Meliuz SA

BOVESPA:CASH3

Earnings Call Analysis

Méliuz Reports Surprising Growth and Stability

In Q4 '23, Méliuz showcased a successful strategic shift following substantial investments. A robust restructuring of costs and expenses, coupled with improved top-line operation and higher margins, yielded impressive results. The firm achieved a positive controlling EBITDA of BRL 15 million, surpassing the breakeven goal. Looking ahead, Méliuz is focused on sustainable growth, cash generation, and positive margins. Expectations include enhanced services representation and progress in partnerships, ads, and subscription offerings which are anticipated to flourish in the coming quarters.

Strategic Shift Towards Sustainability and Profitability

In the pursuit of demonstrating financial stability and the ability to generate cash independently, the company embarked on a strategic shift in 2023. This transition from a period of significant investment to a phase focusing on operational efficiency and margin optimization allowed Méliuz to present a convincing turnaround story. The most tangible outcome of this strategy was the reported adjusted EBITDA for the parent company, which reached BRL 15.7 million, surpassing the breakeven goal and indicating a robust positive swing against the previous year's negative BRL 93.8 million.

Remarkable Year-Over-Year Growth in EBITDA

The company celebrated a 190% growth in EBITDA, reaching BRL 22.5 million for Q4 '23, a stark contrast to the losses experienced in the same period last year. The annual figures echoed this success, showing a reversal from a loss of BRL 35.5 million to a positive EBITDA of BRL 46.9 million. These numbers were driven by growth in top line revenues and a diligent reduction in costs and expenses, with a notable decrease of BRL 33 million across 2023.

Profit Boost from Subsidiaries Promobit and Melhor Plano

The acquisitions of Promobit and Melhor Plano have started to yield substantial results for Méliuz. Over the span of two years, revenues increased by 70%, and EBITDA saw a striking 200% growth, showcasing the successful integration and performance of these subsidiaries within the company's portfolio.

Fiscal Year 2024: A Focus on Growth and Efficiency

Looking ahead to 2024, Méliuz has set a clear vision rooted in maintaining operational efficiency and exploring new avenues for growth. Central to this strategy is the growth of Shopping Brazil, alongside innovation in core businesses to drive recurring revenues. The company aims to sustain margins and a net take rate of 2%, underpinned by a robust, asset-light structure. These strategic pillars gather momentum particularly in ramping up financial services through partnerships, reinforcing the company’s ambition to progress sustainably.

Solid Cash Position and Shareholder Value Distribution

Méliuz concluded 2023 with a promising cash reserve of BRL 664 million. This financial foundation is partly attributable to the divestment of Bankly, which contributed to a substantial margin of cash. In a gesture of sharing the achieved success, the company has announced a capital reduction translating to a payout of BRL 2.41 per share to shareholders, which reflects confidence in the company’s liquidity and debt-free status.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Unknown Executive]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for one more earnings results webcast. We will now begin the earnings results webcast for the fourth quarter '23. Our conference call is being translated simultaneously in English. [Operator Instructions]

My name is Fernanda. I am part of the IR team. Joining me at this conference are Marcio Penna, Director of Investor Relations; Gabriel Loures, Growth Director; and Andre Amaral, Director of Strategy, Shopping and Data.

This event is being recorded, and we will post it on our IR site. The material that is being presented here already available at the Results Center and on the CVM portal. After the presentation, we will go on to the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I wish you all a good call.

Marcio, you have the floor.

[Marcio Penna, executive]

Thank you, Fernanda. Good day to all of you. It's very good to be here with you for the fourth quarter '23 and the full year consolidated. As you know, the year 2023 was a year for the adjustment of route. After moving away from a cycle with enormous investments, we needed to show the market that Méliuz was able to walk on its own feet, generate cash, go back to having a positive image to begin a new investment cycle.

And it's more than probable that the company is able to do this, thanks to all of Méliuz employees. We restructured the cost and expense part, a robust change. We spoke to our suppliers, and we also altered the top line of the operation, improving revenues, of course, optimizing our margins. And at the end, we had very surprising results above what we had planned.

