Cyrela Brazil Realty SA Empreendimentos e Participacoes

BOVESPA:CYRE3

Earnings Call Analysis

Strong Financial Growth Amid Economic Challenges

Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, Cyrela Brazil Realty reported solid financial growth in Q2 2023. The company achieved net revenue of BRL 1.9 billion, a 14% increase quarter-over-quarter and 18% year-over-year. Gross margin improved to 32.9%, up from 32.3% in the previous year. Net income for the quarter reached BRL 412 million, showing a 53% increase year-to-date. Presales were robust at BRL 3.3 billion for the first half, a 12% year-on-year increase. CEO Raphael Horn remains confident about launches in the second half, with expectations unchanged despite the economic headwinds.

Resilience Amidst Challenges

In the second quarter of 2024, Cyrela Brazil Realty faced a challenging global economic landscape, particularly marked by persistent inflation and fluctuating interest rates. The CEO, Raphael Horn, noted that while these factors have pressured the macroeconomic environment, the Brazilian real estate market demonstrated considerable resilience. Notably, the company's presales reached BRL 3.3 billion in the first half of the year, reflecting a 12% year-on-year growth. However, launch activity was less than anticipated, which may dampen future growth prospects.

Strong Financial Performance

Cyrela reported robust financial results with a net revenue of BRL 1.9 billion for the quarter, marking an 18% increase compared to the same period last year. Year-to-date, revenue stands at BRL 3.4 billion, maintaining a similar growth trajectory. Moreover, the company achieved a net income of BRL 412 million for the quarter, translating to a 53% increase in year-to-date net income of BRL 679 million when compared to 2023. These results illustrate Cyrela's ability to navigate a turbulent economic climate successfully.

Improved Margins and Financial Health

Gross margin improved to 32.9% for the quarter, compared to 32.3% in the same quarter last year and 31.4% in the previous quarter. The management aims to maintain margins around 33% to 34% over the next quarters, attributing this stability to disciplined expense management despite current inflationary pressures. The net margin for the quarter was recorded at 22.2%. Additionally, the company maintains a healthy cash position with BRL 4.4 billion in cash and a net debt of BRL 799 million, representing a manageable net debt-to-equity ratio of 9.1%.

Outlook for Future Growth

Cyrela's management has decided to keep its guidance for launches unchanged despite the previous quarter's shortfall. They anticipate continued solid operating and financial performance, with a focus on maintaining presales momentum. However, cash generation expectations are set between BRL 0 to 200 million for the current fiscal year, with operational cash consumption influenced by increased expenditures in construction and land purchases. The CEO expressed cautious optimism regarding inventory management and sales performance in the second half of the year.

Sales Dynamics and Customer Profile

Sales performance showed mixed signals with quarterly presales of BRL 2.5 billion, which is lower compared to the same quarter last year but reflects a strong recovery from earlier periods. Cyrela’s target demographic shows a shift towards higher income brackets, with management indicating approximately 55% of customers in the higher-end segment prefer cash payments, while 45% utilize bank financing. This reflects the company’s strategic pivot towards more affluent markets.

Navigating Inflation and Competitive Threats

Inflation continues to loom as a significant concern for Cyrela, particularly regarding labor and material costs. The current inflation rate indicates challenges in hiring contractors at necessary costs, which can impact project timelines and margins. However, Cyrela emphasizes its competitive edge in producing high-quality, premium products, insulating itself from pricing impacts due to market competition. The management remains vigilant against potential inflationary shocks.

Dealing with Regulatory Changes

Upcoming tax reforms loom large over Cyrela's future operations, predicted to complicate current tax models rather than simplify them. The management expects potential negative implications for mid- to high-income segments, which the company heavily targets. The evolving regulatory landscape necessitates careful monitoring, with Cyrela not currently expecting significant adverse effects from the reforms.

Concluding Thoughts

In closing, Cyrela's recent performance indicates a strong resilience to macroeconomic pressures, supported by effective financial management and strategic pivots towards higher-income markets. While challenges remain, the company's proactive measures in managing costs, inventory, and robust presales position them favorably for future growth. Investors should monitor Cyrela's ability to adapt to changing market dynamics and regulatory landscapes as these will significantly influence the company's trajectory in the coming quarters.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cyrela Brazil Realty S.A.'s Second Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. Today with us are Mr. Raphael Horn, CEO; and Mr. Miguel Mickelberg, CFO and IRO.

