Eletromidia SA
BOVESPA:ELMD3
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Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
Eletromidia SA
The company closed the year with a remarkable 20% increase in annual gross revenue, reaching BRL 1.048 billion. The fourth quarter alone saw a significant rise of 29% compared to the same period last year, with gross revenue hitting BRL 381 million. This growth trajectory demonstrates a solid commitment to digital expansion and effective commercial strategies, particularly reflected in a 75% improvement in the Street vertical, driven by new digital panels and investments. The focus on digital assets saw 65,800 total panels in their network by year's end, of which a considerable 72% were digital.
Operational leverage played a crucial role in advancing profit margins, with EBITDA for the quarter reaching BRL 166 million, reflecting a 49% margin — a 34% uptick year-on-year. The improvement in gross profit, gross margin improvements, as well as efficiency initiatives since 2020, have culminated in EBITDA swelling by 37% to BRL 346 million for the year, paired with a 6 percentage point increase in margin to 37%. These metrics underscore the company's enhanced ability to convert earnings into profit.
The company's efforts had yielded an adjusted net profit of BRL 93 million for the quarter and an annual total of BRL 159 million, marking a 51% surge year-on-year. Concurrently, net margin also rose by 4 percentage points to 17%. In alignment with their growth-focused approach, they reinvested significantly — BRL 170 million over the year — primarily in new equipment to support digital initiatives and street furniture projects. This proactive strategy has resulted in a healthy net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.5x.
The company reported a robust operating cash flow, underlining a 40% year-on-year improvement. Noteworthy, the EBITDA to cash flow conversion rate stood at 92%, a testament to their operational efficiency. Most importantly for investors, the company is poised to deliver dividends, with a commitment to a minimum legal level payout, indicative of confidence in sustained profitability and future financial health.
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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Electromedia Earnings Conference Call to discuss the Fourth Quarter of 2023. We would like to share some instruction with you before we start.
Should you need simultaneous interpretation, please click the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose Portuguese or English.
The slide deck of this video conference is available on our IR website ri.electromedia.com.br and on the CVM website. The video will be made available later on. [Operator Instructions]
We would like to inform you that forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause these expectations not to occur or to be materially different from our expectations. These forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company on the date they are made and do not need to be updated. With us today, Alexandre Guerrero, our CEO; and Ricardo Winandy, our CFO and IRO. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Guerrero, who will start the presentation. Mr. Guerrero, please...
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us on our earnings call to talk about the fourth quarter 2023 and the full year results of 2023. We had accelerated expansion, especially in the street vertical with over 1,000 digital panels being installed. With that, we have grown geographically and in our footprint. Our investments in technology were an important focus in 2023. We'd like to highlight Electromedia ads, our platform as well as our SMB platform that has been operated during the whole year. In December 2023, we launched V1 with substantial sales results that are going to be presented to you today.
Artificial intelligence has been helping us to accelerate the development of the platform and also to find shortcuts to better results. The OOH market continues to grow. It shows that the means is very important in the communication mix to the brands. And it also shows that consolidating the sector allows for a structured audience -- a structured sales to the audience. We continue to pursue our purpose to transform cities.
Our gross revenue has broken a record. It's over BRL 1 billion in the full year of 2022. It's a 20% growth year-on-year -- pardon me BRL 1 billion in 2023, a 20% growth year-on-year compared to '22. We had revenue growth in all our verticals. And that shows that our ads platform makes it more comfortable for agencies and clients to work with us. Adjusted EBITDA was BRL 346 million. a significant increase of 37% year-on-year. The 37% margin in the year is worth mentioning, but we would particularly like to focus on the 49% margin we had in the fourth quarter.
Surpassing the BRL 1 billion in revenue, the BRL 1 billion milestone is very important to the OOH industry. This operating growth can also be seen in our financial indicators. And Ricardo will talk about them later on. When we look at our growth avenues, the core expansion, additional businesses and technology would like to highlight the Santos Dumont contract. With it, we are covering 100% of the 2 airports in Rio de Janeiro, Galeao and Santos Dumont. In 2024, over 20 million passengers are expected to go through these airports. I'm going to show you a video that gives you a taste of the project that was launched in February 2024.
