Vivara Participações S.A. (VIVA3) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

It's a pleasure to be here with you opening our Second Quarter 2025 Results Call. And now as Chairman of the Board of Directors, my highlight here today is to guide a topic of extreme importance, our people, starting with our Board of Directors, of which I am part; an extremely collaborative, experienced and complementary Carolina Lacerda with her vast experience in the capital markets, finances and corporate governance; Luiz Quinta, a connoisseur in shopping centers and retail in Brazil, who has contributed a great deal to the expansion of our physical stores. Silvio Genesini, a professional with high amount of knowledge in digital and technology. Paulo Kruglensky, my great partner in this journey, returns now as Vice President of the Board of Directors, bringing his vast experience in our business and his strategic vision. And finally, myself, passionate about our brands, our products and our people with more than 20 years of working here. I have no doubt that this team is highly trained and committed to guiding the next steps of this company. Following with the theme of people, I would like to reiterate our total confidence in our team of executives, which is strong and extremely resilient. Finally, I would like to thank our entire team, all of our employees who work together every day to build the present and the future of the largest jewelry store in Latin America. And thank you very much, and have a great call. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the video conference of results of the second quarter of 2025 of Vivara. In this quarter, the company will dedicate a 100% of the time in this video conference to the question-and-answer session. The video with initial comments and the analysis of the financial performance made by Icaro Borrello, CEO; and Elias Leal, CFO, Director of IR, is available since yesterday and can be accessed at any time in the IR site of Vivara. If you need simultaneous translation, we have this available clicking on the globe icon entitled Interpretation. When you go in, choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. For those listening in English, there's the option of turning off the original Portuguese audio, clicking on mute original audio. [Operator Instructions] The name of the Vivara team, we have Icaro Borrello, President; Elias Leal, CFO and Director of IR; and Caio Barbuto, Manager of Investor Relations.

[Operator Instructions] Starting with the first question. We have Rodrigo Gastim, sell-side analyst from Itau BBA.

I have two questions from my side. First is about the gross margin. I think that the highlight of the quarter -- I have two questions about the gross margin. If you could explain a little bit the bridge of this -- what is, in fact, was done in this quarter to have this quick -- such a quick improvement. It would be great to hear your -- the two or three principal initiatives without going into details. And more importantly than that, I've been speaking with investors since last night is the question about the comfort that you have in this recovery of gross margins going forward. We said -- we were asking is this is just a one-off or if there's -- to have this comfort that eventually going forward, perhaps this question -- so it was one that was very relevant. And the second question is about the dynamic of growth in the second half. There is a concern about retailing in the second half of the year because of the economic situation. If you could share with us July and August, what have you already seen -- this would help quite a bit to be able to see what you're seeing in July and August.

