Qualicorp Consultoria e Corretora de Seguros SA

BOVESPA:QUAL3

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q2

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for holding. Welcome to the Quali's webcast to discuss the second quarter '22 results. With us today are Mr. Bruno Blatt, the company's CEO; Mr. Fred Oldani, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer; and Mr. Elton Carluci, VP for Commercial Innovation and New Business; and Ana Paula Carracedo, Chief Compliance, Audit & Risk Officer.

Some statements in this webcast may be projections or statements about the future expectations. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and they may lead to results that differ materially from what was expected. This event is being broadcast simultaneously over the Internet and can be accessed at www.qualicorp.com.br, where the respective presentation is available.

We also inform you that this event will be recorded and the participants will listen to the webcast during the company presentation. Ensuing this, we will go on to the question-and-answer session.

I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Bruno Blatt, who will proceed.

[Bruno Blatt, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here once again to speak about Quali's second quarter results. These moments give us the opportunity to go beyond the numbers. We can speak about concepts, management and deliveries. Roberto Simonsen used to say that optimism is to hope for the best and confidence is to know how to deal with the worst. We have both. We have the optimism of those who understand the business and time and the confidence that in worst times we are doing the best because we have the best team, the most committed to the correct management and with the delivery of results.

It has been 3 months of struggles, achievements and deliveries, and we have evolved in each stage of the strategic pillars that are the foundation of our company. Thinking about one of our most important pillars, which is the customer focus, we will inaugurate next week the customer house, which is located on the ground floor of the Avenida Paulista office. This new space has been idealized to bring about a new experience with greater hospitality and quality and face-to-face contact with Quali beneficiaries. It also brings savings in the cost of occupancy.

Speaking about the theme of customers, we have launched a new version of our mobile application with new functionalities and performance improvements. Here, it is obvious to say how important and attractive and functional app is for relationship with our beneficiaries. But as we look at the new app through 2 very important viewpoints. One is the bridge it makes with our retention strategy as it allows us to be more connected to our customers to resolve their needs. The second perspective is financial, as it reduces operational costs and calls to our service center.

In our management and governance pillar, we launched the Quali's first sustainability report and the approval of sustainability policy by the Board. Ana Carracedo, our Director of Compliance, Audit & Risk will comment in detail about the report, but I cannot fail to emphasize the importance of this report for the maturing of our strategic sustainability agenda. And of course, I want to thank the dedication of the entire team.

Quali is made up of dedicated and competent people. And our Quali way of being is now also our sustainable way of being. With regard to our growth pillar, we continue bidding on the expansion of our portfolio to bring more and better health to our Brazilians. In the second quarter, we began the Seguros Unimed HMO, one of the largest operators in the country.

The new portfolio includes plants in the Greater Sao Paulo, the Federal District, Salvador and Maranon. We have 108 partner operators throughout Brazil, offering the most diverse plants in all the price ranges.

Another important point for Quali in the medium and long-term is product diversification. We have 2 highlights here. Our digital marketplace platform, Quali Seguros, which recently launched a new campaign in digital media to promote its main products. Besides bringing in new clients, Quali Seguros brings about advantages too, and better prices to Quali's current clients.

The second highlight is the growth of our SME portfolio, which has practically doubled in the last years, reaching 80,000 lives. We are just at the beginning, and we see enormous potential for Quali in this segment. Our plan is to continue moving towards the objective of being the largest SME distributor in the market as well as in the Affinity segment.

In the Affinity segment, we had a second quarter marked by external challenges that did not allow us to deliver our goal on organic growth. Our sales and our churn remained at similar levels to the previous quarter and we had a slight reduction of 1.8%. Despite the challenges of the current inflationary environment and with very important financial management, we had a drop in cost of 10% vis-a-vis the previous year. Thus, our adjusted EBITDA margin was a 110 basis points higher than in the second quarter '21. Even so our profit dropped in the quarter impacted by the operational and financial expenses.

Well, I want to say that we are not comfortable with this short-term performance, but it is essential to understand that the macro scenario is unfavorable playing against us. Annual inflation in Brazil continues at double digits even after the intense cycle of monetary tightening. Unemployment has dropped and it has reduced the population's ability to pay, and it increases defaults. This happens all over the world. Inflation and recession aggravated by the tension and threat of conflicts besides the pandemic that has not ended yet. So while we look for ways to meet the short-term challenges, we have to keep our eyes fixed on the future.

