Lojas Quero-Quero S.A. (LJQQ3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the discussion of the results of the second quarter of 2023 of Quero-Quero stores. I'm Flavio Abrantes, IRO, and here with us today will be Peter Furukawa, our CEO; and Jean Pablo De Mello, CFO. To start the presentation, let's move on to Slide #3. Our agenda will cover our pillars, expansion and projects, and then we will discuss the results of the second quarter of 2023 as well as the first half of the year, and then we'll open the Q&A session. Let's move on to Slide 4, and I turn the floor to Peter Furukawa.

Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you. I would like to thank you for your interest in our Quero-Quero stores. as I usually say, our business is not offering a lot of news. There are not many things -- different things to discuss. We are going to discuss the same topics as previously, and we'll talk about the consistency that we have maintained. Some of you had the opportunities to look at the results that you read about our performance. Basically, there's no news to share with you. Second quarter is very similar to that of the first quarter. It was a bit more challenging in terms of same-store sales. But I believe we continue following our plan. I don't see any difference from what we expected. We continue opening stores. We continue working on the performance of the stores. We believe we are on the right track, making new investments, looking at the cash flow. Cash consumption has to do with the seasonality. In fact, I usually look at the cash consumption with a magnifying glass and we are likely to end the year as expectations. Our net debt will remain where we are today. Generally speaking, I see that we had a quarter with no surprises. So let's move on. Let's talk about our pillars. We continue believing in those levers. We had the total growth of 0.6% in total sales in the second half of 2019. When compared to that period, we reached 65.7%. As to same-store sales, it was negative 6.4% in comparison to versus -- in comparison to last year. Retail CAGR remained at 13.5%, and 14.2% when compared to the half of the year. Same-store sales stood at 6.4%. And there's no news about the default rate. We are at the same level of 2019. And we understand that some variables have not improved in the previous results, but we continued on the right track. Always work on the collection and credit. We remained in line with the results of 2019. Our credit portfolio has grown faster than our sales, and we still haven't reached the level we wanted which is related to the penetration of our credit in relation to sales that we have moving forward. We remained at about 50%, and we have to continue working to reach the level that we had last year of about 19%. We continue focusing on our costs. We have new stores. And the logistics is much better structured than that we had in the past. And we understand that we need to have this logistics solid when the right moment comes up. Our expenses grew 4.3% in comparison to 2022 and 9.1% in the half of the year. We continue making investments in new stores, in digital, and also in logistics. Our net debt stands at BRL 246.1 million, 1.5x in the net debt over EBITDA. Cash consumption is as expected, considering the seasonality of cash consumption. So we are going to continue building a solid base as for the company without increasing our net debt. So the scenario improves, we are going to be well positioned. Phygital retail, considering what that fails payment links, and our Phygital sales, we are reaching 21% of sales. We are not making investments to acquire new clients with long payback. We are really trying to do everything we can at the lowest possible cost, acquiring new clients and also selling to the same clients using the stores that we have. So limited investment when acquiring clients in other ways because the cost to acquire clients is still very high, and we do not want to burn cash with that purpose. And we continue with our culture, with high performance, we have 6 store managers already trained and 36 managers in training process in the second quarter of 2023. We have 409 employees in the Desponte Program in June 2023. And we have a turnover, but the level that we have with us is satisfactory. And the training of managers is improving every day. Next chart. So this is the status of our stores on the right. We can see that 80% -- 87% of our stores is in bases where there are lower than 100,000 inhabitants. So we concentrate our efforts on smaller stores. So we can also see our evolution in the areas of sales. 162,000 in 2017 to 362,000 square meters. We opened 13 new stores and 3 stores were closed in the semester. So we are operating in nearly 450 cities, and we are going to continue renovating our stores along the semester. So every time we make this effort, we see that there is a gain in share in those cities. And if store is in poor condition, we make changes, and we can see the improvement. Next chart, please. Here, is the evolution of our Phygital effort, 21% in more technological platforms than we had before the pandemic. And all those who visit our Phygital stores can see that there has been ever formulation, a renewal, and they all look very beautiful. So we are everywhere obtaining new sales through those channels even though there is a long way to go. And the next chart shows the initiatives and these project headed by Jean and that was prepared some years ago. And now we see a large base of electricity being supplied by solar energy. So this is another example of all the efforts that we have made at Quero-Quero in order to reduce cost. So we are very happy with these results. These are the topics I wanted to cover. I'll come back at the end of the presentation, we are facing hard times. We haven't seen any improvement in the past few months. And we can see that our investors who prefer to invest their money, but we have to understand that the market has challenges, is a very tough market now. And when things get tough, they really get tough. And the interest rates affect our performance. So because the interest rates are very high and for the second year in a row, I'm looking that it's something sad, but we had draft in Rio Grande do Sul. So a very long dry period. There was a question related to this. I'm going to answer the question in more detail. But in Santa Catarina and Paraná, even though we had 6.4 in negative sales, Paraná has reached nearly 0. And Rio Grande do Sul is mostly affected. And this is where we have more tradition, which is the West region of Rio Grande do Sul. And the Northwest region was the one that was mostly affected by the dry period. Producers are capitalized, but we have to remember that this is the second year in a row that we had faced this problem. This is not likely to happen in the next crop, the next period. At least this is what we here say. I don't know if this is going to be materialized. But an answer to Catarina, maintained a more favorable scenario when compared to Rio Grande do Sul. I believe the spirit of Quero-Quero continues same. Our team is absolutely fantastic. And our company is very well structured. In these tough times, we have been able to grow without consuming cash. So we are preparing the company for better times. So better times will come, worse times may come as well, but we are going to continue strong because our team is very strong. So I'll give the floor to Jean to provide more details, and then I'll come back at the end of the presentation for the Q&A session.

