Nuam S.A. (NUAM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for Nuam's Third Quarter Investor Conference Call. My name is Bruno Alonso, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Nuam. The speaker for today is Mr. Juan Pablo Cordoba, Nuam's Chief Executive Officer. Also joining this call is Mr. Patricio Rojas, Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Carlos Barrios, Senior Sustainability and Investor Relations Manager. Please be advised that this call is being recorded and that following Mr. Cordoba's visitation, we will open the floor to questions from the audience in both English and Spanish. The video recording and transcripts of this call will be available on Nuam's website within the next few days. I will now repeat this introduction for our Spanish-speaking participants. [Foreign Language] Pablo, good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Bruno. Good morning to everyone. Thanks very much for joining our third quarter results presentation. Before I begin, just a few key messages. One is, you may have already seen in the presentation and the results that were published. We are very satisfied with the results. Results continue on a very positive trend as we have seen throughout the year, and they are on track and even a little slightly above what we had expected for the year. So financial results are looking good. And hopefully, we will continue that way for the full year. So good financial results. In this third quarter, as we had announced, we are presenting the final adjustments to the PPA. Remember that the PPA is a purchase price allocation due to the combination of businesses in the transaction that we did last year. We have until this third quarter to make the final adjustments. So we will go over those adjustments, explain them in a little bit more detail so that you understand the full effect. But the good news there is that, one, they are final; two, we -- as a result of the adjustments, we will have smaller or lower amortization and depreciation expenses in 2024. And moving forward, so that's good news for the bottom line of the company. We will explain that in one of the slides. We continue to work in isolating the exchange rate effect of our investments outside of Chile. As you know, in the first quarter, we had a significant impact on the tax bill due to the, let's say, increase in the value in pesos of our investments in Peru and Colombia that creates volatility in our P&L, particularly in the tax bill. So we are working to isolate those effects. We have a plan, but the plan has not been -- we have not completed that the execution of the plan because all of it requires regulatory approvals. We are working to have the regulatory approval before year-end, at least in Colombia. But as it depends on the supervisor, we are not certain that we can achieve that, but we continue to work that -- we work on that. And we will continue working on that next year. But the good news is that exchange rates, since the second quarter, as you well know; have moved in tandem, and that has basically eliminated that effect in the P&L and the financial statements today. So it's not a concern today, but the volatility is still there in the financials. So we continue to work on that. And finally, the other message is that our projects we launched or we published the new go-to-market strategy for the integration project which basically keeps the initial date unchanged. The mid-2025, we should start the process of deploying the infrastructure for the integrated market. But we will do it on a step-by-step basis. So the final date for integration will be extended, but we will begin the process as expected in mid-2025. So we are on track on that. So just those key highlights to begin. But if you want, we can go to the main results. So we closed the third quarter with $111.7 million, which is 15% higher than last year and good combination, both of trading and nontrading revenues in this third quarter. So this is year-to-date. The EBITDA, reaching $50 million year-to-date with an EBITDA margin of 45%, which is better than we had anticipated, and it goes in the direction that we wanted, moving from 39% last year and decreasing a few percentage points this year and hopefully next year as well. And net profit now at $30.7 million, up 23% from last year. So very solid results. All of the revenue lines are basically performing very well. Our cost structure continues to be contained. Expenditures are increasing because of the depreciation allowances and not so much with planned expenditures, but that's part of the combination of the businesses. So very good and solid financial results for the third quarter, which we are very satisfied to communicate to you. On the quarter, this is the -- one of the improvements in the presentation for this quarter is that we will present both the quarter-on-quarter results and the year-to-date results. So this is the -- just the single quarter, so $36.4 million in revenue, $14 million in EBITDA and $13 million in profits. Now the quarter-on-quarter growth is negative because the second quarter -- we will explain that later, but the second quarter was extremely good. So there's a slight decline in revenues in the third quarter when compared to the second quarter. But as I mentioned, the full-year revenue lines are all growing fairly consistently and fairly