Atacadao SA

BOVESPA:CRFB3

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Carrefour Brasil Group's Q2 2022 Earnings Conference. From the Carrefour Brasil Group's team, with us today, we have CEO, Stephane Maquaire; CFO, David Murciano; Investor Relations Director, Natália Lacava.

We'd like to inform you that this conference is being recorded and will be available at the company's IR website, where the respective presentation is also available. [Operator Instructions]

We'd like to underscore that the information contained in this presentation and any statement made during this conference relative to the Carrefour Brasil Group's business prospects, projections and operating and financial targets are based on management's beliefs and assumptions as well as currently available information.

Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, seeing as they refer to future events and therefore, rely on circumstances that may or may not materialize. Investors must understand that general economic conditions, the state of the market and other operating factors may affect the Carrefour Brasil Group's future earnings and lead to significantly different results than those expressed in such statements.

Now I'd like to turn the conference to CEO, Stephane Maquaire, who will begin the presentation. Mr. Stephane Maquaire, please, you may proceed.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being with us once again as we release our Q2 2022 earnings. I'm very happy to be with you again and even more so to talk about the results of this quarter, which was a very successful one. The last few months were very dynamic as we concluded our acquisition of the BIG Group and started its integration. And despite all the challenges we've had during this period with our times, our teams continue to work quickly, responsibly and with sharp customer focus. And we were able to deliver surprising results. We concluded an agile -- we built an agile organization and a very responsive one and will continue to work toward our next achievements, whether an integration, digitalization or expansion. Our revenue came to over BRL 26 billion this quarter, over 35% growth. Our EBITDA also grew by 25%. We started integrating BIG and continued our plan to open new stores organically. Now counting 8 new stores under the Atacadão brand so far this year. We also had a 120 basis point increase in market share during this quarter, even not considering BIG, which shows how significant our business is for consumers, especially at this time of high inflation and compromised purchasing power.

On the digitalization front, our overall GMV this quarter came to BRL 1.5 billion, [ twice ] that of Q2 2021. In Atacadão, our GMV came to BRL 1 billion in the first half of the year, and because of the success of our digital channel under this business unit, we are already working on a new app and a more user-friendly website, which should be launched soon. Our in-store picking initiative in retail is already showing 43% penetration in online food sales, which shows great acceptance from the public. Our bank also recorded over 100% growth in acquisition via digital and compared to the first quarter of the year, the channel showed a penetration of 36% back to its old standards. With regard to our responsibility as a company, yesterday, we launched our Annual Sustainability Report, listing all our accomplishments on this front throughout 2021. I'd like to invite all of you to check out the document, which is available on our IR website.

Atacadão was the first business unit within the group to receive the ISO 37001 certification for anti-bribery management. Since 2019, we have robust processes in place to prevent and detect both public and private corruption, and this international corruption attests to the quality of our anticorruption practices. We were also the first national retailer to receive the Good Farm Animal Award, which also attests to our good practices on the animal welfare front. With regard to diversity, I'd like to point out the graduation of our first black entrepreneurs class graduation, who will now be going for funding in the market. After 6 months of training, a few of these entrepreneurs have already received investors from both local and foreign investors. Once again, I'm very proud to be leading such an engaged and enthusiastic team about everything that we will build going into the future. One of the greatest events this quarter was the conclusion of our acquisition of the BIG Group in June. We began the integration and going full steam ahead and focused on conversions and the quick realization of synergies, and we've already made headway on several fronts. On Day 1, we announced a new leadership structure and adjusted the headquarter structure. And with that, we had the first wave of negotiations for direct purchases and indirect purchases. We've already concluded several of our negotiations. On the conversions front, we began the first batch of store conversions, which is expected to be concluded by mid-November, early December. This first batch, we are concluding the demobilization of our stores with 13 of them being converted to Atacadão and 3 to Carrefour. The second batch of conversions is expected to take place by early September.

As you can see, we are sharply focused on this integration so that it takes place quickly and responsibly. And as a leader in food retail in Brazil, we are now even better positioned to offer our customers the best offerings and generate even more value to our shareholders.

With that, I will now turn the conference over to David, who will go into our financials.

[David Murciano, executive]

Thank you, Stephane. Good morning, everyone. Seeing as you've already had the opportunity to look at our results, looking at the release we put out yesterday, I will just briefly go over the figures for the quarter. Bearing in mind that the final results begin with the results for the BIG Group in the month of June.