[Presentation]
A lot was done in 2023. Now talking about the bus shelters in Sao Paulo, we had 217 new shelters with over 250 panels, that in 2023 alone. And with that, we have over 80 digital panels. That really changes the urban experience in Sao Paulo and allows for companies like ours to sophisticate our commercial models even more. In Rio de Janeiro, in Street Furniture, we had over 30 new digital panels with over 50 digital panels in Rio de Janeiro. The Supervia project allowed us to have over 100 new street furniture pieces in 2023.
We continue to install bus shelters in Campinas, 197 is what we had in 2023, and we had over -- rather another 20 digital panels. In Belo Horizonte, the Tembici project also arrived. It was over 27 panels that we had installed in 2023. We're going to have another 50 street furniture pieces installed in 2024, and we're going to amount to 100 digital panels in Belo Horizonte. In Salvador, we had 120 clocks installed in 2023, totaling 194 digital clocks. And in Salvador, we had 230 new bus shelters installed and 32 digital panels. With the Tembici Salvador, we had 19 digital panels installed. And now we have over 240 digital panels in Salvador.
In Recife, we had 136 phases rather clock panels, digital clock panels installed in 2023. In Porto Alegre, we had over 33 digital panels or installed with Tembici, and over 330 bus shelters. In Curitiba, we had 50 new digital panels. With that, we have 80 digital panels in the main streets of Curitiba. And we also arrived in Florianopolis with 15 new digital panels. And with that, we covered the 3 main markets in the south of Brazil. In the buildings vertical, we had almost 2,000 digital panels installed in 2023, totaling an amount of 32,000 panels in the main buildings in the country.
As you can see, 2023 was a year when we executed a lot at Electromidia. We have increased the geography, our digital base. We have invested consistently from Porto Alegre up to [indiscernible], especially in the street and buildings verticals. With that, we can reach over 53 million people in the main cities in the country. With our office being 100% standardized in our platforms. This is the greatest -- the biggest geographic expansion we had in Electromidia and in the out-of-home industry in a single year.
Now let's talk about programmatic media. We have made good progress in process automation and in our platform interfaces. Our revenue was BRL 59 million in 2023, a 340% rise year-on-year. And that accounts for 5.6% of the whole revenue. In 2023, we finished our integration with Gama, Globo's DSP for programmatic media. As of 2024, we're going to have a new office channel for programmatic media bringing together out-of-home, open TV and other digital channels. That is a new growth channel for -- or a new growth avenue for a company like us.
Technology is another very important chapter. And in 2023, we had our SMB platform running in a test environment. We made a lot of progress there. This platform uses a self-service model and uses a lot of AI for whoever is buying, creating ads, publishing ads and that allows for SMB, small and medium businesses to really stand out at a simple and independent way. All of that with AI and chatbots.
There's no longer a manual process for you to publish plan and create campaigns at Electromedia. We are writing the algorithms for out-of-home or for the out-of-home industry in the world. We ended the year of 2023 with BRL 3.2 million in revenue. That's a very important rise. And that's a good omen for a project that is connected to the future of our company with a total addressable market in Brazil that surpasses BRL 20 billion.
Still talking about technology. We want to talk about our ads platform, Electromidia ads. In 2023, we processed over 13,000 pieces. That really shows how efficient the platform is to all of the advertisers in the country. We have made significant improvements in a number of fronts. And we made it easier for platform to be accessed and for campaigns to be managed on it.
And we now have the MVP launch customize your plan. All of these initiatives are important advances in our ads platform. And in 2023, we had BRL 403 million planned using the platform. That would be the third largest out-of-home company in the country. And we can see that the use of the platform is gaining momentum. And it's probably going to be a focus or a highlight in 2024.