Our goal for the year was to reach EBITDA, the controlling party at a breakeven position close to BRL 0, and we were able to get to BRL 15 million, which, of course, is highly positive, showing what we are able to do, and we're ready for the new challenges this year to grow, to grow sustainably, to continue to generate cash and maintain positive margins.

We would like to extend our thanks to all of the associates and employees at Méliuz that doubtlessly allowed this to happen. Well, this is only part of our path. There is a great deal to do. The year 2024 will be challenging with new challenges for growth and we have to base ourselves on this positive margin and operational results. Having said that, I would like to share the presentation.

You must already see the presentation on the screen. As I mentioned, we were able to deliver the main goal of the year was the adjusted EBITDA of the parent company was very positive for the fourth quarter, leveraged by the top line. Financial services and the shopping results were very good. We reached BRL 22.5 million for the EBITDA of the parent company, a growth of 190%, reversing the losses of the same period last year.

For 2022, we left from a negative BRL 93.8 million for the parent company and reached BRL 15.7 million positive this year. We insisted on putting the last 12 months with the close of the first, second and third quarter to avoid seasonality and to see the path that we have tread throughout the year.

This was something that we did step by step. As we always say, there is no silver bullet. We have to focus on the operation, decrease cost and expenses and, of course, focus on the top line. We have the adjusted net result as well. We delivered BRL 31 million this quarter for the fourth quarter compared to BRL 18.4 million of losses in the fourth quarter of 2022. You are aware that we have a robust cash position, financial revenues, and we were able to reach BRL 31 million in EBITDA in the parent company.

For the annual figures, things are similar. We reverted the loss that we had last year, BRL 35.5 million negative, reaching a positive EBITDA for the parent company of BRL 46.9 million. The main drivers for this success and reaching the breakeven of the company, without a doubt, was the top line, the margin of Shopping Brazil. Quarter-on-quarter, you can see that we're optimizing our margin with take rates that are above 2 percentage points.

In the fourth quarter of '22 and '23, we reached 59%, reaching BRL 105.3 million. Annually, we had a growth of 42% going from BRL 74 million in '22, reaching BRL 105 million in '23. Now less important, of course, we restructured costs and expenses throughout the year. It was a very difficult process. We had to review all suppliers. Many had to leave the company. This was carefully carried out work. We went from costs and expenses in the fourth quarter '22 of BRL 110 million, reaching BRL 87.2 (sic) [ 86.7 ] million in the fourth quarter of '23.

Seasonality, of course, we have the highest cashback for the year. In the annual vision, we -- from BRL 420 million of costs and expenses and reached BRL 337 million in the year 2023. As you can see, BRL 86.6 million were reduced this quarter. Throughout 2023, we reduced BRL 33 million in costs and expenses. We had 1 quarter of cost and expenses of our base.

Therefore, we begin 2024 with an asset-light base ready to face new scenarios, whether they are adverse or for growth as we expect. Another good news of the year is that after 2 years of Promobit and Melhor Plano, we began to achieve better results. In 2021, we had BRL 15.7 million, and we reached BRL 26.6 million this year, an increase of 70%.

It's not different with EBITDA. We began with BRL 1.8 million in 2021 to BRL 5.5 million in 2023, a growth of 200%. And in front is what we do at Méliuz. We acted on top line. We carried out several partnerships, ensured they were efficient. And of course, we worked with more efficiency in the top line, cutting costs and expenses that were not necessary.

And finally, when we speak about financial services, you will see that there was a significant enhancement of our figures, and this should persist throughout 2024. We concluded the bank lead divestment. We are now focusing on digital accounts and credit cards.

In the last quarter, we had 278,000 accounts. We reached 915,000 accrued at the end of the quarter. The percentage of these accounts to be very transparent or the migration of our own accounts, Méliuz to the partnership with BV, but the large majority here refers to credit cards of these 915,000. The absolute majority refers to new accounts.