I will start on Slide 6, talking about our sales performance in Q2. Our gross sales came to BRL 26.5 billion, growing by upwards of 35% compared to last year. Our LFL growth was a highlight in both business units where we had 2-digit growth with positive food sales volumes. In Atacadão, we grew by a strong 22.4%, and in retail, by 10.5%, with a highlight to food sales, which grew by 17.1%, and I'll be talking more about that later. If we look at our LFL growth in the last 4 years, we had an overall growth by over 50%, which is very remarkable. According to Nielsen, we've gained 120 basis points of market share in the quarter, even without the BIG Group, which underscores our solid models.

On Slide 7, we see the result of a better trade trend during the quarter, which allowed for better prices for Brazilian consumers, both in Atacadão and in retail, with which have pressured our gross margin in Y-o-Y terms, but also significantly diluted our SG&A costs.

With that on Slide 8, we see our record EBITDA in the second quarter, which was by BRL 1.7 billion. And importantly, here all business units provided a positive contribution to our EBITDA with nominal increases in Atacadão retail and banking.

Moving on to Slide 9, we see that our net profit -- our adjusted net profit grew by 1.3%, despite the higher leverage, which makes us really happy. Our operating cash generation for the last 12 months is still strong. Our free cash flow -- our operational free cash flow came to BRL 6.1 billion, growing even in spite of a strong basis for comparison. And our free cash flow came to BRL 3.7 billion as a result of the investments we've made in our expansion, which shows the strength of Brazil's greatest retailer.

On Slide 10, we see the effects of having paid in full for our acquisition of the BIG Group. On the left-hand side of the slide, the chart shows our net indebtedness level before the invoice discounting, which made it possible to have this comparison following the same criteria as other players in this market. On the right-hand side, including our invoice discounting and leasing according to the standard adopted by all rating agencies, as expected, we peaked during this quarter. But we'd like to underscore our prospect of ending the year at no more than 2x our adjusted EBITDA.

Now I'd like to talk a little bit about the quarterly results by business units, starting with the Atacadão on Slide 12. We continue to keep a strong pace of expansion, introducing improvements to our business model. Our expansion contributed with 6.8% -- with a 6.8% increase in the quarter, and we are now operating 258 stores and 33 wholesale delivery centers. We've opened 6 stores during this quarter with 8 stores by June, and our digital operation is still growing, being present in 125 stores and 33 wholesale delivery centers. On the digital channel, already enjoys a 3.4% participation rate in Atacadão sales. And our B2B sales, it accounts for 5.1%, which shows how quickly this channel has developed. We also have new improvements for our business model to enhance our customer experience without losing focus of our costs. We're introducing Wi-Fi into our stores. We currently have Wi-Fi available in 68% of our stores, and by the end of the year, we expect it to be available at 100%. We've also launched a banner printing system, which, in addition to lowering costs, allows for greater standardization and also a new checkout model that will allow us to better use the space and to better weigh our fruits and vegetables.

Moving on to Slide 13. Atacadão's gross sales in the second quarter came to BRL 18 billion, and our LFL came to a remarkable 22.4% growth with positive volumes. This performance was positively affected by Atacadão's anniversary in April, but it is also the result of our great scaling power and the ability we have to always offer the best price to customers.

In closing, our comments about Atacadão on Slide 14. Gross margin and EBITDA margin show our focus in promoting more accessible -- providing more accessible food to our customers. We've led to a more dynamic sales trend and the maturity of our stores. As a result, our gross margin in the quarter was 14.1%, an 80 basis point pressure versus Q2 2021. The high volumes combined with our operating efficiency allowed us to dilute our SG&A costs, which as a share of sales accounted for a 50 basis point decrease year-over-year. If we look at the chart on the right, we see that the ramp-up for new stores opened starting in 2020 remains strong. At the same time that our mature stores opened by 2019 continue to operate within the regular levels for the model. Once again, that attests to our expertise and good execution capacity.

Now on Slide 16, let me talk about retail. Our results for this business unit reflect our sharp focus on providing a better experience to customers and helping them face this current environment of such high inflation. We've seen a few changes in consumer behavior because of the challenging macroeconomic environment we are facing. We've seen more frequent customers with a lower average ticket and lower or fewer items per basket. Our unique products, which are appropriate for consuming, but are outside of a cosmetic standard, increased by 82% in sales, and our white label products continued to show great penetration coming to 20% this quarter, which reinforces how important our strategy to offer a wider assortment and different levels of quality to customers, especially during these tough times. Our in-store picking initiative is already available at 100% of our stores in retail with 43% penetration in online food sales during this quarter, which shows how important this initiative is to bring better prices and a better assortment at a shorter delivery time.