We are a company that has a goal. We know where we are heading, and we have an integrated team, which keeps doing the right thing for customers, shareholders and society as a whole. Recalling what I said in the last earnings release, and the analysts have reminded me of this. We know that the headwinds bring challenges to us and have so in the past 2 years.

We can also bring about better times just as we have been navigating with headwind, we can also be ready to resume the course when the tide turns, ready to resume growth in a sustainable way. This is and will always be the major focus of this administration.

Going back to Roberto Simonsen, so we are optimistic because we have a company that knows how to work in adversity and that is ready to grow in the favorable times that we are building. We will continue to do the right thing. Thank you.

[Ana Paula Medeiros Carracedo, executive]

Thank you, Bruno. Good afternoon to all of you who are listening to us. This is Ana Carracedo, Director of Compliance, Risk, Fraud, Audit and ESG. In the last call, we presented the evolution of these areas. 3 months later, we want to speak about progress on our positive agenda and show you that we are gaining traction.

Now these changes were necessary so that transformation could begin. And this brings us to the initial milestone in 2019 when the current administration took office and which has focused on building a consistent legacy, especially with regard to the company's environmental responsibility and governance committees.

In 2021, we formerly created the ESG area to include it in our strategy. This has become a reality and ESG is now present in the agenda of our products and actions. We have gone through several areas of the company. And in 2022, we have mapped all of the material issues. We not only focus on social issues, we have a vision of social planning to draft our ESG strategy.

Our strategy is based on the development, the SDGs of the UN Global Compact. It was launched in our sustainability report that I will refer to later on. To speak about our ESG strategy, it is based on our institutional stance that quality -- sorry, that health should be accessible to all, it is a right of all. And this is how Quali would like to be recognized as part of the society that struggles for the health of Brazilians. And because of this, we have causes based on several pillars, the democratization of access to health, which is our [ raise on ] debt, diversity, equity and inclusion, essential in today's world and society and social investment because we understand our role and the importance we have in society.

We have 5 pillars in these strategic topics. The promotion of health and well-being is the main pillar. We also have the development of our workforce. As Bruno mentioned, our performance depends on the work of each of our professionals. Efficiency, quality, innovation of products and services is a center of our strategy and responsible marketing and customer satisfaction as well as privacy and security of information. These topics are of extreme importance because they directly impact our clients and our most important stakeholders.

Now, all of this without forgetting the managerial issues that we need to mention, relationship among our collaborators and especially the relationships with partners that are so important in our business. We also have sustainable procurement, the efficiency of our operations and climate change and their impact on human health.

To speak specifically about our annual report, this is very important because it is the first sustainability report for Quali. It was prepared with a great deal of affection and a great deal of work, inspired on the guidelines of GRI. It brings about all types of points that have been duly audited. Besides the GRI guidelines, it is also oriented by the SDGs of the UN Global Pact, which brings about important commitments to society, public power and the private sector.

Now, this sustainability policy has been debated with our collaborators, partners, suppliers and others. It's not enough to have a strategy. We must make sure that everybody is aware of their role. At Quali, we believe that individual awareness is important, and that work is collective and this is how we strengthen our culture.

We have made strides in other areas of the company, especially those that are linked to control. We have changed the compliance policy of the company. More than 90% of our collaborators have been trained. We had lives on integrity, anticorruption and unfair competition.

In terms of security and privacy of information, we have set in place some measures to fight against cyber-attacks. And the solution that is on the cloud consolidates our internal culture for the treatment of sensitive and individual data. And this is a partner in our process to conclude. I would like to reinforce that we're just at the beginning of a very long journey. There's a great deal to do to enhance the strategy but these are consistent steps for a country that has to grow so much and will allow for access to quality health for more and more Brazilians.

I would now like to give the floor to Elton.

[Elton Carluci, executive]

Thank you, Ana. Thank you, Bruno. Good afternoon to all of you. As always, it is a pleasure to be here at this results call. I'm going to give you some color regarding the figures of the second quarter.

