Sonae, SGPS, S.A. (SON) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. We welcome you to the Sonae's Full Year 2022 Results Conference Call. During the presentation, hosted by Mr. João Dolores, Sonae's CFO. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. João Dolores. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Sonae's conference call for our 2022 results. As usual, besides myself and the Investor Relations team, we have on the call, Steven Levis from Bright Pixel, Hugo Martins from Zeitreel, Luís Mota Duarte from Sierra, Paulo Simões from Worten; and Rui Almeida from MC. As you all know, after 2 challenging years due to the pandemic, 2022 was another eventful year for the global economy with a lot of geopolitical and macroeconomic instability which was exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, and that continues to impact our businesses as well as our daily lives. And this is particularly relevant when we see record high inflationary trends, particularly in food inflation that reached new highs at the end of December. We also have been witnessing rising mortgage interest expenses, soaring energy prices and supply chain disruptions. But all in all, Sonae was able to deliver a very resilient performance with NAV standing at EUR 4 billion, in line with last year, despite the turbulence in capital markets that also affected our TSR but benefiting from the value-accretive portfolio moves made during the year and the good operational performance of our businesses. The year ended with a strengthened financial position for the group. That allows us to maintain our dividend policy and increase dividend per share by 5% year-on-year. So taking a closer look at our performance during the year. I will start by presenting the evolution of our net asset value. 2022 was a tough year for equity markets with high volatility, underpinned by significant headwinds, notably inflation, geopolitical tensions, slowing economic growth and also an uncertain earnings scenario weighing on the minds of investors and this resulted in increased market rotation. Despite recovering in Q4, Sonae's share was no exception and fell 7% in the year with total shareholder return reaching minus 2% at the end of the year. Under this turbulence in capital markets, implicit valuation multiples were negatively impacted and consequently, our NAV slightly dropped. However, given our businesses operational performance and our portfolio value accretive movements, we were able to offset most of the negative impact. And at the end of 2022, the value of our portfolio stood in line with 2021 at EUR 4 billion. In terms of portfolio management activities. During the year, we increased the direct stake in NOS and Sonaecom ended its partnership in Zopt, a move which was fully aligned with our intention to remain a reference shareholder of NOS and to ensure the adequate conditions for the company to deploy its ambitious strategy. Bright Pixel did several moves in its portfolio, namely the sale of stakes in Maxive, StyleSage, Cellwize and ciValue apart from the acquisition of several minority stakes and some follow-on investments. In fact, Bright Pixel cashed in a total of EUR 188 million of proceeds during the year, representing a cash-on-cash ratio of 2.3x and at the end of 2022, its active portfolio NAV amounted to EUR 305 million. Universo finally completed the sale of MDS that was pending regulatory authorizations with a cash-in of EUR 104 million and a capital gain of EUR 81 million. Moreover, the company also made an important move by announcing a new 50-50 equity partnership with Bankinter Consumer Finance, Portugal for the creation of a leading consumer credit operator in Portugal. Sonae increased its stake in Sierra to 90%. And in fact, we have just completed and announced today to the market the acquisition of the remaining 10% and we now own 100% of the company. This last stake was acquired for EUR 88.6 million, which represents a 10% discount over the company's NAV. In the meantime, this week, the Portuguese market regulator registered our voluntary tender offer on Sonaecom shares at EUR 2.5 per share. Results of this operation will be known on April 17. Now moving on to our consolidated results. Turnover increased 12% year-on-year in Q4 and surpassed EUR 2 billion. This was mainly fueled by MC and Worten and led to an 11% growth in the year to a total of EUR 7.7 billion. MC maintained its positive track record with strong top line evolution, 11.5% to EUR 6 billion, driven by both food and health and wellness double-digit growth. The food formats continued to deliver very strong topline increases, mainly associated with rising prices, but more than offset the slight decrease in like-for-like volumes trading down to own brands and mix effects. The nonfood formats continued to benefit from the normalization of consumption after the pandemic restrictions and saw solid double digit growth in the year. So total turnover at MC increased 14% year-on-year in Q4 with a like-for-like figure of 12% to EUR 1.7 billion, leaving the annual figure to reach EUR 6 billion at the end of the year, 11.5%, again year-on-year with a like-for-like of 9.6%. Worten was also an important contributor to our consolidated top line performance with a growth of 8% to EUR 401 million in Q4 and a total like-for-like of 5%. In accumulated terms, the growth in electronics and appliances as well as the new categories pushed the year's turnover to EUR 1.2 billion, at 5.4% year-on-year increase and a 3.8% like-for-like growth. Zeitreel also showed a positive recovery, growing 12% in total and practically reaching the 2019 sales level which was a very good result given the last 2 years very much impacted by the pandemic. Both MC and Worten were able to reinforce their market leadership during the year in a very demanding context. In terms of profitability and despite the topline performance, our consolidated underlying EBITDA reached EUR 635 million in '22, an increase of 6% below the evolution in turnover given the margin contraction from 8.6% to 8.2%. And this was mainly due to our important efforts to absorb part of the