Alsea, S.A.B. de C.V. (ALSEA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. My name is Gerardo Lozoya, Head of IR and Corporate Affairs for Alsea. Welcome to Alsea Day 2024 here in Mexico City. Before we begin our presentations, a few important housekeeping items. For safety purposes, please familiarize yourself with the nearest emergency exit, which are located just in the right and the left of the main entrance of this room and please follow the instructions of our staff members. Please note that today's presentation may discuss forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. We encourage you to refer to our filings with the CNBV for a detailed discussion of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. With these considerations in mind, let us now start the day with today's agenda. As you can see on the screen, we will have a presentation here on the 15th floor of the Mexican Stock Exchange from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. approximately, Mexico City time. We will start with an overview with Armando Torrado, our CEO; [indiscernible]. After Armando, Francisco and Christian will go through Starbucks and the case study of our success in Starbucks France. Then we will have Cosme that will be presenting Domino's. And finally, in the Restaurants segment, we will have Jaime to go over our full service Restaurants segment. As we did last year, Pablo will walk us through our digital journey and an update compared to last year's performance. And after Pablo, Federico, our new CFO, will go in further detail on our financial results and present our 2024 guidance. To wrap up the presentation, Armando will come again for closing remarks. At the end of the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. After this session, we will go to P.F. Chang's just across the street to have lunch and to have the opportunity to chat with our team in a more informal way. Then after our launch, we will go through our operations center, best-in-class [indiscernible] to spend a couple of hours to see the operations behind the Alsea stores in Mexico. So for further detail, I will introduce you with Armando to begin our presentation. Please go ahead, Armando.

[Foreign Language] Hello, Perfect. So welcome. Welcome, everyone, to Mexico City. It's a privilege to have you in the city that we started this business 30 years ago, just a couple of -- probably 10 miles from here, we started the first store of Domino's Pizza. It's a long time ago, 30 years ago. So welcome to Mexico. Welcome to Bolsa Mexicana de Valores. And also welcome to the Alsea Day 2024. There are some familiar faces in the crowd, and there's new ones. So if there is -- the first time you come to this event, thanks for being here. First of all, as Gerardo said, we will be honored to host you today later on in our restaurants. And if you have the time to go to our distribution center, I won't say that is a distribution center. It's just a big, big facility opportunity center that we do manufacture. We [indiscernible], we do sandwiches, we do sauces, we do tortillas. We do a lot of things in that distribution center. So it's a state-of-the-art place that if you have the chance to visit, please do not hesitate to do that. First -- first of all, let me introduce you to the people that is going to be presenting today. You will see some new faces today in the crowd as -- sorry, as the last year's presentation, first of all, there's going to be Pablo de Brito. Pablo de Brito, our commercial business developer, we will also have [indiscernible]. Federico Rodriguez who just integrated to my team. He was our CFO in Europe for the past 7 years. Now he's going to -- he just joined us 15 days ago, [indiscernible] so thanks for that. Cosme Torrado, will talk about Domino's Pizza in Mexico and worldwide what we have. And then we have Francisco Tosso and Christian Gurria that will give you an overview of what are we doing in Starbucks. And there's a nice case study that Christian will present with -- in France and Benelux. So let's go deeply now in the business, and let me share with you some great information that we have. First of all, we operate more than 4,600 stores and our plan is to surpass the 5,000 stores by the end of the year. That's a milestone that we want to achieve. We are very deeply inside. You will see the achievement that we have in openings, and I think this can be accomplished. We are proud to serve more than 460 million guests in 3 segments and 12 countries. Our 2023 sales were over MXN 74.7 billion, having a participation of 53% in Mexico, 31% in Europe and another 16% in South America. Alsea was found in 1990. And this year, we are celebrating, I will just comment with some of you. We are celebrating our 25th anniversary that we've been in the stock exchange of the Mexicana de Valores. Today, our market cap is over MXN 55 billion and we've been part of the [indiscernible] since 2011. Regarding results and some about EBITDA, we are very proud to present the achievement that we did last year with an outstanding result over MXN 10.6 billion. We did chat with you in New York last year, if we will reach the MXN 10 billion actually, I talked [indiscernible] about it, it's like so risky to say that we can reach on MXN 10 billion, but it was always a dream come true, but this is the result. We did a MXN 10.6 billion in EBITDA. So that's margin a record size. Also achieving a 14.2% in EBITDA. That's also a record in our numbers. And if you can see our debt 1.9x debt EBITDA, it's also an impressive performance that the company has been achieving. Our team members, more than 75,500 collaborators, just in the next month, probably in April and May, we will reach the goal of 80,000 people working in this organization. So very proud to present all the people that work in our stores. I want to talk a little bit about the capabilities that we have, what is the strategic capability business model in Alsea. Of course, this model is represented in every different brand, every one has the different strategic alliance where they go. So let's talk about people capability. I think, first of all, our exceptional results are driven and focused by exceptional people that we have in this organization. We have a sustainable leadership in our stores. We retain the talent that we have in every level of the organization. For example, last year, we had a record number of 65% of turnover over 71.8% that we did a year before. So very proud to present the numbers of turnover that we've been having in this organization. Also, our internal global engagement index shows an impressive 4.20% -- 4.2 points over 5 points. So it's very impressive that the people that we ask how happy you are working in this organization. It's state-of-the-art, and we have the levels that we've never seen before. Regarding the operational capability, we are very proud to say that we run successful operations with a culture of accountability and management ownership. Yesterday that I had a privilege to talk to one of you, how you do this. And we've been showing you that in Alsea, all the managers are part of our team. We share with them the whole P&L every single month. They have extraordinarily good bonuses when they reach their goals. So there is accountability in every store. I mean today, you want to see the stores. And every time you can go to a store, you can ask our manager how we manage the company. And that is completely aligned between our financial results and the results that our stores gives. Regarding digital and commercial capabilities that this -- I've been focused since I started this job, I mean, almost 19 months ago. And how we are going to amplify innovation and technology in order to drive a growth opportunity that we have in this matter. Not only in our stores, we are doing also good investments in innovation and digital in our, of course, restaurants, but also in our supply chain category in our [indiscernible] and in our support centers. So that's always [indiscernible] good strategy of how we can learn and more. Pablo is going to talk a little bit more in detail how we're doing regarding this issue. Around -- talking about management capability, like I've been also talking to some of you, CapEx allocation, portfolio management and geographic location. It's a key of the game, it's part of our success, and we're very proud that we are putting the resources and the capital allocation whenever we have better returns in the company. I also want to talk about strengthening our franchisees. You will see 23 -- with the stores that we opened last year, probably 23% are franchisee stores. This is a key channel for us, generates great returns. Last year, we had a record number of stores opened in this channel, and this year won't be the exceptions of more franchisees in this organization. I want to put this very graph here, I told you about the guidelines that we did last year. And here, the results of what I put my word of -- the words that are results of the company. So last year, I said, I present this challenging because it was a little bit challenged. Rodriguez, you told me about some more details about the guidance that we put on it. So here is the numbers. We're proud to say that we surpassed our goals, and I want to recognize the hard work of all my team and all the members in our stores to get in that. We did 257 openings last year. Like I said, 28% of those are franchisees. We did an impressive 14.7% same-store sales without the valuations and in local currency, that number would be 19.7% -- 70%, sorry, so in revenues, not consider the FX effect, this number will produce in 19.7%. So I think that's an incredible number in top line that the company reached in all geographies, in all brands. Margins, like I said, 14.2%. And later on, Federico will talk a little bit later about our guidance for 2024. What about -- as I mentioned in the last meetings with some of you also, we are very focused on organic growth. I think this company still have a lot of opportunity, a lot of white space to grow, there's around 2,400 units and extraordinary returns and investment that we are going to double down in this path. Having this white space in all sectors, in all companies, in geography, is key for our success. Starbucks in Mexico, France and [indiscernible] have more than 41% space to growth, reaching for us at 3,000 stores in this brand in the next year, I think it can be very achievable, and we are going to go by that path. Regarding Domino's Pizza or in the QSR sector that we operate with Domino's and Burger King, we have more than 650 new stores that we can build in the future. And in Burger King, I mean, just in Domino's, 650 stores and in Burger King around 200 more locations. In our full service restaurant category. We also have great opportunity with more than 350 units. So our goal of 7,000 units is going to be a milestone that I'm sure we can accomplish in this company just with organic space and white space that we have. Now I will pass the microphone on the path to Francisco Tosso that will give us a little bit insight of what are we doing in our coffee sector and with Starbucks. Francisco, please join me.

Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present to talk about Alsea Starbucks and this opportunity. First of all, I'm going to start with, say, this is a perfect mix between the Starbucks Corporation and Alsea company because we can receive all the support as a worldwide brand. We received tremendous support from the brand. But in a way, we received all the support from Alsea too. So we can have the both better, best part of the history. One year ago, [indiscernible] the mission. What is the reason because it's so important to talk about the mission. The mission that we refound in every -- with every cup, with every conversation, with every community, we are -- we -- pardon, we nurture the limitless possibility of the human connection. What is important in that? Because in a Starbucks, all is about connection, human connection, to be close to the people, to be close to the consumer, to be close to the partners. Here, we can see the great figures that how we represent in the Starbucks world. Starbucks -- Alsea Starbucks is the second largest, again, is the second largest operator in the world for Starbucks. Our revenue in the last year, it was $1.9 billion, and 16% of our stores are franchisees. And today, we are more than 26,000 partners in all the markets that we are. Here we are. We're in these 3 different regions. We are here in Mexico with 800 stores. The second one is Europe with 6 countries. And the third one is South America with 5 countries. It is very important here because we provide 200 million client server every year. This is our journey. This journey started from some [indiscernible] from here in the 2002 with the first store in Mexico. After many, many years in the -- we celebrated in 2018, 1,000 stores mainly in Latin America. In 2019, we opened the market in Europe. So we have started the third market of the period. Maybe here, the most important number, it is the 34% in CAGR. Because it's an enormous growth every year during more than 20 years history here. This is our strategic business model, always in the center, we are going to put our customers and our partners. All the decisions that we take. It's very important to put attention to how positive it is in our client customers and our partners. The first pillar here is accelerating growth. How we are going to accelerate in growth? The first one is, fill the wide space that Armando mentioned. We have more -- we have a white space with more than 1,200 units. And what is the way what we are going to do it? We are going to work in a trade area strategy. This trade area strategy is supported by a tool, a technological tool but provide us what is the exactly store that we need to put in the market it depends on the market, but aligned to the strategy. So we can open in a better way than we are doing and provider a better result for the company. The second one is accelerated growth and a stable reward. A stable reward is so important to us. It's a pillar in our strategy. It has many different functionalities. And one of the principal functionalities that it has is the [indiscernible] so we have a big opportunity, huge opportunity to develop this type of way to face the client. Innovation products. We have plenty -- a different product in all the countries. And always [indiscernible] for each campaign, we have 6 campaigns a year. So we have different type of beverage innovating beverage that produce certain expectation in the consumer to taste it, to know what is going to be new. In terms of food, we are working to have different type of food. I mean, for all the -- food for all day, for different dayparts, healthy products, different alternatives, for example, the snacks, and we are working so hard in our program called BIS, Baked in Store, that is producing a very good result. And the last one is merchandising. And we are working as a company to have the volume to negotiate different design, different products to be more attractive in the markets. The third one is excellent operational excellence. Here is the core, what we are going to be, where we are going to provide a perfect service to elevate experience to our clients. It's based in the supervision model, supervision model is very important for us because it's the way that we define what is going to be the role or the approach for any partner that we have. So all the partner knows that they want -- that they have to do during the day. Workforce management what -- how many partners we are going to have in a certain period in the day. It is supported with [indiscernible] so we need to define the exactly amount of partner to be very productive, but to provide a perfect service to the clients. The digitalization is very important for us because we are going to give a better way to work to our partners to put forth certain tools and certain processes in an automatic way. So our partner can put focus on our clients and in our service, not avoiding a little bit the administration process. Competitive advantage, data analysis. We are providing the technology for the capabilities for having the machine learning process. Efficiency stores, we designed the store very efficiently in terms of layout and to be very efficient in the journey that we are. And the partner culture, very important for us, so important, celebrating as far as our culture, ritual as a coffee tasting is very important. Every morning, we do coffee tasting to taste another coffee to elevate our knowledge in the coffee because it's so important coffee and celebrate or made some celebration as a Barista championship every year because all the celebration elevate the spirit of our partners and for us, it's so important to have this spirit in our stores. In an innovation strategy, we have 3 pillars, always, partners, clients and stores. In Partners, it's value proposition. We have salaries very competitive and some bonus for performance that they are so important. So our partners are recognized if they do our current work and receive a benefit for doing that, extra benefits. All our partners have medical insurance that is so important, discounting all our Alsea restaurant and more. It's going to -- it depends on each country because each country has different laws. And 3 partner beverage and coffee [indiscernible] so our partner can taste all the beverages that we have and taste different type of coffee, 2 box in fact, every month. So they can approach to the culture in beverage that we have in Starbucks. Clients, communication and change management. We try to be very close to them to provide -- to talk about the missions to talk about the values in any moment that we have with them. Always, we have -- every quarter, we have a performance conversation with them to -- in 2 aspects: behavior and performance. In this period, we try to talk with them how possibilities has to elevate the performance of the Starbucks behavior. The [indiscernible] we have a call to recognize the different behavior through this [indiscernible]. Clients in a store communication, is very important in this moment where if you can see all our store has digital menu boards and we can put an interesting information in a very agile way, we are trying to base it on technology to have different message. It depends on the segment. So we can adapt the information in the different stores and it depends on the type of store that we have in the market now we are. Price model. Pablo is going to speak later in a better way about the price model, but it's very important because we are going to be more accurate aligned to the market. In some markets, we have different tiers of price. It depend it's going to be our store, and we are going to put a different tier of price. SDS, the new technology worldwide that Starbucks has today. This SDS is a better customer or partner experience. It is more functionality than we have in the past and is going to provide some kind of analytics to take a better decision to be closer to the clients. And finally, stores. Store is very important for us, the third place. The third place needs to be relevant to the community. So in our design today, we are trying to be designed according to the community that we are serving. If we are, I don't know, close to the tourist area, we try to be more attractive for the tourists. We want to be relevant in certain regions. It's so important that to provide a different experience in each store. This is the reason because you can find different design in our stores. Format, we are developing a small format, for example, for airports. We are developing Kiosk. We are developing drive-thru, only drive-thrus and we are going to open in some weeks, the new pick-up store, too. So we're going to give a different alternative to the market to arrive then in a better way. And [indiscernible] today, Alsea Starbucks has more than 50 greener store. Greener store means waste reduction, energy reduction, sustainability coffee best practices and be friendly with the environment. Thank you for the time. Let me introduce my partner, Christian.

