Empreendimentos Pague Menos SA

BOVESPA:PGMN3

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Pague Menos an Extrafarma's conference call to announce the results of quarter 1 2024. This call is being recorded and the replay will be available at the company's website ri.paguemenos.com.br, where the slide presentation can also be downloaded.All participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation right after which we will start a question-and-answer session. And at this point, further instructions will be given. We also inform that this conference call will be conducted in Portuguese by the company's management and that simultaneous translation into English is available by clicking on the button interpretation.For those listening to the English conference, that is the option to listen to the interpreter only by clicking on mute original audio. The presentation will be shown in Portuguese and the slides in English are available for download at ri.paguemenos.com.br.Before proceeding, let me mention that any forward-looking statements made during this call are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management and the information currently available to Pague Menos. These forward-looking statements may involve risks and uncertainties since they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors, analysts, and journalists must understand that events relative to the macroeconomic environment to the industry and other factors may lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in said forward-looking statements.Today we have with us Mr. Jonas Marques, CEO and Mr. Luiz Novais, CFO and Investors Relations Director. Now I would like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jonas Marques to start his presentation. Mr. Marques, you may now proceed

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Good morning, everyone, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our call. This is my second call. In the first call, I was still in my transition. The company was being led by Mario. So I'd like to start by expressing my gratitude. Gratitude is one of the feelings that I tried to maintain over the course of my life. So Mario, thank you so much for this very productive transition. I'd also like to thank Patriciana Rodrigues, the Chairwoman of our Board, and especially to the family in the image of Deusmar, our founder. You really inspire us.We are now announcing the results of quarter 1, but I cannot start this presentation before stating our solidarity and our feelings towards the people in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. During my career, I had the privilege of working in the south of Brazil, and I visited many cities there. So it's really heartbreaking to see what they're going through right now. So our heartfelt solidarity to our colleagues, to our friends there.We have a lot of activities going on there. Please pay attention to our social media. We have donation campaigns. We have a lot of collection points. And in all our units in Rio Grande do Sul, we are collecting donations so that we can extend our hand and offer some help to the people there because we have to take care of each other. We are interdependent.So to start our results presentation, I'd like to start by saying that we're very happy with the results of quarter 1. On our first chart, we can see the main highlights of the quarter. And why does this make us so happy, because this is the result of hard work and a lot of dedication from our teams. We're very thankful to them.When we see the growth of our top line, the improvement in our margins and the strong cash generation, this reinforces our certainty about the size of the opportunity that we have ahead of us.So let's look at our numbers. We have a gross revenue with acceleration of our top line reaching double digit growth, 10% versus the same period last year. This was very close to the average growth of the market, which really allows us to maintain our market share. So the net revenue was very positive, BRL 3.1 billion, 10% more than the same quarter last year.One of the main factors that allowed for this growth was our same-store sales. We saw strong growth in our same-store sales, particularly driven by the Extrafarma banner. We've seen it in our converted stores, we had a growth of 32% and for other stores 12.5%. Of course, we're closing the gap of Extrafarma versus Pague Menos. Pague Menos also had 8.5% increase in the Pague Menos banner. So in consolidated was 9.6%. So here, there's something that sometimes can be taken for granted, which is the engagement of our people.In this visit to the 19 states that I visited, I heard our store managers, our store employees that we are simple people with the extraordinary missions to bring better health to the Brazilian people. So it's very important to share with them what our purpose is. And this purpose is a driver of motivation because it's very hard when you have a slower growth, it's very hard to ensure that people focus on execution and the growth that we need for the stores that we already have. So this was something very positive that we saw in our same-store sales.Of course, you can say that the base that Extrafarma had was better, and that's true. We are improving the store performance, but that does not diminish the importance of this growth. The EBITDA, we had accelerated top line growth with improved -- an improved rent profitability and a strong EBITDA, 77.5% year-over-year. And what is the main driver of this EBITDA? And why is this not a surprise?It is the beautiful work that's being done with the synergies from Extrafarma, not just in planning, the planning that was done last year, but also execution. Today, in an annualized phase, we're growing 18% versus last quarter last year -- 18-- 153 million. This is the main deliverable of the company this year, the synergies with Extrafarma.For cash cycle, I'd like to highlight the changing behavior. As I saw since our first call, numbers follow behaviors, and it's very important to change behaviors if you want to change your results. We were able to accelerate stock-to-earn, particularly for Extrafarma, because this was a problem that we have been having in our integration. This was something that we shared with you in our last calls. So improving our stock level, productive stock level, we accelerated our talks with the industry because pharmaceutical retail, we were always the chain that was the closest to the industry. We really want to be partners to them.And with these improvements, we have a more positive cash flow and a better matched cash flow and together with our EBITDA, this will help reduce the company's indebtedness. When we look at our company's indebtedness, the first quarter has a more difficult seasonality in terms of indebtedness, but we were able to reduce a 0.4x the net debt over EBITDA ratio and you're going to see this trend accelerating for the rest of the year. So these were the main highlights.After very -- this very hard work that was in our team, a lot of dedication. So Novais, can you now go over our numbers in more details?

