Grupo Casas Bahia S.A. (BHIA3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

The earnings call for the second quarter of 2024 for the Grupo Casas Bahia. [Operator Instructions] We inform that this is being recorded and will be made available in the site of the company. It is available also the complete material of our earnings call. [Operator Instructions] We're going to continue with the Q&A. We would like to highlight that information in this presentation and eventually statements that are made during the call related to the perspectives of business projections and also goals for the company are premises and beliefs of the administration of the company and also available information. Future considerations are not a performance guarantee. They involve risks, uncertainties, and premises because they are related to future events. Therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or not happen. Investors must understand that economic conditions in general, market conditions, and other operational factors can affect the future performance of the company and lead to results that differ materially from the results presented and also future performances. Today, we have Renato Franklin, CEO; Elcio Ito, CFO and IRO; and also the Head of Investor Relations. ow I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Renato Franklin.

Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our conference to talk about the highlights of the second quarter of 2024 and also of the deliverables of the first year of our transformation plan. Before we talk about the highlights of the quarter, I would like to highlight that the net profit has a nonrecurrent effect in the semester of the conclusion of the reprofiling of the debt of the company. Besides of the cash flow, they also have more than BRL 600 million that have impacted in the second quarter. Besides the profit, it is worth mentioning that our objective was free cash flow. We have a lot of deliverables and a lot of things to highlight. I'm anticipating some deliverables and also to show the trend of the company, knowing that we have more to do. Let's remember that on last year, on August 10, we presented a transformation plan for 2 years of the company. We're still in the first year. We have much more to give and to leave this company healthy, sustainable with capabilities of investment to resume a growth cycle and capture all the potential that this company has. Can you go to the next slide, please? Continuing with the highlights of the second quarter. Let's talk about the free cash flow of BRL 92 million. It's the first time that we have a positive free cash flow in the company in the operation of the company. And also it was favored because of a discipline in our capital stock. Remember that we had a target last year to put this next to 90 days of stock. We have 82 days. So there is a reduction of 15 days over the last quarter. If we take a look at the last quarter of last year, also something important is the health of our stock. We got to 92% in up to 90 days. It means I don't have a low-margin stock that's going to be penalized in the future margins of the company. It is very healthy, and that is why we can run very efficiently. This percentage, besides being a record well above all the moments of the company when we compare to other moments. Sometimes, we had 60% or 70% because we just had bought something for the next quarter. But now we lowered the old stock of finalized debt, finalize the gross margin to have a healthy stock. Also, the monetization of taxes, we wanted to have BRL 100 million per month. We are delivering more BRL 357 million. And our commitment is to improve the operation of the company and then grow. And this is shown by the sequentially improvement of the gross margin, 30% improvement of 1.5 per pp, more discipline in our expenses, a reduction of 9.1% even with inflation and EBITDA margin of 7.0%. It's a improvement in sequence compared to the previous year. And the third point, maybe it's something that we have been really focusing on this quarter, and we are showing this in our balance statements and also with the reprofiling, it really changes the perception of credits in the company. We have BRL 4.1 billion of the conclusion. And we had a fair operation that really reinforces our belief in the future of the company and the strategy adopted to be a specialist player that is focused on the core and what we can do well. And now we capture benefits like an expansion of our average deadline from 22 to 72 months. So there is a reduction of the average cost that's going to impact and also a preservation of cash for BRL 4.3 billion up to 2027 for the second semester of 2024 and also for the next semester, so we can really develop the company. That being said, I would like to speak a little bit about our specialist position and the consequence of this in the numbers. We always see the conversations. Sometimes people are worried. Our focus is profitability, is to give profits and then grow. So we made a decision, a conscious decision to leave from half of our categories, so 23 categories we don't operate, and we have migrated to 3P, and there was less volume and also to review channels that didn't deliver value generation or in line with our target of profitability of the company. So when we take a look at the physical store that is the most profitable channel, we had a reduction because we reduced categories and also close some stores. But when we take a look at same-store sales, we're going to talk more about this, we already recovered. So there was a drop of 9% in the first quarter. And now you see the tendency of growth. But the first thing is we get a better margin. So we made a big review for channels, for example, for B2B. It goes from 35% to 24%. So besides removing categories, we lower the participation in incentives of channels that were not so good. So the margin of contribution got up 0.8%, even with this leverage. So now we're going to really tighten up. We're going to grow physical stores and capture this benefit. And in a second moment, we have some structural moments in the digital area that will enable the conversion rates to be better, and then we're going to prioritize more investments in the growth of digital. And also, we're going to deliver growth as of 2025 in the digital. So we continue to grow but more focus on core categories and adjacent. That is related to our products because we're a specialist product of Elliott Electronics Technology and also furniture. Thank you. That being said, now we want to take a closer look at physical stores. It's a priority for us. As we