Grupo Mateus S.A. ($GMAT3)

[Interpreted] Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the earnings call of the first quarter of 2026, Grupo Mateus. [Operator Instructions]. We'd like to let you know that this earnings call will be provided on the company's IR website where you can also find the full material for the earnings release. You can also download the -- we want to also highlight that the information in this presentation and possible statements that could be made during the earnings call related to business perspectives, projections and operational and financial targets at Grupo Mateus represent the assumptions and beliefs of the company's management as well as information that is currently available. Future statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events. They depend on circumstances that could not occur. So investors must company that general economic conditions and margins as well as other operational factors may interfere the future performance at Grupo Mateus and the results that differ materially from those listed in such forward-looking statements. Today, we want to count on the presence of Mr. Ilson, who's the Founder and Chair of the Board; Jesuino, the CEO; Felipe, the VP and Investor Relations Director; and Sandro Oliveira, the VP of Operations, Logistics and Commercial. Now I'll pass the floor to Mr. Ilson.

Good morning, everyone. First of all, I want to start off with our earnings call by thanking God for the opportunity to be here today as well as our CEO, Jesuino, our VP Tulio, our VP, Sandro and welcome, everyone, to our first earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. We are here to share some important points about our business and tell you that our main focus for this year is the efficiency. And I think we had a wonderful expansion effort in the last few years. Now we are once again looking inwards to the company and our focus is efficiency. We have been working on a marathon looking at assessing all of our units, all of our routes that were open, and we've been working group by group, supervising each department, each director, each supervisor with cash and carry, we've been really thinking about this model. And we've been looking in-house into our stores and everything that was already created so far as well as the services we've been providing, understand what we can do to offer a 2.0 cash and carry, right? What can we do to think out of the box within the categories we already work with and how we can verticalize this within the categories and bring profitability above all. And we've also discussed internally, and we've been thinking about a lot of stuff. And this is our focus and way of doing things. So within the provision, we have 5 directors in Maranhão, 1 manager and 21 supervisors, so 84 stores there, where we've been discussing detailed perspectives on the business model and how we can gain efficiency, efficiency in the logistics and the expenses and how we can bring more profitability in each business unit. In Pará, we have a director, 2 managers, 6 supervisors and 39 stores. In Piauí, we have a director, 2 supervisors and 11 stores. So within these 3 states that are more mature, we can see how to search for even more efficiency. And with the Armazém brand, we have one director. And in Maranhão, we have 167 stores. In Pará, we have 66 stores and in Piauí, 13. So -- it's a business model and channel that was created to occupy this space and has also been gaining relevance in our business. And then in regards to governance, we continue to evolve with the arrival of our new Board members and our fiscal council and some that were also referred by shareholders and investors really thinking about with our mind as much as we can. And we've been adjusting and adapting this to our way of working. And this -- we also have capital allocation, right. This is something we've been closely looking at with our engineering team, and we've been a lot more rigorous as we consider new store openings, and we've discussed this intensely with Tulio and Sandro. So the stores we're opening really need to be right on check and carefully analyzed and patiently assessed. And then on this slide here, I want to show you the 9 stores we opened in '26. Just to give you an idea from these 9 stores, 5 are really focused the retail stores, which is the Teresina store. It's a store that already starts off with a potential for revenue generation and margin. And then you have Pasoslumia in Maranhão, one of the stores to sell BRL 5 billion or BRL 6 billion. This is already considering a tier that is above 20% or 25%. So it's a retail store that already starts off on a rush. And in the second month, it already led to excellent results. Then the Po store that was the last one we opened from the smaller units. And this is also Maranhão in a city called Iris. -- a little retail store, really well positioned and located. -- we have an employee team that's really lean and the store already starts off with a lot of efficiency. Then you have the Pará that is also pretty much equivalent to the first store we had, which is like service Hiper. -- so it really tends to occupy space. So real high revenue and a lot of services, and it can be really in 123, which has an EBITDA above 9%, if notistaken. And then also the Spazio stores all in the roll stores. And you have stores which in that also bring in a lot of services and add revenue and the Spazio stores as well we are sure on the right path and that it's a channel in our business that we can scale up on we're prepared. We have a logistics structure specific commercial structure and operational structure. And now we feel ready to verticalize this channel because we understood and check this, and we have a real broad market ahead of us. And on the next slide, in our DC, we're thinking about a way to optimize this efficiency, logistical process for the company as a whole. And how can we perform the integration of our distribution centers with the new business, right? So this is very important because we need to emphasize, right? We've always said that our company is a logistics company that by chance has stores, right? And now it's really the moment for us to gain this efficiency because we're plugging into all of our business. And as I was mentioning, for the cash and carry, you can improve all of the categories a lot. And with the DC, that's the same case. So how can we increase productivity with less costs and more efficiency this store, we have many different business businesses that we need to separate per unit and look at in detail and make our business more profitable. We have our condo stores that are going to be supplied. We have the Electro stores, which are delivering at the POS stores, the Hiper for services as well and will also be deliver unit. And then we have all of the food line DC. Also structuring within our DC, and this is something we discussed broadly, a new area to receive business in our DC with higher margins and more added value, such as health products and other business opportunities that could also bring in more volume and more margin. And with this, we have the certainty that we're going to be diluting costs. On the next slide, we have the expansion stores. We have 5 projects underway. And we also have stores that are focused on margin store. Here on the left side, it's a store with a revenue of BRL 6 million to BRL 7 million. But just as those that I mentioned previously, they bring in a lot of profitability. So from now on, as I've already mentioned, all stores and especially the smaller stores have the strategy of having one neighborhood where you have relevant supply. And here, we're already bringing in these stores also strategic stores that can attract more volume. And you can see that they're also defined very carefully. And finally, to wrap up, -- this is the current scenario in our first quarter, 228 stores split by 6 different formats besides our Electro and our cash and carry and the promising condo stores, which are already 88 stores Armazém brand, which became very relevant. So these are brands that can still become even more. We have been finishing the learning curve for a lot of these brands. We really have the certainty that in the next years, we're going to these investments in and even the Armazém brand and Electro as well. We optimize some stores and then it became super profitable for our business. I always used to talk about this Electro is a complementary category. So I think we finally found for this channel. And so with all the channels, we can think about this 2.0 cash and carry and all of these brands can really grow a lot more. And is one of these points that we worked on, and we had a lot of energy dedicated to this. But now it seems we really found the optimal level, and we've always been searching for the best in these cases. And now we've really started to merge this all really search for ways to improve our results even more. That's what I wanted to share now and I'll pass the word on to our dear CEO, Jesuino.

Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to quickly share some of our main indicators in this first quarter, and I wanted to start off from left our gross revenue, we reached BRL 2.7 billion of gross revenue in this quarter, and this is a growth of 13%. Now once again, this is consolidated with Novo Atacarejo ever since the last quarters, we've been sharing this. And this consolidated balance sheet, you can observe a little more below the first block that there's this increment in revenue of BRL 1.3 billion in this quarter when we compare with the same quarter last year. And in the second block, we have our same-store performance. So we can notice about 7% in same stores. And here, I wanted to share with you guys some of the main impact that the same stores suffered in the first quarter and no doubt at all to make these results keep up at this level, that's a little more pressured. It's really important to share the macroeconomic scenario that we've all been experiencing and watching in the last quarters of 2025 and in the first quarter specifically. The scenario is pretty much the same. And maybe I don't have to talk about all the points that are more like macroeconomic that I've been experiencing. You guys have been seeing this closely. And with this macro scenario and pressure in the pockets of consumers in this first quarter, we see a big impact on deflation, especially in commodity categories in the first quarter. I wanted to share with you that if you look at like the rice category in the first quarter, this category drops at 2% in the market in the Northeast, very significant impact. We know about the in Brazil as well, we see a category that I like to share the level the market you look at sugar category in the first quarter, the North more powder. So we have this scenario that is very pressured and you have this deflation scenario as well that we've been watching. So ever since the second semester last year, the market has been slowing down a lot in Brazil and in the Northeast as well. That's pretty much the case. And when we look at the first quarter of 2025, the market in the Northeast was growing in total 2 digits, right? And then we noticed that the total growth in the market has been kind of lowering, it drops to like 5 and then it reaches a level of 1 percentage point of total growth in the first quarter. So we noticed that there's a slowdown. Just as there was a slowdown in revenue, you also have a slowdown in volume growth. In the first quarter last year, the Northeast market was growing 3 percentage points. In the second semester, this kind of flattened out, which is an example of what happened to the revenue, finally reached an impact of minus 1% growth in volume in the first quarter. So this is a scenario that you have all been watching, and it's been pretty much the same in this first quarter. We were noticing that now the morning, there are some important regions like even in the Midwest, where you have the cash and carry brand in the Northeast that drops almost 4 percentage points in same-store sales in the Northeast -- in the Midwest, sorry. So it's a very specific scenario we've been experiencing and we're in this context, right? So I think here, you have an important factor in the same-store performance is I just mentioned. There's another factor, which is also significant for the same-store performance, which is especially in this first quarter where we had to implement a measure something we planned because we have an operation that is very relevant within our business, which is telesales. You all know about the importance of operation. We service over 50,000 retailers in the operation is very important. cash and carry has telesales as well that represented almost 28% of the revenue for these cash and carry stores with the macro scenario we've been experiencing and discussing over the last quarters. And so this has become more speculative. And so that has always brought margins that are very low and we understood that it was a sale that would start showing value and then we decided to balance this out a bit with this -- and so we start prioritizing more of the gross margin. So although there was a pressure in the volume, we started noticing that there's a cycle, right, because we push it downwards, margins were more pressured, more destructive. Volume wasn't coming in that ended up generating competition among us. So that's when we started to see this was a detractor factor, and we started shifting a bit of a strategy. We cut down a bit on these store telesales and in a way where this has a margin impact, but we believe that in mid to long the market is going to once again find itself in this. We know about the importance we have in more mature markets like Maria. Our stake is important relevant share. And we believe that over time, in the mid- to long term, the market will accommodate again, and we'll have a healthier share. So this movement, we believe in the long term will be very positive. But no doubt, it did contribute a lot to this same-store scenario we're looking at along with the macroeconomic scenario we're experiencing. So the positive side on all of this, the upside is that there's an important gross margin impact in the company, and it's very significant and when you look at comparing with the same period last year, this quarter of an increment, as you can see, this third pillar of 0.70% in our gross margin, that was super significant for us and very relevant. So if we add the brand and we compare with the fourth quarter of 2025, we have an of almost 1 percentage point. So we believe our strategy was assertive and it really reached what we expected and our challenge to Mr. Sandro Oliveira