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

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For consumers that buy the other end. And in quarter 4, we can see our numbers. The numbers are better. The decrease was much lower than that of last year. Because in quarter 4, half was due to the customers and half was due to the deflation. So I am more positive when I look at the numbers and when I see our consumers going back to previous numbers are stopping to decrease. And the good surprise is also -- I used to say that Jean was -- only had one introduction. He was the only CFO in retail that didn't bring money from taxes. But even that, Jean was able to do now. So now he's the perfect CFO. Of course, Jean and his team, they're fantastic. So retail sales in quarter 4 were in line with quarter 4 '22 with a drop of 4% in the same-store sales versus '22 and it was 50-50 split between customers and deflation. The CAGR versus 2019 was nearly 13%. We had eight new stores in the fourth quarter, 28 stores in the year. Also during the year, we ended up closing five stores. So the net number of stores was 23 in the year. We had 38 renovations. You're going to hear more about them later. So we continue to work towards gaining as much market as possible. The local competitors continue to work hard as well. Sometimes they have a little more flexibility than us. But the market is no walk in the park for anyone. It is a harsh market for everyone, and it's been a hard year for everyone and it's slightly better now. The overdue payment was really expected, 11.6%. And for the sake of transparency, I must tell you that we made a bet on the Desenrola program, which was higher than what it should have been. And this was on me. Because I believe that with this initiative, we would have a good -- this time, we would have a good program with the government, but this wasn't the case. So in quarter 4, we made an effort that I have to give congratulations to the field team and the credit team because they really, really strived to -- well, considering the program that we had, the Desenrola program. Our managers went to our customers that were under the Desenrola program to try to bring better results, but the results didn't come. So the collection was lower through the stores because we were emphasized that Desenrola program, so part of the seasonality that we could have collected in terms of improvement in delinquency in quarter 4 ended up being flat. We ended up not really seeing any benefits from this Desenrola. And it was unfortunate. We thought it was a good opportunity, but it didn't work out. Delinquency was flat, 11.6% for over [ 90 ] and our portfolio grew by 17%. We have slightly higher sales penetration on us and higher sales offers due to our partnership with Elo, a great partner that we have. We worked on our expenses. If we remove the increased expenses due to the new openings, new openings gives us a G&A deleverage that was already expected, but we were able to control our costs really well. So we deserve the credit for that. And our net debt, which is the most important aspect here, because you know that we always focus on cash flow, and this was a very harsh year, as I said, and we were able to close the year with the same level of net add as that of the previous year. [ 78 to 81 ]. So 3 million or 3 million addition versus the previous year. We had new openings. We made the investments we needed to make. We optimized our working capital. And we were able with the effort of each and every one of you in our company to finish the year, we were able to finish the year at the same level of net debt than that of the previous year. This is our greatest focus. We have a much stronger company, much more prepared to capture any opportunity that may cross our way looking forward. And we continue to do really well with our net debt. Our net debt over EBITDA ratio is 4x and this tax gain that we had will turn into cash at some point. And then we will be in an even better position than we are right now. So once again, I'd like to congratulate the team, the wonderful team that we have for their hard work. Digital sales accounted for 22% of our total sales. This was also in line with what was planned. We haven't really penetrated the A class. So it's just a matter of communication, but we're moving really well in that front. And the high-performance culture, this is one of our main focuses. We have 188 store managers that were changed. We have 44 managers that are being trained and will finish -- will complete their training by the end of the year. With 338 employees in the Desponte program as of December 2023, we're reaching the target -- we're at 80% of target. And we already hired our trainees, which are a great source of the talents that we have in our company. As I always say, not all small companies from the inner part of the country are able to get the best talents in the world, but we already have two in Northwest, one in [indiscernible] We have another one in the Duke University, and this makes us really, really happy. So this is just one more proof of the quality of the people that we have. We have fantastic people that could be working anywhere else in the world, but they're working for us, and we're very thankful for that. Next chart. Here, we see the expansion of our stores. We finished at 552. Four new openings in Rio Grande do Sul, six in Santa Catarina, 13 in Parana, three in Sao Paulo and two new stores in Mato Grosso do Sul. The stores are doing well in Mato Grosso. I think Mato Grosso is the best expansion that we have seen so far. The public responded really well better than Santa Catarina, Parana. São Paulo, the numbers are in line with what is expected for an expansion in a new region. We're at 70%, and we expect to remain at this level in stores -- with stores at cities with fewer than 50,000 habitants. Next chart. Here, we talk about our recognitions. We were once again recognized as a top employer, institutional investors, the third best company in ESG, the third best company in the composition of its Management Board, among the top 5 in corporate governance. We got the silver stamp in the GHG protocol by FGV. We were included in the first portfolio of [ IGVs ], the new ESG Index of B3. Our employees also -- we had a lot of internal promotions. We trained 188 managers. We had 112 new job openings and 50 former trainees that are now occupying leadership positions. And each of our trainees, they need to deliver a certain result. So actually, each and every employee at Quero-Quero. So when someone goes on vacation, we see this variation in our results. It really makes a difference because each and every one of our employees makes a difference. So if someone goes on vacation, we see -- we truly see a difference. So now just to give you some color about Q1 this year because I know you went to ask about that, delinquency is under control. The number of tickets, we see a small variation, a positive variation. The average ticket is nearly -- also the difference is nearly 0. So we're doing better and better. And we are seeing a gradual recovery. Just to recap, last year, we had very high interest rates. We had the problem with the droughts. Unfortunately, it was the second consecutive year in a very important region for us. Also the C&D classes were still being infact impacted by the inflation rate, which consumed the disposable income they had. And in the second half of the year, we had some problems of excessive rainfall in some of our regions. But now we're seeing a better cohort with better results. We have two Store Directors -- our oldest Director, that is responsible for Santa Catarina and the Upper States, and [ Chris ], who's responsible for the state of Rio Grande do Sul. And now we're starting to see better results in the other regions as well as the new regions. The other regions were impacted by the droughts last year. And the managers that we have in the regions that suffered the most with the droughts last year, they are now full of enthusiasm and full of energy to tap all the opportunities that cross their way in this better environment for soybeans in Rio Grande do Sul. This year, you're going to see the opposite situation, the harvest in Rio Grande do Sul -- actually, Rio Grande do Sul should be stronger than the other states, but we will do whatever we can to capture all the opportunities. And we believe we will see a better situation looking forward also with the decrease in interest rates and the recovery of the C&D classes. At least this is what I expect to see this year. We expect to see a better environment also due to our cohort of customers. So this is what I wanted to share with you today, just a brief overview. And we really hope that this year, we can finish with results that are at least in line or even better than what we had last year to continue to capture the seeds that we're sowing. We will continue to invest, and we want to be ready for when the interest rates reach a level of 9% to be able to capture all the potential that we have in construction materials as well. In this first quarter, [ electro ] and furniture is better than last year. And we hope to see a recovery of construction materials as well. So now I hand it back to Flavio and Jean and we'll be available for your questions. Thank you.

Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here to go over the results of Lojas Quero-Quero. As you heard from Peter Furukawa, he already touched on the main points. And now I'm going to go into more details about our results and the main indicators that we pursued in 2023. So first, in respect to our revenue, as you can see here, and you also heard from Peter, we had a quarter 4 where the retail was slightly better than in quarter 2 and 3. We closed a 37% decrease in same-store sales compared with drops of over 6% in quarters 2 and 3. And with the continuity of our expansion, we had a flat retail revenue in the quarter with a slight increase of 1% for the year. But still, in the year, we have a compound annual growth of 13% per year. On the other hand, we see the resumption and recovery of Financial Services. As you can see here on our chart, in 2020 and 2021, we had much stronger growth rates in retail, and Financial Services showed a certain delay. And now with the stability in Financial Services, we see Financial Services growing at a faster rate, more in line with what retail showed in previous years. So here, we see a growth rate of 19% in quarter 4 and 15% for the full year 2023 in our Financial Services revenue. It's something similar we see for credit cards, which are the main tool for our customers to access these Financial Services and purchase at our stores. We had an increase of 15% in the quarter and 12% in the year. So we closed quarter 4 with a 5% increase in the consolidated numbers and 4% for the year, quite in line with the growth rates that we saw in 2022. So these were 2 years of a very adverse scenario for retail, which is our -- in our core activity, which is Financial Services, but we've increased sales even with the decrease in our same-store sales. And this growth in sales, it's important to highlight that it comes also with an improvement in our margins. So we had a 5% increase in our sales in the quarter, but a 10% increase in our profit. So when we look at the year, we had a 4% growth in the year. We had 7% increase in our profit for the year. So for those who have been listening to our calls, particularly in Financial Services, during the second quarter this year, we still had a lot of pressure on our margins due to the provisioning considering the delinquency scenario as a whole. Even though our delinquency scenario is stable, we came from a more benign scenario. So now when we have a worsening of the macro scenario, it ends up hurting our margins. But then in quarter 3, we start to see an improvement in our margin. So in quarter 3 -- so in quarter 4, we see that our retail margin is more aligned with the previous quarters in quarter 1 and 2 in 2023. And for Financial Services, it's at about 50%. So we were close to 45% in quarters 2 and 3, which is what we also saw throughout 2022. So this allows us to close the quarter at 30.8% margin over our gross revenue for consolidated, and we closed the year at 30.1% for our consolidated margin compared with 29.2% in the previous year. So this is where, in this scenario, we can deliver growth in our margin. It started -- starting the second quarter this year, and this reflects on better margins in the full year 2023 and also compared with 2022. So we maintain our growth still below the potential of the company. But we were able to cover the growth of our margin, and we believe this growth is sustainable in 2024. On the next chart, it's very important to talk about our expenses. We had already communicated that we were working to control our expenses in 2021 and '22. So that's why we see that we had an increase of 6% versus 8% in the previous year. And this comes from the growth in our sales and the better control of our administrative expenses at the level of the inflation and sometimes even below that. And even with some additional expenses that we had in quarter 4, these additional expenses are due to the resumption in the gross profit of the company. And as you heard from Peter, in the fourth quarter, we had the recognition of our net credits, BRL 47 million due to the 1125 theme of the superior court. So we had credits that go into expenses, plus 22.5% of credits and financial results. So we're talking about nearly BRL 70 million in credits that after the due legal process in the upcoming quarters will be transformed into cash. This will help us maintain our strong position, and this was the positive surprise this quarter. Now moving on to the next chart. We see the impact of this increase in our gross profit and the good control of our expenses. In quarter 4, we had BRL 101 million in accounting EBITDA considering IFRS 16, considering the credit of relevant increase year-over-year. And when we look at the adjusted EBITDA increase, it's BRL 29 million. And in quarter 3, we went back to increasing our adjusted EBITDA, BRL 26 million versus BRL 20 million. And in quarter 4, we reached BRL 29 million adjusted EBITDA. So operationally speaking, this is even better than what we saw in quarter 4 '22. Because in quarter 4 '22, we still had some effects here, for example, in the PPR provisioning or due to our partnership. And when we look at the expenses, the revenues and the margin, it shows that we start to see some stability in our EBITDA. It can -- sums growth in our EBITDA starting in quarters 3 and 4 last year, and we believe this is sustainable looking forward. So we closed the year at BRL 227.9 million in EBITDA and BRL 63.5 million in adjusted