said, we have the same-store sales that are stable. July is already growing. This graph on the right side, it shows the variation on the last quarter. So last quarter, we had stability July, we grew 1 digit in August, also in the same pace. So everything indicates that now we're going to have a growth for the same-store sales for physical stores. Online, we have a recovery, a lesser gap, but still is to invest and to improve profitability, improve the journey of the client so we can have a better result in 2025. For physical stores, besides the improvement of the gross margin, we have also some leverages that we want to consider. We have 54% of the stores that had an improvement in margin and 12%, it was better than 5 pp. It was a satisfactory and stable improvement. And this generates 16% of growth in the contribution margin in this channel. For second half and some adjustments that we implement, pricing and others, we're still going to improve this channel for physical stores. Here, we have logistics. Logistics is the core of the company. We're still growing in logistics services for fulfillment and also for marketplace. So we grew the clients in 19% and also income 30% and also for transport open sea clients and also losses. And also, we are still evolving on INPS and we are lowering our deliverable time line. And for marketplace, the delivers for third parties, we could reduce a lot of 42% through the qualification of sellers. So we had a sanitation, we chose the best performances. And of course, our focus in core categories, prioritizing those that are going to give service that is compatible with this image that the company has with the clients. Next. With this, also, we have the buy now pay later. It's very important for the company. We are still evolving in our mathematical models. We have advanced quite a lot with anti-fraud tools that have enabled 2 things. One is to improve our nonpayment, also improving the profitability of the company. So we have 8.5%. So it's a very positive result and also to grow the portfolio. Here, it's important to mention how antifraud in digital, and we can use the same modeling as the physical store adapted to digital, improving our penetration in digital. So we have 91% of the municipalities, and we can advance also in the digital. So we are working with new strategies that will allow us to grow in a little by little with buy now, pay later that generate a lot of value to the company. Now I'm going to go into the transformation plans to -- because there has been 1 year that we have presented it. So I'm going to show 2 slides is a checklist of what we said we're going to deliver in the second quarter of 2023. There are some information about our release also informing some of our leverages. Now increase of penetration of services, 3PP, also online credit, 7.9%, and we can now have 10%. It's just a matter of funding and prioritize profitability, increase of 10% income, also revision of operations for more profitability of variable costs, a reduction of 8.5% in the expenses with third-party services, and we can also deliver more gains to the company. So we're going to capture more gains for the second half and also for fixed costs, 10,000 roles reduced, 60 stores closed, the recovery plan working in the stores, improvement in the expenses for leasing, bringing a discipline for the company. And in the logistics, remember that the capture is going to occur in the medium term. And also, we had some distribution centers that were repurposed and also foreclose. So we have already made these 9 distribution centers, and we closed the 4 that we have seen in the previous slides. And we can also talk about capital costs and also cash flows. So we reduced the stock of BRL 1 billion. We reduced BRL 1.4 billion, 82 days of the deadline. The health of the stock, as we said, there is a reduction of losses of 9% and is still improving. The trend is to give even more in the second half about reduction of losses. This contributes to the results of the store. Also improvement of 64% of free cash flow is the best one in 5 years for the first quarter. And also, we still have a lot of things to do as of for the Q3 and also for the other Qs. Also for structure of capita. It was more robust than we thought in the first moment, 100% of the stores with digital biometrics, contracts, CCB, integration of systems, and now favoring the conditions so we can capture [ Fijiq ].It's a little bit late. So we recognize that this is something that we are late, but there is also better than our forecast. So today, we have access to different investments, investors, and we also have commitment to banks until -- to do the [ Fijiq ] until 2 years. We have the follow-on in September of 2023 for BRL 623 million. Also reprofiling BRL 4.1 billion of the debt, also monetization of taxes for BRL 1.7 billion. So we have BRL 500 million more. This is reflected in the cash flow of the company and enable us to have these numbers that are above the business plan leaving the company prepared for the second half. Now I want to show how is this plan? It is worth mentioning that we still have a office of transformation. We still have a consultancy advising company for a strategy that supports it since the beginning that still seeks or other leverages. So we can improve our targets and the benefits of this transformation plan. Last year, we had expected growth of BRL 1.4 billion, and now we are at BRL 1.8 billion, and we wanted to get to BRL 2.0 billion. We saw this macro scenario. We didn't expect the growth but also didn't expect things to get worse, but we expect BRL 2.5 billion of benefits. We're still having some leverages tested to get committed to you. We have for BRL 1.8 billion. We're trying to reach BRL 2.5 billion. In case of some deviations, we can still put this company in a profitability step and that has a positive cash flow and that we can invest with liquidity, maintaining discipline, and having a growth over inflation year-by-year. Now I'm going to go to the next slide for highlighting. Just before going over with Elcio, I just want to talk about the evolution of the stages of the transformation plan. So June 23 to March 24, we focused on cash flow income. And we got to another moment where we saw stability of income that has enabled some bets. For example, services buy now pay later. We still have some leverages and maturity of some leverages that we capture the benefits through all time. And only in the second semester of 2025, we're going to go to a new moment in acceleration of the company. Now I'm going to pass the floor to Elcio with the financial highlights.

