Sendas Distribuidora - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

To Belmiro to begin the presentation.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you so much. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being here today and participating in the Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter of 2024. The closing of the year, of course, we'll talk about the fourth quarter, but we'll also focus a lot more on the overall 2024. Before I begin, I want to thank the Assaí team. In 2024, we had a 50th-anniversary year with over 87,000 employees. So first of all, I want to thank the team for their work and for our people in the stores in different areas, apart from the management as well. In a year that seemed to be, of course, more challenging than what we expected.

In my assessment, we finished well despite the variations and the challenges we had over the year, either related to the shifts in the dollar, the interest rates, the losses of subvention credits, and also the purchasing power of the population that continues to be highly pressured. So it's a year where we end a little below expectations. It was challenging for shareholders in the company, but we're going to go over the numbers because the closure in 2024 demonstrates a lot of the market concerns and concerns of the board related to the company's management were extremely well addressed. I want to start highlighting the openings, the 15 openings that were performed throughout 2024. Assaí continues to keep up with a trajectory of growth related to the units opened up in 2024.

These projects were postponed when we had the acquisition of the other Extra conversions, where we also had our entrance into very important markets. A lot of people from here in São Paulo had seen the Panamby unit, and they saw how beautiful that unit looked. And that's when we deployed our first unit in São José do Rio Preto, in the interior of São Paulo, a very important city. And the unit in Caraguatatuba. And also at the end of the year, we had the first Assaí unit in Guarujá, a unit that has been performing very well. And so we had a lot of work there. We were highlighting these openings. And so São José do Rio Preto, Caraguatatuba. And it's still a market where Assaí has a strong presence.

On the other hand, we also have a really big market in regions where the company's brand is not present. We had six stores that were opened up now. With this, the company went over 1 million sq m of sales area, which add up to 302 stores in operation around the entire country. When it comes to sales, we had a volume of BRL 22.1 million in gross sales the fourth quarter this year. This was an increase of BRL 1.8 million. In total, the company reaches BRL 80 billion, adding on about BRL 8 billion compared to 2023. The same stores are still a little below expectations. I'll highlight the reasons for this. There's evolution in the fourth quarter, which is also levered a lot by the advances in food inflation.

But we've been working throughout the year to balance out margin generation, maintaining competitive advantages. And this is all presented through repercussions. When you look at the level of the EBITDA, we've highlighted this vision of the EBITDA pre-IFRS. So, of course, impacted by the lease values. And, of course, after the conversion projects with the hypermarket stores, the level of lease that the company has to carry on, especially the downtown stores, is a level that's above the historical levels at the cash and carry stores. And within this project of taking cash and carry to central regions and cities that are more important, and really reach new target audiences. So the company, of course, in that period, we have strong store openings in 2022, and even in 2023, we had a drop in the EBITDA, which was really motivated by the amount of new stores.

As these stores reach maturity and as these new strategies commercially also start generating results, we start having gradual returns of the EBITDA margin, which is what we've observed with an evolution of 30 basis points upon the fourth quarter of 2023. In the post-IFRS vision, it reaches 8.1. Now we have this correlation between the EBITDA, the pre and post. It's very different than what we had in the past, especially after the conversion period. The pre-EBITDA, of course, getting back to the levels of 6%, which was the level we had prior to the conversion project. Now we also have the profits after income tax, which had an increase of almost 83%. This does not reflect the net income because we also had some important regulatory changes with the end of these subvention credits, and that would lead to about 400 million BRL.

Of course, there's significant advances, and Vitor will get into more details about this. We brought the profits after income tax because it brings a comparison base compared to what it was in the past, where you could still have subvention credits, right? We still have a level of credit, but it's, of course, a lot lower than what we had registered in 2022 or 2023 or 2021. I think the biggest highlight this year is considering the company. If we remember, we had invested over BRL 8 billion in the last two years, I think BRL 12 billion or BRL 11 billion in the last three years. It's a project that is really related to the acquisition and conversion of the Extra stores. Once we made the decision in 2021, we had an interest rate that was way lower, and we never expected the current level.

It was a huge investment, very heavy. That brought in extremely important locations and spots for the company, but it led to a leverage. As you all know, we've been working and focusing on this a lot, the deleveraging. We also had a guidance for the expected debt of 3.2. Thanks to the historic cash generation at Assaí, the maturity of the stores, and sustaining of the pre-EBITDA margin, the commercial dynamic, disciplining the operational cash, and maintenance of the working capital as well, we were able to reach 3.04, which was below the guidance we had presented. There was also a reduction in the total amount. It's not only about the leverage because there were some quarters where we had a reduction considering the increase in the EBITDA rate, but it's also a drop in these nominal values.