purchase price increases to protect families and their budgets and also the very harsh pressures we felt on our retail businesses in terms of cost base and mainly due to higher energy prices, which increased by more than EUR 30 million in the year. MC, in particular, saw totaling EBITDA margin decreasing 0.6 percentage points year-on-year to 9.4%, mainly due to product mix and trading down movements and also the substantial increase in energy costs. Worten, as previously mentioned, had some strong effects on the cost base, combined with its ongoing digital transformation, which led to a margin decrease of 47 basis points in the year to 6.2%. Still our businesses were able to sustain the pressures, these pressures with an outstanding level of resilience and a clear long-term perspective on their value propositions and reinforce their competitive positions. In what concerns consolidated EBITDA, we reached EUR 383 million in Q4, driving the full year figure to EUR 927 million versus EUR 732 million back in '21, also due to significant capital gains in the year, namely from the disposal of MDS and Maxive, which I mentioned before, and the higher contributions from equity method accounted businesses which totaled EUR 129 million in '22 versus EUR 79 million in '21. Direct results in Q4 reached EUR 244 million, an increase of EUR 156 million, driven mostly by the capital gains from the sale of assets. And in the year, direct results reached EUR 449 million, an increase of EUR 192 million, fueled by capital gains and other nonrecurrent impacts, equity method contributions and obviously, the evolution at underlying EBITDA level. Indirect results stood at minus EUR 43 million in '22, very much driven by Q4, where we had a negative EUR 92 million of indirect results. And this was mainly influenced by negative impacts in valuations of Sierra's investment properties in an environment of yield expansion and despite the operational improvements of its assets, which were quite positive. Also the negative impact in the valuation of Bright Pixel's portfolio, also helped by the evolution in exchange rates. And last but not least, some impairments related to our fashion businesses, considering the expected negative impact from the macroeconomic context on fashion consumption. Excluding nonrecurring results, mainly related to asset sales, net results reached EUR 179 million in the year and minus 17% year-on-year, mostly driven by indirect results. Notwithstanding at the end of '22, net results stood at EUR 342 million in total, a 28% growth versus 2021, driven by the effects that I previously mentioned. In terms of cash flow generation, in '22, our cash flow benefited from our businesses positive operational performances and also our portfolio management activity with EUR 300 million in total in terms of proceeds from asset sales from the operations, which I already mentioned, namely at MDS, Bright pixel with a highlight for Maxive. We continue to invest in our business units, a total of EUR 634 million related with both operational and M&A activities. And in total, cash flow generation reached EUR 187 million in '22 before dividends paid. Therefore, net debt decreased further to EUR 540 million, the lowest level in many, many years, despite the strong investment effort, which demonstrates once again the group's financial strength and led the holding LTV to just below 6% to 5.9%. The group's capital structure remains solid with comfortable leverage ratios and robust liquidity levels and an average maturity profile of more than 4 years. Finally, it's worth mentioning that 68% of our total long-term credit facilities are now linked sustainable green or ESG performance, which clearly demonstrates our commitment to sustainability. Regarding dividends and in compliance with our established policy, the Board of Directors will propose to shareholders a 5% dividend increase to EUR 5.37 per share which correspond to a current dividend yield of 5.7%. Despite the challenging year, we remain committed to taking care of our people and our planet and are well on track to achieve our ambitious targets in these fronts. Sonae businesses reduced by 24% versus 2018 their Scope 1 plus 2 GHG emissions in line with our commitment to have carbon-neutral operations by 2040. In terms of plastics, our businesses reached 80% of packaging recyclability in our own brand products in '22, one more step towards our commitment to have 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable plastic by 2025. In fact, the group was recognized by CDP with an A- rating for our efforts in the fight against climate change. And besides the positive performance regarding our historical targets, we also established a new commitment, the zero-deforestation commitment by 2030, subscribed by our portfolio companies and continue to involve our portfolio companies in our Sonae forest project. In the social front, we reached our targets of leadership positions held by women 1 year ahead of time at 39%. Sonae's commitment towards gender equality promotion was recognized as we were included for the second consecutive year in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index with a score of 85.6%, which surpassed the world average of 72.9%. Very importantly, this year, we also reinforced by 47% the investment in our communities to EUR 31 million. Going forward, the outlook remains highly uncertain and volatile, as you all know, the inflationary trends and rising interest rates will continue to impact household disposable incomes and their consumption patterns. So for '23 and as a holding company, we will continue to deal with the [indiscernible] in context. We will keep supporting our portfolio companies to quickly adapt to these changing circumstances and also future-proof their business models. And given our strong financial position, our -- the strength of our portfolio and the quality of our people, we continue to be well positioned to face the emerging risks and capture the opportunities that lie ahead. Thank you very much and you can open the session to Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from João Pinto from JB Capital.