Good morning, everyone. Just 5 seconds to thank all of our employees for their untiring work and the very hard work they've done to achieve the excellence and the good service for our clients. Gastim, thank you for the question. On the question of gross margins, talking a little bit about our semester, our first half, it was a tremendous result in terms of gross margins. But most important, I think what's worth mentioning continuing both for the past as well as the coming quarters is that we have based all of our actions on initiatives, which are structural, which will remain in place, bringing good fruits going forward. We talked about a bridge. The first is the good management of our pricing, which is we've been very diligent in terms of repassing pass-through to prices in every category, whereas comment to you about that the categories within which the price is not so key in relation to commodities, we have more space, and we're very diligent with what's happening in the market. So everything that we've done so far has worked out very well, especially in this most recent quarter. And we're going to be -- we continue being very diligent in that respect. The second lever is the higher penetration in the subcategories with the best contribution margins. And here I can point out three. The first is, which is the biggest penetration of Life, which is a tendency, a trend going with a bigger number of stores. We're going to have more and more penetration in that market. Afterwards, the gold and silver line, a line which we started out with less SKUs in the beginning of the year and has evolved greatly from the standpoint of new launches and the sales of these new launches has reacted very well. The same is true of Lab Diamonds, which is a -- we've seen a very good answer, very interesting and principally [ PMV ] with the average sales price, average ticket, very attractive average ticket. So we've sold more and more in this category and have seen a very good reaction and acceptance by the market. The third lever is the greater participation of products coming from Manaus. In the previous quarters, we did -- we made an investment in the factory. We communicated that to you in the market. And now we're starting to receive the fruits of those investments of what we planned during those other quarters. Everything that we produced in Manaus and this in the larger installation in Manaus now goes on to our financial sheets and brings a better margin, a better gross margin. Finally, looking at the comfort of whether or not this will continue going forward, all of these initiatives, which we commented are structural initiatives. There are two, which together, the new operation of our distribution center in Espirito Santo. We also see a good impact coming from there in our gross margin. And the perspective of sales, we follow very -- we continue to be very prepared and confident so that the next quarters, especially for Black Friday and Christmas, which are by far our best seasons. There are three things which will orient our success, which oriented in the past and we'll continue orienting our success and leveraging our sales going forward. The first is the good rhythm of innovation. This is in all of the categories. The products are tremendous. We're very confident that the things that we've done in the first semester will be repeated going forward. The second is a good communication, the publicity. The campaigns are beautiful. Everything is in the oven and they're really, really nice. The third and perhaps the most relevant is the training of our sales force. We've intensified more and more the preparation, our rhythm of training. The more the salespeople are trained and know our products and our methodology of sales, the higher our rate of conversion. I hope that I've covered your points there. Just to reinforce one more point. You spoke about the Life category and the Vivara category with prices and the new mix focused on -- but also -- we're also advancing in the watches area. In the past, we've looked at that, and this was something that's important for us in this quarter as well. We had an effective gain of margin -- contribution margin in the area of watches coming firstly from the renegotiation that we have with the principal suppliers in the past and also because of the -- what seems like what we've seen in Vivara with a better mix of sales with a higher contribution margin. Our own brands, especially Life brand watches, which has grown more quickly than some of the other brands with the sale in the market. So this is another relevant point. And perhaps, as you mentioned, it's not a one-off. It's not just this one quarter thing. There will be a structural change. It is a structural change.

Next question is from Danny Eiger from XP, sell-side analyst from XP.

I have two questions from my side. The first is in relation to the pricing policies. You commented about the question of you having made pass-throughs momentaneous, which has been very assertive in this quarter. And we have been monitoring that there's been a readjustment, not completely, but to -- down in certain categories, not just for Life, but for the company as a whole, how do you see this dynamic of the acceptance of the pass-through of prices? And if you see any opportunities for adjustments? I think it would be nice to hear from you about that. The second is to understand how you see the perspective of operating expenses where we might expect some kind of operational leverage and where we might see a pressure on that for -- in terms of strategic investments.

Thanks for your question, Danny. From the standpoint of pricing, here, not only in moments, but we have seen, yes, a good acceptance of what we've done. Naturally, we're very diligent and we accompany the demand versus what we pass through in prices. So in a certain way, there are some adjustments which are one-offs, but it's always a question of having a good management of pricing and a healthy contribution margin for these products. We haven't seen any signs -- warning signs that any of these categories, which would indicate that you mentioned. We are very diligent today. I'm going to pass the ball over to Elias now. Just to add one last thing. You talked about opportunities. Yes, we're satisfied for now with that, which we have passed through in the most recent quarter. And if necessary, we're going to be accompanying that and diligently follow along in that process in a natural way. The second question about operating expenses, Elias will talk with you about that.

Thank you for the question, Danny. We are constantly fighting and seeking to be more and more efficient. In general, we are spending less, whether it be CapEx or OpEx. We see this quarter, we've been more efficient with the management of our people. While the revenue grows, we grew 16% in G&A. We're also more efficient with our personnel in the sales people. All the lines of SG&A have brought a real efficiency in our results, and we're going to continue seeking this efficiency, whether it be in CapEx or OpEx. It's worth mentioning that in this quarter, we saw the IT expenses, just the third-party services was essentially the expenses of IT, which were in CapEx and OpEx, which had pressure on this line. But when we see that the -- add all this together of the CapEx plus OpEx in the second quarter of last year and the second quarter this year, we spent less. And so we believe that going forward, we're going to continue trying to be more and more efficient in every line of SG&A and hoping that this -- that as we gain efficiency in the coming quarters.