We see the same in credit cards. In the third quarter, we had 20,000 cards. We now have an accrued number of 48,000 cards, a growth of 146%. Now if we stop speaking about 2023 and focus on the year 2024, our goal for this year is very clear, to maintain operational efficiency and optimize margin and net take rate of the business of 2% and quest for new growth avenues. Beginning in 2024, we want to grow and do so sustainably.

First of all, we will focus on the growth of Shopping Brazil, maintaining the margin and take rate above 2%, and we are going to see growth in the Shopping Brazil, innovation in core businesses, generating products that create recurrent revenues for Méliuz and of course, that will lead to incremental results for users and partners and ramp up of financial services in our partnership with BV after the divestment of bank, we have begun speaking a great deal of the operation.

We're ramping up the cards and the digital account. Now these 3 pillars will be sustained by operational efficiency, a highly robust structure that is asset light for costs and expenses, and this will be the foundation for the growth of the company going forward.

Some of the projects that we have already launched, and we're seeking to ensure they become more representative for Méliuz. We have Méliuz Ads with a very good performance. This quarter was, of course, very good because of the seasonality, because of Black Friday. These are advertising spaces. It presented a revenue that was 35% higher compared to 2022.

What is more important, we have received praise from our partners stating that this has made a difference for the users who can click on these spaces and carry out their purchase, conclude their purchase. Méliuz Prime does not have much representativity. We're concluding it. We believe it will grow significantly during 2024. This is an annual subscription that users can make with Méliuz and receive benefits of twofold cashback. For example, we have received feedback from our users, and we have enhanced this operation.

And doubtlessly, this will be on the growth. Most of the users that have subscribed to Méliuz Prime have done so annually and not by month, which, of course, is very positive. So besides the recurring revenues, what is important for Méliuz is to show the user that they come buy from other stores that they had not imagined and have recurrent revenues to use the app recurrently, and carry out purchases in stores that they're not used to buying from.

Once again, the pillar for all of this to happen, our improvements and optimization. Our app is always praised, the users like it, but it never comes to an end. This is continuous work that is under development. We're always attentive to the market to enhancements, and we receive the feedback of users to improve that contact that we have generated through our platform.

In our partnership with BV, I underscore that in the last year, many things happened within this financial ecosystem. We began 2023, carrying out an agreement with BV, the sale of Bankly, a sale of our shares and also partnership for some of our products. So we focused on the red tape, the contract.

In the second half of the year, we decided to put the app to work, the banking infrastructure that underlies the app belongs to BV and the presentation in the app is very user-friendly. It is created by Méliuz. We were able to do this in the second half of the year. And there is a third stage, which was the consolidation of the divestment of Bankly. That happened at the end of last year, and that enables us to focus on the operation.

I can say that we are at a point in time where we have the best phase of our partnership with BV. We're both attempting to see how this operation works, the new accounts and the credit card. And we're planning the creation of new products.

We have another product under development. We have the comfort, the yields of the money you keep. And between the second and third quarters, we should be able to launch these new products that will doubtlessly bring us more users and make sure that the app is used more recurrently. We are in a very good phase, but this is merely the beginning. There is still a great deal to leverage. We expect a great deal from this partnership with BV, and we're optimistic that we will have growth in 2024.

In terms of Picodi, the international shopping, although the representativity of the cashback operation has grown, which was our goal, if we see the revenue, 50% comes from cashback, which is very positive. Notwithstanding this, we had some challenges this year in terms of organic traffic.

The year 2024 will be highly challenging for Shopping International. We have to put Picodi at the very top of the selection when you're carrying out a survey. And it will be a year where we have to continue on with the growth of the cashback operations that has a good evolution, but have the organic traffic that we had expected previously.

We're quite confident with this operation. And we know that in a few years, Picodi will become a new Méliuz in some of the countries of Europe. Notwithstanding this, we do have some path to tread. We're being transparent. We have informed the market about this, and we know that these are challenges that are part of our competency of Méliuz here in Brazil.