I would like to start with Sonae MC. If you could comment on the consumer environment in the beginning of 2023, the gap between food inflation and like-for-like at the end of last year was quite high and food inflation remains very high in the beginning of the year. How are you seeing this gap between like-for-like and food inflation involving in the beginning of this year? My second question also on Sonae MC. There are a lot of press reports talking about investigations from the Food Safety Authority in Portugal. Do you know what kind of impact this may have? Is there any similar cases in the past that resulted in some kind of impact for supermarkets? And also on Sonae MC, could you update us on your store opening plans for 2023? And finally, for Sonae Holding, could you update us on your CapEx plans for 2023? And specifically, if you aim to increase your stake at NOS because in the prospectus for Sonaecom, you say that you would like to reinforce your position in the company?

Thank you, João. Maybe I can start with the holding question. And I will also touch upon the Food Safety Authority question, and then I will hand it over to Rui to follow-up on the MC specific questions. So starting with CapEx for '23. Look, what I can tell you is that we will continue to deploy investments in our current businesses, which are consistent with the strategy that we have been developing at each business unit. And so we have the financial strength, as I mentioned, not only at the holding company but also at each individual business unit to continue to invest in our markets. And that means continuing to invest in expansion where it makes sense, namely in food retail and then we'll let Rui cover that point in a minute, continue to invest in IT, for instance, at Worten, which is a critical element in Worten's value proposition, continue to invest in development opportunities and investment management opportunities with Sierra. And so each of the business units will continue to deploy CapEx according to its strategy, obviously, not deploying CapEx to reinforce its network. Regarding the specific points on NOS, reinforcing our stake in NOS. So we've always said that we feel comfortable with the level of exposure that we have right now at NOS. So we do not have a short-term desire to increase our stake in the company. What we said in the prospectus of Sonaecom is that -- and to clarify, Sonaecom is a natural vehicle for us to invest in telecom and technology. And so as you know, we currently have a direct stake in NOS at Sonae. And so in the future, the right place for that stake to be in the portfolio is within Sonaecom. So it's likely if that's Sonaecom would probably take -- invest in that space. And if we feel somewhere down the road, that it makes sense for us to reinforce our position in NOS, we always have that flexibility, but it not a short-term priority. Regarding the reinvestigations from the Food Safety Authority, and I will let Rui complement this one as well. But I think what's happened is that there's a lot of information right now in the Portuguese media, which is being taken out of context and use -- and using some isolated cases to generalize behavior or an approach by distributors and food retailers in the country. So I want to make this very clear. So the Food Safety Authority does inspections -- hundreds of inspections every year in our stores, and this is no different. And so we continue to make these inspections. I can tell you that we make many more inspections internally, thousands of inspections internally in our operations every year as well. What came into the news was that the food authority found some differences between the prices that were on the shelves and the prices that were then actually charged when customers pay at the till. This is -- unfortunately, it happens, but we are talking about residual cases. And it happens both ways. So we have instances in which prices are higher at the shelves and situations in which prices are lower. And so this has been reported in the news and used instrumentalized by people to convey some messages, which we cannot condone and which we cannot agree with. What I can tell you is that nothing that has been reported is out of the ordinary. We agree that the authority continues to do its inspections but these are really residual cases that are not representative of what happens in retail in general and especially in our store. Rui, do you want to take the MC question?

