Itaúsa S.A. (ITSA4) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning everyone. Welcome to [ ResultadosItausa phone call ]. I am Priscila Grecco. I'm am the CFO of Itausa, and it's a great pleasure to be with you to share the results of the holding -- financial results of the holding of the first quarter -- first semester of 2024 and to bring the prospectus for the next semester. And here, with us in the studio, we have Alfredo Setubal, who is the CEO and Investor Relations Director of Itausa. Good morning, Alfredo. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you to our investors.

So let's continue. We have a lot of content for us today. Before going over the agenda, I would like to let you know that we have the simultaneous translation into English. Click on the United States flag in your platform to access the translation. And you should take part. Submit your questions, comments, suggestions via the platform, clicking in the message box or through X, the former Twitter using the #Resultadositausa. Take part and submit your comments. Let's talk about the agenda. So we're going to talk with Alfredo bringing a bit of the business environment. How was the first quarter -- the first semester, sorry. There were highlights of the results of 2024, and then we're going to do a deep dive in each of the components of the results. We're going to talk about liquidity management. We've talked about that. Then, we're going to talk about the results, which is something very important for the shareholders. And then Alfredo talking while closing the session and then going to the questions and answers. So, Alfredo, I wanted you to talk about the business environment in the first quarter. We started the year with a positive perspective with a macro scenario in the context, and then the perspective has changed, bringing more challenges. So how did you see and how do you see the next quarters?

I think that we had a first semester, as you said, with fluctuating expectations. We had an external scenario that is very challenging and the international scenario, because we have problems geopolitically and that has reflected on Brazil in the economic activities. So we had a first semester with a growth that was reasonable. We expect a better semester and then we can get to the year of 2024 with a growth of 2%, 2.5%, similar to what we've had over the last 2 years. It's a growth that is small, taking into consideration the potential of Brazil and all the social inequalities that we have. Nonetheless, this is a growth that helps in new companies and helps in our invested companies as well. The big problem is the interest rate level. They continue to be high. They are 10 -- over 10.5% and we see the inflation of 4%, 4.5% for the year 2024. That interest rate is due to a fiscal issue that Brazil has, a big fiscal deficit that is ever growing. This is the biggest issue, is growing a lot. And with that, we have to keep that interest rate very high, which ends up leading to a lower growth. This is a scenario that we imagine that will prevail throughout this year. This is a scenario that brings difficulty due to the interest rates. For many of our companies that are more leveraged, mainly the ones from infrastructure such as CCR, Aegea that need to be leveraged to face the investments higher by the concessions and it owes itself. We have a debt that incurs from the debentures that we issued over the last years to face the investment scenario. And that interest rate of 10.5% also hurts a lot the results and the strategy of the company. And then we can discuss that a bit more when we get into the topic of management of liquidity. Nonetheless, I think it's important that the companies that are, in general, good, all of them operating above the previous -- the predicted budget for this year, which is a good sign and with a lot of uncertainties and a lot of difficulties due to the economic scenario, political scenario that is very challenging.

Perfect, Alfredo. This is a great panorama of how it was the first semester, and what was the business context. Now, let me give you the overview about our results. I think that regardless of a challenging scenario with interest rates very high, we are reporting a result for the first semester, record results. The highest record results in the first semester for the company. We reported the net recurring income for the partnership BRL 7.2 billion, a growth of 30% in the first semester comparing to the first semester of the previous year, showing the solidity and the resilience of our portfolio. This leads us to an ROI return on the patrimony, 17.5%; growth of 2.6 percentage points in regards to the previous semester. We look at patrimony, almost BRL 84 billion and the value market of the assets that are -- that compose our portfolio, getting to BRL 128 billion, a growth that is very solid for 12% comparison year-on-year. So for comparability in regards to 2023, we moved the capital gains because of the sale that we had of XP shares so that these are numbers that are easier to see, easier to be reported. So let's see how our share performed at the stock exchange. I thought that it was very healthy and much higher than the main benchmark, which has Ibovespa for several periods analyzed. So we're looking at 12 months, our shares updated -- well, growing 70%, while the Ibovespa index val is getting a value of 5%. So 10 years, there is a big difference. Showing the capacity for value creation of Itausa for our shareholders. Now, Alfredo, regardless of this valuation and this solid results, we still see the share being negotiated with an important discount to what we consider that is fair. What would you tell us about this?

I think that the discount is exaggerated. We see the market value of the participation of Banco Itau and Itau Unibanco of the bank in Itausa is larger than the value of the company that is listed. So there is a discount. I think that we have a solid portfolio. The bank is our crown jewel, will continue to be so. And they continue to do well with their results, and the investments that we've done. They've also presented returns that are very high, and many of them even higher than the return over the investment of Itau. So we consider that the discount is higher than it should be, and we're going to work so that the market will eventually correct this distortion.

