Americanas S.A. (AMER3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Americanas audio conference to the disclosure of 2023 and the first 6 months of 2024. [Operator Instructions] This video conference is being recorded, and it will be available in the Investor Relations website, ri.americanas.io, where it's available, the complete material of the presentation. [Operator Instructions] We emphasize that the information contained in this presentation and any statements made during the future conference regarding business prospects, projections and operational and financial goals of Americanas are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions and they refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions and other operational factors that may affect the future performance of Americanas and lead to results that are materially differ from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Today, we have the presence of the company's activist Leonardo Coelho, CEO of Americanas S.A; Camille Faria, Financial Director and Investor Relations Director. I will now pass the word to the CEO of Americanas S.A, who will begin the presentation. Please, Mr. Leonardo, proceed.

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by thanking the accounting and finance teams, who worked with the external audit to bring back with a clean state and within regulatory deadlines again. And those are all the associates of Americanas goal over the past 18 months have worked diligently to get back on a growth and profit reinforcing our social role. We have stated in the last presentation, we divided the restructure phase in 3 blocks, judicial recovery and focus on operations. We made this decision to address the challenges we had in an independent way, and in a committed way prioritizing this way, the topics that showed the risk to our continuity, but also organizing the operations in parallel to put our clients in the center of our attention. In the investigations, we communicated to the market in July this year, the conclusion of the independent committee, which confirmed the existence of the accounting, the main mechanism used as well as those involved make it possible to -- for them to have their opinion on the financial demonstration 2023 and the revision report on the quarter of this year. What refers to the judicial recovery, we have followed all the stages already, which include registration the capital payment to most part of the remaining credits and restructuring the debt, the whole debt of the company, counting one with the smaller debt in the Brazilian retailer's great size. In parallel, in our operational front, the efforts have been concentrated on generating operation more agile, more profitable and more efficient. Physical retail starts to consolidate as the heart of the Americanas and digital is restructure according to this model. In the financial part, we have a new design of our clients and partners platform, which has already started to bring even more value to our clients. And we start the new phase of optimization of [indiscernible] using much of what we have understood in the transformation of [indiscernible] Americanas, and we continue with the brand's [indiscernible] on a path of operational consolidation and increased results. All of this work broadens our journey towards the goal of being a lighter Americanas, focusing operational cash generation, and accelerating growth. Moving on to the second slide. And before we presented the results of 2023 and the first 6 months of 2024, I will give the floor to our Financial Director and Investor Relations. Camille Faria, that will bring updates on the judicial recovery process that has had important deployments since our last call, right after, we will go through the update of the strategic model of Americanas.

