Holding Bursátil Regional S.A. (NUAM) Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Jose, please go ahead.

Okay. Hello, everyone, and welcome to NUAM Third Quarter 2025 Investor Conference Call. My name is Jose Gonzalez, I am the Head of the Investor Relations team at NUAM. The speaker today is Mr. Juan Pablo Garces, CEO of NUAM; and Patricio Rojas, CFO of NUAM. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The recording and transcript of this call will be posted on NUAM website within the next couple of days. Well, Pablo, good morning, and thank you for joining us. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Jose. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining the call. As usual, I'll do the highlights of this quarter, and then Mr. Patricio will follow with the presentation of the financial results. And then we'll have the Q&A session. So if we go to the first slide, I would like to start saying that we feel this is -- third quarter was a strong quarter with continuous growth in top line. Of course, it could have been better, say, for a couple of products that are not performing as we expected, but good solid revenue, up 5% on the previous quarter, $38.2 million. EBITDA also fairly stable at $16.8 million, growing on the first -- on the previous quarter, 8%. And net profit Q-on-Q solid growth, but still year-to-date, a little bit flat. If you look at the year-to-date numbers in the last -- in the next slide, accumulated revenue of CLP 109 billion. Remember, these numbers are now in Chilean pesos. So 5% year-on-year growth; the EBITDA, 1% year-on-year growth. And net profit, we still have some issues there with tax bill. But hopefully, for the last quarter, we will resolve some of those issues and improve the net profit results. But if you look at the third quarter on its own, I think it's a strong third quarter, and it affirms the trend that we're seeing quarter-on-quarter of continued improvement in the financial results. And from an operational point of view, the operational profit is the second highest in the last 2 years of NUAM. So good solid third quarter. We continue to work towards improving those numbers as we move forward. Now in terms of market highlights, you've seen very solid volumes and volume growth in all markets in NUAM. Overall growth of volumes at 10%, including fixed income, securities, derivatives, equities, et cetera. Of course, equities is growing at 40% plus, at least in Chile and Colombia. And also quarter-on-quarter, continued growth. And actually, the fourth quarter is looking also very strong in the equity market. The -- in price performance as well, the indices of the 3 countries have performed tremendously this year, and they continue to do so, again, towards the fourth quarter, records are being found in the fourth quarter. So we have at the end of the third quarter, the IPSA 34%. Today, it's more close to 50% high, COLCAP 35%, Peru 19%, and the NUAM -- MSCI NUAM index in dollars up 41%. So very strong performance of the markets of our indices and volumes and particularly equity volumes up significantly. In terms of our stock, we are working with our index providers with S&P and MSCI to evaluate the size of the float. We believe our float is closer to 70% and the index providers have us around 35% to 43%. So now with S&P, S&P has revised the float estimate of the company from 43% to 72%. So that will improve our performance in the indices moving forward. I think this is a good piece of news. And we're working in the same direction with MSCI. So they are at even lower levels. So hopefully, we can improve our standing with the MSCI index and, as I said, improve our behavior moving forward in the indices. I think one of our, let's say, short-to medium-term objectives is, of course, to have the NUAM stock be part of the indices. And as part of the indices, then hopefully help liquidity, which is one of the key elements that all of our shareholders need and expect. In terms of price performance, the quarter was not that great with a decline in the price. It actually has continued to decline somewhat with some transactions in the fourth quarter, but still up close to 20% in the year and liquidity also down on the previous quarter, but over $150,000 a day on average. In terms of our road map towards the integrated market, we had a very important milestone this month or last month in November, which is to implement the fixed income platform that we have in Chile, but yet to roll it out to Peru and then to Colombia. So we had the go-live in November for Peru. So now we have 2 countries operated in the same platform. So as you know, we're going to be doing the creation of the single market on a piecemeal approach. So it will be market-by-market and country-by-country. So this is our first sort of deployment of the new technology in the case of Peru for the fixed income market and next year -- in the first quarter of next year should be the equity platform as well. So the idea is to share the same technology in trading in all markets in the 3 countries. So that was an important milestone. In terms of the go-live for the equity market. Unfortunately, we were not able to begin the rollout in this month of December, which was the objective starting with Colombia and then Chile and Peru next year -- early months of next year. We had to postpone Colombia for January, basically fine-tuning the time schedule with our clients. Clients wanted more time to test, and they also requested a few changes in the look and feel in the screens and the functioning of the screens. So we had to do some adjustments and that sort of took some time. And then in consensus with the market, we decided to move the go-live date to January once the holiday period has been completed. So we'll have a revised time frame for the go-lives in Colombia, Peru and Chile that will be announced shortly, I hope. But definitely, first quarter of 2026, everything seems like is on track for that time line, and we should have the customer buy-in, which is very important for these go-live processes. As you know, 100% of the participants have to be ready for a go-live in the equity market, not so much in the other markets, but the equity market, we need 100% participation of the brokers. So in these types of go-lives, it's better to be safe than sorry. So the plan today is to be doing the rollout Q1 2026 in the 3 countries. Now in terms of -- I'll go to the following slide and actually the year-to-date slide in terms of markets, just to give you a feel of how the markets are looking. The market cap, of course, with the appreciation of the different markets has increased 21% and the equity volumes, as I mentioned, fairly strong, growing more than 40%, at least Chile and Colombia are doing very, very well in terms of volumes. Fixed income also recovering volumes in fixed income and very importantly, new issuance of fixed income in the previous years, we had very shallow markets for new issuance. This year has been very, very strong. And I think this is very good news for the coming year as we expect interest rates to continue to decline, especially in Chile. Volumes in derivatives also up by 10%; FX not so much at minus 6%. Clearing and settlement is stable and custody, again, with the appreciation of the assets, assets under custody up 21% from $250 billion to $310 billion. So overall, I would say, a strong third quarter that affirms our upward trend in financial results, continued solid work towards the unification of the markets. It's a complex process. We're doing it on a piecemeal approach step-by-step. First step down in Peru with the fixed income market, ready or almost ready with clients for the go-live for the equity market in the first quarter of next year. And we'll continue to work with market participants to continue to deepen the market and have new issuance, particularly in fixed income in the following months. So good third quarter, I think good preparation for the end of the year. And I'll leave it there and pass it on to Patricio.

