Organización Soriana, S. A. B. de C. V. ($SORIANAB)

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Organización Soriana's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With us today are Mr. Rodrigo Benet Cordova, CFO of Organización Soriana; and Ms. Claudia González Romero, Head of Investor Relations for Organización Soriana. Together, they will be discussing the financial performance for the first quarter of 2026 and providing a summary of the latest news on the company. [Operator Instructions] Please note that the conference call may be recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Rodrigo Benet Cordova, CFO of Organización Soriana. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on this conference call, where we will discuss the results of the first quarter of the year. Starting with the total revenue, the company generated MXN 40.4 billion during the quarter, representing a 2.4% decrease year-over-year. We ended the quarter with [ 800 ] stores in operation, followed by the closure of 8 units as part of our company-wide efficiency and profitable plan. In respect of the performance of our store formats across the country, we would like to highlight the strong performance of Super format, which is characterized by a more focused SKU assortment and a reduced general merchandise offering, which aligns well to the current consumption trends. The strong sales performance for this format was recorded mainly in the state of Quintana Roo, Jalisco, Sonora, Nayarit and [ Tabasco ]. Regarding our digital channels, during the quarter, we achieved a 23% growth in digital sales, along with a [ 22% ] increase in the number of orders, reflecting continued customer adoption and engagement across our online platform. Moving on to our real estate business that is an important part of the income. We closed the quarter with an occupancy rate of [ 90.5% ], representing a 6% increase year-over-year and total revenue and we achieved a total revenue of [ MXN 816 million ]. These results were driven by commercial synergies with fast-growing national brands across multiple sectors such as games, coffee shops, restaurants and apparel retail. Through these partnerships, we were able to accelerate occupancy by successfully renegotiating lease terms and strengthening the commercial collaboration with key strategic partners in a nationwide -- in all the stores. We're also very proud to report the continued progress in the consolidation of our private label strategy. We remain focused on delivering -- developing new products and expanding shelf space for both domestic and imported brands. This initiative has shown a consistent growth year-over-year and currently represent [ 14% ] of the total sales, almost 1 point more than last year. Brands such as Quality Day and Valley Foods continue to deliver double-digit sales growth and significantly outperformed the national brands. This trend has a positive impact not only in the customer per tier and loyalty, but also in the gross margin expansion of the company. Also as a very important part of the strategy and in terms of the customer engagement, our loyalty program, Soriana Ya, now accounts for a little more than 50% of the sales from valued customers. These client purchase 70% more items per ticket and have an average ticket size of 60% higher than [indiscernible] in the entire customers. These results clearly demonstrate the value of the exclusive products and promotion offers to our loyalty program that day by day is getting more important as part of the strategy of the company. Profit for the quarter. This line reached MXN 9.9 billion, representing a 24.7% gross margin with a 7% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year, mainly driven among other factors by a nonrecurring income such as land sales, insurance recovery, but also very important because improvements in the [ operational ], both in stores and in distribution centers, and also because the progress in commercial negotiation increases the membership and also the increases of the membership sales in our format, City Club. In this regard, the increase in gross margin partially offset the 17% increase in the operating expense versus last year, which results in MXN 7.6 billion, representing 18.8% of the revenues compared to 15.7% in last year, mainly this increase reflects the double-digit minimum wage increase in all the countries and that is something that is happening for several years in a consecutive row with a growth in the revenue in the same comparable rate. As a result of all these changes, the EBITDA for the first quarter reached MXN 2.8 billion, representing a 7.1% margin and a 1.7% increase year-over-year. Also, the net financial cost for the quarter amount to MXN 502 million, representing a 24.6% year-over-year decrease, mainly derived from the improvement in the average debt balance, which results in a [ 52% ] decrease in the financial expense. Mainly with this, the net income for the quarter reached MXN 834 million, representing 2.1% of the sales and a 19.4% year-over-year increase. Also -- and turning to our [ associated company ], we are pleased to report that our financial services partnership with Falabella closed the quarter with almost 1 million active cards, [ service ] models and a loan portfolio that surpassed [ MXN 6.5 billion ]. On the other hand, Sodimac continues to perform favorably with [ 15 ] stores in operation and a solid positioning across the country. Regarding the CapEx, during the first quarter, we invested MXN 578 million, primarily focused on maintenance and equipment replacement to enhance the customer [ account ]. This investment supports improvements in store navigation, safety, self-checkout equipment and also very important, continue with the remodeling program of the stores. Lastly, we are pleased to share that we have now completed 11 months of operation with our strategic partner, FAZT, an alliance aimed to build the most important ultra-fast electric vehicle charging network in Mexico. This initiative displays a strong growth potential in the electric vehicle market while also reinforce our commitment to environment responsibility. Currently, we operate 23 stations across major cities in the state of Nuevo León, Morelos, Mexico City and the State of Mexico. Hoping that this information provided will be useful. Basically, we conclude our intervention, and we can go to the Q&A session. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Ms. Irma Sgarz from Goldman Sachs.