This call is being recorded and simultaneously translated into English. You can listen to the translation by clicking the interpretation button. To those listening to the English translation, you can mute the original audio by clicking mute original audio. Also, you can find the slide deck in English on the company's Investor Relations website at www.ri.cyrela.com.r. [Operator Instructions]

After the presentation, we will hold a question-and-answer session. To ask a question, please click the Q&A button and enter your name and organization. When your name is called out, a request will pop up for you to unmute your microphone and ask your question.

We would like to inform you that any statements that may be made during the conference call related to Cyrela's business perspectives, operating and financial targets, are projections and forecasts made by the company's management that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that political, macroeconomic, and other operating factors may affect the company's future and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.

To start Cyrela's second quarter 2023 earnings call, I'd like to turn it over to Mr. Raphael Horn, our CEO. Mr. Horn, you may proceed.

[Raphael Horn, executive]

Good morning, everyone. The second quarter was characterized by a deterioration in the macroeconomic outlook on a global scale, which had an impact on Brazil. The persisting inflation in the United States changed agents' expectations around the possibility of an interest rate cut in the United States. That caused a depreciation of the exchange rate and in the future Brazilian interest rate, changing the previous scenario that predicted more interest rate cuts and [indiscernible] of 1 digit.

Despite this deterioration in the macro scenario, we saw resilience in the real estate market. Excluding swaps and based on the CBR percentage, we had presales of BRL 3.3 billion in the first half of the year. That's up 12% year-on-year. Our launches in the second quarter were below our expectations. The strong sales performance and the success of the launches to the market makes us very confident for the second half of this year. The management's expectations regarding launches for the year remain unchanged.

Our financial results reflected how solid our operations have been in recent quarters. Our net revenue was BRL 1.9 billion in the quarter and BRL 3.4 billion year-to-date, an increase of 18% compared to the first 6 months of 2023, and a 0.6 percentage points improvement in gross margin, amounting to 32.2% for the year. We remain disciplined in relation to the expenses and including our operational average, we were able to generate a net income of BRL 412 million in the quarter with a net margin of 22.2%.

Our year-to-date net income reached BRL 679 million, an increase of 53% compared to 2023. Brazil is always a challenging context, and interest rates remain high, but we expect to continue to work to have good operating and financial results in the coming quarters.

Let's now talk about our operating results.

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Thank you, Raphael, and good morning, everyone. On Slide 4, we'll address Cyrela's launches. In the second quarter 2023, we launched 9 new products with a PSV of BRL 1.5 billion, 58% lower year-on-year and 14% lower quarter-on-quarter. The company's stake in the volume launched was 74%. Excluding swaps, we had BRL 1 billion in launches this quarter.

On Slide 4, we'd like to highlight the Escape Eden launch in Sao Paulo with a PSV of BRL 313 million.

On Slide 6, we'll talk about sales performance. Pre-sales were BRL 2.5 billion in the quarter, 5% lower year-on-year and 10% higher quarter-on-quarter. Cyrela's stake in the volume sold was 74%, totaling BRL 1.8 billion. Excluding swaps, sales amounted to BRL 1.7 billion in the Cyrela stake.

On Slide 7, we'll talk about our sales speed. The company's SOS in the last 12 months was 52.6% and looking at the speed by launch period, projects launched in the second quarter 2024 have been 51% sold.

Talking about inventory on Slide 8, we had inventory at market value totaling BRL 8.7 billion, 9% lower quarter-on-quarter and the total inventory totaled BRL 6.5 billion in Cyrela's stake. We can see those changes on the chart to the left.

On Slide 9, we talk about the finished units. We sold 17% of the finished units at the beginning of the period. And adding up the inventory of projects delivered along the quarter and pricing of units at market value, finished units show a 7% drop quarter-on-quarter, totaling BRL 1.3 billion and BRL 1 billion in Cyrela's stake.

On Slide 10, we'll talk about the delivered units. Cyrela delivered 10 projects with a PSV of BRL 1.8 billion. Year-to-date, we delivered 16 projects with a PSV of BRL 1.8 billion.