Finally, throughout the last quarters, we have spoken to analysts and investors about capital allocation. We announced the divestment of Bankly. We spoke about the capital reduction on the net amount received, and this is what has been done. We have had a good cash generation because of the divestment of Bankly. This amount has been used for a reduction of cost expenses and legal consultancy, and we are returning this to our shareholders as well.

We end the year 2023 with a cash of BRL 664 million. We have the BRL 210 million forseen as divestment, and this is not the only divestment foreseen this year. We have something that has been explained in our release, another divestment that will fall in the first half of the year. We hope that our capital will stand finally at BRL 454 million.

On March 31, the legal period of 60 days and for those who desire this money, we believe that this will not happen. Our company has no debt. On April 1, the shareholders who have shares from Méliuz will be entitled to this capital reduction. On April 2, the ex rights of the capital reduction will materialize minus the BRL 2.41. And on April 11, the payment date will be of BRL 2.41 per share to our shareholders.

With this, I would like to end the presentation, and we can proceed to the question-and-answer session.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Marcio. We will now go on to the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a first question, we have Ricardo from BTG.

[Ricardo Buchpiguel, analyst]

I have 3 questions at my end. First of all, if you could compare the number of active buyers of Shopping Brazil before the pandemic and how it stands presently in terms of those figures and in terms of purchases per year, if there has been a change with this -- the pandemic enabled a leap that is not recurrent. But if you could compare your figures with what happened before the pandemic. In your partnership with BV, what can we expect in terms of pace of origination of credit cards in other quarters with a base being the fourth quarter? And of course, you will take away the older accounts. And what can we expect in terms of net take rate comparing 2024 and 2023, considering not only your core business, but also those novel products? Is there room for expansion and how relevant will it be?

[Marcio Penna, executive]

Thank you, Ricardo. I will begin here, Andre, and please feel free to add to the answer. Recurring users before the pandemic, if you look at our data that we have in our reference form on average in Brazil, a user will carry out 4 purchases a year. A Méliuz buyer would by 7.4, 7.5x a year. This has been updated in the reference form of 2022, and we do not observe significant changes. We will be publishing this information for 2023. We still do not have the data. We see in-house is that there haven't been significant changes in this.

I won't mention a figure, but that is my expectation. Regarding the net take rate, the forecast for the company is that we will continue to grow. We're seeking growth, but we will maintain the margin optimization. Those 2% or more of the net take rate is what we expect throughout 2024 as a whole. Our quest for growth has a fundamental pillar that is the following, growth since day 0 has to come with a positive EBITDA.

We do not want to make investments that demand a great deal of cash and that will lead to losses further ahead. We want to make sure not to corrode the main activity of Méliuz and operations that do not require enormous investments since day 0. In the core business, the net take rate expected despite seasonality for 2024 will be above those 2%. Regarding financial services, yes, I will refer to these the entire fourth quarter.

[Andre Ribeiro, executive]

And thank you for the question, Ricardo -- was a quarter for the ramp-up of our operation, we have 4 chapters in our partnership with BV. The first, as Marcio mentioned, in the results presentation, consisted in the closing of the agreement of the fair stake of BV and Méliuz shares, I remind you that everything was being done through Bankly and underlining this, the financial institution took over the payment. We also had work that was not easy, which was to migrate everything we have for those payments to the BV Bank.

This was concluded in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, we began with new accounts that had been open. We did this in phases as was mentioned in the release, along with BV. And in the second half of the year, we carried out the necessary developments. For some time, we operated with access. We opened up cards and account, and all of this took place in the second half of last year, [ for those ] to prepare a product not only to open up new accounts and cards in BV, but also using our legacy systems and cards, transferring everything to BV. And all of this went through banking as a service.

Now once this was concluded and there's still, of course, some decisions that should be made, but these are marginal. We are now in the stage of scaling up the opening of digital accounts and credit cards. Now we have had significant speed to guarantee the opening of accounts. We resolved all of the problems. We used the user experience all the way from the opening of the account until the phase of customer servicing. And we did this at cruise speed, and we truly did scale up the pace of the opening of accounts.

