Vamos Locação de Caminhões, Máquinas e Equipamentos S.A. (VAMO3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vamos video conference call to discuss the results regarding the second quarter of 2024. Today with us, we have Mr. Gustavo Couto, Chief Executive Officer of Vamos; and Jose Cezario, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer. This video conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available on the company's website at ri.groupovamos.com.br. The presentation is already available for download in Portuguese and English. We would like to inform you that all participants will only be watching the video conference during the presentation. Then we'll start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. Before moving on, we would like to let you know that any statements made during this video conference call regarding the company's business prospects, projections, and operating and financial targets are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Vamos' management as well on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. General economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors may affect the company's future results and lead to results that may materially differ from those in these forward-looking statements. Now I would like to turn the floor to Mr. Gustavo Coutu who will start the presentation. Mr. Coutu?

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for following our conference call for the results of 2024. I will start with Slides 3 and 4 to highlight the main points of the period. And then I will move on to Cezario for usual details. We noted a 31.6% increase in the company's adjusted EBITDA, BRL 875 million, in the second quarter of '24 compared to the same quarter '23. Adjusted net profit went to 92.8% to BRL 205.5 million, an important result driven by the rental segment. It's important to highlight 2 nonrecurring effects that took place in the first quarter and that impacted our results. As expected, we had losses related to the floods in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre and neighboring cities, totaling BRL 19 million. Of this total, the largest portion, BRL 15.6 million, relates to the loss of parts in the inventories of Sao Leopoldo, near Dorado, as well as losses on vehicles that were there and will be refurbished or sold with discount. The second effect comes from the worsening of the agribusiness scenario in the Brazilian Cerrado and the sector's failure to recover the crop failure and commodity prices. Many companies are insolvent or in receivership. Unfortunately, the crop failure amounted more than 20 pegs of soybeans per hectare. In addition to low commodity prices, this brought lower volumes and volatility in cargo equipment. As a result, after analyzing these customers, we believe it's necessary to carry out to an impairment of BRL 78.6 million of accounts receivable due. This is a consequence of the upturn seen in recent quarters, especially in agri business. We believe that the impact in the company's bad debt is extraordinary and not recurrent. It's talked about a few companies, especially in a sector. Of course, bad debt is related to many things, and the company has already taken important measures such as assessments to commercial strategy and credit exposure. The company's reported results, including nonrecurring impairments, was EBITDA of BRL 777.8 million in the quarter. Net profit of BRL 140.8 million is still a growth of 32.1% compared to the same period last year. Later on, I'll come back to present in more detail the quality, liquidity and appreciation of the return assets. Most of them are models that apply to several sectors such as food, chemical industries, fuels, liquid bulk, shippers in general and also agriculture. To improve the comparability of the premise of the quarter and year-to-date periods compared to previous periods, we'll present the information in this material with the figures from this quarter and year-to-date '24 in adjusted view, that is BRL 875.7 million of adjusted EBITDA and net profit also adjusted of BRL 205.5 million. In Slide 4, we show the consistency of the company's development and evolution in important financial indicators, always driven by the rental sector, even impacted by the lower results of the company other businesses. Note that this can be seen in quarterly and half year comparisons before and after nonrecurring adjustments. The dealership business still has a low share in the consolidated results, but showed an improvement, 8% in net revenue compared to the second quarter '23, basically sustained by truck and heavy machines dealerships which are operating with normal margins, sales volumes and inventories. Agricultural dealerships are recovering very slowly and still require a focus on reducing ventures in order to improve working capital as well as important cost reduction measures and downsizing carried out in May and June. Net revenue increased by 28.2% quarter-on-quarter to BRL 1.883 billion. In the half year, we exceeded net revenue of BRL 3.6 billion. Once again, I'd like to highlight the consistent evolution of rental and the sale of used assets. EBITDA and adjusted EBIT indicators increased by around 30% quarter-on-quarter. EBITDA for the first half of the year came close to BRL 1.7 billion, almost 28% over the same period '23. The last chart on the right and below -- under the slide shows the evolution of our net profit of almost 50% in the half year comparison. As I said earlier, almost 93% in adjusted view. Now I'm going to turn to Cezario who will comment on our performance in more details. Cezario?