Let's move on to the next slide. so that we won't waste time. On Slide 10, we can see the revenues of the company. As Peter mentioned, generally speaking, in the second half of the year, was very similar to that of the first quarter. We faced more challenges in retail, and retail had a growth of 1% in the total revenue, and a drop of 6.4% in same-store sales. So the result was below the performance we posted in the first quarter, even though we expected the first half of the year to be very tough, considering the macroeconomic phase by the period. So we had a 3% growth in retail. So we closed -- the financial services follows the trend of the past quarters. showing growth, a growth of 11% in the revenue of the second quarter, so we closed at 100% growth in revenue. And the same for credit card, a growth of 13% in credit card, and 10% for the half of the year. So along the years, the last -- the past few years, we were very more conservative in credit protection and even when considering the default rate. But once all those items have been controlled, we see the growth in financial services and above that, that was reported in retail. So we had a group total growth of 3% in this half and 5% of BRL 1.3 million of sales in the first half of 2023. Moving on to the next slide, Slide 11. Here, we have some lines that we'd like to draw your attention to. Basically, we had a little growth in gross profit, 1% in the first quarter and 2% for the half of the year, and specifically in the second quarter. Because it's always important to provide this detail to understand how things are playing out. We can see that the retail margin is highly aligned to what we have been presenting. So in the second half of the -- in the second quarter, we had some gain when compared to the same period of last year. However, the margin of financial services continue to be below that of the previous quarter or previous period. So this is related to the cost of capital, Selic rate and may be -- since there has been a reduction in the interest rates Selic. So we're likely to have a better performance but we are still facing the burden of the capital cost, which was very close to the first quarter, but which was below of what we reported in the previous year. Moving on to the next slide. Since we have already mentioned the margin and the revenue and gross profit, we are now going to discuss expenses. So this is a work that we have done with a lot of diligence at the end of 2021. So we can see in the quarters, we can see the growth of 6% last year, 4%, which is, in fact, a bit higher than this because we had some level of recovery. So we can see that considering the semester, we had a growth of 13% when compared to 21%, and now 9%. And we can see that there has been an expansion in our stores base. And we had a reversal of BRL 18 billion in credit related to 2017 and 2018. And this is information that has already been disclosed, and now we were able to make those reversals. The expenses continue to be controlled and the same-store sales continued to grow below inflation. But considering the increase in the base of stores, we have some operational deleveraging considering the performance of sales in the retail segment. In the next segment, we will discuss EBITDA, how it has been performing in the past few years and in the second half of 2023. So we have an accounting EBITDA of BRL 48 million and adjusted EBITDA of BRL 5 million. So we can see that it's very close to the results of the first quarter. So the operational results were, as you can see, removing the impact of the EUR 18 million, which is nonrecurring. So this is the performance of the quarter without a lot of changes. So we had minus BRL 2 million in terms of adjusted net income, minus BRL 2 million. We have to understand that the seasonality of sales is lower in the first half of the year, and this is reflected in the results of the company. Now moving on to the next slide. I'm going to provide the details regard to be very important in relation to the performance of the company. First is the performance of the credit portfolio. We closed the second half of the year with slightly growth in comparison to the first half of the year, but the growth is very important in relation to the previous period of the previous year. But the purpose of last year which continues to be this year's objective is to maintain the default rate controlled at the levels that we both said before the pandemic. So we can see that the delay of over 90 days on the VerdeCard's portfolio is better aligned to the same period of 2019. So this is one of the most important objectives for the year, considering that the macro scenario is still very challenging. And you can see that we were able to do this since last year, and this is a situation that has been maintained at stable levels. And this comes from the efforts of collection and credit areas. And also, we are being more conservative when granting credit. In the next slide, we can see that the portfolio continues growing because VerdeCard continues to be used and showing growth. So we had a growth of 15% and transacted volume in this quarter. So we posted a growth of 15% -- [ 50% ] in the year. And we had a slow growth inside our stores, but also of our stores, they see the result of the partnership that we established with Elo for the credit card. Moving on to the next slide, you can see that the use of credit card is still driven by the growth of the credit portfolio. And now I'm going to talk about the cash flow of the company. We made investments along the previous years, both for IT, logistics and also in the opening of stores. And part of the investment will provide sustainability for our company. And one of the ideas was to decrease investment this year, and we also decided to open fewer stores, and this is associated with investment. So we have BRL 11 million invested in this quarter, a drop of 39% when compared to the previous year. This help us to maintain our debt controlled. We will continue investing thinking about the long term, but with a focus on the short term in order to have all this control. In the next slide, we can see what happened, and this is something that has already been mentioned by Peter, and this is related to net debt of the company. If we consider the results, not only of 2019, but even before that. We have to take into consideration the sales seasonality and also the cash generation. In the second quarter, we closed with a net debt of BRL 246 million, adjusted net debt, which is very similar to the BRL 231 million of the second half of last year, even considering the scenario that we are facing on macroeconomic scenario, which is quite tough, but we have been managing to invest in the business, growing our revenue and opening new stores. Another important that I can comment on is that in July, we had another issue of BRL 300 million of the VerdeCard in FIDC, and this is a FIDC issue that help us grow the portfolio, so that we can have the necessary funding in order to grow our business and grow work portfolios as we have seen, even though the growth has been lower than those posted in the previous period. With this, I can move on to the next slide. And turn the call to Flavio, who is going to lead the Q&A session.