On Slide 12, we'll talk about our financial results. Net revenue was BRL 1.9 billion in the quarter, 14% higher quarter-on-quarter and 18% higher year-on- year. Year-to-date, revenue was BRL 3.4 billion, 18% higher year-on-year. The gross margin in the second quarter was 32.9% comparing to 32.3% in the second quarter 2023 and 31.4% in the first quarter 2024. Year-to-date, our gross margin was 32.2% comparing to 31.6% in the first quarter last year.

On Slide 13, we'll talk about our net income and profitability. Net income was BRL 412 million compared to BRL 279 million in the second quarter 2023

And BRL 267 million in the first quarter 2024. Year-to-date, our profit stands at BRL 679 million, 53% higher than in 2022. In the quarter, our return on equity, which is net income of the last 12 months over the average shareholder's equity, was 15.5%.

On Slide 14, we'll talk about the debt. Gross debt at the end of the quarter was BRL 5.2 billion and the cash position was BRL 4.4 billion. Our net debt was BRL 799 million. 84% of the total gross debt is long-term. Our net debt over equity ratio was 9.1%.

On Slide 15, we see the cash generation. We had BRL 61 million cash consumption at the start of the year compared to BRL 22 million in the second quarter 2023 and a cash generation of BRL 130 million in the first quarter this year. Year-to-date, cash generation was BRL 69 million below the cash burn of BRL 13 million in 2023.

And,now we can start the Q&A session. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Fanny Oreng from Santander has the first question.

[Fanny Oreng Avino, analyst]

Congratulations on the results. I've got 2 questions. I was quite surprised with the levels presented by the company that were higher than the debt levels. I know you don't give guidance, but what could we expect in terms of that for the coming quarters?

And my second question has to do with cash. We see that the banks are a bit more aggressive when it comes to home equity. So what do you expect from the competitive scenario and the sources for cash?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Let me answer your first question. It was not about the debt, but about the revenue, right? Our revenue was substantial in the quarter. The construction works had an impact on that, the milling. We had BRL 150 million higher than in the second half of last year. And that is due to the increase in the company's operations.

And the second component in revenue was stocks or inventory sales. We had a good inventory sales and that increased our revenue too. And of course, there's volatility there. But we have to say that this level of revenue in the quarter, if it were annualized, it would be close to BRL 7.4 billion, which is very close to what we had in sales in the last 12 months, acknowledged through consolidation, which is the compared proxy.

So now, to grow this top line, we can only do it by growing the last 12 months sales. Maybe that will happen in the next quarter, but it will depend on the performance of sales and inventories. But our revenue had been below in the past months, and now we're back closer to the level. But to go beyond, we need to improve sales.

Well, CashMe is a small market, right? So it's a small market, and it's a niche product. So, Cyrela is happy with CashMe, but it's a small business. I don't think that's what the banks are looking at. And there will always be competition. There's competition map and CashMe, and there's a capitalistic world, thank God. So that's it, without any sub-results.

[Fanny Oreng Avino, analyst]

What about the sources for the coming quarters for CashMe?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

BRL 900 million in origination, and this volume is quite stable.

[Operator]

Elvis from BTG Pactual has the next question.

[Elvis Credendio, analyst]

Raphael, Miguel, I've got 2 questions. First about launches. Can you talk a little bit more about the pipeline for the second half of the year, how confident you are? Do you expect similar performance to the previous projects? Any tower that should be sold to any fund and land bank? What opportunities do you see in land bank right now? What is the competition like? Quality, pricing, possibilities, and what about your appetite for investing in land bank?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

That's a tricky question, right? If you ask me if I'm excited about the coming quarter, I'm always going to say yes. And land bank, if there is something coming up? Any quarter that you show the plan to me, I'm going to say I like it. We don't say we're very confident or not because that doesn't really exist in Brazil. Maybe if we were American, I could say we're very confident. In Brazil, you can't always be confident but have some reservations too.

[Elvis Credendio, analyst]

Do you expect to sell well?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

The first half of the year was good, and hopefully the second half of the year is going to be good. When it's very high level or very high end, it's normally a lower SOS. So SOS blended item to the calculations here but if it's very high end, the SOS is a bit lower. If it's middle class or lower income, then SOS is a bit higher. But we like the plans for the next quarter and the next year as well. That doesn't mean it's going to work out but we like it. But if you ask me that question next quarter, I'm going to answer the same thing. We don't have any expectation to sell any towers to any funds at this moment. Maybe it can happen, but we don't have any plans for it right now.