Well, thank you very much, Leo. Good morning, everyone. The approval of the plan at the end of February unlock the execution, the company's capitalization that Leo has just mentioned, completed now in July and the payments to the creditors, most part of the payments, as you can see in the next slide shows a summary of this process. So moving on to Slide 3. Summing up as we mentioned and we discussed last time, but just to give you the update the -- the total, we had around BRL 42.5 [ million ] of credit that needs to be restructured by the company, excluding the company, these credits have been restructured or paid in the following way. BRL 8 billion have been settled in a reverse auction using some BRL 2 billion of resources, BRL 26 billion refers creditors who opted to payment option 2. In the next slide I will show how this was paid a restructure. BRL 5 billion from creditors for the year should pay -- available payment modalities for suppliers. Both of them were paid without discount and still in the first quarter 2024. BRL 1.8 billion belong to the financial creditors who had retained the company's liquidity in equivalent amounts. In this case, we formalized the settlement of this liquidity with credits from our creditors profile, all in the predefined terms in the judicial recovery plan. BRL 720 million and BRL 150 million in credits remained as a general payment modality or restructuring payment Option I, respectively. And they will receive their credits after the applicable discounts in the judicial recovery updated by TR later ahead 15 years, 20 years. Labor creditors and small- and medium-sized companies that are Class 1 and 4, total BRL 263 million and they were fully paid. And finally, the creditors with up to BRL 12,000 to receive or still who had up to 12 tiers or opted for BRL 12,000, vast majority have already been paid in the first quarter 2024. And then closing this is like going to on the slide, we will see more details on the options of payment too. The BRL 25.9 billion that we saw in the previous page, according to Option II those creditors had their update according to the plan and the update has been BRL 26.2 billion restructured. Most of these credits, we can see in the first column of BRL 12.6 billion was in the capital increase of BRL 24 billion, which was approved in the end of July, BRL 1.875 billion were repaid in a new debenture that was issued in this value and following the cash sweep that was in the judicial recovery plan, we have already redeemed here in August, BRL 278 million of this debenture using company cash, having a balance of BRL 1.6 billion of this new debenture only in the company debt as we will show later ahead in the presentation. The remaining balance of BRL 12 billion has been fully settled with discount, we showed this in this graph in the red bars, with a discount using BRL 6.7 billion in cash coming from the participation of our shareholders, reference shareholders of the BRL 24 billion capital. And in Slide 5, we show the change in the company shareholder structure, due to the increase of capital, we moved to a capital structure of 904 million shares, 30% held by reference shareholders and 70% in the market to the first moment to 19.7 billion shares, 49.2% held by reference shareholders, 47% in the creditors that have capitalized most of the credits as I have shown in the option II's line at 3.3%. And with the rest of the market. It's important to highlight the 2 additional points. First, that the capital increase granted participants -- this increase in capital, a bonus subscription for 1 stand every 3 new shares issued. For creditors, these bonus can only be exercised after 3 years. However, considering the pro forma capital structure, 100% of this bonus, we will have exercised social capital composed of 26 billion shares, 49.5% in the hands of the reference shareholders 48.1% creditors and 2.4% the rest of the market. Second, to highlight as already disclosed by the company to the market on August 26, we will execute the grouping of A stock approved by [ AGE ]. And then from this one, the company will have a total number of shares that constitute 100 times fewer than today. But the ownership percentage in percentage points, we will not alter. Now I will give the floor to operational performance.

