GPS Participações e Empreendimentos S.A. ($GGPS3)

Good morning, everybody. Today, we are presenting our earnings results for the first quarter 2026. Marcelo Hampshire, the Corporate Chairman of Corporate Areas, Technology and M&A; and myself, Marita Bernhoeft, IRO, Governance and Press. We begin here. You can see the presentation to your right. The first slide with a view of what our new headquarters will be all about. We have already spoken about this project. This year, we will have a significant move. We're moving in stages, but we do hope to have an Investor Day to host all of you at our headquarters. We continue on with our presentation. We're speaking of net revenue, BRL 4.5 million, 9% above the first quarter '25 and 7% organic growth impacted by the cohorts of 2024 that were part of our organic growth as well. And further ahead, we will remark on this. EBITDA of BRL 437 million with a hike of 9% more vis-a-vis the first quarter '25 and a margin of 9.7% and adjusted net profit of BRL 158 million, 12% lower than the first quarter '25, impacted by financial expenses, mainly due to the Selic interest rate, our debt and noncash expenses and a correction of our provisions. We have a distribution of net revenue by line of solution. We have catering in the company representing 1/4 followed by facilities and maintenance, the 3 main businesses in the company, followed by security, temporary labor services and indoor logistics. Our group of customers represent 4,713 groups of customers and our NPS refers to the survey in the second half of last year, representing 76%. As I mentioned, the net revenue was 9% higher vis-a-vis the first quarter '25. In the calculation of organic growth after 2 years, we always include the cohorts that were acquired. And in the organic calculation, this year, we're including the cohorts of 2024, where we had the greatest number of acquisitions. And we have contract adjustments carried out in the first 18 months. This adjustment, of course, will include an eventual decrease of revenue and an increase of margin as we seek to optimize the acquisition made, eliminating withdrawing nonprofitable contracts. So we had an increase in the cohort revenue of 6% to 7%. If we incorporate the organic growth, we ended up having a negative effect that represents 2%. And that is why the organic net revenue ends up being 7%. Inorganic net revenue referring only to the acquisitions in 2025, the 3 companies, RHMed, Nutricar and Tagg amounting to BRL 7 million. I'll give the floor to Marcelo now to speak about M&A.

Thank you, Marita. Good day to everybody. Well, this is a slide that we normally share at our meetings referring to our M&A program for '24 and '25. They were very active years in terms of acquisitions. The combined revenue was approximately BRL 4.6 billion. What is worthwhile underscoring here is the case of Tagg that we acquired at the end of last year. It's presently being integrated into the system and will be fully integrated in May. All the other companies have been integrated into our system. Nutricar came in, in February of 2025. This was one of the last companies to be integrated September of '25 and Tagg, as I mentioned, will be integrated fully in May. If we could go on to the next slide. This is the second slide that we normally share with you a summary of our M&A activity since the IPO. There are 26 companies acquired with a gross revenue of BRL 8.5 billion. We had BRL 2 billion per year as the annual average. We're buying companies that are predominantly midsized with the exception of GRSA that had revenues above BRL 1 billion per year. All of the other midsized companies are here to consolidate businesses where we already operated before the IPO as a security partner. But we highlight our relevant growth in catering with GRSA, Marfood and a highlight to our penetration in new activities. We are using acquisitions as a tool to enhance our scope. We are in RHMeds and Nutricar. We have expanded our actions in Tagg marketing because of trademark and tech, and we have new businesses that we're learning to operate, which is the case of TLSV, electrical maintenance and control. Control is for electrical systems. The other is for telephony. And well, looking ahead, which is important today, there's a natural anxiety to disclose more news. We're very close to that. And what enables us to be very confident is our pipeline of M&As, our acquisition pipeline this pipeline continues to be very robust. We have 20 companies interacting with us in the M&A system with a gross revenue of BRL 8 billion per year. Since our last meeting, the planned pipeline, which is the pipeline at the final stages of negotiation of contract or concluding the price negotiations. We have included 12 companies here with gross revenue of BRL 4.7 billion. Of course, not all of these negotiations will truly become an acquisition. We hope that half or somewhat less than half of these 12 companies will migrate to a true acquisition with us. And what is delaying perhaps the conclusion of our business is this environment of very high interest rates. Our fundraising is above 16% per year. Therefore, we're proceeding in a very conservative way in pricing, prioritizing security. It's natural. It frustrates the expectation of sellers. We have to recalibrate, renegotiate price and contractual conditions. So this is causing a delay. We're a bit concerned in-house to make sure that this anxiety in closing negotiations will impact our security in terms of pricing. We know the macroeconomic situation is not simple. An interest rate of 15% a year entails a great deal of complexity. So we still don't have deals. We're anxious ourselves, but the pipeline is very robust. And when it comes to the qualification of pipeline, it is better than in our last call. We have more pipelines close to the final line about to close the deal and things will begin to happen.