Now, just to complement, Itausa being priced at the end of this semester of BRL 121 billion, and just a participation in Itau is valued for BRL 118 billion. So the market doesn't recognize the entirety of the market value for our other invested companies. And remember that part of our invested companies are not listed companies, and we consider that in this calculation, the value of the investment that as time goes by, we see a gap that is very important between the value that was invested and the valuation of these companies, if you consider the good performance that they've been reporting in terms of results since our acquisition. So the implicit discount is even higher than 21%. So this is something that we have to clarify. I'm going to give the floor in details about our results. Still, we're going to have at the end of -- we can explore these during the Q&A. So looking at the results of our invested companies, mainly all of them have done their earnings call. Itau Unibanco reporting BRL 20 billion net revenue recurring in IFRS, a growth of 25% in regards to the previous year, and a return on ROI that is very healthy at 21%. Alpargatas, a semester of recovery of results, recovery of their margins, volume of sales, getting to a net income of BRL 63 million, a very good growth. Dexco, good operational performance. It's the segment of woods that is doing well. And also metals, important recovery. The net revenue BRL 153 million, a drop of 23% in regards to the previous year. In a year that was marked with the reevaluation of biologic assets, given the valuation of woods and that didn't happen in the same magnitude in the first semester of this year. CCR, with a performance that is very good for all the modals that the company operates, mainly for the roadways, it's growing BRL 859 million in net revenue, 65% growth in regards to the previous year. Aegea, the utilities investments, we have BRL 130 million net revenue. Good performance, operational performance. Remember that last year was a year that they gained a series of concessions at Corsan, Ambiental Ceara and several others that helps with the growth of EBITDA. But given these investments, the company is at the threshold that is deleverage because of the impact of the increase of the financial expenses. The Copa Energia, the distribution of natural gas, reporting a revenue of BRL 251 million, a growth of 70% -- a drop, sorry, of 7% in regards to the spreads that are lower than what we faced in the first semester, but something very solid. NTS reporting revenues that are very healthy and returns also. A revenue of BRL 1.5 billion here, suffering the impact of the deflation of IGPM that corrects all the contracts and the revenues of the company. So I'm going to discuss here what is the composition of our net revenue. As I told you, we have a recurring net revenue in the first semester of BRL 7.220 billion. So a growth of 30% in regards to the previous year. And here, the main composition, a great deal of this result, BRL 7 billion is the selling of the investment, the patrimony equivalents in regards to the revenue and the results of these companies that we invest, and the results of our invested companies growing 21% in regards to the same period of the previous year. Now, out of this total, Itau is BRL 7.3 billion, and the non-financial sector, and then consolidated contributing with BRL 410 million in this result. Our own result, the cost of the holding or administrative expenses, our fiscal inefficiency related to the PIS and COFINS taxes, we --it's practically stable, below the inflation, just growing 1% in the semester. Our financial result, good news. Due to all the strategy of liability management that we've been implementing since 2022, we see an important reduction in our financial expenses. Here at Itausa, we closed our financial result with BRL 118 million and an improvement of 65% in regards to the first semester of the previous year where we had reported BRL 342 million in financial expenses. And here is the IRCs effect. So looking at the detail, the evolution 30% in the committee of evolution of our net revenue getting to BRL 7.2 billion is essentially from 2 big factors. The results of our invested companies growing BRL 1.3 billion in this period and also is the less -- is the lower financial results with BRL 224 million less financial expenses due to all the movements that we did for the prepayment of debt and renegotiations and refinancing with a lower cost of our debt. Now going over the next item, the results that we commented very much align with below the inflation, much aligned with what we reported last year. No big highlights, even considering the donations that we started to do for our Itausa Institute. We are much aligned with what was reported with cost and what was reported in the previous year. Now, let's go over the financial results. So as I commented, an improvement of 65%. Now considering that the expenses of interest rates are an important reduction in our expenses due to all of the liability management strategy for the period with a greater profitability and cash flow, and this is what we've had in this period, as you can see on the slide. Now, let's talk about liquidity management, Very important theme that we've been working. You should have seen recently the news about the new issuance of debentures that is within the refinancing strategy of one of our debentures that I'm going to comment. So doing a retrospect. From 2022 onwards, we started to do the movement of reduction of debt. So the strategy to reduce our debt on the long term. This is due to the resources that we've obtained. With the selling of the shares of XP, we've used those resources to do -- well, to work with the debt and also be able to amortize this payment with a few debts. 2022, we got September, the highest debt of the debt of the holding BRL 8.5 billion in net debt. So we started to reduce the debt. First movement happened at the end of 2022 with a prepayment of BRL 1.8 billion. Then in 2023, we did another prepayment, now BRL 2.5 billion, and also, we refinanced BRL 1.25 billion. So to delay our debt, keeping the cost at that time, but it was a movement to improve the profile of the debt and amortization and also seeking the reduction of our debt and the financial expenses. In July of this year, we did another movement of refinancing of our third issuance of debentures, where we had a new issuance of BRL 1.3 billion, delaying the -- and reducing the cost -- average cost of the debt. I know that led us to very healthy results, important results in terms of management of liquidity and the litigation -- mitigation of all the risk and refinancing of our debentures and a reduction of 86% of the net revenue since September of '22. 48% of drop in the service of the debt, if we consider what we had in September of '22. The delay of the profile of the debt, it's 3 years more deadline in regards to the debt of '22. We zeroed all the amortizations until 2022, and we had the recognition of the 3 agencies of rating, and they attributed this risk of Itausa, the AAA grade. This is very important movements that we've had with the liability management. We have details on how it would be the schedule of amortization, considering the prepayment that we have to do with the third issuance of December, where we can reach 4 years without the amortization of main one getting to 2028 for every payment. We could do the reduction of the concentration that happened with the amortization in the 2 years. And we started to use this window of 2032 onwards with a new income of amortization that is due this year. And considering the prepayment of the third issuance, we managed to get an important reduction of our average cost, getting to 1.5% of a spread against almost 2% that we had. We closed the semester with 2% spread. Net debt getting to less than BRL 1 billion and the average deadline getting to 7 years of our debt. So this is a very important movement with indicators of leverage that are very healthy. Now I'd like to give the floor to the next theme, the gains, the capital gains. As you've seen, BRL 1.9 billion stated, considering the quarterly recurrent gains and also the extraordinaries. We totaled the [ BRL 1.9 billion ] of payment in regards to the dividend payments. And out of this total, BRL 1.4 billion will be paid now on August 30. The date was announced on the market. That leads us to a dividend yield that is very healthy and very important for our shareholders, 8.6%, getting Itausa amongst the best companies, the best payers of dividends amongst those that are listed at the B3 Stock Exchange. Another component of value creation for our shareholders. That is very important. Now, before bringing Alfredo back for the closing arguments, I would like to remind you that submit your questions. The box of messages of our platform is there or if you want to use the former Twitter at #Resultadositausa, as you can see on the slide. Submit your questions. We will talk about that and we have a questionnaire that you're going to get the QR code, so you can capture it and you can submit your questionnaire so we can improve this event and we can reach your expectations. Alfredo, so the floor is yours. We've done a very quick presentation, so we can have a lot of time for the Q&A session. But I wanted you to consider -- well, to give us your thoughts before we open for the Q&A.