If you could all go to Slide 14, please. I will speak about our gross add-ons and affinity as you were able to observe. There has been a slight retraction in our portfolio. We were able to maintain the total sales with a reduction of 1.7% quarter-on-quarter. And during the quarter, we had some onetime issues in competition in a specific place because of a single product, and we hope that this situation will return to normalcy in the coming months.

We also observed that there was the opening of some carrier codes for specific benefits. And it's important to highlight that this is not a long-term concern or a problem of profitability. This is a one-time effect. These are seasonal adjustments in specific locations. And the coming year, perhaps we will be somewhat more less rational in terms of all of this. For the time being, they might have some impact. But in the long term, this will become normalized, and there is the ratio of LTV CAC for the company, and some of these issues are not sustainable for the long term in the company. However, this has not hampered our long-term strategy. Once again, this should return to normalcy in the coming months and the coming quarters.

Now every time that something like this happens, we had an exchange of a portfolio of a specific operator in the Northeast. Whenever this happens, whenever there is a price adjustment, adjustments that are normal in the affinity group vis-a-vis other HMOs, it's natural to have a decrease in the sale of the products, but this situation has been normalized and especially when we speak about this specific operator in the Northeast.

We go on to the next slide to speak about cancellations as Bruno has already referred to in his presentation. We were able to see that there would be an increase in cancellation, especially when we look at the second quarter vis-a-vis the first quarter, and there is a drop in the first half of the year. Notwithstanding this, when we look at our portfolio and we look at the impact, once again, this is a onetime impact because of the high readjustment in specific portfolios. This is a minor portfolio, but when the readjustment is so steep, it leads to a higher number of cancellations. And of course, this has an impact on our churn and otherwise, we don't normally divulge this figure. We don't break down the cancellations per portfolio, but it is important to highlight the following: even within this scenario of inflation, this more challenging scenario of cancellations and readjustments above average, we have been able to stabilize the portfolio among some operators, with which historically we have a very good relationship.

We don't normally divulge this, but if you will look at the national health agency, you will see that some operators have had interesting activities even in this more challenging scenario. And within the company, we see what we can do to leverage results and allow the clients to remain with us, especially with partners with which we have the best relationship in terms of LTV and CAC.

This is also in the slide the average readjustment that we put in place, and that will have an impact in the third quarter was in the range of 20%, and there were some readjustments that went above and beyond 20%. This was announced through the press. Now a large part of this impact will be captured in the third quarter. We sent out letters, communicating the readjustment in July to allow people to perhaps change their product. And of course, the greater impact will be in the third quarter.

We go on to the next slide. And this is simply an observation of the evolution of our strategy, since the company understood that the small and medium-sized enterprises could leverage the value and we could bring in the clients, clients who have decided to have companies or could become consultants because of what was happening in the country. Some people were working in full-time jobs. They later decided to become entrepreneurs and we have been able to attract many of these people.

In 2 years, we have practically increased the portfolio 2-fold. This has been a very successful enterprise and is cooperating so that we can seek relevant strategies to enhance the company's figures and work with the marketplace, new HMOs and new commercial partners.

That is all from my part, and I will be at your disposal during the Q&A session. I will now give the floor to Fred Oldani, our CFO.

[Frederico de Oldani, executive]

Thank you, Elton. A good afternoon to all of you. I begin on Slide 18, speaking about the highlights. First, the Affinity Health life's portfolio. We had gross adds of 113,200 lives, cancellation of 133,900 lives, of course with the drop in the number of lives. Regarding the portfolio, a growth in the SME portfolio, reaching almost 80,000 lives. And of course, this shows the positive impact of our strategy that through time, we can also become one of the greatest distributors in the SME channel, consolidating our leadership in HMOs in Brazil.

Net revenue reached BRL 489 million for the quarter, a slight reduction vis-a-vis the first quarter of '22. The main effect refers to the reduction in number of lives that we observed during the quarter because we have an average ticket that is practically stable vis-a-vis the first quarter.