And of course, before I conclude, I need to talk about one of the main projects we had in the year, the Abrigo Amigo, the guarded bus shelters. As you know, we want to have a positive impact on people's lives and on their experience in the city. We have 80 guarded shelters and over 5,200 calls have been carried out. So this shows that with creativity, technology and with the truth, we are really helping address social needs. We're now working towards the next step -- we want the guarded bus shelter to be present in more cities, and we want to have more and more people serviced through this great initiative.
Now I'm going to turn the call over to Ricardo, who's going to be talking about the financial highlights of 2023 full year and the fourth quarter of 2023, and I'll come back for the final remarks. Ricardo, over to you.
Thank you, Guerrero. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our video conference to discuss our earnings for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2023. I'd like to draw your attention to some of our indicators. We had record sales performance at the end of the year with BRL 381 million in gross revenue, and we ended the year with BRL 1.048 billion. That's a 29% rise quarter-on-quarter and 20% rather or 29% comparing the fourth quarter 2022 and the fourth quarter 2023, and it's a 20% rise year-on-year.
We ended the quarter with an EBITDA of BRL 166 million, a 49% margin. That's 34% higher year-on-year, totaling BRL 346 million in EBITDA. That's a 37% rise and 5 percentage points in margin. And our adjusted net profit was BRL 93 million in the quarter and BRL 159 million in the year, 51% higher year-on-year with a net margin of 17%. And our operating cash before interest was BRL 133 million in the quarter, BRL 317 million in the year. And that's an EBITDA conversion into cash flow that is 92%. That's a 40% improvement year-on-year.
Delving deeper into our inventory increase. We ended the year with 65,800 panels, 47,500 digital, that is 72% of all of the pieces. There was an increase of 898 new assets, most of which are digital. In the Street Vertical, we had 1,056 new digital panels compared to 2022. That's an increase of BRL 179 million, with over 1,800 street furniture pieces, digital ones, 87% higher year-on-year with 6,600 digital Street Furniture pieces.
This growth is really the result of our going digital initiative with the streets of Sao Paulo and also with other locations as well. We're going to have new clocks in the Recife and Salvador streets in 2023, and we're going to have new bicycle rack stations in the new locations, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Salvador and Florianopolis adding to the existing network that we already have in Rio de Janeiro, Recife and Brazil. We'll also continue to invest in the buildings vertical. We have 31,900 screens, approximately 2,000 elevators in residential buildings mainly and that's a 6.6% increase year-on-year. So 710 pieces installed in the last quarter alone.
And with that, we had an addition of 3,042 new points in the last year and 94% of this inventory is digital. In shopping malls, we had 14 malls that left our network that decreased our figure in 260 screens, but we still have 90 shopping malls and a very good footprint, a very good reach in a national level. We have reduced our transport vertical because 2 contracts ended in 2022. In Sao Paulo and also the subway contract and by that year. And we're focusing our efforts on more profitable projects now as we continue to drill with new concessions in street furniture.
As for our sales performance, we had a record level of revenue with BRL 381 million in the quarter, a 29% rise compared to the same quarter 2022, and we had BRL 1.048 billion in revenue in the full year of 2023, a 20% rise in comparison to 2022. This improvement can be explained by the importance of the sector and with our commercial strategy. In the Street vertical, the quarter had a 58% improvement year-on-year, and we ended 2023 with a 75% improvement compared to 2022. That shows how much improvement we have had in that vertical that is yielded because of all of the investments and because of the digitization expansion.
Buildings was the second vertical to most grow. We had a 20% increase in the quarter, and we had BRL 182 million in total for the full year, with an 8% rise year-on-year.
As for the transport vertical, we had a 4% rise in the quarter compared to the fourth quarter 2022. That is due to the performance of a transport, contract transport and meaning railway and efforts mainly. And we ended the year with BRL 268 million in that vertical, 26% of the group's revenue. And lastly, in shopping malls, in spite of the decrease in this vertical, a decrease of 14%. We had a 5% rise in our revenue in the quarter and in the full year, 8.7% rise. So that really shows how our strategies have been yielding good results.
