Totvs SA

BOVESPA:TOTS3

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q4

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2022 earnings video conference. I'm Sergio Filho, Head of IR. In this quarter, that marks the end of the year, we will have an earnings video conference with the presence of all the company's Vice Presidents here at the table: Dennis, CEO; Izabel, Vice President of HR; Marcelo Eduardo, our Vice President of Segment; Juliano Tubino, Vice President of Unit business; and also Apendino, Vice President of Service and Relationship.

We will now present the most important highlights of the results for the last quarter and for the year, and then we'll begin with the Q&A with the participation of everyone here at the table. [Operator Instructions]

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any forward-looking statements made during this video conference regarding TOTVS business prospects, financial and operational projections and goals, constitute beliefs and premises of the company's management as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could affect TOTVS future performance, leading to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.

I now turn over to Dennis, who will start the presentation from Slide 3, and I come back at the end of the presentation in the Q&A session.

[Dennis Herszkowicz, executive]

Thank you, Sergio. Good morning, everyone, attending this video conference. I hope everyone is doing well. I would like to welcome the whole team. It is a pleasure to be with you here today.

I want to start by saying that 2022 was another special year for TOTVS. When we started planning for 2022, most of last year's events were unknown. It was still a moment of euphoria in [ lieu ] of the reduction of the impact of the pandemic, but the recovery of the main economies based on the lowest interest rates in history.

The focus of most companies and investors was on revenue growth and market share gains. The faster, the better. Here at TOTVS, this focus seems a little bit unbalanced. We've always had a dual mandate revenue growth, yes, but profitability as well. When we look at the scenario, even though we don't know exactly what the future held, we imagined and prepared ourselves for a more challenging year than most predicted, both for Brazil and the world. Evidence of this preparation was the follow-on held in September 2021.

Looking back, we were right in our vision, and above all, in our strategic and tactical decisions. As a result, TOTVS continued to be a safe haven with balanced achievements and results. Once again, this performance was only possible because we have a team of eternal mavericks with passion for what they do, in addition to clients who are more resilient than the average.

And therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who, with great commitment to work with the collaboration and dedication, to deliver another year of exceptional results. These results are reflected on the progress and records broken this year, maintaining our rare and special balance between growth and profitability in the growth mandate.

On Slide 5. The 32% growth in consolidated recurring revenue, added to the 25% growth in Techfin, were the main drivers for us to exceed the mark of more than BRL 4 billion in revenue in the year, a growth of 27% over 2021.

If we consider the compound annual growth rate between 2020 and 2022, we reached the result of 19% in management, 36% in business performance and 33% in Techfin, results that are rare to find even in the most successful start-ups and in the best technology companies in the world.

Our sales machine remains strong and made our annualized recurring revenue, or ARR, also break the BRL 4 billion mark with organic net addition of BRL 849 million in 2022. If we consider this addition alone, we would already be one of the biggest software companies in Brazil.

Most of this addition is associated with increase in sales volume, in other words, signings of new customers added to cross and upsell for existing clients. This performance results from combination of the low churn levels, NPS at record levels, expansion of the solution portfolio, migration process to the cloud, reduction of TCO for the customer, and finally, progress in productivity and efficiency in sales distribution.

On the next slide, as to profitability, the performance of revenues, combined with search for operational efficiency, allowed us to continue delivering healthy margins in all dimensions and evolution of adjusted EBITDA, which ended the year at BRL 960 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin ended the year at 23.8%, 100% base points below 2021, mainly due to the effects of the consolidation of the 12 months of the RD Station, an operation with a different moment and mandate, in addition to the impact of the Selic rate increase on the taxing dimension.

The highlight in profitability mandate was strong operating cash generation, exceeding BRL 1.2 billion, growth of 71% year-on-year, accounting for 128% of adjusted EBITDA, without failing to make the necessary investments for the construction of the 3D ecosystem.

We also highlight the significant increase in operating cash. We've grown more than 71% since 2020 and more than 30% over 2021 against a respective growth in consolidated revenue of 58% over 2021 and 27% over 2021. This increase in operating cash above revenue growth is a proof of our constant search for greater operational efficiency and better allocation of resources in organic and inorganic development, and in partnerships during the performance of our strategic plans.

For the main highlights of the management dimension, I turn over to Marcelo Eduardo, our Business VP for Segments.

[Marcelo Eduardo Cosentino, executive]

Thank you, Dennis. I highlight the 21% growth in net revenue over the fourth quarter of '21, driven both by the 25% increase in recurring revenue, which reached 99%. The quarter-over-quarter growth of 25% in recurring revenue is mainly the result of the 37% increase in SaaS revenue in the same period, which may be seen on the chart on the left side, and it reached BRL 334 million, representing BRL 1 billion on an annualized based.