I think that you can realize that the holding continues to have robust results, firm results. I think that the companies -- nonfinancial companies continue with their results above what was budgeted, which is a great sign. Banco Itau and Unibanco continues to be firm. We managed to overcome and face the competition of the incumbents and often new banks, digital banks and fintechs. So I think that, in general, our portfolio continues to be robust and very much prepared to face scenarios that are coming up ahead. I think it's important to highlight what Priscila has said all throughout her presentation on the reduction of debt. This is a key aspect, key issue. We've been doing this since 2022, predicting a scenario of low growth and high interest rates. So we've opted for this reduction all throughout these years, and we've managed to do the administration of the liabilities over the next quarter. So in general, we closed well. Good dividend distribution with yields of 8.6% in the first semester. So in general, it's a positive environment for the companies, some having a recovery that is important, which is the case of Alpargatas, and we will continue firm with our portfolio, which is a portfolio that has strong brands and a very relevant presence on the market and we will continue with it, all throughout the next semesters in a way that we can extend the benefits of the growth that each of these companies have infrastructure with a lot of investment in roadways and utilities and also great opportunities. A lot of concessions are going to come up to the market, and I think that only that these platforms are ready to grow in terms of business all throughout the next semesters. Positive closing, and now we can open for the Q&A session and we can further clarify the doubts of our investors.

Well, we've discussed the perspectives. Looking at the holding, we should continue to see the opportunities of liability management, still very important and the threshold of the high interest rates and good perspectives in regards to this profitability. So let's go to the Q&A session. I wanted to remind you to continue to submit the questions. Use the toolbox, the message box of the platform. So we will see each other at the Q&A session shortly. [Break]

Well, we're back, and now, we're going to start with the Q&A session. We're going to get live questions by the market analysts that accepted our invitation. First guest is Thiago Batista from UBS. Hi, Thiago. The floor is yours. We cannot hear you, Thiago, if you can open your microphone, please.

Can you hear me now?

Okay.

Okay. Sorry about that. I have 2 questions. The first, in regards to the deleveraging of the holding. As you've shown, the net debt is close to BRL 1 billion, maybe below BRL 1 billion. That didn't happen in '23, '24, '21, '24. So we are at the lowest leverages of Itausa. Can you imagine that we're going to continue a new cycle of investment or is still that early -- too early to happen? Well, you have the issue that Itau continues to devalue. So Itau is being valued and it represents 90%, 92% of the assets. So when you had the start of the previous cycle, Itausa was -- Itau was 95%. So I wanted to understand if there is going to be another cycle of investment that -- now that the deleverage happened. And the second question, it's about the tax reform. I know there is still some details, but the reform should eliminate or mitigate the PIS/COFINS tax deficiency.