And taking into account our performance in sales and the seasonality of the advertising sector, which traditionally shows that the end of the year is more important. We had a 47% increase quarter-on-quarter. That is -- that was already 21.8% higher in comparison to the second quarter 2023. Gross revenue was BRL 1.48 billion in 2023, and that was a 20% improvement year-on-year. And the results of 2022 were already 79% better than those of 2021. With that, we are growing on average 50% a year. As we have been since 2020, precisely, yes.
When we look at our sales performance and our operating leverage as well as our general results, we see that we have improved our margins in 4% in the quarter. This result was 109% higher quarter-on-quarter and a 14% improvement percentage points. And that compared to a period that was already 50% better than the previous quarter. So EBITDA was BRL 746 million in the year with a 37% margin in comparison to BRL 252 million from the previous year. That was already 31%. That is a 37% increase in our EBITDA for the period and a 6 percentage point increase in the margin. That is mainly due to the improvement in the gross margin and the gross margin pardon me in gross profit and gross margin.
And then because of the long-term projects that we have, including our digital initiatives. This result is also fruit of our continuous improvement to continue to improve, our continuous efforts to improve our margins since 2020. We ended the quarter at BRL 93 million net profit and 27% net margin with BRL 159 million in the year and 17% margin, a 51% rise year-on-year. In comparison to the BRL 105 million profit that we had in 2022 with a 13% net margin. This year, we have a 4 percentage point improvement in our margin on top of a base that was already much higher than what we had in 2021.
Our accounting net profit was BRL 93 million, 80% higher than the BRL 51 million we had in 2022, which allowed us to reverse the accumulated loss that we had in the previous years. We are organized to have a dividend payout this year with a minimum legal level, and this is going to be assessed by the management of the company and approved in the shareholders meeting in April.
Now looking at our cash flow in 2023, we see a 92% conversion of our EBITDA into operating cash generation with an interest payment or before interest payment at BRL 317.5 million in the year. And after the interest we had BRL 227 million compared to BRL 162 million from the previous year. That's a 40% increase compared to 2022. In the quarter, the operating cash generation was BRL 129.4 million with a 40% rise. We had BRL 38.5 million investment in the quarter, almost all of it for devices, focusing on the installations of new street furniture, the new digitization rounds that we have in the street of Sao Paulo and our growth in the buildings vertical.
In the year, we had BRL 170 million in investment, approximately BRL 130 million for the purchase of equipment devices or machines. With that, we had net cash of BRL 81.3 million in the quarter, BRL 318.2 million in the year, ending the year with BRL 487 million, net debt of BRL 508 million, that is 1.5x the EBITDA of the year compared to the 2.1x of the fourth quarter 2022. We continue to improve our figures with our focus on digitization, expansion of our network.
And now I'd like to turn the call over to Guerrero for the final remarks.
We have reached BRL 1.048 billion in revenue. We did that in 2022, that is a record. And that really shows our efficiency and our commitment to our operations. Our EBITDA was BRL 346 million in the year. That's a 37% rise year-on-year. That really shows that we're able to generate value and to be profitable. Our EBITDA margin in the fourth quarter of 2023 was 49%. That's a solid indicator of how efficient we are and also of our operating leverage.
Another point worth highlighting is the progress we've made in our SMB platform. We have made a number of improvements and allowed for even more efficient and customized solutions in a market that is still untapped by the OOH industry. As you have seen, we had a lot that was executed operationally this year with the Street urban installation with the expansion of our digital footprint, and we are really reframing the understanding of what out-of-home media means in the main capitals of the country.