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon, and happy to be able to share with you what has been an amazing journey in France since we took the market 5 years ago. One thing for sure that we were very, very sure when we took the market is that we didn't know the customer. We didn't know who was really our customer. We didn't know if it was the locals or the non-locals. All the strategy that the brand was following at that time was what I would like to call a one-size-fit-all approach. Where solutions were vertically implemented from other regions. And not necessarily becoming what I like to call an American locally relevant brand. So one of the first things we push ourselves to do is to listen to our customer, to understand who was the customer in Starbucks France. There was a lot of urban legends, No, are these tourists. This is a brand, the locals don't like the brand, it's only a touristic brand. And after spending some, I would say, one full year listening to customers, doing different research, we were very happy to see that the non-locals represented only 15% of our sales. So that was the first good news. After that and after really understanding our customer and also listen our partners, we knew that we needed to elevate the brand. We needed to elevate the customer experience. So we -- in many aspects, we started investing money in our stores by renovating our stores, by bringing back what we call in Starbucks is third place by displays where we can call home and the right store for the right neighborhood for the right customer. So we elevated the designs of our stores. We also started investing money in renovating our stores. At the same time, we implemented digital menu boards, and we also started renewing equipment that will allow the partners to create better drinks, better beverage and implement speed of service. We also had a 360 approach with our categories. The most important effort with this was around food. At that time, the food mix that we have and the number of items per transaction with food were very, very low, below any other markets. And we understood that for France, the quality of the food, the quality of the product was going to be a key success factor if we wanted to also honor the locals. And when I'm in the locals, I keep -- you're going to hear me say this word several times because this is where the business is. And if we want to grow the brand in France, we need to talk to the locals. The tourist, it's the cherry in the cake for the non-locals. So food was one of our key pillars to improve. So one other thing we learned is that French people are very, very proud of their local products. So we started developing local suppliers with the quality that the consumer expected. We implemented technology like baking store where you can buy a fresh Croissant, a fresh [indiscernible] every single day. And we continued learning and learning. This is a journey. I believe it would be responsible to say we are already where we need to be. I believe we have improved very important on what food represents for us in the market. And we continue working towards -- and when we achieve a goal, then we start talking what do we do next? What's next? Also, as I said, a 360 approach, we did the same with our beverage portfolio. We work in partnership with Starbucks to develop the right drinks for our French consumers. We have the core portfolio of drinks that you all know, but we started developing what products were going to be relevant. And most important, we lead the products that were not relevant and improve our operation. One other thing that was critical for us is to continue improving our brand reputation. And we knew that it was not in the best place. And that was a task that we need to accomplish by doing many of the things I have just shared with you. So one interesting thing is that after 5 years that we have been doing, while our brand health monitor, we know now that we are 30 points above of where we started 5 years ago as the first choice. A brand, that is the first choice for the consumer. Talking also about our customer and we knew that Starbucks Rewards was going to be a key strategy for our loyal customers both for morning routine and the afternoon traffic. So we relaunched 18 months ago, the new updated version of Starbucks Rewards. And today, we have almost 100 -- almost 180,000 active customers that represent 20% of our transactions every day. And we know that this is going to be one of the pillars where we are going to continue pushing and investing on growing this base of consumers. And this -- talking back about the brand health monitor, this connects me also to one of the learnings that we have during this -- the comments from the customers. And they want -- we're one of the barriers to go to Starbucks. And the good news was that one of the barriers was that there is not a Starbucks near me. And this is what I want to pause and reflect. There is not a Starbucks near me. So in a way, this connects me to what we call tracking the business model in France. Today, after working with our team, our local team, our management team and our partners at the stores, we knew that there were a lot of opportunities to improve and to become more efficient. If we wanted to open more stores in France, we first need to have a very successful business model that could be replicated not only in the big cities, but also in what we call Tier 2 or Tier 3 cities, cities with 100,000 or less inhabitants. By having said -- by saying this, we did with different methodologies. We approached what were the number of stores we can open with this improved business model. And I am happy to share with you today that when we took the market 5 years ago, now we can open stores with 40 less -- 40% less daily transactions. That was the case 5 years ago. What this means is that we are able to increase our market holding capacity. What this means is that we can get connecting to what the customer said, we can get a store closer to our customers in every different city. And we know also that now one advantage that we have is the flexible formats that we have in Starbucks. We can open a store in [indiscernible] squared meters, so we can open a drive-thru. And let me share a little bit about the drive-thru model or format in France. It's an absolutely underdeveloped format. So we know there is absolute white space to develop not only the traditional stores that we know [indiscernible] but there's a lot of white space also to develop this format. Another important thing that help us on developing this format besides having efficiencies on labor, cost of goods, productivity, occupancy and different other lines of the P&L, it's what we did with our partners' bonus. The store bonus when we took the market, it was focused on sales. If you did the sales, you get your bonus. And we know that at the end of the day, sometimes you could meet the sales and not make the profit. So one of the things that we changed is now the bonus is linked also to the results of EBITDA, actually EBITDA becomes and unlocks the bonus. And how we like to say it is we move from a sales manager to a real store manager, where he is in control or she is in control of her or his business. And that also has allowed us to continue in a journey of ongoing improvement of our figures. And on top of that, as you know, France is a market that has company-owned or equity stores, we have what we call our franchisee stores, the traditional franchise model that you all know. And then we have the channel licenses, which are the sourcing in airports and train stations. And all this work that we have been doing together with them has also allowed us for them to trust us with the development of the brand and the growth of the brand. So almost 2 years ago, we signed a development agreement with our franchisees to develop the brand in different cities and to help us penetrate the brand faster and again, bringing Starbucks closer to our customers. On top of this, we have also developed different strategic partnerships with landlords, developers, which thrust also the brand and have seen what has been happening in the last 5 years. And it's also very encouraging that when we open a new store, the customer is there. I think you go to cities that even -- I didn't even know they were there and the customer is expecting the brand. Because remember, Starbucks has been in France for 20 years now. And actually, this year is our 20th anniversary. So to continue on this journey, this could not be possible without our partners. Today, the challenge we have ahead of us is develop enough pipeline for the future growth and develop enough and also the right talent to operate our stores. We took an organization that -- was not inspired. We don't have a clear vision of what we wanted to do. And now it's a journey. I don't think it would be, again, very responsible to say we are where we want to be. This is a journey that keeps going on. But today, I'm happy to share that we continue elevating the experience, and we have a very inspired organization with a growth mindset. And like we normally do is, a can-do mentality, which going in Mexican, going into France, it was kind of weird, but it's true also that when we instill this Alsea can-do mentality where everything we want to do is possible. And the first year, they didn't buy it. The second year, they start buying it. And now we are building this momentum that we need to keep up and to continue developing the brands. I spent a lot of time in the stores, and I like to ask always a question to our partners. Why Starbucks? Why you trusted us, me, us, the brand, Alsea, with your future, why? And indistinctively, I get the same 3 answers, maybe the order changes sometimes. The first one is because I feel like family. This is an extended family for me or even my family. The second is because I like to connect with people. I like to meet and connect people. And the third one is because there are opportunities for me to develop and grow. And that I've been asking this question for many, many years. And the answer is normally or always the same. So -- and this also connects to in a very important way to a social agenda in France. Today, we don't need amazing French engineers. We don't need this qualified talent. What we need is young people. So we fit perfectly in the social agenda. So that gives us -- there's a super amazing source of talent. We have -- we are part of a program that is called [indiscernible] young people from underprivileged communities, partners with disabilities and refugees. We are part of different organizations where we work together with them to be able to source partners from this. And this, together with the experienced partners we have that have been in the brand for more than 20 years now. It's an amazing combination. And as I said before, this year is our 20th anniversary, and I believe there is a lot to celebrate, but also a lot of responsibility ahead of us. As I would like to say, this is a first chapter maybe of many, many chapters that are going to be written in France. And I believe we share part of what -- I have shared part of what you see here, but this is our focus in 2024. An important -- we have doubled the number of cities where we have presence in the last 5 years. We are in more than 55 cities to date. Starbucks Rewards, we expect to finish the year with 250 estimated, 250 active members plus a tender of minimum 22%, again, estimated. As I said before, we continue elevating our food. This is a year which will be, in a way, we are preparing to host the Olympic Games, which we know it's going to be an extraordinary event for Paris stores where we have an important percentage of our stores. And we have worked together with Starbucks to prepare a really special campaign around the games. And well, this is -- the journey goes on. Thank you, everyone, for your attention. And now let me introduce you, Cosme Torrado, Head of Domino's Pizza. Thank you.

[Foreign Language] Good morning, everyone. How are you? So now let's talk about Domino's. Domino's began its operations back in 1960 when Tom Monaghan founded the brand back in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Our DNA and people are quite unique. Therefore, Domino's Pizza is continuously progressing on its operations and worldwide footprint. By 2018, Domino's Pizza became the largest pizza company in the world, surpassing its competitors. The second player is more than 1,300 stores behind us. Today, Domino's Pizza operates in more than 90 countries all over the world and has more than 20,000 stores, employing more than 350,000 team members, we call ourselves Dominoids. In 2023, global retail sales reached USD 18 billion and 99% of the stores are franchisees. At Alsea, we owned the master franchisee agreement rights to develop and operate the brand in Mexico, Colombia, Spain, and most recently in Uruguay. Today, Alsea has more than 1,400 stores across the 4 markets in which we operate. And in 2023, Alsea retail sales reached over USD 1 billion. Alsea's portfolio is quite diversified since 37% of the stores are franchisees and 63% of the stores are corporate owned. We currently employ more than 24,000 Dominoids across the 4 markets in which we operate, and we look forward to keep growing this number as we continue to open new stores. Domino's Pizza Alsea initiated its operations in Mexico back in 1989, and we are about to celebrate our 35th anniversary by the end of this year. By 2008, we started operating in Colombia by acquiring a few stores locally. Through 2014, we diversified our portfolio out of the America region and acquired Grupo Zena in Spain in order to operate Domino's Pizza and some other brands, international brands of our current portfolio. Then in 2022, we initiated operations in Uruguay with our first store. In sum, our stores are spread between 4 markets. Mexico accounts for 62% of the portfolio; Spain, 27%; and South America 11% of our current portfolio. I will break down the store classification by corporate and sub-franchisees in a couple of slides later, emphasizing a little bit more in the franchise model. It is quite important to mention, but annually, we serve more than 90 million customers in the markets in which we operate. Our brand keeps the growth momentum in place, and there is still plenty of white space to reach the 2,000 store mark. Now let me talk to you a little bit about our strategic business model. As you can see, our flywheel at Domino's is very similar to the one that we have in Alsea. We are focused on 3 main pillars, technology, operations and culture. The client and our team members remain at the center of everything we do and at the center of every decision we make. Regarding operations, we have a 34-year track record of successfully operating the brand. We at Domino's see ourselves as one brand, one store with 2 different businesses, one business, the dining and carryout segment and the other one, our delivery business. We own the rights to develop the brand in the 4 markets, including corporate and sub-franchisee stores. Furthermore, we operate with an integrated supply chain from the dough-making process to delivering the pizzas to our customers. One of our main competitive advantages is that we deliver ourselves, ensuring that we deliver with the highest quality, service and image every single time to all of our customers across all of our markets. At Domino's, more than 40% of our business comes via digital channels. We have been committed to invest and improve our technology. That is why this year, we've launched Domino's Cloud. Domino's Cloud has the same front-end user experience that in the U.S., making it much more user-friendly and much more reliable. In 2024, we will launch our own integrated loyalty program called Domino's Rewards to acquire more customers as well as to increase our customer lifetime value of existing customers. We are committed to being on the forefront of technology and innovation and constantly developing new ways to excel the pizza ordering experience. Our team challenges us every day to feed the power of possible, one pizza at a time. Domino's Pizza Alsea has been growing over the decades with an 8.1 CAGR from 2012 to 2023. Actually, the portfolio between corporate stores and sub-franchisees is quite balanced with a 7.6% and 9%, respectively. By the end of 2023, 912 stores out of 1,441 stores globally are operated and owned by Alsea, representing 63% of the portfolio. The remaining 37% of the stores are operated and owned by our sub-franchisees. Noteworthy, these franchisees are fully aligned with Domino's Pizza operating model and food safety standards. Delivery stores hold 90% of the portfolio and 10% of the portfolio, are our express stores. Express stores are the ones that do not have a delivery area. Basically, they just operate the carryout and dine-in business and are located in malls or food courts. Our delivery still represents 56% of the business, while dine-in and carryout represents the other 44% of the business. Finally, let's talk about our transformational innovation approach. Innovation has played an important role developing the brand, and it is not an exception during 2024. During the last couple of years, we've been catching up with the latest technology, and we will continue to do a full deployment of Domino's Cloud, as I mentioned earlier. We will also launch in 2024, our own loyalty program called Domino's Rewards, and we are still committed to growing our EV fleet. We will be launching Alsea Geo 2.0, an internal system that inputs statistical demographic, transit, penetration and frequency data to set new locations to open new stores and fortressing our markets. Regarding human capital, we are leveraging new technologies to improve our training as well as piloting labor schedules to handle the rush and new management tools in order to be more productive. In [indiscernible] we will continue to do a full implementation of our revenue growth management strategy across all of our channels, new brand communications and media agencies, innovation with promotional consistency. And then operations, we have introduced our cutting-edge operations, an umbrella that holds revolutionary technology in our store operations like digital shoulder surfing, inventory app and the use of GPS. Alsea is committed to lead every single market in which we operate in order to become the #1 pizza company. Thank you very much. And now let me leave you with Jaime.