Thank you, Couto. Good morning, everyone. It's been 3 months since I started here at Vamos, and I've dedicated a lot of time to deepening my understanding of the business, aspects of controls, searching for efficiency levers, and how finance can help the sustainable growth of our business with profitability and suitable risk management. I'd like to reiterate my confidence in the group's business model and corporate governance, and hope to contribute to the sustainability and growing profitability of our business. Carrying off with the presentation on Slide 5, I'd like to comment on the performance of our return on invested capital in the quarter. The indicator was 14.7% in the quarter, down compared to previous periods, mainly due to the weaker performance of agricultural dealerships, which can be seen in the chart on the right, losing relevance in recent quarters compared to operating profit from rental, which remains healthy and on an upward trend in recent quarters. In previous periods, we also had affected -- we were also affected by a lower income tax and social contribution rate than this year, mainly due to the greater relevance of the payment of interest on equity in '23, which favored operating profit after tax, and thus increase return on invested capital that year. However, although we are currently experiencing a contraction of return on invested capital based on what was explained before, price spreads in relation to debt continues at a healthy level, above 6 percentage points. On the next slide, we talk about rental. This is where I share with you the performance of the main business indicators on this segment, confirming robust and consistent growth in all main indicators quarter after quarter, be it in revenue from services, revenue from asset sales, operating profit, EBIT and EBITDA. We have an annualized growth of 67% in asset sales, showing our capacity offer and sell used assets. This is following an upward trend either due to the effect of upturns and also a greater volume offsets that reach the end of the rental cycle and that we sell in the market, which would be increasingly representative given the significant growth in our fleet over the next 4 years. Profitability as measured by EBITDA remains in line with previous quarter, close to 90% of net revenue as well as EBIT, which was close to 70% of net revenue. We've reached BRL 914 million in net revenue from rental services this quarter, up 10% over the first quarter this year. Revenue from asset sales amounted to BRL 183 million in the second quarter, growing 22% versus the first quarter and 48% year-on-year before seeing the continuous growth in those types of revenue in this segment over the quarters. On the next slide, the volume of CapEx deployed in the second quarter '24 and year-to-date June '24 grew 10% by 125%, respectively, versus the same period last year, indicating and reinforcing the market with great commercial opportunities and marking our record for asset deployment in the first half of the year, especially [indiscernible] that was very important of the volume of CapEx deployed in the quarter, more than BRL 1 billion related to new assets and other to the redeployment of used assets. This is a second useful life cycle that we are working to make more and more common at this part of our strategy. At the end of the contract due to the expiring of the initial agreed terms or an unwanted returned process as we had recently, the idea is to have both these assets up for sale, but also to offer them for a new cycle of rental with customers that do not need a brand new vehicle and therefore, will have a rental rate that is more affordable. Couto is going to talk about our new products on the next slide that we understand is a differentiated offer that will help us increase the occupancy of our fleet. Also we have to deploy backlog. At the end of last year, we had a backlog of BRL 12.5 billion. At the end of the second quarter BRL 14.1 billion, reflecting the positive contribution of the -- deployed in the period, increasing future revenues even though we had the effect of asset returns, which at first contribute to reducing the amount of backlog deployed. To conclude my comments on this slide, I'd like to say that we ended the quarter with more than 5,500 assets, representing 90% of the allocated fleet, a slight reduction of the previous quarter, and reflect the effects of the assets that were returned. Now I will turn back to Couto to talk about our new rental model, Sempre Novo.

Thanks, Cezario. In line with our strategy and the company's unique scale in the heavy duty rental segment, we launched Sempre Novo, a rental of used assets in an excellent state of maintenance and repair, ideal for customers that want to avoid high prices of brand-new trucks. For Vamos, this is an opportunity for new contracts with attractive profitability through a second cycle of rental of liquid assets that appreciated in recent years. Vamos Sempre Novo's assets are analyzed by our technicians, are refurbished and intended for rental or for sale. In general, they have low mileage and are vehicles applicable to several sectors such as food, chemicals, fuels, long-distance transportation, shippers and agriculture. With the scale we have -- unique acquisition prices, quality of contracts and assets -- the allocation of assets for a second cycle is an opportunity that only Vamos has as they are still very new assets. The strong appreciation of these assets, which we bought at very favorable conditions years ago, has the potential to generate new contracts with attractive profitability. New revenue for investments already made. We show to the right real examples of Sempre Novo trucks with the FIPE comparison that anyone can follow because this is public data. We chose a sample that represents 40% of our Sempre Novo inventory and compared to the price of the FIPE table versus FIPE at the moment now. As we can see, the assets were appreciated by an average 37% in recent years. In this quarter, we already had BRL 40 million of contracted CapEx in Sempre Novo and these contracts have an IRR of approximately 21%. Cezario will now take over and I'll come back to the final messages.