[Luiz Novais, executive]

Yes, certainly. Thank you, Jonas. Good morning, everyone.Starting on Page 6, we have more details about the results that were highlighted by Jonas. Our sales performance, as you already heard, we had a 10% increase in the total sales of the company, 9.5% from same-store sales, 1.5% from new stores and 1 negative point due to the closeouts that we had in the past 12 months.We see an improvement in the same-store indicator. Our growth is nearly double the inflation, which was close to 5%. So a very important acceleration. And on the right, as you already heard, we have a very positive acceleration in Extrafarma store. So 9.6% growth in same-store, 8.5% for Pague Menos and 32% for those 55 stores that we converted last year. They grew 32% compared with the same period last year, when they still had the Extrafarma banner.And the other Extrafarma stores also had a good growth rate, 12.5%. And remember that in the first quarter of 2023, we were going through a logistic and systemic integration which somehow affected the company during that period. So this growth rate also shows the evolution after that, more delicate time that we went through in the company's integration. So this shows that we are certainly on the right track for integration.On the next page, we have more information about the expansion cycle starting 2021. We have seen very good performance in these stores and maturation curve is evolving as planned. The contribution margin from these stores are higher than the contribution margins of course at their maturation point compared with the previous portfolio, which points to these stores, pulling the EBITDA margin up after they reach their maturation point.And on the right, you see the characteristics of this cohort of stores. In '23, 70% of the stores in the North and Northeast from '21 to '23, and the other stores in the Southeast, South, and Midwest, we see a small increment in the share of the Midwest and Southeast. We have had good -- very good surprises in the Midwest. So this is also helping us evolve in this cohort of stores.And in our -- in the third chart, you can see that our focus is still very concentrated in the expanded middle class according to the IBGE classification, 86% of our stores target this type of public.On Chart #8, this chart is dedicated to banner conversion. So the 55 conversions that we had last year are performing really well. These were states where the strength of the Pague Menos brand was stronger than Extrafarma. So we were already expecting this progression, but it was much more positive than expected.So that is why now in the beginning of this year, we are converting another 54 stores in other states, and we also have positive prospects, but these are states where the Extrafarma banner is already -- has a stronger presence, but we expect a relevant increment in the sales of these stores.After this conversion cycle, we will have Extrafarma stores in four states: Para, Amapa, Ceara, and Maranhao. And we are also closely monitoring the cannibalization of these conversions since we have more than 90% of the sales of these stores identified so we can see who are the customers buying each of these stores. The measurement of our cannibalization shows very small numbers. So this also makes us very glad, very happy with these conversions.Next page, market share. We have good news. So even with the fewer inaugurations in the start of these years, 29 inaugurations, and a few inaugurations at the end of last year, we had a slight reduction point Q3 of evolution in our market share. We gained share 33%, 34% point share in the North and Midwest regions. And on the right, we see different movements among competitors.So the associations and franchises are growing relevantly their store base, 6.6% growth. Independent pharmacies had a decrease in the number of stores, a reduction of 1.4%. Chains are -- also grew by 1.4%, and we had a small growth. As I said, we are now focusing on deleveraging the company. That's why we are opening a smaller number of stores, but even with fewer inaugurations, we are maintaining our market share based on our portfolio of 1,650 stores. So we're also very happy with this evolution.And quarter 1 is a quarter that favors independent pharmacies. So if we had seen this chart in the other quarters of the years with the same components, then the situation of the independent stores would have been even worse because in quarter 1 IQVIA shows the selling data.So on the next chart, we have the average sales per store, breaking down Pague Menos and Extrafarma chains, associations, and independent. So we can grow the average sales per store in all regions except for the South. Highlight is to the Midwest and North regions where we have a much higher growth level. So we're working hard to extract most from our stores, the 1,650 stores, to improve the company's results.On the next chart, we have our gross profit and gross margin. We had a margin growth of 0.01% from 29.1% to 29.2%. We continue suffering pressures with our stocks from the Extrafarma legacy and adjusted present value. These 2 components have negatively impacted our margin in quarter 1. About 60 bps of negative impact. And we offset this effect with the leverages that we have been working for a while now. So private label and generics and product mix helping offset.We also had some inflationary gains in the first quarter of the year. So in January, some states decreased their ICMS rates. So since we had some stocks with the older price, we had an inflationary and tax-related gain. And commercial agreements and synergies from Extrafarma keep advancing. So this helps us offset the losses we had with stocks and [ AVB ]. The gross margin continues to be a point of attention for the rest of the year. However, as we already saw in quarter 1, we are working on our levers to be able to offset this effect, neutralize this effect, and maybe even grow this margin a little bit over the rest of the year.The next chart, selling expenses. This is excellent news that we had in quarter 1. We diluted 80 bps compared to quarter 1 last year. These 80 bps, we can break down in 2 blocks of 40 bps. The first block is particularly due to in the