Our next question is from Eric Huang of Santander.

We have two from our side. The first is from -- like we're happy to see the acceleration, especially in Life, a little bit below what we expected, but still a good number. And I wanted to understand how is this trajectory over the quarter and even understand a little more when we look at the question of new launches and stock that is more robust and how this has been happening over the quarter. And so we can understand what is the starting point for the third quarter? What's the expectation for same-store sales for Life going forward? And the second point -- another highlight -- positive highlight was a question of your stocks, your inventories. Not only was it very similar. Can you break us a little bit of a breakdown, the principal drivers that has brought that and we have -- so that we can think about going forward, how this trajectory should be between the acceleration of sales, better management of stock of inventories and the turnover, which -- so that we can have better expectations on the inventory side.

Thank you for your question, Eric. I'm going to start by talking about Life. I think that the perspectives are very good until the end of the year. We prepared a great deal for our Black Friday, which is very important for Life, Black Friday and Christmas. And we have commented -- already commented with you that we've had a percentage of innovation very strong in our collections. This is a strategy which is very assertive and it continues with the next months, which is a natural tendency. And in the next days, we're going to see a reinforcement, a very strong reinforcement in the line of Moments, new launches a calendar -- a monthly calendar of new items. So this freshness brings a very high quality going forward for our sales. I think it's also worth mentioning, giving a little bit more color, the area of [ annual ] groups, the group -- an interesting analysis of Elias is that the growth that we've seen in each group, and we are concerned about the new Life stores. We're already talking the new Life stores, even though they have a lower sales per square meter, they have a quicker maturity and they continue to grow but they're maturing more quickly than we had seen in the previous Life stores. And this is very clear for Elias. Our -- the high level of growth that we have in the Life stores, we see that these stores are getting relevance as a share within the participation of the total of stores that we have. And for that reason, the total sales per square meter falls a bit. But with each new group, with each new harvest of stores compared from the newest to the oldest we have seen -- all this [ news ], we have seen relevant growth. This is very important because it shows that all of the groups in terms of sales per square meter in the context of the conviction of the company that the horizon of expansion of Life is very large. So we see that it's very important to have this -- we have a consolidated number, and we can make this available for you as well to have this perception because we think that it's very, very important. From the standpoint of inventory, everything that we've communicated with you over the recent years has now started to show its effect we see an evolution, a gradual evolution in the second quarter of our plants [ connected ] three principal initiatives, the redistribution of inventories between stores to increase the turnover. The second, avoiding excess stock, especially in the products of gold products as a consequence of that two items. First, reduction of the need of purchasing raw material. So by the end of the year, due to our planning, we have no need to purchase gold. The second item, how we're going to produce. I'm going to close some albums. We have no more need to produce those items. So this will reduce our need for production finally. And this -- the consequence is an optimization of stocks of inventories. We've looked at the evolution of this more for the end of the year, which is our principal season. The third quarter is where we prepare in a very important way for the seasonality of Black Friday and Christmas. And this evolution happens numerically at the end of this year.

Congrats for the results.

Our next question is from Felipe Rached from Goldman Sachs.

I have one from my side. I wanted to look at the dynamics of adjustments of the collection and the composition on the Vivara question -- products. Is there any short-term, medium-term risk in terms of brand equity of having more silver in the mix? If you could speak about that, it would be in light of the previous answers, I think it would be very interesting to hear from you about that.