Moving on to Slide 17. Our performance -- our overall sales performance in retail was excellent, especially on the food side, where we had positive volumes. Overall sales grew by 15.2%, and like-for-like sales during this quarter came to 10.5% with food like-for-like sales of 17.1% and nonfood flat in year-over-year terms, but the growing bigger over the previous period. This category shows that in bazar and textile, once again, we had positive like-for-like sales, but electronics are still pressured with an LFL of under 7.4%. About this slide, I would also like to point out the impact of the competitive environment on hypermarket sales. The chart in the center of the slide shows that the gap between stores impacted, and those who were not impacted by the competitive environment is small. If we talk only about the Food segment, LFL during this quarter for those stores were impacted was only 160 basis points higher than those that weren't impacted, which is to say, performance was strong in all hypermarkets, whether or not they were impacted by the closure of competing stores, which shows how important the hyper model is for customers.

In Slide 18, we see that retail results reflect the combination of lower gross margin and a leaner structure. Our SG&A as a share sales has been decreasing year-by-year, and in 2022, came to similar levels to those during the peak of the pandemic. Our gross margin also reduced over the years because of our strategy to provide better prices to customers. Lastly, this better combination of gross margin and SG&A led to an EBITDA margin of 5.8% this quarter.

In Slide 8, we see that the digital channel is still growing, especially because of the food side. Our overall GMV grew twofold to BRL 1.5 billion this quarter. Food GMV grew by over threefold -- grew over threefold with a highlight to the digital channel in Atacadão, which grew by 7.7x and the 1P channel for our 2 units, which combined grew 4.1x. The digital Atacadão channel, which already accounts for 3.4% of overall sales, in retail accounts for 5.7% of sales -- of overall food sales, and we continue to evolve to bring even more convenience to customers.

Moving on to bank, the Carrefour Bank on Slide 22, we see that our bank continued to grow at a strong pace, up 9.4% year-over-year. The office and cross-sell channels continued to show solid results. And I'd like to point out, as Stephane mentioned early on that our acquisition via digital channels has picked up and grew by 100% versus the previous quarter. And also, the Atacadão payment machine, which saw an increase in TPV by 38% versus the first quarter. Once again, our bank is showing its full potential.

In Slide 23, we see that -- we see how the knowledge or customer awareness is a differentiating factor and has allowed us a more accurate and fast improvement in delinquency. Our revenue from mediation grew by 20% over the quarter with an operating efficiency index improving by 4.8 points year-over-year. As you all know, our initiatives since December last year to prevent a delinquency crisis led to Over 30 and Over 90 levels within the expected. Our Over 30 was essentially steady compared to the same quarter of last year and the Over 90 rate peaked naturally because of the maturity of the Over 30 rate for March. Our expectation for the next few quarters is for both Over 30 and Over 90 rates to go back to normal. And we reassert that in 2022, we will return to the strong levels we had in 2019.

In Slide 24, our EBITDA growth by 20 -- 17.1% in our bank attest to our expertise in balancing risks and returns. Our net profit increased by 20.8%, boosted by our tech efficiency.

And with that, I'd like to conclude the financials and turn the conference back to Stephane.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you, David. In conclusion, I'd like to say that we've made significant headway in all our activities during the first half of the year, seeing continued improvement in the second quarter. Despite the current economic scenario with inflation and social challenges, we are confident that in the second half of 2022, the initiatives we've introduced over the past few months will continue to generate a positive effect throughout the year. In addition to that, we are steadfast and energized in the process of integrating the BIG Group also with significant improvements in terms of growth for the activities of this group in the month of June and early July.

The organization, which had been ready since day 1, is doing really well. And we already have -- we've already launched the first batch of store conversions and are already seeing some synergies be realized. Consistently with courage and motivation from everyone, we will continue on this assertive path of deliveries and positive initiatives for all our customers, our partners, our stakeholders and Brazilian society at large.

Thank you very much. And let's now move on to the Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Luiz Felipe, sell-side analyst with BTG Pactual.