Well, thank you, Marcelo. Well, this is the most frequent question that I have received since the release last night after the market this morning as well. We're going to speak about margins. Here, you have the result of the first quarter, a margin of 9.7%. Several elements have a weight on this margin. And I would like to offer you some details about this. Now when we speak about the vision, when we compare the first quarter of '26 with the first quarter of '25, you will see a significant impact in the cost of food. Of course, this is associated to the cost of food. It is due to the significant growth of our catering business. We had a significant growth in CMV in the first quarter '26 vis-a-vis the first quarter '25, also bringing about a growth in our catering business. Now in this context, GRSA is the most representative business in the catering area. And we have had learning from this. This learning is part of the integration process. We see 3 combined effects in the first quarter. One effect that is a situation where we had strong implementation of contracts in the sector. You were able to see in the release that, that cost of implementation is a true offender of our margin. Now this cost of implementation refers to the anticipation of revenues we have to do to implement the contracts without the stability of receiving revenues regarding the new contracts. Now this is the main effect of the implementation. The second one is the impact of the cost of input, which is very relevant for us. And it had an increase with a high inflation, especially in the first quarter. This impacts our results. We have a combination of the increase of price that will be transferred on to the customer because contractually, it is part of that pass-through as we carry out the negotiation of the contract in midyear, but this is also an effect that happened in the first quarter, inflation of food increasing the CMV. And as a counterpart in the first quarter, I have a number of working days and a number offenders which is what we seasonally expect in this catering business. Now the cost of implementation of contracts, the fact that we have not attained stability of margin in the contracts, a higher cost, higher food inflation and revenues impacted by shorter working days led to a lower margin. Now if you look specifically at GRSA as a sole business unit, it will have a drop of margin in the fourth quarter, which is an offender when it comes to the company's total margin. Now this, of course, has a learning in view. We believe that this business that ended the year with a margin very close to 2Ps. Now in the first quarter has a lower margin. It will be around 8, a lower 8. This does generate a negative impact. But once again, we have to look at the full context and think of this impact of working days will equal out during time. The new contracts will also equalize through time and the impact of inflation will also be diluted with the impact of negotiation of each of the contracts. So we have a positive view of this acquisition of the catering segment that is quite representative in our revenues. And we believe that we can bring up this result to the profitability levels of GPS with quite a bit of security. This is our vision regarding this impact in the first quarter. A more detailed explanation of the margin. When we look at adjusted net profit, we're, of course, referring to the same effects of the EBITDA, but with an additional effect of the cost of the debt, the volume of debt has increased. We issued debentures in the second half of last year. And we compare this increase of debt with an increase of the Selic. In the first quarter '25, the Selic rate was 12% -- we ended the first half of the year with a Selic at 15%. This has an impact on the cost of debt. And we also have the monetary update of our contingencies that are relevant at present. We have the PERSE and the S System that have a noncash effect, but in the first quarter represented BRL 30 million.

Marita, the financial cost in Item 4 of the release increased BRL 40 million from the last quarter to the present one. It went from BRL 114 million to BRL 153 million and some nonoperational events that benefited the net profit last year and hampered the net profit this year with a difference of BRL 21 million. So the difference of those 2 line items represents BRL 60 million between 2025 and 2026. This referring to adjusted net profit. Those are the effects or impacts we observed.

