Banco do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul S.A. (BRSR6) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Banrisul video conference to discuss results relative to the third quarter of 2022. This video conference is being recorded and the replay may be accessed in the company's website www.banrisul.com.br/ri. The presentation will also be available for download at this platform chat as well as the link to the feedback poll about this event. [Operator Instructions] Before moving on, we would like to reinforce that the forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and beliefs of the company's management. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, keeping in mind that they relate to future events and projections and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or not occur. You should take it into account that facts related to the macroeconomic environment may lead the results to be materially different than those in our prospective statements. In this video conference, we have Mr. Cláudio Coutinho Mendes, CEO; Mr. Irany Sant'Anna, Deputy CEO and Risk Officer; Mr. Marcus Staffen, CFO and IRO, and Mr. Osvaldo Lobo, Credit Officer; and Mr. Nathan Meneguzzi, Head of Investor Relations. I now turn over to Mr. Cláudio Coutinho. Please proceed.

Good morning, everyone. We are now following the video conference on Banrisul's results for the third quarter of 2022, and analysts and investors, our colleagues and employees, we're now going to start with this presentation on our results. Our highlights for this quarter are the launching of Banrishopping, the marketplace launched this quarter, and we have already added 40 partner stores that we can offer our clients who buy services or products in the marketplace using rewards and cash. But in addition to the rewards and their financial resources, they can also use cash back. With that, we increase traffic in our digital channels and clients can access our marketplace to buy and we are also increasing traffic. One of the obvious objectives of the marketplace is to increase our access to digital channels. In the slide, you can see that we've grown significantly in the digital world. In the first months of this year, we had an average of 1.5 million of daily access. This is significant advances since 2019, we have almost doubled our access. We have also had significant increase with almost 400,000 new digital users. We've also reached expressive numbers in digital transactions, 81% of our transactions are made by using these channels. We also try to encourage an innovation ecosystem in Rio Grande do Sul. And this is why we have created BanriTech, and we are already in the second cycle. And we now have a partnership with [ Techno Banri ]. In addition to all of the initiatives to implement innovation, the South Summit, a partnership with NAVI, Banrisul is a founding partner of the Caldeira Institute. And we have also transferred our corporate university area so that we can work in the Calderia campus, which is dedicated to education exclusively. We are investing in creating our return to the innovation ecosystem because it's very important that we can use new technologies and solutions that will add more efficiency to our clients. In the environmental agenda, we have another focus. It is very important that we accelerate our participation as a bank, which is more and more sustainable. In this quarter, we have reached an important achievement. We work with energy and renewable sources. And in addition to having an energy solution, which is praiseworthy, we also have the possibility to buy energy from the free market, generating savings in the order of BRL 47 billion. We are transferring all of our network, and also all of our needs are supplied by clean energy. In 2023, we're going to continue with this process. We also have the GHG protocol with a greenhouse gas inventory. We have also updated our carbon footprint. For 2021, we bought carbon credits and renewable energy certificates so that we can work with 2021, and we are going to begin 2022 in the near future. In addition to that, we have sustainable businesses. We have alternative energy sources that we fund in our portfolio, increased in 2022 reaching BRL 513 billion to fund sustainability and clean energy. Another important pillar, of course, is people management. You can see a summary here since 2019, we have optimized our workforce, reducing almost 1,600 employees. This quarter, we have also concluded another PDV and similar to the one we had in 2020. We in this case, negotiated using the union where the PDV classes were approved. And therefore, it is another initiative to renew our staff. We have a new competition for employees. We're going to open 1,335 positions. It will be important from an economic point of view. Those who are retiring now, they are at the end of their career and their average pay is much higher than those who will be starting. And at the same time, you're oxygenating bringing in new people, people who are motivated so that the bank can continue its growth, creativity and therefore, this is very important for us. Also taking into account cost, when we look at the stand-alone in this PWD, we will see savings in the order of BRL 116 million per year. Another highlight for this quarter is the growth and solidity of our portfolio. We had a growth of 22.6%, reaching BRL 47.4 billion. Amazing growth in credit granting, you can see that the underwriting reached 57.2%. And in the exchange -- foreign exchange, we had 57.6%. And also consigned credit, we had a growth of 16% for legal entities. We also had a growth of 30%, which is very important. For rural and real estate credit, we also had significant growth in the order of [ 50% ] and in the real estate area we grew 24%. So