first quarter last year, we concentrated a higher investment in marketing. And we also had a higher expense in logistics and technology because it was exactly when we had the most important point of our integration with Extrafarma. That's why we had a higher level of expenses in quarter 1 last year.And the other bps are due to operating leverage. We are growing our sales with a lower level of increase in our expenses, lower than the growth in our sales. Rentals have been helping the IGPM is much lower than the growth of our sales and Extrafarma synergies here, once again, contributing to dilute our expenses. So we're very happy with the dilution of our expenses.We had some increase in the average number of employees per store, 0.4% decrease. We are here focusing on better serving our customers and also some freight expenses also increased in this first quarter. However, all these positive elements helped us greatly dilute our expenses in this period, with positive prospects for the rest of the year.Next chart, G&A expenses. We also have good news here. The first quarter of the year is traditionally under more pressure. That first moment of the year where we have a lower revenue than in other quarters due to the calendar effect. So this is a point where the ratio of G&A expenses over your sales is higher than in other quarters. But it is lower than in other -- in previous years, so a 0.2% decrease compared to previous years, particularly due to the capture of synergies with Extrafarma.We also have an effect in quarter 1, which is the Fortaleza bargaining agreement, so the salary increase. The salary increase happens before the drug price increase, which takes place on April 1. Just like we showed in the previous slide with our selling expenses, we also have good prospects in terms of continuous dilution of our G&A expenses in the coming quarters.On Page 14, our EBITDA is a consequence of these 3 levers. So the growth of our sales, the marginal growth of our gross margin and the relevant reduction in our expenses, we had an increase of 77.4% in our EBITDA year-over-year. So we reached BRL 97 million in EBITDA with an increase of 1.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year. So here, we have a very important combination of sales, margin increase, and expense dilution.On Page 15, we have more information about the Extrafarma integration. We accumulated BRL 153 million in synergies captured of these BRL 153 million, 85%, we see in the Extrafarma P&L and the other 15% in the Pague Menos P&L. The effect for Pague Menos is tax effects and freight reduction. We are within the planned curve for the capture of synergies. This capture curve already contemplates the loss of legacy stocks that was slightly higher than what we planned for Extrafarma, and it also contemplates the upsides that we are capturing from the banner conversions. So one thing is offsetting the other.And on the right, we can see the very important evolution in the EBITDA margin of Extrafarma. We went from a negative level of 2.6% to a positive 1.9%. This could give you the impression that we are moving horizontally quarter 1 compared with quarter 4. But as we said, quarter 1 is a point where we have a smaller margin than in other quarters. So this means that we are indeed evolving. And in the coming quarters, we should see a better EBITDA margin than what we're seeing in quarter 1 as well as for Pague Menos. So this means that we're doing really well in the Extrafarma integration, which will reach its final integration points by the end of the year.On Chart #7, as a consequence of all the elements that we listed, the strong expansion in our margin and all the operating elements of the company, the selling effect, the margin effect, and a relevant decrease in our financial result, but still the financial results were slightly higher than the operating results of the company. And consequently, we had a negative BRL 23 million for this quarter, which is much lower than what we had in quarter 1 last year.We also had an important negative effect compared with quarter 1 '21 because in quarter 1 '21, we had BRL 38 million of deferred income tax of previous losses, previous to that date for Extrafarma. So that positive effect had an impact on quarter 1 '23. We didn't have this effect this year, but it is an exogenous effect on our results. And we are very positive for the coming quarters because with this operational evolution and the reduction in the company's leverage, which is a focus of the company, a decrease in the interest rates because we are also renegotiating the interest rates, we have very good expectations for the coming quarters.On Page 17, we have our cash cycle. So another piece of good news here, we have an important element, which is the evolution of the cash generation of the company, which is the decrease of our stock investments. We normalized our stock investment. So we went from 129 days in quarter 1, 2023 to 113 days in quarter 1, '24.On the right, we see that we are at an even lower level than in quarter 1, '22 and '21 during the pandemic. A strong focus here on reducing excess stock of improving our replenishment algorithms and growing our sales. By growing our sales, we can also decrease the days of stock. The average stop time between the banners, the difference between the banners was about 30 days and now it's has dropped by 2/3.Now we have 9 days of difference in terms of average stock time. Extrafarma still has a slightly lower level. So we are working strongly to improve our cash cycle and we have a decrease in our payment receipt cycle. We are at 18 days. So we increased 18 days, each day represents about BRL 30 million. So this means we have recomposed a very important numbers of 10 days, about BRL 270 million in recomposition of our receivables.On Page 18, our indebtedness due to all these advancements in our cash cycle, operational generation, and improvement in our EBITDA, we reduced 0.4x the EBITDA compared to quarter 1 last year. As we already said, the quarter 1 is a point in time where there's a smaller EBITDA generation and a greater need for cash because we are paying for what we bought in the end of last year because we have the industry vacation