This performance in SaaS is mainly attributed to a 47% growth in cloud revenue, to increase of 28% of new SaaS signs and inflation adjustments in the period, the maintenance of a low level of churn as well. As Dennis mentioned, the progress in the performance of new signings has occurred, in particular, due to continuous investments in product quality, the streaming of the implementation process of our solutions, and expansion of the functional depth of our products, always focused on improving our customers' processes and businesses.

We can see the historical level of NPS and the reduced TCO for customers, which, in turn, extends the competitiveness of portfolio increases in the positive guidelines with the client, and the engagement of the sales team so that we can improve the take rate through cross and upsell.

Another important aspect for the increase in sales volume is the continuous evolution of commercial distribution as we accelerate the implementation of our 3D strategy, along with constant integration with product teams.

Now we move on to the ARR, which reached more than BRL 3.6 billion, as shown in the chart at the center of the slide, reflecting a net addition of BRL 179 million in the quarter. The organic net addition of ARR in the fourth quarter, even with the [ excess ] reduction in inflation rates remained stable in relation to the third quarter due to the 8% increase in sales volume, and the second round of the presidential election and the World Cup. The combination of increased sales volume, reduced inflation and low level of churn resulted in an increase in the relevance of the volume component in the gross addition of ARR in the last 12 months.

As already mentioned in previous quarters, if the inflation rates follow the downward trend in the coming months, the natural behavior is a nominal reduction in the net addition of ARR.

In Slide 9, the management contribution margin reached BRL 488 million in the quarter, similar to the third -- to that of the third quarter as a percentage of the dimensions revenue, even with the salary adjustments that impacted personnel costs in the quarter as a result of the collective bargaining agreements in the period, which are almost fully offset by the growth.

In the year, the management contribution margin increased 24% and reached BRL 1.9 billion, largely due to the 27% growth in recurring revenue, contributing to maintaining the contribution margin over net revenue ratio at a healthy level of 53.6% at the same -- and the same level reached in 2021.

Now I turn over to Tubino, who will discuss the results of the business performance from Slide 10.

[Juliano Tubino, executive]

Thank you, Marcelo. Good morning, everyone. The net revenue from business performance grew 29% year-over-year, driven by the 30% growth in the recurring revenue. In the quarter-over-quarter comparison, the 6.5% growth in revenue reflects the advance in the net addition of ARR in the third quarter of 2022, and the maintenance of the renewal rate at levels above 97%.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the ARR, the dimension exceeded BRL 350 million mark, an increase of 32% over the fourth quarter of '21, and 6.9% over the third quarter of '22, with the net addition of organic ARR of BRL 23 million, as shown in the chart in the center of the slide. This higher net addition of ARR was a result of the digital commerce, which showed yet another advance in GMV, the gross merchandise volume, reaching an annualized level of BRL 640 million.

Also, we had an impact of the sales performance in the quarter which, despite having a proportionally smaller share in the total ARR, the dimension has an operation focused on large accounts. It is also important to mention that TAIL has been expanding its portfolio, developing new formats to integrate with the management dimension. An example of this is the TAIL Shoppers products, a SaaS data intelligence platform capable of processing, analyzing and combining various data sources on a large scale. With this, it makes a complete X-ray of consumer behavior.

And finally, we ended 2022 with an increase of more than 43% year-over-year in the number of customers using more than one product in their operations, which already represents 25% of the recurring revenue based on the RD Station.

Moving on to Slide 11. The business performance contribution margin reached BRL 44 million in the quarter, 23% above the same period of the previous year, and BRL 156 million in the year, which is 28% higher than in 2021. This is associated with a growth of more than 30% in recurring revenue, and the reduction in the contribution margin as a percentage of revenue, basically reflects the higher investment in research and development in the period.

It also -- it is also important to recall that this is a business dimension that is still young, but already profitable, and it's based on the PLG strategy, which naturally leads to a greater allocation of investments in product than in distribution. With this, we aim to increase our competitive edge, gain market share and generate scalability in the SaaS model with very positive unit economics in '23.

In addition to continue to involving in integration with other dimensions, we will also advance integration with the business performance dimension itself with [ RD ] fulfilling the role idealized when it was acquired by TOTVS. This represents greater integration between operations, CRM solutions, customer data platform and the digital commerce and the RD Station ecosystem, strengthening the building of s portfolio of offers specialized in helping our customers to be more profitable, with a unique experience, integrated modern with flexible technology that allows us to profit from all of the value generation potential of this dimension.

Now I turn over to Maia.