It's a very interesting question. This is part of the history of Vivara of doing innovation, which to make it adequate for the needs of our public. We have this line of silver in our portfolio for several years. And in no way have we seen a perception of lower value for the brand. On the contrary, our brands continue to be very strong. And I think this is our principal strength. From our side, we think that we're very rigid in the perception of the brands to communicate very well without any offensive publicity. We don't see any concern here. It's worth mentioning here that we have brands that are aspirational. It's important to maintain those. At the same time, it's important to have the way that Vivara has been successful over these recent decades is that we offer luxury, but also luxury that's accessible. So we have a large portfolio of complementary products of different publics for different publics at different price points. It's very important that we have always innovated and guaranteeing price as well as aspirational brands. I'd say this is one of the major differentials of Vivara. It's not -- as Caio has mentioned, not just from now. Vivara has built its brand anchored on the values that we're bringing and various other brands, luxury brands, it's silver, within its portfolio. I don't see any indication of this perception of the client as far as the value that the brand brings, whether it be for use of the purchaser or as a presence. Silver is in our portfolio. It can bring clients who were able to attend all of the groups in Brazil, those from the most expensive to the most accessible.

Our next question is from Bob Ford from Bank of America.

How should we think about the total in the management of the company? If you could comment on the systems and help us to quantify the new capacities that you have.

Bob, could you please repeat the second question? It wasn't clear.

You could talk a little bit about the investments in systems and help us to quantify the impact that that will have.

Okay. I'm going to take it first here. From the standpoint of Nelson. Nelson left the company no longer connected with our operation. Obviously, Nelson has a lot of experience. So at some point in time, we need to consult him about the future vision. I think he's perhaps the best known in this area in Brazil. We have total access to him. However, he has no action in the day-to-day operation of the company. And our Board of Directors is very well structured. It's a very solid group with a solid knowledge with Elias and our team of executives. This is very beneficial because we've taken the maximum potential out of all of these relationships, both from the people from the controlling group as well as our new Board members who have background -- different backgrounds of experiences. The second will be the impact from the new distribution center. We discussed quite a bit. We evaluate a great deal before opening the new distribution center. Historically, it was always close to our offices here. Anybody that's visited here knows that we've had that distribution center here. So it's very important that we've had all of the controls that are improved controls so we can maintain a very low less level of losses. Very careful with expenses with freight and the operation of the CD of the distribution center and looking at the stock so that we can gain efficiency in the distribution center. The distribution center started its operation at the end of June. We are now leveraging that operation as it gains maturity and we're getting comfort -- we're feeling more comfortable to increase the operation there. We also have continued to do the distribution from Sao Paulo from the distribution center we have here. So we hope that we'll have a great impact both -- it won't have much impact either in inventories or operational expenses. On the contrary, the benefits coming from this operation are very relevant for our business here.

And the expenses with the systems were very high. Can you talk about the new capacities that those changes have brought to systems?

You're talking about IT systems?

Yes.

We have a road map of innovation, which is very well planned, very well outlined and which supports all of our business from the ERPs all the way to the point-of-sale equipment, everything makes this machine turn. We're very satisfied with what we already have in-house, and we're more and more looking for innovation and search for optimizing these levels. From the standpoint of expenses, we don't foresee any significant increase. We only foresee gains in efficiency in this line as well as in our SG&A. And just to clarify, Bob, we had an effect in this quarter and in this half -- first half of the year with the reclassification from CapEx to OpEx of IT expenses. This may be a part of the point. We started to recognize this part of those expenses, which were recognized as CapEx are now recognized as operational. And we have opened that with a great deal of detail to show the recurrence of that, which gave us a CapEx that was less expenses compared to '24 compared to '25. And with this road map, which we have, we're going to continue investing. At the same time, the company will be very diligent looking for these benefits. In fact, the IT area has been very, very diligent examining all new systems and looking for the best systems and additions for the next few years. So it's a permanent system -- a permanent item that we are constantly accessing here at the company.

Our next question is from Guilherme Vilela from JPMorgan.