We see the performance of our revenues fully explained by the number of lives that generated a lower average premium in the quarter. EBITDA reaching BRL 234.2 million, a slight drop compared to the first quarter of this year and the second quarter '21, a margin of 47.9%, a growth of 113 basis points vis-a-vis the second quarter '21, and margin of BRL 49.1 million. Our net debt ended at BRL 1.6 billion or 1.5x net debt EBITDA.

And I will also speak about what we have done in terms of funding and loans during the quarter. We go on to the next slide to speak about our income statement.

I think it's important at this point to show you the strong work that was carried out since the end of last year in terms of cost and expense control. We have a drop of approximately 10% in the COGS and SG&A line item vis-a-vis the past, and at the same levels that we presented in the first quarter despite the growing inflationary scenario.

Most of our contracts are indexed to inflation as well as salaries. But you will see that thanks to the management efforts, we have been able to maintain COGS and SG&A at good levels, contributing to reduce the impact on our margins and revenue reductions.

I would like to speak about our financial income and the main problem is the income statement. The main impact here is that of interest rates. When we compare interest rates presently with those of last year, there was a substantial increase. And perhaps this is the main impact on our results and can explain most of the drop in profit that we observed this quarter vis-a-vis the same quarter in 2021.

In the next slide, we speak about cash flow. Our cash generation after investments reached BRL 60.9 million this quarter and then accumulated of BRL 127 million for the year. And I think I would like to refer to the variations in the commissions line item with a significant impact on the quarter. It's worthwhile mentioning that in this quarter, there was an increase in the commissions. Now besides the cash flow issues and the relationship between cash and competency, we had some payments, onetime payments that will not be repeated in the coming quarters. And we hope to see lower amounts for expenses in the coming quarters and working capital with changes -- given change in the interest rates, and of course, it's a bit more difficult to recover. Once again, due to the present day interest rate, we may continue to have pressure when it comes to the recovery of taxes.

And I would like to speak about the balances that we have with some health operators. We had BRL 25 million in working capital for this quarter. However, we do expect that this will become normal. These are temporary payment differences, referring to early cancellations and other differences that tend to be offset during the coming quarters. Besides the cash generation line items in the second quarter -- we worked with a debt refinancing. We raised BRL 2.2 billion in debentures for the rollover of some debt that mature this year as well as in 2023. We have BRL 400 million with maturity in the third quarter. They will be paid with the resources we raised in the second quarter. And going forward, we will have 2 years without the maturity of any debt, which represents a substantial improvement in our debt profile compared to what we had in the past.

These are the main highlights I wanted to refer to, and I would now like to go on to the question-and-answer session. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gustavo Tiseo.

[Gustavo Tiseo, analyst]

We have 2 questions at our end. First, we would like to explore churn and gross adds. You referred to them in the presentation. But which is the trigger that changed the situation, and we would like to know about time horizons. You have had higher readjustments. But what is the trigger that keeps the churn high?

The second point is competition in the individual HMOs. If you see competition with the verticals, if they're working very close to your prices in regions like Sao Paulo, perhaps you should further analyze this.

[Elton Carluci, executive]

Gustavo, this is Elton, and then the other executives will help me. I'm going to refer to the dynamic of gross adds and of course, the trigger for the churn. Well, seasonally, historically, we have the third quarter that is impacted by most of the readjustments. And of course, we have an increase in cancellations. But there is a figure here that we use internally, and we see that we have been enhancing retention substantially, especially in some products that historically have a better relationship, LTV CAC and the cost of acquisition may be higher, but clients remain longer in the company. The way we report this penalizes us.

Now this reduces the figures, but strategically the company does not break down the portfolio per operator, and the market cannot see this. The effect of this strategy ends up appearing in our cash in coming months as we increase the duration or permanence. The scenario is challenging. We have increased the range of portfolios. This helps us improve retention. But of course, when you have a readjustment in the range of 20% with some specific portfolios that are under pressure because of this, it ends up posing a more challenging scenario.

The third quarter is always challenging. We hope that in the fourth quarter, the company will return to normalcy. We will be over all of these risks. More portfolios, Unimed Paulista portfolios that were not updated had to be readjusted. But this will be concluded in the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, we hope to return to normalcy and have a more healthy relationship with LTV CAC. We're making adjustments at the end of the third quarter, beginning of the fourth quarter. And we will be able to look upon the company exactly as we imagine it with a running rate within normal levels.