Continuing on Slide 10, we show in the table at the top the volume of CapEx contracted this quarter with attractive yield and preserved profitability, continuing the spread in relation to the cost of debt after tax of around 12 percentage points. This quarter specifically, parts of the contracted CapEx were related to extension contracts with duration of between 12 months to 24 months, affecting the average term of the contracts, which for most part remain within the traditional 5 years. The contracts we negotiated in the quarter include customers from a wide range of sectors: agribusiness, services, environmental, energy, food, beverage, pulp and paper, transportation and others. In the table below, we show the gross fixed assets that generated revenue in the quarter for a better understanding of the contribution of our asset base to the results of the period. Gross assets that do not generate revenues is represented by new and used assets available for rental and those that have already been negotiated but is still under deployment. Now the next slide, asset sales. We start talking about the results on asset sales for rental. We reported an increase of 48% of this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, totaling BRL 183 million, gross margin of 24%, in line with market conditions and showing the potential for appreciation and liquidity of our assets. In the first half of the year, revenue growth was even higher, 52% over the previous period, totaling BRL 333 million, excluding nonrecurring sales that happened in the first half of '23 that have been excluded for comparability. We grew the volume of assets sold by more than 55% compared to the same quarter last year. Inventories of machinery and vehicles reached BRL 596.5 million, reflecting the higher number of assets returned in recent months. To make our coverage for selling used assets even more strong, in the last 12 months we have opened and continued to open new stores to sell used trucks. We opened stores in cities like Uberlandia, [ Jaboatao ], Cacapava, Sao Leopoldo, Chapeco, Itaborai, and we will soon be opening Londrina and Guarulhos. In addition to our used vehicle stores dealerships for trucks, heavy machinery and agricultural tractors, we also have established partnerships in the market with sales agents who want to expand their mix of products available to customers. So we are increasing our network stores, points of sale and connecting these points with the offer assets available so that those who are interested when they go to one store can also see the inventory available throughout our network and even inventory of vehicles that haven't still been physically at stores because they can be either sold or go to a second rental of cycles with the Sempre Novo model. On Slide 14, following our presentation, I'll briefly comment on the performance of the dealership segment. Looking at the start of the year so far, we see a gradual upturn in sales, growth of 8% this quarter over the same quarter last year. Truck and heavy machinery dealerships are operating and delivering results within expectations. However, dealerships related to agribusiness, we are suffering from a slow, difficult recovery of sales and profitability, impacted both by a more competitive environment and the ongoing reduction in demand for fleet renewal from farmers. This started since '23, [ better ] from the Equipment Manufacturers Association, saw a decrease of 30% to 40% in sales of higher power tractor models, harvesters and planters from January to June '24 compared to the same period last year, which are our main products in the portfolio of agricultural dealerships. Our adjusted EBITDA for the dealership segment, excluding the effects of impairments of some assets impacted by the climate disaster in Rio Grande do Sul totaled BRL 10.5 million, a reduction of around 70% compared to the second quarter of the previous year, with a similar performance if we analyze the year-to-date period which fell 77%. We continue to focus on the sale of Vamos' inventory and improving working capital of dealerships. In addition, we reduced expenses and personnel costs this quarter, which will show benefits from the next quarter onwards. Well, moving on to the final part of the presentation, I'd like to go through some important financial highlights. On the left hand, we see the evolution of net debt and leverage for covenants purpose. We closed the quarter with net debt of BRL 10.7 billion and leverage for covenant purposes of BRL 3.39x, slightly higher than the previous quarter, calculating the same metric based on debenture deeds and bilateral contracts. It allows for the exclusion for the purpose of calculations the effects of impairment of assets applicable to both the losses of Rio Grande do Sul and the effects of impairment of accounts receivable. We also have some additional information on working capital in line with what was shown on Simpar Day in the second half of '23. In this regard, I'd like to say that we continue to reduce working capital indicators as shown on the right part of the slide. From September '23 to June '24, we reduced consolidated working capital by around BRL 1.2 billion. And we still have homework to continue optimizing the allocation of capital. If you consider inventories and receivables for dealerships alone, we had a slight improvement compared to the September '23 benchmark. But we are committed to restoring the volume of inventories and receivables of dealerships in the coming months, especially in agriculture, to levels that are appropriate and compatible to this type of business which has low investments in resale assets. Supplier line consolidated more than doubled compared to September '23, which helped us free up working capital. In strategic relevant purchases, especially in rental as well as good price negotiations, we continue to look for suitable commercial conditions with longer payment terms whenever possible. Debt profile, we ended the quarter with BRL 2.1 billion in cash investments. But added to this [ 10 pipelines ] that we have and the funds from the 11 debenture issue that was disbursed at the beginning of July, we had BRL 3.7 billion in available funds, which is the equivalent of maturity debt implications up to 2026. Our average debt maturity at the end of the quarter was 4.5 years, and if we consider the cost of debt net of tax in June, we reached an average cost of 8.4%, as shown at the bottom part of the slide. While these were my comments, now I'll turn back to Couto for his final closing remarks. I'd now be with him in the Q&A session. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Let's go to the takeaway messages. We had BRL 1.3 billion of contracted CapEx this quarter, which demonstrates healthy, consistent demand preserving the company's profitability and sustainable growth. We deployed BRL 1.2 billion CapEx for our customers, which reinforces our consistent pace of execution. Our allocated fleet of almost 90% reflects the assets returned and implies a good opportunity for a new rental cycle, which is Sempre Novo. As I said throughout the presentation, we strongly believe in the potential of this product. These are assets in excellent condition appreciated with high liquidity investments already made by the company, which will generate a new cycle of revenue and profitable contracts. The first steps of this product are already positive. Asset sales is also progressing consistently given the quality of our purchases, the liquidity of assets and the recurrently demanding market. 57% more vehicles sold this quarter compared to the second quarter '23. Inventory levels rose, but these are liquid assets and should be sold normally in the coming months, contributing to new record sales of used assets. Truck and heavy equipment dealerships are performing normally and contributing positively to the segment's results. According to Fenabrave, the first 7 months of '24 saw a 14% increase in truck registrations compared to the same period '23. Demand for trucks and machinery in Rio Grande do Sul has also recovered and normalized. We've already seen this in recent figures from [ Trans Hill ], our network of Volkswagen trucks and buses and also Komatsu in heavy machinery. As everyone knows, the market for large tractors, harvesters, planters and sprayers is still down, and the moment definitely does not represent the future of Brazilian agribusiness. However, it's important to recognize that we are in a downturn cycle with no signs of recovery shown by the recent figures for the main commodities. And for this reason, in addition to the measures already taken to reduce working capital and inventories, we also had to reduce administrative and personnel expenses. I'd like to end by thanking our people, family members, customers, investors and suppliers who trust our leadership and support us to offer customized services to different business segments and unique benefits to our customers. We are confident and committed to achieve positive results for the second half of this year, which will contribute to sustainable growth in the rental segment, which we are going to make the most of the investments made over the last few years. And we can expect then a second half year, focusing on deleveraging the company and creating value for shareholders. Now we are going to open for your questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco BBI.

I have some questions. The first is about the second quarter. If you had any concentration on a specific customer and if this effect explains the provision for bad debt in the second quarter and what we should expect for the third and fourth quarters if the level of returns is going back to the first quarter? And the second is about dealership margins. My question is if we should expect an improvement in dealership margins as you reduce inventory levels.