Sure, if I may. First of all, João, thank you for your questions. And João if I may is, I will complement your answer, which is totally correct. And I would add 2 or 3 comments. The very first is there are several investigations generally promoted by ASAE and other authorities. We feel very comfortable in terms of -- with those investigations, we feel very comfortable. We help them to continue to do those investigations, we feel totally -- we feel that those -- that procedures are totally correct, and we help them to conclude. But for instance, just to give some hints or some inclusion regarding the -- what happened in during 2015 to 2021 to the end of 2021, we have several investigations that came out being having 6 proceedings, 5 of them were closed. And we only had a fine of EUR 10,000 in just one case because it was it marginal in what those things that, for instance, João mentioned a while ago, but it was not a crime. It was just a fine, nothing in regarding Sonae acquired. Regarding the other questions you raise starting by, for instance, the expression a product here. We would -- we are planning to continue to keep our investment plan, enlarging our footprint in proximity stores. We are counting to open between 15 to 20 continent proximity stores and 2 to 3 stores of automobile, meaning large supermarkets. Apart from those stores in the food area, we continue to complement those stores with complementary formats, side by side of those stores by well note and zoo in the smaller side, obviously, and then to continue to grow in terms of [indiscernible] in Iberia with [indiscernible] format. Regarding the other question you raised in what concerns the actual trading momentum. Well, we continue to grow in a double-digit -- digit growth. Yes, it's true. And we -- we see that the inflation rate continues to be very high, but we need to consider that we also see that trading-down phenomena continues to be very impressive. Last year, we saw the private label in customer investment goods increasing its weight in our portfolio of sales by 3% or 4% per points. And in the last 2 months of this year, February and January, fast-moving consumer goods continued to increase their weight by 6% -- almost 6 percentage points. But just means that the consumers are pretty much, as said in the very beginning, are pretty much aware of their concerns about the disposable income. They are finding solutions to fight against the increasing of products with the same level of quality the products might have. And we feel very comfortable because consumers are telling us, they trust our brand. They trust the products that we sell. And they trust our value proposal when we offer them more products or more -- even a very wide range of products of private label. Meaning, yes, inflation rates for instance, the National Institute for Statistics or even ourselves, we compute the inflation. We generally compute prices, but the evolution of prices year-on-year, obviously, and we completed that evolution on an average rate. But what we are seeing today as people are changing and we're starting to consume products with a lower price. Even for instance, the levels of products that we are consuming in terms of private label. Meaning we are not seeing such a decrease in terms of volumes, what we are seeing as the trading down phenomenon is basically maintaining marginally decreasing in the year-on-year -- sorry, on a like-for-like basis. In the total, we are basically increasing our volumes. But what is happening is that the fact the for same volumes, the prices -- the inflation rate basket for the consumers is much lower comparing to the inflation rate we see if we compute the average price of [indiscernible] that we have in our portfolio. I hope I could -- I'd be effective answering to your question, João.