well. The EBITDA similarly is lower than the EBITDA margin for -- or the EBITDA for last quarter. But the profit margin or the net profits are $13 million, and that will be affected by the effects of the PPA adjustment that I will explain later on. So main highlights for these results. Volumes continue to perform fairly well. But bear in mind that we are still at very -- at lower levels than we were a few years back. So volumes are growing, both in fixed income and in equities, but still at low levels, particularly in the equity markets, but 15% growth in year-to-date volumes altogether. Other elements to mention. Precia, which is our price vendor in Colombia, launched its activities in Chile. So we are now seeking out clients in Chile for some of the services that Precia provides in Colombia. So that's part of the strategy to start extending the service offering that we have in individual countries to the other countries. So we started -- we launched in this third quarter, the price vendor services in Chile. So that's, I think, good news. Nuam stock still struggling to improve liquidity, but we have already met the IGPA index eligibility criteria in Chile, which means that for March, if things continue this way, in March, we will be part of the IGPA index. And I think that's good news because that's one of the eligibility criteria also for the IPSA. So it's if liquidity continues to improve, we will be potentially part of the IPSA, which as you all know, is an objective for us as a company. And we received an award as the most innovative company in Chile. And this has to do with the integration project per se. So it's a recognition of the ambition and innovation and I would say, daring proposal that the integration project itself implies. So we were recognized with an award here in Chile with a very well recognized award hear in Chile. In terms of our projects, we, as I mentioned, communicated the go-to-market strategy, which maintains the initial starting date. But as we do the step-by-step rollout of the technology, we will probably delay the start of the integration -- integrated market altogether. But it also isolates the risks from regulatory approval. So we will have a more step-by-step approach that will allow us to move forward and not be fully dependent on regulatory approvals. So basically, that's going with the new plan, an important item here is that we have already filed with the regulators in Colombia and in Chile, the proposed training rules for the integrated market. And we should file with the Peruvian authorities later this month, so before the end of the month. So we will have the trading rule proposal, the rule book proposal in the 3 countries filed in 2024, and we expect to have then the approval of those trading rules hopefully, at the end of the first quarter or beginning in the second quarter of next year. Overall numbers, this is year-to-date. So market cap slightly up, equity volumes slightly up, fixed income volumes 26% higher; derivatives, 5%; FX, 9%. So as I mentioned, pretty solid improvement in volumes in the market. Still, some of the markets are below what we saw pre-2020, but going definitely in the right direction. And clearing and settlement activity continues to grow with the OTC market continuing to grow, particularly in Colombia. Now on the quarter, some slightly different picture. The volumes in equity, FX and derivatives were slightly negative or flat, but not enough to sort of revert the financial results or the trend in the year-to-date numbers. In the businesses or business lines, here is one of the innovations that I mentioned. So we'll have here the quarter-on-quarter numbers and the year-to-date numbers, so that you have both -- visibility on both forms of presenting the information. Of course, in the annexes, we will have every single quarter, the full quarter-on-quarter performance of the company so that it will be easier for you to look at the results and of course, construct your models as well. So on the quarter, $36 million of revenue, $25.6 million of operating expenses excluding the PPA adjustments and an EBITDA of $14.9 million and net profit of $13.8 million with a 41% EBITDA margin. The accumulated numbers look slightly better, as I mentioned, 15% revenue growth at $111.7 million, $71.9 million in operating expenses and $50.4 million in EBITDA, growing at 30% and net profit growing 23% to $30 million, and the EBITDA margin at 45%. So if you go to the next slide -- okay. Yes, thank you. We can go through the individual business lines, which is, let's say, more detailed view. Again, the same presentation, so you have the quarter-on-quarter and the year-to-date. You have all the information there. As I mentioned, the quarter-on-quarter has a couple of things. One is volumes were not as active as they were or didn't could continue to grow as they were doing in the first half of the year. But we also have the effect of a couple of one-off transactions in Peru and Colombia. So we had a couple of tender offers in Colombia and one in Peru, which were significantly larger -- or sufficiently large in the second quarter of 2024 to sort of change the order of magnitude of the numbers. And that's why in the third quarter, you see a slight decline, particularly in listing services or issuer services, trading and post-trading. So all those lines are affected, particularly