Let's go to Slide 6. On the operational front, we bring results from 2023 and the 6 months in 2024 and show an advance in our profitability. Let's go a little by little. The GMV 2023 was BRL 22.8 billion, with a reduction of 45.9% compared to 2022. 2023 was the year that basically we had the crisis in Americanas. Our physical platform was much more resilient than the digital one in 2023. Had a contraction of 2.3% compared 2022, even though with this big crisis that I mentioned in 2023. Digital still had a sharper decline, 75% due to the bigger effect of the credibility. one thing is for you to buy -- below you go to the cashier and take your product home, another that involves a greater risk of trust in the operation is to ask by digitally and ask and wait to receive at home. And in this first credibility crisis happened because clients and sellers and then right later -- right after the judicial recovery request and in a couple of weeks, it started clearing up. You wanted to keep doing the digital. We started with a preservation of capital in the short term or right after we put this as a strategic north to the profitability of strong cash working capital generation. We already saw a physical demand, we saw a 15.9% increase in the physical stores compared to the same period in 2023. The digital continues falling due to the continuation of the implementation of strategy that I mentioned just a while ago. Talking about profitability, we had a good strategy in both periods. We had 9.6 points better 2023 than -- reaching 29 points in the same period and increased 1.6 percentage compared to the same period 2023, reaching 34.5% in the net revenue. Our adjusted EBITDA followed the same thing, compare to 2022 and 85.7% in 2024 compared to the same semester in '23 in the same period. But speaking about EBITDA after payment of France. If we consider this indicator before rent payment as it is typical in the retail segment in the analysis with our peers in the market. We achieved BRL 265 million positive in the first semester of 2024. Going to Slide 7. It illustrates the gain of representation of the physical platform in our GMV total. We use the whole period in the line going from 34% and -- going to [ 33% ] of first semester 2023 to 71% in the same period 2024. It's worth highlighting also that the GMV from the fiscal also grow an absurd way, 15.9% in the same period, even considering the reduction of our total number of stores. And also a change in mix that I will speak ahead. This is very much highlighted by many changes in the operational restructuring in our process of purchasing and redesigning many operational areas. In this point, the structure of our commercial areas and supply areas. We started being divided in 4 business units and [trained] with teams, multidisciplinary debt group categories and look at the process of purchasing [and training]. With this change, that seems simple. We bring much more agility and focus to each category, rationalizing the products to our clients, other adjustments that are still underway are the changes that are more definitely in our mix. We've estimated within this mix of categories that are more profitable and traditionally more compatible to the purpose of value of like hygiene, beauty and also more selective electronics in our store. With that, going on to the Slide 8. On the third semester of -- the third quarter to 2023, the sales start to react. We mentioned this in our last call that would start to happen, and we will monitor this effect in the second semester 2023. This happens, especially with the adjustments of the short term that we took to counterbalance the effects of the judicial recovery plan. The same-store sale basically is the indicator that is the most important in the moment because it captures a bigger part of the real effect of the of the actions taken so far. The last adjustment that is not contemplated is what we discount from this effect, the effect of the change of mix because we reduce items of high value in our assortment such as big screen TVs and white goods and also some computer equipment and more traditional portfolio of Americanas as mentioned before. In our last quarter of 2023, even with the important events such as Black Friday, Children's Day and Christmas, without the full supply of the items of great relevance in that traditional mix of Americanas, we had enough positive evolution in sales reaching 2.1% growth. The first 6 months of 2024, they accelerate this scenario of growth. The gross sales in the same stores adding robust of 19.7%, highlighting it to the history of results in our Easter, they had a growth of sales compared to the [indiscernible] the same rhythm. Remembering the event of 2023 of Easter had already been a record compared to the 2022 to have an order of greatness of what happened in the Easter 2024, basically, one on average of Brazilians bought in our stores. The performance in the month that follow this event also continue to be positive, which grew in our vision, the assertiveness of the new strategy of categories and also the improvement of classification change in mix, change of modulation in the physical stores and also optimization in our part of stores and our partners, especially suppliers and credit insurance. I want to go into details of the revision of remodeling of our stores that will be concluded in July after basically 1 year of work. And it had an important effect in the assortment and also in the margin. But relevant in the speed of operation, and in our working capital, as I've showed before and the actions basically consist in identifying the right assortment to each cluster of stores with the objective of reducing disrupturing our offer of products. Basically, we stopped selling the same items in our over 1,000 stores as they happened before and started considering the demography, the income of the region, other variables as the determining factors for us to have