[Luiz Guanais, analyst]

Stephane and David, my first question is precisely about your last point about the integration of the BIG Group. If you could give us a little more color of what we can expect in terms of the structure for BIG. You've opened up the figures for both the full year and for June, showing the development since last year. So if you could talk about what we should expect of this development in the next few quarters that would be great.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

So the first few months or months where we are starting our journey to introduce and realize synergies. So we are seeing a lot of one-offs, many sporadic effects. So we cannot jump to conclusions or develop any forecast for the future. So we still have to wait and look at margins for BIG. And I can already say that what we communicated about a month ago in terms of the synergies with BIG, focus is exactly on the same purposes as right now. So nothing has changed. We are moving on steadily with good results, but we reinforce every [indiscernible] margins between -- the model is adopted by BIG, Atacadão and Maxxi standards. So as an integration process, as we've already mentioned, that should be considered.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Felipe Cassimiro, sell-side analyst with HSBC.

[Felipe Cassimiro de Freitas, analyst]

First of all, I'd like to hear a little bit about the Sam's Club performance, which was lower than the rest of the company. Could you please talk a little bit more about what happened there? Is it because of the comparison basis? And second, with regard to food retail -- to nonfood retail, especially electronics, is there any action plan that you could share for the second half of the year? Any strategies for the World Cup or Black Friday? And what are the -- what does the inventory looks like for this period?

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you so much for your questions, Felipe. Now with regard to Sam's Club -- before addressing Sam's Club specifically, I think it's important to say that in a company that's about to be acquired, it's natural that in its last few months, we see a slightly weaker performance than in previous years. So as integration comes -- approaches, the results start to change. So as I said, we are very much engaged in doing everything that we need in the next few months. Now specifically about Sam's Club, Sam's Club had more impacts from the pandemic and the global crisis and imports, for example. This is a business unit that relies a lot more heavily on imports. So there were significant snags in terms of supply. We had operational challenges such as the situation between Ukraine and Russia, which had a number of impacts as with the pandemic where the -- a lot of borders were closed and establishments were shut down. So now we expect Sam's Club to perform a little bit better. Our forecast for July have already been provided, and we expect that to -- we expect Sam's Club to perform more similarly to our other business units. So that's it for Sam's Club.

Now with regard to nonfood retail sales, especially in hypermarkets, what we're seeing is continued improvement month by month. So in that sense, whether in textile or in bazar, we -- I think we talked about our organization in May, which was when we changed the entire organization for domestic products, both purchases and sales. We have a new Director that's taken over this side of the business and also a greater share of digital in the store sales. That was a very -- we saw a much lower performance in the previous months. So we are recovering really well on this side, despite the more challenging environment. Obviously, we are also preparing for the World Cup and also for Black Friday so we can seize the opportunity and recover something that was very much lower last year than in previous year. So we see huge opportunities here. So we are planning our commercial operations for Black Friday and the World Cup. That's something our new team is already working on.

Yes. Felipe asked about the situation of our inventories. Well, our inventories are doing well. We have no inventory issue at this moment. Everything seems in line with the expected. No problem there.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Thiago Macruz, sell-side analyst with Itaú BBA.

[Thiago Macruz, analyst]

So I wanted to talk to you about the trade dynamics. I think a lot has changed both on your end with changes in prices, which were ultimately positive. I would like to understand whether that trend is something that we can expect to continue for the next few quarters or next year? Or should we think about this as something that was one-off for Q3 because of the acquisition that you guys had this year and not last -- but not last year. If you guys could talk a little bit more about that, that would be great.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you for your question, Thiago. Yes, our commercial dynamics was very strong, especially with Atacadão. Now what we can say is, obviously, the Atacadão anniversary in April have initiatives that proved very successful, but we also grew very much in May and June as well. So I can't say, we will stay on the same trend as the anniversary month, but our prospects considering May and June are very positive. So with that, I think we can say that the trend for the next few months is looking promising, and also, we'll have a second half of the year with more electronics and also other initiatives that are very strong, but we can't forget that April was a very specific month.

[Operator]

Our next question comes...