Thank you, Cosme, and hello, everybody. I'm very happy to be here. I'm responsible for full service restaurant in Alsea. I have 20 years' experience, as Armando mentioned in the first slides. We will talk about some data about the industry and of our business. 2023, we closed with a high note. We closed with amazing numbers with a double-digit growth in all regions. We have a strong presence in full service, connecting more than 20,000 employees every week with 1.5 million of customers every week. We attend -- we serve more than the 79 million customers per year. We play in the human connections. We are in the business of human connections. We're connecting our employees and a lot of experience with our customers. We have presence in the main segments driving by family and local foods with 405 bps. By the way, we celebrated in Mexico this year, 60 years of the brand, the biggest brand of restaurants in Mexico. And one of the most important brands of restaurants in Mexico. 318 stores in American Food with Chili's, Cheesecake Factory and Foster's Hollywood in Mexico and in Spain. About the Italian food with 225 restaurants, with Italianni's, Ginos and Archie's, Mexico, Colombia and Spain. And finally, [indiscernible] P.F. Chang's with 31 restaurants in Mexico. And the [indiscernible] for these brands in all regions, as Armando say, is more than the 350 restaurants. We make every year, we update every year our marketing holding capacity to understand the opportunities and the future of the brands. In the next 5 years, we could have almost 1,400 restaurants in this segment. It's a huge opportunity to continue growing our rents. We are experts. And just to share some data, 3 years ago in [indiscernible] Spain, 2 years ago in Italianni's [indiscernible] in Mexico, we'll start with the revitalization of the brand, with amazing results that have more than 4 or 5 store EBITDA number additional. What is the revitalization of the [indiscernible]? It's simple. 360 strategy, focusing our people, focusing our customer and refresh of the brand. And we have amazing numbers. We have the right brands with a double-digit growth in the main segments. We are very happy with this business model in Alsea. Now we will talk about the industry size that we are playing in this segment. We have kind of pyramid here that in the base of the pyramid is the street food. The average ticket is around minus $10. Then QSR around $10 and then the industry that we participate, casual and family dining industry. The average ticket that the customer spend is around $10 and $50 per person. On the top of the pyramid, we have a $50 with a restaurant with fine dining. It's very important to understand that because the value of the industry that we participate is $100 billion, in Mexico and in Spain. And specific, the restaurant chains and the brands that we have is -- the value is around 6% and 12% of this total. We are convinced we have a huge opportunity because we have the right brands to continue participating in a multi-target segment, all dayparts we conserve a delicious breakfast in bps. We have 40% of our sales in these dayparts in bps. To launch our dinner, we could serve a hamburger [indiscernible] Foster's, Cheesecake Factory, in Chili's or why not delicious pasta or pizza in Italianni's, in Ginos or in Archie's [indiscernible] in Cheesecake Factory and why not in all our segments, all of our brands a couple of wine, a cup of wine, or a nice cocktail. For example, in a few minutes, we're going to the P.F. Chang's, the first P.F. Chang's outside of the United States [indiscernible] to enjoy some sushi and some Asian food. We have a powerful value proposition formula, where the hospitality is the base, human connections, again. And the key players are the food quality, affordable pricing, specialty food and [indiscernible] and connections that we create every day. To understand our success and future opportunities, we have these 3 main buckets. First, the restaurant industry is in a good shape and in a good moment. The consumer demand, our customers need more consistency. They demand more quality products around amazing experience. Commodity costs, moderating. We have the last 12, 18 months with inflation in our main SKUs because we have a critical mass. Staffing, for me this is the most important thing in a full-service restaurant. We offer a career path for all our employees. We have the best turnover of the industry. Why? Because we have, as Christian mentioned, aggressive plan of compensation, variable compensation. One general [indiscernible] is first, most important in the company, one general manager can make more than the 12 months' salary and variable compensation. And obviously, the support with Alsea, our international brands and the shared services that Alsea give us, we have the scale and critical mass to continue the position of our brands as a leader. We are the expert in operations, and we are convinced it is the key to the success. We have more than the years and years of experience inside our kitchens and inside our restaurants. Finally, profitability. Focus on margin contribution via high volume sales and cost control with our customers like a priority #1. We have in our brands very attractive ROIs plus 30%. And store EBITDA plus [indiscernible] 20% store by store. We have a multi-target brands. We have daypart for breakfast. We have daypart for the launch, and we have daypart for dinners. We have offers for everybody. We have the right offers to bring amazing experience all day. Finally, the last slide. We have 360 innovation program with 4 strategic dimensions. First, product innovation. We have a team specific in research and development to have always the best menu items aligned to the trends to the new targets to the new categories. And obviously, each strategy of each brand -- the strategy for each brand, sorry. We have every year a couple of trips around the world with our experts to visit the top restaurant, to visit the top chefs to inspire and to have the better products in our restaurants. We innovate between 4 and 6 category for each restaurant every year for each brand. And the innovation represents between 9% and 50% of our sales. It's very important for our customers, having always more products. Marketing and digital. In a constant evolution to engage new audience, increase the frequency for our customers and loyalty, the communication with our digital customers every day is more important. For example, one of our brands have more than 50% in sales in digital in delivery. A couple of years ago, we launched one digital brand with amazing numbers with amazing results. We have all the interesting tools and have the knowledge to innovate in these opportunities. Store formats. With our design and development team, we made more than 60 -- between 60 and 100 projects every year between refresh of our stores and opening stores, always searching more productivity over stores, different formats. Strong operational vision, as I mentioned in the last slide, our vision model is based in our people and focusing operation and our customers. We have the best scores in our internal and external quality audits. We have more than the 20 daily surveys restaurant by restaurant to receive the feedback for our customers. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. And now Pablo will talk about some digital and marketing. Thank you.