the right kind of products in each of our stores. And we retranslate here as having the right product in right store at the right time. And with this remodeling, we reduced a lot of disrupture of our stores will significantly reach these clusters, and we evolved in our offers aligned to the behavior and demand of each client in each region of the country impacting directly in the sale. And we continue this process. This process gains more traction now that we have more data in our analysis, a quantitative analysis, and we expect to collect to harvest the fruit in the following semesters. In the following slide, we're able to see the positive effect in the restructuring of our net revenue and gross profit and gross margin. The net revenue consolidated 2023 follows the same movement of GMV in the same period. The effect of the judicial recovery in the supply of the stores and the reduction in the digital, even though we had high interest and low demand that impacted the retail market in January, in the first year of 2024. In our case, we were able to add our drop-off to the retail and we keep growing almost 10% reversing this trend in 2023. The digital has declined 50% which is in line with our strategy of reducing science and the focus in this first -- it has a 13.5% reduction in the growth profit is due to the lower net revenue, BRL 4.4 billion. And we had a margin -- total gross margin increase, representing 29.2%. In the first semester FY '24 the gross profit was BRL 2.4 billion cash with a strong growth of 29.5%. This gross margin in the first 6 months of 2024 was 34.5%. 8.5 percentage points compared to the same period 2023. So once more this positive performance is a consequence of the initiatives -- strategic initiatives that we talked about previously here as the adjustments in the mix, the offers of a greater -- the profits or the greater margin, the pricing and the remodeling of stores. We believe that this increment it still has a possibility to continue. As I mentioned earlier, in the following quarters, also with the maturation of these adjustments of assortment, including own brands and now by the communication is more that flows even better with our suppliers. In the digital, of the contribution came from the reduction of the size of the 3P in a bigger rationing of versification and the investments in marketing. Going on to the Slide 10 and analyzing a little bit where our general expenses and administrative expenses, we see an evolution of EBITDA adjustment, even though it's not a positive, we had an improvement in 2023 of almost BRL 1 billion due to the emergency counterparts that we did since the beginning of the crisis in the first 6 months or 2024, it's even evident advance is BRL 1.4 billion compared to the same period of last year, a year, benefiting also -- benefited by other events such as recovery of PCPs and some tax events. And the performance of the adjusted EBITDA, which exclude the expenses of judicial recovery, excluding lower asset discounts due to the improvement of the plant and effects of the self-regulation of taxes is a consequence of those efforts of readjustment or restructuring of the company for us to reach a greater operation efficiency. There's a lot to do here, especially in the negotiation of contracts, especially service contracts and redesigning our areas of back office. The same efforts are reflected in the line of expenses with G&A, which had a reduction of 20.8% in 2023, consequence of the closing of 125 stores in this period that had the performance below the necessary, and also the reduction of expenses in marketing and digital and other adjustments in the adjustments of IT and back office. We had [ 34.4% ] against 29% in 2022. The main effect here is that the speed of reduction of expenses has been slower than the fall of the revenue shown in this period, especially in the digital, as we mentioned earlier, the margin of G&A shows an improvement with a -- with a fall quarter-to-quarter, in the first half of 2023, the diagnosis, the new strategy of the structures with Camille and me, arriving in the team. We know some to those that were already here in Americanas, we had a G&A of 42% of our net revenue. with the efforts done in the 6 first months of 2023, we're able to in the second semester of the year, have 36.2% of the net revenue. In the first semester 2024, continue to- the adaptation of our structure. We had an efficiency -- operational efficiency even bigger. We had without depreciation, amortization, BRL 22.2 billion, which is 25% reduction compared to the same period and this has been 32.1% of the net revenue, the continuity of the adaptation of the structures. With this reduction of the SG&A has a premises, the implementation of several initiatives to decorate our operation, and we will continue to map other sources of reduction without recognizing the opportunities of growth, which we can start investing in some of our internal structures. The cost structure will have the right size for us to start having profit in the following 12 months. Going to Slide 11. We see here that this implementation of the strategy also benefited our generation of cash. He had been controlling more efficient way, focusing on what is seen as the value for the client, so renovations in the stores, improvement in the system. Besides this, a new dynamic of relationship with the suppliers after the judicial recovery, has amplified after the payments of those suppliers, allowed us to retake this limit of credit and payment plans that reflected in a strong improvement in the dynamics of our cash flow in our working capital. So we have -- this is strong highlight here in the operations. It was coming close to the suppliers. In the following slide, Camille will show you a little bit of the effect that we had in the capital structure. All of these actions that we took, and especially those still come from the other plans of judicial requirements.