[David Murciano, executive]

Just one thing, Thiago. I just wanted to add to what Stephane said. What we saw in Q2 is part of Atacadão's model. So when we have this capacity and the Carrefour Brasil Group with its balance and its financial capacity, if there's any time when we can provide support and have a stronger initiative, that's what we will do. We have the ability to do that and that's what we'll continue to do. That's part of the model. As we said before, often the Atacadão, the Cash & Carry model is the topline model. So we will continue to invest whenever we have the financial ability to do so. In the first quarter, we had the opportunity to make opportune purchases, which also helped us have better results, and in Q3, we reverted the strategy to taking higher risk. So it's important to remember that and to say that, that's what we'll continue to do. Whenever the opportunity comes, we will do it again.

[Thiago Macruz, analyst]

That was great. Now that you continue in your answer, I'd like to ask if -- whether it's feasible to assume that this attitude is creating challenges for your smaller vendors. Are you already seeing signs of some of them struggling to grow? Or is it too early to state anything like that?

[David Murciano, executive]

Well, I do not want to comment on our competition, whether big or small, because we are gaining market share. We have 120 basis points of market share growth. So obviously, if our market share is growing, some of our competitors are suffering. And we do not have the breakdown for the areas where our market share grew, but whenever we're gaining market share, someone else is hurting, obviously.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Joseph Giordano, sell-side analyst with JPMorgan.

[Joseph Giordano, analyst]

Stephane and David, I have 2 questions for you guys. One of them is on the Cash & Carry side. So now that you had such a strong result, how do you see the trend moving forward, especially in July? And also your change in strategy with the distribution wholesale centers, so what would be the opportunity within the BIG Group today? And how much has this helped to increase your returns with Atacadão? Now my second question has to do with the tax side of the company. We're seeing -- many customers seeing subsidies for basic staples. I wanted to hear from you, what's your stance on that discussion because it's something that could really help the companies in its results.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you, Joseph, for your questions. I'll let the second one to David. Now with regard to what we expect for July, it's actually in line with what we've expected in the previous quarters. We are very well positioned for the month of July across all our activities with a few improvements in the BIG Group. Now what we can say about Cash & Carry, especially with Atacadão, we will seize the synergies with the Maxxi Group within the Atacadão organization, especially in the Cash & Carry stores. We will convert a few distribution centers from the Maxxi label as new wholesalers, especially in Q3. So we're seeing this integration in Cash & Carry as a formidable way to grow in Cash & Carry stores with Atacadão., but also in wholesale, we should also see growth by converting our distribution centers to Atacadão stores.

[David Murciano, executive]

Good morning, Joseph. So with regard to the tax aspects, we're always adjusting our trade policies to changes in regulation. The ones that you mentioned are complex. So we are still reviewing, and we will seize any opportunity we can obviously.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Ruben Couto, sell-side analyst with Santander.

[Ruben Couto, analyst]

I'd like to pick up on the last few answers about your sales trend and your gross margin. Looking at Atacadão, where we're seeing this trend go up sharply and also the increase in B2B performance. On the retail side, you have nonfood coming back. Now what I wanted to understand, even from listening to your last few questions is, the second half of 2022, should we expect a similar trend to what we saw in Q3? Or should we expect more significant change? That's what I wanted to understand.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you for your question, Ruben. Well, as you know, we cannot give you guys any guidance, but what we can say is that the second half of the year is a better season for us. So we are not concerned about our margins in any way. We expect to keep the same pace. We are seeing some improvements in retail, and we will continue to improve month by month. And Atacadão, as we said before, is operating a very robust model, a model that allows you to invest in lowering prices whenever necessary, but the bottom line level for Atacadão should remain the same. Even in aggregate terms, we will see the impact of integrating BIG, but other than that, the levels for each business unit should continue to improve month by month in retail, and with the higher season and the model in Cash & Carry, we'll also see an increase in the bank as well.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from João Soares, sell-side analyst with Citigroup.

[Joao Pedro Soares, analyst]