We went through the integration with BV. We're now scaling up this integration. And beginning in the second half, we are developing the new products, the products to make the credit card more profitable, the insurance and the remunerated account, and this will enable us to ever more add products and services for the users and monetize the partnership for Méliuz and BV.

A long story, summarized, but we were on the phase of scaling up this pace, and we're still moving towards reaching that cruising speed that has not been totally fulfilled.

[Ricardo Buchpiguel, analyst]

That was very clear. Now if you allow me a follow-up, you spoke a great deal about this moment of speeding up growth. If you could comment on which are the actions that fall under your control to enhance GMV. This is, of course, an exogenous factor. It depends on the performance of e-commerce, but what would you be able to do with this?

[Andre Ribeiro, executive]

To speak about the shopping and GMV, as you mentioned, of course, there are outside factors that we do not control in Brazilian trade. But in-house in the company, what I can anticipate and Marcio can complement this, something that we never stop doing were the optimizations in our products. We have a team that is focused on this in-house. We also have several initiatives that go through development, communication, the commercial part that negotiates better launches.

And I think that all of this allows us, and this is one of our competitive edges. This is something we have learned in the 12 years of the company of how to enhance our relationship with users, how to enhance the product. It's not only about creating partnerships with stores, we have to optimize the condition, see which is the best cashback we give to users, which are the best communications to send to users.

And this is something that we do permanently. We have an entire structure and entire team responsible for this and even in adverse events, which was 2023 for the Brazilian e-commerce, we were able to see this slowdown of those sector in Brazil despite the scenario side by side with our partners, we enable them to navigate through this adverse macroeconomic scenario, and we created campaigns to acquire users and campaigns to optimize their life.

So it goes through product, engineering, the commercial part looking and this partnership with our partners for optimization. This guarantees better conversions, better conditions and, of course, of the accessory additional things.

I mentioned 2 products that Marcio mentioned. Méliuz Prime is a new tool. It was launched last year. It guarantees a better retention of users. It guarantees to the users more engagement in the system, and Méliuz Ads has generated a great deal of value for our users. We have spaces because of the costs that enable us to foster communication, enable us to further develop Méliuz Ads, but we also have a good margin in the operation.

And the partners have detected ever-growing value in this, they see the results that it generated. They are our partners. We work jointly in campaigns. And of course, this is a virtuous cycle. And this will enable us to continue to grow without putting aside at least 2% in net tax rate, even though the macro scenario may be challenging.

[Unknown Executive]

The next question is from William from Itau.

[Unknown Analyst]

Marcio, Andre, congratulations for your results. I have a question thinking about the future, about that new cycle of growth that you have mentioned here. I believe that the work of 2023 was very well done, and you now can speed up once again now to be able to do this. I would like to understand how your investment will be made in this new cycle, if you're going to use part of your cash or the totality of the cash left over from the divestment of Bankly, if the investments will be made in new products in an organic way or if you're thinking about M&A? It's difficult to answer this, but do you believe you will have some cash leftover to pay out to shareholders after your investment cycle in 2024?

[Marcio Penna, executive]

Thank you, William. Thank you for being here. And let's go, our growth for this year, of course, is based on organic growth. We spoke about Shopping Brazil, about bringing in new products and enhancing our cashback operations further. And of course, the financial services through our partnership with BV. I'm sure you have noticed that we have a robust cash position. A percentage of this cash will be withdrawn because of the capital reduction. It's not the only reduction, we have the acquisition of Picodi for 2025. This is an expense that do not take place in the short term but will, of course, be happening at a given moment.

Despite all of this, it is evident that we will have a surplus of cash that will enable us to run the operation quite calmly. The company has always surveyed new verticals of growth, something that has a synergy with what we do and to do this inorganically. We have always taken this stand.

We carry out surveys. At present, there is nothing that we would like to disclose to the market. There is a disclosure. There are material effects. Of course, company continues their services or surveys to see if there's something that would have synergy with our operation on the online or off-line universe.