We continue to deliver good results with a lot of discipline. And these results would not be possible without the commitment and the devotion of our Electro team. So thank you very, very much for your effort and for your contributions to our success in 2023. We're committed to continue to grow, continue to innovate and continue to generate value to our shareholders, clients and staff. With a solid base and the strategic vision, we continue to pursue our purpose every day.
And now I'll turn the call over to the operator so that we can start the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
[Operator Instructions] First question, Bernardo Guttman from XP. Bernardo, please.
Guerrero, Ricardo and Electromidia team, I've got 2 questions, actually. My first question is about your margins dynamics. You've got this positive seasonality in the fourth quarter, but you also changed the mix. You have invested in lifts and elevators and streets. And what is your expectation for the future? You mentioned some important events right -- Carnival is an important event, but what should continue to drive profitability, the trend should continue the same in this first quarter?
And my second question has to do with capital allocation. It'd be interesting to understand what you're monitoring when it comes to new bids for concessions and what the pipeline is for the company to grow organically as well?
Bernardo, the margin development -- the margin performance rather, was very strong for EBITDA, 49%. That was even higher than 2022, which was 45%. This performance was with the same assets that we have today. That really shows the potential of our operating leverage in the company. With this revenue level, we can have this margin levels for the full year. That really shows what can be done with the assets that are already installed. Occupancy is a very important factor for that.
There is seasonality, yes, the first quarter is usually the weakest in the year. It normally accounts for 20% of the full year's revenue and the last quarter is normally 30%, 35%. So we do expect to have a lower revenue and margin levels in the first quarter. And as we have more maturation or more maturity in our investments, then we'll see more impacts on the margin in the first quarter and the whole year. We have acquired companies in the past. That had a 40%, 45% EBITDA margin in the year. So we do not find it an attainable target. We were already at 37% in 2023.
Bernardo, thank you for your questions. As for capital allocation. Ever since the IPO, an important characteristic of Electromidia has been our discipline in capital allocation. In the past 2 years, the main opportunities were with public bids in the Street's vertical. So we continue to keep our finger on the pulse for the main opportunities and street and airports still have a lot of room for growth, be it private or public concessions and also organic growth with the residential buildings, our main thesis in that front. So we continue to monitor that.
In the coming 3 years, we expect 10 to 15 bids private or public and that allows for companies like us to really assess our participation and consider if we want to go into new geographies or if you want to expand our position in existing locations. And it's also very important to mention our investments in technology. SMB and the ads platforms, both of them contribute to better quality in sales and in better use of our inventory. The structured sales to different audiences is very positive for the clients who can buy with better quality with their investment being really based on data and metrics, and our company can also use their inventory better and direct, better direct our campaigns to the right audiences.
And SMB, I think, is the one that really connects with the future of a business. And that is a blue ocean market. It's basically untapped by the out-of-home industry. It's an over BRL 20 billion real market. Google and Meta basically controlled this market, TikTok is dabbing into this market as well. And we now have a VP department that is really focusing on SMB with data scientists, sales, tech and other professionals team they amount to almost 50 people, and that has a lot of potential that allows for inventory to be best used, especially when we look at the dates where we have lower volumes or lower occupancy rates.
I mean, we have seasonal events like Carnival and you also have seasonally low periods like the first quarter of the year. So there is no silver bullet. We're looking at the many growth avenues, be it expanding the core to new businesses, new possibilities or the technology investments that allow for a more intelligent and better use of our inventory.
Guerrero, Ricardo, congratulations on the results.
Cristian Faria will ask the next question, from Itau BBA.
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations on your results. I've actually got 2 questions. The first one has to do with the SMB point. I'd like to understand how the ads compare to what we had last year or the year before that, how much easier is it for smaller companies to create their ads. I think you mentioned that credit cards are also an option when it comes to payment. But I'd like to try and understand how this platform makes the experience easier and the potential that this has.
And my second question has to do with investments. You mentioned growth in new locations, especially at the end of 2023. And we'd like to try and understand what your appetite is for new investments in 2024. You have BRL 150 million in CapEx. And I would like to understand what you expect for this year.