And I have two different questions, if I may. If you -- firstly, if you could just talk a little bit about how you're thinking about the outlook for the remainder of the year. Obviously, a tough start to the beginning of the year in terms of same-store sales, and generally still seeing a soft environment. Just wondering sort of when you think about the FIFA World Cup in the second quarter and perhaps some easier compares along the year, sort of how do you think and how you reposition or how do you position in terms of pricing and inventory for the coming months and quarters? And then secondly, on the gross margin, you obviously had a good improvement. And I know there's a couple of different drivers of that. But if you could also talk a little bit about sustainability of gross margin and the opportunities or the potential headwinds that you could see to that? And maybe -- sorry, if I'm extending myself, but maybe a third question, just in terms of labor costs, obviously a continued pressure. So maybe help us just think about what you can do to mitigate those pressures, especially like in the context of reduced work weeks and continued minimum wage increases. Obviously, there's some efforts on the self-checkout side that you talked about. But just if you can talk about sort of the different initiatives that you have and where it could potentially limit the labor cost increases to? Is that sort of still high single digit for the remainder of the year or potentially higher? Yes, I think those are the three questions.

Irma, nice to hear you again. Well, first of all, in terms of the same-store sales of the year, basically, we are not changing the guidance that we said the last part of the 2025. Basically, we are really conservative. We are expecting something around 4%, obviously, and this first quarter was not the result that we want. But in general, as you mentioned, we see some specific events that could help us to accelerated same-store sales. Obviously, the comparative base in our case is easy. We also have a very good performance in same-store sales last year. So we are expecting that we can accelerate the rate on that. Basically, the soccer tournament for Soriana, it will be double important, because it's also at the same time that Julio Regalado, that is the most important commercial campaign that we have and it's something that all of you know that. So we are preparing something special in order to combine Julio Regalado with the World Cup. We believe that we are much better prepared for this Julio Regalado than last year, particularly in terms not only of the promotional aggressiveness, but also in terms of efficiency in logistics and working capital, probably something that you have seen in the last -- particularly in the last 6 months is that the company had important improvements in the working capital, much better management of the working capital cycle. And it's something that we expect that we can continue Julio Regalado that obviously have an important benefit in the free cash flow. So we are expecting to have a much better summer season in this year. In terms of the gross margin, as you mentioned, Irma, we have specific [indiscernible] events like the sales of some part of the reserve land of the company and some recoveries from insurance. We also have recurrent items that is helping the gross margin like the reduction in the shrinkage important to mention is across all the logistics chain of the company, not only in the stores, but also in the sales, but also even in the shrinkage that we received, something that we call high shrinkage that we received from the suppliers. So the company have invested very hard in -- have much better logistics process since [ receiving ] of the product in the sales -- from the suppliers to the delivery in the stores, and we are seeing positive results. We still see space to continue reducing the shrinkage. It's not in the goal that we internally set. So you can expect that we can continue with a little -- a couple of points -- basis points more improvement in the gross margin, because we believe is that we have to invest part of that expansion in the gross margin to the sales, to accelerate sales, no matter that. Mathematically speaking, we feel comfortable with the competitiveness of the company. The perception of the client is still very far away from the point that we want. So we have to continue investing in price, but also in [ initiative ], but also in perception in order to gain that market recognition that is right now something that we doesn't have. So yes, we believe that we can maintain the gross margin level, but something that, for sure, we will do is continue investment in price. Obviously, the market is not