[Gilsomar Sebastião, executive]

Thank you, Tubino. Have a good day, everyone. Techfin funding revenue, shown in the top left graph of the slide, grew 17% year-on-year in the fourth quarter. [ This maybe ] due to the 7.4 days growth in the average term of credit production and the 3% higher credit production. Both metrics were influenced by the greater share of the Agribusiness. The quarter-on-quarter growth of more than 30% in private production in the Agribusiness segment was also one of the factors that led to the 3.8% growth in the net funding Techfin revenue in the period. This typical behavior of the Agribusiness segment led to an increase of 6.3 days in the average term of credit production, which offset the seasonal reduction of 7.1% in credit production, as you can see on the slide.

Another factor that contributed to the quarterly revenue growth was the 5.1% drop in funding costs as a result of the reduction in the spread and the remuneration of the FIDC senior quotas, and a greater share of the portfolio held by supplier as a result of the increase in Agribusiness reduction, which has a long-term average term and takes longer to mature.

As seen in the upper right graph, credit production in the year-to-date reached almost BRL 11 billion, which represents a compound growth between 2019 and 2022 of 90%, even with the pandemic and the reduction of credit limit from the first quarter of 2022, in response to a higher default rate introduction in the fourth quarter of 2021.

It's important to point out that part of this growth is also related to the advance of the cross-sell of the Mais Negocios product in the TOTVS client base throughout the year, with TOTVS customers accounting for more than 70% of the new affiliates in prospecting, and 33% of affiliates being implemented in the fourth quarter, once again demonstrating the cross-selling potential of this [ solution ].

In the lower center graph, we can see that the greater share of reduction in the Agribusiness segment in the third and fourth quarter reflected in the mix of the portfolio, leading to an increase quarter-on-quarter of 1.7% of the consolidated credit portfolio, and 5.8 days in the average term, which ended the period at 60.5 days.

Turning now to the lower left graph. We observed the high [ quality ] of the supplier's credit portfolio, that would remain preserved, more clearly observed when compared to the average default rate over 19 days in the market. The higher level year-on-year reflects the higher level of growth rates in the first quarter of 2022, as I mentioned before, arising from the production of fourth quarter 2021, as previously mentioned, and the higher provision of our expected rapid losses in the fourth quarter of 2022, on account of the BRL 9.6 million in best receivables by supply to one of its affiliates in the electronics wholesale business, which subsequently filed for judicial reorganization in the total amount of BRL 595 million, with the largest strength in the Brazilian market as the main creditors. It's worth mentioning that the entire outstanding balance of this case is provisioned.

Now moving to the conclusion of the comments about Techfin on Slide 13. Techfin EBITDA margin over net Techfin revenue funding ended the quarter of 24.5%, a decrease of 90 points basis over the third quarter of 2022, due to the increase in the provision for the expected credit losses mentioned earlier, partially offset by the reduction in other expenses lines.

Year-to-date, the EBITDA margin stood at 20.4%, 370 basis points below 2021, as Dennis mentioned in the opening remarks, due to the increase in the Selic rate in the period, which impacts the margin to the portfolio turnover for the pass-through of the rate increase and the immediate pass-through to remuneration of FIDC quotas, in addition, of course, to the increase in the provision of the expected credit losses that were mentioned.

It's worth mentioning that the case of the affiliate described above is unusual in the supplier's history. And suppliers continues to -- as mentioned before, and other opportunities -- continues to seek to improve the use of data integration with the management system of the affiliates in order to mitigate new currencies. If this fact is disregarded, Techfin's EBITDA margin would be 37.2% in -- for 2022 and 24.3% in the year, and the latter is 20 basis points about 2021.

Additionally, Techfin's cash profit ended the year at BRL 28 million,56% above 2021, due to the 5.6% growth in EBITDA and a reduction in the effective rate resulting from the beginning of the amortization of the premium of the acquisition of supplier.

I now turn the presentation over to Izabel, who will comment on the advances of ESG and human capital. Slide 15. Now over to you.

[Izabel Branco, executive]

Thank you, Maia. 2022 was also special for TOTVS from the perspective of ESG and human capital, things that continue to be essential for our business and which added to the engagement of TOTVERs, made us move forward again in the 3 pillars this year. In pillar E, we highlight the first inventory of Greenhouse gases covering the Scopes 1 and 2 of the disclosure project. [indiscernible] renewable energy in more than 90% of our operations.

In S pillar, we highlight the implementation of flexible work model and then, mental health and care programs. We continue to consolidate our efforts in the education agenda, contributing to the training and [ young ] people in situation of social vulnerability through the Social Opportunity Institute, and the [ Stars tech ] program.