Your next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] from CaixaBank BPI.

So 3 for my, 1 on debt, second on Sonae MC and the third one Sierra. So first on debt, the very encouraging net debt performance this quarter. How are you seeing the working capital in the first quarter 2023? Second, on MC, I appreciate your comments of a stealth [continue] environment. But can you touch upon your EBITDA growth expectations on Sonae MC for 2023? So you see EBITDA growing in other terms? And third on Sierra, do we expect NAV at year-end '23 at higher levels versus year-end '22?

Sorry, again, can you just repeat the question on Sierra, please?

Yes. So in terms of NAV, how are you seeing the NAV at the end of this year comparing to year-end '22?

Okay. Very good. So I'll take the first one, and then I'll ask Rui and Luis to comment the questions or to reply to the question on MC and Sierra. Look, regarding working capital, we expect basically to have the same efficiency in the management of working capital as we've enjoyed recently -- as we've achieved recently. Obviously, we keep monitoring the situation at particularly in what regards our suppliers, larger and smaller suppliers. And given the difficulties that some of our suppliers are feeling, we have to be careful in the way we manage this. But to be honest, I think at this point in time, we are quite confident that we will be able to maintain the same level of efficiency in working capital management going into '23. Rui, do you want to comment on the MC question?

Sure. Thank you, João, well, thank you for your question. Well, again, as João said in his presentation -- initial presentation, it's very difficult to anticipate what could happen in the Portugal -- in Portuguese market during 2023. Sorry, the environment is a little bit volatile. Frankly, it's very difficult to anticipate the major drivers of the Portuguese [Arenal]. But nonetheless, I would try to answer it the same way I answered to Jared last year. Generally, we don't provide guidances or forecasts -- internal forecasts for the year. But we -- what we want say is that we continue to protect and to shield our customers against inflation. We continue to be -- to focus in trying to find -- and find new ways to become a little bit more efficient. We continue to find ways to improve our value proposal to be better recognized by our customers and being award by that. We continue to focus on margin our footprint in the Portuguese market mainly with the proximity stores in bigger cities. And we fight -- again to fight to continue to increase our EBITDA in [indiscernible] again, if we are asking us what would be the margin factor? We don't know. How key to be the final result of this year, having -- considering the major topics I raised by the focus on customers, focus and trying to continue to grow and getting market share, continues to offer the best prices to our customers and better solutions and to continue to have our team totally motivated to continue to be one of the best players in the market.

Okay. Luis?

Right. On Sonae Sierra on the evolution of our NAV and expected evolution for 2023. I mean, as you know, we don't give specific guidance, but let me help you in terms of some of the sentiment and operating improvement that we're seeing in our business at the moment. Very simplistically put to the NAV is evolution of 2 factors, of our operating performance and of the valuation of the different assets that we have, shopping centers and non-shopping centers. In terms of operating performance, our business performed very well in 2022, and we are performing very well in 2023. Our shopping center sales are increasing year-to-date by around 15% across all the different assets across Europe on a very consistent basis. So from an operating point of view, we are seeing strong sales growth. We are seeing occupancy rates in the order of 98% and within collection rates in the order of about 100%. So again -- and continuing what we saw last year and have been seen for a while, post-COVID the shopping center portfolio is performing extremely well. So from an operating point of view, we are very happy. In terms of valuations and yield evolutions, I guess the $1 million question is what will happen with interest rates. The fact that I can tell you that -- and as you know, that interest rate expectations today are not very different from what they were at the end of last year when the last valuations were conducted. We saw yields increasing by around -- between 25 and 50 basis points, depending on the different assets last year, reflecting the significant increase in interest rates that we saw last year. If expectations stay the same this year, there should not be a reason for valuers to change expectations on yields, but there is a big push in terms of sentiment and the general retail sentiment. So -- also, factually, I think it's worth bearing in mind that shopping centers are the real estate asset classes that have had -- that saw the most or the largest yield diversion over the last couple of years, particularly with yield increasing while many other asset classes saw yields decreasing. So when comparing us against the risk-free rate, we are in a better place than what other factors are at the moment. So again, it will depend very much on interest rate expectations. What I can tell you is that from an operating point of view, year-to-date, we've had a very strong performance, which is a continuation of what we saw last year, but the yield evolution will depend on interest rate evolution and investment sentiments across the board.