Perfect. Thiago, thank you for your participation. Alfredo, would you like to comment?

Thank you, Thiago. I'm going to start with the first question, and then I'll give the floor to you. We are in this deleveraging process because we've seen from 2022 and more so reinforced right now that the interest rates of Brazil are continuing to be high. It continues to be high because of broad -- even so there is a small drop, they're going to continue to be high in regards to the next 15 years. That had an impact to the fixing of the interest rate by the Central Bank. And at the same time, we continue to have this process of deleveraging due to this interest rate scenario. This scenario of the interest rate at 10.5% considering that you do an investment, new investment in the holding, we would need to add the 10.5%, some cost, Brazilian cost, something like 3% plus the cost of the business itself, another 3%, we are talking about that we should find some business that would give a nominal return, around 16%. It's not easy. I think that the analysts and the fund managers you know about the difficulty of finding assets that give you that level of return of an investment at this moment that the economy is not fully on and the prospectus for Brazil and abroad are not the most favorable in terms of great economic growth. Having said that, we continue with the active M&A. We're continuing to find alternatives in the market. We continue to be seeked after. We're continuing to find out -- to seek alternatives of investment, but it's very difficult to find them. In regards to the past, where it was different than in the past that the interest rates were lower and the growth was higher. We found those alternatives in the infrastructure sector, in the utilities, distribution of gas. So it was a favorable moment. At this moment, we do not see this as favorable, but we continue to study. But I would say with very few perspectives of trying to find the business that justify the risk of making that investment and the scenario, internal scenario and global scenario that we're living. So we do not see responding objectively to your question. We don't see at this time, unless the conditions change all throughout the next years, we don't see a big cycle of investment for Itausa as you do -- as we've done over the next 7 years. We're going to follow-up the things change quickly, there might be an opportunity. But we should be very careful, as we've done in the past, seeking investments that in fact generate value for the shareholders and not do investments just for doing them. This is not our objective. It's not our mandate.

And I'm going to comment on the second question of Thiago about the tax reform. We've been following up very closely the technical groups about the regulation of the reforms and the complementary laws. Our understanding, as you know, we have fiscal inefficiency in regards to the taxation of PIS and COFINS, which is incident over the interest over -- the profits over interest JCP, especially of Itau Unibanco and we pay that doubly, the PIS and COFINS tax, taking into consideration that part of the investments are in another sub-holdings which is IUPAR that we use to control Itau Unibanco along with the Moreira Salles family. And so, we pay part of the PIS/COFINS over the JCP. So, we're talking about an annual expense of over BRL 500 million if we add that expense, that is incident at the IUPAR level. Today, our understanding in regards to the tax reform, but we are going to follow until this evolve that the JCP wouldn't be taxed for IBS and CBS. And we are talking about the fiscal inefficiency tends to end when the PIS/COFINS is extinguished. And this is predicted by the tax reform and the complementary law in 2026. And if that happens, then we should see an end to our fiscal inefficiency that is about BRL 550 million by year of expenses of PIS/COFINS. So let's wait with care, the tax -- the final approval of the tax reform that should happen over the next few months. So we can be sure of what are going to be the impacts at Itausa. I think that's it.

Well, I just wanted to complement when we distribute the dividends that are received, we pay it gross before the expenses of PIS/COFINS. So this expense is absorbed in the activities of the holding itself. So the shareholder of Itausa has the benefit of receiving the dividends prior.

So I would like to thank Thiago for their participation, and bring our next guest Gustavo Schroden from Bradesco BBI. Thank you for your participation. Welcome.

Well, I wanted to ask 2 questions. The first question is about -- I think that every single call that we take part, certainly Alfredo comments on the discount. And what do you think that is in the hand of Itausa to be able to pass to the market that this discount is exaggerated? Is that a strategy that you -- is there a strategy? There is the tax inefficiency, but is there anything else that as a company that you control and that you can address over the next quarters or years, does this perception changes? And is there any possibility of changing or increasing the dividend distribution? How do you see the additional payment of dividends this year and next year?

Thank you for the question. I think that the discount, the -- looking at the environment in Brazil, and we see several holdings open at B3 listed at B3 and abroad, and we see that these companies have a discount. Now, being very frank, the discount of Itausa is amongst the smallest discounts at the Brazilian level and at the international level. So this is a step that we can do in regards to the discounts and having the smaller discounts at the global level. Now, in the same way, we have here a discount above what it should be. Of course, we have fiscal inefficiency that eventually can be compensated depending on the way that it's approved at the Congress and the tax reform, that certainly would take the discount to lower levels, and we've worked diligently with the area of investor relations with more transparency, more information, seeing the policies for deleveraging the investments, how we make the decisions, and that helps. Another factor that could certainly reduce the discount would be is our investments in our nonfinancial. They could pay an additional dividend to what we distribute at the bank. At this moment, the nonfinance, specifically those that are in the infrastructure and utilities, they are in the process of big investments and they are not doing a big distribution of results besides the minimum necessary, the legal. And this has been a factor in the future of decreasing this discount as these companies pay more dividends and we pass that on for the shareholders, specifically when the dividend increases. These are several factors that are going to influence the drop in the discount in regards to our assets.