is to find this optimal point, right, between the gross margin, sales and expenses, and we're definitely going to find it, right, because this is in our hands, and we can control this, right? So this margin point here, we've been also carefully controlling our stock levels, working capital really controlled and very consistent and evolving quarter-over-quarter. And Tulio will share this with a little more clarity and the evolution. We're really confident, and I want to take advantage of Mr. Sandro Oliveira. And so we can have a profitability strategy and support of the trading -- and so we would be able to use our multichannel approach and adjust and really consider this new market reality. And so we could also consider our EBITDA margin and it's an EBITDA margin. This would also be a little more pressured than the last ones we've been reporting. And here, I think it's worth saying that no doubt at all this entire scenario, this shift in strategy that we had with telesales and the macroeconomic scenario, there's a significant weight in this EBITDA margin, no doubt. But I also want to remind you all about the impact that there was in this first quarter of expenses. It was an important impact, and we've been working on this topic strongly because the company was projecting an expansion level for growth, and we noticed that the market unfortunately slowed down a bit. So we've been adjusting this expense level. Tulio will share a bit more of the evolution we had there, and you'll see the results we had. I want to thank our team also for their dedication and discipline for this topic. So no doubt here, this macro scenario and the shift has an important weight and the impact on expenses also has a relevant point to pressure this EBITDA margin. And we know that Novo Atacarejo, we have an important impact also in the EBITDA margin because there -- it's an operation that is relatively new compared to ours. And here it suffers a bit more because Novo Atacarejo also, we implemented this kind of counter policy, and that was even more intensive because we had -- we were expecting the specificities of the local market. We had a different telesales model. So no doubt, the 3 states there are really experiencing one of the most important moments in the integration because in the first quarter, we finished all of the topics related to integration. We are a single company now, a single system, a single commercial area. And literally, we are a single company, right? And so these movements, no doubt have a significant weight in all of this. But I'm super confident about all the planning that has been worked on with the team there at Novo Atacarejo, and I really want to thank everyone for their support and say that I really believe in the strategy. And I think Godring will start sharing this evolution of the scenario. Then when we look at our EBITDA margin and we exclude these effects of expenses and the effects of the 3 states, when we include these elements, we delivered an EBITDA margin of 7.4%, which is at a level that's very similar to what we've been reporting. To also break down this information and will understand what this EBITDA margin is without the effects I mentioned. Now from an EBITDA margin perspective and our results, we want to find this optimal dimension so that all of these variables, right, Tulio, and Sandro Oliveira, all these points that are in our hands, we're carefully carrying for. So if we look at expenses, we have an important fact being worked on. If we look at margins, that's an important point as well. And you saw this effect in our balance sheet and working capital, another important fact as well. And whatever we can work on, we're going to continue to do, right? But the macro scenario is kind of under control, but I wanted to share a bit of what is in our hands to control. And finally, our net profit, BRL 213 million. So I wanted to just quickly share these points with you, and then I'll pass the word on to Tulio, our Financial VP, and he's going to break down a little more details on the information.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your presence. And we're just going to quickly go over Slide #10 where we have -- sorry, Slide 11. We have the consolidated gross debt of the group added up to BRL 10.7 billion in the first quarter. As you've already seen, I brought in the main elements, same-store indicator minus 7.3% -- and here, there's an important point on the combination of the macro elements along with the decision of bringing in more profitability, not only efficiency and all of this led to a reduction in the sales levels of our counter operations. So the main 2 elements that contributed to this were the macro elements and also the sales of the Counter. And so as Jesuino mentioned, you have the effects of the operational deleveraging, which is a little tougher. You have a lot of areas maturing. And so for the macro effects, this would represent about 30%. And then we have the effect of the Counter -- so you have the intensity of this that was stronger. So on the right of the slide, we can see the numbers in regards to the gross debt and margins. So in this first quarter, we closed at BRL 2.5 billion, a growth of 16% compared to the same period last year. And here, you can see an important point, which is the gross margin in regards to the fourth quarter of '25. We go from 22.5%, and that improves this. And then when you see this Grupo Mateus universe without the other 3 states, it goes from 23.7% to 24. right? So it's really in line with the strategy. We've been adopting the focus on profitability. And so we've observed price elasticity that is very low. We performed some tests like this, and we're really