And as mentioned in the operation, something that from day 0 will already increase our EBITDA. Now these surveys will be ongoing and of course, as soon as we have something more sound, we will disclose this to the market. And eventually, the company, if there is nothing in that direction, if there is a cash surplus and if it becomes necessary to reduce capital or repurchase shares or pay out dividends in the future, it's too early to refer to this.

There's nothing being discussed within the company referring to this. And if there is no inorganic acquisition, this will be debated at the end of the year, and we will update the market.

[Unknown Executive]

The next question comes from Leandro from UBS.

[Unknown Analyst]

Marcio, Andre, Fernanda, congratulations for your results. My question is about Méliuz Ads. You referred to the growth of 35% for the year. In our coverage, we have other players who refer to the penetration of that revenue in total GMV. I know you're still at the incipient phase of Méliuz Ads. If you could give us an idea of the penetration of Méliuz Ads in GMV, how far can it reach?

And second question, still about Méliuz Ads, which is the business EBITDA margin and if it is critical for the consolidated margins. That is all from our end.

[Marcio Penna, executive]

Thank you, Leandro, for the question. Well, unfortunately, I knew this question would come up, but the company still does not disclose this information. What I can say is that the revenues of Méliuz Ads have gained representativity within the revenue of Méliuz. Between '22 and '23, Méliuz Ads revenues grew 35%, but it still is not very representative without the entire ecosystem even within the Shopping Brazil ecosystem, and there is room for it to grow in the following quarters and years.

Now this idea of penetration and margin is not something that we disclose. Unfortunately, not yet. But as we're dealing with a product that is a state within our app, you can consider that we have a price for the developers, the margin, everything has to be posted, but the margins are very good as any publication, anything with ads and payments do generate high margins.

What is more important and that is to underscore how our partners look upon this. It has been growing in the Méliuz ecosystem because the partners have noticed that a click on that advertising campaign that we hold has generated a return for them, users are clicking on this, and there has been a return.

So we're not only thinking about margins and revenues, we're also thinking about benefits for the users as well as for partners. And doubtlessly, this will enhance representativity in the coming quarters and years. I do apologize for not being able to share more information.

[Unknown Analyst]

That's very good, Marcio, and we will witness the evolution of Méliuz Ads.

[Unknown Executive]

The next question is from Alexandre from Morgan Stanley.

[Unknown Analyst]

Marcio, you spoke about this and I think you have put your house in order in terms of profitability. And now you're focusing on speeding up the growth, growth of margins. But you also mentioned that you would not be willing to put aside the net take rate, at least not in this point of time. In this desire for speeding up, how much is the e-commerce involved in this and which is the appetite of companies to begin to invest more in marketing tools, especially through Méliuz and other players?

[Andre Ribeiro, executive]

I can take that question, Marcio. As you mentioned, Alexandre, a basic assumption is to maintain the net take rate for the critical conditions of cashback. This will be maintained. Now what we cannot put aside are the results that we begin to see in the fourth quarter and the full year 2023. There are some qualitative visions here that we have been able to follow up on the fact that our base of partners continues to be very robust. We have been remarking on this since the IPO. It is a framework for us.

Our partners foresee value in Méliuz, and we continue on with that base of partners as well as the growth of this base and an increase in investment through time. Of course, there are seasons of market campaigns and macroeconomics as a whole, and we have faced several different periods in the last 3 years. But when we follow up on the campaigns that we hold, most of them are practically sold out, literally sold out, especially the -- what we call special campaigns, and this shows a special appetite of our partners, not only appetite, but they work with us recurrently.

And this is a show that we are generating results for them besides the organic growth, what we have already remarked for some time already and that we would like to reinforce is the size of the Méliuz ecosystem where everything converses. We have the digital accounts. We're almost at 1 million accounts, but we're referring to a universe of more than 30 million users at Méliuz.

We have a highly heterogeneous base that we can explore with highly diverse products. We have financial services, digital account parts, and this suggests something that is highly promising and helps us to generate results in the shopping, and there's a feedback here. And all of this leads to organic growth.