Thank you, Juan Pablo, and good morning, everyone. We will now move on to NUAM's business performance. Quarter-over-quarter, revenues increased mainly driven by stronger performance in post-trade and information, which continued to show consistent growth throughout the period. EBITDA remained flat, largely due to higher personnel-related costs and other operating expenses, which partially offset the revenue gains. Net profit saw a substantial increase this quarter, supported by stronger results from the equity method and a rise in nonordinary activities. Year-to-date, revenues posted a slight increase, primarily driven by growth in post-trade, information and value-added services. EBITDA has remained stable, reflecting the combined effect of higher staff benefit expenses. Net profit, however, declined compared to the previous year, mainly due to a reduction of CLP 2.8 billion in nonordinary activities. This decline is partially explained by the residual impact of the 2023 PPA adjustment, which accounted for CLP 1.3 billion and by a decrease in interest rates, which accounted for CLP 1.1 billion. Next move -- next slide, please. Quarter-over-quarter, the business continued to show strong momentum. Post-trade services delivered a solid performance, reinforcing the role as a key contributor to overall revenue. Information services reported a double-digit increase, reflecting growing demand for data-driven solutions. Meanwhile, trading services continued to improve steadily, supported by healthier market activity across the region. Year-to-date, results remained positive across several core areas. Post-trade services performed strongly, driven primarily by the continued expansion of custody activities. Value-added services sustained their double-digit growth, fueled by the strong performance of the invoice registry. Information services also maintained solid momentum throughout the year, supported by increased market data demand and consistent growth in price vendor services. Next slide, please. On a quarterly basis, revenues declined by 7%, reaching CLP 4.4 billion, mainly reflecting lower listing activity during the period. On a year-to-date basis, listing revenues decreased 1%, totaling CLP 13.1 billion as the market normalized after last year's exceptional tender offer activity. In terms of market participation, the number of local issuers recorded notable changes year-over-year. Equity issuers totaled 436, a decrease of 4. Fixed income issuers increased to 315, up by 2. Fund issuers reached 1,015 to increase of -- an increase of 44 and ETFs rose to 18, adding 3 new issuers. Looking at issuance by category, debt issuance comprised 100 events, an increase of 16 year-over-year, totaling USD 4.7 billion or 14 -- sorry, or 41% growth year-over-year. Follow-ons also expanded meaningfully with 64 events, up 10 year-over-year, totaling USD 2.3 billion, representing 62% growth year-over-year. Meanwhile, tender offers increased to 12 events, up to -- compared to last year, totaling USD 1.8 billion, although this represented a 35% decline year-over-year due to the unusually high activity recorded in 2024. Next slide, please. On a quarterly basis, revenues increased 4% to CLP 5.9 billion, reflecting steady activity across trading services. Year-to-date, trading revenues showed an increase of 5%, reaching CLP 17.2 billion. Across the region, equities delivered strong performance in all 3 countries. Overall, the market experienced a notable increase in dynamism with an exchange market segment totaling USD 944 billion, representing 16% growth year-over-year. In equities, volumes rose 40% to USD 48 billion, while the number of trades increased 25%, reaching 11.9 million. In fixed income, volumes grew 16% year-over-year to USD 904 billion and trades remained almost flat. Next slide, please. During the third quarter of 2025, revenues increased 10% quarter-on-quarter, reaching CLP 6.8 billion. On a year-over-year, revenues decreased 4%, totaling CLP 18.8 billion. Clearing activity remains below last year's levels, with volumes declining 5% year-over-year. However, this quarter saw an 11% quarter-over-quarter increase in trading volume. Looking at