by those sort of one-off tender offers that took place in Colombia and Peru. But the overall trend in the numbers, as you can see in the right-hand side of the graph, fairly solid double-digit growth in the core business, so 12% in listing and issuer services, 14% growth in trading and 26% in post trade, which continues to perform very, very well throughout the year, with clearing and settlement growing 37% to $20 million and Custody Services 19% to [ $32 million ]. So core services are performing very well. Information and value-added services are growing more with trend, but we have better projections for that for 2025. So I think we will have a more balanced growth in 2025. But the -- of course, the post-trade side of the business performing very well and hopefully, will continue to perform solidly in the next few years. So here, we have the individual lines of business. For listing and issuer services. So you'll have $14.1 million for the quarter -- year-to-date for 2024. 84% of that is listing fees. So again, this is improved, we hope, form of presenting information here, you have the participation of listing and issuer services in the total revenue line. So 13% of revenues coming from this line of business, of which 84% is basically listing fees and 16% issuer services. Those are services that we provide more, let's say, tied to transactions in the market when there's an auction or a public tender or things of this sort that we provide specific services to issuers. And the bulk of it comes at listing services. So if you look at the quarter-on-quarter performance, what you have is a very good second quarter of 2024, as I mentioned, because of the specific transactions in Peru and Colombia. And the third quarter is more, let's say, in line with what you saw last year in the second -- in the third quarter of last year. And that basically reflects that issuing -- issuance in general has been lower than expected and lower than what we have been accustomed to, in the sense that the bond market is still not in the dynamics that we want and we haven't had any IPOs for a while. On the trading side, 16% of revenue is coming from trading, $7.5 million accumulated so far. Here, the distribution is more dispersed. So we have trading of equities, direct trading of equities, 34%; [ DMA ] and connectivity to the matching engines 32%; fixed income, 24%; derivative 6% and other trading revenues at 4%. So a more diversified business line there. Here, similarly, the public tenders have an effect in the value traded in a specific quarter because of the large size of the public tenders. So you have here the same on the quarter-on-quarter, the second quarter of '24, significantly higher revenues than we had in the third quarter. But the third quarter is actually higher than the previous quarter. So we continue with the, let's say, positive trend of recovering traded volumes, still pretty low from what we hope to be. In clearing and settlement, this is the individual line for clearing and settlement 19% of revenues coming from this line, $20 million so far this year. Here, again, well distributed composition of this revenue line, 39% coming from equity, this is mostly from Chile; 22% from derivatives that includes OTC derivatives, mostly from Colombia, fixed income in all countries, collateral management, FX and so on. So well-diversified line. Here, again, the second quarter, very, very strong. But the third quarter is continued growth in this revenue line from the previous quarters, different from the second quarter of '24. In custody, 29% of total revenues, also well diversified, 36% coming from, let's say, the full deposit services, 28% custody services, distribution and payment of different payments that the CSDs do for dividends, the interest payments and so forth. 23% and other revenues at 14%. So well -- also well-distributed revenue line. And here, the third quarter is actually better than the second quarter and continues the trend -- the positive trend that I mentioned that you see. We basically see this positive trend on a quarter-on-quarter basis, say, for the second quarter of 2024 in all business lines. So the third quarter continues a positive trend, except in the listing and issuer services line, which, again, because of the lack of new issuance or the lower volumes of the issuance, you're not seeing as dynamic growth. But on the other aspects, trading, clearing, settlement, custody; we are seeing -- we continue to see positive trends every single quarter in the different revenue lines. On information, so strong third quarter. Here, the revenue line represents 13% of total revenues, 47% of that is market data, distributed in 3 countries. Market access 28% and the price vendor 24%. So again, well diversified vendor lines and all performing fairly strong in this third quarter. Finally, value-added services, which represent 10% of revenues, accumulated $11 million. Again, similar trends continue to increase revenues on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Here, 53% of those revenues come from Chile, from the, let's say, Software-as-a-Service solution that is provided to our brokers in Chile, which is an opportunity for growth in Peru and Colombia. Our objective for 2024 was not so much to grow but to stabilize the provision of services in the market in Chile. We are doing the transition