easy. We have seen important reduction in terms of macroeconomical factors along the country. In some regions, we are seeing a decrease the foreign investment. In some regions, we are seeing a decrease of the generation of new employees. Particularly in some regions, we are seeing a decrease even in the tourist activity. So we -- for sure, we have to maintain the competitiveness of the company as one of the main pillars of the strategy. And finally, going to your third question about the expense and the labor cost. Yes, we are really worried. We have several years -- the first year that we have a double the minimum salary. That obviously does not only affect in that position that have minimum salary it affects the whole company because it creates [ factor ] that increased the -- or put some pressure to increase the salaries in all the levels, not only in the basic level. It's very hard for the company [ level ] an increase in the labor cost of double digits. Remember that basically labor cost is the most important expense of the company, almost account for 80% of the expenses. So for sure, it's something that is really hard to us to leverage with growth in the gross margin and expense so important like the labor. And to be completely honest, the feedback that we have for the federal government is that at least in the period of the President Claudia Sheinbaum, the increases will continue. Obviously, we believe that it is something positive for the country, for the population to have an increase in the minimum salary. An important part of that minimum salary is supposed to come back again to sales in basic products, and we are a company that we are in a very basic market, very basic products. But in the short term, it creates pressure. What we are doing apart from the -- all the strategy that we already talked about, the self-checkouts that basically right now we are in the way to implement around 600 more self-checkouts in the company that have an important savings in terms of personnel. We are also developing some efficiency in the service, again, in all the logistic process in which we are increasing the use of technology to decrease the use of personnel, particularly to make all the audits and all the safety checks to measure the shrinkage to measure the accuracy of the products to measure the accuracy of the packages that we send to the stores. All of that is moving to more technological approach, that is also helping us to reduce personnel. I think that last quarter, I also talked about some efficiencies that we have planned in the human resources department. Like an example, in the past, we used to have around 40 people here in the headquarters that were in charge to make all the [ register ] of the personnel. Remember that we are a company with more than 8,000 people with a [ churn ] higher than 50%. So we have to hire a lot of people every month, and that requires a lot of administrative process. In the past, all of that process were [ done centrally ] by equipment of 40 people. And right now, basically, everything is done by artificial intelligence with 2 people. We had an important reduction of [ people ] just in that process. Just to give you an example. And also in the stores, it's not only the self-checkout, we are also implementing something that we call multifunctional personnel in which the same people can develop different duties or task along the day, probably in the morning, he is receiving the package of the store and in the afternoon he's in the cash line. Obviously, that sounds like something very easy, but even there are legal aspects that you have to take care before doing that or something -- some issues that we have to figure with the unions because at the end of the day, that personnel belongs to some unions and they are hired for a specific task. So I mean, just to give you a sense of all the things that we have to change in order to found and to implement efficiency in order to reduce the impact of the labor cost. But yes, it's something that at least we see that the following 3 years, we will continue with that, and we have to find ways to be more efficient. I don't know if I'm clear enough with the answer.

I don't know if I can maybe just add in the other income line, if you could just clarify, as you mentioned earlier, there was a land sale. Was that capital gains or was that associated with land sale or with insurance?

Yes, it's in other income line and we sell -- obviously, the register that we make is only the profit, not the sale of the land. It's just the profit that we have for the land. The major part is coming from efficiency in the gross margin, but also we have some nonrecurring items like that one and the recovery of insurance.