year-to-date clearing and settlement volumes by market segment, we have to highlight the equity segment, which stood out with a strong 22% increase, totaling USD 41 billion for the year. In Collateral Management, volumes grew 19% year-to-date, reaching USD 992 million, while the average interest rate decreased 252 basis points over the year, settling at 8.36%. Next slide, please. During the third quarter of 2025, revenues increased 7% quarter-over-quarter, reaching CLP 6.8 billion and grew 6% year-over-year to CLP 18.8 billion. Assets under custody grew 21%, reaching USD 310 billion, supporting revenue growth. This performance was driven by stronger activity in equity and fixed income, along with an increase in delivery versus payment and free of payment transactions and distribution volumes. Equity holdings increased 26%, reaching USD 166 billion, while fixed income holdings grew 15% year-over-year to $144 billion. Regarding transaction activity, delivery versus payment and free of payment operations rose significantly, increasing 67% to 3.7 million transactions. Distribution processing volume also continued to expand, growing 10% to USD 65 billion. Next slide, please. Information services delivered strong results this quarter, with revenues up 10% quarter-over-quarter to CLP 5.3 billion and 11% year-over-year to CLP 14.8 billion. Subscriptions remained stable overall with more than 8,000 market data vendor user and subscriptions. For price vendor services, we saw mixed trends. OTC, derivatives, valuation inputs decreased, while portfolio valuation contracts grew 21% to $2.4 million and local fixed income subscriptions increased modestly. These results highlight the resilience of our information business and the positive impact of strengthening vendor services and international client relationships. Next slide, please. Turning to value-added services. Revenues reached CLP 4 billion in the quarter, down 3% compared to the previous quarter, but year-over-year performance remains strong, up 14% to CLP 11.8 billion. Growth continues to be driven by back-office services, digital promissory notes and invoice registry. Sebra and Optimus platforms maintained a solid 58% market share in Chile with Sebra serving 10 brokers and Optimus 4 brokers. Operational volumes grew significantly, up 36% for Sebra to 290 million and 11% for Optimus to 35 million. In digital promissory notes, documents in custody increased 22% to 37.3 million. Issuance rose 46% to 5.8 million documents and transactions grew 10% to 1.9 million. Registered invoices also showed healthy growth, up 19% to 1.6 million. Overall, these results confirm the resilience of our value-added services, supported by strong adoption of digital solutions and back-office platforms. Next slide, please. Year-to-date operating expenses reached CLP 73.7 billion compared to CLP 69.5 billion in the same period last year. This represents a 6% increase, mainly driven by staff costs, which rose 13% year-over-year due to CPI effects, a temporary increase in headcount linked to integration projects, which explained half of the increase. The internalization of services accounted 1/4 of the increase and salary adjustments. It's important to highlight that the majority of operating expenses remain under control and the increase in staff costs is largely explained by strategic integration initiatives. Next slide, please. Finally, we will share the main takeaways from our third quarter 2025 results. We delivered a solid performance in the third quarter across all business lines, with total revenues up 5% quarter-over-quarter, driven by strong growth in post-trade and information services. Operating expenses remain under control with close oversight of employee benefits, while the increase in staff costs was mainly related to integration projects. Finally, we achieved critical milestones in our single market initiatives, including the successful launch of the [ HG ] platform for fixed income in Peru, which now enables operations in both Chile and Peru. We also continue to innovate and enhance the investor experience highlighted by the launch of our new IR website. And now I hand it over to Jose for the Q&A session.