Land buying competition is always fierce. We have a good program for 2025 and also a good plan for 2026. With that, we can be more selective for what we need to buy till the end of 2026 and 2027. Competition is always fierce. We're always very selective.

And about dividends and land bank, well, I think we've shown that our growth was big and has been big. So it's difficult to increase dividend levels in the coming years. Not because we are going to increase the land bank levels but because we need to sustain the company's current level. And that will keep us from paying out more dividends than we would. We like paying dividends, of course, but we won't pay as much in the coming years so that we can sustain the growth that we have.

[Operator]

Tainan Costa has the next question from UBS.

[Tainan Costa, analyst]

I'd like to follow up on the previous question by focusing more on 2025. If you look at the first 6 months in 2024, you're selling well, you're performing well. But the macro scenario at the beginning of the year was different to what we have now. There's been a bit of a worsening there. What are your expectations for sales and launches in 2025? Do you expect to have the same levels in 2024? How can we think about these 2 indicators for the future? And also, when it comes to labor costs, is that the main concern that you have today? The NCC data just came out. There has been a new increase. So what can you do to mitigate this risk and what are you doing to mitigate this risk? And could you have any impacts on margin because of that?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Tainan, this is Miguel. For your first question, as Raphael already said in the previous answer, we're quite confident in our program for next year. And of course, there's a macro economic deterioration, but we haven't seen an impact on the micro level for the segment. And we have no reason to believe that there will be any drastic change. So we're excited and we're excited for the program for next year.

And as for costs, well, cost is of course 1 of the biggest concerns. We've been talking about the shortage in labor in Sao Paulo that has been difficult to navigate. But our engineering team has been doing a great job. And with the depreciation of the exchange rate, a lot of the inputs that are price and dollar had an increase. And that's going to have an impact on the INCC that hasn't been captured by the most recent data. And costs have been growing higher than INCC. So I don't think that will be an impact on our gross margin right now. But it's 1 of the subjects that we have to keep a weather eye on to make sure we have a good performance.

And Cyrela is confident about Cyrela's future, not about the market. The macroeconomic scenario and the microeconomic scenario aren't good, both of them are concerning. The current interest level and the tax scenario in Brazil are all concerning. So we are confident. Again, we're not extremely confident, but we're confident that we're doing a good job based on our product. I don't think the market is doing beautifully, no, especially with this inflation risk. So we're navigating and we're going to continue to navigate. But it's not like we believe a lot in this segment right now.

[Operator]

Victor, BBI [indiscernible]. You may ask your question, sir.

[Victor Tapia, analyst]

Thank you for taking my 2 questions. If you can talk a little bit about the sales in this quarter, if you can give us some color there. And the different performance in the different segments, lower-end, higher-end and mid-income. We see some sales in the Sao Paulo region, but what are your plans for Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Sales at the start of the quarter have been good so far. We launched projects on the 3 levels, Casa Gabriele in Campo Belo in the Cyrela brand. We launched Vivaz program in Barra Funda, it also performed well. And another 1 in July that also performed well. We're launching 1 in the south. After all of the tragedies, we're now launching, and we have good indications that it's going to perform well.

We launched Vivaz project in Rio de Janeiro in July and we have a mid-high income project to be launched in August and September. And Rio de Janeiro has been performing really well. I think it's the biggest highlight and that was the latest project in Rio de Janeiro. And we're very excited about that.

[Operator]

Pedro Lobato from Bradesco BBI has a question.

[Pedro Lobato Garcia Fernandes, analyst]

How do you feel about Vivaz in general, be it the economics, gross margin and the competition for land bank? I'd like to hear what your overview on the matter is. And I've got a second question. We see a higher level of compensation when we're looking into the details of your P&L. What can we expect on that front?

[Raphael Horn, executive]

Vivaz, Sao Paulo is performing well but it's a small company. We should have BRL 1.5 billion with Vivaz and bigger players will have BRL 3 billion or BRL 4 billion. So there's a lot of competition there. Cost is a problem. Inflation, labor, they're all problems. There's not enough labor so there are challenges left, right and center, but we're doing well. There are players, partners of ours with much more robust operations. So if you want to know how low income is performing, you should ask our partners. So it's going well, but it's still a small part of the operation.