Thanks for your questions. Well, let's start with returns. Yes, there was a concentration as we have been telling you very much on agribusiness, most specifically in the Brazilian Cerrado where we had a crop failure of 20 bags, which is a very relevant drop. So consequently, that brought volatility in volumes and therefore, a concentration of returns for this sector, especially in commodity transport as our carriers mostly. Looking into the future -- and then in the second quarter, we had 2 cases that I had already mentioned with you that would be most relevant for the second quarter, and that indeed happened. And naturally, you see this higher volume in the second quarter. Now looking into the future, we have already assessed BRL 200 million that we are no longer recognizing as revenue, and we already determined that this asset should be returned, BRL 200 million. Thinking of keeping levels of the first quarter, we are talking about for the year returns above expected, but very much in line with the number that we had somehow informed the market. That is something around BRL 1.2 billion in the pessimistic scenario repeating what happened in the second quarter, up to BRL 1.4 billion. So this is what we are considering in our numbers. But I would like to make 2 considerations. First, regardless of this onetime recession in the agribusiness, the rental business continues to grow, basically because of our diversification in services, different assets. And these assets are very liquid, as you know, and were highly appreciated. So although returns are not what we would like to see, they are an opportunity for us to have a second cycle of rental that is healthier with good yield, good profitability, and that will naturally happen. And that's why we structured the Sampre Novo product, which has always been part of our strategy, but looking into the future and development of the company. And we are now bringing this closer because of the deterioration of the agribusiness that is lasting more than everyone expected. And so we are starting this new cycle, which is the second cycle of rental that will be a good opportunity to generate good returns to investments already made. So I hope I haven't taken too much time, but Cezario is going to answer your second question, okay?

Victor, this is Cezario speaking. As for the possibility of reducing working capital dealerships, yes, we do see an opportunity there. That still has not materialized in June in the volume that we intended, but we do have a very steady plan today. We run agricultural dealership at inventory levels that are above optimal, and that because of the slowdown in the sale of machines and -- farm machines and equipment since last year, we were expecting already a recovery, but we haven't had the recovery so far. So we are substantially decreasing purchases, and we have important campaigns to reduce inventory levels that will certainly favor us to reduce working capital to the levels that we intend until the end of the year. So the answer is yes. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Guilherme Mendes from JP Morgan.

Thanks for the opportunity. I have 2 questions. One is basically a follow-up. First, about the return of assets. Couto talked a bit about the second half of the year, but I'm thinking more in the medium, long term. What has changed in your management in terms of commercial management to avoid this to happen in the future? Of course, it's hard to predict economic factors, but perhaps credit to customers, contracts, what has changed from now on? And second, about the Sempre Novo product, a follow-up on your comment. You talked about an IRR of 21%. Is this of the contracts that you are closing at Sempre Novo? Is this an expectation? And if it's not, what is your expectation in terms of yield for this contract of second cycle?

Guilherme, thanks for your questions. Thanks for being here with us. Starting with first how to avoid the level of returns for the future. First, I'd like to reinforce that returns, just for you to have an idea, in the first quarter, more than 80% were from agribusiness, more specifically in the region I mentioned just now. So it is a localized sectorial effect. And once again, we know that agribusiness is the locomotive of the country, and it will resume at some point. No one thought it would take so long, but it is what it is. Sometimes it happens. Anyway, as for how to avoid this to happen, we already made the change in our commercial strategy. I'll give you an example. In some sectors, going directly to OEMs, to distributors to generate more stability in terms of costs and predictability and also stability of services because quite often when, I don't know, a carrier in agribusiness stops their services, this is a problem to shippers as well. So we changed our commercial strategy. We have controlled tools that are technology-based. Today, for instance, we monitor the production of a specific truck tractor. We know how much it has to run to be paid at the end of the period. So we are implementing more and more of these tools so that we can make quicker decisions. For example, identify beforehand a specific situation a customer sector is going through and then contact them, maybe come to an agreement and do what we did just now on some assets that we already identified that are going to be returned. We stop recognize revenue that impacts our results, but we do that beforehand. So we'll try to make quicker decisions. I think that was an important lesson learned. And finally, we adopted a standing of being less flexible in the granting of credit. So all that has already been done. Just as a reminder, the volume of returns, I'll say that again, there is a concentration of contracts signed in '21, '22. We don't have much volume from '23, '24. So indeed, we are taking actions that are ongoing and that are already showing improvement. As for your second question, I talked about the 21%, specifically on that slide. And I'm sorry if I was unclear. 21% IRR on contracts from the Sempre Novo product, that is the new cycle of rental. So we expect it's even better, but we are bringing to you the numbers as they are. These are assets that on average appreciated 37%. Customers, when they look at new vehicle prices, differences are even higher. For those customers that do not need a brand new truck, they are probably going to migrate to this product. So we expect even better yields. But once again, if we do the math, I can bring you a series of reference. But because this is a product that was just launched and is still growing, I don't want to give you expectations, but certainly higher than an IRR of 21%.

Our next question comes from Pedro Bruno from XP.

I have two. First, a follow-up on something that you already talked about, which is the return of assets. But focusing on commercial activities, as you mentioned, call to less flexibility in granting credit. And I would understand I think so, but I would just like to confirm if the amount of contracted CapEx, we have more or less BRL 1.2 billion per quarter, which is relatively high and strong, if this level is what we should expect for the future on a recurring basis already adjusted with this tighter credit. So in other words, I would like to understand the impact on demand of these strictest initiatives to control default levels. And I'll ask my second question later on.