Thank you. Thank you, Renato. Thank you, everyone. Now let's give you the financial highlights. I always break in 3 blocks as in the last earnings call. First of all, the earnings of the first half, it's a consequence of transformation plan that we have been conducting with a lot of discipline, a lot of conscience, and we want to maintain the same line throughout the past, and we are correcting and adjusting everything very dynamically with the office of transformation to get our goals. The focus and the consistency is always for the cash flow and profitability. When we focus on profitability, we made adjustments of allocation of capital in the business, focused on categories, realignment of sales channels, pricing, shipments, everything that Renato said in the beginning. And also this set of measures, they led to a lowering of income. So we had to reduce of expenses. And then it was just like Renato said, for this balance of 1 year. This is what we have done very strongly in the second half of last year, where we had the nonrecurrent impacts for the third and fourth quarter. The first quarter, we have observed that this is cleaner. There are nonrecurrent impacts also in the historical level, and we have a gradual improvement. And this semester, the second half objective of the conference also, we have better results compared to last year and also for the comparison of the first quarter for the gross margin and EBITDA, even considering the nonrecurring impacts that we had about the reprofiling. We had a very substantial improvement of [ Lee ] in absolute values in our position to the last year. So indicating a positive trend, a better health for the company, even though there is a very challenging macro scenario that you all are familiar with. So for this positive trend, we're very excited about. A lot of initiatives are still in the maturing phase, and we are improving structurally the results of the company independently of the macro scenario. The second block for a priority for cash flow and liquidity, we ended with a positive cash flow of BRL 92 million, the best quarter in the last 5 years, even though we had to reduce the income. So the revenues, and we had to take a look at some measures to reduce expenses as well to compensate to offset this and it's still better than we have seen in 5 years. We've kept the liquidity that was stable in BRL 2.9 billion. And also how we said the reprofiling the capital structure. This is the first time that officially we show in our statements, and we put this at a level, and we are realizing all benefits. Can we go to the next slide, please? As the title says, increase of margins even with the revenue reduction. So there is a reduction of 13.5% compared to last year because of operational decisions. Also gross margin of 30.7% and the expenses had a reduction of 9.1% in opposite of last year, which is a result of the adjustments and also the budgetary adjustments that we have been doing also considering the scenario of the company and reinforcing a permanent culture of management of expenses in a very spartan way. The EBITDA, 7% that we closed this an opposition of 6.3 million of last year and 6.1% of the first quarter. So that gradual improvement in sequence that we have been saying throughout this time. Financial expenses that reflect a positive impact, nonrecurring of BRL 637 million by the reprofiling and in the accounting norms of CPC 48, we evaluated the reprofiling of the debt. It is fit in a more technical and accounting term of substantial modification of debt. And after analysis, we consider that, yes, there was a substantial modification. And as a consequence, we don't recognize the last debt and we recognize a new debt of fair value. So the difference of old and new obligations generated this accounting gain that is temporary. There is no gain cash flow. This will be reverted throughout time throughout the deadline of the new debenture that's going to be issued. So this is a nonrecurring item. So that is why we have included in a managerial way. And also for the net losses if we didn't have the impact of reprofiling. BRL 37 million positive for the net profit. And excluding this impact, and this loss is of BRL 384 million less than last year. We can go to the next, please. Cash flow positive BRL 92 million. When we take a look at the first semester, we cannot take a look at a snapshot of the first half where we have to look at this as a sequence. Looking at the first half of the year, we have negative of BRL 84 million of free cash flow. But when we take a look at the previous years, and here there's a graph in the middle. In the 4 years, there is a very important difference and now less negative 84% where clearly is not what we want. We don't have this as an objective, but it shows a trend, a sequence that we want to continue with a strong discipline of capital. CapEx, the advance on the tax monetization. I think this team has worked tirelessly to maintain an accelerated pace and also the expenses for labor court and also BRL 2.9 billion of liquidity stable in comparison to the first half. You can go to the next. Level of stocks is stable BRL 4.4 billion compared to last year, 97 days. And also now, we have 78 days in 82 days. So it is very important that a lot of the efficiency in the operations of the company, it is a retail company. So this is in the heart of our company, and it really requires a commercial intelligence to find the right mix, also the logistics team to allocate the stock in the right places in our DCs. So we can continue to have efficiency and better results. Quality of the stock, 92%, that is inferior to 92 days. It's a new stock that's going to rotate. And it's important because we don't take problems ahead of us about all stops and with less rotation as we had last year. I think we can go to the next slide. And also liquidity and leverage. In an official way, our reprofiling organized this way, reduction of BRL 4.3 billion to preserve our cash flow for the next 4 years, BRL 1.5 billion already in 2024. So it's fundamental when we take a look at the liquid index at the short term 6.5x. It's a very comfortable position when we take a look at this indicator. With this, I go back to Renato.