Now we see the launch of products and when you begin to understand the details of the product, even within the operator, the products tend to be different. The products available for affinity are different from the individual products in the way they have been designed. The model is perhaps different from the traditional model. And it ends up being different from the collective affinity products. Because of what is happening in Brazil, people want perhaps lower-cost products. They want individual products that are according to what they can afford, and they end up using downgraded products. As the economy improves, everything will improve. People will opt for products with more options and move away from this individual product. We think this is a very transitory stage, and we will speak about it more in the coming calls.

[Bruno Blatt, executive]

Well, Tiseo, I think that Elton has fully responded to your question, and this is Bruno speaking. As Elton mentioned, we had some very old portfolios with extremely high readjustments, as you were able to observe in the press. These are legacy portfolios that we have inherited from the past, and we had to resolve them.

Our business is a long-term business and when we work, we're always thinking about perpetuity for the company. And these are onetime situations in specific locations. We will have to have a higher CAC in specific locations, but the long-term strategy does not change. We are going to have a better LTV CAC ratio and go back to our churn ratios that we had before the pandemic. And sales are stable, close to 40,000 lives a month. They are stable. Of course, in one quarter, sales may drop a bit. They could improve in the second quarter, but we are going to defend our markets for new entrants, and we may have tougher competitions with certain products or local operators, but we are confident in our strategy for the long term.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from [ Stella ].

[Unknown Analyst]

If you could further explore the evolution of the average ticket per segment and what we can expect going forward, what has happened with the price transfer in the new portfolios for the affinity sector?

[Frederico de Oldani, executive]

Stella, this is Fred. Well, in the second quarter, the ticket was practically stable vis-a-vis the first quarter. I would like to remind you that most of the readjustment is going to be applied now in the third quarter, and there will be a net increase. After downgrades, cancellations we should have an increase of 25% in the third quarter. And going forward, we shouldn't have significant readjustments for the rest of the year. And of course, the impact of the third quarter will be very similar to the impact for the entire year.

Elton will respond to your other questions.

[Elton Carluci, executive]

To speak about our expectations on the ticket, Fred has already remarked on this. Now what is it that we observe in terms of price transfers in the Affinity portfolio? We applied the readjustment. Of course, first of all, we have cancellations. We have been truly seeing a drop in sales. As we have the readjustment, it has been implemented. We look at the sales 30 days ahead and the sales continued at the same level. The readjustment has been absorbed, and I remind you that we will not necessarily have a change of price along with the readjustment. The readjustment in the portfolio is something that has been done before and the street price of the product is maintained. So, so far we have not perceived an impact on sales because of the transfer of readjustment.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Frederico Mendes from Bank of America.

[Frederico Mendes, analyst]

We have 2 questions. The first, if you could go back to the partnership you have created with Unimed Seguros. Is it with exclusivity with CNU but not with other Unimeds? And if this will help you with the gross adds this quarter or if it will also help you in coming quarters? More color on the partnership, therefore.

The second question, there is a specific line item, and if you see opportunity, further opportunities to reduce costs. You have said that the third quarter -- because of the seasonality tends to be weaker.

[Bruno Blatt, executive]

Fred, this is Bruno Blatt. I'm going to begin and then Elton will complement the answer. As I said at the beginning, Unimed Seguros has just been launched with specific plans. We were discussing technical details, the list of prices, the products and we have a very good relationship with Elton Freitas, the President, a person that I respect very much.

Regarding the CNU, the President, Luiz Paulo, we also have a very good relationship with him. Our sales are growing at CNU. We have been able to perform very well. Once again, this is a specific portfolio of legacy from the past. And in the new management of quality, we have to resolve the issues with this portfolio. This is a relationship we have been building in the last 2 years with very promising and positive results with CNU.

[Elton Carluci, executive]

Bruno has already spoken about the excellent relationship we have. We have a product from Salvador that has been conceived and is already contributing to increases, improving the relationship with National Unimed and with Seguros Unimed. The launch has just taken place. We have to draft the product first and focus on operational and technical issues.