EBITDA. And the next chart shows how this can be seen in our net income. So we reached quarter 4 at BRL 9.5 million, adjusted net income, so the increase year-over-year. And we closed the year at BRL 19.7 million in net income with an adjusted loss for the year. But as you can see, there's a positive trend with our adjusted net income in quarter 4. So gradually, with the stabilization of our sales and improvement in our margin and improvement in our EBITDA, we start to see an effect on our net income. So we have an expectation here that with the -- still we've to see the impacts of a somewhat high interest rates and the impacts on the retail market, we still start to see a stabilization of the company's results and an improvement in the 2 last quarters. So these are our results for quarter 4, for the full year. And on our next slide, we show our major objectives of the year. The first one was to maintain our delinquency rates under control. And you see that over the course of the last few years, here, we see quarterly data since 2019, and we were able to expand the company, to grow the company, and to grow our credit portfolio gradually. So we didn't have any major variation. And we were able to do this while still maintaining controlled default rates. So we closed at 11.6% in quarter 4, very much in line with the 2 previous quarters, so between 11% and 12%. Quarter 4 could have been even better but it was stable, considering what we were doing. So the -- our portfolio is under control. And we already see the reflection of this in quarter -- on the Financial Services margin, and this is helping in the resumption of our good results. So the portfolio in the past few years, even with the difficult market, we have been able to maintain our delinquency rates under control. So this was the first objective of the year, and this is what we have been doing in the past quarters. And then next chart, please. This comes from the continued utilization of our credit cards. So we are seeing a resumption in the use of our credit cards last year. As you can see on the bottom chart, we closed the year at 53% of our sales using our own credit cards, but we continue to have a conservative view on credit. That's why we haven't really gone back to the level at which we were operating in 2018, 2019 at 60% penetration because we chose to maintain our delinquency rates under control, and we have been doing this successfully. But we -- nevertheless, we see a gradual recovery of the use of our credit card, the Quero-Quero [ VerdeCard ]. And we closed the year at a 15% increase in the use of our credit cards, reaching BRL 2.6 billion in transactions. This also reinforces the attractiveness of our offer of Financial Services, which continues to grow, but it grows in a sound and controlled manner. So this is what I wanted to share with you about our Financial Services and about how we were able to successfully control delinquency and have stable numbers over the year. And the second objective was to maintain the capital debt under control. So on Chart 16, you can see that we made some investments. We made greater investments in 2021 and '22 compared to 2023. We opened more stores, but we also invested in our DCs and information technology. So these one-off investments were not repeated in 2023. And even with the 28 new openings and 38 renovations that we had last year, we were able to control our CapEx, so BRL 49 million in investment. The strategy was to use our EBITDA and to use the cash flow generated by our operations to reinvest in our business, to reinvest in our own growth. So that is why you see that we have a reduction in our CapEx because we didn't go beyond that. And still, we were able to grow the company. And this -- we'll see the reflections of this on our next chart, which shows our net debt. Peter already touched on this. We were able to finish the year at BRL 81 million in adjusted net debt versus BRL 78 million in the previous year. So great stability, which was our greatest purpose of our net debt. It is worth mentioning, although you already know that in retail, we have cash consumption in the first half of the year in generation in the second half of the year. So you can see this historically and we can close the year with a well-controlled capital structure. Also throughout 2023, we had a new issuance of the FIDC VerdeCard. And in the -- in quarter 4, we had a fourth issuance of debentures with BRL 150 million in total. So this issuance of debentures just like we had in the end of '22 and '21 has the purpose to equalize the renovation of our debt. We finished the year at BRL 111 million, million for the short term. So that's why we raised these funds to equalize the next year. This is a strategy that we have been adopting and that has been proving very assertive. So we closed the year at 0.4x the net debt over EBITDA ratio. So we maintain the capital structure control and our debt control. So this was the second major objective for the year, and we were able to deliver on it. So this is the end of my presentation. And now, I'd like to hand the conference to Flavio for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Thank you, Jean. We will now open the floor for questions. The first question is from Victor Rogatis, Itaú BBA. The questions will be answered by Jean. Can you please talk about the company's expectation in terms of year-over-year growth in sales and also the resumption of -- for construction materials? Jean, please.