So going to Slide 12, the implementation of the plan of judicial recovery allowed in less than 6 months a drastic reduction in the Americanas debts. Our gross financial debt that in the beginning in 2023, according to the general creditors was BRL 36.7 billion. And also some to this obligations with the other creditors of BRL 5.6 billion, we had at the end a total of BRL 42.3 billion with other liabilities with the total number of creditors that we had in the slides before. Our estimated number with the execution of the plans and payment and the debentures -- the cash sweep of the debenture that had already been mentioned that happened in August. So we're looking here at numbers that are pro forma after July 30. So our estimated number pro forma is financial gross financial debt of BRL 1.6 billion, which is the balance new debenture already liquidated from the cash sweep in this financial debt, we had a present value of less significant portion of payments to the suppliers. As mentioned in the slides, part of the suppliers, they went to -- were paid in sites, and we had other payment plans for other ones. And we also had the value present of those credits debt that adhere to payment Option I that ended up in this general modality of payments. So these 3 payment -- 3 installments had a present value of BRL 600 million. And with that, we had a total gross debt of BRL 2.2 billion. Our estimate in the balance of cash balance and receivables. Without the plans executed, it is also BRL 2.2 billion, which takes us to a situation of cash neutral, take in consideration our receivables. So just a point that I forgot to mention, that is the slide. We don't have any in these figures, any effects of M&A decreasing the debt of the company. Remembering that this plan forecast is the process of assets that did the first BRL 1 billion raised with these assets is directly to repay our debts up ahead upfront. And this hasn't happened yet. So that's why this debt hasn't reduced further. So if we go on to Slide 13, represent an estimate of the net assets, reflecting the effect of the recovery plan, just to give another greatness that called the attention here, we had a negative -- have a negative net asset that this isn't a forecast. We go on to the PL of and we only affected the PRJ. We don't have here the effects of net profit or any effects of tax over these effects on the RJ. So we leave a negative PL for BRL 30.4 billion to a positive one of BRL 10 billion, mainly due to the capitalization that we have already discussed, but also to the discounts that we're retaining the restructuring of our debt. Slide 14 will talk about our guidance. So first of all, we compare these -- the guidance of 2025 that we gave to the market at the end of last year. In terms of net assets, we had the reverse of 2025, we already achieved in the implementation of our recovery plan. So we had net debt of 2025 without the IFRS 16. We have BRL 1.6 billion, including the IFRS 16. This guidance assume that BRL 1 billion in cash sweep from happen to amortize debt and this would come from M&A and these resources will be used. So we are looking at the situation today, we have already reached BRL 1.6 billion of financial debt. Before the BRL 1 billion of M&A and BRL 2.2 billion if you consider the total debt before the cash sweep, anticipating the achievements of this reference of 2025 already in 2024. Our net debt, including receivables was expected to be net cash to have more cash or receivable than debt in 2025. We are already, as I mentioned before, this cash neutral in this month of August 2024. However, we have opted to -- as we disclosed last night to discontinue our guidance at this time. As the company needs time to reassess its operational estimates in IFRS 16, our cash position at the end of the year, our leverage should depend on EBITDA, due to all the results disclosed yesterday that we are talking about in this call today. Now we will continue working and looking of resuming the guidance in the near future. Go on to the Slide 15. We go to this -- the other assets in the company that have not yet to be mentioned. We have talked about physical and digital. So in Hortifruti, there, we have a newly appointed CEO, Paulo Drago. So he has come, so we disclosed, he's arrived in the market recently. He is focused on optimizing the operation of the business. In this moment, we don't have plans to resume the organized sales process as outlined in the judicial recovery plan. The Uni.co Group, our franchise arm has a well-oiled management and stable operations, and we are monitoring the market to evaluate the right time to resume the organized process of sales of the asset, remembering the Hortifruti, Uni.co, the obligation to continue the process is part in the judicial recovery plan. For Ame, we are in the early stage of executing a new business strategy, focusing on enhancing the experience within our ecosystem to drive this transformation. We have brought to the executive, Tiago Abate, with an extensive market experience. In this new setup, the team and operations of Ame coming to Americanas, becoming a business unit and focusing on customer loyalty. and offering products and services, mainly financial ones to physical partners and digital. This is a new Ame, a new Americanas. We continue [ to follow ] the possibility of disposing the license and other assets, even CNPJ, which are no longer needed in the setup. But the activity, the heart of the business, continue Americanas and continue to have more focus in the company. And then lastly, we have other assets with potential of eliminations, such as the brands in the Submarino and Submarino, Shoptime, which we have no interest in the brands, and we were received indications of no. So it means that we will continue the process to -- and other smaller assets that are not strategic to us. So now we'll come back to Leo, who will remind you a little bit our strategic road map.