period. So the indebtedness level should decrease in the upcoming quarters. And on the right, we have another positive piece of news.Our financial team was working strongly in quarter 1 and has completed this work now. An important work of reprofiling of our debt. We wrote over about BRL 40 million in contracts where we could reduce our spread of 1.0 -- CDI + 1.97 to CDI + 1.75, about 22 bps reduction, increasing the duration from 1.96 to 2.29 and decreasing the short-term percentage from 26% to 18%. So very important work that we did now in the end of quarter 1. And the company's indebtedness will continue to be a strong focus.And on Page 19, to close on a high note, in addition to all the good news, the financial results and P&L yesterday, together with our earnings release, we also published our sustainability report for 2023. We continue with a strong focus on delivering our commitments that were announced in previous years. We have 35 commitments. We anticipated 7 of these commitments that were expected for 2025, and they were fully delivered on 2023. Here, we have some highlights.The first one is we have more than 1,200 stores using renewable energy. The presence of women in our company is very strong. 60% of the company's payroll is composed women and 64% of the company's leadership and selective waste collection. About 40% of our stores today already have waste collection stations and battery collection stations for correct disposal. So we had more than 5 tonnes of waste collected in our stores and correctly disposed of for recycling or incineration. This reinforces our focus on promoting health to the people, to the environment, to the business. These are our commitments.Now I'd like to hand it back to Jonas as he is going to talk about the first 100 days of the company. Thank you.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Thank you, Novais. So I'd like to give you some more color about this transition plan in the first 100 days that we completed 120 days the day before yesterday.So next chart, I would like to reinforce the commitment that I took on in my first day. So coming from Australia to Brazil to live in Fortaleza and taking on this challenge for Pague Menos has much more to do with a live mission than just a job because I'm here to continue to serve 26,000 employees and more than 20 million customers that every day, day after day, choose us. We sell commodities.When we have a customer in our store, this is a declaration of preference and trust so that we can treat the most important thing they have, which is their health. This onboarding process was very interesting, I would say, and very moving and positive because it could confirm the theory that I saw in my first week that Pague Menos is a company that believes in people. That Pague Menos is a company that, in my opinion, promotes mobility of social architecture because you're going to see a lot of people who started with the trainees and had their first job in our company and that were promoted, and some of them are directors in our company today.So it's very important, this approximation, this diagnosis, the moment when I stop to listen. As a psychologist, I can never forget that listening is the most important, listening to the people and the feedback is always a gift. So I had the opportunity, as I showed you, to see a lot of customers, to talk to a lot of employees. I went to 19 states, and I saw and talked to more than 1,000 people in our stores, suppliers.The industry has always been a great partner. And coming from the industry, I have a lot of friends in the industry. So I ask them for feedback, how we're doing, what we can improve. This was very important, both in Fortaleza and Sao Paulo. We are inaugurating a new methodology of working with the industry, which are very well-planned meetings with structured follow-up to make sure that we're executing what we propose to execute and bringing more benefit to the investors.In the case of our investors, I also received feedback from many investors and our management board. So it's very important is this point about focusing on the people. We cannot serve who we don't know and we cannot serve well who we don't love. So this proximity is very important. So this was some of the work that was done in these first 100 days.The next step, it's not just about our obsession with execution but also with strategy. Our strategy is very clear as a health hub, as a primary care company. We want to be close to our customers. We want -- and particularly, this onboarding time was a time to go back to the basics, and I had the opportunity to lead more than 30 hours of workshop where we did a reality check.I really love [ Jim Collins ] when he talks about the fact of reality. So where we're at, what is our reality and what we need to face in order to change. Then we went to the selection of priority focuses. And I always work with listening, strong listening. It's very important to listen to the team for those who had the experience. So the leadership team to parting that activity, our stakeholders, we had groups with Board members, with clients.We took all the service that we had, and we reviewed our values and our purpose. We don't even have to say that our purpose and our values are the most important thing in this game. And an analysis of what we are, what we are not, and what we want to be. So here, just out of curiosity. When I ask the team, what they want to do first, what we are or what we are not. They said what we are not, because this is very difficult.So we stopped at this exercise and then we went back to what we are because the most difficult part of defining our strategy is to discuss what you don't want, what you don't want to be. So this was a confirmation. This workshop was very important, and then it accommodated with the last workshop with the family. Both the [ Alvis ] family and [ Kate Oz ] family where we could test some of our non-negotiables. It's very important that we have this alignment, very good alignment with the family and with total freedom to carry out this work with the team of executives.Next topic. The next chart shows what the result of these workshops. These are short-term focuses. When we put these