We have also approved our diversity and inclusion policy with the main guidelines or the [ theme ] and launched the talent bank, ELASNATOTVS for gender and INCLUSAONATOTVS PWD, opening doors and creating opportunities for the inclusion of the technology market.

Finally, I must highlight the achievement of the Social Opportunity Institute which was recognized among the best NGOs in the world by The World 200 Top SGOs prepared by the Swiss Media Organization, thedotgood, which evaluates social organizations with the best innovation impact and government directors.

In the G pillar, we have retained TOTVS rating upgrade by MSCI from BBB to single A. We made progress in our review of risk factors, including the analysis and criteria of ESG. Finally, I highlight [ few ] recognitions that we've received throughout 2022. The year [ ending ] Brazil award for our internship campaign. We were included in B3 GPTW index, and we received the ANEFAC Transparency Trophy -- recognized TOTVS for the second consecutive year among the companies that present the best financial disclosure.

Together, these initiatives and achievements reform our focus. We will continue to transform present and the future because we believe that everyone can grow. We can work together for this progress. This is the foundation of our culture, represented pillars. We value good people, work with people. We are driven by results. We invest in the technology that makes it possible, and we build long-term relationships with our customers. And when we collaborate, we are stronger.

Now let's turn the floor back to Dennis for his final remarks on Slide 16 before we open the Q&A session. Dennis?

[Dennis Herszkowicz, executive]

Thank you, Bel. In 2022, we had excellent results in all 3 dimensions. In the management dimension, recurring revenue advanced throughout the year mainly due to the progress as revenue grew 7% year-on-year and reached BRL 1.2 billion in the year. In business performance, we maintained the pace of growth with emphasis on recurring revenue, which organically grew 31% in 2022. Here, our focus is on expanding the portfolio of solutions, in addition to starting the process of accelerating integration with the other dimensions. In Techfin, we continue to grow strongly, ending 2022 with a net funding revenue growing to 25% year-on-year and surpassing BRL 10 million in credit production.

Additionally, we announced the joint venture with Itau Bank, which aims to expand this Techfin's ambition and accelerate the development of the financial product portfolio, in addition to bringing security and efficiency to the funding. In 2023, we will remain focused on becoming the trusted advisor of our customers through innovation, which for TOTVS is about doing something new and different and that gets value.

Integration of the 3-dimension ecosystem is exactly that, a singular strategy, which will allow us to expand the value proposal in a model that is difficult to replicate, multiplying the addressable market and reinforcing the management dimension itself. Through technology, we will continue working to have companies to leverage their businesses, become more profitable, grow their operations and continuously improve their results, because this is our focus, to improve the results of the companies, to believe that everyone can grow and work together for this purpose, that is to believe in what [ resume ] does.

TOTVS DNA is to be the same, while always being different. That is why we will always remain the same with consistency and balance between growth and profitability and always different, daring and transforming the company [Foreign Language]

Now, we are available for the Q&A session which will be conducted by Sergio.

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

[Operator Instructions] So the first question comes from Frederico with Bank of America.

[Frederico Mendes, analyst]

I have some questions. First, I would like to talk about the management revenue. It means that the recurring revenue orders started at a lower space and recovered along for the period and ended at a strong rate. So first, I would like to talk -- I would like you to talk about this trajectory. And for 2023, I -- we understand that, considering the scenario we have today these -- any reasons for any strong variations in terms of future, considering what we had previously? This is my first question.

And the second question, when we think about the variation of the net debt, you had cash, and we expect the margin of 23% that -- so expect this to be a year when cash is going to be accelerated.

[Unknown Executive]

I'm going to start, and the team will complement. It's exactly like you said, Fred. We started the fourth quarter with lower results than anticipated. And actually, we closed the third quarter below what we would have liked to and what was anticipated. I remember that we gave an explanation because of the elections, and that the first route of elections happened on the first day of September when we closed the quarter. And then we had the second round of elections on the last day of October, or the day before last, and this had an impact.

And then we made a huge effort in November and December, and we were able to have important recovery in November. And I can tell you that December was a wonderful month in terms of sales. We really did not expect to have the results we had in December. That enabled us to have important recoveries, as you can see. From a numeric point of view, we were basically stable when compared to the third quarter, but with a higher quality mix, because the volume was higher. If I'm not mistaken, our volume increased 8% in the fourth quarter when compared to the third quarter, which is unusual and unexpected, but very positive.

And it makes us believe that 2023 will once again be a good year. We are in the half of the first quarter. Whenever I have an opportunity, I talk about this. We learned that, in the beginning of the year, instead of waiting for Carnival to be over to define our strategy and also to detail all of our goals, strategic guidelines and also the sales convention, which really starts our business effort -- So it's very important that this is done in early January.