And Alfredo, to complement, the IR team has studied how much we can see the just value, fair value of our assets. We brought to the events of the market that visibility about the interest rates, we -- the return on investment, which is very important and relevant, in terms of return on investment, but we see that the market doesn't price very correctly. So it's probable that over the next quarters, we're going to advance with a disclosure that is -- in more details about the reference of the fair value for the assets that are non-listed, so that the market can price correctly our portfolio and also reflect what is the value of the percentage of discount that we see in our share, and then we can consider that in the decision-making process for the investment as well. So, thank you, Gustavo, for your participation. And now the next guest, Daniel Vaz from Safra. Daniel, welcome.

Well, I want to talk about liability management. And you could do the amortization of the installments that we have for the next year. You just paid the interest rate. When you look at the last debenture that was issued and looking at the market in general, the spreads have decreased a lot, and the bonds that are issued by companies such as yours have been absorbed very quickly. How do you see the more -- the oldest openings? Do you have more ambition of paying before and then you issue a new one for the market? That's the first question. The second question is about the repurchasing. You approved a new one in December. I think it was 75 million shares. Do you have any objective of at the end of this year, increasing value, given that you don't have any payments for amortization that should be done over the next 3 years?

Daniel, thank you for your question. Starting by the first question, in regards to the strategy of liability management, I think that we continue to be very -- paying attention to a lot of the market opportunity windows. And we've anticipated the issuance of the debentures using the spreads that were very compressed, and we managed to do an issuance of 10 years with a spread of 0.88%. We were very competitive in the transaction for the market with the objective of prepayment of our third issuance in December, respecting the lockup period. Now, our other debentures, they have a deadline that is longer for lockup. We have another one for the deadline at the end of the year, another one in the middle of next year. But if we compare the spread of this debentures that we have a lockup -- a deadline in July of '25. Facing this debenture that we just issued now, certainly, we will see that there is an opportunity for another reduction of costs if those spreads are kept. So we are paying attention. I think that there is a lot of opportunities, and we should look at these opportunities, always looking at the potential for the value creation for our shareholders. I think that this is our role of looking at the opportunities for the market and seizing them. We've done that very well with the last debenture. And certainly, we will have another movement up ahead whenever it is justifiable, financially speaking. I think that this is the clarification that I wanted to bring about liability management. The repurchasing -- Alfredo, if you want to comment -- we opened a repurchasing program specifically for the ILP program that we have in the company. So it was a program that was much reduced with just this objective. We have executed partially the repurchasing. Probably, we should -- there's still going to be a lot to execute. But in the threshold that is reduced, this is destined for the long-term incentive for the administration. Do you want to comment anything?

Well, we evaluate, from the standpoint of return to the shareholders, if it's better to pay dividends, if it's better to do the repurchasing, if it's better to pay the debt, there are several alternatives that we have. At this moment, what's giving a better return for the shareholders is the reduction of the debt. So we don't have any project of increasing the level of repurchasing of our shares in the near future. We are going to continue to deleverage. These scenarios are potentially complex, and this is where we can give a better return, reducing our financial expenses and giving a higher rate of return for our investors and shareholders.

Thank you, Daniel. And now, next guest, Yuri Fernandes from JPMorgan. Yuri, the floor is yours.

I wanted to go back to the multiple and the values of the units that are not -- the assets that are not listed, Aegea and Copa. They end up -- but when we see the discount, we see that value that is more conservative than it should be, the real value of these companies. So if you can help us to see -- how do you see -- what do you see in it? Also, what are the payers -- the types of multiples that you see in this company and if there is any adjustment in the discount? What is the fair value that you see for these companies, and what is the discount of M&A for Itausa? I think that it shouldn't change because of the value of Itau, which is the crown jewel for the number. But maybe if you can give us some color on what do you see in this adjusted discount? And the second question, I think it was discussed in the previous calls, it's about the flow of dividends in Itau. I think that -- well, you don't have any obligations of passing on the dividends that Itau pays for Itausa, but it's historically the practice. And the investment of expenses, the NPS , you end up serving the debt. So I wanted to understand, given that Itau is at the moment of paying dividends. They have an ROE that is very high. We discussed the extraordinary dividends for Itau over the next years. If that happens, what is your policy? Is to retain and deleverage more? Is it to pay the dividends of Itausa, so we can understand your mindset, should Itau increase the dividends?

Thank you, Yuri, for your participation. Alfredo, do you want to comment about the dividends? And then, I can answer the first question.