I have 2 quick questions. You talked a lot about Atacadão. Now I wanted to hear a little bit about hypermarkets. Seeing that in Q3, you have an advance in same-store sales, and you mentioned that a small share -- a small part of that has an impact in terms of competition. So we're seeing an improved volumes, and I wanted to hear from you, how we should see your hypermarkets price positioning? And looking at the longer term, how do you guys see the trend not only for prices, but for growth in this format and profitability as well? That's the first question. And I also wanted to hear about banking. You've mentioned that your Over 30 rate has leveled off. So I wanted to understand whether your provisioning policy could improve with that as well. And David, you mentioned that you're seeing delinquency being more subdued. Is that an indication that you could have lower provisions moving forward? Those are my questions.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you so much, João. With regard to your first question, with prices and profitability with retail and hypermarkets, as you know, we saw reversions in price trends in the first quarter. And what we said now is, we made an effort at this time, and we saw, as we said, that the consequences were also positive and well received by our customers. So we are monitoring them at this time of high inflation and compromised purchasing power. I think it was a good initiative to monitor them, and also in terms of growth -- overall growth for retail is also what we had. So we had this effort in Q1, and we adapted during Q2. We're doing well now, and we will continue to do the same thing for the next few months. So I don't see any significant shift in the trend for retail, especially hypermarkets, from Q3 throughout the year compared to what we see in the last few months. So the format will continue to grow. And also with all of these initiatives on the nonfood side, as we mentioned, which means we should see a profitability level, which I personally think is very healthy. I think we have found the right answer to our customers, and we are seeing good results come from that in retail.

[David Murciano, executive]

So with regard to our margins in retail, we've disclosed how our gross margin has performed and also our SG&A. So we think that we saw a very high level during the pandemic, but we have to come back to the levels we had before the pandemic, which I think is a reasonable prospect or a reasonable goal. We believe that the levels in retail should improve and go back to what we had before the pandemic. Now with regard to your question about the bank, our bank has a very strong ability to analyze consumer behavior, which is why we saw -- we responded early -- earlier than the market, and we wanted to update our credit terms for customers. That was the more immediate response that the entire market did, and that's something we've already done.

As a result, you can see that our delinquency rates have leveled off. And they have to continue improving. So we've adjusted considering our ability to analyze data. We have a very robust database, which allow us to respond appropriately. And this is also why we are confident in the performance of our bank and how its debt will develop as well.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Vinicius Strano, sell-side analyst with UBS.

[Vinicius Strano, analyst]

Now in Atacadão, could you talk a little bit about how B2B contributed both to your like-for-like sales and your gross margin during this quarter? And also considering the mix between B2B and B2C, how has that developed considering that the economy is opening up again? And what do you expect moving forward?

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you so much for your question, Vinicius. We do not expect any significant shift in the share of B2B or B2C in Atacadão sales. We are making the most of the opportunities we're seeing in the market. Globally, when we talk about an entire quarter, we did not see any significant -- any sharp shift, both sides are growing significantly. So there's no substantial gap between those 2 channels. David?

[David Murciano, executive]

Yes, we also do not see any different -- significant difference in our margins. We're picking up very healthily, and both in B2B and B2C, we're seeing our indicators at the same levels. We do not see any difference coming -- any significant difference in the gap between B2B and B2C and their share.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Irma Sgarz, sell-side analyst with Goldman Sachs.

[Irma Sgarz, analyst]

I have a question about your digital sales. You've reported significant growth in 1P and food sales, and this has been the strongest industry within your GMV. And at the same time, your last mile has dipped, and I believe that this is reflecting the normalization in your in-store traffic, which means maybe people are using less -- mile less than before, and also, you have in-store picking now. And I wanted to hear what else can we say about the growth in these items that I mentioned?

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Well, thank you so much for your question, Irma. For 1 -- for the last year, we have been significantly changing our digital operations, both in wholesale and retail. We've changed the way to operate in retail in terms of delivering these accomplishments. We invested heavily on growing our digital operations for Atacadão. So that strengthened our B2B or B2C -- B2B side, so we will continue with these initiatives. But it's also important to show the new digital team, which is now in charge of everything. So we have digital encompassing our entire operations. The arrival of Sami and his team provided great support, especially in April and May, and that will also provide elements for us to grow moving forward in the next few months.

[Irma Sgarz, analyst]

Perfect. And about the profitability of this operation, is it safe to say that, that has changed or will change positively moving forward?

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you so much for that question as well. I think that e-commerce is likely to have a positive contribution to our results, considering what we saw in the last few months with month-by-month increases. And also the profitability of our digital channels, our in-store picking model, for example, is a lot more profitable than what we had before. So that is definitely a win-win situation for us. The change provided a win for our customers because they have their products more quickly and easily. And we also win for our internal organizations and also win in terms of profitability. So all our digital channels, Atacadão, food retail, nonfood retail, all enjoy those improvements.