we had significant growth in our credit portfolio. We are consolidating our growth and also growing with our warranties and our default rate is also very low. Rural credit, I mentioned it before, we had a growth of 52% at an annual rate. We also had BNDES funding of BRL 667 million. Our crop plan, we met our 50% growth, 7 billion. In fact, we believe that we can even overcome this growth of 50%. Also, in the main figure related to agri business, we had significant growth in terms of businesses, BRL 831 million with a growth of 88% when compared to the prior year. We also inaugurated the Agro Spaces. This is how we introduce ourselves to Agribusiness, different branches that are representative to our business have an exclusive area for Agribusiness. We're also opening stores that are exclusive for Agribusiness. It's not a bank or a branch because we do not have a cash register, but we have people and Agribusiness managers to serve clients who want to operate with the bank but without all of the costs related to a regular branch with cash registers and security. With this model we can create infrastructure that is favorable for our businesses. And here, as I mentioned before, it is clear how our credit portfolio is solid. Our default rate in 90 days is in its historical minimum, 1.6% of our portfolio -- of our overall portfolio. And we have a coverage ratio of 325%, this is very good. And also our loan portfolio in terms of ratings, we also have a historic high, 93% rate as AA to C. And we also have a portfolio concentration, which is almost half of that of the market, 6.9% of our portfolio, whereas the market average is 12.2%. And therefore, we have a very good dissemination of our portfolio, providing more safety and less risk associated to our credit portfolio. Here, you can see loan loss provisions. As you can see, we have BRL 284.5 billion. We have solid guarantees for consigned and of course, we have the salaries as guarantee. We also have insurances, exchange rate, we also have special treatment regarding legal recoveries. We also have the BNDES guarantee funds, which provides a good situation to our portfolio. And this is something that we've been practicing with this new management, and it will remain like this in the upcoming months. Here, we have our highlights. You can see that we had a growth of 22% in the credit portfolio per consigned credit. Our payroll loans, we had a growth of 16%. In fees and services, we had a 5.3% growth. Default rate 1.58%, which is a record. The coverage rate in the order of 324%, which is very good. And our cost of risk is also very good, 1.78%. And now in profitability, we had 7.8% return of the investment. We had some expenses in this quarter, for example, had to redo our provisions because of the salary increases. With that, we had to generate new provisions for these placements and it had an impact on our results. Our salary increases were done in September, and we had to add provisions for that. In terms of financial margins, our net interest income, the bank has -- had increases in the Selic rate. The last increase was in August, basically, in the middle of the quarter, so the repricing of our liabilities was done. And on the bottom part, you can see that our total revenues, if you consider the third quarter of 2021, we went from BRL 2.1 billion to almost BRL 3.8 billion in the third quarter of '22. And therefore, our assets have increased steadily. And also in the other bar, you can see intermediation. We have had significant increases. We expect that was -- the capture cost is stabilized as the Central Bank does not increase the Selic rate again. Asset repricing will lead -- or will allow our historic margin to go back to its normal values. Our financial margin has gone up. Once the Selic cost is stable, we believe that we will be able to resume our traditional financial margins. In this new screen you can see one of the main strengths of Banrisul, funding capture. When that is added to savings accounts, the cost is excellent. It is 76.8%. The cost is 86% of CDI. And therefore, our funding is inexpensive, and it's also well distributed. On the right side of the slide, you can see the concentration of our funding. We have 12% of our portfolio, diversification is excellent. Funding is low and diversified, which provides solidity and safety to the bank's achieve -- activities. We have also had fundings with one or another Euro bonds launched in the beginning of the year, and we now have another list here in Brazil. But in terms of expenses, we continue with a strict cost control when we look at the adjusted values. When you look at the other administrative expenses we have, we see that it grew year-over-year, but it was almost like IPCA for the last 12 months. There is another segment that grew 24%, but it is a positive growth. They have to do with payments made to the companies that generate consigned credit, and therefore, the higher it is the more consigned credit we have because these are services that we pay to service providers that generate consigned credit for us all over Brazil. And therefore, the expenses that are under our management in other administrative expenses is very well controlled. Now, regarding our capital, I've mentioned it before. We had a first issuance of subordinated financial letters and we now have a total capital of 16.67% of basel index, and I believe that we can continue at the same pace. And on December 12, we're going to have another Banri Day. You are all invited to participate in our Banri Day, the Board of Directors will tell the market about the bank's plans. I thank you all for your attention, and we are now going to open for the Q&A session, and I would like to invite my colleagues from the Board to participate in this session with me.