So here, there is nothing new to what was presented in the last call. It's a very -- it's a small summary. We're able to show that the first block that we talked about to stop the crisis, we have achieved this plan, especially with the restructure debt. So for us, this plan, this page is over. And now we will focus on efforts to increase the efficiency and operational cash with the growth, which is the great goal here. In the second semester 2024 and beyond, the greater rationale of the investments, we are testing concepts and to increase the performance, so we are grading pilots, especially the customer service and physical space. So we're starting to bring together categories that talk to each other, change a little bit the schedule of our stores. This allow flexibility in format, especially bringing synergy in these categories. The excellence providing to the client is continuing to bring the focus of -- the constant focus of everything that we have done. It has reflected, especially the mix of products that are offered and also in the service in the stores. In e-commerce and digital, we are keeping those, strengthening our partnership with great suppliers with the objective of complementing the journey of the consumption of the client of Americanas' customer with competitive offers within -- represented to traffic and with the more intelligent showing of offers. So we are revering our portfolio with a strong loyalty program, and we're growing the ecosystem of Americanas with the fact what Tiago has already started restructuring. Those other assets in the group, as we have mentioned, we'll continue to study the best alternatives for these companies. In parallel, changing our catalogs, focusing the operational maintenance of all of these brands and following the strategic learn with Americanas. 2023 has brought a lot of lessons learned that we're able to use and we talked to [indiscernible] and other business inside. For that, we have done some communications. We reinforced our team with new executives that have come from the market with the objective basically of accelerating this process of transformation of the company. We believe that the mix of -- with this fresh eyes that add to the results of those experienced who know Americanas is the powerful combination that we need for this current phase of transformation. And in this teamwork, we need to continue to have a look of our development of our human capital and our management model. We need to continue organizing our offers of services to the client and to sell for our partners within the platform of clients and partners and still adjustments of the models offered by Ame and analyzing the process of aligning these assets. So we have done adjustments in the assortment with [ pricification ] and homogenizing our chronogram. And we are also closing a study, finishing a study of our own brands that we consider as an important asset to continue having customer loyalty, greater profitability to the company and also unlocking synergies of brands that we have inside the store. And the remodeling will be concluding this last semester, buying products with own brands. And the following month, all the items will be available to our customers. And also, we are expanding the use of digital panels. I mentioned this in the last call as well, to the journey of our consumers, bringing better traction to the retail media, especially in this schedule of -- and our suppliers and the business. And the last slide, the main point to mention is that there is a lot to happen inside at the same time. But now we don't have those problems that happened during the investigation and the judicial recovery process. While our competitors, they spend 24 hours thinking of the business, we had to split our time between the business investigation and judicial recovery. We understand that since June, our focus has to be full on operations, and we can come back to analyzing all the consumer data that we already have in-house. With that, our investments in IT, physical and digital, they have been done and they add to this phase of -- and this new structure that we hope to have. With the new executives, that will speed up our operation efficiency and process mainly to make it a better experience to buy at Americanas. At last, I reinforce that all this process of reconstruction that comes with creditors, partners, suppliers and mainly the trust of our millions of customers wouldn't be possible without the team of professionals that are ethical and absolutely committed to the future of Americanas. We will continue this. We will follow this path, growing Americanas that is new, a new culture and solve this complicated way, the life of many Brazilians. I think we can now move on to the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from [ Yvo ], investor. His question is the following. What is the estimate for Americanas to leave the judicial recovery? Is there a date already in plan?