It energizes the team, guides our efforts. And so, we had our kickoff event, [ Omar ]. And also, we had the sales convention in early January. That allowed us to start the year with good results, and we can already see that there is going to be very interesting, from my point of view, of revenue, which is a result of what we did last year, but also in terms of new sales and ARR addition. And therefore, we're very confident that we will once again have another good year.

As to cash generation, Maia, would you like to add anything?

[Gilsomar Sebastião, executive]

Well, yes, of course. Cash generation was very strong in the year. We had strong growth, especially levered by the operating levels. The recurring business has this characteristics. We have advanced a lot in the last few years, and that turns our capital better with good quality also in cash conversion. And at the end of the day, you have a high level of recurring revenues and recurring profits, which solves this issue as a whole. And I think that this is something that is going to be maintained in operations as well.

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

Next question, Marcelo dos Santos, JPMorgan.

[Marcelo Santos, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first has to do with the losses because of the judicial recovery. I wanted to better understand it because we're not talking about a client here. It's just an affiliate. And I thought that losses would incur when clients don't pay. So I would like to know how this lost took place and also if this was in the supplier portfolio. First question.

Question #2. When you analyze the [ RR ] in -- of the previous quarter and the next one, we have a gap, for example, third-party divided by 4. If you compare it with the management recurring revenue, we can see a gap there. Is it the result of your policies or perhaps you have larger products which take longer? I wanted to better understand this relationship.

[Gilsomar Sebastião, executive]

I will start by the Techfin, explaining a little better than usual, the affiliate. You're totally right, Marcelo. The credit given by the supplier is always given to the client of the affiliate. At the end of the day, it works as a channel that takes the solution to the client. We've seen it in the supplier floating. So the natural thing would be for you to have the receivable against the client of the affiliates you received normally from the [ D ], and you pay the affiliate within 30 days. This is the usual meantime.

So the delta between the time I receive and the time I pay generates this floating, which is a positive and healthy floating, and it is something that we see consistently in the supplier balance. But in this specific case, this was unusual, I would say. What happened was, the affiliate anticipated the receivable. This is unusual, and it is not the optimal scenario, because eventually, they will be in a situation where they are paying before receiving.

So as I said before, floating is positive for the supplier. It's not desirable not to have a floating. But in this specific case, the affiliate perhaps is not known to the public in general, certainly, to the banks, yes. It's probably called [ mixed out ]. And this affiliate made a series of sales anticipations to clients.

And then, a supplier issues the invoice. It seems to be a minor detail, but it's very important, and it's different from what you see in the market in general. Sometimes you already have the invoice. But in this case, the supplier and this integration with the affiliate issues the invoice, and that gives the supplier some confidence that the client will receive the invoice. What we detected in this case was that the clients who were receiving yet, started announcing it. So there was a performance problem.

And then the -- between the invoicing and the delivery, we had some delay. Usually, you have this delay and then the delivery of the goods, but the supplier has to monitor it. And then, they stopped, but that was included in a universe of BRL 16 million that had already been invoiced and anticipated. So that gives an indication of not very good intentions by the affiliate. We closed with [ BRL 9.6 million ]. In the meantime, we delivered goods. And then, as the client receives the merchandise, they acknowledge the invoice and pay for it and the supplier receives.

But what she received and was not delivered, then the [ FIDC ] always worked with performed credit, and they take it along. So this was unusual deadline, a higher volume of payment anticipation. And as we identified that the volume of sales in transit was very high, they stopped funding the operation, demonstrating that the supplier has other mechanisms in place to identify these things. And the magnitude we had between 16% to 19.5% was -- the exposure was decreased.

But naturally, we chose the judicial recovery. It's not something common. It's not desirable. You're totally right. The credit of the supplier funds, business transactions and the clients of the affiliates. The basis is very scattered, has very good history, and there is a relevant amount that is insured in terms of credit and not performance.

And the problems we had was with performance. And in general, when a company enters a judicial recovery, they usually try not to place its relationship with clients at a stressful position. They try to preserve their relationship with the client and not place the client in this mess. So, in this case, they chose to include the client in this [ imbroglio ], but because of the level of integration -- and after this case, which is totally unprecedented -- have very few cases in the history of suppliers.

But the fact is that an affiliate operated involving clients in a process like this. This is very rare in the market in general. The supplier has its own instruments that help it identify situations. And that led to other issues. We've worked along the supplier team to help them use technology more and more in this integration with the management system, to try to identify it as early as possible.