Thank you. You can go to the next. So just to conclude our key messages, our commitment to the evolution of the cash flow every quarter. The results are appealing. We know we have a lot to do. You'll see these results in the next quarters. I reinforce the commitment to continue to improve cash flow, our operational margins every quarter in a step by step. There's not a leap from one quarter to another, but the results will be able to give very good positive results until the end of the year and for next year. And also for capital structure, it was a conclusion of reprofile changes the perception in the numbers of the company. And now we're going to capture the benefits of this in the second half and also a gain of margin. You can go to the next. Now we're going to talk about the vision for the short term. There are 5 points to highlight of what we intend to do from now on. Of course, the leverages are continuing for transformation. But the idea, because I have a positive contribution margin is to capture this. So physical stores, it's our priority, the most profitable channel. We initiated this growth cycle gradually as of 2/8/'24. Digital, we're focusing on profitability, improvement of the journey of the client to resume growth in 2025. Why are these deliverables so important? Because when you have a low conversion, the investment that you do is a very expensive return, and you don't have the profitability. So the more the conversion rates, the more I grow this channel. So yes, it is still growing with specialists, different from generalists, but our role is going to have some resumption in the second half. Also, the buy now pay later department has evolved a lot with anti-fraud tools about the profitability of this product. And now we have a set process that gives lots of alternatives for the buy now pay later. So you will see a growth with discipline, a gradual one of our buy now pay later services. We still are growing profitability in all the services, logistics, ads, others that composes our margin. These are important services so we can advance in gross margin and also EBITDA margin. In efficiency, we still have the opportunity to reduce cost. We cannot do all at once. So we're going to maintain a very simple structure, exploring leverages and also increase this contribution. So in summary, we are prepared for second half and also for the second semester of '25, so I can have a bigger expansion. Now we're going to open for Q&A.

Now I'm going to call Irma for the first question.

I know that you were very clear about this in the beginning. You are focused on profitability and cash flow. And this was very visible in this quarter. But I think that it's important to highlight what you have in the physical stores. And I just wanted to explore what do you think about this consumer demand, the moment of the consumer, and also about the buy now, pay later product. What can you do in this sense? And also, the competitiveness of the company. Second question, maybe it's on the medium term or more strategic one. It was very clear that in the digital, you were focused on the profitable categories, [ ECO ], but we wanted to understand how is your head about opportunities to do the leverage of your logistics network because you have very heavy investments and maybe you have opportunities to do this with partnerships, with horizontal marketplace or other players. So just to understand a little bit of your heads. I know you don't have anything to talk to us right now. But format that you're thinking about?

Talking about the market and the growth of buy now pay later products. I think the market, one of our biggest advantages is when we presented the transformation plan in August of last year, everybody believed that the interest rates would drop and the market would improve. And we say that the company cannot make mistake stakes. We have to be more conservative about our projections. Even our personal belief that we would improve, we didn't put this in any model. And we thought how can we be more profitable in this challenging scenario. And we made great decisions because we made very strict decisions that our peers didn't make and we are now stronger. And we put some pressures for execution. So we are prepared for a challenging environment. So this expansion and the liquidity we have today, it leaves us much more trustful to face any kind of scenario. The competition is still rational because the retail is still very tight about margins. We don't see a structural growth. We see because of the renovation of the products and the white line is growing. We can follow up this growth in the market, and we are growing also in furniture because the company had already a bigger participation in furniture. It was not so much as a priority as other categories. And now we're focusing again, and we are having these relevant growth. And it really fits with what we are talking about, the buy-now-pay-later. When you take a look at the net margin, the challenge is operational leverage because it occupies more space. So the occupation for furniture is bigger. But the contribution margin is quite relevant. So it is a priority for the company to be able to grow in the furniture and white line and with a deeper penetration for the buy now pay later. That's what we're going to do. Cell phones also we are resuming. It's not dropping at the same proportion, but still it's a very challenging market. I think maybe it's a more elastic market where you have to have more discipline because it's where you can have numbers if you want to sell more, it would improve this number. So the market would think it's beautiful, the cash flow, and the sales are more beautiful. But then it comes a cycle where you are stuck. So we're not going to do this kind of thing. We are going to work to give profits and without compromising the next term. We are here with a long-term strategy, and we rather show a real number without contamination and without any liability for the future than the opposite. And also television with some share growth, we are leaders in the market. So we still have a responsibility to keep as leaders and also bringing the advantages for the clients, but not with big events. We hope that this will show more in the second half of next year. We still have some political stability, economic instability, not even just in Brazil but in the world. When we talk about same-store sales, we're going to grow with the buy now pay later. We already have investors discussing traditional outcome. And we're going to study each one of them with a lot of discipline to grow a little by little. And we are interested in a growth plan for the next semester. I think we have a very good competitiveness. I think it's really important for us in the future. And we have conducted a more detailed study. The review of our logistics network. So we don't leave opportunities behind. We are growing a lot. And also, we are having the multi-marketplace and also open sea. You saw here there is a growth in number of clients. And when you bring clients inside this grows gradually because our level of services is very good. The cost by our scale is below market. So I see here there is a competitive advantage that is structural and that will guarantee a long cycle of growth. It is a growth essentially is big, in the past, it was smaller. But in absolute numbers, we have discipline, and we're not going to allocate capital to have growth. We are feeding this business with our own cash flow and also growing this with our own profits. So we see this as a competitiveness value and also for future partnerships, especially for marketplaces that are coming to Brazil that want an infrastructure to explore and accelerate their expansion. We understand that eventual partnerships have the right moment to happen. We have to translate this in value for the company to make sense. Our current focus it's not this one. It is in cash flow, so we can have a profitable operation and a healthy company that gives us strength for these negotiations. And then, yes, we're going to have more competitiveness and have more opportunities in the long term.

Just to add, Irma. Just to reinforce something that Renato said about logistics. This is something that is being allocated. The capital is already allocated and also opportunities of role exist. So when we talk about return on capital, it is already allocated, and we need to use the asset, and it is a strength of the services. So we're really putting a lot of focus on that to optimize this equation on the return on implemented capital. Thank you.