Thank you, Patricio, and thank you, Juan Pablo. Just to recall our new IR website, it is ir.nuam.com. [Operator Instructions] So first, we have a question from Roberto [indiscernible] Roberto, please go ahead. I will read it [Foreign Language].

Okay. Just as we said during the presentation, the increase in salaries, it's mostly related to -- in one side to projects of integration and also related to the internalization of some services, also related to these initiatives. We expect during the next year not to have new increases in this line because while we are advancing in the -- in finishing our projects, also, we should have some adjustments in the -- in our organization. So we expect to have exactly or mostly the same expenses that we are going to have this year, next year.

Okay. [ Roberto, ] we hope we answered your question. Now the following question is from [ Jose Agerman. ] Looking at employee benefit expenses in Chile, we see a 30% increase in the quarter. What is driving this? Are these the new expense level for Chile? We see a 58% growth in income from related companies. Is there anything nonrecurring in Bolivia securities depository, in [indiscernible] or in any other entity? When we look at the results of Deceval or [ DCV, ] we see revenue growth in local currency of between 12% and 14%, whereas C&L growth for NUAM in Colombia in local currency was only 1.9%. What explains this difference between what the companies report and what NUAM reports?

Okay. The first part of the question, I think it's just exactly the same question we already answered. I don't remember the name of the person who asked [indiscernible] mostly the same question. The second question related to the income of other companies.

I think maybe we can take that call in a special IR point because we need to go into the details of each of the companies. But what NUAM reports is the combination of all the business lines in the different companies. Deceval reports individually as a company, but not all business lines go to the clearing and settlement business or to the custody because there are others that have to do with value-added services. So it's broken down in different business lines. So we can probably go into that detail or maybe publish a table of how the different revenues map from one to the other, but it's not all Deceval figures or Cavali's figures for that matter, go exactly into custody or exactly into clearing and settlement. And there are other companies that report in the clearing and settlement like the CCPs, so it's a combination of things. It may be a little bit circumvoluted but we can definitely prepare a map of how those translate now. The clearing and settlement business in general has performed fairly well, but has been affected adversely, particularly in the first half of this year for a couple of things very specific. One is interest revenues received on managed payments or dividends and that type of thing in Peru that have declined significantly. So that sort of puts a shadow on the overall performance of clearing and settlement. And also the first quarter in Colombia in clearing and settlement was not so good. So the year-to-date is slower than what we had expected. But if you look at clearing and settlement in the third quarter vis-a-vis the second quarter, it's performing in the right direction. It's going in the right direction. Same with custody. There's, for example, very rapid growth in Pacta, the promissory notes in Colombia that's part of Deceval but that doesn't go to the custody line or to the clearing and settlement, but it's a value-added services. So it may be a little bit complicated, but all of the numbers are there. And I think the important thing here is clearing and settlement is recovering its upward trend. The custody business with the increase in the assets under management and the value of the assets under management is good news because moving forward that will have a bigger base for the revenues for 2026. And other revenues are performing well like Pacta and invoices in Peru.