Good morning, Victor. This is an important question, and it has to do with the charts that I showed and also what you heard from Peter. When we had a 6% drop in our same-store sales in quarters 1 and 2, this was a slight drop in volume in sales volumes, so number of tickets, but there was a negative effect of deflation. This also happened in quarter 3, where we also saw a decrease of 6%. But in quarter 4, we start to see stabilization of the ticket or the average ticket or the volume of products sold. So in quarter 4, it was near 0, so there was a stabilization of demand and a stabilization in the number of customers. So 2023 was a stable year, year of stabilization for the company, which is very positive considering the previous period where we saw a relevant decrease in the number of products sold. And something that we started to see in quarter 4 with this consolidated decrease in the same-store sales of 13.7% was that deflation weakened. So we saw a slight drop in our volume and there was deflation in quarter 4, which ended up at 3.7% decrease of our same-store sales. And as you can see, in same-store sales, we're still growing volume and retail volume here as a whole. And this improvement trend, this gradual improvement trend, like you heard from Peter, is something that we will start to see in 2024. But as I said, it will be gradual. First thing we should see is that the ticket or the volume of products sold will become positive again -- slightly positive again. But in the first half of the year, we should still see the effects of deflation on the average ticket of our sales. Of course, this effect will become smaller and smaller. Throughout 2023, we also saw this deflation becoming more stable and starting to stabilize, particularly in the end of the year. But when I look at the quarter 1 this year versus quarter 1 '23, we'll still see an effect of deflation on our base. But there's a positive trend looking forward, and we expect to see this gradually, both volume and the inflation, we will gradually see starting to see some benefits throughout 2024. I don't have a more assertive prediction of when you will see the two positive numbers, but this is the trend that we see, continuous improvement having reflections on the same-store sales of the company.