Our next question from Danniela from XP.

I have 2. One is about growth and credit. You talked about the resumption of concession of credit. We see that the buy now pay later is growing small. It's not growing a lot because of the scenario maybe. But I wanted to understand how are you thinking about this in the future? How are you seeing the quality of this marginal credit, and how can we think about the impact of this in your growth? Because you said, Renato, for what I understand, that it is a more structured consumption. Maybe we'll go in the second half of next year. So maybe this will also be helped by the acceleration of credit. So I just wanted to understand how are you thinking about the dynamics of credit versus growth? And then my second question about what you said of a big focus on generation of cash. I think this is quite evident, but is it still helped by the tax monetizations to guarantee this generation of operational cash after investments and also talking about the transformation plan that is in the second phase to have some investments resume growth. So I just wanted to understand how are you thinking about this equation of cash and resumption of growth in terms of investments? Because we can imagine that maybe sometimes there is a generation of cash of the operation, indeed, without these tax points being the main drivers.

Thank you, Danniela. First of all, talking about credit. Our growth, our growth purpose is credit, yes, but also some other categories because the transformation plan for us to do what we wanted to do, we didn't have an ideal stock. So you lose some sales. So only the normalization leads to a gain of share. So especially in physical stores, which is our mainstream. The buy now pay later product is important. What is our leverage? It is not to open a more aggressive rating. What is going to happen in the long-term? We have another portfolio. A portfolio that is way bigger than the one that is now, but it grows in better networks. So the profitability is also less for the buy now, pay later. But when you sum additional sales and contribution margin, this makes sense to the company, okay? Because of lack of funding, I have a price that is above a fair price to improve this allocation of capital. Also, aside from this, we can have this acceleration in credit and we tend to accelerate this in a gradual way, but also looking at average rates and having good business models. Our model is very mature. With 30 days, we can know exactly what's going to be the profitability of that cycle. It's quite high. So it's not a hundred percent but almost, and it really adds up. So when you want to know, over 90 of profitability, it is really discretionary. And this is now our discipline to not want to accelerate before time because of pressures of the market, but do it in a very healthy way so we can have the best 2026 possible and not to have the best of 2025, but still compromising a little bit of the second half. And your second questions is connected. When you take a look at the cash flow, we're not increasing the CapEx of the company, it is still in the forecast. We already forecasted this, but we have a better flow than what it was forecasted. The tax, of course, contributes to our cashflow. But remember that it's paying a legacy of a history of liability. And so it's under control and it ends in 2025. So it's going to lower gradually as of this year. It brings benefits because monetization still continues and you don't have this liability. So the cash flow improves a lot for next year. So this is not our concern. We have a monetization that goes through a fiscal structure of the country. And with the reform, this will go to sales because you change the tax rate, and if the model is going to be the one that we expect. So there are selective bets. We're not going to see impacts in the cashflow with investments. So these are smaller investments and we hope that to have a very short payback. We pilot this in 10, then we replicate this in 40, and then a regional. So what is the biggest difficulty on the leverages? We have a lot. So piloting works really well. The results are good. When you replicate until 40 stores good. When you do roll out 1,000 stores and to train everybody, it is a lot of work. So we have this training of salespeople, we are qualifying everybody. We're doing this little by little. It's better than to do all at once. Because then otherwise, you impact all leverages. But that is why we have this longer term. It happens gradually. And we do this with a lot of conviction that we put this company in the EBITDA margin. So we have a very good level of leverage and also according to the interest rates we have in our country.

Our next question is from Felipe Reboredo from Citibank.

It's so important to have questions from Citi. We wanted to understand about this ultra expenses that you report. I see that it is related to the transformation plan of the company. But we want to hear what can we expect in this -- when it's going to get normal for the operations. So this can also generate cash. And the second point in the strategy of migration of some categories from P to 3P, what is the relationship with the industry? You are a player that always sells a lot of everything. So what are the margins of the industry? There was any kind of impact changing strategies of...

I can start with a second and then I'm going to give you some details about expenses. But yes, our changing position of specialists is reinforce our relationship with the industry, even because the sentiment of the core industry is that everybody wants to sell everything, sells, clothes, beauty, everything that brings flow, recurrence audience, and to be a generic platform. And sometimes the core was left aside. So when you take a look, our relationship with the furniture suppliers, it's very strong, very healthy, electronics also, appliances. We didn't [indiscernible] the deadlines. We need the support from the suppliers because I had to adequate my stock. And now we came back to normal since the first quarter. It took a while to get it right. That is why it's very important to have the Q1 versus Q2 because the old stock was over and then the new stock came and then you lose some sales. So we still have some things to adequate and this agenda is really well in this industry from the P to 3P because you see the assets and you can continue to sell. But of course the metrics, they have an adjustment to do of culture that is going to favor this model. So we're going to have some SKUs, less visibility of demand, it's more punctual, it's more spread. And we have 3P instead of 1P. And we're implementing a different logistics. So we are growing the model of stock where it is advancing my DC. And this allows for a lot of agility for 3P and also to leverage the sales of these core products. So we still really believe that in a year we'll have a more efficient model from the point of view of capital location for us and for the industry. And that will enable us to leverage a little bit more of the operational margins on top of this structural transformation that we have in the company and also in the sector as a whole. Elcio, would you like to talk about expenses?