discussions in our opportunity matrix, we have 19 top priority topics. And of course, we cannot pursue all of them at once. So we wrote a simple matrix of new customers, current customers, current activities and new activities. And we saw that 85% of our opportunities are incremental activities based on our current customers and current activities. We call them missions.I think the models that you have in your companies are -- is a model that uses squads. It's a very agile model. So we form these plots based on people's skills, and we created these operating missions. So what are these operating missions? Customer service, processes and standardization pricing, headquarters in store support maintenance and IT stability. So a little more information. Customer services, if you're not our customer, well, if you're not our customer, please be our customer and give us the chance to enchant you as well.We cannot enchant without being enchanted. So we have a specific mission of improving customer service at our stores. So the standardization -- processes and standardization, pricing is very important to study the types of discount to be able to offer the right offer to the right customer, a customer that is loyal and that prefers us much more often than the competition.Headquarters and store support. So we inverted the store, the employees said that the headquarters were more important than the store. It's actually the opposite. Maintenance, visit our stores and see the renewal that we did in our stores, the retrofit. When you change your facade, when you paint your store, this is a change from the inside out and you -- this is a change from the outside in, but you can -- you also can see the change from the inside out. People are extremely -- we want people to be extremely motivated and proud of working for us. It's not just about having a new house.We need a mirror inside the house. Let's look in the mirror and see the size of the love and dedication that we need to offer our clients. And IT stability to bring more robustness, not just to defend ourselves from cyberattacks, which are very frequent today, but also to advance to be more robust in artificial intelligence, in omnichannel in the way we work. So we have a lot to do. We don't want to be followers. We want to be either and leaders innovate. And it's not by hazard that this is at the base of this pyramid.Next chart, the most important thing, once again, is to form a high-impact team. And the interviews are not interviews. They are a division of responsibilities. We are looking for people who have a life mission. They don't want just a job position. They don't want just to evolve in their professional life. So we have very senior professionals. The last to join us was Carlos Fernandes. Welcome, Carlos. Carlos was COO of [indiscernible] Accenture.He worked in Accenture for many years. He worked for Walmart, has a lot of experiences. He's an engineer and economist. [ Rosie ]. Rosie is a person who really loves us. She's our [ CHRO ]. She already joined us, very engaged. She came from Casas Bahia, Coca Cola, and Sanofi. Robledo was in the first call with us. He's our CTO. He's doing beautiful work. Renato, very strong. A lot of motivation. He has been with us for 2 years, dealing with everything customer and digital. And Luiz Novais, our CFO, who is here with us in this call, he's been with the company for 7 or 8 years. So we are seeing different stages of the company.So this is what we are investing the longest time in my day I'm investing in this because culture, innovation, and engagement are essential. It's not about me, it's about the team, it's about empowerment. It's about setting the game and let people advance. So let's move forward because I want to leave time for questions.Last chart. What is our focus today? And what is new about it? I visit our stores every day. It doesn't matter where I am, if it's Saturday, Sunday. I can -- I will even take my family to visit our stores because it's at the point of sale that the magic happens, where people interact with people, with perfect -- in perfect efficiency and execution can make or break it.So today, we have 3 pillars: people and management. So culture, strategy, thinking of the structure as a whole and reviewing, having the right people at the right place. This is very important ritual. For more than 3 years, people have had ritual. So execution rituals, engagement rituals, listening rituals. We're doing a lot in the sense and the potentiation of this beautiful culture, the DNA that we have, which is people love people.Operating missions, I already talked about this. I think one of the characteristics that I have is high energy and a lot of focus on execution. In these more than 30 years of my career, I've seen beautiful strategies fail and so-so strategies being winners because of the discipline and focus on execution. So this is about execution. This is about changing the pillars. This is about looking at the basics.And in the first chart that I showed you, Novais' presentation, you already see results, initial results. And I don't want to overpromise, but there's a lot of opportunities of money on the table because focusing on execution for these pillars, you see that we can make even more of all this, and we already showed you a preview in the start of our work this year. And strongly working on cash generation. And this is not news, of course. If you look at our EBITDA, it is consumed by financial expenses.We want to deleverage the company to continue to grow, to continue opening stores. This is what we do in retail. So it's very important to focus on deleveraging, capturing the synergies with Extrafarma and optimizing the improvement in our working capital. So if I want to leave you with one takeaway is it is, Pague Menos is a passionate company focused on and what we deliver to our customers every day in our stores to all our customers. We haven't, we aren't really there yet, but we are on the right track, and we will deliver.So thank you all for your attention, and I would like to open for Q&A and thank our more than 26,000 employees who are engaged in our mission to bring better health to the Brazilian people. So let's open for questions now.

