level of income the person has, which places us in a very good situation compared to the other food formats. It's a little bit more favorable within this scenario.And when it comes to inflation, depending -- except for some very big external factors, we're estimating that the food and vegetable will be about 3% to 4% and a gradual recovery in the trade down volumes we lost during the pandemic, but nothing too strong for 2024. So the numbers in the first quarter already demonstrate this. Once again, the consistency of the company. And what we presented within the strategic plan for growth that we were able to demonstrate the company is resistant and resilient despite all of these scenarios that were quite adverse we faced in 2023, but we do hope this year will be less adverse than last year.So now I'll pass the floor back to Gabi as we begin the Q&A.

[Gabrielle Castelo Branco Helu, executive]

Great. So now we can begin our Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Now the first question comes from Maria Clara from the Sell-Side at Itau.

[Maria Infantozzi, analyst]

Belmiro, a topic that always appears in our interactions with investors is the status of the competitive environment, especially in Sao Paulo. So I want to ask you to please talk about your perception on this. The second question is about numbers, specifically. In this quarter, we saw the net income growing a little more than the gross and net revenue. So can you talk about the main drivers for this, please?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Well, we have 2 important points here. First of all, the first quarter, besides everything else, we also had an important point here, which is highlighting the EBITDA. We had a lot of ICMS rates growing in different states. We had an impact that's quite relevant. We had 14 states and an expansion in the tax rates and most of these are related to products that are subject to tax substitution, which makes the correlation of the net revenue versus the gross revenue take place, so they have an increase in the tax load since the product is within this calculation where most of the states have this kind of change.This generates a difference in the correlation between the net revenue and the gross revenue because the product with a substitution considers a higher CMV as you increase the rate, so you have an increase in the cost, but you have a difference in the payment parcel, which is added to the gross -- to the net revenue instead of the gross revenue. But we did have an impact in this way of 14 states that led to an increase of 2%, 3% and even 4% in some cases. So the competitive market of course considers now.We have this market accommodation process where the amount of stores we open and conversions. Most of the hypermarkets were in the central region. So we did see some changes in the market with macro leaving. But today, we have about 105 stores in the State of Sao Paulo. The company is very strong, the biggest player in the State of Sao Paulo. And our size and scale and the strength of the brand, especially, we're actually waiting for -- Assai was considered the best cash and carry operation.So it's a proposal, it's a lot higher than what we had seen in other marketplaces. But of course, you have a scenario with more competitiveness than what we had seen before. But when you consider the average sale per store that Assai has been working, you can see how even in the scenario with more players in the market, more competitive advantages, you can see how the company can really stand out when it comes to comparing with other players. So I think then the best path is to look at this average sale with the 28 stores we opened last year.

[Operator]

Now our next question is from Ruben Couto, the Sell-Side at Santander.

[Ruben Couto, analyst]

We have 2 questions here. In this quarter, we continue to see this gradual improvement in the like-for-like, but we had a smaller contribution in the volume growth versus last quarter. And I wanted to know how much of this is price per increase and the beginning of the trade-up? This was one of the thesis that could happen, and I wanted to get an update on this topic. And also when it comes to the rate and the income tax variations, I think this changed a lot, right, when you consider the reduction of income tax due to the ICMS subvention. So I wanted to understand why it's there? If it's going to continue throughout this year? And what we can consider for 2024? That would be great.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. Ruben, as you mentioned, we had this provisional measure, 11.5%, which reduced most of the subvention credits we had in other states. Now the ones that are still there should remain unless there's some change in the legislation because most of them are presumed profit regimes, even products that are exempt, which are in the regimes of the regulations for the states within the regulation in the states, what's valid to Assai, but also to other companies. So this -- unless there's some big change in the law or in the states, we consider this topic is a really strong topic. And so maybe this year, we hope that there's a little less surprises in the tax front, but this is a level that we do expect for the next quarter.So in the first quarter, we searched for ways to be a little more balanced. And we also wanted to balance out the margins. We wanted to bring this level of margins in the company to before the conversion. We still haven't seen in the first quarter an effect of the trade-up on behalf of the population. You can see that the population, although we did see a drop in unemployment, level of debt in it, among families is not allowing them to recover the same volumes of purchases. So we had a slight impact.It was more inflationary in the first quarter, but part of this comes from the actual increase in the income rates that also generates as you reflect this in the sales prices. This increase in the rate also impacts the final prices. But we still have not seen this. And in our vision, the first quarter was very positive considering everything we highlighted so far, but we still don't see like a very favorable external scenario with B2B customers buying big volumes because they don't see any expectations for inflation at this point in time, we don't either. Unless the currency continues to be super high pressure, then maybe we would have some kind of effect in the inputs or commodities that are exported. That would be a worldwide price. It could lead to some inflation depending on the currency, but it's not what we're looking at if we just consider the domestic market at this point in time.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Vinicius Strano, Sell-Side at UBS.