In terms of cash generation, cash flow, it was positive. Operating cash, 96% of adjusted EBITDA, higher than the previous quarter with the payment of interest rate at BRL 55 million, financing BRL 220 million and investments, BRL 668 million. We were able to generate cash at 96% of EBITDA, even though we had cash exit the payment of PLR and the payment of dividends. This normally happens in separate quarters in the first and second quarters. By having these two effects in the same quarter, we had robust cash generation. Now regarding leverage, we continue at 1.6x net debt EBITDA. Our vision continues to be the same. We have financial discipline to maintain that leverage in a comfortable zone according to our vision 1.5, 1.6. This is our viewpoint in terms of financial discipline with availability that enables us to carry M&As without having to resort to the market to carry out an operation and having to go through a very quick negotiation with an eventual M&A that we may have. We can finance our organic growth, which is very important for us. And finally, before we speak about the podcast, we have another relevant fact that we communicated yesterday that refers to a change of structure. We had the transition of Guilherme Robortella from Financial Director to leader of a new unit that we're putting together. We have acquired Vale Presente, Vale Consignado. And to explain this, we had verticalization initiatives in items for the management of human resources. We had RHMed that we brought in-house with the intention of verticalizing a very important process in human resources, periodic exams, admission exams. And we also, in the past, brought in the point system. So we have a vision of the total management of human resources in the company, thinking that we can carry out a verticalization given our scale and our ability to manage human resources in a differentiated well in Vale Presente, Vale Consignado, these are benefits for employees. Vale Presente is a card that refers to food vouchers and Vale Consignado is an offer of additional money for employers on the payroll. Now as this is connected to the financial system, we have separated all of those activities and Guilherme will lead these two businesses separately reporting to Marcelo with that new focus of Guilherme for these two additional businesses that do demand specific experience. So we've created companies for Vale Presente, Vale Consignado. We have partnerships with companies that have expertise. Now besides working in control, Guilherme will now add the activities of financial management, supply, integration of M&As and the management of our labor liabilities. Now Guilherme is no longer a statutory director of GPS, but he continues to be with us. He's a very relevant important professional that will run a business for us that brings about future opportunities. We truly trust him. He knows about GPS. He's aware of our culture, and he's setting up with Vale Presente and Vale Consignado, a very good situation for us to manage benefits. because of the new law, there will be relevant changes. And in Vale Consignado, we have a person with deep knowledge of GPS. I wanted to underscore these changes and highlight as we do every quarter that we do have a podcast this fourth episode. It is very interesting. So I urge you to go into our site and listen to this interview with our Executive Director, Ricardo Frederico. We will now open the floor for questions. Whoever is first? Andre Ferreira?

Clarifying about the margin. Now this impact helps us to work with our modeling. I would like to hear about your mindset regarding margins. In 2027, we have 2 main factors we want to check a positive aspect, the labor revenue dropping vis-a-vis revenue. Now there are 3 levers that could help you to improve the margin. How are you thinking about margin expansion going forward to 2027?

Well, I think the main lever is to enhance the margin of GRSA. What we're doing here that seasonality, the verticality of the business, we have implemented a large number of initiatives we have shared initiatives to enhance the cost of inputs, food in general. I think this is our challenge. The food inputs don't only refer to the purchase of food, they also entail logistics and inflation. This is part of the cost that war in Ukraine, the war, the present day war, all of those aspects impact our work. So we have to see how to become ever more efficient in the management of those inputs. And this means having a gain of scale in the acquisition and better solutions to decrease the cost of logistics. There are several initiatives in this direction. Andre, we have a very clear vision that the enhancement of margin means improving the margin of that business. We have several initiatives earmarked for that. We have a discipline of what we call indirect management, what you know as GMA, our goal of indirect management is a new direction year-on-year. This is a practice under the leadership of Marcelo, but also by Gustavo. We look at the cost very carefully in acquired companies, they tend to represent 12%, 13%. Here, we see 6.5%. So there's always an incremental enhancement here. It means optimizing to the utmost these resources from indirect management. Besides the enhancements we can have by applying technological solutions to the contracts, and they generate the potential of enhancing the margin of the contract instead of only using headcount. These are our levers to enhance margins in the midterm.