[Operator]

[Operator instructions] Our first question is from Laryssa Sumer, XP.

[Laryssa Sumer, analyst]

Congratulations on your results. I have 2 questions. My first question is about the competitive scenario. Novais talked a bit about the weakening of independence and associations. But can you give us an overview of your competitive scenario outside of seasonal factors, which end up weakening this category. And my next question is about this significant opening that you had in the quarter, delivering the target for the year. We didn't have a significant impact in preoperational expenses. So can you give us some color about the effect of these openings on your EBITDA, and it could have been even better if we consider these effects.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Thank you, Laryssa. Novais, I'll answer the first question about the competitive market.The market is extremely competitive. You see a double-digit growth in the market. We see a decrease of independence, but also a lot of growth in associations. We have more track of independent stores as aligning with associations to improve their expertise in the management of their business. We have a market, Laryssa, which is still very decentralized and fragmented.I come from a market, for example, Australia, New Zealand. They are extremely consolidated markets with very few players. It's not the case of Brazil yet. But I see strong acceleration in this direction. When we look at the largest chain or the largest group in the market, they have been doing very consistent work and they're accelerating this work, this consolidation, both organic and inorganic. So you have a very difficult to operate in market consumer, which is more -- becoming more and more demanding. That's why the first of our mission is to improve customer service. We want to attract customers and gain their loyalty.So what I see for the future is that we're talking about health, health will never stop growing. If you look at our growth, it is double the inflation, it's double the average readjustments and much higher than inflation rate. So it's a very competitive scenario. And we are more and more prepared every day to reach better results. And there is no secret here. The secret is to engage people to have very well-defined rituals to have perfect execution to prepare your stores with the improvements that we are doing in our stores to receive our customers to enchant them.And according to our name, Pague Menos or pay less in Portuguese, we have to offer a fair price so that they can have access their medications. So the prospects are very positive in the market. Of course, there sometimes tragedies happen, like the one we have now in Rio Grande do Sul. We have a low number of stores there, but that it's not relevant. It's something that we cannot control, and these are things that could have an impact in the market.Novais, can you answer the second question?

[Luiz Novais, executive]

Thank you, Laryssa, for your question. Laryssa, the 29 new openings we had in quarter 1 compared with the total base of stores, more than 1,600. It wasn't that much of an impact. I don't have the exact number, but I would say it's 10 to 15 bps of impact on our operating expenses. So the effect was marginal.The stores we are opening, Laryssa, just one additional information. They will achieve their breakeven point at their second or third month. So those that were opened in January, most of them by the end of this quarter, will have reached their breakeven point. So maturation in the first month is very sharp. So in addition to it being a small number of stores compared to our total portfolio, also the fast break-even, that leads to a low impact on the results of quarter 1.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Novais, just to stress about the inauguration of the new openings. One of the latest stores already has an average monthly sales of BRL 500,000 in its first month. So it reinforces what you just said, and this also reinforces the need that we have to focus on deleveraging without missing the boat for expansion because we have been doing great work in expansion with very high assertiveness. And it's very important when you say -- when you talk about the breakeven, Novais.