Of course. Good afternoon. Let me talk about the expenses. And just like to remind you that the second half of last year, these were big items with superior values, given the process of reduction of expenses that we had last year. And this is a process. Of course, we don't expect to have big closings of stores or reduction staff, but gradually, we are advancing in this efficiency. So you still see a little about BRL 97 million. It's much less than last quarters, but we are still advancing. If you take a look at the number of reduction of staff that we look -- also about the closings of last year. We have advanced a little bit more. There are also causes of restructuring. These are marginal, these are matters that we're going to advance gradually, but there is not that big value. But little by little, you can see this bill reducing for the next terms.

Our next question is from Pedro from Bradesco.

I'm going to ask 2 questions. Okay. The first is about stock, is one of the biggest movements of rationalization in the transformation plan and it was this rationalization of stock. And now we're going to important season dates for the next term, especially, well, Black Friday and also for the Q4. I want to understand how you're preparing yourselves in this new context with healthier waging. In what level the stock cycle would be in the room rate here, okay? This is the first question. And also for next question, I thought it was really nice that graph that you show how the contribution margin for the channels are evolving. And if I can take a look from another view on the categories that you are from P to 3P, what are the categories? What is the marginal contribution? How are they improving? Maybe you have some more clear data to have this visibility on the view of categories.

The first, talking about days of stock in the second half, our strategy is going to be committed to focusing on profitability. So we want to have a Black Friday -- of course a Black Friday increases consumption, but we want to have a rational Black Friday. We are going to do this, what the industry invests. We passed on to the consumer, but we want to have a contribution margin that is positive and a positive result at the last line. Because some Black Fridays when you invest with the industry, there was a very low margin. Sometimes there was a negative impact. And then we had to pay the bill in the Q1. So we're going to do this in a rational way. With that being said, yes, we are very much more prepared with the industry. We went through some challenging moments to really make the stock appropriate, but now it's more organized, more planned. So we have a second term capturing benefits that these movements will have. So we want to keep the stock at 82 days. If you get the final days of Q3, we want to think how we can plan the supply with more pace closer to the consumption pace because sometimes we pay for the capital of the stock. So when you try to negotiate the additional payment, for example, we historically we receive in Q3 for example. So there is a discussion, maybe I can receive this in Q4. There is a seasonality that can impact in the stocks at a certain day, but strictly close to 80 days. We understand that is reasonable for us to operate in our business in the way that it is today. For the long term, I expect a reduction in the lay of stock. With this new logistics model, we will say we're able to migrate to full commerce and reduce our days of stock. Taking a look at the next year, we're going to contribute to allocation of capital and [indiscernible] that we want to have this generation of value in the beginning of '25. We understand there is still a lot of focus in the operational part of the company. With that also, we go to our second question. When we migrate categories, the [ now ] categories, the attraction is much less of course. And we reduced also because of incentives. Our 3B that was already 50% related to our core, it is now more than 70% of the core. So it's one 3P of specialists. There are some clients that buy and now that we have our platforms, there are some sellers that are coming to us because they want to have specific actions without cannibalizing the price. And they do a specific action. They put the money market, and they sell, and these are generic categories. So, of course, this can happen and there are some opportunities for sellers. We have more than 100 million clients, we have a lot of audience, but it's not the focus of the company. It's not where we're going to invest our money. Our money's invested in the core products and to generate the best experience for my clients of television, refrigerator. And refrigerator for example, we are putting the 3P to give this client a more transparent product. So the margin of contribution is to reduce the categories that have less margin and also have an evolution in all categories, not just for the front, but the margin of contribution that we call 4 and 5 when in store. What is the difference? So one is front, two, variables expenses, so three, capital stock, four is client, and five includes the occupation of stores. And also digital is in 2 with variable, that I pay, for example, Google cloud. And this contribution margin is evolving all categories, all core categories. The first work is to adjust. So this can be positive before accelerating growth. So that is why we are less worried. And sometimes the market puts a lot of pressure to say, oh, but the revenue, oh, but it's weak. You had to be growing. First, we want to see what improves results and what doesn't. And now what that we know, we say, oh, this can be accelerated more. Oh no, no, this one we have a challenge. So to optimize stock in these stores, optimize the DC, increase payments or see this buy now pay later product. Because of their otherwise, it's very tricky. Some numbers give you the impression that if you sell more, you're going to generate value, and not always. Not always the gross margin will generate value. So we had to be very calm and kind of shield ourselves from the pressures of the market to say we're just going to accelerate what generates value. Now that we are clear and the commercial receives this rhythm, they see the profitability of the category and now they can have tools to say this, I can accelerate this not. Because the goal is really to have the contribution for the EBITDA for the light year of the company. So this is a little bit of our strategy. There are still advances, especially pricing, sorting. We have a lot of opportunities in this industry. We're starting with mathematical models for pricing right now and we're doing for categories. So at the end of the year, we're going to cover 70% of our categories. So it takes a while. It is done gradually because we have to test algorithms. We put the commercial checking, so we improve the algorithm and then we can capture all the benefits to have a dynamic pricing, analytic pricing, the same thing for sorting and other leverages of income that we have.