Thank you for your question. The answer is yes. We are assuming today we always have a backlog of assets to deploy. Generally, it is around one quarter worth of implementations. So when you sell in one quarter, we implement and deploy the next quarter. In general, that's it. So sales is always one quarter before deployment. Deployment follows. When you stabilize the 2 numbers, that reflects a higher volume of proposals that were refused. For example, I was taking a look at previous specific period, and I saw that almost 30% of proposals were not approved because of credit. Closed deals that were not approved because of credit. So it's just natural that when we have market conditions that are not as favorable, just as banks do, we raise the bar in terms of providing credit. But again, this level is what we expect between BRL 1.2 billion, BRL 1.3 billion. This is what we expect thinking of a more normalized quarter.

Very clear. So my second question is about the inventory of non-rented asset, of course also impacted by the same dynamics. And we compare that to contracted CapEx to think about relative terms. And we see the number going up in the first quarter in absolute numbers. The non-rented assets inventory was higher. But in terms of inventory days, it benefited from the high volume of contracts in the first quarter, especially from Petropolis. But now it's just going up to about 5.5 days of inventory. Where do you see this number when it gets stable? We saw the number going down and now going up more recently. So what is the point we should expect, including all your initiatives, new products, second cycle of rental? So if you could give us a bit more color of what kind of number we should expect for this line?

Thank you, Pedro, for your second question. The inventory of non-rented assets -- and I believe you are talking about new assets in inventory -- did go up. We had BRL 1.3 billion in the previous quarter, and now we are at BRL 1.5 billion, a normal fluctuation within our purchase plans for the year. But most of the volume that we had to receive that is that we purchased to meet demand this year was already received to this first half of the year. So in the second half, we are going to receive less assets. So until the end of the year, we believe we are going to be below the number that you saw for the first quarter that was BRL 1.3 billion. So the number is naturally going to go down when you consider all the contracts signed to be deployed and everything that has already been purchased. As Cezario mentioned, we are not increasing purchases. We reduced the volume of purchase for the second half year, and this is going to go down naturally. So what you should expect is an effort on the other side of replacing those assets that were returned and then put them back to operations because the investment has already been made. So we bring them back to our backlog because whenever you return and you stop recognize revenue, we removed from deployed backlog. So we expect that these assets that are now generating revenues and backlog will do so in the second half of the year. And that will bring a very good prospect for the coming year because this is going to be full revenues for the coming year. So we see a gradual reduction of inventory levels from the midyear to the end of the year, and this is what we are focusing on.

Our next question comes from Lucas Marquiori from BTG Pactual.

I have 2 topics as well. First, I'd like to understand the return on invested capital dynamics. We've been talking about that for some quarters now. We have an interesting IRR of marginal contracts close to 20%, but reported return on invested capital is below the 15%, 14% something this quarter. So I'd like to understand what are the drivers for the return on invested capital go back to higher levels? If it is the Sempre Novo product, if it is the yield? Just to try and understand this mismatch of new contracts and reported return on invested capital. And second, I had a bit of a question with this fleet allocation. It seems that machines went to 21%. I think that is higher than it was before. Is it a driver for the return on invested capital to be low? Just to understand the breakdown between trucks and machines, 80-20. I think that in previous quarters, it was slightly down for machines.

Lucas, this is Cezario speaking. As for your first question on return on invested capital and IRR, whenever we have a new contract, the main metric, the main reference of profitability that we consider to think if it is a good or bad contract is IRR. And we have yield as a price reference. But in practice, yield depends on the types of services that are embedded. So perhaps sometimes it's not a good reference of profitability for us to use for comparability. And indeed, we have been working a lot, and we are able to close the return on new projects at 20% up. So we are pursuing this objective and continue to do so. And there is no guidance here that this is going to go down, which could even give us more competitiveness. But as for the 14.7% that we reported, first, last year, we had return on invested capital that was much higher for some reasons. First, the dealerships, which had results above what was expected. And now we are on the opposite end with profitability that is way beyond what was -- below what was expected. So it favored us in '22 and part of '23, more '22 and '21 perhaps. In '23 and '24, we have this adverse effect. And in the year of '23 specifically, we had an effect that is not being repeated this year and I don't think it will, which is a benefit in the calculation of return on invested capital because of the average tax bracket on operating profit. The effective tax rate is impacted by several reasons. We excluded the subsidies of ICMS to compare to previous periods, but we did have a positive impact from the payment of interest on equity, which decreases the tax bracket. And therefore, the return on invested capital benefited from that last year in a level that is not what we have this year. So the 14.7% does not include the benefit of '23 because we don't think it's going to happen. But it carries the last 12 months of frustrating results in the agricultural dealership segment, bringing it down. So I think these were the 2 most important points to show this difference in ROIC down, always analyzing the last 12 months and also compared to previous year.