Yes, maybe I could add that the line we are talking about is increasing at 10% in a yearly basis. So it's not that different to the increases we can see in the other companies. But as Juan Pablo has just said, not the total revenues of Deceval, for example, goes for custody or clearing and settlement, but also part of it goes to added value services. So that's why it's not exactly the same numbers when we see the numbers of NUAM.

Okay. Thank you, Juan Pablo, and thank you, Patricio. So next question is from [ Felix Garcia. ]

[ Felix Garcia from Appalachia Research. ] To begin with, in the third quarter, information revenues increased, supported by stronger demand for data. Could you clarify whether this increase was driven mainly by domestic clients or by international clients? And are you seeing stronger monetization of your index-related products or other intellectual property-driven solutions? Moving on, several segments showed progress. Which business lines do you believe reached a clear inflection point during the quarter and could maintain a positive trajectory into 2026? And finally, despite the cost pressures, which areas of the business are beginning to show tangible improvements in productivity or efficiency as a result of the integration process and the ongoing technology modernization?

[ Felix, ] we hear your 3 questions, please. Can you repeat the first one?

Sure. Do you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you, but if you could talk close to the microphone, please?

Yes, sure. Information revenues increased, supported by stronger demand for data. Could you please clarify whether this increase was driven mainly by domestic clients or by international clients? And are you seeing stronger monetization of your index-related products or other intellectual property-driven solutions?

Okay. So just to take that first question. I would say the current growth is still from domestic clients. We still have not, let's say, reached out aggressively to international clients, although we have done roadshows and things of the sort hand-in-hand with MSCI, so preparing the terrain. That has not yet materialized in increased demand for our information services, but that is the process that we are trying to build. As we go-live with the same platform in the 3 countries, we should reinforce that message, reaching out to international participants and particularly in positioning the NUAM index, which is tailor-made for international participants. So that, I would say, is more a 2026 conversation than really what we've seen in 2025. Now in index products, for sure, that is part of the road map. So we're in very preliminary conversations. But yes, the idea is to have ETFs over the indices. We have still the migration of the index in Chile in 2026. So that will be a very carefully done process. It's a very sensitive issue. The IPSA is a very well-positioned index in Chile, so that the transition of the index should be very carefully done. And on top of that, the idea is to have, of course, index products and of course, also if the market sees opportunity, futures products on that. So I would say the upside of more international buy-in and index products is still to be materialized in the coming years. So -- but clearly, in the 2026 plan.

[ Felix, ] can you repeat -- ask please your second question?

Sure. Which business lines do you believe reached a clear inflection point during the quarter and could maintain a positive trajectory into 2026?