Thank you very much. Now we are in a supervision judicial recovery in general. This depends on the judicial recovery judgment, and it follows the plan for around 3 years, 3 years since we settled the plan. And then we can suspend this after 3 years. We have already executed an important part of our plan, the greatest part of this plan in these 6 months. So there is a possibility to bring forward, but we also have to consider that we have a forecast of obligation to conclude the process of organized way. And then this happens on the company, it should be judicial recovery supervision. So there are several factors. We don't count on this right now before 2026, but we will monitor the situation to see if there are any changes.

[Operator Instructions] We have another question coming from Pedro [ Furtado ], that two questions. How do you finance the working capital from now on? Do you understand the positive EBIT that due to the growth of revenues?

I will start and Camille will complete. So the second part will come from both. We still have in our review of space for growth of revenue due to the adjusted mix of product that we have already been doing since the second semester 2023. And also we understand that there's a great possibility of the internal review of the structures, and we will continue to seek all the internal synergies that we can so that we can amplify this EBITDA. And related to the working capital due to the high adherence of the suppliers into the judicial recovery plan, we have already impacted by the suppliers, 80% of the suppliers already that adhere to this -- to the option of a supplier collaborator inside the judicial recovery plan. The counterpart to this would be to come back with the working capital equivalent to those that we had in 2022. What we've been doing now is a very broad discussion with all the suppliers from our hand are suggesting business plan that we -- what we would expect in terms of purchasing for the next 12 months. From their end, negotiations with the credit insurance to provide the conditions of payment. And then we will continue to evolve in the working capital even more, a more balanced way to Americanas. So I mentioned this in the last call, and I'll repeat now. This is a process. This transformation process of Americanas is a long process. It is not a process in which we settled the investigation, we dealt with the debt, and we automatically live in a position of competitiveness, brutal competitiveness. This is not going to happen. All the work that is going to happen is kind of like in a game. We go through the first phase, we're able to go to Phase 2 with a more qualified, greater difficulty. We bring greater value, so then we move on to Phase 3. And we will continue in this way probably well into the end of 2025. There's a lot to happen in all the fronts of 2025. Camille, is there something else that I left out?

Now just remember that we have two lines of financing. We have three lines of financing effect of credit for the companies that are seen in the plan to guarantee the judicial recovery plan, to guarantee the viability of the company to the segment, and we also have a line of BRL 1.5 billion of receivables accounts, but the company needs to some type of final cash financing. The company still has a line that is of guarantees a judicial loans of BRL 1.5 billion guaranteed to the creditors in this plan. And in third place, the plan also sees this is not a guaranteed line of credit, BRL 750 million of additional fund to market. These projections, they don't show a great need, as Leo has mentioned, due to the dynamic of the improvement in the working capital. But just to remember that the company has BRL 1.5 billion of receivables guaranteed by the judicial recovery plan.

Our next question comes from [ Marcela Miranda ]. And [ Marcela ] asked the following question. The company discussed the impact in the relationship with the suppliers and loss of market share and position in the market after the judicial recovery.

Let's go to the first part of the question, which is I mentioned this in the presentation, maybe the impact -- the positive impact of everything that has happened in our judicial recovery was coming closer of Americanas to the suppliers. Those were those suppliers that represent basically 80% of the volume of sales of Americanas. We sit down with them and discuss the business plan together, going from a level of products, geography, stores, test. So this relationship is much more -- it's much closer than it was in the past. This is not mentioned by me, it's mentioned by the suppliers themselves. Obviously, due to this change in our mix, this happens very much strongly in those suppliers that are in the categories where we have grown market share than in electric devices, electronic devices. So we do discuss, yes, and we do this in a very open way, in a direct way with all the suppliers. In relationship to market share, I think we have to understand in two ways. Market share from the physical store, not only we're not losing, but we are growing. If we go by category, in fact, when we put in the second semester in 2023, lamps in our store, we went to 12% market share in just 4 months. This shows the potential of sales that exists within Americanas in function to its mix, to its capacities, relationship with the client. In the last call, the Americanas client in the fiscal continues to go to the store. Regardless of the news, they continue buying this, and we have seen this happen in the same way in 2024. In the digital, it's a completely different story in the digital. We don't have market share as a relevant component to our strategy. Our strategy in the digital, it focuses on offering to customers and looking to the value we can add to these customers and the profitability of this business to Americanas. So market share for us in the digital, at least now, is not the north of our management here. Camille, anything else?