Lucas, this is Gustavo speaking. As for your second question and also adding to what Cezario mentioned, as I mentioned, the main factor for us to make a decision is the internal rate of return of our project. And for machines, it's the same thing. And the target is always to have an IRR above 20%. This is what is happening in the company. So regardless of the type of set, of course when you talk about machine, you have to have a higher yield because you have higher depreciation than what you have in trucks in terms of where of the equipment used for life. So you have a higher yield. But again, what we want is IRR, which is compatible to the opportunities that we have in trucks. The breakdown is more or less stable, 80% to 20%, 80% trucks and equipment and 20% machines. But remember that a bit more than a year when we acquired HM, we had a volume of rented forklifts that they are not considered machines and therefore increased the percentage to 20%. And you can have some fluctuation in the quarter. But as a reminder, we had as of April, that is the second quarter of this year, a new crop for the sugar ethanol, which is a traditional sector as our customers. So we had investments that were implemented with revenue in the second quarter. And therefore, you see this mix slight higher. But the standard level is 80-20. And connected to your question on return on invested capital, if you think of rental alone, remember that ROIC win has a different behavior because remember, you pay upfront and compared to the IRR, ROIC changes a long time. But it takes time to meet the IRR level but it does. And in dealerships, Cezario mentioned what happened. We hope we have answered your question, Lucas. If you have any follow-on questions, just let us know.

Our next question comes from Jens Spiess from Morgan Stanley.

Yes. So I have 2 questions. One is regarding the dealership inventories of agricultural machines. You already alluded to it. But I would very much appreciate if you could mention the current level of inventories you have and what kind of level you're targeting? And in what time frame? In other words, we want to correctly model the working capital release you'll get from those lower inventories, and any color there would be much appreciated. Secondly, if you could give like any guidance on repossessions going forward, that would also be much appreciated.

Jens, thanks for your questions. I believe that we are online with translation. So I'm going to answer in Portuguese. And if you have any questions, just let us know, okay? Talking about dealerships, we are with an unbalanced inventory, that's true. Most inventory we had agreements with OEMs of not paying them while the assets are not sold. So there is a role with OEMs that there is a period to pay. But in times like that, we can make agreements with OEM. So this surplus inventory, we agreed with OEMs that we are just going to pay them after we sell and get paid for these assets. So we, in this specific case, was in agreement that we had at the end of last year. It is valid for the whole of this year. And so we can improve working capital very slightly and below what we expected just because agribusiness in the [ sabado ] has not improved. If you think specifically about agribusiness, you're talking about large machinery. They are large farmers. Smaller machines, tractors are used for other crops. But for soybeans in the Midwest, you're talking about large machinery. And they had drops of 30% to 40% compared to previous periods. So this is a volume that is not coming. So because the environment is not normalized, we don't have a forecast now. But we already took all the measures, including not paying for the surplus inventory until we are paid. And those that we have already paid for, now we are reducing inventory levels at a lower speed, but we are reducing them. Today, 40% of the inventory in dealership has already been paid for and 60% has not been paid and will only be paid when we sell the assets. This is the only color I can give you. I don't know when agribusiness is going to recover. We know it will recover. We expected it already to be recovered. We expected a stronger second quarter, but that has not happened and you see public numbers from OEMs, all reflecting that. As for the volume of repossessions going back to rental in your second question, you asked again for some color for the second half year. I mentioned that right at the beginning of the first question that was asked. We had BRL 700 million in the first quarter. We already have BRL 200 million that we decided to repossess now. We are already in the process. The BRL 200 million we are not recognizing revenues anymore. So we have already suffered the impact of the loss of revenue that you saw in the deployed backlog. This is already reflected in the company's numbers. And we expect a level close to what we had in the first quarter, about BRL 300 million. Therefore, another BRL 500 million in the second half of the year -- for the second half of the year, which would total BRL 1.2 billion, which was not expected. And in the worst-case scenario, if we had a high volume of repossessions as we had in the first half of the year, which I don't think it will happen, we are going to go to BRL 1.4 billion expectations, but that we are monitoring from close because obviously are very important to us. But once again, I'd like to reinforce the importance of us understanding the liquidity of this returned assets, offering a second life, a second cycle of rental of very appreciated assets. In our point of view, we see that in the market and we see the first results of the Sempre Novo product as a competitive differentiator. We have very liquid assets that can be used in different economic sectors, a huge diversity of makes and models, and all that is an opportunity for us. As it happened before, sometimes you have returns, but the assets are appreciated. And I think this is going to happen. We have returns, but we also have appreciated assets that pose an opportunity for the company for the future, although we hadn't planned for that. But we are basically bringing forward a product that we already wanted to launch, which is the Sempre Novo product.

Our next question comes from Alberto Valerio from UBS.

I think it's the first time that I talk to Cezario. Welcome. It's going to be a pleasure to work with you. My question is about working capital. We should expect a reduction in CapEx. You had close to BRL 5.8 billion. You had BRL 3.5 billion in the first half of the year. What should we expect in terms of supplier lines and receivables? And my second question is about the sale of used assets. I would like to know what the market is like, if it's more challenging. We saw an increased inventory because of the returns. You have the Sempre Novo product. So is it harder than expected despite healthy prices? Or is it the company expected strategy?

Well, thanks for your questions. It's a pleasure to talk to you. Your first question about working capital. Yes, we are pursuing an optimization of our working capital in dealerships with the opportunities that we have already mentioned of reducing inventory levels, especially inventory already paid for in agribusiness dealerships and also an opportunity of optimizing working capital in the rental segment. Inventory levels for new assets tend to be reduced by the end of the year. Today, we have a level that's slightly above what we consider optimal. And we should have a reduction of working capital at reasonable levels from BRL 200 million to BRL 4 million. This is the number that we are targeting to be optimized until the end of the year in the company's consolidated figure.