And in reference to your question, simply to contribute, we estimate a drop of 6%. And in the labor department, we believe we can gain at least 0.5%. It was 1.9% of net revenue. We could reduce this to 1.5%, 1.4%, very similar to this quarter. A variable will offset the other. We're constantly trying to optimize profitability. we have several actions underway. And as Marita mentioned, GRSA is a fertile ground for this type of initiative when we acquired GRSA, the pricing and valuation considered an EBITDA margin of 4% to 5%. We integrated the company in January of '25. It was integrated into our system, and we were able to adopt measures very rapidly. And we're able to increase the margin in a short period of time. So we reduced the back office structure. They had relevant costs with systems they had hired. We eliminated this. So with some short-term measures, we were able to increase the margin of GRSA. It went up to almost 9% margin in the first half of the year. This quarter, because of variables, we're still learning to control and that refer to the cost of the inputs. The margin will drop once again, but not more than 8%. There are several initiatives to enhance profitability at GRSA. They are long-term initiatives. They won't happen overnight. To give you some examples in systems, we cut costs for systems in GRSA, but there's BRL 1.5 million a month in terms of costs that will be reduced through time. We're testing systems, enhancing systems to then cut the costs. BRL 1.5 million a month in cost for the lease of equipment. GRSA spends relevant amounts for dishwashers, for example, they have 20 dishwashers we purchased from China. We went there. We adapted them to the Brazilian situation. This began last year. The machines have just reached Brazil, and we're going to begin to test them. If they comply with the needs, and we're quite convinced they will, we will import another 1,500 and the savings will be relevant. Another example, the GRSA logistics operation was always outsourced with logistic operators. We understand that the logistics operation is a core business for our catering. You have to be very good in buying the food, storing the food and controlling from one end to the other. Last year, we began a project so that in Sao Paulo, the largest operation, we could take on the logistic operation ourselves in Paraiba. We worked at the warehouse. We set up a team, and we're changing. Our cost has increased presently because we have logistic operators to keep everything running, but we have our parallel structure. And at some point, we're going to eliminate the logistic operator, and we will take on operation, allowing for savings. We will have more room in our warehouse to acquire food. This is important. Our operating costs will be lower. We will no longer have this logistic operator or 2 tax systems. These are mid- and long-term initiatives that will increase the margin. We're very confident that in the mid and long term, the GRSA margin will converge with the average margin of GPS. This demands time for maturity, of course.

Let's allow Lucas Nagano to ask the question.

I would also like to speak about margins more visible in 2026 and speak about factors that can be mitigated that temporary impact of the implementation of the contract. But it seems that other effects will also continue to pressure margins in the second quarter, the labor pressure tends to decrease and M&As that are desirable, but they could lower the level of present day margin. So if we could speak about margin from that perspective. The second question, the S System, if you could give us an update, which is the profitability and how you will modulate the effects and which will be the cash impact in this case?

Let's speak a bit about margin and how we imagine the behavior will be. There will be pressure that you saw in the first quarter, a bit of pressure in the second quarter and then an improvement. Now regarding the labor part, the expectation is not that we will have a leap and go back to the levels of last year that -- well, we will have a normalization. And I have commented on this previously. The expectation is to close this year with better results than 2025. We don't want to go back to the level that we had in the second and third quarters of last year. As Marcelo mentioned, we carried out a cleaning out of our liabilities. The average ticket decreased last year. This is part of our provisions, and we continue with this effort. The number of labor issues, the most expensive ones has decreased significantly. So the labor issue this year will be somewhat more positive for the full year, not as we saw in the first quarter, but it will not go to the levels of last year. It's not the difference of 1.3% to 1.9%. The difference is lower. Another effect is the margin of GRSA. We have a more positive vision. The first quarter is always very difficult. The number of working days. I'm not speaking only about holidays. It also refers to collective vacations in the industry, vacations in school. So the first quarter is more difficult for catering in general and the cost of implementation that we have in the first quarter, we have these in the third and fourth with remains of this, but there will be an improvement through time. We begin to have a margin from the contract more similar to what we want. We stabilize cost and revenues through time. We don't expect to have significant improvements vis-a-vis last year. But we do have the expectation of an improvement quarter-on-quarter throughout the year. I think this is visible. We think this will happen. We stabilize that issue of the new contracts. The labor issue will never go back to the levels we had last year. That's not the level we expect for the full year, there will be an improvement. And we will work better with GRSA between revenue and cost. We also have the initiatives mentioned by Marcelo.