convinced that it's important to think about the operational expense and also the profitability and gross margins. But at the moment, this is also kind of causing some competition against the itself. And so we brought in an interesting point. We have this support also in the profitability agenda from now on. So moving on to the next slide, #12, we have the numbers related to operational expenses, adding up to BRL 1.6 billion in the first quarter. And here, we can also share here how the company has been working in a very structured manner with efficiency gains as well on this operational expense segment. We created this efficiency committee with the President leading this committee. And we perform a product analysis and then these possibilities to store functions and administrative functions. So all of the main productivity analysis that we are working on. So that includes this kind of control productivity, your productivity as well as other tower analysis of the administrative areas. And so all of the main blocks are being worked on and analyzed. So I think the numbers in March for operational expenses really reflect this behavior -- in March, it was already 1 percentage point, almost less than the average in the quarter when you include the effects of the terminations and contract terminations of people that were fired. And then that, of course, brings in as difficult where you have a lot of price elasticity and where it's really difficult to bring in volumes, fundamental to bring in the expenses due to the pressure of operational deleveraging, right? So it's a topic we're really looking at. And from now on, as Jesuino mentioned, it's all about looking at the balance point of sales and margins and fitting in the expenses at the right levels, considering the size and volumes of the operation. Then on the next slide, we have the numbers related to the EBITDA adding up to BRL 542 million in the quarter. When you exclude the effects of this, it would be BRL 69 million. And then you have an important point here, right? When you look at the EBITDA margin at 5.8% and restate mentioned with all of the dynamics that's been working that's been occurring there when it comes to integration and systems and team, you have a lot going on there in the beginning of this first quarter and the EBITDA margin for the states, excluding the states in the business combination would be at 7%. When you eliminate this topic, it goes to 7.4%. But I think here, as I mentioned, we have a big point with the next semester is how we manage this pressure, right, in the top line, finding the optimal point for the margins and the correct point for operational expenses. Then on the right side of the slide, you can see the net income points. We closed the quarter at BRL 213 million. And so you have 2 different pressures, right? One coming from depreciation due to organic growth throughout the last 12 months. and the lease expenses related to the growth and the growth of the operations. So here, you have an important point. When we look ahead in Slide 14, we can observe the working capital numbers. And here, we're really looking at this profitability and working capital ratio. So the numbers in this quarter represent a significant improvement, as Jesuino mentioned, an improvement of 16 days, and we closed the cash conversion cycle at 40 days. This is -- it reflects of intense work that has been going on in the last quarters and years. This is a big movement for the commercial team and commitment from -- as you've seen every quarter, this is a bit of this journey, right? So the focus now is discipline. When we look at the stock numbers and supplier numbers, we observe and see that there's still an opportunity for efficiency gains. And we work every single day to bring this stock number closer to supplier numbers. We know the importance of this for the company's cash consumption and return rates as well. So we're really focused on this. The work remains, and it's been consistent and ongoing. And an important point is that there are no additional things in regards to Actually, the receivable anticipation was smaller than what it was in the fourth quarter. So that does not exist as a factor, right? So this is a topic we've really been fighting into, and we're going to continue to do so from now on. On the next slide, you can see the numbers of the net debt and the cash generation. So it was a quarter with cash generation that was very significant, BRL 323 million in the quarter. And here, you have BRL 70 million from sales of fixed assets and all the rest comes from the working capital operation. And so here, you can see this diligence, consistency and getting back to the guidelines. becoming a company with less debt, so becoming less and less leveraged and clearly having the growth happen with our own cash. So from this profitability agenda, we talk about results and earnings, but there's a driver we look at a lot as well. so we can understand the cash flow of the company. And it's an agenda we're closely looking at to make sure that at moments that are difficult and years that are challenging, the company can keep up with a strong balance sheet and financial quality. And so on the next slide, you can see the CapEx. I think Ilson gave us a clear guideline here. when it comes to any kind of capital allocation. And this is a topic that we've been closely looking at. It's related to profitability and reduction. And so I think the CapEx, it's been -- and so that's going to bring an important achievement when we show the stores that have already been opened, right, throughout 2026. These are the main points. And from now on, the team is all available to answer the questions you may need.