And this is Gustavo Couto. Just to add to this and as a reminder, we had presented a number during Simpar Day, which was BRL 1 billion to BRL 1.5 billion in working capital. We already got to BRL 1.2 billion, and we expect a bit more until the end of the year. And again, considering a slow recovery, very slow recovery of agricultural dealerships. So this is our focus to optimize working capital. As for the used assets market, thank you for asking. I'd like to bring you some relevant information for you to understand the dynamics. The first thing, sales are healthy. We grew more than 50% over the last quarter. We see quality of sales. We increased operations. Today, we have stores in Chapeco, Uberlandia, Sao Leopoldo that we didn't have more than a year ago, a store in Cacapava, Guarulhos. So you are working very much with our dealerships, and we are being able to increase the volume of sales in a healthy way as we projected for the company. As you said, inventory levels grew more than sales because of the volume of returns. And these assets, as we mentioned before, are very liquid and appreciated. The demand for the secondary market of trucks is 300,000 to 350,000 assets a year, even at low years in the sale of used trucks. And we see that used trucks are increased sales. They increased by 14%. In the last quarter, for you to have an idea, we had even a higher increase. Remember, in the first quarter, we had no increase because the first quarter of '23, we had the registration of the remainder Euro 5 inventory. But year-to-date, we have already 14% up, which gives us a scenario of 120,000, 125,000 new trucks being sold. And that somehow and in terms of prices, I have a comparison of prices to last year, the second half of the year and this year, new trucks. And you see stability of prices. Well, a slow drop in light vehicles, where you see a bit more of inventory and medium and heavy vehicles, a slight increase. So that's a variation for 2%, 3% between wholesale and retail, a bit up, a bit down but showing clear stability. And that also brings us the stabilities for used asset prices, which once again shows that the price of new vehicles and used vehicles we have already showed statistically that have a high correlation. So we are very much encouraged in increasing sales for used assets, but also confident of the market response because we have very liquid assets and demand is very resilient.

Our next question comes from Andre Mazini from Citibank.

I would like just to have a follow-up, especially on the returns. So how much you had this quarter? And I'm thinking of the increase of available inventory, BRL 250 million to BRL 600 million. Is it the best number as a prop of returns? Or could we find a better prop in anywhere in the release? And also if the second cycle of rental can change the profile of credit. And if hypothetically, you could have a different selection of customers, customers with less financial possessions than those that rent new asset.

Andre, this is Cezario speaking. I'm going to start with your second question as for credit conditions. We do not have a change in the granting of credit if the customer is renting a new or a used asset. Credit rules apply to everyone. We always think of credit aspects very strictly. As for returns, I think you're talking about the inventory of used assets that we have available for sale in the rental business, which indeed is growing because of the repossessions, especially this year. And these assets in practice, well, whenever you retire an asset, an asset that is being rented and is returned because the contract expired or because it is repossessed because of some reason, something that made us have the asset returned, the asset goes to an inventory available for sale. And that's why you saw growth compared to previous quarters. That does not mean that the assets are not going to be offered for a second cycle of rental. So we do have the possibility of assets being sold at our stores, our network, but also offered by our rental teams.

Our next question comes from Rogerio Araujo from Bank of America.

I have some quick follow-ups. First, your current exposure to agribusiness after the returns of the latest quarters and also if you could give us some color for 2025. If you're going to have a deceleration compared to the second quarter, what you are expecting? And also the use of your fleet, the number of 85.5%, which is gross assets generating revenue. What is the normalized level in your opinion?

Rogerio, thanks for your questions. Okay. Exposure to agribusiness, we -- an agribusiness -- Cezario, I'm not talking about sugar ethanol, okay, just to be clear. In [ Sehado ] where we saw those repossessions, we are still exposed and we are going to focus on growing agribusiness but in a different way. As I mentioned briefly, we adjusted our commercial strategy and we are seeking for customers that have a long-term relationship with shippers. Sometimes we are working directly with shippers and offering solutions as we have already implemented with large industries so that you know we -- they have the assets -- we have the assets, but they have the responsibility of assets. So we do not doubt the possibilities of agribusiness. We are just being a bit more strict. We are making decisions faster so that we can see the number go down for the future. So this is an exposure of a sector that is the locomotive of our country, but we have to adjust our strategy so that when we have problems such as the ones we are having now are minimized. In terms of 2025, I've already said that many times, even to you in private meetings. It's natural in the company's development that we have to assume that we are going to have some volume of repossessions because the company grew a lot and we are exposed to many sectors. So tomorrow, we might have a different crisis. As I mentioned, sugar ethanol is now working very well, although final prices are going down. Tomorrow, we can have a crisis there. And then we might have a customer with a problem. So we are in practically all sectors of the economy. So fluctuations happen. On the other hand, diversity brings us predictability that very few companies can have because if agribusiness goes through such a terrible problem, something I have never seen before, so the rental business is delivering very good and consistent results and very predictable results. And that shows that our business is very diverse and that we depend very little on a single sector. So it's very difficult to give you any numbers for '25, but it is very important that we consider in our models that some repossession will occur. I hope not as much as this year. This year, the number is very high. But last year, we also thought that the number was high. So we believe that from now onwards, things are going to get better because of all the measures that we took, but it's always important to have a number. And in terms of occupancy, remember that we expect from 90% to 95% when we consider assets that are already deployed or that are under deployment, that is when customers have already signed the contract. So now we are at 89.8%, that is close to 90%. The number you're talking about is the number that is already generating revenues. Remember that products under deployment are not generating revenues. So of course, we would like this number to be at least 90%. And we believe this is going to happen in the future. But we have some fluctuations depending on our company's strategy. We don't want to increase inventory now. We are going to decrease inventory. But when the inventory of new assets goes down, which is the trend for this year, the number will naturally get better. And thus, successively, Rosario, we expect the number to be always close to the 90% mark.