Thank you, Jean. We are now going to open the Q&A session, as Peter said. [indiscernible] with Bank of America asks the first question.

What's the sales dynamics in different states? Even though the dry period impacted Rio Grande do Sul, we can see some recovery in Santa Catarina and Paraná. What's the competitive dynamics being paying out both in region and locally? So has this been led to the closing of stores of the competition?

Hello, Pedro. It's always good to talk to you. Good questions. You asked it. So you talked about recovery of sales in Paraná and Santa Catarina. I wouldn't say that this is a recovery that we are exiting. There is no change that would make those states to grow in Rio Grande do Sul actually losing ground. We are losing share. We have been recording lower sales than in the previous period, and our morale will be affected, of course, and this is a concern. If the Sul being is 230 and 240, there is a difference when the prices are different. Of course, we are facing more difficulties in the Northwest region, considering the macro situation. As to the competition Pedro, we see that more stores from competition are being closed. Some networks have more stores being closed. Some of them have been filing for bankruptcy. So there has been acceleration in this trend in comparison to the previous period. Because building materials is facing tougher times, we have seen that competitors have been looking for us because their businesses are not doing well. But for the time being, this is not something very major. So I wouldn't say there is a big change being happening in the market. 2 days ago, I saw some data saying that there has been total sales reported 8% drop. And some places, the situation was even worse, considering the scenario that you mentioned, namely the environment and the dry period. But we have a great team working on this. Even considering this on first scenario, they have been able to achieve or to penetrate the market even at limited base. I don't know if that answers your question.