[Operator Instructions] So our first question is from Vitor

First question is about the reduction of 9% in the amount of employees versus September '25. And we want to understand if we have more employee reductions planned up ahead. And the second question also is during the conference, he has mentioned on the integration with Novo Atacarejo. You can see that this was 100% complete or if we should wait for this in the next quarters and consider any switching systems or any other adjustments in regards to this topic? And finally, in the working capital, the stock dynamic kind of surprised this in regards to the top line context. If you can explain the details of the main drivers for this dynamic, we can -- we want to thank you.

Thank you for the question. We had an important reduction. We have a very rigorous discipline, trying to be the more assertive possible. The store operation doesn't have much of an error margin. And so if you reduce well, we had an important -- and we don't have so we understand that we need to find this optimal point between the margin and sales. Of course, there are other expenses that we're going to continue to work on. That's kind of what our mind is like at this moment. In regards to the integration with Novo Atacarejo, Sandro Oliveira has been watching this closely. And in regards to the working capital, I'm going to anticipate this, but I think working capital, we've implemented a lot when you look at the different layers of our cash conversion cycle. So you can -- and we understand that there is an important fact still with a mismatch in the supplier payment terms, and we want to keep this up, but we have to be very prudent and careful, and we want to share this. But we still see that there's a path to be searched for. I'm going to pass this on to Sandro Oliveira, and he's going to pass this on --

And so Peter, thank you for the question. And the answer is, well, in regards to systems, there's nothing else to invest in. And so we integrated the back office and all of the synergies, the trade marketing and we've been integrating ever since mid-second semester of 2025 and more towards mid-third quarter of 2025. We worked on the integration of the systems. We've been carefully working on these shifts and calculating the impact of the business models and how we operationalize this. And -- we were calculating each of these movements and looking at the results. But in February, we had all of the systems turnarounds at our stores and at our cash and carry stores. They finished now at the end of March, right? So all of the stores and distribution centers are already operational. With the system, we decided to keep and up ahead now, we're going to really keep looking into the synergies that we have for execution. We still have a lot of commercial things to conquer, a lot of lessons learned. And we'll be able to look at this jointly with a lot of opportunities so we can be even more efficient. And that's where we're at when it comes to all of the integration and this movement with Novo Atacarejo.

As a quick follow-up on Jesuino's answer on working capital. I understand this is a gap of stock days and suppliers. But in Q1, specifically, what was done there to be able to deliver this positive result with stock? Was there something like specific done that should be explained?

Well, here, Vitor, what we did was we implemented a big part of our compensation that was geared to working capital, and we dedicated a lot of energy in this sense. And we've also been -- of course, we're focused on sales a lot and this indicator. So what happens here and what we've been implementing were just day-to-day measures, maybe in a more intense manner. But especially what I think here happened is we had support from our commercial team in this dynamic. The team has really been dedicated to all of this. And so -- this is kind of what we've been doing. And I think this indicator, Vitor, really considers this maturing period now as we are conscious of these new parameters. And so I'm super confident that this is our recurring level. And from now on, we want to evolve even more. So that's kind of the view, and I hope that was clear.

Our next question is from Lucas at Santander.

I think it was really clear through your presentation, there's been this shift in focus. But in your business, it's really difficult to keep the margins when you see the top line being challenged so much as it has been. So I want to understand if you could bring in a little bit more about the magnitude of what this affected in the same-store sales and break this down into what were like external factors or food deflation, drop in volumes and the endogenous factors, with the ending of the Counter sales channel and also besides getting into the magnitude of the initiatives that could be impacting these challenges so we can get back to growing in a quicker way regardless of macro? How do you think about reversing the situation?