Finally, there are some regulations by the Finance Ministry, which helps us track deliveries. This is not mandatory for 100% of the cases, but the supplier will analyze a sample of deliveries, and it is now using this information whenever it is available, or made available by the finance office. And therefore, these are mechanisms that are different from those we usually see in the credit market.

It was a long answer, but it's an important one, and I wanted to take this opportunity to explain it well. I know that the current moment is very tense. We've seen the Americanas case, and it has nothing to do with it. It's not the affiliate of the supplier. They have no relationship with us. It was just something that happened. We understand everybody's concern, but it is the reality. We are facing the fact. We are moving on and trying to implement controls.

Speaking of ARR and the recurring revenue, it's important to look at the structural gap. And you mentioned some of the reasons that were -- justified that gap. So the grace periods, the project, the revenue of the clients as -- and as mentioned before we started the Q&A session -- the quarter was a bit slower and it ended at a strong base.

We work as we usually do in some specific elements of the year. So we work with level of granting up grace periods that increased that gap, and also the recognition of the revenue. And the ARR production did not translate into the results we usually get. So this is why the gap increased between the recurring revenue and the production of ARR. I'm not sure if it was clear. [ Anything ] you would add, Marcelo?

[Marcelo Eduardo Cosentino, executive]

In relation to [ Nextel ] I can say that, clearly, this is something that can happen. And this is the reason why we do not make any adjustments to our results because we understand that this is part of the risk of the business and give it to the business. So that wouldn't demand any sort of adjustment in this regard. And because it does not require an adjustment in saying that this is part of the business, but that doesn't mean that this is going to be a recurring event or a common event. It is not. It's an event which is absolutely unusual for supplier and the explanations have just been given by Maia.

In relation to the ARR and the revenue gap, in addition to what was put forward by Maia, it's important for everybody to understand that, of course, ARR is a very important data as a way of giving directions where things are going. The addition of ARR, if it's strong, it's a very powerful indicator that we are going to have quarters -- future quarters that will have a very good performance in revenue. And the opposite is also true if there's a big acceleration in the addition -- [ of course ] the group is going to decrease.

So the addition of ARR have different reasons. It cannot be very accurate and very absolute when we think about the conversion. And if we try to do this monitoring in a very accurate and precise way, we are always going to have one level of problem when we do the modeling. It's good for us to give directions because, in that case, it would be very correct, very important whenever we try to do this. For the control for the next quarter, it will have some inaccuracies, okay?

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

Next question, Bernardo, XP.

[Bernardo Guttmann, analyst]

I have 2 question. My first question is related to the previous discussion related to the Techfin segment. The explanations were very clear. But I also would like to understand if there is any movement or active by TOTVERs in order to limit the level of guidance production? Considering the macro scenario, there is a better -- greater concern to this. So how are you going to close the origination and the stability of [ CDP ]?

And I would also like to talk about gross margin. As for management, looking forward to the migration of regular clients to cloud is a driver. But what is the potential of migration? And what are the other leverage so that we can expand?

[Unknown Executive]

I'm going to start with this dichotomy of limiting the investment Techfin, and then I'll turn it to Gustavo so that he can talk about cloud migration, okay? For us, as we've mentioned since the beginning, we -- it's also clear to us -- it has always been clear to us to have all the dimensions with the growth, with profitability. And then, in particular, I always think, when we announced the purchase of supplier back in the end of 2019, when we had the first meeting with investors in for -- there was a euphoria at the market related to financial services.

I don't really remember that one of the questions was -- look, suppliers is growing 20%, 30% a year. When are we going to accelerate to reach 80%, 100% growth. And my answer was, never. I was taken -- this was taken as a shock by investors and analysts. And the question was why. I said this is a credit business, and for credit business, you cannot grow in a responsible manner, in a sustainable way like this. Growing a credit would generate money. It's easy. But of course, it's difficult to receive what you have to -- all this credit back.

And this is what supplier has a specialty. And we have the ability that has been going on for more than 2 decades, to have a track record of losses, which are absolutely incomparable. So at this time around, I do not see this dichotomy. The company continues operating at the appropriate limits. Even considering [ Nextel ] as we mentioned, is an isolated case. It has nothing to do with being more or less flexible as we see it, and the right way to look at it is to consider the level of losses along the year. And if you can see there is a year this loss level is important to the history levels.

So we can keep all the limits ballast for this level of growth. Of course, if there is an improvement in the market, if the market interest decrease, the conditions will be better and the opportunities will increase. But we continue looking at the market in a positive way, in a proper way for the growth perspectives in terms of profitability of Techfin.