Thank you, Peter. Next question is with Thiago Macruz with Itau BBA

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for our question, we have 2 questions on our side. In the short term, in the retail segment, we understand the scenario is still difficult. You see in the release that the results of the quarter was affected by deflation in some categories. We have been observing the scenario in the last few weeks. And the comparison basis becomes to be clearer, considering that the same. Do you think that the same-store sales could be more positive in the third quarter? Could you give us more details on the impact of the tax reform. What have you started in relation to this? And considering the information currently available, what can you say in terms of the impact in the financial services and also retail segment.

Jean, please?

Hello, Okay. Going straight to the point related to deflation. This is something that we saw in the first quarter of the year, and we also saw in the second quarter. When we think about comparable stores when we had the same-store sales of 2.5 drop. We had a number of products sold, close to 0, but we had a deflation at the time that influenced the final number to negative levels. So this deflation continued in the second quarter at levels which were very similar to what we saw in the first quarter, okay? But yes, we had the performance as a whole in the second quarter below that of the first quarterly. This is why we had a negative result of same-store sales. In the short term, what I can say that in relation to the average ticket. And when we compare to the previous period as to same-store sales, we still see the impact of deflation in the first half of the year. But still early to say whether or not the effect will be greater or lower than during the previous quarter. But I can say that what we have seen that this is likely to continue. The prices are falling even more -- and we are likely to have this negative impact and entering the deflation and the growth of sales at the company in relation to the performance in the third quarter. First, we have to consider the seasonality, nominal sales, which are high -- tend to be higher than the third -- higher in the third quarter, but we still have to wait for the next weeks of the third quarter. And we understand that August performance is very important. Even though it's not a specific store period for the company, but August is a traditional month where when we offer promotions. So we understand we are still in the beginning of this period of the second half of the year. We have to wait a little bit more in order to understand how same-store sales will perform this quarter. The basis of comparison is weaker along the semester, which will favor us, but we still have the negative effect of the deflation. And the second point of your question related to the tax reform. I can say what are the impacts we feel today, which is the act that was approved. We still do not have the rate that was estimated, but in our scenario for all those who follow our performance, we -- they understand that we do not have a specific fiscal benefits for the company. So the tax reform is not likely to affect us. We have a very high tax burden in retail. We also have a high burden of tax substitutions. If we compare the -- we understand that there are many taxes that are paid in an anticipated way. So the figures that we have been discussing in terms of tariff rate for the retail they're very similar to what we have today. So a tax reform, at least in relation to retail as we have seen in the discussions and according to the information currently available. So all of these changes are not likely to have any significant impact on the company. and the impact might be positive, considering that all the benefits are going to be leveled considering everyone, and this is likely to favor the company. And as to financial services, all the tax reform depends on what will be approved in terms of rates and charges and tariffs. So the impact to the company are not likely to be felt in a very dramatic way. So this might affect the financial services. But based on the current information, we are not concerned in relation to the impact on the company.

Our next question comes from Philipp Casimiro with Bradesco BBI. And Peter will answer his question. The question is what are the expectations of the company to improve the retail demand in relation to the impact of the government programs, Minha Casa, Minha Vida and Desenrola. Those 2 programs.

Hello, Casimiro, I always go to hear a question from you. Only to add to what Jean mentioned in relation to the tax reform. Jean hired specialists to understand the changes that might be approved. And as he said, all the changes will be marginally positive for us. So what is interesting that the market will be on a leveled ground. So we are not affected because we do not have the fiscal benefits. I see some concern in relation to the market dynamics because there will be an imbalance of prices, there will be some adaptation. We don't know what's going to come into the future. I don't know how the prices in the market are going to be adjusted when we talk about services or projects. So it's still something unknown. And the benefits, there is nothing that's going to be a going to be affecting us. But to your question, Casimiro, I wish I could answer your question. Especially the first part of your question when you ask about Minha Casa, Minha Vida program. I wish I could be more accurate. But for the time being, we see no difference. Of course, our case has not changed. We continue working on making sales of beauty materials with larger assortment so that we can provide those people in smaller cities to have the product with no large assortment, as I said, and we continue to increase our store basis, even considering the tough scenario we are facing. We have been increasing the number of stores based on the performance that we expect without concern consuming our cash. We continue believing that at a moment in time, the economy will improve. So the political scenario will not be sustained if the market does not improve. So there will come to a moment where things are going to be fit together. So we have been working on this construction. So Minha Casa, Minha Vida program may help us. We've had some experience of this in the past. So anything that will help us sell some more will help us in delivering a better EBITDA. And we are at a breakeven point of the situation. So I believe that we will be favored to a certain degree, but I don't know from when. So there are more -- there's more noise than actual things happening. ETP team has been working a lot in this regard. And I believe we are going to be favored by the decisions and to the retail segment as a whole. But we still do not understand how this is going to be the materializing. There will be an auction, but we don't know how this auction is going to be held. There are many strategies that are being developed. The credit -- our credit team is very analytical. It's a fantastic team, and they are doing the studies. And as the definition is made, we are going to have a better perspective, and this is something that is being considered in our budget, and this is associated with the Desenrola program. This is how we see it at this time. I cannot say to you that there will be any impact in the short term. So we had to wait a little longer -- maybe we have to wait more 60 days, and then I might be able to give you a proper answer, Casimiro.