I just wanted to say that 13.5 of revenue and also BRL 250 million in [indiscernible]. So I think this is what we take a look at the end of the day. The margins improved and also this improved compared to last year.

Our next question is from [Poli] from [indiscernible].

I would like to talk about the gross margin. I think you mentioned this. Now you are going to historical level and because of a better stock and focusing on core categories. Thinking ahead, can you imagine a growth of a gross margin for the next quarters or next year? Thinking about the services and the more adjusted stock, I don't know if still there is an effect on the stock, but some finalization. So I wanted to understand what is the opportunity?

Okay, [ Poli ], thank you for your question. So yes, there are some things that we had that impacted the second quarter, but we have to be careful about the gross margin because what important to us is the [indiscernible]. So other categories have gross margin that are higher. And we don't know what is going to be the answer to not open this. I'm not going to have this to grow. So I have, for example, leverage for furniture and for white lines. If I grow more furniture than white line, of course the gross margin will increase. If I grade more white line and cell phones than televisions because the front margin is very different. So the gross margin we see incremental growth because of participation of services and also buy now pay later products because it's a mix. But some moments, the mix interferes in this gross margin, and it seems like you've lost it. So just to give you an example, when you have Black Friday or Mother's Day, Black Friday, the products that we sell more is television and cell phones, it's not furniture. So this affects obviously the participation by categories, and this distort the number. So why am I saying this? Because you have to consider when we take a look at the EBITDA margin, there is an improvement and the EBIT is also important every quarter. So I know gross margin was always used, but I have talked a lot with my commercial staff and sometimes they're going to see gross margin and we'll penalize another, and they will generate value, but the margins are less. So we have to forget this indicator. Oh, but the market, no. What is important is the net income of the company. So I have reinforced constantly this with our commercial area. And also with the industry because sometimes people know that I will have to pay a lot installments, but people always wanted to have this. I don't want gross margin, I want to have the net profit, the net income. So this is one of the challenges of execution at the long term. I think this is a cultural change for our team, for the industry, for the suppliers, and also for the capital market as a whole to really not look at so much at the gross margin and look at the EBIT so we can see the earning before interest in taxes and we have more granularity to improve projections. Why don't you take a look at the gross margin? It is improving in the incremental, it's not wrong. And this is what's going to make a difference here.

Now our next question is from [ Santander, Vitor ].

So first is the profitability of physical stores. I think this shows how the adjustments may have a potential to improve. But I wanted to see how much you have captured from these changes and also from another plan changes in this channel specifically. And also the second about services. I think that you show as a priority for short term. I just wanted to see if you can tell me about the affected services and also the margins about services.

Thank you, [ Vitor ]. So let's talk about the store margins. Okay. We have the potential of having operational margin. When I grow for stores, this is quite relevant because the cost is given, so at least lower the costs. We have leverages of productivity, so we could grow 19% is the relevant number. Then I believe there is still more 20% of targets to bring productivity for the sales team. This also shows gains and increases the margin of the channel. Of course, the pricing and sorting leverages, they end up improving the e-commerce and physical stores. I recognize the bigger opportunity is in the e-commerce to bring a better image because it's more automatic. But it also has a small gain for the store. So we see this growing. And the leverage that is important is the percentage of the buy now pay later. This help us to increase the marginal contribution in stores. I don't think there is no other leverage that says, oh, there is going to be a transformation from one term to the other, is step by step. We do this every quarter, but if we take a look at this in one year, we hope to have this margin of 3 per central points better so we can have a healthier stage. When we take a look at the services, there is a lot of margins. So we have 50% to 60%, retail media has 80%, so it's very strong. It's growing in line with our plan and there is a transformation for the first term, second term. But of course this in absolute numbers impacts more next year than this year, and it's growing. And also logistics services that here doesn't have so much of a contribution in the company right now because we are reinvesting the results. So the capital is being allocated in it. So the result for multi-market logistics, we are reinvesting in the business. We are talking about more clients and we're growing the company to have a stronger base and to dilute logistics as a whole. So it's a more long-term result and it's a reinforcement of the competitive advantage that's going to be really the difference when we talk about partners in 5 years, 10 years. It's going to be very important to have a logistics structure that is even stronger now than it was in the past.

Now our next question is from Nicolas from JPMorgan.

We wanted to understand the dynamic of marketplace. We've seen this that is increasing and we want to understand the third grade path and also penetration of services and other initiatives for the pay grade up.

Okay, Nicolas. Good question. So here we have potential. Yes, stake rate us, we are adjusting. And I don't know if it's clear, but this market also works with incentives who are encouraging your seller to have discounts. And we also offered discounts for a take rate to be more attractive for the consumer and also to leverage income. Of course, we were working very little in this front. We had 3P a little bit left aside. We are focusing on perfecting the company. So it improves a little because of the discipline on the discounts and the adjustments for what generates value for the company. But the opportunity is really good. And we're going to replicate the pilot in the second term using our AI because we're not going to work with the -- 3P is not the core of the company, but we had a tool that is initially for our salespeople to improve the sales for the physical store. And in this tool, it is going to work as an assistant of the seller. Showing this product, you are selling this, and it's not going to sell more because of this elasticity. If you put the price, if your price is the best price. So we have shipment, you have delivery day. So if you invest this in media, it'll go to first position. So it gives you an estimate of turnover. So we are structuring. At least it's a small structure to take care of this business because there is an opportunity to leverage volume and to contribute to the services of the company. When I talk about logistics, it is not about only our fulfillment but also multi-market place. So I'm growing with sellers that are working with other platforms. It is not the strategy of the company to bring more clients and audience for this market. But in the take break core, there's space. We see a potential of growth and it's going to continue to increase every quarter with the improvements we're going to make. It's our commitment. I think it's going to generate value and also trading growth for profitability and focusing on the bottom line of the company.