So great to be here. Good morning, everyone. And it's a pleasure to be connecting again a year after we introduced our digital and commercial strategy. So first introducing myself, Pablo de Brito, Commercial and Digital Global Director for Alsea, across all the brands and all the geographies, been working with Alsea for the last 3 years, a bit more than 25-year experience. Second piece is connecting from the overall strategy that Armando presented, Armando presented 4 main pillars, one of the 4 main pillars in this one, and the commercial and digital function also has 4 main pillars. Digital sales that includes delivery, analytics and insights, CRM and loyalty that we are going to expand. And the fourth one is product innovation. So I'm going to guide you on today's presentation on an equal balance on what we have achieved, but also equally important on the opportunities we've got. So getting from the general to the numbers, like we say. So bottom left, top line numbers, 31% of our sales are digitally based, okay? And that's across all the regions and globally. And whenever we talk about tender, it's all about the percentage of our sales that are digital. And whenever we talk about digital, it's basically adding up CRM and loyalty plus the digital delivery sales. So I want you to bear with me on those 2 concepts that we are going to expand. The second key piece is 20.3 billion sales in digital sales, growing at a pace of 24.4%, 25% year-over-year, clearly above the business overall performance. But the most important piece is that we are growing consistently and organically when we look at the order growth, 99 million orders in 2023, 26% growth. So those are very, very solid results, which connect with the strategy that we are following are the solid foundations that we are building. So moving from the general to the upper side on the regions, those 20.3 billion distributed relatively similar to our business weight across regions. And you can see that connected with our digital sales penetration that is relatively around 31%, 31% and 27%. Now when we talk about customers on a 180 days basis, we are talking about 7.4 million, 7.5 million, growing aggressively above the rate of orders and above the rate of sales that I'm sharing with you. Obviously, if we look at those customers on a yearly basis, we would more than double that figure, but we are based on an industry that it is high frequency, and that's the right period to measure. So on the bottom right side, on a per-brand basis. So a couple of new messages. The first one, how are we doing on Starbucks and in 2 metrics, growth year-over-year and the same tender or digital sales penetration. So we have grown on Starbucks globally 50%, our sales penetration is 30%. And I'm going to expand on that on the coming slides, but it's important that whilst we opened and we launched, like Christian mentioned Starbucks Rewards in new markets, adding on that figure globally, it's also important to highlight that we have grown almost 50% as well on our largest market like Mexico. And more to come. Domino's, Cosme, explained about Domino's Cloud. And how we transition throughout this year to become back-to-back with our Domino's U.S. partner. And the idea that we are going to expand is how do we become the best-in-class in what we do by replicating best practices. So you can see the 9% growth of transition, but we started at the beginning of the year with our conversion rate on our e-commerce with around 18% to 20%. Once we transition to Domino's Cloud, we have conversion above 35%. So radical change between the beginning of the year and the end of the year. And it's worth to note that the highest digital sales penetration across all of our branches in Domino's. The third brand is [indiscernible] which also we are transitioning and great results mostly skewed on delivery, clearly more to deploy and more to come on the CRM and loyalty chapter. And the final piece that [indiscernible] is on the full-service restaurants. And also, I'm going to expand why it has been a transition year, a very successful on the digital results, especially in Spain and the platform that we have launched after a bit more than 3 months with 1.2 million, 1.3 million active customers with more than 38% digital sales penetration and looking to replicate that platform in Mexico as we grow. So we said one of the pillars is analytics and insights, and we wanted to share what does it mean. So the pillar or the building block of analytics and insights has 3 main pillars. The one in the left is, we need to make sure that we talked about the importance of being customer-centric. But to be customer-centric, we need to make sure that we are radically close and interconnected with marketing and consumer research data. And that is not only about knowing the market share on a global basis -- on a per country basis, which, by the way, we've got 12% market share, we have grown around 0.4%, 0.5% market share, which is great because that shows the solid organic growth that we are having. And clearly, you can see the figures across Mexico, 17%, 10% in Europe and the remaining piece in South America. It is just not enough to have the per country reading on the market share. We need to have that segmented by the customer profile, customer socioeconomic level, customer age, geography, per channel basis, per location basis. And by having that granularity even on a per city basis will allow us to understand the opportunities. Because remember that this conversation is just not about what we have achieved, but how we can become even more granular and smarter on capturing our opportunities. And it's not about only whether we are performing above the average or below the average, but is to understand the reasons why. And to understand the reasons why, it is as important to understand if we're having an issue on our communication or if we're having an issue once the customers try our product and why they don't become loyal. And we need to understand that to put the action plans and drive organic growth. And obviously, everything we do is related to the customers we serve. And clearly, Net Promoter Score is within our agenda and evolving progressively and evolving on that granularity, making sure that, that is truly interconnected with our operations. So that's the first pillar. Second pillar, pricing and revenue management. Last year, we presented and we said we're going to do something about it. And we need to become more smart, more data-driven, less qualitative, more quantitative. And we have made progress, and I'm going to expand in the coming slide, how we build this deployment across geographies and brands and which are the 5 main pillars on building this revenue management and pricing function within Alsea globally. On the right side, it is about customer analytics. And last year, we presented on the importance that what do we do with our customer data. And there are many ways on segmenting customers, but we need to start with the foundations of our customer base or the foundations of our building. So we decide clearly that it's all about frequency and ticket and the value of our customers, simplifying the segmentation between low, mid and high value, standardizing that segmentation that we made progress for all of our brands and all of our geographies to have the ability to track, to have the ability to compare, to have the ability to catch the opportunities and further drive learnings acceleration and growth. And that's the way we have grown on this chapter. That's the progress that we have made with more than 7.4 million customers, MXN 14 billion sales, 70 million orders. So moving from the 3 chapters on analytics becoming more specifically on pricing and revenue management. We -- there are 3 chapters on this one. And in simple terms, the first chapter is about restaurant segmentation. And when -- the more we get in detail, the more opportunities we get. And clearly, in simple terms, restaurant segmentation is all about understanding our locations, competitor locations, socioeconomic level of our consumers, how are we performing on a transactional level and understanding statistically the number of tiers that will be adequate to manage different brands in different geographies based on different realities. That's the first chapter. The second chapter is once we've got the tiers, well, there is our portfolio of products. And not all the products play the same role on our brand portfolio. There are traffic drivers, heroes, daily routine products, which have very different roles than the ones we should be using to upsell or to differentiate our brands, which has less regular occasion consumption base. The third pillar is not only about pricing, on the tier basis and on the product basis, but it's also about promotional activation and how we drive value into our customers. And I talked a lot about how we define our prices and promotion. But if we don't communicate those, we are not going to drive traffic. If we don't communicate those outside the store, getting the customers in front of the store, getting the customers inside the store on that dialogue, it is as important as the first one. And the final piece, clearly becoming more relevant. We know that the delivery is growing and growing and growing and [indiscernible] here to stay. So it has a chapter by its own to understand delivery fees, minimum order quantity and the strategy that we need to work out on delivery. So shifting from pricing and revenue management, into CRM and loyalty. And last year, we presented almost the same slide, which we said on the 4 main segments, we are going to focus vertically to become the best-in-class. So Francisco mentioned Starbucks Digital Solutions. And last year, we presented what it's all about. In simple terms, it's a set of digital solution that goes from the operational store, how we improve the efficiency in our partners, how we drive better connections with our customers and actually how we better drive sales through CRM and analytics. So we are on the journey, deploying that across the markets and implementing those successfully. And as we go, you can see part of the growth that we are having on growing total rewards around 62% globally with 23% sales penetration. Cosme talked a lot about the chapter in Domino's Cloud, which is not only about e-commerce, but GPS, Domino's rewards, how do we get all the choice like they say, to truly explore the relationship and the sales. So we successfully turned around the business in e-commerce this year in Mexico. We clearly do that at the -- did that at the same time with Colombia and looking forward to implement that in Spain. BK, we are building a similar -- we have already developed a similar road map than the other 2 previous brands and working on that journey and looking to implement that journey across Alsea, all the brands and all the geographies throughout this year. And the final piece in restaurant, as I mentioned, we said we need to make sure that we get one platform and we get to consolidate our learnings. And we were very successful in implementing that in Europe, as I mentioned previously, and looking to replicate that success in our restaurant business in Mexico throughout this year. So becoming more specific, so from the total brands, just to share one update that we shared last year on the case study of Mexico. So the first piece, which is important is to define our horizon and where do we want to get. And we want to become, as I mentioned, the best-in-class. And to become the best-in-class in this space, we need to get into the 60% that U.S. and Korea got. And that is the horizon. And you can see the figures. The second piece is what -- where we are today. Last year, we achieved in line with the plans, 28% digital sales penetration, almost 30% Starbucks Rewards. But when you look on the right side, how much did we grew, we grew 45% digital sales in Mexico, clearly above the overall brand performance and above the business performance. And when we look only on the Starbucks Rewards, it was almost 50%. Down below, as I mentioned, is not only about the growth of pace but the numbers of customers that we get and the frequency that we get on the number of customers. So more than 1.1 million customers, growing that 37% year-over-year. And the final piece, which is not only a Starbucks, it comes quite consistently across all of our brands as we do CRM is 2.3x more value on the customers because they are having more frequency. And the final piece, you can see down below, a bit on the KPIs on the rest of the markets. And worth to note, like Christian mentioned, that France is doing great. And clearly, last year, did 13%. But today, they've got 19% and aiming to have 21%, 22% Starbucks Rewards tender for the end of next year -- for this year, sorry. So the final chapter is delivery and e-commerce and aggregators. And usually, they ask me this question, Pablo, how are you skewed on the third-party aggregators or you are looking for own delivery? And it's not one or the other, like we shared last year, is how do you have a balanced strategy between the both and understanding the role of both? So the first piece on aggregators, they came to stay, they are non-loyal customers to our brand. They change our brand to another brand on a click, and we need to make sure that we are competitive and we grow and we gain market share to capture new customers. But at the same time, we need to make sure that we understand that in our own app, we deliver the best value. And the best value means having exclusive promotions. And when we talk about Starbucks Rewards, it's only on our app. And in the future, when we talk about Domino's Rewards, it's only on our app. And that's a balance we got on a centralized function getting all the learnings. As you can see on the growth, clearly, the largest penetration is in Domino's, the highest growth have been in Starbucks and BK and the full restaurant business transitioning as we shared. And down below, you can see the per region is similar to our business. The per brand a bit more skewed in Domino's and per delivery channel between own and third party is roughly 64%. So the final message to close is, and connecting to the video that Gerardo remind me to share, we should not forget that we are a people-based company based on human connections like many of my peers mentioned being truly customer-centric. But once we define the horizon, we are very determined on chasing that. And I want -- that I think, truly connects quite well with the video that we are going to share. Thank you. [Presentation]

[indiscernible] Federico, our new CFO, and he will guide the rest of the chapter on the economy. So thank you so much, okay.

Hello, everybody. Thank you for being here. This is my first time, I hope of many. But -- well, after you have seen all the efforts and all the tools and all the ideas we have behind the brands and the more than 70,000 team that we play part of Alsea. It's my turn to show you the figures that we will commit for '24. It is not easy. As you have seen, it is digital. It is opening. It is white space. It is changing the cost of goods, controlling the people, productivity. It is not easy, this business. It looks like, but it is not. So to give you the '24 guidance, I will start from the top line. And as you can see in this chart, I will start from the revenues. We will have revenues about 10% for '24 and this has 2 drivers, 2 key drivers. The first one, the same-store sales in the right side of the chart. We have a range for '24 between 7% to 9% of same-store sales in the different regions where we participate. And additionally, the new openings. As you saw, we have a white space of more than 2,400 stores for the upcoming years. So this year, we will be opening between 250 to 300 new stores, out of which 75% of these stores will be corporate operated stores and the remaining 25% franchise. This is a key part. This is not only corporate stores, sometimes in some regions in the North of France or in some regions where we are weak and we have better local operators, we have to impose through the franchisees. Then that would be for the top line and going to the EBITDA section, EBITDA growth and EBITDA margin. I will talk only about the pre-IFRS 16 figures. We will have an EBITDA growth of more than 11% for '24 and an EBITDA margin equal or above 14.2%. As you see the figures by the end of the '23, we had a strong balance sheet position. And for the '24, we expect the same to close with 2.5x of gross EBITDA and a return on equity in the range from 28% to 29%. So that would be the guidance. We'll have opportunity to talk about these figures later. Regarding the balance sheet. As I said before, we closed '23 with a strong balance sheet position, especially because we do not have any kind of pressure with our maturities. As you can see, we are really comfortable about this. And at the end of year, we had a cash balance position of more than MXN 6 billion. And the leverage ratio, the net debt ratio that we closed in '23, it was 1.9x. This slide is new. It is really hard to explain the efficiencies that we try to have in every line of the P&L. The SG&A is one of our obsessions. This is not only financial. All the brands are interacting to have the best ratio about the SG&A we want to invest into our stores, not in the shared service. Obviously, we need the marketing, we need the finance section, we need accounting, we need human resources, but we want to put the money inside our stores. So as you can see, we have been able to deliver more than 60 basis points in comparison with pre-COVID figures, but we are not going to stop. We are trying to look for more efficiencies, more synergies between, obviously, shared service section and all the departments, all the productivity parts of the company, and we want to target a 5% ratio for '29, sorry. As I said before, for '24, we have a CapEx of MXN 6 billion. Well, I think, I did not mention about that. For the opening range that we presented a couple of slides ago, we are targeting MXN 6 billion for that growth, and the split would be 60% for Mexico, 25% for Europe and 15% for South America. And by kind of CapEx, openings and remodelings are using 60% of the MXN 6 billion, maintenance, 25% and digitalization and other projects. This section is relevant. As Pablo just mentioned, we are trying to measure all the digital part, the delivery, the loyalty programs. And it's a key part even when the weight is not that relevant into the total composition. Finally, and to talk about capital allocation. We want to remark this for these 4 targets. These are the priorities in the left side of the chart. We want to invest in organic growth, as Armando said, all the team has said, Christian in Europe, et cetera, we have a lot of white space for the upcoming year. And this is a growth company. So that is the first priority. The second one, if we can do it year after year, we want to increase the pipeline. If we have the opportunity to open 400 stores instead of 300 stores, we will do. But obviously, we need to take care about the profitability, the return -- peso by peso, et cetera. That would be the second one. And the third one, if we cover the white space, the remodelings, all the digitalization programs that we have, we want to return cash to the shareholders. And the fourth point, but this is not a priority. This is a discipline. We need to be really disciplined about the balance sheet position. We need to take care of the net debt ratio. As you know, it was really awful during COVID and we want to prevent -- I don't know if this is going to happen in the future, but we need to be really disciplined about the balance sheet. And well, I think that's all for my part. I want to invite again Armando for the closing remarks, and then we will jump for the Q&A. Thank you very much.