Thank you for your questions, Cristian. To try and add some color to the SMB initiative, I'd like to talk a little bit about the main progresses we had from January last year until now and the remaining. A more everyday speech, we can say there were many progresses in our platform, understanding what the purchase process was like, what the challenges were for small and medium advertisers. We understood that we should be one of the best options or the best option for geolocalization for SMBs. In the first quarter, you can get one building and in the second half, you can get 10 buildings and then you can get inventory in 1 to 2 kilometers radius.
So we're looking at accuracy more than speed here to try and really implement technology solutions that small advertisers see value in. And that can be used easily. As for payment methods, in December, we started using the PIX transfer modality. We had credit card only until the PIX payment modality also allowed for growth. And AI is here to help. The creative front is very important. The small and medium advertisers struggle to create a campaign or they don't have an agency.
And now we have a fully automated chatbot service where a hair dressers salon, a beauty salon, a bakery can create their campaign answering some questions in the chat bot. So I showed the video to give you an idea of what it was like. So you can see sales are growing. It's a great market. It's an over BRL 20 billion total addressable market. Our expectation is to increase by a manifold, our results this year. We don't give any guidance but we really expect a manifold increase in our revenue in comparison to 2023.
And every week, we're looking at new development possibilities looking at growth possibilities. We're delivering more data, more metrics to the brand so that we can generate more value. We see that there have been more recurrence in purchases. So we see that small advertisers, small companies are buying for the 10th or the 15th time. So they bought it once and they continue to come back, or they even getting an annual contract. On the 13th of March 2024, we officially launched the platform to our media partners. There was an event for almost 5,000 people.
Google and Facebook have paved the way to V4 and we're plugging into V4, and we're integrating our platform with other media partners. And that is going to give more momentum and speed and improve the experience for the platform. I think all of the earnings video conferences are going to be covering the updates on the platform, looking at gross revenue, looking at leads, looking at improvements in development, but this is really one of the best initiatives that connect to the future of business and are there to help us not only with additional revenue, but also allowing us to use our inventory better.
As for your investment question, in 2024, we continue to roll out some of the concessions we started in 2023, like Salvador and Recife with bus shelters and clocks. We continue to install them. in the course of the year of 2024 and the partnership with Tembici and the new locations will continue to install that there. We show the main assets in the Santos Dumont Airport. We completed our installation in February last year, and we plan to continue to grow our number of buildings. As we have been doing in the past years. We're going to continue to invest in going digital with our assets.
So we have investments in every vertical plant as we had in 2023. BRL 180 million was our investment in device and equipment in 2023. That's a good figure. And we continue to monitor for new opportunities. We're continuously looking for opportunities of organic growth acquisitions we keep a finger on the pulse there. So we have got a good base to execute projects that were not on our radar at the end -- at the start of the year.
Leonardo Olmos from UBS will ask the next question.
Guerrero, Ricardo, congratulations on your results. My first question has to do with additional projects you have with Globo. We can see that a lot is going on already. But what are you expecting for 2024 that could have even more impact on revenue? And besides gama and the events, and potential advertising campaigns with Globo, what else could you mention?
And my second question sort of following up on Bernardo's question around margins. Ricardo mentioned that there will be more focused on more profitable projects. Is there any type of revenue that you have right now that isn't that profitable, sort of, so to speak, knowing you or have you cleansed revenue already? Have you cleaned up an interesting revenues sources already?
Thank you for your question, Leonardo. Talking about the global partnership. We have had very rich interaction we have had really good interactions with them. Globo is a company that is really knowledgeable about the Brazilian media market. They've really been helping us in our growth. And this exchange of knowledge and know-how have been really useful. We integrated our platform with GAMA, their DSP. We have a new channel for programmatic media in 2024. We had only Google until now and that BRL 59 million revenue was 100% DV360. And now we have Globo joining that. That's another offer for the market.