between Sebra and Optimus, and it's very important to focus on client satisfaction and engagement from clients so that we can continue the migration from Sebra, which is the older platform, to Optumus. We believe that has been achieved in terms of gaining credibility and trust from our clients. And hopefully, that should, as I mentioned before, pick up starting next year in terms of new clients signing up for Optimus and moving forward. The other revenue lines coming from Peru and Colombia, [ Pacta ] and invoice registry 20% and 16%, respectively. But this is a solid line of revenue and well diversified as well. And we have a lot of potential here, I believe. Finally, on the expenditure side, as you can see, our total expenditures are growing 12%, but that's highly related to the depreciation and amortization allowances which include the PPA adjustment and of course, the ongoing let's say, assets that we have on our balance sheet. So that's basically what's driving the increase in cost and not so much staff and other expenses. So here's the -- I'll try to go over this chart to explain the, let's say, the effect of the adjustments to the PPA, purchase price allocation, that was included in our financial statements in the fourth quarter of 2023 and that we have until this quarter to do the adjustments that are due to new information or information that was incomplete at the time of the initial, let's say, allocation in the financial statements. The IFRS norm provides a window of 12 months to make these adjustments. So we've been working with our outside consultant that helped us do the PPA originally, which is Pricewaterhouse or PwC, and our external auditors, which is EY. So both have been working with us in this process. So this is all validated by them and should be part of the audited financial statements at the end of this year. So the magic of this is that the PPA -- the equity allocation of the PPA was $494.8 million, and that is in October of 2023. So if you look at the initial PPA column, which is with the gray shadow, where you look at the total purchase price, the black line, which is basically the equity allocation; is $494.8 million, which represents the value of shareholders of the combination of businesses that we made with the merger of the 3 exchanges. And that was part of the 40-40, 40% Chile, 40% Colombia, 20% Peru. So this $494.8 million is what's distributed 40-40-20 in terms of the shareholders of the 3 countries. The calculation of this $494.8 million total equity value is distributed in $543.5 million of assets and $48.7 million of liabilities for a net $494.8 million, right? So this is the original -- the first column is the original PPA. The orange column, which is the third column, is the adjusted PPA. So basically, you have things that are going up and things that are going down. But the net effect, in the end, in the equity is the same. Now why is this important? I mean, one, it's the same total price allocation. So the value of the transaction remains the same. What's changing is how we distribute those prices between the different assets and liabilities of the company. That's what the PPA does. And there is an important then change in some of the items that has an effect not just in the balance sheet, but more importantly, in the P&L via the depreciation and amortization allowances that have been one of the things that we've been discussing throughout the year. So the good news is one, this is the final revision of the PPA. No more conversation about this, and this is it. So I think this is important in terms of no more volatility, let's say, in the understanding of the financial savings, particularly the balance sheet of the company. Now, the change in the classification of some of the assets that were identified in the transaction is important because of the amortization schedule that I mentioned. But in particular, software and customer relationships, we basically rolled off all of the customer relationships that have been initially being identified in the transaction. We keep just a very marginal amount, tied to some very specific items. But basically, from the transaction, we write off all of that customer relationship valuation. But because it's part of the PPA, you have to allocate that somewhere else. So it's basically being allocated to goodwill, goodwill brands and other assets. Customer relationship and software are, let's say, being around $43.4 million and $61.7 million to [ $16.6 million ] and $0.3 million. So a significant reduction in those two items. And then that is allocated to other assets throughout. The reallocation of those assets to other categories affects our deferred taxes calculation as well, and that reduces the deferred taxes by $9.6 million to $19.6 million and then other adjustment in noncontrolling interest of $3.4 million. But basically, the big picture here is the total purchase price of the transaction does not change, $494.8 million. There is a reallocation between asset categories that affects the calculation of deferred taxes, and it also affects the calculation, moving forward, of depreciation allowances. So that's basically the effect of the PPA. And you can see this down by line in the financial statements and the balance sheet that we published for the third quarter and also in Note 13, I believe, is -- no?

In the financial statements.