Well, yes, first of all, thanks. I mean, thanks for all of you that came today. Impressive crowd, I never thought that we were going to be so many in this room in [indiscernible]. So thanks for being here all today. That -- it's -- first of all, I would want to thank my team that host this amazing event today, [Foreign Language]. Thank you very much for that. Then, of course, my staff, my leadership team that is here with me in the right, that is here there in the back. I mean, without their support, their everyday hard work, this cannot be possible in this organization that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy to that. So thanks about that. And I just want to close with saying that like I just said, Alsea is an industry leader in the coffee shops in the QSR and the full service restaurant. We are committed and you're always going say me that to be the best operator, the best operator in all the segments that we are with all the brands that we are, in the brands that we are proud to represent and then the brands that we take care of ourselves like the unique brands that we have like [indiscernible], Foster Hollywood and Italian is that are part of our portfolio. So our business model, I think, is very highly profitable. And we have a diversified portfolio in all the regions. We have still a lot of white space and room to grow. So this is an opportunity company that the story is just beginning. So we are, like I said, very anxious to see that we can accomplish a 7,000 store company in the near future. We also, like Federico said, that we are disciplined. I love to say, a lot of allocation, CapEx allocation, last year, if you saw the CapEx that we present in the Alsea and our guidance, we really took care of that. And you saw how we could achieve the results that we have, lowering the CapEx, probably 10% to 15% last year about that we said in this conference. So I think that's a great. And I will also want to talk about target long-term net debt because I think we will focus on those 2x EBITDA debt and this is going to be the strategy in the future. So I just want to thank you all to come. Thank you all to be here. It's a privilege to stand besides all Alsea team members. And we're going to pass by to the Q&A -- I mean, answers -- question and answers. We're going to put that staff here, and please free to ask any questions regarding the information. I would pass that to Gerardo.

Thank you, Armando. [Operator Instructions] Bob Ford from Bank of America.

Pablo, with respect to analytics and insights and CRM, how should we think about the learning curve at.

Sorry, the volume is too low.

Pablo, with respect to analytics insights and CRM, how should we think about the learning curve and implementation time line required to optimize digital tools and drive consumer digitalization? And how does that translate into sales and margins over the coming 3 to 5 years?

See -- so thanks for the question. Nice to see you again after last year in New York. So if I understood you well, the question is, in simple terms, which is the learning curve on analytics and insight, CRM and digitalization and how that translates, especially on driving sales and improvement in growth towards the next 5 years. Is that correct?

Yes. I'm just trying to understand the numbers associated with digitalization, right, especially when it comes to the analytics and insights in the CRM.

So let me expand on analytics and insights -- goes back to back with the CRM. So when we talked about analytics and insights, the chapter that goes back to back to it, is the one that was on the right, when we talk about customer segmentation. So to have the right customer segmentation allow us to have the right targeting and the right offering and the right customer journeys and evolve that towards ideally at the moment, the more and more what they call personalization. Exactly. So that's the way -- the first part of your question, that's the way analytics and insight gets back to back with the CRM. The second part of your question getting from the conceptual to more of the numbers. When you look across the brands, we shared that our total sales penetration is 31%. A bit more than 21%, 22% is around CRM and loyalty across all of our brands. And we are evolving on a per brand basis depending on how mature we are on our deployment technological platforms and digitalization. So in the example of Starbucks, as we shared, we are deploying Starbucks digital solutions. And clearly, the more mature markets are driving better acceleration. The new markets are having the previous learnings and having markets like France and Christian mentioned that and Spain, after one year, they're getting on the 20% digital penetration. So and the other piece is that happens in Starbucks, Domino's and also in other brand benchmark, every customer that we make a digital customer on average has a bit more than the double of the frequency on a 180-day period. versus a non-digital customer. So what I would say on the journey is we are accelerating growth once we finalize -- solidify our foundations. 2024 still in general, will imply important deployments to consolidate that across brands, whilst you should expect faster and larger growth versus previous years. And I would say that as a natural process on what we are building, 2025 onwards should be even better. And the more customers we've got, the more value we drive based on frequency and the more growth that we drive. So what you can see on 2023 figures are higher than 2022 figures. We expect to keep on growing that as a latter as we mature our programs.

And just as a follow-up, in the newer cohorts of your loyalty programs, are you seeing diminishing returns? Are you seeing greater productivity rates because the digital tools are getting better?

Clearly, much better opportunity, right? So let me shift from a Starbucks into Domino's to pick another brand. As I mentioned, is we implemented Domino's Cloud on our previous local e-commerce we had 20% -- around 20% -- 18% to 20% sales conversion in our e-commerce. That implies that from 100 customers that get on our e-commerce, 18 to 20 get to buy, okay? After moving into Domino's Cloud, we changed that within 9 months from 20 customers to 35 customers on such a short period of time. That's a huge amount of money based on the investments. And clearly, when you see on the total year, that's high single-digit figure. But what I can share is that as a consequence of that, we are growing this year at a very good solid double-digit figures as a concept. So just to put a specific example. And clearly, on returns, we are getting high levels of returns on the investments on technology and Federico explained that within our CapEx allocation, it is part of our core strategy.

I will try to go in order. Rodrigo from UBS. So -- [indiscernible] -- sorry. Renata, you already have the mic. So go ahead Renata from Citi.

Okay. This is Renata from Citi. My question is regarding the same-store sales guidance. If you can give us some color in terms of price increase in volumes in each region, which region do you think you have conditions to pass through inflation, more inflation or less inflation?

Okay. Regarding the same-store sales. Traffic and orders are related about -- sorry, 5% and the remaining 2% in average is inflation. And in terms of the performance, we honestly expect all the regions to transfer part of the inflation to the final price. We always do the same. So we -- with the cost structure that we have in [indiscernible] we transfer 100% of the internal inflation of Alsea to the finance customer, we can have an expansion into the margin. So that would be the answer. I don't know, Arman, if you want to deep dive into the performance of the regions?

Well, I mean, we -- you asked probably asked question 2 weeks ago when they were analysis about how we're filling same-store sales, as Federico said, 70% will go from order. That's what we are targeting. We are not seeing any inflation in La Canasta, our product of our distribution centers. At the end, we always have capital probably price all the way to that to -- through June. So at the end, we just closed January and February with a deflation in some products that we have and some raw materials, the [indiscernible] that is important [indiscernible] is at low levels now. So I -- we -- we will not and never had to -- I mean, wanted to increase price. That's something that we really want to do not touch. We rather do it by innovation, we change our product, change our mix. But -- and this is digital journey, its also helping us a lot right now to increase in-store sales orders.

Okay. Now Rodrigo from UBS, Nadia here. Nadia, here.

Thanks for the event. The first one would be for Cosme, -- maybe -- I mean we will not that competitive -- one of the competitive advantages of Domino's precisely the deliver, right? But let's talk about the dining format, right? Maybe if you can comment about the performance of such formats in the context of competition with Domino's [indiscernible], and presenting how Domino's is competing with [Little Ceaser's]. That will be my question for you, Cosme. And then I have a very...

Thank you. You're right. In regard to same-store sales, we've been growing at a constant pace. We finished Q2 -- sorry, Q4 of 2023 with a 9.4% growth in same-store sales. And we compete ourselves with a very aggressive base from 2022. We launched some very aggressive pricing in our in-store carry out and dining business. [Something] 149, which has been -- which has really been a driver and very price attractive comparing to little [Ceaser's] directly. And we also launched a really price of attractive pizza of MXN 129. So that's how we've been managing to do a front fighting with -- against the competition, particularly in Mexico. And we plan on launching also new strategies to keep building the dine-in and carry out segment. Technology is really going to help us do that by picking up in the store is really going to drive a new segment of sales for us.

And the other one would be for Fred, to understand a bit more on the assumptions on the guidance. First, to what extent do you think on the top line, you're being conservative and we have Olympic games in Paris, right? [indiscernible] of Starbucks. You also announced an investment in Yucatan, right for Domino's Pizza year end 2023, just curious on that. And on the other hand, thinking about the headwinds, what could be wrong for 2024 on store openings per half, right? I mean you met your guidance last year, but you were in the low range, right, on the store openings. What could be wrong for store openings this year?