[Vinicius Strano, analyst]

Just to explore a bit more about the B2B customers, if you could talk about what you've noticed when it comes to contribution among these customer sales? And how you're imagining this customer restocking? Considering it's also relevant today, how are you thinking about this in the future? And more strategically, how do you plan to explore the offering of services to B2B customers? And do you imagine maybe structuring credit offering here?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. I'll pass the first part of our B2B customers to Wlamir. He is monitoring prices a little more and the behavior of these B2B customers and Vitor will talk about the services issue later on.

[Wlamir dos Anjos, executive]

Okay. Thank you for the question, Vinicius. When you look at the share of B2B customers about 40%, 45% of our revenue, we don't see like a big stocking movement. So just as the interest rate and the working capital for this type of customer is really important, and they end up using our stores as a supply point, and we don't expect an inflationary movement that's very different than what we mentioned in the beginning of the year with you. Inflationary about 3% to 4%. And that wouldn't motivate anyone to build-up stock. So we don't expect a stock-up movement for B2B customers.We do have factors that could contribute to inflation that are not under our control, such as the currency, petroleum, climate effects and external factors that could take place with some changes in the behavior of purchases and supply of these customers. In the last quarters, we haven't really seen much of a possibility for this to happen. We used this jargon which says B2B customers are going to continue to buy from mouth to hand without setting up really relevant stocks in-house.

[Vitor Faga de Almeida, executive]

Well, Vinicius, as we talk about the service offering, yes, we are considering to increase this offering because we have this offering of services that are really connected to individuals. And we consider that increasing the supply of services to B2B will bring greater proximity to customers and also increase loyalty and purchase frequency, which is our final objective. So we expect to increase the service offering, especially for B2B customers.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Joao Pedro Soares, Sell-Side at Citi.

[Joao Pedro Soares, analyst]

Well, I want to take advantage of this service point here because we noticed the gross margin is a little healthier. And when we consider up ahead a bit more of this commercial dynamic, can we see effects that are more beneficial reflecting the gross profit -- the gross margins, sorry?And when we consider the gross margin, the EBITDA margin has also been a very positive point when it comes to expense discipline, which is something we've noticed it's very consistent ever since the last quarter. And there's a magic number of an expansion in the full year, about 10 to 20 basis points in the EBITDA margin post-IFRS. And I wanted to understand if you guys could maybe give us some perspective on this margin in the full year. Are you more constructive? Does this reduction in the leverage guidance reflect a more constructive vision compared to the full year?And so these 2 points. And then final one is just about the financial revenue of about BRL 43 million. And if we were to annualize this, it leads to a very low number considering the average cash of BRL 5 billion. So why? And what is behind this number? So could you talk about this a bit?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Well, we wanted to do this backwards forward and then we'll get back to the margins. Now the financial revenue of the cash position, it's important to understand how the dynamic works in between months. So essentially, the company's main payments take place on the 1st, the 11th and the 21st of each month. So our cash behaves in the month as if it were like little mountain, right? So it drops and it goes up and recovers this and then drops again.So the final vision in the end of the month is not the average cash position. The cash position on average is different than the final vision of each month because of this dynamic. Which is why when you have this calculation from backwards forward considering BRL 5 billion, you don't reach the cash profitability. Of course, this is marginally lower or slightly lower than the cost of our debt. But what explains this difference is the fact that we have this movement in between months that makes the cash position on average be different than the cash position at the end of the month.Well, as we get into the information about the EBITDA, then later we will talk about the expectations for the gross margin, but the EBITDA is still. What we're presenting here is a shift in the guidance for the deck. I think we need other quarters, because we got back to this level of EBITDA before the conversion project and we can consider this now as sustainable. But for the full year, we don't want to take on any other assumptions or indications of the EBITDA margin. We're going to monitor this in the second quarter. But I think in the first quarter, we got a pretty good indication of this.And then I'll pass this on to Wlamir to talk about the margins a bit.