In the financial statements. Note 13, you have a very -- a full description of this change. Now in the following chart on the following slide, we can see then the net effect of depreciation allowances. And here, we walk you through a quarter-on-quarter evolution of depreciation amounts. So we have the intangible assets that were identified in the condition of businesses, was giving rise $3.2 million, $3.3 million third quarter of additional depreciation, which is the one that has been explaining, let's say, the increase in costs this year. If you look at the third quarter, that number goes from negative to positive because the effect of revising the PPA and reducing the value of those assets that are depreciated from the combination of businesses means that we have to revert part of the depreciation that we had already done. So we end up in the year-to-date third quarter of 2024 with just $2.2 million in the depreciation allowances. So there's a significant reduction in that item. The other lines of business, which is the other line of depreciation is associated to existing assets in the balance sheet. And that also has an effect, but that's due to a recognition that some of the assets that we have already in the books need to be depreciated faster because we will take them out of commission -- that we will take them out of commission sooner. So the net effect is a slight increase in the depreciation allowances of these existing assets and a decrease or a reduction in the depreciation allowances of the assets identified in the combination of business. So for the third quarter or the year-to-date, you can see there that the -- every quarter, you had $6 million of depreciation allowances. In the third quarter, you have basically a reversal of those -- of some of those depreciation allowances. So basically, the third quarter year-to-date at $12.8 million is basically the same amount that we have in the second. Basically, there's no effect in the third quarter because we are reversing part of what had already been done and then that nets out what needed to be done in addition in the third quarter. If you project then, we here provide a projection of the fourth quarter so that you can have a sense of what the number will look like at the end of the year. The end-year number is the, let's say, first column on the second part of the chart where it says 2024, that's a full-year projection. So it's $3.2 million coming from the assets identified in the combination of business, $14.1 million from the existing assets for a total depreciation amount of [ $17 million ]. So that's the sort of expected number for 2024. And then we provide the expected schedule of depreciation allowances for the next few years, of course, assuming that there are no new assets in the balance sheet. Of course, as we incorporate new assets, this number will change. But you can see there that the number should remain high between now and 2026 and then starting decline or decrease starting in 2027. If you look at the number for the first quarter and second quarter, so $6.5 million, and you multiply, let's say, $6.5 million per quarter, we would end up the year with something close to $26 million in depreciation allowance. So there is a significant reduction in the expected depreciation allowance from the quarter-on-quarter that we had in first 2 quarters to what we are seeing today from $26 million to $17 million. So it's almost $9 million less of depreciation now. So it's a second impact from the revision of the PPA, which will be concentrated, as I mentioned, in '24, '25, '26. So significantly lower. The bottom line of all this is that we will have significantly lower depreciation allowances in '24, '25, '26 than what we had expected at the beginning of the year, which, in the end, I think, is good news. I don't know if that was extremely confusing, but we'll see in the Q&A section. So finally, just to wrap it up, we remain satisfied with the results, consistent operational performance with 15% revenue growth and increase in EBITDA to 45% at the third quarter. And we continue to be in line with our IT projects so that we can start the go-to-market deployment, as we have announced in October. Just as a reminder, in the next slide, we have the new schedule for the go-to-market strategy. As I mentioned, mid-2025, we continue to seek to roll out the technology for the trading platform in the 3 countries in mid-2025, have the deployment of the clearing platform, at least in 2 countries, which is Chile and Peru, in 2025 and [ leaving ] Colombia for the first quarter of 2025 for the clearing platform, given that we have some delays with the regulatory approvals in Colombia. So we're leaving Colombia slightly behind so that we have more time for the regulatory approvals. But in this schedule, we, first of all, improve the success -- the probability of success by doing it in a step-wise and doing it also in steps country by country. So we will have a, let's say, the implementation of the trading engine first in Chile, then in Peru and in Colombia; and then the clearing platform, first in Chile, then in Peru and then in Colombia. So this is the official, let's say, schedule for the go-to-market plan. This has been already socialized with the participants, and we are working towards these goals. So that's pretty much it. Thank you very much, and we're open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Team, I see that we already have a first question. If you can please unmute, Felix.

Adonay Félix from Apalache Research speaking. Congratulations on the results. I have two questions. The first one, how do you see the operating margin during the next year, considering this high interest rate context and the processes with the authorities? And finally, what has been the feedback you have received from issuers, mainly from those with least capital?