The second part of the answer comes from Miguel.

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Yes. Compensation was a negative surprise. We had some impacts on civil levels, and that had to do with the 5-year term for the guarantee to end. And also on the labor front, we had a higher number of suits filed by engineers and contractors. So both of them were higher than usual. So it was higher than what we expected.

We know for a company as big as us and with our history and all of the diversity that we have in many segments, our contingencies are part of our business. But this quarter specifically was higher than expected, and we don't expect this level to be sustained in the coming quarters.

[Operator]

Andre Mazini from Citibank has a question.

[André Mazini, analyst]

My first question has to do with the tax reform. I think there was -- given some ABRAINC work group, so you may feel comfortable to give an update. The tax reform was meant to be more progressive with higher priced real estate paying more than lower end real estate. Is that what you understand? Is that what's going to be happening and what's the impact for Cyrela there? Of course, that will depend on whether you're doing more or low income with Vivaz or maybe with your mix today, what will the impact be?

And my second question, good sales, they go over BRL 60 million in this quarter and it's going to surpass BRL 50 million next quarter? CADE seem to be around that to us.

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

As for the tax reform, I think if you think about the Brazilian context, the tax reform aims at simplifying. For our segment, it's not going to simplify at all. It's going to actually make it more complex. We have a rather simple model right now, and we're going to change to a model that was going to depend on a different calculation every month. And there will be all of the credit matters, so it's going to become a lot more complex, and it's even difficult to have an accurate expectation of the impact considering all of the changes.

To our mind, if the current bill is approved, there should be a negative impact, especially in the mid-high income. We don't see much impact on low income, and we see a more negative impact on mid-high income, but of course, we need to wait for the final approval. There are some important matters being discussed, especially the current bill tax needs to be adjusted when it comes to the transition.

And as for the social reduction matter -- this progress matter, it is approved in the current tax and it's maintained. And as there is this social reducing factor, that should create the growing number, and I don't see a scenario where that wouldn't happen. So, I think that climbing rate in our segment would have it. There are many other sectors where consumption can be low income or high income and where we don't have this progressive factor. But in our segment, I understand that it's going to be maintained.

And as for the CADE stocks and shares, there is an effect here that confused investors a bit. Competencies were sold at BRL 72 million, BRL 60 million was the accounting profit generated. But out of the BRL 72 million, BRL 56 million was for the cash effect in the quarter and we had sales in the 2 last trading sessions in June and the cash effect is in the third quarter. In the third quarter then, we're going to have this BRL 60 million, BRL 48 million in cash sales and that was at the start of the quarter. So, there is this cash effect of about BRL 64 million.

For the profit assessment, we look at the competence and you should consider it as BRL 48 million in sales with a specific margin there that is going to generate profit where we treat them separately, cash and competence separately when there are these alienations.

[Operator]

Ygor Altero from XP has a question.

[Ygor Altero, analyst]

I've got 2 questions. How is your appetite for this more macro scenario? Do you have to be more opportunistic and how do you see the sales on this level with a more challenging macroeconomic scenario? Has that had an impact? So, how are your spirits? And on your financial results, they were better than expected, supported by CashMe. So, is this going to be sustained or was this a one-off?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

This is Miguel. I'll take your questions. As for the living operations, we're much more bottom-up than top-down here. So, we look at every project individually. And many of our projects focus on higher-income audience. So, we don't see much of an impact. The living inventory sales is meeting the targets by June and differently to the Cyrela brand. The living SOS is also quite good. So we don't see a change here, and we're looking at every piece of land bank individually and there is no change in our strategy there.

As for financial results, there are some non-recurring effects. There is some volatility in this line. So, don't think that you should annualize the financial results of this quarter. Our financial results should probably be closer to what we had on average of the 2 first quarters than just the second quarter specifically. But if you look back and if you look at the other quarters, you see there is some volatility there.

[Operator]

Rafael Rehder from Safra has a question.