Okay. So the 2 business lines that are performing very well and with strong trends are information services, as you well pointed out, and value-added services. In value-added services, I would say most of the products that we have there are performing outstandingly well and should continue to do so in 2026 forward. And actually, we have a very ambitious plan to more than double those revenues in the coming years. So information services and value-added services, for sure, will continue to perform. Now in terms of the post-trade, I probably already hinted to this process. Clearing and settlement is clearly a focus point of our strategy. So we are expanding our clearing and settlement services in all 3 countries. It's a more mature business offering in Colombia. There's a lot to be done in Chile and some things to be done in Peru. So that should be a business line that will continue to drive growth moving forward. I'm not sure if I can say quarter-on-quarter, you'll see tremendous results, but clearly, on a year-to-year basis, yes. And as a matter of fact, we already made a very significant decision in Chile in this quarter by separating the clearing and settlement fees from the equity market to the fixed income market. Basically, the fixed income market was lumped together with the fixed income fees and the drivers of those products are very different. So we separated those 2 fee schedules, and that should start driving higher revenues in clearing and settlement in Chile next year. This is going to be implemented hopefully in January or February, so beginning of next year, and that should go in the right direction. And as we expand the product offering in Chile of clearing and settlement services, definitely, you will see an improvement there. And as we are able to create our CCP in Peru as well, but that will take a couple of years still. And as you've seen, we've seen some better life in the new issuance market in the fixed income field, and that's good news for both the listing services and custody going into 2026.

Okay. Thank you, Juan Pablo. The next question is from [ Sebastian from Credicorp Capital. ]

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you crystal clear.

Which actually are 3, and I'm going to ask it one by one, if that's okay. So the first one would be regarding the trading segment. Could you explain how top line increased by 15.3% year-over-year, given the strong volumes shown in equity, which was, if I am correct, 40% year-over-year and 14% from the fixed income side. Yes, so could you please provide some additional information on that?

Yes. I think we've -- sure, thank you for the question. I think we've covered this in previous calls. The fee schedules in the 3 countries are different, right? So you probably see a more proportional growth in revenue vis-a-vis growth in value traded in Colombia than you see in Peru and Chile. The reason why this is so is that in Chile, while we have a similar fee schedule as Colombia, but the final fees are -- the total bill is capped. So once the clients reach a certain limit, the revenue is capped and thus, we do not continue to benefit from the increased growth. So probably what you're seeing is that the cap sort of exhaust itself once the market grows 10%, 12%, and then you're not seeing any incremental revenue in NUAM and particularly in 2025 in Chile, where this has been a tremendous year, we're not capturing that benefit. So that's one of the explanations. And the other is in the case of Peru, while the fees are higher than in Colombia and Chile, unfortunately, for commercial reasons in past years, there are a lot of waivers on those fees. So when you look at the blended fee, it ends up being 50% of the fee. So it's -- we're -- so now that's the diagnostics where we are. How we are working towards improving this situation so that we can participate in the upside. That's, of course, one of our key road maps for the trading line of business, and it has 2 parts. One, as I mentioned, improving the composition of the fee schedule. As I mentioned, in clearing and settlement in Chile, we already did the separation of the equity and the fixed income that should help next year. In Peru, we are correcting the issue of the waivers of the fees that also should start seeing -- we should start seeing the benefits of that in 2026. And the fee schedule -- the caps, particularly because the fees are okay in Chile, but the caps in Chile, we have a plan, but we need to work with, of course, with participants as we deliver the new technology and the integrated market, there is a conversation there to be had in terms of revising the caps in Chile. That is not in the plan yet. I mean it's not a certainty right now, but we are, of course, aware of the problem, and we are preparing for that conversation with our clients. But the feeling is that we need to deliver the new technology and the new market segments first in order to have that conversation.

Okay. That's really nice color. So on my second question, so I'm having trouble understanding how also total volumes for clearing and settlement and custody, specifically on custody because I see that DvP and FoP transaction increased like 67% year-over-year and distribution processing volume increased 10% year-over-year, but it reconciled on post-trade segment with 14.5% year-over-year. Could you also clarify on that, please? How is this monetized or how do we get to the 14.5% year-over-year on post-trade segment?