We cannot give out, let's say, forecast for the next year or so. But there's -- I would say that we continue to work through improving operational margins in the company. As we mentioned and you know we have captured some of the synergies in this 2024, the rest of the synergies are more dependent on our ability to decommission -- the remaining part of the synergies, which is approximately another 50% savings should be captured as a result of decommissioning the existing technology that will be replaced with the new one. So it will be more dependent on, let's say, our ability to comply with the 2025 plan of deploying the new technology in the 3 countries. So if we -- our key goal for 2025 is deploying the technology in the 3 countries that allows us, starting in '25 or '26, decommissioning the old technology, which will provide the savings, right? It will provide direct savings from technology that we no longer will use, so you stop paying for that. We will find savings in consolidating [Foreign Language] the data centers -- by consolidating data centers and of course, by simplifying the operations because of having the same technology with the same rule book, with the same processes, we will have the same teams. Today, we operate the 3 markets. But in reality, they are 3 independent markets. That's the reality of 2024, and that will continue to be the reality, to a large extent, in 2025. So it's only until 2026 that you'll start seeing the benefits of having a single operation. So that's more 2026 on that respect. In terms of market conditions, we need -- I mean, of course, lower interest rates are good for the market, good for issuance -- bond issuance in the 3 countries and for equity volumes. So we are a little bit dependent on that. The -- I would say the bottom line is that market conditions have been not so great in the last few years, and the results are still pretty solid. So if things improve marginally, we believe that's a good scenario for us. So extending the length of new issue -- new bond issues, et cetera, is a good opportunity or lower interest rates is a good opportunity to resume some issuance in the market. So we continue to -- so our plan, being cautious in expenditures in 2025, very importantly, focusing on deploying the technology in 2025 that will allow us to not only provide the integrated market but the integrated processes moving forward, which allows us to capture the synergies moving forward and expecting better market conditions in '26. And bear in mind also that there is a political cycle that starts in Chile and then Peru and then in Colombia. So towards the second half of 2025, we will start full speed, let's say, presidential campaigns in these countries. And hopefully, that will be a positive to the markets in the 3 countries. Now in terms of issuers, we've had various conversations with the issuers. I think that today, they are probably just observers of the situation. I think that the response is very positive, in the sense that if this works and it works fairly well, the main beneficiaries of this will be issuers, right? If you have a larger market with more participants, more liquidity, better price formation, more demand; it's good for issuers. So they're all, I would say, cautiously optimistic and cautiously enthusiastic towards the market, but of course, in an attitude of wait and see. If you manage to do what you're saying, this is going to be great for us, but let me wait and see. Now, we are working, I would say, 2 or 3; individual issuers to try to test the thesis of a regional issue, right? So a bond issue at a specific issuer that can issue bonds and distribute it in the 3 countries. That can be done today. Nobody has done it. So we're working with some of the issuers. As you mentioned, probably market conditions haven't been that great. So nobody has really been adventurous enough to launch a new issue, but we're working with a couple of issuers on that respective. And hopefully, next year, we will have a first example.

We see Mr. Christian Andrews with his hand raised. Team, if you can please help them out.

My question is just on -- you operate in a lot of different businesses, including the exchange, the clearing, the CSD and a lot of different business lines. I'm curious to hear what you would call out as kind of the main growth drivers of the business going forward? And is it a case where the market is so depressed and trading volumes are so down, there's a lack of issuances; is that something that just needs to return for you guys to see a lot of strong growth beyond what has been achieved? Or is it more a case of growing these various businesses and capitalizing on opportunities, maybe you aren't currently?

It's a very good question. And I would say there's two sides in the conversation. I mean I have no doubts about the ability of this company to continue to grow, even in a depressed market environment, right? For various reasons. You have seen the performance of the post-trade part of the business, 20-some percent growth in that line of the business in very adverse market circumstances, right? And that already represents 50% or close to 50% of our revenues. That trend, I would say, can continue to happen or we can continue to see strong performance of that line of business. Maybe not up 20% growth, but double-digit numbers, 10%, 12% is something that is perfectly viable, even in depressed market circumstances because there's a lot of market penetration, sophistication, adoption still to be done in the 3 countries. So I would say, both the clearing and the custody services are lines of business that can continue to grow. They're just not so appealing to the, let's say, outside observer because it's not really tied to market dynamics necessarily. So things like, I don't know, well, OTC derivatives, for example, in Colombia, which today, we only operate in Colombia, but there [ is ] room for doing that in Peru and Chile. So there is growth opportunity there, even with the existing volumes that we have today. So there's tremendous growth opportunity there. As I mentioned, in value-added service and information, we have a similar situation, where we offer services in individual countries, but not in the 3 countries. We don't have the same value proposition in the 3 countries. So there's a lot of opportunity for cross-selling, right? So we can cross-sell Software-as-a-Service that we have in Chile. We can cross-sell the services that I mentioned from the price vendor in Colombia to Peru and Chile. And there's a lot of value added to be still delivered in risk management and data provision to market -- domestic market participants. So there is a lot of penetration -- room for penetration in those lines of business. So that is going to happen. Perhaps you don't see it. I mean, those are products that are slow or clients are slow adopters, let's say, the process is a slow sale, but you can have a consistent double-digit growth year-on-year, no problem. I mean I don't see any problems there. The other elements then will be volumes and issuance, right? So trading and issuance, of course, depends on market conditions. But I would say that the dynamic in the market will be sort of the icing on the pudding or cherry on the pie, right? We will continue to have -- we're going to be working on continuing to having strong financial results and growth in our core business lines, but building a scenario where the market itself can grow, which is everything that we're trying to do for the integrated market. So the integrated market is really a big bet that will sort of jump start a new dynamic in the market that will create tremendous growth. And that all will go to the bottom line because you know that in that side of business, there's a tremendous economies of scale. But I would say that the company will continue to be very successful, even without a tremendous success in the market. But of course, we are building the case for a success in the market. So I don't know if that answers your question.