[David Murciano, executive]

Yes, I just wanted to remind you that the Atacadão model is already a profitable one. Atacadão's model is the additional sales model, the additional margins model, but we also have ability to offer picking -- in-store picking, and we already have structured to provide delivery. We already have very high average tickets, which allow us to absorb what we're seeing in digital. So Atacadão and the online model that we're developing is profitable. So we see no problem in terms of profitability.

On the Atacadão side, Mr. Maquaire said, we are improving our profitability model on the retail side. But it's also important to remember that the digital model is an omnichannel model. We must not look only at the profitability for e-commerce. E-commerce brings us data and better knowledge of our customers, and that's also very important to consider that contribution that e-commerce provides not only to our bottom line, but also to our long-term capacity as well. And as we said before, now that we've acquired the BIG Group, we have a footprint that's nationwide, and we can also leverage our costs with or from a central platform. So I think that the scale that we will be able to acquire with the BIG Group on a national level will also boost our results.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Thiago, sell-side analyst with [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

And again, congratulations on the results you reported. I just wanted to follow up on the profitability issue. We've talked a lot about this with the questions other analysts asked, but I think I wanted to hear a little bit more from you about your expectations considering the extra stores that were converted to Assai. And also here what you expect on the retail side as well. So these are expected to be more central stores with a different level of services. So I wanted to hear your take on that. And also another follow-up on the Atacadão side. You delivered a very positive same-store sales results, and we wanted to understand what the impact is in terms of distribution. So that's essentially it. That's what we had.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you, Thiago. Well, the impact from the competition can be seen in the chart that we presented. We believe that the closure of competing stores had a 160 basis point difference in the impacted stores and nonimpacted stores, which is to say, all our stores performed well. So what we think is, there will be competition now, and there's no reason why there should be more of a negative impact. So we didn't have the competition before. And now the competition has reopened or actually, we had it before and now it's reopened. So it shouldn't have a bigger impact than it has during this first stage. Also, as you've seen, we invested in providing better prices. We are going on a very strong sales trend with our white labels and our retail strategy. All of that has to allow us a strong position against the competition. And also, if the competition is adopting a mix between Cash & Carry and hypermarket, there will be not such a strong differentiation between the hypermarket and what the competition is doing. That's to your first question. And now to your second question as to how much the Atacadão format has contributed. As I said, we do not see any significant gap between B2B and B2C results. We're seeing trends that are very similar across the 2 channels.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Bob Ford, sell-side analyst with Bank of America.

[Robert Ford, analyst]

Thank you, but my question has already been answered.

[Operator]

So our next question comes from Andrew Ruben, sell-side analyst with Morgan Stanley.

[Andrew Ruben, analyst]

Most of my questions have been answered as well. Just if you could talk a bit more about the impact of inflation for Atacadão. You mentioned at Carrefour Retail more visits, but lower ticket. Are you seeing similar behaviors within Atacadão? Or how does it differ for inflation impacts within the channel?

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Okay. So I'll answer that in Portuguese, I'm sorry. Yes, we're seeing the same trend, the same overall trend for the entire market. Atacadão customers are even more sensitive to inflation. So we also have that impact. The difference is, Atacadão is already the best position in terms of prices in the market. So we also benefit from that movement from customers. We're looking for the best price. So we're very happy with the performance in terms of customers. Now the down trade we're seeing or that we saw last year was very significant. We're still seeing a down trading in a few categories in a few areas of the country, but we also -- we will also have some help from the government and that should add to growth in sales and the average ticket as well. In light of that, we do not expect any sharp drop in our Cash & Carry model, quite the contrary.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

With no further questions, our Q&A session is now concluded. I will now turn the conference for the company to make its final remarks.

[Stephane Maquaire, executive]

Thank you so much for all your questions. I'm really very happy and very positive about the future that we're building. I'm seeing our teams be very engaged and very excited to deliver good results and many accomplishments in the next few months, whether in integrating BIG, which is involves intense work or in digitalization, where we are already seeing great headway and an expansion, which we continue to invest in, in addition to our other fronts. So our team is very energized right now, and we're very excited about the new size of the Carrefour Brasil Group. And obviously, that entails a greater responsibility towards our customers, our vendors and Brazilian society at large. So thank you very much, and we'll see each other again next quarter.

[Operator]

The Carrefour Brasil Group's Q2 2022 earnings conference is now concluded. The Investor Relations department will be available to answer any questions you may still have. Thank you so much to all who joined us. Have a great day.

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