Yes, I'll use your question to share with you and all the participants in the call, a challenge that we have and it is that we have 3 exchanges, 2 depositories and 2 CCPs. And what we think that the business model of each exchange, each CCP and each custodian was the same. But unfortunately, they're very different. So for example, the custody in Colombia -- the custodian in Colombia is very geared to assets under management. So it's the -- an ad valorem fee on the assets under management. The custodian in Peru, sorry, is more geared towards settlement, clearing and settlement. So it's a transactional fee. So the dynamic in the market goes in very different ways in the revenue line in Peru and in Colombia. So one of the challenges that we have in the 3 countries, and as I just mentioned in the equity trading fees is how do we move forward to a fee schedule that unifies the business models. We are adding together the revenues, but the logic of those revenues in each country and each company, unfortunately, is different. So there's a lot of work to be done moving forward in terms of aligning those fee schedules. And of course, to make it more understandable for you guys that if it's an ad valorem and the value of trade or custody goes up, then the revenue should go up. So those types of things should be improving over time. But as you can imagine, it's a very complex conversation with existing clients, so it's not as easy as saying, okay, we're going to harmonize all fees in the 3 countries and -- because that will affect some clients very differently. So it will be a gradual process, but it's definitely part of the plan. As I mentioned, removing the cuts in Chile is one of the objectives and correcting this, let's say, disparity in the way the custody and clearing and settlement business are run, particularly in Peru and Colombia is also part of the plan. But just to clarify, we will try to prepare a table that, one, explains what goes -- what lines of business of each company goes into the specific revenue lines for the business units. And also as much as possible to make comprehensible at least the, let's say, the most significant lines of business in Colombia, custody is ad valorem; in Peru, it's more per trade. So that type of thing so that you can have a better understanding and better feel of how the dynamics of each line of business will evolve.

Yes. Actually, that would be very helpful. And lastly, my last question would be any color on how the integration of the single market launch is going? Or are there any delays or some -- or anything?

Yes. I mean I -- thanks for the question. And I mean, I remain quite optimistic and quite bullish. Unfortunately, there have been delays, no doubt. One, on the technology. And then when we came to clients in Colombia with the go-live process, some things propped up that made us -- that needed some adjustments. So we needed to do some adjustments, and that didn't give us enough time to do the full trials with the clients and that everybody will feel -- would feel comfortable enough to do the go-live. So yes, some delays, but I would say materially, we are ready. Technology is ready. Clients are now in Colombia, mostly fully onboarded. All -- 100% of the clients in Colombia have connectivity testing performed and checked. Some still need to move their infrastructure into the production -- into our production site, but it's something that can be done in the next few weeks. And they just need a little bit more time to feel comfortable enough and that all their internal systems are okay. So I would say, all-in-all, the feeling is good towards a go-live in Colombia in the month of January. So yes, we didn't -- we were not able to do it in 2025, but I'm very confident that we will be able to do it with the support of the clients, which is a very important part of this process in January. And as I said, in the equity go-live, we need 100% of the clients. We can't leave a single client behind. So it's very, very important and also the international price vendors. So once Colombia goes live, then I would think that Peru and Chile should follow in the coming -- in the following weeks, and that should be a relatively smooth process, we hope, because as I probably explained probably a year ago, the benefit of what we're doing is that we're not rolling out 3 platforms in 3 countries. We're rolling out a single platform. So what we do once Colombia is live, it means that the new platform for Peru and for Chile is also live. The only thing that happens when Peru starts trading or Chile starts trading is that the clients in Peru are then ready to be onboarded to the new platform. But in the end, it's only one go-live process and then the, let's say, onboarding of the clients in the different countries. So once the go-live in Colombia is done, the go-live for the integrated market has been complete. So that's why I feel very confident that with this move in the schedule, the clients in Colombia will be more comfortable, and we'll have a successful go-live in January. And then from then on, we'll work with clients in Peru and Chile to do the same.

Thank you [ Sebastian ] for your question, and so next question is from [ Milka Samuelson from Ennismore. ] I will read your question. How much further internalization do you expect to have further salary increases, for example? And how would you guide us to think about operating leverage and margin going forward? Will there be a catch-up effect in the cap fees in Chile? And how are you correcting the waivers of fees in Peru?