Great question. Thank you. I'm going to start off here and feel free to contribute as well. Lucas, I think that in regards to Counter sales and the share of this business and the macro scenario here, this is a very significant the wholesale Counter sales. We reached almost 28% of our operation. in cash and carry taking place through sales or Counter sales as they call it, but it was almost 30% at one point in time. So I know if we have to divide the first point is on this side, excluding the perimeter of the Novo Atacarejo, the importance of this is 50% of the same-store dynamic and the other 50%, no doubt, is the macro scenario. So this is kind of the stake it has, right? Then at Novo Atacarejo, maybe you have a different scenario because there the Counter telesales had a more acute impact as we had to respect the regional specificities. And so there, I'd say it was about 70% almost coming from this movement and maybe 30% from the macro scenario, right? What's important here, Lucas, is considering the significance in the market share in the region, in some way, we have a margin that we can balance this out a bit because we have a very important relevance, right, when it comes to price parameters. So here, you have an important factor. And what I say here is this is going to contribute significantly so that once again, we can try to balance out margin and growth in volumes for the next months, considering this relevance we've had here in the multichannels where we operate. And so our strategy to reverse this is really in this area, right, using profitability gains, looking at this dynamic and the macro scenario and trying to balance out these 2 fields. And that's basically what's in our minds, right? Our team is very committed to this. And we know about the importance of this same-store dynamic for the business. We are not comfortable with this. And on our side, this is an indicator that is very focused on, right, maybe in the company in the last few days. And so that's kind of what's in our mind here, Lucas. I hope I answered.

But just a comment here, Jesuino on your point. Margin is we can control, we achieved this. And now we're going to be channeling this to some other channels. And it could be that having the external wholesale shifting more to food service or retail, spend a little more of the margin on retail with more campaigns, et cetera. But we're searching for this balance solve the sales gap, right? But we've been really looking into where we can reinvent ourselves in cash and carry, where I can tighten things up a little more in retail, where I have better margins, and I can kind of burn down a bit of this. And where do I think it's healthier for the company, right? And then at the end of the day, is it worth to recover all of this? -- if I don't bring 100%, but I mean 80% or higher EBITDA. But we're really focused on finding this balance point.

Our next question is from Dani from XP.

First, just a follow-up here on your last comment. Do you think it's the correct understanding that in this quarter, you still have not been working on this. So should we imagine that these should be lowering a little bit and maybe even recover part of this Counter sales and try to compensate this between the channels. Is this the correct understanding and that we could maybe see like a bigger balance point for the second quarter onwards? So that's my question. But I wanted an update on the channel strategy. So we've seen some tests.

You talked about the multichannel format perspective. But -- and so we see this -- if you could share a little bit of how you've been prioritizing this and these formats that you're seeing more value in or maybe decontinuing or deprioritizing? And along with this, maybe it's more conceptual or from a decision point, why you close the disclosure of sales per channel because this seems to help us a lot as it helps us understand the business. It's not very easy, right, to foresee what's going on. There's so many variables. And now we need to understand why this a little bit. And so about this with the balance of margin and sales. And so we've been analyzing each division and each management with the groups of stores and each regional and each provision can have like a different strategy sometimes, right? So I may have to tighten up a bit more or maybe I'm going to be working on Counter sales a bit more or external sales or even our retail instead of spending more cash and carry, can tighten up a bit in neighborhood retail stores and bringing in a more balanced level of growth, considering expenses that are really already well defined. So if I have a store sales BRL 70 million and level of expenses tightening up a little bit more by 0.5% margin, we could bring even more profitability. So your question is very important, right? We're constantly searching for this. And we have external sales. We've been really focusing a lot on the projects such as we brought in with the growth as well. And so if we look at the external side, we may also have seen improvements. But the retail stores also, we have some stores in some of these areas that we've already tightened up a bit, and they responded really well to this. The service stores such as the high we opened now in the docks and the area. And so these are all benchmarks even for EBITDA at the moment. And our expansion as well, as I mentioned, we're understanding if it's a lot better to open up a cash and carry store or or Hiper or a super in a neighborhood such as we have and open at the Nitboperat stores. So the store we also opened in São Luis in a little satellite city here, and that brought in quick results as well. So this is an important balance, which is this multichannel approach that we're looking at in detail. So that's why we see a strong path ahead, right? If we're going to be able to measure what's going to happen in, but it's really delicate work and it requires this, and we're going to be structuring our routes, training more people, but we do guarantee that we have a pretty good track in the next -- So do these different channels generate complexity? No. Actually, these channels help us understand where we're going to allocate this. And we can see that this is normal complexity, right? We've started off like this, and we have this DNA, and we're understanding where we're going to have the best results. And so then about -- when we look at the sales performance per channel, there are some important elements. First, the company, as we also mentioned, has a multichannel strategy. And at some moments, we prioritize the wholesale channel compared to the Counter and vice versa. And that already generated some confusion, right, in the number interpretation, right? But here, you can see an important point. When you look at the consolidated number, it becomes very clear what the direct impact is for the company, right? Because before when we showed that number, there wasn't necessarily an operational problem or sometimes it was more like a strategic decision, sometimes even just to service the customer itself, right? Because sometimes B2B customers would rather go to the cash and carry store to buy in person or sometimes they just choose the wholesale. And so then we maybe have to focus a little more on that. So there was an operational interpretation confusion that was sometimes more related to some strategies in the company or even guidance from the customer itself. And then another important point was we closed some information that was sometimes even generating a bit of a reaction among competition, right? So we noticed our competition was moving into some different movements considering the disclosure we're providing. So here, I think we need to be very careful as we choose the best information in additional market, considering how this could also impact the delivery also of information to competition. So quite frequently, we have these trade-offs and we have to make these decisions. But here, you have the combination of both points. in regards to direct impact becomes more clear. And so -- and so more recently, we noticed this. We really kind of we understand how to improve each of these channels, and we spend a lot of energy, and that's kind of what me, Jesuino and Sandro Oliveira have been working on to try to understand each micro region and then we can redirect it also. So what's our advantage? We have this logistics that we can shift to a channel that we think is more interesting. So this is super important, right, because we really need to think about this a lot. We've been working on a lot of different exercises and really breaking into this as much as we can to search for the efficiency in the cash and carry in different categories and channels, and we are bringing in some improvements. It's really a lab still. And we've been discussing this day after day with each supervision.