Well, thank you, Yuri. Thank you for the participation. And, well, as I commented before, we don't have any idea of doing new investments over the next years due to the return -- rates of return that are necessary, so we can find the assets that justify a new investment. Of course, I commented, and I reinforce here, that we continue to be active. We continue to hear the proposals, what's in the market, thinking about what we can eventually have as an option. But I would say that it's very unlikely. So I would say that the trend that we have here is of continuing with this practice that you commented and distributing the dividends of JCPs that are received over the bank's interest over capital for the shareholders of Itau. And it's what Priscila commented on the tax reform. If it's beneficial for the holding, then we have a cash flow that is very easygoing to do the amortizations and the payments of interest rates over the next few years. So we do not see any perspective of calling capital for the investors of Itausa. So the most probable scenario for this moment is to continue to distribute the dividends of interest over capital for Itau Unibanco for the shareholders of Itausa.

And commenting on your first question, Yuri, in fact, our company is not listed in the calculation that we provided for the market regarding our discount. We continue these invested companies on the value that we invested when we did the investment. I think that it was very precise, very correct, the calculation for the discount. But as time goes by, we start to see a gap in regards to the calculation that we've been doing for the market and what we consider that is a precise, correct calculation if we continue the fair value of these investments. So this is an exercise that we've been discussing internally on how to give visibility of this fair value, doing exercises of multiples that are applied over the results of the companies. And we should evolve in this disclosure, bringing references of multiples of peers, so we -- you can have more information and more visibility on the fair value of this portfolio for the non-listed companies, which is where we had a return rate, which was very significant. So there was a valuation that was substantial since the inception of the investment itself. So the discount that we are showing, if we consider this exercise still based on peers' multiples, we see at least 3 percentage points more of discount in regards to the ones that I just showed of 21%. So it's in this range, if we consider, in fact, the fair value of these investments, remembering that both Copa Energia has been growing substantially in terms of margin, in terms of EBITDA; has an ROI of 21%, close to the ROI of the bank. So it is a very close performance very healthy performance close to the bank that has to be considered in the calculation of our portfolio. In Aegea, with the growth and new concessions, so the EBITDA has been growing relevantly over the next few years. So about 65% of growth on the year is the average that we've seen in our investment. So certainly, this -- if we look at the fair value, then there is an important gap in regards to what we consider the value in the books. So we've evolved. We've discussed a lot with the analysts. We've heard the analysts in this issue, and we should bring a better disclosure over the next quarters. Thank you for your participation. And now, the next guest is Tito Labarta from Goldman Sachs. Tito, good morning. The floor is yours.

I guess, my question is, any scenario in which you may consider increasing your stake in Itau? I mean just looking, they've continue to deliver very strong results, despite a more intense competitive environment. We've seen competition in consumer lending recently, a little bit more on the SME side. So just any scenario where you may consider increasing your stake in Itau? And also from your perspective, how do you see the sustainability of results for Itau? They tend to benefit a bit from higher rates. But given the competitive dynamics, how do you see maybe the outlook for Itau, from your perspective?

Thank you, Tito, for your participation. So there was a question about -- well, it's the -- it's our interest to increase the return, which is very sustainable and recurrent and consistent with the company, and how do we see the sustainability of this threshold of return.

Thank you, Tito, for the question, for your participation here with us. Well, we see Itau Unibanco very well positioned in regards to the financial market for the next years. We were capable of doing a transformation that was very important, digital transformation of the bank, very big cultural change in the customer centricity over the next 6 years. We are getting the fruits of this positioning over the next few years. We've seen the results that are very consistent and better than the incumbent banks, banks that are the traditional competitors. We think that Itau is a step ahead, and we've managed to get the fruits of the enormous investment in technology to remove the gaps -- technological gaps in regards to the digital banks. We managed to get great steps in -- the great strides in this direction. The bank announced that they hired over 700 analysts -- data analysts, so we can accelerate this process ever more for digitalization, creation of assets, and a platform that is more friendly for our customers at Itau Unibanco. And we continue to do the risk assessment that is very solid, very good. We've had a capacity, not only in the area of credit, of growing in our portfolio, but keeping the levels of delinquency that are very low. So it shows the capacity of the banks to models working in a very solid and good way. And also in treasury, we've shown results quarter-on-quarter that are very consistent with our treasury operations, both the ones that are structural with the liabilities and assets of the bank and the trading tables. So I think that the bank is very well positioned. The bank thinks that through this differential and all these investments, we'll make Itau Unibanco to continue to show results and returns -- have returns over the next few years. Obviously, this is a competitive scenario. We see that the banks, the incumbents, are recovering. We see the fintechs working. But I would say that we are very much prepared and very adequate in terms of technology and culture so that we can keep these profitability levels. Now, having said that, I think that your question makes sense, and it's good to clarify. We should consider maybe increasing the participation of Itausa in the capital of the bank. However, we are not considering this investment now. We consider the asset, Itau Unibanco, our crown jewel of investment. We have about 37.5% of the capital of the bank. We understand that this participation is big enough so that we do not need to increase our stake because, of course, there are risks all throughout the process in the financial market, as everyone knows, risks of competition. It's a scenario that has a certain uncertainty regardless of the fact that it's -- that we are very well positioned. So we will continue with this participation. We will continue to seek investments in nonfinancial areas in such a way that we can have some diversification of our portfolio that would help the companies to grow and will help Brazil to grow and improve this infrastructure area. And these are sectors that we see very well. And as a company -- Brazilian company, we like to do those investments, regardless of the fact that this is a small diversification in regards to our main asset, which is Itau Unibanco. So we will continue with this participation. We will continue to distribute all the dividends and the interest over capital received over the bank, seeking investments in the nonfinancial area that we can have good returns. But we will not increase our participation in the bank, regardless of the fact that we know and we've seen that this is a profitable investment. But we have our own risks, regulatory risks, the economy, macroeconomic, politics. So we prefer not to increase the participation at this time.