The company was out of the market. We need to work with systemic adjustments and integration. Everything is being done through an API, and all of this is very novel. And it hasn't truly come into effect yet. It is a product that is being sold on the streets. And like any other product, we will see the results in the next coming 90 days, a promising product. And there's another product that will be launched. It's in the pipeline and once again, because of systemic reason, the priority were the systemic adjustments. But once again, we have another product that will be launched very soon.

We're simply awaiting for all of the adjustments to be made, so that this can become a part of the system without any human interface as we have with other operators simply to remark on margins. Margins are a consequence of our performance and expense line items and Quali continues to work so that we don't have to bear the weight of all of the inflation. In SG&A, we have been quite successful holding back these problems despite the fact we have a double-digit inflation. We have been making readjustments and improvement of efficiency, working on those fronts. And our goal is not to have to transfer any price readjustment because of increases in our structure.

Now this is our goal for the year, and we're attempting to have an SG&A that is closer to something that will be stable in the coming quarters. This is a great challenge, of course, if we keep in mind inflation. But I think we will not have major impacts or increases in cost and expenses going forward. Of course, there are some quarters that seasonally have higher SG&A and the third quarter is one like that.

The call center receives a larger number of calls than usual. But this is a onetime event. We will have a peak in the third quarter. And in the fourth quarter, we will return to normalcy. We're working very strongly on this and there will perhaps be a certain pressure on margin because of the SG&A costs.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Pedro from Credit Suisse.

[Unknown Analyst]

We have 2 simple questions. First, if you could speak about competition in the SME segment that has grown considerably. And secondly, given that we have those double-digit readjustments for the coming quarter, what are the fronts are you exploring to enhance your portfolio retention and reduce churn?

[Elton Carluci, executive]

Pedro, this is Elton. I will begin answering your question, and my colleagues can complement it. Let's begin with the SME. SME, where we continue to have strong challenges. Organically, we have an increase month after month. This is reflected in the figures we report. We have thousands of brokers distributing this product in Brazil. And what sets us aside is that we do this through our own team with a great deal of quality and we're scaling up this operation. And we use SKALE. SKALE helps us to generate qualified leads. And of course, this has contributed to accelerate this in an organic fashion. So every quarter -- and we have already taken on a position of leadership. We're among the main 3 -- top 3 and several operators in this segment.

Now going to the second point, strategy to mitigate the impact of readjustments and how to preserve retention. What has helped us is to work with our own team in a hybrid way, not only selling but also helping us in the retention of our clients. This does not work for all of the operations. This is internal criteria based on priority. We decide when to proceed with our own team to see what will be dealt with at the call center or what will be dealt with through our own team and who is the consultant that would be able to deal with this. And we can see the performance of cancellation before and after working with our own team. We have been doing this broadly, and we have done very well this quarter.

We have had an increase in cancellation because of the readjustment. But the intraday indicator that we look for in terms of retention shows us that our own team has worked very well. In some operators and products, we see that cancellations are lower, so this has worked very well. And we're speeding this up to be able to face up to the readjustment period.

We have also accelerated other measures. Our app and our site end up being very helpful. We have smart offers. When the client comes, they have already been through the portal. They have seen which are products and all of this helps us in terms of our retention performance. Dealing with the client in-house is much cheaper than dealing with the client on the street. And we have been strengthening this in the last month.

[Operator]

At this point, we would like to end the question-and-answer session. I will now return the floor to Mr. Bruno Blatt for the company's closing remarks. You may proceed, sir.

[Bruno Blatt, executive]

I would like to close by thanking all of you for your participation. I reinforce what I said at the beginning that we are not satisfied with our results. Although we have these challenges, we have made great strides at Quali, gross adds, margins, timely issue in some locations doesn't allow us to sleep like other people. This is a great challenge at Quali to care for people, to train good people and to ensure that each person can work at their full potential, making sure that everybody is working in the right position, strengthening our culture. Our culture is a long-term one. These are the changes we have made in Quali. And through the strong culture, we will lead to longevity for Quali. Thank you very much, and have a good afternoon.

[Operator]

We would like to thank all of you for your presence. The conference call for the second quarter '22 for Quali ends here. Have a good day and thank you very much.

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