Our next question is from I wanted to understand if you guys could talk about the performance in each channel. I know you guys continue -- if you could talk about the qualitative aspects that would help us a bit and where you see the biggest opportunities. And so if you could talk about the expansion in the last few years and are there stores that are at a deficit? And how -- if so, how many do they represent in the base? And what have you been doing to improve the performance in these stores? It's just like a logistical issue or if there's any other points for improvement?

Well, about performance of the channels, as you mentioned, one example is our Electro. We reduced the stores, and we improved our sales and results. This is one of our biggest examples, right? -- from the stores that are deficit, we can really be using all of our resources and understanding in these stores, what would be the solution for each of these? Because since we opened up a lot of new stores in the last 5 years, it's kind of like what we've been talking about. We're doing our homework, integrating each of these stores you can see that there's results and sometimes they haven't been reaching the results expected because they need to have some adjustments. And so that's a fine-tuning, looking in-house and doing our homework at each little detail point in each of these stores, and we estimate that in the next few months, all of these stores will be more efficient. And --

Our next question is from João Suzi

I have a question. I wanted to understand the strategy here. There is this course that's been quite consistent on focusing on the profitability and not wanting to enter the promotional strategy too much. But we also see industry data, and we see that the region is more challenging and you have a unique investment level, right, in that region. So although you're focusing on profitability, it's the second quarter where we see this drop in EBITDA margins. And in this quarter, this was a significant drop. So at the end of the day, considering the drop in volumes, you had operational deleveraging that at the end of the day kind of ends up hindering profitability at the EBITDA level. So I wanted to hear how you can readjust and if there's space to maybe shift focuses and recover the volume, bring in the EBITDA margin and avoid the operational leveraging. And I understand it's really difficult to foresee this in the region. Everyone has been surprised with this deterioration rate is clear what's the new reality? And although you have changes in the inflation, consumer pockets are already pressured, let's say. I wanted to hear your views on this.

And so this is the main focus of our debate. So as you've seen, there's been an important slowdown -- and considering this scenario, the company also had an important efficiency and operational expense discussion underway. The month of March demonstrates this as well with some work that's been done in a very careful manner to reduce about 1% on the net revenue as we showed. And so this is one of the important effects to treat the operational deleveraging. So here, you have an important block and also many moments -- and so if we think if you're going to lower prices and sell more, sometimes you don't sell more when you're worse in your top line. So it's a trade-off that's really tough. And so we're using the experience of 40 years in the company to really find this optimal point and understand, of course, how this works per channel, right, as Yossi mentioned. And so then a third block that's important to be considered, and we've been discussing this -- and so we've also had some lessons learned with Novo Atacarejo. You see this is a topic that we've been discussing more ever since 2022 with the supplier budgets and marketing budgets from suppliers. So this is a topic that we've been learning a lot with Novo Atacarejo, and we can really gain more speed, right, on this topic. So you have these 3 big blocks of points to be discussed. On when we think about our profitability and the absolute results. So this balancing of sales and margins because any sales elements in the quality can help us with the operational deleveraging, expense block that we've already worked on and this committee is really alive and continues to find these opportunities. And just to give you a concrete example, one thing we were looking at was the energy track, right, the second main expense of the company and no doubt there are opportunities up ahead. And the third block, which is the budget. So when you equalize these elements, then you have what it takes to be able to have this performance throughout the next quarters, right? So I wanted to reinforce this. One thing that's really important is what we've been doing. We have different supervision blocks and we understand where competition is a little tighter. And we're also going to be directing this margin and this cushion wherever we need to, right? There are some regions where we don't need to and other regions where we have to. So we're kind of balancing this out and calibrating this as much as we can, but it's an important step. And we have supervision blocks that we understood where the reduction would be of expenses would be very efficient. And now we can search for the sales to balance this out growing at the sales with the same expense level. Of course, now we had this -- we had some months where we had all of the employee contract termination costs -- and now that we're going to have to balance this margin out. And so this margin will certainly be used to be able to bring in more volume. And so this is, of course, has to be balanced, and we have to be conscious of where we're going to allocate this. Very clear considering this policy of extending this and having something a little more specific is kind of not considered right now. Well, this policy of selling and installments is something that needs to be carefully handled, right? We have to be very careful about this because so this topic so -- we have some cities with some stores that I'm actually testing. but it's really customized. If I do this for the whole company, then I think the financial market will kind of master me. So 2 to 3x, yes, but very few stores, we're testing this to be able to understand what will be the efficiency in bringing these volumes, right? We've been measuring this really well. --