Let me add something in relation to the limits. As for supplier, we even mentioned this in the earnings release before. In the beginning of last year, [ client ] had a reduction of the limits because, it was observed that at the end of the pandemic in the end of 2021, we understood that the [ length ] had to be adjusted, and they hadn't been. So it was -- we needed to identify this. So the turnover had to be lower than 60 days so that we could identify the proper limit. And then we stopped that situation from going worse.

Why am I mentioning this? Because along 2022, supplier worked with more limited aspects compared to the previous years. Even when we consider the production of supplier for the third quarter of '22 and compare it to the previous year, we compared productions. Even though '22 was larger than '21, we are comparing to limit at different levels. And this is what gives value to this production because the level of restriction was lower -- was higher than the previous year. This is what I would like to mention.

That came perfect. Talking about cloud. This is one of the important points for us to discuss. [ Conceptually ], there is an important share of clients. And if we look at the number of segments that TOTVS has, we can see that the maturity levels are different, and we are getting ready to accommodate a potential of large clients to bring in to the company.

Another point which is relevant is that, we have to remember that our effort is an effort which has a very clear purpose. We want to customize the client's experience in the cloud with our solutions. We have also expanded some loads in order to complement to the scenario of solutions TOTVS -- that the client has been offered. So what happens is that, we offer a very customized experience -- the cloud that we mentioned, and we allow the client to have a very important experience of our solutions.

We offer some guarantees because, sometimes the client cannot do it by itself. Security would be a classical example. If you consider a company which is an SMB, this company will not have the possibility to make the right investment in security to get prepared to the market. And when we look at our reality when we know what our products are, when we look at that stage, we do know the clients, we can increase the level of comfort and security and help the client have a more facilitated experience in the cloud. This is very important for the company. It's important for this experience to happen in a very controlled way to provide the comfort and the client needs. This is very important.

And then, we also look at some positive collaterals. As the client gets closer to us, they use [ RD ] Cloud. They use our cloud. So other topics start to make sense when working with us, using solutions, bringing in new solutions for their portfolio, implementing in a quicker pace. We mentioned very briefly related to the cost of ownership. It's related to the simplification of solutions, considering the life cycle of the products, and that would make the process streamlined, and this is a clear advantage to the client.

All those points -- and of course, there are some technicalities that I'm not going to go into. These are aspects that are going to help us to ensure the growth that we have been presenting and confident that we still have room to grow, especially in the base of -- our client base.

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

Now our next question comes from Thiago with Itau Bank.

[Thiago Kapulskis, analyst]

I think most important questions have already been answered, but I have 2 other ones related to different aspects. One is that, so, Dennis had an interview, and one of the journalists said in the title of the article, is that TOTVS has a very strong cash and TOTVS is looking at different aspects, and that generated a number of questions and some level of anxiety by the market. But if you could give us an update about this, what we can expect for this year, in the short term? What exactly and where interesting bends are about to come? So any information considering this context would be welcome. And also some potentials that may happen?

Another question that I have is in relation to the R&D Station. This was something that was not much talked about. But we see that the [ IRR ] is performing well. And of course, you have a project to use cross-selling aspects in the basis, and I would like you to talk a little bit about the ARR considering the cross-sell history for client. Is this more related to an extension of what R&D already was? So if you could provide some light related to this side?

[Unknown Executive]

I can tell you that, yes, we are prepared for this moment with a robust balance. Our cash is good. And so, M&As remains strong for us. But we are not anxious, and I think this is essential whenever you have an M&A strategy. We cannot be anxious because anxiety in these situations usually lead to rush, which is translated into error. Either you buy what you shouldn't, or you pay what you shouldn't.

And of course, this is what we don't want to happen. And therefore, we're moving on with many potential targets in different stages, of course. But we're moving slowly with a lot of discipline. We know that the market is now [ playing ] in our favor. Profitability also improved, and a large number of the companies and the targets have experienced some deterioration. And so, we are very relaxed in this regard.

To give you an idea of time yes, new transactions are likely to happen in '23. Whether they will happen in the first or second half, it's hard to say. It depends on us and also on the other party. But we're bound to have new things happening in '23.

And to wrap up I can tell you, where -- we have not actively looked at in Techfin, because we will have a capacity for M&A, but we are not taking Techfin into account as much. We have a diversity of areas and sizes, but I can't tell you more precisely. Management and business performance is what we're looking at. And to talk about R&D, I will ask Tubino to talk a little bit.

[Juliano Tubino, executive]

I'll try to be very brief and show you the 2 main pillars of what we can expect for the coming year. We are going through a process. The most important assets in terms of size of revenue is the R&D system, and we'll have a larger integration. So we are using our R&D as a core. Now in terms of capabilities, we will continue bringing capabilities, be it in the area of commerce, social sales. And as a stand-alone solution, they represent good businesses. They are aligned to our strategy.