And we have a good agenda for projects that was presented in the course of 2023. Tomorrow, our sales event, and that really sets down through all of our scheduled for the year with big brother and football, soccer, right? And Electromidia is a media partner of other events that we have recurring every year. So we expect results to be there. We see that advertisers have been enjoying our office, but some in a project that's more added taking baby steps in its infancy. But we can see that the market is quite open to look at these offers, as we had with DV from Google as we had with TikTok in the past and other initiatives that we had in 2023 as well.
We constantly look at our portfolio, how our verticals are performing and the contracts that we have. If there's anything that can be done, we do it, right? So we're constantly looking at possibilities to expand our margins. We'll continue to update our portfolio. And we continue to keep track of it with our financial committee and with the Board.
A company like ours is in 5 different verticals, and we have different challenges and different complementing margins. The beauty is to operate in businesses with better margins or more challenging margins, but having the solution for clients that is completely there.
So we look at the out-of-home possibilities we look at all of the business possibilities at their own characteristics and opportunities. We'll look at the street furniture possibility, such as with bus shelters that is difficult and capital-intensive ramp-up takes 3 to 5 years, but it's a 20-year contract, right? With Santos Dumont, you can have the whole CapEx in a year, but it's a much shorter contract. So it's natural to our business. So I think this model and this balance has been helping us not only to perform better, but also to look at the bottom line on the margin with better results.
Our next question comes from let from [ Guilherme Gutila ] from BTG Pactual.
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Thinking about capital allocation and future investments. Last night, I saw that the company could do a follow-on. Where do you think it would make sense to have an offer to the market? Can you just talk a little bit about that?
As we are a publicly traded company, we can always step into the capital market for investments. When we look at Electromidia, as Ricardo showed we have a comfortable capital structure, and we are not planning any follow-on event. When we look at our stocks and share prices, our perception is that is not what it should be when you look at the company results. When you look at the company peers all over the globe, they have higher trading values, right? So we are impacted there somehow. But there will always be opportunities, be it for a new concession, be it for an acquisition and the capital market is an option.
But the company, again, has a comfortable capital structure, our debt levels as Ricardo presented are at much lower levels than they were at the end of last year, 1.5x. And we believe that we can have a more comfortable capital structure towards the end of the year. And a follow-on is a possibility if the stocks and shares are priced as they should be.
Next question from [ Ernesto Gonzalez ]. It will be asked in English. Please click on Portuguese if you should wish to listen to the translation into Portuguese.
Can you please provide any color on the trends you're seeing so far in the first quarter of the year? And also, any color that you could provide on your expectations for revenue growth and margins in 2024?
The start of the year was really favorable. The results for the first quarter of the year are going to be made public in May this year, and we're going to have our video conference, but we see the year starting really well. The macroeconomic environment, first of all, is more favorable, it's more interesting. Also, Carnival, it's a very important seasonal event for our industry is very important. And we started our northeast operations for Electromidia, and northeast is very important for Carnival, the other way around. So we had all of our sponsorship quotas sold, also Lollapalooza, which has a very important impact at the start of the year had all of the quotas sold.
So all of that makes us believe that the first quarter is going to be better than the first quarter last year. So our expectations are good. We have a good macroeconomic environment, the company is more mature. The company is better prepared. And our ads platform continues to develop. And that makes them more comfortable for brands to invest more and better. And we're also tapping into new locations, new markets, new geographies. That allows for Electromidia to have a structured offer in more cities.
And as of 2024, the advertising market is going to have access to the digital circuit that we have with the 11 main locations with the bapi readings agency control. That applies to the out-of-home industry and digital industry. So these are progresses we see in our industry in a company like us to continue to progress. So our expectation for 2024 is very good. We're very optimistic, and we believe that 2024 is going to have very good results for Electromidia in line with what we see already in the first quarter of the year.
Next question from [ Luca Brendon ] from Bank of America.