[Wlamir dos Anjos, executive]

Well, about the margins, our expectation is really the maintenance of the margin. So especially the commercial team and operations that take care of the purchase and sale. We're always searching for ways to improve the margins, but we understand that there's also a competitive scenario. And we have to keep some correlation between gross margin and competitiveness within the market and of course with our value proposition.So we've been very assertive when it comes to this balance point of the gross margin. When we consider our sales dynamic, for example, this quarter, we had 30 bps on the same-store base of share. Even with this very challenging scenario and competitive scenario, we don't expect to have an improvement in the margins up ahead, but to have the maintenance of this margin in these levels.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Felipe Rached, Sell-Side at Goldman Sachs.

[Felipe Rached, analyst]

I wanted to follow-up on this, I think it was Ruben asked about this, but you mentioned the ticket, and I wanted to explore the issue. I understand that the growth of 0.4% does not consider the adjustments in the calendar effect. So if we exclude this, it would probably lead to drop in volumes in the first quarter. So I want to understand 2 points here. First of all, I think Belmiro even talked about this in his final remarks, but I want to understand what you're looking at how you're considering the health of the consumer and if this could impact demand in some way in the next quarters? And then the second point is understanding a bit more of this dynamic with the volume and tickets. Of course, with what you can talk about in the converted stores considering the legacy stores. And anything you guys can talk about in this sense would be really interesting.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Yeah, you're right, we had an increase in volumes with the final consumer even in the legacy store network and of course the stores under maturity considering the progression in the sales. But when we look at a reduction in the volume, which is also expected, where we had this part in the B2B customers, first of all, you have to have more aggressive pricing. For example, last year, we had a lot of customers that were businesses and that take advantage of the prices during the opening periods and some special prices we have in the first quarter, but we look at this very separately.So the recurring customers and the B2B customers that are also considering the stores and the opportunity purchases as well where they take advantage of a bigger expansion period. When you look at the delta for all of us, you reach a legacy that's slightly negative, but very positive for consumers, which is what we consider the recurring public. So when you isolate this effect, which is something that happens in all of the openings, it's something that's relatively normal in the sector where you have the elasticity that's a lot higher. So I hope to have answered your question.

[Felipe Rached, analyst]

So Belmiro, can you talk about how you're looking at this dynamic with the consumers being pretty much leveraged? How are you looking at this demand environment for the next quarters as well? That would be really interesting.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Well, we've been working with a scenario of maintenance. We see consumers at a level that's the same as what we had seen in the fourth quarter, but maybe slightly a little better. But there's still a lot of caution on our side so we need to have another quarter come along. And we do not dictate in the research we've been doing and even in the vision from our team in the day to day activities of the store, the consumers are still pressured by other expenses with shifts in behaviors as we've already discussed this in other earnings calls. But really pressured by the interest and most of the improvement we have is related to our efficiency and the store maturities.And also although our sector is one of the most significant food sector in Brazil, you still have a lot of purchases done in other formats. So as I mentioned, there is a flow of receipts daily and we've been focusing on this public a lot, which helps us to continue to advance, but we don't have any trade-up movements. They continue to be very cautious and we can see there is even a deflation in prices. But this year the drop in inflation is something that when you consider the possible gains and we consider the pandemic prices increased more, we can notice that this generates an environment with low consumption. So it's slightly better in this first quarter, but we're still very cautious about this. I hope to have answered.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Bob Ford, Sell-Side at Bank of America.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