Okay. In respect of the top line assumption for the revenues of more than 10%. Obviously, we are suffering in the last quarter of the last year, a slowdown in Europe. This was commented in the conference call a couple of weeks ago. And honestly, we need to be really respectful and disciplined about what we are translating to you, our investors community. So even when obviously it seems like a conservative figure we are targeting internally for a much higher figure through the digital innovation, accelerating the opening spot. I understood your question but that is the reason we are taking into consideration what is happening in Europe and in France, especially with the boycott against American brands such as Starbucks. We have been battling with this since the last quarter, obviously, by the end of Easter, we hope -- and with spirit of the Olympics, et cetera, we hope we'll come back to normal. So that would be the first. Your second question was about openings, right? Well, it depends on the country. That depends on the country, for example, in France, while in the rest of the Alsea portfolio in all the 11 regions except in France, in France, we could take more than 1 year to obtain the permits. That will be one answer. And as you know, a huge part of the pipeline, not just for '24, but for the future, is coming from France as long as we find an opportunity and we found an opportunity a couple of years ago.

What I would say Rodrigo, I mean -- I feel very comfortable right now with the pipeline that we have and all my colleagues, we have been working very hard in having a good pipeline. And those stores that we've been -- that we opened in the past year or 18 months are performing a lot better in our coffee shop portfolio than the rest of the of average. So I think the pipeline is there. And it's also a very good quality pipeline because we have more than 40% of those stores probably are going to be drive-throughs, especially in Mexico now. So with probably double the sales in average that we had is in the past term.

Alvaro from BTG.

My question is on labor in Mexico. I'm curious specifically on the gap that you're seeing between store manager and an entry-level employee and how that's closed over the last 3 or 4 years, and where you feel you are in terms of competitiveness relative to your peers?

Thanks, Alvaro. Like I was just saying in the morning right now, [indiscernible] only 36% of our people in Mexico have a minimum wage. So that's only the waiters of our restaurant division and the drivers of the Domino's stores. So that is not really -- and you've been seeing in the numbers the past 5 years, increases by 20% this year, and we will be able to manage the labor line. This is not the case that we're going to do now. So there, we are doing some examples and some practical or pilot tests, not only in Mexico and other countries, working with 42 hours a week, instead of 48, just to be sure that how -- if there's something going on in this market with a decreasing of the hours that we work -- what can happen? We already operate like that in Chile. We operate like that in Europe. So we -- I think we can move with the best practices. Regarding the gap that you were asking me, yes, there is a gap like Jaime just said, our managers can probably double their salaries if they can reach their goals in financials performing. So we are not actually our turnovers in managers. When I talk about turnover now, it's the global company, everybody that works here. But when we talk about managers, our probably turnover will be less than 40%. So I mean we still have a lot of opportunity. People come to Alsea because they say, I mean, a company that opens 250 stores, there's a lot of opportunity to stay here, and there is a lot of good cost to stay here and to just keep on building and keep on growing in the company. So in the manager aspect, I think that there is no -- we don't have that role as probably other retailers have.

Awesome. And just one quick follow-up for Fred. On your Mexican peso assumption embedded in your guidance, what are you guys sort of...

What the macroeconomics analysts are saying. So I don't remember exact figure at this time, but we are thinking about depreciation of the peso in comparison with the dollar. That was what we do when we build this guidance and the budget, obviously, and we are working with that. There's a huge opportunity in the raw materials inflation that we are facing. As you know, the previous year in Mexico and in Europe, we faced a double-digit increase. And unlike Armando said a couple of minutes ago, we are seeing a decrease in the prices. Obviously, that is not included in today's guidance. We will see in the next months.

Ulises from JPMorgan.

Thanks for hosting this great event. I actually have a follow-up here on the labor question that Alvaro just made, but kind of from a different angle. So obviously, you guys have been working well with the labors on keeping the employees and kind of doing an overall good job in that sense. But is the tight labor market that we have and the conditions that we're seeing with like unemployment and all of that, is that eventually a cap to store openings? Is that something that is kind of becoming a headwind for you to some extent?

I mean I'm sure you've been here 4 or 5 days with other companies, and they are telling you what's going on in labor. And I did this yesterday, this example, we used to do -- when we open a store, we put an ad or whatever in social media or newspaper or whatever. We used to receive probably 150 people in the line. Now we don't receive that much. We receive probably 50. But now artificial intelligence for us and we do strategy called Unite. And we have other ways to hire and not the old style way to do it by IE. And that helps just the redirect people with a correct brand, the correct position in the brand so for us, in this case, there's not any problem that we've been having of hiring people, not only in the new location of course, we're having 42,000 people working in Mexico on the turnover that we have. We do hire around 3,000 to 4,000 people a year just for the rotation that we have. So we are very prepared for any conditions not only in the turnover also in the new stores that we opened. And actually, where we are opening now that is not that [indiscernible], whatever, that we open -- we are a very, very attractive place to work in the cities that our brands are not there yet with presence. We have big lines to be part of Alsea portfolio.

Perfect. And just maybe a quick follow-up, if I will, for Fred taking advantage at you there. Obviously, a long time in the organization but kind of the new kid on the block there. So now with your former [indiscernible] as CFO for the whole company, what's kind of the #1 priority that you have, what's taking up most of your time?

Bringing more efficiencies to the bottom. I think these guys are dealing with the hardest part, which is the top line. It is not just to give them good words. As I said before, it is not easy to bring one customer to bring to have a pizza or to have a coffee. We need to help them about the administration about the optimization in the bottom line. Obviously, it is not like I'm bringing something new, some new idea about bringing efficiencies. But we did that in Europe years ago when the COVID was there. So I think there's an opportunity in there. We are going to caption that in the next 2 years.

Now Ben Theurer from Barclays.

Just wanted to follow up on one of the comments that you just made around the deflation that you're expecting and that you're seeing in some of the raw materials. When we look at the guidance, top line growth, EBITDA growth, it seems conservative like the implied margin expansion, particularly in light of the comments you've just made around the decrease on some of the raw materials. Help us understand where you stand on hedges and what you're seeing as a potential upside risk.

We do not hedge any kind of commodity. We overstock in sometimes some kind of products if we see the opportunity of the price, but we do not hedge any kind of commodities into our budget -- and into our guidance, we did not take any assumption about reduction of prices, but we have seen that trend in the last -- over the last year. I am not talking about recovering the double-digit impact that we had before, but maybe a couple of percentage points in some key items. And that is good because we want not to pay pressure into the final price to the customer and bring customers into our stores. That's the hardest part, bring new traffic, new customers because it is really easy to take one quarter or 2 quarters with a price increase, but that is not what we are trying to do.

Okay. And then I had one follow-up on the digital side. In the past, you obviously had [indiscernible] and like one platform for some of the restaurants to order. But -- and at the same time, you have the Domino's piece, which I think you've changed with app, then there's Starbucks also coming from outside. Any plans of further integrating or disintegration as it relates to the different platforms as we think about coffee, pizza, and BK holding segment?

Thanks very good question. So it has like 2 or 3 sites on the answer. So the first piece is, it took us some time, but we got the learnings on how to become the best in class. And rather than reinventing the wheel, we need to become truly back to back with our global partners. So that's the first key message. And once we are there, then we build on top of them with them. So that's the way we are building Starbucks Digital Solutions. That's the way we are accelerating Domino's Cloud. That's the reason on the previous question that we are more efficient and more agile to truly catching up and accelerating the key building blocks. And that's the reason that we do that on a per gram basis. The second part of the question is we should not forget, and we got a learning that the ones that relate to our customers are the brands. And that means Starbucks, Domino's, BKs and our restaurant brands. And we need to make sure that we are very consistent on that. And the third piece, which is in the horizon is, one thing is the brands that relate to the customer, but very different is the back-end architecture. And to our decoration, yes, in the agenda is that we hope we have customers that go on Starbucks and go on Domino's and go on multi-brand performance. So as we build the different foundations, it is in the agenda, not in the front end, but in the back end, to make sure that we have the enough analytics and insight segmentation and enough cross market in targeting to make sure that with the right rules and the right [guidance], which really further accelerate our growth into the next level. So that would be my concept answer. Does it make sense?

Now Alan Alanis from Santander.

And congratulations for the event and for the results. My question has to do with the relationship you have with the owners of the brands. What are the opportunities and the challenges? I'm sure that they're extremely happy with your performance. But how do you see the relationship going forward? And are they asking you to take new countries and so forth?

I mean we have, I think, 3 very powerful relation. Starbucks, as Francisco said, we are -- a -- I won't say #1, #2, but we are in the top 3 of the list with [ Alicia], the guys from Korea. We are privileged to have an amazing, an amazing journey with Starbucks. Actually, the new CEO that is in place the last 18 months was before Pepsi. Pepsi people that was here in Mexico for the last 8 years. He knows the country, he knows our problems. He knows our opportunities. So he was here in March, just in March of last year, visiting the first time ever this country, and we have a long and a good relation with them. That question was asked yesterday. Are you pursuing new -- we will over-pursue -- we will always be open to talk to anybody that can -- especially in this brand that can give us some opportunity to grow. We already went down south at the end of the year to see an opportunity. I think that was an opportunity for us. So we closed the door for that. But we are always talking to Starbucks about what can we do with them regarding, we used to have a 20-year contract with them for 15 years. So I think that's a very good. The only one is [DP/DPC], they are called a G7 group. We are part of that G7 group. I think we are #2 and #3 in the category of stores and revenues. And they're coming in 2 weeks again. And we have a great relation. They are super happy with them. We opened more than 75 stores last year. We are just targeting another 100 this year. So yes, they are looking for growth and looking for good partners. I think we -- every time they do -- SDS, we're going to put that technology for them. That's a $15 million investment just in when they do the cloud, we do that. So we are very well aligned. And in the RBI, the same. We've been with RBI a long time ago. They are doing a lot of better things than they did before, especially the brand of Burger King, Mexico and especially in Mexico or [Argentina] Chile, it's a complete story of what they are doing in the U.S. We are -- we have a healthy now the company. So the relation, the future and just ongoing business with them are stay as good as ever, I would say.