We see there are no further questions in the chat or hands raised. We'll give perhaps a few more seconds if anyone else would like to participate. [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] I'm going to switch to English, so it's easier. So what we announced last year is that for 2024 and 2025, we will be distributing 50% of profits in dividends. That is based on the fact that we are more than doubling the investment outlay in '24 and '25. Remember, we are making a $28 million investment plan in 2024 and what we expect for 2025 is roughly $22 million, right? So the combination of the two is a significantly -- significant large amount vis-a-vis what we were investing in the past, right? So for these couple of years, we have announced that the dividend payout would be 50%. Now, with the PPA adjustment that we just commented on, there is good news because the bottom line should be improved at the year-end. And then 50% of that, let's say, bottom line after correction for depreciation allowance, it will be larger, a larger dollar amount. I think that should be good news for our shareholders. Now, we have not revisited the policy with the Board. So I would say the policy that is in effect right now is that next year, we should propose 50% payout also in 2025 regarding the '24 profits. But moving forward, once the investment, let's say, spike -- finishes, we should go back to full dividend payouts. So I don't know if 100% is the number, but as close as possible to that. So definitely 90% of things of the sort are things of this sort are things that should be possible from '26 onwards.

[Foreign Language] So we have a question in the chat. We're going to proceed to read it out loud. Good afternoon. What are the prospects for purchasing the remaining shares of BVC and [ BVL ]?

Yes, there's really no plan at this time. As you recall, we had an open -- one public tender in Peru and an open exchange period until June for shares in BVC. We did have some participation but not full participation. So right now, there is no specific policy or plan. Perhaps in the future, but right now, there are no plans. And we're concentrated, as I mentioned, in our, let's say, the use of our cash on the investments that we have to make and the commitment to our shareholders in terms of dividend payment. So there is no specific plan at this point.

Thank you, [ Garrett ], for your question. We see no further questions in the chat or by raised hand. So perhaps Juan Pablo, we can proceed to some closing remarks.

So just to sum up, I think good solid numbers for the year. Hopefully, that will continue until year-end that to the point that I just made, that we have very solid and well-diversified businesses that continue to have strong drivers for growth, even in depressed market conditions that we have seen in the last few years. Of course, we are making every effort to change those dynamics in the market, both with policymakers, regulators and market participants. The integration is all about creating a better environment for the -- for market conditions to pick up and create a more constructive dynamic. And that should, of course, be reflected in the results of the company. So that will be a tremendous upside for the company. Our IT projects continue on track. We are going to deploy -- the objective for 2025 is to deploy all the technology for the integrated market and start connecting markets as regulators allow us to do. And as things look from a realistic point of view, Chile and Peru are better positioned for that. So we hope that Peru and Chile at least not only will have the technology, but also will have the regulation in place. Colombia is stepping a little bit behind, but still, we continue to work both in the technology deployment in Colombia and working with the regulator for the final approvals. So good results. Happy with the results. Also, I think the final adjustment to the PPA is good news for the financials moving forward. You have there a good projection of what depreciation allowances will look like moving forward. So that also eliminates an item of, let's say, volatility in our financial report, and we will continue to work to improve results and create better market conditions for all participants in the market. So thank you very much for joining, and see you next time.