My question is with regard to price and volume. If you can give us a breakdown between what was -- how much of this was volume and how much was price due to the price increases that you're making? And my second question is as far as gross margin. In the first quarter of '25, it was -- you had increases in the imported products, which caused pressure in the second quarter. Do you think that you're going to have to increase the level of imported products and if this will bring price pressure going forward? The third question, if I may, is the question of the competitive market. If you see Pandora and some of these other competitors entering into the marketplace market? And how do you see the retail market as a whole when you're talking about competitiveness.

Okay. Thank you for the question. Addressing your first question, we don't detail and [indiscernible] all the trade-offs, but it's important to maintain that in line. See this is growing very quickly, the price. Looking at Vivara, we have a natural reflex of the increase in commodity prices last year, which we have passed through gradually with significant increases. However, due to that, the company respecting the DNA has offered the growth of volume in these subcategories, which are appearing more and more. I'm talking about Vivara Silver and the Duo, which is silver and gold have had consistent growth, gaining share and the expectation of trajectory over the year. But the company does a diligent question with these pass-throughs, these gradual pass-throughs, it can be a little more competitive looking at these commodities.

Okay. I have two here. I'm going to try to be succinct. From the standpoint of gross margin, you mentioned what is the comfort that we have, the confidence that we have that the imported products will not affect us going forward. This was a onetime deal in the first quarter when we had -- we were still ramping up our factory. And as a matter of security, we decided to purchase these imported products with a higher-than-normal share. Going forward, now we have now reached the level of manufacturing, especially for the line of Life. So I think this subject has already been addressed, and we're very comfortable that the tendency now is in the right direction going forward. From the standpoint of the competitive market, we've seen share gains -- important share gains quarter-on-quarter. You talked about Pandora and the question of Mercado Libre, we've looked at everything, especially for these complementary sales on the agenda of sales people, other channels like [ Mercado ] Libre and TikTok. These are excellent channels. And very probably, we will implement our presence in those channels in the next few months. We've been working very hard to reach that point, and we will communicate with you as soon as we have any type of news to share.

Our next question is from [ Pedro Lima ] from BTG Pactual.

I wanted to make a question -- only one question in relation to the revenue from -- we saw that in the quarter -- in the previous quarter at a higher level, 12% more or less of revenue. And you commented that, that was a level that was above that would be a normalized level. For this quarter, we saw this percentage coming back to closer to 7%. I wanted to understand what can we expect going forward since you are increasing the level of internalization and especially for the Life products. I heard you mention that that 12% would not be the normal level, but 70% is a little bit below what would be normal. Does it make sense that this will come out somewhere halfway in the second half and going forward?

Pedro, thank you for the question. A factor that's very important for this quarter is that we were able to have results, exceptional results in gross margin even as you mentioned, with the percentage of gross revenue, which is well -- quite a bit lower than this. So we see the strength of the initiatives that we've been gaining in these recent years ever since way back when we decided to increase the factory, thinking that now we're seeing the results of that now. Last year, we had a strong increase that we've been able to look at the silver, which is very strong, much bigger than what we'd like to see. And while there's a movement that we saw for jewels for jewelry, Vivara jewelry. We get a level of stabilization and productivity -- it may not be the same as it was last year because now we have much more being done in our factory, both in gold as well as silver. They have a higher level of internalization that we had in the past. So this has had an effect -- more of a negative effect in this quarter. And we had the holidays, collective holidays at the factory, which caused the production also to -- we had less productive days because of these collective holidays. And we have the initiatives that we've been talking about. We have this revenue -- more stable revenue from the factories and also we have this effect, which is very positive effect, which we've seen in this quarter, which is the distribution center in Espirito Santo. This distribution center will bring credits for ICMS very relevant for the company. Part will be in the second half of the year, but more completely next year. With that, we reached a level of revenue compared to gross margin, which is structurally higher than what we had in the past. We didn't have the effect of the distribution center and of the biggest part of our production being done in-house.

There's no more questions. We will now close the video conference of Vivara. The Department of Investor Relations is available to answer any other questions you might have. Please have an excellent day. Thank you all very much. Thank you.