Thank you, Tito, for your participation. And thank you to all the analysts that took part in our call live, and they brought your questions. Now, Alfredo, I wanted to open for the audience. We received a lot of questions from the audience. One of them is the topic that is the most important that has reached us, was submitted, which was the gains, the proceeds, as you can imagine. [ Giorgio Luis da Silva, Ricardo Boninho, Jerson Viana, Carlos Jose Braga and Ruben ], a lot of people here asking about what should we expect about the dividends? What are the perspectives for '24? And will there be a payout bonification this year? A lot of people have asked questions about that, but that's it, so dividends, gains.

Dividends, we've commented, we are going to continue with the practice of distributing the dividends of the banks. The received -- I think that there is a perspective, as commented in the previous presentation, that there is a great possibility of the bank paying once again the dividends much above the regulatory. We have to wait for this decision. And if this happens, we're going to do the distribution of the dividend. So I think that the level of the yield of Itausa is high. We have a yield of almost 4% of the year for our investors. Just by looking at the dividends, that already places amongst the biggest companies in terms of dividend yields at B3. So our analysts are satisfied. And of course, if we can improve this yield, we will do so. And I hope to do this not only in the future with the dividends of Itau Unibanco, but also with the dividends of other companies that are not connected to the financial sector that we have investments. Now, today, these dividends of Copa, Alpargatas, they are facing the expenses of the holding, the financial expenses, the fiscal inefficiency of PIS and COFINS tax. If it's possible, we can improve that additional dividend when it comes from the nonfinancial companies. I hope that it happens over the next years. In regards to the payout, it's a decision that we will make throughout the next months. It's important to highlight that the payment that Itausa provides, almost every year, we've done the incorporation of the reserve to the capital with a payout in shares in such a way that the investor -- the long-term shareholder of Itausa can increase their fiscal cost. So they incorporate that in their income tax. They increased our cost. Whenever they decide to sell the B3 shares, they will have a lower income. So it's important to pay attention that the payout not only increases the amount of shares that the shareholders start to have, but the main objective is to increase the fiscal -- your fiscal cost of you shareholders. So this is the big advantage. You go there, and your income tax -- there is a topic in the non -- there is bonification of shares, and then you write down the cost of the shares received by yields, dividend yields, which is a gain, asset gain is nontaxable. So pay attention, if we give a new bonification with the incorporation of reserves and the -- when you are doing your taxes, you have to incorporate that to your report in '24-'25.

So, the second big topic that was brought by our audience is the portfolio management and new business. [ Emilio Terrazzo, Juan Leon, Max Wilber, Eva Munoz, Ronaldo Lima ], several people here that are asking about new investments. We are not looking at a specific sector. Do we want to increase the participation of a company and the portfolio? And also [ Nathan Silvio ] has brought the question about the disinvestment. Do we have the intention of leaving any company in our portfolio?

As I said before, we have our M&A area very active. We are continuing to look for investments here in Brazil, never abroad. Investments abroad are done through our company's invested companies and not directly by the holding of Itausa. As I told you, we would need to have -- looking for investments that would be above 70% of return on investment. And in this low growth scenario, it's very difficult to find. We continue to find them. If there is any opportunity that is justifiable, then we will think and we will evaluate if the investment is worth it, and if, in fact, it will bring value to our shareholders and investors in general. I think it's difficult, as I said right now, to find this. In terms of disinvestment, we're not looking at any process down this line. We're very satisfied with the portfolio that we have. Some companies are doing better. Others suffered more over the next years due to the drop of income and the market itself. But we've seen that the shares were taken, and we see, this year of 2024, a recovery of the investments in those companies that suffered more with the post pandemic, that there was a boom, very big, of the economy and some sectors benefited a lot, and then there is the backdrop. They affected some of our companies. And in this year, we see a big recovery. So we are satisfied with our portfolio connected to the financial scenario, infrastructure. And we will continue with this portfolio. We don't see any reason to do any disinvestment.