Congrats on the quarter, Belmiro. How can we think about the store maturity for 2022 in the long term? And we had a big improvement in the cost structure also considering a context of greater services in the store. But from now on, how much more do you think you can improve this and what's the percentage of sales that are identified? And also can you talk about the functionalities of the Meu Assai app and how this has been impacting the frequency and the size of the transactions and how you expect this to evolve, please?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. When it comes to maturity, I think the store network of 2022 and 2023, as I mentioned, the average sales within this store network of 28 stores, we have half that's organic with the maturity of stores a little slower. But despite this when we look at the average sales per store, we don't have like a positive sale. And the stores that were opened last year should follow the same ramp. So nothing from a location perspective and the sequence of openings, reopenings of the hypermarkets were a lot more connected to licenses than to our actual desire for these openings. So the expectation is very similar to what we had in 2023 compared to the network in 2022. So nothing new in the sense and the cost structure is something that's very important. And so this major transformation and one of the main -- Assai was a protagonist of a strategic change monitoring some market trends because we have a lot of changes.We saw the amount of closings in Brazil and so there's also a demand for stores that are closer with better levels of services. We had many scale gains considering the size and cost and these scale gains in our vision also kind of offsetted these increases considering the levels of services. And when we consider this, of course this brings in greater expenses and services that were added like the battery, the coffee shops and that of course also represents an increase in the headcount. But on the other hand, it also brings in revenue and margins and that's why we highlighted this level of expenses. So as Anderson mentioned, it's like expenses are like nails, right? You always have to cut them down and so we want to hold on to expenses as much and control them. I actually want to pass this on to him so he can talk about the levels he expects and then Vitor can talk about the app when it comes to the percentage, identify the expectations we have up ahead.

[Anderson Castilho, executive]

Bob, actually the expenses are really a big part of highlighting. In the last quarter, we had a big differential and we've already demonstrated this is something that's very sustainable. So in the first quarter, once again we've been very much in line with what we've been doing and what we can see especially and this is consistency. So expenses is line by line, there's no big line. Each store has fundamental role in this and it's important to highlight all of our store teams, of course we get into major details. And so also the store maturity that helps with the expenses. And on the other hand, we have a team with some initiatives and strategy in our business has also gained greater strength. The team has more maturity and we also search for efficiency to be able to reduce our expenses and always balancing this out very well. So balancing our expenses and the purchase experience for our customers.So in the cash segment, we really want to stand out. We want to bring a value proposition that's very unique so that customers can really feel comfortable with a store that not only has services and a differentiated mix, but also keeping up our costs. So we continue to deploy new services. We have until July this year another 70 stores we're going to be deploying and with [indiscernible], the emporium, the battery; but always taking a look at the expenses. So we always have this balance point between working on expenses and the day-to-day activities and also improve our purchase experience for customers. So Bob, I think that's pretty much it. We understand that there's maintenance requirements that are really in line with this and of course considering the consistency in regards to expenses. So I think that's pretty much it.

[Vitor Faga de Almeida, executive]

Well, Bob, also if we can talk about the Meu Assai App. We have about 28% of our customers identified and this number has been evolving. Of course we have a difference between stores. This is an average. We have stores with greater share, with smaller share. But the strategy here is to evolve in this identification process so we can have better knowledge from our customers and that we can also adjust many of our offerings for services and products and the company's value proposition to what these customers are demanding. So the plan is to increase this volume of purchases identified so that we can work with this better.Well, if I can contribute, I think an interesting point here is that these customers that identify themselves on the app, we added about 1 million customers in the first quarter and this is a competitive differential. And we've been also delivering things that make a difference. And the CRM has also helped us to have these offerings in a more precise manner. And when we measure this from the customers that download the app and use the app, they have a frequency of 50% more than the average recurrence in the month and they spend 33% more. So we are able to increase the ticket and add more items to the customers' basket. So it's an app that has really contributed to these advances besides the services and federal expense. We've been able to really stand out and continue to grow our customer base, which is where we presented here the 13% increase in the customer base.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Felipe Cassimiro, the Sell-Side Analyst for BBI.

[Felipe Cassimiro de Freitas, analyst]

Just a question here about the stock level. So you talked about the normalization to 41 days and I want to understand if the stock level is what we should expect up ahead due to the lower volume of openings. So I think we reached a peak in last 2 years because of the conversions. So just understanding what the optimal stock level would be that we should expect from now on?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. Now as we get into supply overall, I think you guys can expect some stability in the levels of stock. As you mentioned yourself, we reduced the expansion pace and with this, we can also have a lower level of stock and openings. We're more disciplined in the commercial and logistics area, in the controls and product interest levels. And throughout the quarters we should also have maintenance in the levels of stock coverage and also in the maintenance of the purchase terms. So we should not have major variations in this and are very similar to what you saw in this first quarter. So we're going to consider the discipline and efficiency in the control of the working capital. So you can have some things that vary from one quarter to another. So for like Christmas or birthday campaigns, there could be some variations, but that won't lead to much impact on our cash position. I hope that was clear.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Gustavo Senday, the Sell-Side at XP.