Our next question is from Nicolas Lahine at JPMorgan.

I had one related to the gross margin. If you could explain a bit of the company taking care of the margin. I wanted to understand different levers in this gross margin in this quarter and understand like the breakdown of how much the channel was or if you guys had a reduction a bit on the Counter sales and maybe how you had lower productivity. And then I would also like to -- we saw that you also had some benefits maybe with the PIS/COFINS for cold beverages. That was really helped. And so if in your case, there was also some help in the gross margins as well.

Thank you, Nicolas, for this. This cold beverage topic is a topic we've been working on ever since mid last year. And here, we have legal entities, not only one. And wholesale is 100% taxation. So the impact there, the opportunity is a lot smaller in regards to legacy and current. So that not only because of the fact that we have 2 legal entities, but the fact that the store network here and the expansion is still very recent. So there's a lot of young stores. And so I just wanted to make it very clear that this topic did not impact anything. And in regards to the gross margins of the company, the main point, and can add on, essentially, the focus on profitability was very important in all of the different segments due to the sensitivity -- the low sensitivity to price. Of course, with this Counter it's been maybe the main point for improving the gross margins. That was a sale where we -- Jen knows the operation really well. And quite frequently, we were very aggressive. And then that would end up kind of being competition of small businesses against ours, right? Because they would go buy their stores at very good conditions and they would sell in the neighborhoods with prices that were lower than ours competing with ourselves. So -- and sometimes we were even competing with our ownselves, right, when the prices were too competitive as well. And so -- no doubt, this is the main point, but the guideline on profitability was provided as a whole. So the commercial area, as Jesuino mentioned in his presentation was this issue with very high diligence in stock and margin levels, no exaggerations, right, with the search for the sales in the last 2 days of the month, delivering a lot of margin to be able to try to recover sales. And just to mention some examples, right? Yes. So I just wanted to share an observation is the following, right? We have -- maybe if we have like 10 and I how much am I going to spend to be able to force this kind of Counter sale? And how much would I spend to force like a sale? And this is -- we've been doing a lot of exercises. And if I spend all of these and bring this amount of sales, then especially in the retail stores and neighborhoods, I'll spend less and I can recover the sales, right? So this is an exercise that needs to be done. But this answer is not going to come in 30 days. We're calibrating this, right? Yes. So I think that was answered. I hope that's clear, Nicolas.

The Q&A session is officially ended. And now we're going to pass the word on to the company for their final comments.

First of all, I wanted to once again thank God and thank everyone on behalf of our Chair, Ilson, Tulio and Sandro Oliveira and the over 75,000 employees that really make the business happen. And I was recently in a region with a director, and we had big projects. We adapted with new measures -- we also had different measures in Pará, where you visited this recently. And so yesterday, I called them and I said the thing I wanted to thank them all for was their desire and will power to really implement everything we plan, right? So they really bought into our projects. And at the end of the day, they are the ones that make things happen, right? So I think we want each of these employees to feel they are embraced by us, right? We stand together on this, and I'm guaranteeing that I'm their lawyer, right? So I'm defending their interest. And I also want to thank all of our investors and say, look, these are moments of challenge that we're going to go by. We've already gone by a lot of them, but I can guarantee that we are in the business. So we're looking at each step -- we're discussing solutions, right, for each of these that are really going to be able to show what's going on, right? So sometimes a solution of a moment like this we're experiencing and the market demands this, right, but we're in it, looking at each of these details. And so all of this is really to help us keep the credibility in our work, and we understand we must work more and -- but we're working hand in hand, and I want to thank you all.

The earnings call for the first quarter of 2026 at Grupo Mateus is officially ended, and the Investor Relations department is available to clarify any other questions. Thank you so much to all participants, and have a great day. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]