[Operator]

The next question is from Clara Lustosa, Itau.

[Clara Lustosa, analyst]

Jonas and Novais, I have 2 follow-up questions about some points that you already went over during the presentation about sales. So first, about the IQVIA data about the variation of the average sales per store in the Northeast having a weaker dynamics in terms of year-over-year growth when compared with the other regions.Of course, you're still growing above the market average. But just to add more color. Was there a state that had a better performance of thinking of the different states? Is there a stage where this performance was more representative? And what is the dynamics of sales in the different regions now in the start of quarter 2.And my second question, which is actually more related to the Extrafarma banner. The conversion project is ongoing. You have very expressive results in terms of same-store sales increase, 32% that you announced for your converted stores. But thinking of the stores that have not yet been converted, for example, those where you reported growth of 12.5% in your same-store sales. Can you give us more color about the breakdown by state. So thinking of states where the Extrafarma banner will continue to be Extrafarma, the 4 states that you mentioned Para, Mapa, Serai, Maranhao.What is the performance of the Extrafarma banner in terms of same-store sales in these states and for other states, where you will convert to Pague Menos?

[Jonas Neto, executive]

All right. Novais, let me start and then you can add. Thank you for your question. In the North and Northeast, we are leaders. And if you look retrospectively, the North and Northeast were the regions where we opened more stores. Of course, it is very clear that it's also the regions where we were the most attacked from our -- by our competitors. We also had a higher historical share in these regions. So we have been working with our leaders to look at the data and act in very accurate and surgical way to continue to accelerate our growth in these regions. Something that was really striking to us, and that proves the assertiveness in opening new stores is the Midwest.The Midwest is a region where we are growing at a rate higher than that of our competitors and that of the market. And it's a region that is growing economically. There are some new markets that are opening up. And this is something we're exploring really well. I had the chance to visiting the Midwest, different cities in the Midwest and see what a good team that we have there, the good operations and execution makes all the difference.So our strategy is to continue to look at these growth hubs and to treat each city in a much more individualized way, understanding all the variables and all the levers we can work on so that we have a higher average sales per store and we can improve our indicators and having enchanted people. Enchanted people sell more because they sell with passion and they understand their mission.Novias, would you like to answer the second part?

[Luiz Novais, executive]

Yes. And just additional information about your first question. If we had the last 5 years of growth of the regions, we still see the Northeast with a growth rate, which is slightly higher than that of the other regions. So the other regions in Brazil, other than the Northeast.In the last 2 years, they have evolved. I think also due to climate-related reasons, they have different growth rates over the years. If we normalize and if we use a longer horizon, the growth levels are much more balanced than if we look at them one by one or in an isolate quarter. So in addition to the climate issue and the seasonal issue, there is no other element that makes the Northeast stand up -- stand out from the others.And about the banner conversions, the other states, they are also growing at a much higher rates than the Pague Menos stores or the stores in the states where we are maintaining the Extrafarma stores. They are growing at about 12% like you saw. In these 4 states, we also have some one-off banner conversions to measure how this is advancing, because we also consider that banner conversion is a new invite, an additional invite for the people who used to frequent Extrafarma stores to go back to frequenting them so that they can better see this change.So we're also trialing that. We're very happy with the other states. All the operational improvement levers are evolving, and this decision for those 4 states, and we're going to leave them for the future. And we're going to be very careful about them because the Extrafarma brand is very strong, particularly in Para and the other states. So we want to extract maximum value operationally from the brands. Thank you, Clara.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

I would just have to add that retail is about the details. So we're always looking at details about our stores. Even with good growth rates, we are always looking for more opportunities to grow. So if there's a specific store that we think needs to be converted and we will do it. Thank you.

[Operator]

The next question is from Guilherme Vilela, JPMorgan.

[Guilherme Vilela, analyst]