Our next question is from [ Mr. Ricardo ] from GBM.

I had two questions that they were already tackled. One of them regarding the income statement of MXN 509 million recurring under other income and also on the gross margin expansion. So already pretty clear.

Thank you for joining to the conference, Ricardo. Thank you very much. And anyway, if you need some other information, just send us an e-mail and it will be a pleasure. Thank you.

Our next question is from Mr. Héctor Maya from Scotiabank.

Could you please share an update on private label penetration if possible by store format? And also just a follow-up on gross margin expansion. Out of the initiatives that you are implementing so far, just to understand, which out of those would be the most promising for you this year?

Sure. We are really happy with the performance of the private label. As I mentioned, total company already represent like 14%. It is still far away from the objective, Particularly, we have specific targets for some formats, like an example for Mercado and Express, we are aiming to achieve close to 20% in the medium term, I mean in 3 years, 4 years period. So still we are far away. Right now, like an example, in Mercado already accounts for almost 16.5%, 16.6% the private brand. So in the low-income sector, the private brands have a higher penetration still with plenty of room to continue growing. Something that is important also to mention is that our private label strategy is not only for the entry level of private brands, we also have a strategy for commercial brand level and also even for premium private brands. In general, in this point, if you ask me which is the one with the major success or the highest performance, Valley Foods is not Precissimo is the private label that we use for entry-level products and Valley Food is more for commercial level or even Valley Foods brand that is the luxury private brand. In general, this medium class or commercial level and premium level private brands are the ones with best performance. It's obviously something that takes time because we are trying to find the better suppliers all around the world. Actually, important part of our sourcing is not from Mexico, it's coming from other countries. The chocolate is coming from Canada. The pizzas is coming from Greece, all the -- a lot of sauce is coming from Spain, from Portugal. That obviously helps us to show to the client the very high quality and the aspirational factors to our clients that is helping us and is helping to position [ Organización Soriana ] in medium classes and high-income classes. But obviously, something for the long term. It's part of the strategy. It's a key -- not only but it's a key part of the strategy, and we will continue trying to increase the participation of the private brands. And about the efficiencies in the gross margin, right now, we can say that there is 3 important or 4 important things that is helping us to increase the gross margin. First of all, the most simple thing to explain is the nonrecurring items that I already talked about that, but that is something exceptional that happened once. The second most -- the second thing that to talk about that is the improvement in the shrinkage, again, in the distribution center, but also in the stores. Number three, obviously, the private brand. Every time that we increase the private brand, we gain not only loyalty, we gain also margin. Remember that in general, our private brands have something between 15% to 25% more gross margin than the commercial brand. So it increased and this acceleration in the sales of the private brand is helping us also in the gross margin of the company. And obviously, not also very important, the negotiations and all the improvements in our commercial relationship with the suppliers is helping us and start to deliver results not only in the gross margin, but even also in the working capital. So I think that in general, still we are far away from the objective, but we are on the right track to change the performance of the company.

Very clear. And about being far away from the objective, what would be the time line of that objective, medium term, much more of a longer term?

Well, particularly as an example, for the private brands our -- the objective is a 5 years objective. So medium term -- medium, long-term.

And in terms of efficiencies and improving the gross margin?

Well, the improvement of the gross margin is already there. Just this quarter, we have more than 200 basis points increase in the gross margin. What is the most important thing that is lag -- we have a lag in the results is to convert that into higher sales. To be completely clear, I think that the most important issue in our P&L is the sales and we have to talk about sales per square meter and the performance against our competitors, and that is also related with the perception of prices, the perception of quality that I talked in the beginning of this conference, is not only to have the right price, we also have to have the right perception and that is something that you cannot achieve in just 1 year of good prices. You have to -- working through several years in order to gain that perception and it's something that right now Soriana doesn't have, and we have to continue on that. In the other hand, like an example, in terms of quality, these private brand is helping us to deliver to the clients a better image of quality in our products, but it's not something that will happen in 6 months. So all of these strategy that we already start to see some improvements reflected in the numbers in the P&L. In order to see an important change, it will take years, not only months.