[Gustavo Senday, analyst]

I just have 1 that's more occasional maybe more directed to Vitor. Just taking advantage of the fact that it's the first call you participate in, I want to hear the opportunities you've already identified. I know you plan to advance with capital cost, working capital, et cetera. And a bit of your vision for the company throughout this year and up ahead as well.

[Vitor Faga de Almeida, executive]

Okay. Perfect. Thank you for the question. I'm going to highlight 2 initiatives. First of all, we highlighted 1 point which is operating with the biggest offering of financial services to our customers especially for B2B customers, which is something we need to work on in a very integrated way with operations, commercial and also with FIC, which is a partnership we have with Itau. So this is one of our priorities. And then we also need to re-profile our debt. So we had a recent issuance BRL 500 million considering CDI +1.25% and we saw opportunities to bring in other operations that could improve our debt profile especially when it comes to costs and timing. So these are the 2 priorities that we have to be able to work on this in a more intense way.

[Operator]

Our next question is from Nicolas Larrain, the Sell-Side at JPMorgan.

[Nicolas Larrain, analyst]

I think most of these questions were already answered. But I wanted to ask you, Belmiro, about this from the expansion side for this year. How have you considered the plans for 2024? And also considering this leverage is a little more favorable for this year and some room to accelerate this also from '24 to '25?

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Okay. Thank you for the question. As I mentioned, this year we're going to reach 300 stores. We have important units being built at this point in time; the store in Manaus, in Guaruja, the first Assai store in Guaruja and we should start with the construction of our first store in [indiscernible]. I want to highlight this because these are markets that are well known, everyone knows about the potential and these stores don't have a [indiscernible]. So if there's some fear when it comes to market saturation, there are still important cities and for this year we're keeping the level of 15 stores. We are already anticipating prospects for 2025. Up until now we don't have a decision yet about increasing the amount of stores for this year considering the lower level of leverage. But of course if you have a project come around and if you're able to get the licenses in stores especially when you consider the app, which is the measure we use for each of the new stores and units, it could be anticipated but maybe the beginning for this year, however, the opening would still be 2025. So we would be keeping up with the target for 500 units.

[Operator]

Now our last question here is a question in English from Andrew Ruben, Sell-Side at Morgan Stanley.

[Andrew Ruben, analyst]

I'm curious if you could help update us on the latest for the CapEx per new store. We understand this was fairly inflationary over the past couple of years, but I'm wondering if the inflation in opening CapEx has started to stabilize or come down. Any update there would be very helpful.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

Andrew, thanks for the question. Yes, we did have inflation in construction materials and equipment especially cement, steel and the metals, which is also very strong. In this year we've already seen a drop in this level, but it's still a level and of course this depends a lot on the type of products, right? So the unit in Guaruja, the stacking levels and you have a higher investment as well. And the ROIC is always a determining factor in this decision for the store openings. But today if you were to consider the average type of stores, we're considering a total investment of about BRL 70 million for the deployment of a new unit. So we've been operating stores that have a variety of sizes, it gives us a lot of flexibility. And our own expansion plan to operate different kinds of stores, stores with different levels. But on average, this would be it. And I hope I answered your question.

[Operator]

The Q&A session is ended. Now I want to pass the floor to the company for the final remarks.

[Belmiro de Gomes, executive]

And we've already presented an expectation for 2024. We want to thank you all for your participation. And all of the directors and team responsible for this work in the second quarter will continue. The company intends to keep up with this strategic aspect and evolution of the new store units and expansion. In the morning we also have an important event, which is the Annual General Meeting. We have some important topics when it comes to the future of the company. And I want to also thank the Board for all of the support. As I mentioned, Assai has been going through a transition process and so stopped being a subsidiary and we started to be a controller and then we really became a true corporation. And we noticed that the company continues to be stable, trying to meet the needs of our customers more and more and also working with our people and understanding our social role within society considering the challenges in Brazil with a lot of social inequality. And we hope to once again have your support in the second semester and support us in the general meeting that will happen tomorrow. Thank you all so much.

[Operator]

The earnings call for the first quarter of 2024 at Assai is officially ended. The Investor Relations department will be available to answer other questions. Thank you so much to all participants and have a great day.