As we always remark here, historically, the first quarter is the quarter with the greatest pressure in profitability. 90% of the units transfer the collective bargaining readjustment. And the consequence for our results is that we have to use all of our stock of provision for vacations and 13th salary and make corrections according to the new salary. So the month where you correct your salary stock based on the new salaries, you really use up your stock. And this, of course, is a pressure on profitability in the first quarter. And it's a quarter where we have less additional services. In the last 2 quarters of the year, we have a greater number of services. So this has an impact on profitability. As Marita mentioned, we're learning how to manage. We're learning about the dynamic of GRSA in terms of the food dynamic. This first quarter, besides the historical pressure, salary readjustment, there was the inflation pressure on food, an increase in our input food that, of course, exerts pressure on profitability. And because of the volume of the implementation of the contract, we're implementing quite a few catering contracts with a pressure on rent profitability. Several moving parts. Simultaneously here, as Marita mentioned, the outlook is that we will have a convergence close to 10% and deliver better profitability than in 2025.

The S System, well the S System was part of our discussion. It still has not undergone judgment. The forecast is May 20. This is a topic that you follow up closely. We do as well, of course, as a company, we believe that this is a cause of probability of loss, a probable loss. And with a decision of the Supreme Court, there will be an impact the past will not be paid for based on the agreement of 2024 or the past will have to be paid for in the case of an unfavorable decision for the taxpayer. If we have to carry out payments, the economic effect will be zero. Everything has been provisioned for. It means reverting the provision. We will simply have a cash effect. And the cash effect does have to be taken into account. It is a nondeducible expense. We will be able to deduce it. So we eliminate 34% of that amount. The other effect is compensation with credits that we already have. all of the taxes, federal taxes can be offset and we accrue credit where a typical credit accrual. So we have part of that amount that would have to come out of our cash that will not come out because we can offset this with tax credits. In our estimate, the cash disbursement would be 40% or 45% of this total amount. This is a cash effect that we could have if there is an unfavorable decision for the S System. We're following up on this. Several of you have requested specific information on the process. Should we have any further movements, evidently, we will update all of you.

Now the issue of the system has been split into two different topics, both referring to the same topic, the contributions of third parties. There's the S System that represents 2.5% and the third-party system for education. The contributions have been separated. SEBRA and Education undergoing judgment and the rest has a different judgment. They have the same weight. In SEBRA represents 3.10% of the payroll. What is happening at present is that the S System and our vision will maintain that modulation.

Now why haven't I split this for you? Because legally, they have been explained. If they have diverging solutions, Well, the nature of the problem will be the same. They have had different effects. One topic refers to SESI, SENAI judgment for the May 20, another topic, INCRA, SEBRAE and Education had an unfavorable decision, but they went in with a resource. So they're advancing in parallel form. The nature of the contribution is similar and the evolution of each of these processes may be at a negative or positive stage, but the impact of all of this is the following. If we have an unfavorable decision, we will have a cash disbursement of 40% or 45%. If the decision is favorable, the reversal will be positive.

The S System with judgment for May 20. The natural trend is to maintain that modulation. For INCRA, SEBRAE, there is greater risk because the original judgment did not include the modulation. If they maintain the modulation of the S System and non-modulation for SEBRAE and others, INCRA, SEBRAE and Education as the amount represents half of the total provision, we could offset practically everything with tax credits with minor disbursements from cash. Now the worst scenario is that if they don't maintain the modulation, and this hypothesis is quite remote. Okay. In the worst-case scenario, we would have cash disbursement. Now Lucas, I reiterate this. We won't have an economic impact in this change, only a cash impact. And we have provisions.

Let's open the microphone for Marquiori.

Lucas Marquiori, thank you for the clarification. Marcelo speaks about the M&A, and we see the anxiety to carry out deals. Now you spoke about your qualified pipeline. At the last call, we had 8 to 10 companies, BRL 10 billion. We've now gone to 12 companies with BRL 4 billion. You seem to be after bigger fish. Now this anxiety to make deals, doesn't it force you to look for larger deals? Are you thinking of B&A as a bolus of inorganic revenues you have to find every year? If you could perhaps give us a better description of your assets. The second point, still speaking about M&As and related to Guilherme, that is a relevant change. GPS has a highly aligned leadership. As this is a business, the industry of benefits, if we compare this with other players is an enormous industry, but the nature of the business is quite different and the use of the company balance is different. Which is the size of this at present as you can't really split this, what should it be going ahead? And why do you have somebody so senior to run this business? It must be very relevant. So what can we expect from that sector, which, as you said, is a small segment, but that has a different nature and that has consumed the talent of the company. If you could qualify this better for us.

Before Marcelo answers something I did not mention, Marquiori, in terms of the company's structure, it will be something separate. It is not under top. We're creating a financial holding, GPS Finance that will be directly linked to GPS Participações. You will look at these results separately. And I think it will become very clear for you. And you can follow up on that in a separate way.