Can you give us just a ballpark of your exposure to the agribusiness?

I suppose that after the repossessions, it has gone down, our exposure to the agribusiness as a whole. But then I'm including sugar, ethanol and grains is about 30% of the business. But again, I'm talking about agribusiness as a whole for Sehado, Midwest, it is way below, less than 5%, I would say. Less than 5%. But again, the main sector for agribusiness to us is sugar, ethanol, pulp and paper, other sectors, but agribusiness in the Midwest, less than 5%.

Our next question comes from Luiz Pecanha from Banco Safra. Luiz Pecanha, you may go on. Luiz Pecanha, you may go on. Our next question comes from Ygor Araujo from Genial.

Just a quick question. Couto, you mentioned that in the worst case scenario, you would have BRL 1.4 billion in reprocessed asset. How much of this is connected to the volumes of receivables that you had and also the estimated cash impact of that? Because I understand that part of the repossessed products are redeployed, part is sold, but you still need to pay. If you could, in the assignment, what was in the assignment of credit rates? So the contract is canceled, the product is repossessed. What is the process? And also I'd like to understand the impact of provisions also for the assignment of credit rights just for it to be clear to us.

Ygor, this is Cezario speaking. I do not necessarily have an answer for all your questions. But overall, we do not have a significant impact of repossessions for the assignment of credit. These products that are being repossessed had already been replaced with the granter before they collected, that is before they came to a situation where we had to have them returned. So we do not expect any practical consequence for the assignment of receivables. And obviously, this answer is also for your second question, which is the provision of bad debt affecting the assignment of receivables. The provision for bad debt was fully connected to receivables that had not been assigned. And that's why we recognize that as a result in our financial statement because if it was connected to an assignment of the receivables, it would be an assignment of receivables without the possibility to recover.

So you can do this in the amount assignments?

Yes, and almost an obligation, if you think of it because although credits were assigned, the obligation is ours. So we have the duty of ensuring that those receivables of customers that were assigned have good performance and everything. So before us having a problem of nonperformance of a certain contract, we might have situations in which we replace a customer for several reasons. That's not the rule. This is a case-by-case impact, but we do not have an impact on assignment of credits because of the repossessions. And you don't have any penalty in the reallocation, not that I know of.

Our next question comes in writing from Rodrigo Faria from Sul America Investiment. The question is, can you tell us how long on average you have been taking to re-rent repossessed products? And what percentage should we consider for new rentals and sales of used assets?

Rodrigo, thanks for your question and for always being with us. We expect -- okay, first off, we have prepared these assets. We created a structure to prepare these assets for a second cycle. Remember that the company was created to rent new assets. At some point in time, we wanted to have the second cycle of these assets. We are anticipating that as I mentioned in the last quarter and results are still not substantial, but we prepare assets, and this is a quick process, 15 to 30 days, we can prepare a batch of repossessed products for rental. And while that, we are already offering them to our customers in terms of opportunities. And interesting, sometimes a customer that is no longer operating, for instance, it happened before is no longer operating in the Midwest, for instance. The shipper come, talk to us, asking for help because they need to see to their product. So we are already advancing negotiations with shippers. So this is a new dynamic. But the expectation is to have a fast turnover because the asset is ready. It's ready to deliver. You just have to refurbish it. Sometimes you have to offer a guarantee to customers. But I suppose this is the time from 3 to 6 months. We hope it is even less, and we are working very much to have a faster turnover for those assets. I think I answered your questions. I don't know if I'm missing anything. If so, just let me know.

The Q&A session is now closed. We are going to turn the call back to Gustavo Couto for his final remarks.

Well, thank you, everyone, for following us, our team, Carvalho. It feels that you have been with us for a long time, very quick integration. So I'm very happy with the opportunities that the company has for the future. Just to reinforce, rental once again shows consistent results even in face of a recession of a sector that we did not expect, at least not as long with commodity prices, earing effect, crop failures, high interest rates. The fact is that interest rates are still very high considering the levels that farmers are used to, but still we are bringing volumes and consistency in rentals due to the diversity of our assets and the diverse operations that we have. Also, our assets are quality assets purchased at very favorable conditions. And all of them showed huge appreciation. So this is not a problem for the future of the company. Quite the opposite, repossessions were not planned, but they may become an opportunity to improve the profitability of assets that were rented because when they were rented in '21, '22, they were competing with Euro 5 trucks. And people would buy Euro 5 trucks at the same price point, but not now. Now they are competing with Euro 6 trucks that had a price increase of 40%. So we do have an opportunity of being quick and offering trucks at competitive prices to our customers with better profitability. So this is a constant pursuit. So overall, this is what I had to mention. And finally, in the second half of the year, we are going to use investments already made and inventory already purchased and therefore, in a pace of improvement work impact and creation of new contracts with assets in inventory, the company will show deleveraging until the end of the year. And this is my final message. Once again, thank you for your trust, for following our results and we continue just beginning. Thank you very much.

Vamos video conference is now closed. We thank you very much for attending and wish you a good afternoon. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]