Our next question is from Ms. [ Gabriela Leme ] from Goldman Sachs. Our next question is from Mr. Miguel Ulloa from BBVA.

Just three questions. If you could provide some color on the store closures and what do you expect going forward? The second one would be regarding depreciation. I see a slight decrease. Is this something that we should look into the coming quarters as well? And the final question would be the land sales. Is this something that you are expecting to continue in the near future?

Well, going to the first question about the store closure, we already do [ 8 close ] as part of the efficiency plan of the company for this year, we are planning to close 12 more -- so for the full year, it will be 20. In addition of that, we have implemented a reduction in the sales area of around 60 stores for this year, particularly hypermarkets that as you know, Miguel, in the past, we used to open very big hypermarkets of around 10,000, 9,000 square meter sales area. Right now, we open a new hypermarket, probably the average is 5,000, 6,000 square meters of sales area. So we have plenty of stores that are very big to the condition and to requirements of the client nowadays. So what we are doing is in one side, make this store closure program, in the other side, the reduction of sales area. And that area that we obtain from the reduction is converted into the real estate business that is very profitable and is growing in the company and actually even complement the value proposition for the client and create extra traffic to the stores. So in general, we see this traffic as a very helpful strategic plan for the company, and we will continue with this along the year. Going about depreciation, yes, in general terms, we are seeing particularly related with investments systems and other assets. We believe that the period of amortization and depreciation of that assets are the right one. We made some changes on that. And we are not seeing an important change on that. So basically, what you are seeing right now is what you can expect going into the future. Finally, and the last question about -- I don't remember, Miguel, the last question was about...

Land sales.

Land sales. Well, we are -- this was like a little special because it was the sales of a whole store that we have been closed probably 7 years ago. and that is not something frequent. What is a little more frequent, Miguel, is spaces that we are not using in the total land of the store, something that we call -- sorry, for the term [Foreign Language], that in some cases, we doesn't seem like a very attractive real estate -- attractive in that part of the land because it's not in the front of the street, it's not even the face to the main highway, the main corridor. So we are willing to sell. That kind of things, we will continue with that, but it's not very important. It's just small spaces of the total land of the store. In general, we are not seeing this as a recurring thing. Actually, right now, the land portfolio of the company, the land we serve amounts for approximated 45, 50 stores that we already have the land. And the idea is to use that land reserve to the following years opening plan.

Our next question is from Ms. Irma Sgarz from Goldman Sachs.

Sorry to come back on the line. I just wanted to clarify, you had mentioned earlier the one-off effects of land sale, the capital gains on the land sale as well as the insurance payments. And I was wondering, when I look at your press release and the income statement specifically there on the P&L, there is a line under other income and expenses, and we see a positive MXN 509 million that obviously helped the EBITDA margin this quarter. Is that what reflects those 2 effects? Or initially from your initial remarks, it sounded like it helped the gross margin. So I was wondering what it is that we're seeing reflected in that MXN 509 million.

No, no. Basically, the land -- the sales -- the profit from the land sales is around [ MXN 18 million ]. And you see in the other income just below the sales in the top line, Irma. The amount that you are seeing that is basically below the operating income is more related for operative and accounting issues that are not part of the day-by-day operation, particularly this amount that you are seeing is related with the cancellation of a liability of the personnel -- [Foreign Language] liability of personnel.

Those labor liabilities, yes.

Exactly.

Thank you very much. That was the last question. We will now hand over to Mr. Rodrigo Benet Cordova for final comments.

Well, thank you very much for your questions for joining us to this conference call. Again, if you have any other questions or requirements for information, please send us an e-mail or a call to Claudia or to me, and it will be a pleasure to respond as soon as possible. And have a very good weekend. Thank you very much.

Organización Soriana would like to thank you for participating in today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Good afternoon.