Thank you, Alfredo. Now, some questions about the expectations of Itausa for the future. Lots of people asking what is the focus of Itausa for the next 5, 10 years? What can you expect for Itausa over the next -- over the future?

Well, 5 years in Brazil, it's difficult to have a clear vision of what's going to be Brazil in 5 years. It depends on our economic stability, social stability, the international scenario that is very complex, geopolitics, the interest rates, international. So what we can see over the next 3, 5 years is to continue to analyze some potential investments. As I've said, we have a perspective that the interest rates are going to be very high, and this is not going to be easy, but we will continue to look for this. We're not going to do, in thesis, any big investment. I think that we are very satisfied with our portfolio. And we will continue to deleverage as the scenario of the interest rates are high and deleverage at the level of holding. Then we deleverage -- the potential of deleveraging more. And also we invested -- there are much deleverage, as the infrastructure, in utilities and distribution, but we're going to continue to deleverage. And we see a scenario that is difficult for Brazil with low growth. And we are going to face this scenario, which is difficult of the high interest rates. So the bank will continue to be our crown jewel. Very difficult, as it was commented by some of the shareholders. And these are investments of BRL 18 billion. So it's very difficult to diversify. But we can diversify in other companies that have a perspective of giving relevant returns, important returns for our shareholders. I would say that the scenario for the next 3, 5 years is a bit of the same of what we've seen over the next years. We will continue with consistent results, which is what the record has shown and being careful with our investments.

Alfredo, the last question. We had a lot of questions about the themes that we discussed. But [ Brian Manzano ], he is asking about which invested company nonfinance that we see a bigger perspective for the growth in the long term?

Well, we have an investment of high potential for growth. And the biggest one for the potential for growth is Aegea. We have a regulatory framework that will give a lot of opportunity so that Aegea can take part in the bids that should occur over the next few years. So I think that here, there is a potential -- enormous potential for growth. Another company that evidently has a potential for new investments is CCR. Also due to the problems with our infrastructure in the state and federal governments, they should do a lot of bids of airways -- airports, metro, roadways, well, seaports, where CCR has the specialty of mobility. I believe that there is going to be a lot of opportunities for new investments. So I think that these are the 2. Of course, if we talk about the biggest potential of Itau Unibanco of investing and growth all throughout the next years. Now, in the area of gas and energy, we see Copa Energia getting little by little in other areas of energy, which, due to the cash generation that Copa Energia has provided us and having reduced its indebtment, we can consider new investments in the area of energy that is nonconnected to the natural gas at Copa Energia. So I think that there is a lot of potential, but the one that has the biggest potential would be Aegea.

Thank you, Alfredo. So I think that we went through almost all the issues raised here, the questions that were repeated, but we've gone over the details. As usual, should your question has not been answered, please get in contact with our Investor Relations team and through our social networks and also through e-mail. Follow us on the social networks. There is a lot of content on Itausa and our invested companies that you can follow up, being published by our social networks. Also our newsletter, Itausa monthly, we mention this, so please enroll. Also, I wanted you to submit your opinion about our event, [ ResultadosItausa phone call ], capture the QR code that is taking part in your screen or click on the button below the transmission window and answer to our satisfaction questionnaire. So, Alfredo, thank you very much for this event, sharing the studio once again with you. It was very nice.

I think it was a good event. I think that we managed to do a very focused event, very -- a presentation that is focused on strategy, looking at our practices, our policies, how we see the future of the company, the future of Brazil. And we try -- as you've seen, the questions, we've tried to cover almost all of them. So I'm happy that we managed to do a quality event that is objective. And I close by saying that we have a very solid portfolio. As you know, our companies are very well positioned in terms of branding, in terms of market share. These are big companies in the Brazilian economy. They are leaders in the sectors that they work with. So regardless of all the difficulties of Brazil with low growth, with a geopolitical international scenario that is very complex, with an interest rate that is very high, we are very optimistic because we have a good governance. We take that good governance to our invested companies. We have a concern that in this event, we didn't approach, but we have a concern that is very high with the social environmental policies, and we can see the climate change. We created our institute. We've done donations and projects that are connected to the institute itself. So it's our -- how we pay back to society, how we can help and be an example of a Brazilian company in this sector that is social, environmental through our actions of the invested companies, the holding itself and the institute itself. So I think that we are very well positioned. We are very -- we believe that we're going to present very solid results, distributing the gains, the proceeds to the investors, regardless of this challenging scenario. Thank you for your participation, and the several people that took part, many people that are going to watch on YouTube this presentation all throughout the next days and weeks. And I will invite you to our Panorama on November 12, which is the Itausa Day, where we approach in depth our shares, where we have the participation of our CEOs of the invested companies, and we can do a deep dive on this work. So we wait for you on November 12 once again, so we can do another event and then try to clarify and be as transparent as possible with our investors. Thank you very much, and see you next time.

Thank you. Have a nice day. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]