[Operator Instructions] We take this opportunity to invite all those present in this video conference to Banri Day, 2022. Banrisul's Investor Day, which will take place on December 12 at 9 a.m. Brazilian time. We're now going to start our Q&A.

Our first question is from Mr. Flavio Yoshida.

Hello, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to ask questions. I would like to understand something from you. Since default rate was very low, the balance sheet was robust, I would like to know if you intend to accelerate your portfolio growth? But if you don't do that, I would like to know if we're going to see a greater spread because this provides some comfort for us to grow with a greater spread and try to improve the bank's profitability. The next question is regarding expenses. Because of the PWD, I would like to know what we can expect in terms of expenses. The PWD expense has been accelerated, including the collective bargaining agreement, but I would like to know what the future outlook is?

Well, thank you for the questions. I'm going to start with the second question. When we look at our expenses with these payments, we had a growth, which was a little bit higher than the collective bargaining agreement. We also had adjustments of legal liabilities that were incorporated in our payroll. But when we look ahead, and there was a relevant fact mentioned on Monday, the voluntary development plan is in the order of a little bit more than BRL 600 billion, and within a year, we would have a payback of the investment we had in PWD. As mentioned here, we are renewing our staff, which is very healthy. The new employees that come in receive much less. And so we will have a positive return. Regarding the behavior of the portfolio and profitability. When you look at the margins and perhaps this is one of the most important drivers, we had already alerted that the third quarter would be the lowest NII of Banrisul. This was confirmed. But of course, during the third quarter, the growth was a little bit lower than what we had projected because the portfolio mix is still concentrated in rural credit and consigned loans. But in the future, we will do better. And actually, in September, we grew more than 10% when compared to August. And therefore, I imagine that when we look at the future quarters, the fourth quarter and also in 2023, even if the Selic rate takes longer to go down than we imagine initially, the margin will be able to expand and then we will probably be able to go back to our historic levels even if our portfolio is more conservative. In the long run, we can think of something in the order of 7%, and the bank would be able to go back to its historic ROIs.

I think that it's very important to mention that Banrisul is at a very comfortable situation. We -- in terms of expenses, we had some labor-related provisions, but they tend to stabilize. The recovery of the financial margin will be robust. If you look at the data shared about our funding, it is 80% below the CDI. When we restructure our assets without increasing risks we will have an increase in profitability that places us at a comfortable situation in any scenario we may have in the future.

I would also like to add something. This is a unique movement in our main portfolio, the consigned loans. This was the largest increase in the last 20 years. We had a -- we had the interest rate reductions in the last 4 years, increase of spread. Today, our portfolio, and this is public data of the Central Bank, has had rates very close to 2% per month. This, as mentioned before will speed up. And when we look at all of the projections and of course, this is a unique movement, the portfolio has never been adjusted this much. And therefore, we do believe that the financial margin will be better in the future. I would also like to highlight that our portfolio grows significantly. And with that, we have expenses that occur when we have long granting, things that take place when the operation is executed. So in the short term, we have some results. And in the upcoming months it will show up credit provision. Also, we have some months of spread and this affects the margin in this quarter. And our portfolio grew more than 6% in this quarter.

Our next question comes from [ Antonio Marcos Ermida ].

The presentation displays a lot of positive aspects but the fact is that the net profit of the quarter was much below the average, especially if we compare it to the pre-pandemic period. Administrative expenses had a significant impact in this quarter. So I ask you, are these expenses going to be the same? Or will we see improvements in the next quarters? How many quarters should we have for the financial margin to go back to pre-pandemic levels? Also, in what quarter do you expect to return to the profit margin you have before the pandemic? And how do you see the current situation regarding the last line of the [ DRE ]?

Well, thank you for your question. Regarding the margins resumption and also because of all of the projects as we've had for the market, in the fourth quarter, we will see more robust expansion. But the return to pre-pandemic levels is something that we will see in the next year. And this has a direct impact on profitability. And so we believe that in the next year, we will go back to our pre-pandemic levels. And of course, we will see that when we indicate our guidances for next year. Regarding the expenses, the overall expenses grew 8.1%. But if you take away payments and the expenses with the origination of consigned credit, you will see that it grew 7.3% against 7.14%, which is aligned to inflation rates. We grew 6.9% above the inflation. And therefore, we do not see any significant differences.

Our next question comes from Mr. [ Marlo Medina Robbins ].

I wanted to ask you a question about dividends and capital. The bank has a lot of capital. It's not a problem, but the ROI level, and I believe that a lot of these questions on the -- about the margin, we believe that the ROI will expand in the future and the bank will be able to generate organic capital in the midterm. But looking at the present, we can see a growth in the portfolios in rural areas, but the ROI is not sustainable. So how are you going to deal with this? Should we expect a compression in terms of capital generation or not? Or am I exaggerating it here? Will the expected ROI help the bank in a more organic way for 2023? Basically, I want to know how you see the banks pay out. Will it change? This is some more or less what I wanted to know when I asked you this question.

Well, thank you very much for this question. I think that naturally, the ROI will go back to healthy levels and to Banrisul's historic levels. We do not have any significant concern regarding the organic generation of capital. Regarding the payout, this year because of the tax benefits, we had an increase to 60%. And for next year, we will discuss the maintenance of the 40%, which has been maintained by the bank. I do not see any significant changes in the dividend distribution policy of the bank.

[Operator Instructions] The Q&A session has ended. We would like to turn the floor to Mr. Cláudio Coutinho, who will say the company's final remarks.

I thank you all for your participation in this video conference. I thank all of Banrisul's employees that enabled us to have this robust performance this quarter. We faced unexpected situations and brought the bank to this new level of profitability that we will keep on pursuing with the normalization of the Selic rates. And therefore, I take this opportunity to thank all of our employees who have allowed us to get here. And I also wanted to thank those who have participated in this video conference. Thank you very much.

Banrisul's video conference is now over. We thank you all for your participation and wish you a good day.