Jonas and Novais, I'd like to talk about the expected image that you see for Extrafarma and Pague Menos in a 1- to 2-year time frame? And my second question, what are the next steps for the Extrafarma integration. Can you further accelerate the sales and improve the margin.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Thank you for your question, Guilherme. The expected margin, we don't give guidance for our margin, but our plan is to continue to evolve our EBITDA and gross margin as well, but the EBITDA margin, particularly our main levers are focused on sales -- incremental sales and expense dilution. We also have generics, growing private label. We still have a lot of room to grow, very promising to help us improve the company's margin.Expense dilution, we still have a lot of opportunities and sales increase in many other elements like we just said. Our CRM team has been doing some very important work maintaining and growing the base of customers that we call golden customers, which are the ones that contribute the most to the company's across the company's income. So we have a lot of activities focusing on this public.Digital channel is growing strongly. So for the Extrafarma, we still have a lower share of digital. Pague Menos is close 14% in Extrafarma. We're close to 11%. We also have opportunities to increase the density of our shipping routes to improve the margin for Extrafarma and Pague Menos and many other fronts assortment, pricing, there's still a lot of important work to be done in pricing.Our store staff, joining us now with Carlos joining us. We will be focusing on engagement and motivation of the team and reorganization of the team or our store operations team. And that makes a lot of difference in the quality of our customer service, reducing our waiting lines and improving the sales per store. So these new elements, we're not working on them just for Extrafarma. Also for Pague Menos and Extrafarma should reach an EBITDA margin similar to that of Pague Menos by quarter 4 this year.So we start the year 2025 (sic) [ 2024 ] with the 2 banners with similar EBITDA margins, and we will continue to grow the EBITDA margin in the next coming years to have a lot of room to improve the margin of both banners.

[Operator]

The next question is from Vitor Fuziharo, Santander.

[Vitor Fuziharo, analyst]

I have 2 questions. First, a follow-up question about the capture of synergies. So by the end of quarter 1, you're already relevantly approximating to the lower limit of synergies mapped. Do you believe that at the end of the integration process, we will be closer to the top of the guidance. Is there any visibility that you can give us in that regard?And the second question is, in the short term, I want to know about the sales dynamic in quarter 2 initial results and the pre-price increase compared with 2023.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Thank you, Vitor. Let me start, Jonas. About the capture of synergies, we are evolving really well. We have reached a point which is close to the lower limit of the range that we published and we still have 3 quarters to continue to capture these synergies. The banner conversions have been a positive factor. What we plan was a much lower growth rate. So this has been helping us improve our prospects.Our prospect continues to be to deliver within that range of synergies that we published. So we're very positive about the synergies to be captured and very happy with the evolution, particularly in quarter 4 last year and quarter 1 this year for the sales element. Because until that point, we were very focused on gross margin and expense dilute and we had a very strong capture, very consistent capture of these synergies. So for synergies, and for your first question, this is my comment.Now about quarter 2, I think the month of April and the start of May were very positive compared with the same period last year. So we're also very optimistic about the evolution of our sales in quarter 2. The pre-price increase, we will have a smaller effect compared with previous quarters. Even with the lower stock level, we can completely capture our pre-price increase planning. The readjustment was 4.6%.And of course, there's an important margin effect for us. So even at a level, which is about 1 point lower than that of last year where the readjustment was 5.6%. We were able to recapture these effects, and we are working on the other margin elements like we already said, there are many moving parts about our margin, and we're working to neutralize and, if possible, improve this component throughout the rest of the year.

[Luiz Novais, executive]

Vitor, I would just like to add something, Novais. All of us who have been through company acquisitions, we know that the cultural part is very important. You have to invest in that. So this was a very large acquisition, more than 400 stores. So -- and it's the store that we need to integrate. So as an optimist, I always believe that we have opportunity to continue to work hard to do that, to improve that.So Extrafarma synergies are in the letter that I received from the Board that I -- when I got here as my utmost priority. So this is something I'm directly involved in, and we are very focused on delivering as much as we can. Today, this is the best number that we have showed to you, and we are very positive about delivering our promise in the future.

[Operator]

The next question is from Mr. Marcio Osako, Bradesco BBI.Mr. Marcio, you can ask your question now. I think maybe he is having technical problems with this microphone. I don't know if we can send this question in writing, I don't think so. We will take his question at a later time and answer in writing.The question-and-answer session is now closed. Now I'd like to hand it back to Mr. Jonas Marques for his final remarks.

[Jonas Neto, executive]

Thank you all for attending our call. We had really positive results, which excite us and give us the certainty that we are on the right track, and we will continue to work hard to capture all the value and the value proposition that we have to deliver with this very beautiful DNA, which is the DNA of a company that believes in people, and that really has growth in its D&A since 1981.Once again, I would like to reinforce our solidarity with the people of Rio Grande do Sul. Very hardworking people who has never been through such a difficult situation, and we're working diligently to support them in any way we can. All our clients are employees and shareholders that live in the South.Thank you all. Once again, have a great rest of your week, and we'll see you in our next call. We have a lot of work to do and a lot of great things to capture. Thank you. Thank you, Novais, and have a great day.

[Operator]

This conference call is now over. Thank you all for participating. Have a great day. You may disconnect now.[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]