[Rafael Rehder, analyst]

My first question has to do with the approvals in Sao Paulo. How do they stand? And do you see any risk of any bottleneck that could delay launches in the second half of the year? And my second question has to do with cash generation. I know that a company has been growing, increasing launches and you have a lot of construction works going on, but you also should be increasing the number of deliveries now. So, with the stronger production volume and the construction works, how are they interacting there?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

As for approvals in Sao Paulo, we don't expect any challenges. We have had a good number of launches in July and August. We have some approvals for the second half of the year. They're in line or timely speaking. So we don't expect approvals to be an obstacle.

As for your second question in cash generation, in the fourth quarter conference call, we did say that cash generation should be between BRL 0 and BRL 200 million plus. In the second quarter, it was a bit higher than we expected and a bit lower than we expected in the second quarter. In the second quarter, we had to pay more in construction works. That's the most recurring thing. And that was not accompanied by an increase in revenue, but we believe that we'll see that increase in revenue in the course of time.

And the second item was an increased expenditure on land bank and every deed in Sao Paulo could have BRL 30 million to BRL 40 million payments in other locations as well. So, this is a line item with a lot of volatility. So, after the second quarter, looking forward, we sustained our expectations that we had at the start of the year with BRL 0 to BRL 200 million cash generation. And for next year, we should have a more favorable setting, but it's too early to tell. We're very sensitive to land bank purchases and sales and we expect to have a more positive dynamics next year.

[Operator]

Aline Caldeira from Bank of America has a question.

[Aline Caldeira, analyst]

I've got 2 questions, actually. You already mentioned in the conference call about INCC, the instruction inflation rate and inflation in general. And how much of the price increase are you passing on? You mentioned also competition or if you could talk a little bit about how they have been performing different geographies. And I have another question, which is, you have had the reversal of some provisions in this quarter and that helped the top line. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Let me talk to you about the provision or the allowance reversal. When we launch a project, we have a number of cancellations that will vary depending on the brand. And that is going to be saved up. It's going to have a provision for it. And we normally use our portfolio and the cancellation expectation project by project with a client analysis. So, in the first quarter, we normally have an increase of this provision. And in the coming quarters, this provision should stay stable and then we have cancellations. And these cancellations will consume up this provision and then there are reversals.

So, what happened this quarter is in line with our expectations. We had BRL 30 million in total for this figure last year. And in the first quarter, we had BRL 45 million addition and the reversal of about BRL 17 million in the second quarter. So, we have a BRL 30 million impact in the quarter and we expect less impact in the coming quarters. And when we look at the annual review that can take place in the first or second quarter last year, then we have more details about this line.

And Raphael will answer a question about the market dynamics and the competition.

[Raphael Horn, executive]

As for inflation, and if we're passing on the price increases, I think we have to talk about that differently. Well, what's going on with the inflation IPCA rate? With construction workers and with third parties, there is a bit of a risk. It's not like we have 10% or 15% inflation that we need to pass on. That's not what we're saying.

But what we see is, the current inflation can be passed on. But it's difficult to hire contractors at the price that we need. So, it has been a challenge for engineering, not only for us but for every player, and the scenario looks tough. So this is a risk. But we're not saying that inflation is going to be 15% here, that we need to pass that on. Still under control. But if it's out of control and there's a mismatch, then that's a big problem. We don't see any impact from the competition because of pricing. We shield ourselves with high-quality premium products. So, we know we have high-quality products and we live in that setting. And objectively, we have had no impact from the competition. That doesn't mean it's going to stay like that, but we work so that it will stay like that.

[Operator]

Jorel Guilloty from Goldman Sachs has a question.

[Wilfredo Jorel Guilloty, analyst]

Not long ago, you said that there could be an impact on debt. The interpreter apologizes, but the quality of the audio of the speaker is too poor for the interpreter to translate. What is your expectation on the ROE journey should it grow? And also, CADE sales?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

A major bank published an ROE of BRL 23 this quarter, so we weren't very happy about it. We need to continue to improve ours. But we said the ROE is going to go up and it's going up. And we think it can still go further up. I hope the BRL 15.5 from the previous months doesn't stay like that. I think we can do better. We don't give guidance, but we believe that the ROE is going to continue to grow. If banks went from BRL 20 to BRL 23, I think we can go from BRL 50 to something better.