And then, in the second year of business performance, we have a very good level of synergism, and a lot of these capabilities are already in our ecosystem. And therefore, the growth we had in '22 of greater than 22%, included other factors, the CRM, which is now attached and has contributed for us to have 25% of our revenue in other products, or it could be [ Tallos ] and conversational, which has also had accelerated growth.

And it combines the 2 things that Dennis mentioned. We are not anxious for new capabilities or to pursue the synergism. It's important to understand what capability will have a synergism, be it in terms of distribution or by adoption of technology that will help us obtain good results. So we have these 2 aspects. We will continue completing what we call our [ Mandela ], our portfolio of business performance solutions, looking at quality of the stand-alone businesses. But in parallel, this is our second year trying to combine more, so that we can have a more complete solution.

[Thiago Kapulskis, analyst]

Dennis, you had talked about JV. But do you have any news about the approval of [ CADE ]?

[Dennis Herszkowicz, executive]

Unfortunately, I don't. We talked about it, CADE by default has a time frame that must be followed. And everybody has some level of visibility. In the case of the Central Bank, unfortunately, we don't have this time frame, and therefore, this is something that we cannot predict. We know that, now that January is over, usually the pace of work goes back to normal. And as things move on -- and I'd like to remind you that the Central Bank had a strike. So, as things move on, our process is a theoretically simple one. and we will have the dual approval. Until then, unfortunately, we have to wait.

On the other hand, because this has already been approved by CADE without any restrictions, we're totally free to work and plan things. So the fact that the Central Bank hasn't approved, does not mean that we are crossing our arms quite the other way around. We've been moving on in an accelerated manner in terms of structure, names, format of payment, product, budget management mechanisms that will allow us to have anticipated investments. So there is a lot that has already been done, and the comparison I make is more or less like this.

If CADE had not approved it already, perhaps we would be at a situation where -- we would be in a difficult situation. But since we can already work, we have the possibility to keep the boxes. Of course, we're not going to start up front, but we will be in a good position.

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

So before we move on, I'd like to say that, if you have sent us any question that hasn't been answered, our team will contact you directly with the answer. So Dennis, the question today comes from Andre Salles, UBS.

[Andre Salles, analyst]

I have 2. The first one is a little bit more specific in terms of management, and it has to do with the corporate model. Historically, there is a seasonability, and so, perhaps you could share with us how this model is doing when compared to what we saw in 2022?

The second question is more specific in the balance sheet. We saw a transaction of BRL 160 million in the areas of intangibles quarter-over-quarter. And it has to do with an increase of 40% in the intangibles of taxing. So could you tell us what caused this?

[Unknown Executive]

I'm going to start talking about corporate, and then I will switch over to Maia. The corporate model is very intelligent. It is complementary also to what we have here. It gives us an opportunity to capture in certain groups of clients, the advance of these clients from a point of view of revenue, and therefore, it generates complementarity to other models that's very interesting. And sometimes it's a good model for the client.

Regarding this year, what I can tell you is that, this far, we see a positive dynamics. For obvious reasons, we cannot give more visibility, but I would say that we started the year in a positive manner regarding this topic. Maia, I turn over to you.

[Gilsomar Sebastião, executive]

Regarding the balance sheet and intangibles, it's directly related to the acquisition of the supplier with Itau Bank. And one of the other examples is the partnership reorganization for Itau Bank to join us. So everything was updated. The assets were adopted, including the supplier. But the taxing personnel have been transferred from TOTVS to the taxing company. And all of this rearrangement has already gone through. In this transition, the amount paid from TOTVS end went to the Techfin, has an accounting rule where it has to be downloaded in accounting, and that's why you've seen this variation in intangibles.

Well, to make it very clear, we have had no losses and -- no tax losses, yes. We are following CPM rule, and the amounts migrated from TOTVS to Techfin with the supplier when we moved from TOTVS.

[Sérgio Serio, executive]

Well, the Q&A session is now over. I turn over to Dennis for conclusion.

[Dennis Herszkowicz, executive]

Okay. Once again, I wanted to thank everyone. We had another year -- another challenging year with situations that had not been foreseen. But this was a very important year with a lot of achievements. And therefore, I would like to thank each and every one of TOTVS stakeholders going from clients to partners. All of them contributed for our results.

I also wanted to once again remind you of what be mentioned when she spoke. We had an adjustment -- and we brought in a new element in these parameters, they were present in the company but had not been formally acknowledged in the company. I'm talking about the results. We are not confessed with the results at any price. So we are going to be buses with the correct sustainable results balanced results. And this is what you can demand from us. Thank you place again. Enjoy the carnival time and be well see you.

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