Next question comes from the line of Artur Amaro from Caixa BI.

I have 3 questions, if I may, and they are quick. First of all, if you can disclose the share or the penetration of private labels? And if this percentage has increased or decreased? I assume it has increased over the last quarters. Also, if you can disclose the incidence of promotional investment at the moment? And again, if it has increased or decreased versus the previous quarters? And a quick reminder of how many stores you plan to open this year?

Artur. So I assume all 3 questions relate to MC, so I would like to -- I will ask Rui to cover them. Thank you.

Thank you, João. Artur, just to make some questions -- first question, the private label is weighting roughly 35% in March this year, 35%, almost 5% to 6% more than it was weighting last year. And the -- this year of 2022, weighting a little bit more than 31%. But it's a seasonal impact -- seasonal effects during the our portfolio. More 4% points than it was weighting in the final year of 2021. Regarding the promotional activity, yes, the promotional activity is representing roughly 50% of our total sales, more or less same level of the market or slightly a little bit more aligned with the market and with the same figures that we have in 2021. The third question, frankly, I missed. Could you repeat?

Sure. How many stores do you plan to open at MC 2023?

Okay.

I have idead of 20, but just...

Yes, yes, yes. As I was a while ago, I said to be [indiscernible] we are planning to open well in proximity stores within 1 year between 15 to 20 in [Modelo], which is large supermarkets, between 2, 3, 3, I would bet on 3 because it depends on the permits that we could get for open this year. And also several stores there well, you need to understand that with the majority of the other stores like, wells [indiscernible] et cetera, they are complementary and they open as long as we open the other stores. The other part, we continue to invest in enlarging our footprint in the north of Spain with [indiscernible] format. We plan to open 6, 7 stores this year in the north of Spain, enlarging will be the -- our operations that is going quite well, giving the confidence to continue to invest in space.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of António Seladas from AIS Independent Research.

First, I have you 2related with Sieraa , one with Sonae MC and just one quick relate with North stake. So regarding Sierra, I didn't understand very well the rationale to increase just by 25 basis points, the discount rates and in Brazil and Colombia, 50 basis points. So I guess that spreads went down, but maybe you can explain better. And if interest rates stay where they are, in 1 year time, it means that you don't need to increase your discount interest rates. I'm right or not? And second question is related Sierra is -- related with your CapEx. Your capital spending over the last 2 quarters were very intense. So can you provide some color what are you acquiring? What are you buying? Regarding Sonae MC, if you can provide some color in terms of competitive environment because I just see the newspapers a couple of days ago that you lost market share in 2022. How is the competitive environment regarding your competitors, mainly,[indiscernible] ? And last question, related with NOS stake. So I did not understand if you will try to concentrate all the stake under Sonaecom, yes or not?

Thank you, António. I can take the final question. So the final question really depends on the outcome of the tender offer that we have in the market right now. And so obviously, if we are able to delist the company, it's -- it doesn't really matter because we will integrate the company 100% in Sonae. If that is not the case, what I said is that probably given the liquidity that we have at Sonaecom, that one obvious investment would be to transfer all or the majority of the shares that we own at Sonae to Sonaecom, but we will have to wait for the end of the offer period, and then we will obviously see what comes out of it, and we will take our decision. I will ask Luis to comment on the Sierra ones first.

Thank you very much, António. Around yield, one, I did not say that the yield change by 25 basis points in Europe and 50 basis points in Brazil.

I said you mentioned in press release. I think that you wrote it in the press release.