Our next question is from [ Wellington, Bank of America ].

I have 2 questions. First is about the reversion of BRL 37 million. You understand that although it's not a cash effect, can we talk about the rhythm and the timing of the reversion? And also my second question, the working capital, the shorter working capital, how can you see this in the future? There is a chance of refiling this kind of debt.

Thank you for your question. Indeed, it's a BRL 637 million. So it's just an accounting impact. It'll be reverted in the deadline of the venture that's going to be issued. So it has a long deadline and it's in line with the payment that it has originally. So it's going throughout time. When you are adding the interest rates of the new debt, you are also lowering the BRL 637 million. So it's going to have a way in the expenses, the reversion of throughout 72 months, what is the time of the operation. The cost and the idea is to have attendance that the reprofiling is consolidating. Now we have a new standard for credit lines for the creditors and this will improve little by little in the next [ few years ]. Of course we have more flexibility in terms of finance. And now as the process is consolidating and formalizing, we are going to gradually improve the earnings.

Our next question is Andrew from Morgan Stanley.

Maybe just 2 items related to stores. The first you mentioned the finishing of the store closure plan. I'm curious after that if you can give an update how you're thinking about the store base, whether you think need for any more closures or other areas where you'd look to open. And then second, I know you touched on it, but the same store sales acceleration into July and August. Any more detail around what you think's driving it? If it's a comparison base, if it's the consumer, where you are in the transformation color on both would be very helpful.

First question about physical stores. We had some closings. How is this in the future? We see that there is not a need to have structural adjustments. So we can have a punctual specific closings. But we have already established our structure according to also the profitability rates that we have defined as targets. We see that the expansion of the stores, it will happen more in the long term. We can have yes, opening when I say this. As of '25. Okay. Then we're going to share in an opportune moment what is our expansion plan in more details. We can open specifically more stores. For example, at [indiscernible] store we have a mega store. It is a change in the store with a new model. And our expectation was about 15% of growth and we are growing 40% with 15% increase of ticket. So there is a goodwill of the suppliers. So we can open more stores in this concept with a better experience, with higher ticket that it will also have bigger impact in the higher classes. And when we talk about same source sales in the growth, obviously, there is a factor of comparison base that helps us, because we had this in the Q3 and Q4 and we don't have this anymore. And we have an improvement in the operational. In the Q1, we had a lot of rupture. Q2 improved, but it's still not perfect. And we ended Q3 much better than we started. So with this, we capture in the Q3 already with a stock that is already balanced. And from Q3 on, it depends on our execution capacity to really leverage the revenue because we really believe in this portfolio of customers. We are for example, receiving this and we're using WhatsApp. We are calling clients to the store. We, okay now he bought a television, now we're offering a new television, bigger television, oh, look at this sale. So we really believe in this intelligence of what to offer working also next best offer to each client. And obviously when the conversion is better, the seller is more engaged. So the engagement is high and the challenge is to think how can we roll out to the other store so everybody can have the performance of the best sellers. Because we train this team, it's happened gradually and we see that there will not be a transformation in the short term, but we'll have more and more improvement in the next terms.

Before before our final remarks, I would like to thank for the presence of everyone and to also say that the Q&A questions posed in the chat, we're going to answer them later on. And I think for final remarks, please.

So everyone, I'd like to thank you. For final remarks, I'm very happy with the transformation. If you take a look at one year ago and ask anybody that was in the video, how is the cash flow of the company or the balance regarding operational margins, I don't think anybody would have the scenario. So everybody's happy. It was a bold plan that we have designed. We didn't have a pushback of the strategy, but we were challenged about the capacity of to execute it. And we knew there was a risk for this operation and it didn't occur. So I'm very happy with the execution and the management is aware of the challenge that we have ahead of us. It is a challenge that is bigger now than in the future. So the first year would be discretionary. It's to stop doing what is bad. And we are very excited about deliverables. So now we're going to calibrate what is going to happen more. So now we're going to be doing everything to fulfill our commitments. And we're going to be able to deliver Q3, Q4. And we're going to be updating the plan, reviewing the plan, and put the company at its best potential. So I am very excited. Every time we take a look at the level of opportunities that we have in retail, it is quite high. We still have a lot to do, a lot of work to do, but we are very excited and more and more I get more enthusiastic with the potential of our business of Grupo Casas Bahia, and with the infrastructure and logistics, and also with the buy now pay later product. So thank you so much for your trust. I really like to thank my team. It was not easy to have this, but we are in a very consistent path, very optimistic path for the short, medium and long term, especially. So big warm hubs, and we are at your disposal for our IR department. Thank you.