No. I think that's it.

Our next question comes from Pedro [ Furtado ], a follow-up. I believe that it's still necessary to close some stores to control and balance operations.

This is a very good question, Pedro. And I will answer then I will contextualize. We should close some stores, yes. They -- not many stores, but we will close all the stores that are not profitable, all of those that are necessary. And we will open stores, especially the analytical capacity that we have gained in the last 18 months in regions where we see demand, growth demand for our products from Americanas. So the net of these two variables, closing or opening, it still should be negative in the following 12 to 15 months, but much less restricted. And I invite you to look at some of our competitors. One of our competitors had around [ 1,024 ] stores in 2022. And without judicial recovery, without investigation, they closed in 2023, closing of around equivalent to our closing 125 stores regardless of judicial recovery and investigation. What I want to say by this? I want to say that this movement of closing stores on Americanas in 2023, it is an impact of the crisis that we lived, but it is also an impact of a business environment that is more challenging for retail that has impact, not only on Americanas, but other business in the segment as well.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from [indiscernible]. The question is, does it make sense to think in terms of CapEx for our company in the following 12 to 24 months? What would the adjustments in the models of stores that you mentioned, they should increment, it should incremental tax and CapEx that is relevant?

So Camille, can you complement after I start, whatever I forget? CapEx for the following 24 months continues to be focused on that. That brings value to our customer. We will continue to improve our stores. We will not renovate in a way that is complete way out of our stores. It doesn't make sense. But we will continue to bring stores to a level of compatible to what our customers expect for us, especially in IT. We have some adjustments due to the IT infrastructure that is very diverse. We have some adjustments that we have done everything under the same plan, and those structure of technology that we started investing in -- we started in the end of 2023, and we grow 2024 for the digital. They should be ready in the fourth quarter 2025. And these are the investments that we hope that we are expecting for in this horizontal time that you mentioned. Due to OpEx, everything that you're thinking about is to make OpEx within a size that fits our gross margin. We don't expect a company that will add OpEx due to any type of investment in CapEx. And more than that, we are showing consistently during this period, we can see the figures that this concern with the reduction of OpEx is continuously here so that we can consider a structure that is a minimal structure, especially for minimal central infrastructure to keep the operations working well in the perception of our clients. Camille, what else have I forgotten?

I believe it's -- that's all.

[Operator Instructions] So the session of Q&A is over, and I will now give the floor to Mr. Leonardo, CEO of Americanas, for the final considerations.

From our end, the final considerations have already been made. But I think last message that I would like to give internally, especially here internally, focus of everything that we have done is to come back to generate consistently results in operation. So this is an operation that is highly strong, is extremely resilient due to all the impact in 2023. We have a different relationship with the client and is able to navigate well in a crisis, and it has shown the 95 years of Americanas. It's a long work. It's not work that you collect the fruits from overnight. It keeps happening, and it will continue happening with this group of professionals that are in Americanas, also to the group of professionals that came since January 2023 to continue this journey from my end is this.

The audio conference 2023, the first 6 months of 2024 of Americanas S.A. has ended. The Department of Investor Relations is at your disposal to answer any questions. Thank you very much to the participants, and have a great afternoon. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]