Okay. So I'll start from the back. I mentioned -- so the [ ones on ] fees, I mean, the -- we are now in consultations with the clients in Peru. So the Board has already given a direction in Peru to remove those waivers. So that's, I think, good news. And we're now in conversations with the clients in Peru to find the appropriate timing and try to moderate the effect on individual clients, but that should be moving forward. In terms of the caps, as I mentioned, it will be a conversation for next year after go-live. So it's -- I would not expect anything in the first half of 2026, given that we're going to be concentrated in the go-live and making sure that everybody is confident and working satisfactory in the new platform. But that conversation needs to happen sometime in the middle of the year. In terms of internalization of employees, I think we're done. There are no expectations of internalizing any other teams. We had to, in this last quarter, internalize a full project that is critical for the clearing and settlement. We had a third party doing the development, and we decided to onboard all of those developers into NUAM because they were not responding as quickly as we wanted. So in terms of improving delivery, we decided to do that internalization, but that should be the end of that process, at least for what we see today. And as Patricio mentioned, that should result in a relatively flatter curve next year, including in staff payments next year, including the salary increases that are customary in this part of the world that should be aligned with inflation. So there will be an inflation adjustment for staff for next year. But other than that, we don't expect any other surprises in terms of staff. Now do understand we're still -- I mean we're in the final stages, but we're still in the process of adjusting to the new way of operations. So we had to make a couple of adjustments during the year and one of that was the internalization and the creation of the new business units. But I think that's all for the better -- for better performance, better following of the business and of course, for better growth in all businesses.

Okay. Thank you, Juan Pablo, for your answer. So we will move forward with the following question from [indiscernible] I will read your question. Can you give an update on the investment pace? At the beginning, the plan was $12 million for 2025 and $5 million for 2026. When is the overload of staff planned to be reduced? And what is the amount corresponding to this overload of staff? Do you think that Patricio mentioned around 50%. On the other side, the sale of the building in Santiago corresponds to around 130 per share, 50% cash and 50% deferred. What is the plan for the 6,000 million receiving cash? Is it in the plan to issue an extraordinary dividend for that amount?

Related to -- Okay, sorry, thank you, [ Antonio, ] for the question. Talking about the investments, the total plan of investments related to the integration plan, it's for $45 million. Most of it has been done or we are using that amount during 2024 and 2025. And still, we are going to invest around $8 million during 2026 and 2027 which will comprise the $45 million plan of investment. Related to the staff, as Juan Pablo mentioned, we are going -- or we expect to remain flat next year related to staff expenses. And as you know, the implementation of these core platforms is not only going to help us to receive more revenues, but also it's going to help us with some synergies in costs. Remember, we began with 3 different companies or group of companies with 3 group of different systems or platforms. And of course, right now, we are still maintaining and operating 3 different group of platforms. And once we deliver to production the new platforms, we will need just one big team to maintain and operate this one unique platform for each line of businesses. So of course, we expect that in 2027, when we finish our plan of investments, we will be able to reach most of the synergy related to costs. And finally, related to the selling of the building in Santiago, we have to remember that the Santiago Stock Exchange is a very regulated company, which needs to maintain a certain amount of equity. So we are not planning to distribute the result of this sale, but we are going to use that money to invest it in other assets that will remain in the Santiago Stock Exchange. That is mostly the answer for this question, [ Antonio. ]

Okay. Thank you, Patricio. And also thank you, Juan Pablo, for your answers. Thank you very much, everyone. I think that we do not have more questions. So thank you for having joined our conference call, and we are very glad that you were able to participate. We will upload the presentation today as well as the recording and the transcript in our Investor Relations section in our website. So thank you very much, and have a good afternoon.

Thank you all.

We'll now be closing all the lines. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Thank you, [ Luis. ]

Thank you.