Okay. Lucas, thank you for the questions. Let's begin with the question on M&A. In those two companies, there's only one with revenues above BRL 1 billion. The others are midsized companies. Well, our approach to M&A hasn't changed. It's opportunistic. We want to acquire companies with a fragmented customer portfolio where the concentration of revenues on a single customer is small and that have a high percentage of net profit and a low EBITDA. At this moment, a very high interest rates, this is the priority, the company we want. We're able to integrate them into the systems. When we eliminate structural overlays, we can increase the margin of the company significantly. And of course, this doesn't burden our leverage. So with these two companies, we're going to think about companies that have these characteristics, companies that offer us the best payback. We're going to buy BRL 2 billion, not BRL 4.7 billion, of course. Some companies will drop out for lack of alignment. Well, that's the pipeline of M&A companies coming in and dropping out constantly. Now the pipeline at present is highly robust, highly qualified, and this will allow us to comply with our goal. We're anxious because we haven't disclosed any material fact yet, but we're confident because of the robust pipeline. Given that robust pipeline, we can think about the companies that will offer us the best return. About Robortella, we carried out that movement. We bought Vale Presente. We didn't have a material fact. It was a minor acquisition. And we built from scratch the company on payroll. Our monthly cost at GPS with food vouchers is BRL 100 million. We spend BRL 100 million every month with food vouchers and nutrition vouchers until August. We're putting together all of these vouchers and migrating them to that company, Vale Presente. Our ambition is to operate more -- to learn more about the business. The same holds true for Vale Consignado, the payroll loans. If I'm not mistaken, the public payroll loans for the government began to operate last April. They've been running for 1 year. Our employees as part of this new program have already captured BRL 300 million. So we want to operate within our own aquarium. This will take 2 years. We're going to learn a great deal. This will impact our system. Once we are confident that the system is stable and we truly control the businesses, we can go on to a second movement of going to the open market. But that is in the future, not now. The GPS Aquarium offers us many opportunities in the business environment.

Let's open the microphone for Luiza, please. I think Luiza has left perhaps. I know there are several calls today. Andre Mazini there.

This is Andre Mazini from Citi. Two quick questions. How do you look upon the organic growth of GRSA if it still has a 10% from the previous quarter or if this has deteriorated? The second question, the cost of personnel and SG&A increased went to 4.4% of revenues, an increase of 20% vis-a-vis last year. I know there are preoperational factors increasing that line item, the implementation of contract, but there must be other factors, which would be a stabilized level going forward.

Let's speak about the SG&A first. We have the effect of the acquired companies that still don't have full location nor the energies we can capture RHMed and Tagg, the direct cost. Tagg has indirect cost as well as other companies. This is not something structural, where once you begin to capture synergies, you go back to having indirect costs more similar to those we have always had. This is a situational problem.

Now the characteristics are different. The gross margin is 40% and they have an enormous team, an indirect team that analyzes exams, links the exams to the worker to ensure there is no fraud. So it's something inherent to the nature of the company. They spend 30% of the net profit on this. We're trying to automate this using AI teams and speaking to employers. But at present, this is an indirect use different to the one we're used to in RHMed. When you remove the impact of the 2024 cohort, principally GRSA, we do have robust growth, perhaps not 2 digits in the first quarter, it's difficult to have strong organic growth, but single-digit growth is there, and we maintain that organic performance that is positive even in the first quarter. We're concerned that when we acquire a company, in our work of qualifying portfolios, we historically lose quite a bit of revenue. We try to negotiate this with the customer. It's difficult to renegotiate. And we prefer to continue on with a deficit in the contract. GRSA is an enormous company, and we're being very cautious, very patient in terms of the renegotiation. Of course, on the other hand, it worsens the GRSA margin.

Let's go on to Daniel Gasparete.

We have 2. If you could further clarify the rate of return and margin for coming quarters. I know it's difficult. I'm under the impression that the net for the second quarter is still a margin at 1.7%. So there's room for the labor expenses to increase. Now simply to understand what will happen in the short term. The second part of the question to speak about M&As, as Marcelo said, which is the risk of having a concentration of M&As in the second half of the year during the electoral period. Will this hold back negotiations? Will this perhaps cause in security because of the scenario? If you allow me a last question in accounts receivable, it grew to [ 83 ]. Is there anything that draws your attention? Is there a trend for a reduction?