Of course, besides that cashback, we also hold campaigns and strategies for acquisition. We already have a robust base for digital accounts or users at the Brazil shopping, but we continue to work with organic acquisition strategies for new users.

And in our balance, although this is not expressive, it used to be higher. We're focused on the immediate profitability of the investments paid out and the expenses for marketing show this. We're extremely aware, guaranteeing that there will be a rapid payback on this. That line item will not explode during 2024, but it's something that we have reiterated throughout the years, and it is important to reinforce there.

There is no silver bullet. We're optimizing our actions, and we're selling all of this to our partners. And there is a pillar of paid marketing, which is not our main pillar. But of course, it is important. Each channel, each user acquisition has to guarantee its profitability, the shopping generating higher profitability for our financial services and vice versa.

[Unknown Analyst]

Very good. That was very clear. If you allow me a follow-up, I found your comments very interesting when you referred to the campaigns that you launched that they are rapidly sold out. When we look at GMV trends, in the fourth quarter, the drop of GMV Brazil, if we look at Méliuz and Promobit, the drop year-on-year was somewhat worse than in the third quarter, and the base of comparison in the fourth quarter was relatively weaker than in the third quarter.

I simply wanted to understand if you have some internal measurements of share of wallet of the users where they use Méliuz vis-a-vis other players, their peers in the market when it comes to the cashback policy. And well, my question. Besides that base of comparison, besides that drop year-on-year in GMV, when we look at these changes year-on-year and compare the spread with what NeoTrust reports, which I think is the best measure to look at the Méliuz market, there still seems to be a significant spread here. So I would like to understand your mindset on that dynamic on the part of the consumer and on the part of your clients, the retailers, which seem to be in a healthy situation.

[Andre Ribeiro, executive]

Of course, we follow up on the cohorts of active users and new users to observe retention and spread. These are not Google data, and what we can say is that we have not observed a change in the behavior of the users in our base. We have not perceived eventual significant changes. But of course, there is an outside impact. Despite the fact that the fourth quarter of 2022 had a slowdown, in our follow-up, we saw that the fourth quarter of '23 in the market as a whole also mirrored this slowdown without an impact on it, as you can see in our figures. Marcio, if you want to add to this...

[Marcio Penna, executive]

I would quickly like to add that we carry out this follow-up, and we have to be very careful with NeoTrust. It's an excellent hypothesis, but the figure also includes MercadoLibre, which is not one of our partners. Our managerial model is analyzed with each partner, and it's difficult for the market to follow up on this as a whole. Now the Black Friday period in 2023, were somewhat worse than the Black Friday period in [ 2022, ] but we did see a reaction from the market in 2024, at the beginning of the year, we have that perception of an improvement. We do follow up on our competitors, on our partners. And what is important here, market share and other points are not a reason of concern.

We're not losing our users to competitors. And if you allow me to add something, MercadoLibre recently became a partner, but they don't explore the cashback tool, but they have become a player that uses broadened market mechanism as a whole, but they're not exploring the full potential of the cashback tool. And we are holding conversations with them and with all of the players in the Promobit sector.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Alexandre. At this point, we would like to end the question-and-answer session. I will turn the floor to Marcio for the company's closing remarks.

[Marcio Penna, executive]

Thank you, Fernanda. Once again, I would like to thank all of you for your attendance. And to give you some news. Promobit, one of our acquired companies that had the founder working as a CEO, is undergoing a transition and the new CEO is an employee from Méliuz.

Our partner, Danny Fagundes, who has been with us since 2016. She is a wonderful person and the first female CEO in the CASH3 group. I'm convinced she will perform extremely well as Promobit as we have other women in Méliuz Plano with significant growth. Not less important, Danny was promoted as CEO of Promobit at 8 months of pregnancy. This is something I wanted to share with the market.

Besides this, I would once again like to thank you for your attendance, and we know that the coming quarters will be full of challenges with the challenge of growing and maintaining our profitability. We are at your entire disposal, should you have more questions. With this, the earnings result for the fourth quarter '23 end.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]