Well, I don't know. But in any case, the yields varied differently across different asset classes, This is, on average, that's where they move between 25 and 50 basis points. But to clarify on the logic as to why those 25 basis points. Firstly, that is not our decision. I mean, the valuations are done by independent valuers, that roadside frequently in very market standard terms. The other thing to bear in mind is that when you compare cap rates or yields against the risk-free rate, which typically the difference should be the risk profile of the different asset classes. The spread between shopping center yields and the risk-free rate was at a historic high before the increase in interest rates most recently. And it was at an historic high, even compared to other asset classes. If you compare that with the actual risk profile of the shopping centers, and I think if anything, the shopping centers have weathered extremely well and I underline the work extremely, the COVID-19 but also the whole discussions that have been around e-commerce, et cetera. As I mentioned, shopping centers performed very well last year with saless increasing significantly in 2019. This year, we are seeing increases again 15%. So with occupancy rates high and with the collection rate side, we don't see a change in the risk profile of shopping center. And therefore, before the interest rates increased, the risk premium was way above what it should be given the risk profile of the shopping centers, particularly when compared to other asset classes. So it's very, very normal and expectable that the yields and shopping centers haven't moved as much as they have in other sectors. I think that's an important consideration to bear in mind across the board. When we -- to your second question around CapEx. So we have spent a meaningful amount of CapEx. And I would maybe provide it simplistically in 3 main avenues. One of them has to do with Brazil where we have increased our shares in Brazil to a stake of 5.3% in the combined entity now, which is the post-merger entity. We -- where we have invested roughly EUR 60 million, 6-0. Then we have significant investments into our development pipeline, as you know, as part of our renewed strategy, we are going back to doing development, most of mixed-use residential and offices where we have spent around figure EUR 40 million. And then there are additional CapEx initiatives that we are doing in our centers to consistently obviously increase their value and attractiveness for customers and other investments that we're making as part of our investment management growth strategy. So what I would say is the exceptional figure from what you've seen in 2022 has to mostly with our increased stake in Brazil. I hope I answered your question.

Okay. So you mentioned in Brazil, EUR 60 million? 6-0, yes?

Yes.

Luis, question.

António, thank you for your question. And I take the opportunity to rephrase what generally, I'd say, regarding the mortgages. It's very difficult to -- it's very hard to give you a precise figure regarding the -- our market share because there are no single entity providing that data but we generally follow the data that Nielsen provides the market. We feel very comfortable with the data that Nielsen provides generally. And after that, we -- after some demands, we can check that figure regarding -- from the data, for instance, that the bank to our office about the total market -- total industry in Portugal. And then according to the figures that the sub companies provide because that listed like, for instance, [Joanna Martines] or even [Marcedona] as you said, you may realize yesterday, they provide some figures. And those figures are totally aligned with the figures that the Nielsen provides us in terms of the evolution of market share. Having said that, according to Nielsen, we increased our market share by 10 basis points in 2022 comparing to 2021 but it is same that, for instance, [Joanna Martines] increased in 2022. And in fact, it's certainly true because we have more or less the same levels of growth in Portugal. The growth that was a little bit higher than comparing to the market -- the evolution of the market to market. That figure was provided by Nielsen. Again, we are growing in terms of market share. We are seeing, we are anticipating, we are feeling that when we are building our stores as well and all the researches that we do confirm that situation. Frankly, I know that you probably are mentioning and I'm mentioning the other entity that is providing some information that we don't feel very comfortable to accept because you...

Okay. What about -- in that competitive environment, do you think that is tougher now than 12 months ago, for instance, or is pretty much the same?

I apologize for trying to -- not answering to your question. Well, the -- as you may understand, we have now in this market more square meters comparing to the number of square meters we have 2 or 3 years ago, meaning market is tougher. Market is tougher, but we feel we are continuing offering, and we are totally dedicated to continue to enlarge our value proposal, to reinforce our value proposal, and we feel confident that we will continue gaining market share. As we continue to invest in our proximity formats that they are proving -- they they are very successful in our portfolio of stores.

We have no further questions in the queue. I'll turn the call back over to your host.

Okay. So if there are no further questions, thank you very much for attending our call. And we look forward to speaking again in May when we release our Q1 '23 results. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. .

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.