Thank you, Peter. Our next question comes from Marcelo, and will be answered by Jean. Peter, Jean and Flavio, how are you pricing the products considering the challenging environment. So they have different margins. Could you provide more color on this.

Jean?

Good morning, Marcelo. The categories have different margins. But in fact, we look at the return on the investment in the categories. And when we look at this, maybe a category that we have lower gross margin, will generate more cash more financial return. So in all the categories, we operate are seeing from this perspective. In relation to pricing, specifically, the pricing strategy is very aligned with that of the market. Last year, we made some comments in this regard since the market is more challenging considering the macro scenario. Competition is fiercer. And one of the variables is lower price to convert more sales in a tougher scenario. We have a more challenging scenario in relation to prices, some results are affected by this challenging scenario. It continues to be very challenging. And when the market has this negative performance, prices will continue to be part of the equation, and we're going to be a [indiscernible] for all this. And what prices are lower. It's very hard to maintain the margin at an aligned way. Today, we're facing the difficulty caused by the deflation because in our inventories, we are going to have a price with the previous price. And if we have to lower the price of the product in inventory, we'll have a negative impact in our area. And all the commercial team has been working, and we have been able to deliver a stable margin at least in relation to the previous quarters. However, the challenging scenario and also answering the greatest question. It's something that continues. We see that the deflation scenario, we are still facing difficulties when we negotiate and define the prices so that we can have the correct prices at a margin that would be satisfactory. For the time being, you've been able to do this, but the challenge continues.

Thank you, Jean. We now close the Q&A session. And now, I'm going to turn the call back to Jean for his final remarks. And then Peter will have the floor. And then we will close the earnings call, Jean?

I would like to thank you once again for attending this conference. And I would like you to know that the IR team is at your service at your disposal, and you can find the material on our site. We hope we clarified your questions and see you in the next call related to the third quarter of the year. Have a good day, everyone.

I would also like to thank everyone for your interest in Quero-Quero, the confidence you have put in us. I would like to say that this is a hard moment as last year, but we have a differentiator factor. We are very committed at Quero-Quero. We understand that the situation is difficult. But even considering this tough scenario, people are building something that is ever more solid without increasing our debt. We're making all the efforts. We are improving in all the areas of the company. The level commitment, the teams are ever better. There are 3 variables when people say what's the inflection point? I don't know. We are going to be ever better in everything we do. We have a scenario of high interest rates. We have another scenario, which is the purchasing power. We -- it has not been recovered yet when compared to 2019. We need this aspect to improve. We need lower inflation and recovery along the time. And we also have to consider the soybeans situation. So we are likely to have better moments. Harder times may also come up, but it's very important to be ever stronger and more prepared. And this is something that we see at our company every day. The best thing we have is for people, our officers, managers are fantastic, and I'm proud of the team we have. I'm going to say something interesting that our managers, high-level administration who have babies. And we see the picture of their babies. And they have just been born and they are already wearing clothes of Quero-Quero. So this shows the love they have for the company. So we are ready, we fight, and capture all the opportunities available to us, maybe in the markets we are operating now or in the future, a more favorable market. I'm very proud for the team we have, and I would like to thank you for the interest and one of our values is transparency. So whenever you have a question, we'll be here willing to answer. So I'd like to thank you. And have a good day, everyone.