I've got 2 of them. First of all, when it comes to margins. They were close to 45% in streets and buildings, right, and elevators verticals and 20% for the other environments. When we look at the breakdown of the margins of the verticals, do they still look the same? Have there been changes with the acquisitions and with the progresses you've made? That's my first question. And the second, when it comes to the number of digital panels, aside from concessions, so when you think about buildings and partnerships with Tembici to grow the number of digital panels?
Thank you for your question, Luca. This margin reference comes from the companies we acquired that operate in these verticals, so in elevators 45%, and Otima with 40%. Electromidia stand-alone with 20% focusing on transport. That was the reference that we had prior to synergies. And this scenario is changing as the occupancy of each vertical continues to perform better. We can see better or worse performances depending on the revenue levels of the vertical. And of course, a quarter such as the fourth quarter, you have much higher numbers when it comes to EBITDA margins for all of the verticals. So we continue to work to increase our revenue levels in the 4 verticals that we're operating in today.
As for capital allocation and CapEx, our perspective very similar to what we had last year. Street Furniture continues to be implemented in Porto Alegre, Salvador with bus shelters and we continue to expand in Sao Paulo and other markets, too, that continues in 2024 in the coming years.
The digitization of our inventory also goes along with the growth of street furniture. Every year, we see the chance to increase in some shopping malls or grow in buildings or some other business that may crop up. So we have flexibility in CapEx, keeping our eye out for opportunities. What's difficult to price is new processes. So there is a new concession bid in the second half of the year, there could be an impact as well as a growth opportunity.
So what we've been planning is that we should keep at the same pace as the past years, especially when you think about street furniture ramp-up. We're capturing value from more mature initiatives such as Campinas or digitization in Sao Paulo or street furniture in Recife that is probably going to be completed when it comes to CapEx in the first half of the year. So this is what we see for CapEx this year. And we have flexibility to take on opportunities that always crop up every year.
[Operator Instructions] Next question from [ Pablo Gero ].
After the IPO, what is the main financial and operating result in the company's framework?
Thank you for your question. You can see that the main indicators are EBITDA. You can see in the presentation, right, also operating cash flow that will allow for investments in other projects and also the growth in our assets and our inventory and the rise in occupancy in sold assets.
When we talk about performance, we have historical records in operating and financial metrics. We continue to have new advertising panels that's going to continue to grow year-on-year. And the results that we had in revenue this year were record-breaking and net margin, cash generation and others.
The next question is also from Mr. Pablo Gero. What are your plans when it comes to going international? Do you have any interest in expanding into the rest of Latin America?
Thank you for your question, Pablo. As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, after the IPO, we have been quite disciplined when it comes to investments and the execution of our thesis. There are many opportunities to be ceased in Brazil still. It's still a very fragmented market, we believe that it can be better consolidated. And there are many opportunities for new bids. There are 10 to 15 new bids that should happen in the coming 2 to 3 years. But of course, we can still think about opportunities in other countries in Lat Am.
It is an obligation to look at possibilities not only in Lat Am, but also in North America and other countries. But there are local possibilities for us to capture value. We will definitely grow and scale and with synergy in Brazil. So we're going to continue to improve our indicators, capture value, and that is what's been focusing. We've been focusing our efforts and investments on.
If there are no further questions, we now conclude the Q&A session. We'll now turn the call over back to Mr. Guerrero for his final remarks.
Thank you very much for joining the call and for asking questions. We continue to pursue thesis with a lot of discipline. We believe that the out-of-home industry has a lot of tailwind in the years to come. We are really well positioned in the out-of-home and in the media industry in Brazil, and we believe that 2024 is going to be a year where we'll capture more value from our investments and the improvements in technology that we have had in the past years.
Congratulations to the whole Electromidia team. You are the ones who have been transforming the out-of-home industry in Brazil. Thank you very much.
This is the end of the earnings video conference of Electromidia. Should you have any further queries, please send them to our IR team at ri.electromidia.com.br. Thank you very much for joining the call, and have a great day.
Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.