Let's see. Can't make a promise. What we can do is work very hard and I think we can get better numbers. I've spoken about dividends already, so we expect ROE to go up. That's our flight plan. And then we won't need to pay extraordinary dividends because of the profit share or equity. And if we don't get to a volume on a scale that justifies our equity, then we have to pay extraordinary dividends. But that's Plan B. Plan A is to have ROE getting to the level we expect it to and we hope we can get to.

[Operator]

Alejandra Obregon from Morgan Stanley has a question.

[Alejandra Obregon, analyst]

I guess mine is related to all the prior questions on the resiliency of the business, but I would like to approach it from the perspective of your client, the home buyer this time. So I was hoping if you could provide color on, first of all, what percentage of your transactions in the mid-high are financed with cash versus loan and would you think that mix has changed over the last years? And more importantly, as you look at your typical client, would you say that you might be reaching this time around a much higher end of the bracket of the socioeconomic pyramid versus the past as of late? Has anything changed? Anything that can help us profile your typical client these days versus over time, has that changed? That would be very helpful.

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Alejandra, Miguel here. Thank you for your question. So regarding our customers, I would say that in the mid -- especially in the Cyrela segment, around 45% of our customers rely on bank financing on a mortgage to acquire their homes. And more than half, around 55% of our customers, they pay with cash.

And on our living segment, which would be our mid end segment, I would say around 70% of our customers rely on a mortgage and 30% pay with cash. So I do think, especially for the living segment, we do reach a higher bracket -- a higher income bracket than the average level. We have been changing our strategy in the living brand, operating in better neighborhoods and where prices per square meter are a bit higher. And also on the Cyrela brand, we do target very high end customers.

On the Vivaz brand, our [ Minha Casa ] operations, then almost 100% of our customers rely on the bank mortgage to acquire their homes. And in that segment, we do operate in price points that are a bit above the average for the segment, but it's not that much different from peers like [ CADE ], for example.

[Operator]

Marcelo Motta from JPMorgan has a question.

[Marcelo Motta, analyst]

I've got 2 quick questions. On the margin matter, you talked about inflation and labor, and in 1 of the questions you said you wouldn't change your outlook on the margin. Do you expect margin to continue at about 33%? And around real estate loans, the macro scenario has worsened. According to sentiment and foundations and fundamentals, and when we look at the central bank, the rates for real estate loans haven't soared. So, do you still see 10% to 11% with clients you expected to grow?

[Miguel Mickelberg, executive]

Motta, this is Miguel. Thank you for your question. As for the gross margin, yes, I think it should be about 33%, 34%. The gross margin for the launches we had or have had this year is slightly over 34%. So, we expect this is a level that's going to be close to what we had in the second half of 2023. Of course, there can be a lot of volatility there. It can go up or down, especially when we have big launches that go -- or move further from the average.

I forgot what your second question was. Sorry. The loans, right? The bank loans, I was reminded here by the team. So, we see some stability on rates. We have seen it since the start of 2023 when there was a last round of increases. In the last quarter, we even mentioned in the conference call that the average rate had gone down to 10.20% because public banks had been involved in the transfers.

This quarter, the average was the same, 10.20%, and we don't see any changes in the rates practiced by private banks, which is also 10% to 11%. Basically, depending on the rating, customer relation, then each bank will have their own internal policies. Public banks have a high rate normally, but we haven't seen any major changes -- or any major changes rather.

[Operator]

This is the end of the Q&A session. I'll turn the call over to Mr. Horn for his final remarks.

[Raphael Horn, executive]

Well, the results this quarter were good. People congratulated me. So, just 2 reservations, 2 caveats. When someone congratulates you on something, then things start to go south. So, we're working hard and there's a lot to be done, and we're always in a position of having reservations. And if you're congratulating me, then I need to congratulate all of the team because the leader doesn't do anything. We know who actually gets their hands dirty and gets things done. So, the results that we have here, thanks to the whole of the staff and Cyrela and our partners that make our dreams come true. So, congratulations to the whole of the team. Thank you very much.

The game isn't won yet, but we're going to continue to work to deliver good results. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

This is the end of Cyrela's conference call. Should have any questions, feel free to get in contact with our IR team with the email ri.cyrela.com.wr. Thank you very much for joining our call, and have a good day.

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