At the end -- sorry, at the back, I think Hecto Maya from Scotiabank.

Armando, just wanted to understand if you're having conversations with your strategic partners, the owners of the brands or what kind of conversations you're having with them regarding artificial intelligence? We've been seeing a lot of examples and a lot of acceleration from the brands in the U.S. with initiatives in AI to push implementation of the technology and Drive-Thrus in digital kiosks and in general, in the digital channels. We've been seeing Starbucks selling pizza, Domino's Pizza, McDonald's, Wendy's, many, many examples, right? And we understand that maybe minimum wage in Latin America could delay implementation of the technology in the region, right? But yesterday, [indiscernible] announced that they are going to launch an AI initiative facing their millions of customers in Mexico. So that is coming maybe faster than expected. So I wanted to understand your vision for the technology in the next 3 years, the conversations you're having with your partners? And if maybe -- if you're not considering that yet for Latin America, if you are considering that for Europe, because the labor cost there maybe could make the technology to make sense faster than expected so.

That's a question between technology, digital, let's step a little bit but I'm going to ask -- I'm going to answer a little bit of that question, and I'm going to pass my expert here Pablo because we just had a -- we are in talks about what can we do in AI with them and where can we approach now with them. So he's going to tell you a little bit. But I'll tell you, all the digital things that we are doing just in -- we are digital -- digital kiosk mentioned digital because by the end of the third quarter, we'll have all the 475 stores of Burger King that we have with digital kiosk, that's going to increment. We have it right now in probably 40% of the portfolio. That's increased around 22%. That's where RBI said yesterday, no, Pablo? 22% of average ticket average. That will reduce the turnover and labor hours in our stores. So that's a terrific idea that we're going to do the implementation. We also do MOP for Starbucks. We have a great opportunity there, only 2% of 3% the sales are in MOP. I don't know, Christian, in [indiscernible], what is MOP, what are very low in MOP comparing to the U.S. 1%. So [indiscernible] little bit also digital when we have where we're going to have right now all the technology and the platform really, pickup will be just a great, great pickup in the U.S. is doing just great. And we will have that technology available. So I think all the things that are already working in the U.S., we will do that. I will pass that to Jose Luis who can talk about AI.

So thanks, Armando, and thanks for asking the question. So -- so a couple of angles. First, you asked a question, which is the kind of relationship we've got on our partners I will answer on the overall technology digital front and then I will be more specific AI. Not to get on to a specific. The first piece in the way we evolve today, we are having direct relationship at the sea level on the technology and digital responsibilities or on our main partners. And we are having a common agenda. So that -- we didn't have that perhaps 5 years ago. And now we do have that. And we have made concrete progress towards implementation. That's the second message. So it's not just PowerPoint. It's just becoming a reality. When we said Domino's Cloud, implementing that turning around the performance, driving better sales conversion. And it's not only the e-commerce, but the GPS and GPS has the logistic DSS, digital shoulder surfing that relates to the checkout, Domino's rewards that is coming. And clearly picking up on the type of conversations that from the foundation to the building blocks connecting to the future on the example of Domino's, but similar situation with the other key brands. We are part in the same table of the council of what is going to be the technology for the brand in the coming 5 years. So picking up on the general technology to the AI, in the case of Domino's, we do have the Domino's is engaging with Microsoft AI as a concrete partnership. And clearly, we are sitting at the table at the same rhythm that our main brands in U.S. are evolving. So to be back-to-back is instead of being 5 years delayed we are looking to be 3 to 5 months delayed on the latest innovation in technology and digitalization, and that includes AI. That is the reason on how we evolve the approach and how we are integrated with them. The final piece that you mentioned is specifically on investments, on the contrary, we are more focused than ever on the true importance on the technology. But for simple reasons that we know that to make sure that if we want to keep being competitive in the market, we need to make sure that we truly invest to accelerate. The second piece is we should not forget that we shared is that digitalization allows us to grow above our business average. And the key on technology and digital transformation that is helping us on same store sales growth, same-store order growth, connecting to the financial results. So rather than segregating that we are more focused than ever. And the final piece that you mentioned between South America, Mexico and Europe. Today, the way we are behaving and we are trying to be more and more disciplined. We are looking to behave as a global company. And the digital solution, there is one agenda for all the Asian markets, different realities. And the same we are doing with Dominos Cloud and the same we are engaging with RBI and BK. It's not only a one market, one country conversation, but we are looking to engage on a per brand across all the geographies. So I hope that I cover the different angles on your question.

Just wanted to very quickly understand the bottom line, if like, it would be a reality or would it be hard to imagine that maybe in the next 3 years, if I come to Mexico, go to a drive-through at a Starbucks, ChatGPT or something like that, could be taking my order? Would that be -- if that happens in the U.S. in the next 3 years that will surely happen in Mexico as quickly?

So yes, as I mentioned, the answer will be yes and the aspiration would be yes. and especially once we deploy the foundations for the coming innovations that are going to be built up on top of that foundation, we expect to shorten that difference in time between U.S. and ourselves.

We have another question here. Anyone else?

Felipe Cassimiro from Bradesco BBI. I just wanted to explore capital allocation. That was a slide that Frederico presented. So the strategic focus is on growth, obviously, but the company generating a lot of cash, reducing leverage, and you're talking about total return to shareholders. I'm just trying to get a sense on the timing maybe to increase dividends or something.

The increase of what sorry? The dividend -- okay. We have not set were in discussing [indiscernible]paying of dividends. As you said, we have been really disciplined in since COVID decreasing the leverage we will do the same. Obviously, we want to grow more instead of paying dividends. But if we do not see a clear pipeline for the year, we'll return something for the shareholders. Obviously, this would be in line with previous payments in the past. Okay?

So maybe excess cash, maybe it makes sense to look at inorganic movements, other brands to the portfolio?

Well, as you know, we are always looking for opportunities. At this time, we have more than 2400 stores to grow in the next 10 years. So having said this, if we have something interesting from one of our brands in the countries where we operate or right next to these countries with a huge footprint, opportunity, we will look at it. As Fernando said, we saw an opportunity in the South of America was not interesting for us. We want to really go back to basics with the pipelines that we hold, and that would be the answer.

We have now Cristina from [indiscernible].

Can you comment on the consumer behavior that you have seen in the first 2.5 months of the year? And what is your expectation for the rest of the year?

Well our expectation is these same stores that you saw that is 7 and 9. I mean, which very diversified the first 9 weeks of operations that we've been having regarding coffee shop regarding restaurants, regarding Domino's, in the overall, we are doing well. And we started the first 2 weeks, very good, and then we saw deceleration. But we are used to practice all [indiscernible] or whatever that we can do just to find opportunities in every level of the organization, coffee restaurant. So I mean, we are not worried about the year now. Everything can be recorded. Everything can be recovered, we still have 11 months or 10 months to go. So I think Mexico and also other countries are going to have economy --good economy. And this year, things look good for us, especially when inflation is not affecting us, and we can see that we can drive that completely passing 10 more months without that think of inflation, energy, inflation in our raw materials. I think there's a lot of things that we can do. When we launching promotions, good opportunity for the consumer, our sales really rise in a good manner. So I think we are -- my team, us, every day working with how we can build more top line because that's the name of the game. We are tight in all of the concepts when you see our P&L and you check around, we are really working in every piece of the lines. But top line is the one that it will get us to the 4.2% that we delivered last year. That is a top line is the road to go, and there are we working in every day and every single the moment.

And regarding Starbucks, are you implementing the Siren system in the startup units operated by Alsea.

No, the Siren system is just in the U.S. now. They are in pilot test still. We already raised our hands to see if we can do it. And there's not only Siren test. There's other 4 or 3 pieces that can be jump in our store, but they are not ready now for our -- for the licensees yet. So as soon as we are able to use it, we're going to do also a pilot test, and we're going to see what those machines or technology are capable to do. And if they have a return of investment, no, because we are looking for -- I have a question mark, a little bit on that thing.

This is Thiago from Goldman. I have a follow-up on the guidance. Maybe this is for Federico, correct, if I'm wrong, but it seems your guidance implies lowly -- slightly lower CapEx per store this year, right? So the question is, if this is true? And if yes, how important is it for you to reach your ROIC? And more importantly, how does it mean for long-term ROICs going forward?

No, we do not see a slowdown into the CapEx per store. It is pretty much the mix maybe that's the difference when you are growing into one brand or one region from another but it is pretty much the same than we had last year. Obviously, we are not having an inflation of raw materials impact as said before. And the returns that we are expecting to increase the role because that's are not only the return on equity or the return on investment, we are having terrific paybacks below 2 years, depending on the brand and region where you operate but it's pretty much the same than in '23.

Is there any additional question? If not, then we will finish our session, and we will prepare ourselves to go to the P.F Changs across the street for those that register in having launched with us. So without any further detail, thank you for all the team.

[Foreign Language]. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for coming. I hope you said that you like the display because I love it if we can do it all next year here will be fantastic, but that all depends on you. You are the guys that choose a place and choose the time. So we are here to serve. And thank you very much. Have a good day. And I don't know what -- we're going to go straightly there. Okay. So I think we're ready. Thank you.