I'm going to answer regarding margin and accounts receivable. In the second quarter, the margins will still be pressured because of the cost of food and stabilization of new contracts is still ongoing. The forecast is that in the second quarter, we will continue to have pressure, and it will improve in the second half of the year. This is what we have projected for the year. Well, moving parts, yes, labor issues worsening, SG&A improving, new contracts gaining greater stability, but they will be there in the second half of the year. This is our vision. Now regarding accounts receivable, this is a one-off effect. If you look at accounts receivable, separated of invoice services and services to invoice, the increase was in services to invoice. It's a readjustment when I'm renegotiating a readjustment with the customer. What happens is they will say invoice the way it was, and we'll speak about the readjustment. I will recognize this subsequently. Now part of the increase comes from that. And in the first quarter, this tends to be more concentrated. Additionally to that, we had another effect. When we incorporate a company, we have to change the contract with the customer. I'm speaking of the incorporation of GRSA and what the customer does is to postpone the issuance of the invoice. It's going to make the most of this exchange of contract to make the most and postpone the issuance of the invoice.

And well, the company code has changed. We have to discuss the revenues of incorporation. So all of this leads to changes. So this is a onetime effect, Gasparete, it is not a structural issue. Now about the M&A, a very good point. Yes, it could cause a disruption in our M&A scenario. We want to buy BRL 2 billion and perhaps we will have to increase that stock of qualified M&A to BRL 6 billion. It's a statistical analysis. You have to have 3x more to deliver or comply with your goal. But it is a good point. We may have a bit of turmoil, a reduction in the conversion index this year. That is why it's important to have more options in the pipeline. If we want to buy BRL 2 billion, we have to have BRL 6 billion in the qualified pipeline. And this happens constantly. A company that was left along the way this year, perhaps in 2 or 3 years, they will be back in our pipeline. There's a recycling. They come and they go. This is the pipeline management.

Excellent. If you allow me a comment on Marita's remark, you said the pressure in the short term will continue. Does this pressure increase? Will the margin decrease before it gets better?

No. Incrementally, it will improve. The audio for Gabriel please.

A quick point on your structure to transfer prices in GRSA. How does it work in the catering segment, especially because of the inflation of food and if you have begun to negotiate with customers, the higher cost of food with the customers and if they have shown any resistance.

Basically, what is more common, the cost of inflation, the cost of food is negotiated during the same period of the base date of the collective bargaining for salaries. In midyear, the concentration is in midyear. The collective bargaining for that segment linked to the unions of that sector. Normally, the collective conventions are held in midyear when you are with the customer to readjust the cost of personnel and to speak about readjustment of the food input. This is what happens normally. Well, within the contract, we could have an intermediate readjustment when it comes to the cost of food. It's a contractual provision. But normally, this takes place in midyear. If part of the costs we are incorporating because of the inflation during the period, well, this readjustment will be applied in midyear when we negotiate with the customer.

That's a good point, Gabriel. We're getting used to doing this in GRSA. In security and maintenance, we pass on the readjustment on the month where we have salary increases due to collective bargaining in cleaning, security and services, 70% of the cost is labor. It's difficult to have distortions. In catering, this is an additional complexity we can have a price rebound in the food. They represent 40% of the price of the business with a temporary mismatch with the readjustment, which is what is happening now. So we're still learning how to deal with this business. It's one of the variables.

Well, Luiza wasn't able to ask her question online. She was at another conference call. She asked if there's any update in our reading of the end of the scale 6 x 1. Luiza, we don't have an update. We're following up on this topic. There has been an evolution in Congress. Our vision is the same. We don't apply the 6 x 1 on our payroll. It's not very representative. It attains 3% or 4% of our payroll. But evidently, it could have an impact. And the impact would be a reduction of the workload of 44 to 40 hours. We're following up on this. You gain traction, lose traction. Apparently, there is an evolution. And we're following up on this to see what will happen. In terms of that change that will impact everybody when we speak about a reduction of the workload from 44 to 40 hours, which is an offender and of course, will have an impact on everybody. Very well. We no longer have time. We have no further questions. I would like to thank all of you, and we're at your full disposal for any doubt that you may have. You can speak to us. Thank you very much for your attendance. Have a good day. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]