The next question is also from Victor Rogatis, Itaú BBA, that will be answered by Peter. We heard some news about a 75% probability of La Nina impacting the harvest of 2024, 2025. Is this a risk for your operations? Peter?

Hello, Victor. It's a pleasure to talk to you again. Well, talking about the macro scenario, the material logical scenario, it's very difficult to give you an assertive answer because actually, the opposite happened for us, whereas Mato Grosso and other states were doing really well and in Rio Grande do Sul and part of Santa Catarina, we were suffering with the drought last year. And now, I think it's the opposite situation. The other states are suffering, and we are seeing a favorable situation right now. I even joke that the soybean plants were nearly my height, which is not much, but very tall for them. So this year, the projection for Rio Grande do Sul is to have a very strong harvest. The price is not that good right now, but production and productivity will be good. And next year, it's very hard to say. It's very hard to talk about next year. It's too early. But that's an important point, which is that the soybean harvest in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina will always affect our demand. We are a very agricultural region. But at this point, I see 2024 as a positive year, but it's very hard to talk about 2025. And you already heard this from Jean. But right after the IPO, in the following year, in the first quarter, people were not used with our business. They thought we were consuming too much cash in the first quarter, but then we explained to them. And then in the second year, we didn't get any questions. And in the third year, we got no questions at all. So for those who are just starting to look at our case, always in quarter 1, we consume more cash because we pay for everything that we bought in quarter 4. So we will see this happen this year, next year and all the years after that. So please have this in mind when you look at our case in quarter 1 because this is the normal situation for us. I hope to have answered your question, Victor, and let's hope that '25 -- that in '24, '25, were less -- '25 were less impacted than what we were in '22, '23, and that '25 is more similar to '24.

Next questions are from [ Gabriel Baba ] that will be answered by you, Jean. How do you see the margin decrease in retail in 2023 versus 2022? Is this attributable to a change in the mix? Is there an expectation to -- in terms of resumption in the future? And also the reduction in your new openings, should we continue to see this deceleration in 2024? Jean, Please.

Good morning Gabriel. It's very important when we're looking at the company's margins and profitability, we have to have in mind particularly, when we talk about retail, that we have seasonality and some effects that have a direct impact, for example. As you heard previously from the Financial Services, this happened when we had an increase in delinquency in the market. So there's a natural increase in provisions and a reduction in the margin. We already saw a reversion in this picture, starting quarter 3 this year. The cost of capital also impacts the Financial Services margin. So we tend to see a positive trend because the expectations of '24, '25 is to have a lower cost of capital. And also in retail, considering the moment we're going through right now, which has to do with the previous question, is a moment of deflation. So in a scenario of deflation of the price of products that we sell in construction materials, electronics and furniture, this will impact the margins. The prices are dropping. We had stock that we bought at a higher price. So it is an adverse scenario for maintaining our margin. But nevertheless, we see our margins are very stable. Even when we have a slight drop between 1 quarter and the other, it's just a few basis points. So we consider that we are seeing stable margins. Of course, that when we come across the more positive scenario, we will always look for maintaining and improving the company's profitability. But we don't really -- we don't think that we'll see major changes in our margin for retail or Financial Services looking forward. But I think the greatest variable here is the sales variable. It's the resumption of the market as a whole and how we will benefit from this and continue to gain market share. And as for your second question about the new openings, this is also really the objectives that we established, which is to control the delinquency rates and to control the cash flow and our debt. So last year, we opened 28 new stores during a year where we were having a decrease in our same-store sales, and we start this year with the same objective, to keep our debt under control. So this speed that we're working at is a good speed for the opening of new stores. And as we see an improvement in our results, we will generate more cash and we can better reinvest in our business. But at least for now, the start of the year, last year was a year of stabilization and the start of the year is showing some resumption, but a gradual resumption, a gradual recovery. So we will have no major changes in the company's strategy for now. And also, we won't be seeing any other relevant effects other than what we discussed with you today. So we can't really expect any major changes to one side or the other. Right, Gabriel?

So this question-and-answer session is now closed. Thank you for submitting your questions. And now, I hand the conference back to Jean and then to Peter for his final remarks. Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to attend our call. I have the IR team with us today. And we are at your service should you have any questions. Thank you for your interest in our company. And now, I hand it back to Peter for his final remarks.

It's always a great pleasure to spend time with you. We are here available if you have any questions. As you heard from me in this out of the call, no surprises. If surprises, only good surprises. And I also said that now Jean can be considered a perfect CFO, Jean and his team, of course. So I'd just like to finish by saying that you know that I am no bull******* and we have an awesome team. Our team is fantastic. I'm very proud of our team at Quero-Quero. 2023 was a very difficult year. It was a very harsh year. We faced a lot of challenges. And they did their best. We were able to close the year at the same level of net debt. We were able to squeeze everything that we had to squeeze. The stores were able to perform even better than in previous cohorts. And we're doing better and better in everything that we do. I'm very proud to be part of this team, the Quero-Quero team. And maintaining our teams -- the store managers that perhaps are listening to me right now, maintaining the level of enthusiasm of your store teams, considering the scenario that we faced in 2023 really deserves the recognition. It really makes me proud to be part of Quero-Quero. We have a fantastic team indeed. So thank you for all the support that we have been getting from our shareholders, from our Board members, and we hope to have a better 2024 even better than what we saw in the second half of '22 and the year '23. We hope '24 will be a better year, and we are starting to see that in quarter 1. Have a great day. And remember, we are -- to answer your questions. Should you have any. Thank you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]