So when we split that, we can see the net debt versus the EBITDA pre-IFRS. So one point we brought in here to provide more of a vision, we can see that interest rates have been pressured. The credit market has also maybe suffered a few modifications. And Vitor's going to talk about the fundraising and the reprofiling of this debt. But we also brought in this other vision, which is we have a debt of 3.04, and most of our sales take place with debit and credit cards, food vouchers, and meal vouchers that are receivables that we always have the option of anticipating for debt calculation effects. We adjust this, and we can then keep this market standard. But of course, the company can always choose to anticipate the receivables, which are the receivables that you can't reverse.

But when you take a look at this, if we had this vision, we would say, well, the company has to perform the anticipation. The debt would reach a level of 2.1 when you look at the total debt plus the balance. You have a level that's a lot lower than what we had in 2023, but still in 2022, that's capable of really handling the interest levels that we currently have established by the central bank or even by the forecasts we have in the market. If we can maybe advance to the next page, please. And here we have also been working on this throughout the different quarters. Due to the level of openings, we've been discussing the conversion project, the acquisition of the Extra stores. Of course, that was the biggest project the company has ever performed in its entire existence.

It's a project that was not only bold because of the huge amount of investments and the amount of quantity of stores, but because this change was also considering the shift in the business model, considering that cash and carries were coming into the regions of the hypermarkets, especially for the more central stores that fit into the higher income target audiences. So this is a project that is responsible for most of the company's leverage. And we bring in the numbers showing that the stores opened in 2022, and we had a lot of skepticism in the market about the level of leases and the property taxes as well. IPTU, such as Congonhas, São José do Rio Preto, and João Dias. When we noticed the fourth quarter, the EBITDA in the pre-IFRS vision with all of these impacts reached a level of 6.4.

That was an evolution of 80 basis points in the EBITDA. In the beginning of the project, we had a curve that was a little more accelerated for expectations in the EBITDA margin, but it's already reaching a level that is extremely healthy for cash and carry sales, even with most of these stores starting a cycle as they reach three years of existence till the month of August in 2025, right? The stores are still ramping up. They're still maturing, and they have an accelerated customer flow with an average sale that reached, in December, BRL 29.3 million and an advance of 5% compared to the same period last year and a total average sale of BRL 27 million. We leave 2024 with a pre-IFRS EBITDA of 5.5%. Important detail here, the sales per square meter.

The acquired stores from Extra that were bigger in size could maybe have sales per square meters that were actually a little lower than the first batch of stores where the stores were smaller. The hypermarkets that are older, they're bigger, and we had strong work with the revenue of the stores and the galleries as well. The sales per square meter now, these stores are already reaching 4,600 BRL. This indicator is super important for us because Assaí historically had not only the highest average sale per store in the sector, which is an indicator that is extremely important for us to demonstrate our brand strength and our competitive advantage and all of the different aspects that make the client decide to go to our units, as well as the best indicators or the biggest indicators in the market with the sales per square meter.

We also, on the right side of the page, you can see that there's opening of the stores that were open in 2023. These stores have a life cycle, of course, of about 13 months or 14 months lower than the previous batch, but they're still ramping up, and they've already reached a pre-IFRS EBITDA margin of 3%. You can advance within this change. This slide is very important because if you take a look at Assaí with 302 stores and other competitors and the size of Atacarejo, the cash and carry in Brazil, this was all very important because this would also accompany an advance in the purchase experience. So then we have a real long series coming along, heading towards 2011, when you still had a lot more Spartan stores and more geared towards the B2B customers. But the expenses in our post-IFRS vision was 9.5%.

So since the sector has changed a lot, we've heard a lot about the new cash and carry, or the old-time cash and carry, but the vision of the company and other forums and opportunities taking advantage of the fourth quarter, there is an addressable market size. [Foreign language] 2019. [Foreign language] 2000 [Foreign language] 2000, [Foreign language]. [Foreign language] 12,000 [Foreign language]. [Foreign language] but now are being followed. And all of this took place with a floor [Foreign language].

For the property tax and leases are all related to the real estate market, but then of course you have a store with more purchasing power. [Foreign language] Assaí, all of these changes are made to keep the normal level of expenses as we had in 2011. Basis points [Foreign language] 2011, [Foreign language] 40 basis points [Foreign language] 2015. Lower than what we operated in 2015 with all these changes. So we've been able to deliver very competitive pricing, and cash and carry overall is a channel that can really deliver the lowest price to the Brazilian population, so when you see discussions on food inflation and other concerns, we're really selling products at low prices to the population, but of course, we want to reach other customer public, customer targets.

We have over 618 units with services, and we had an inflationary perspective registered now in the fourth quarter. We also had a breakdown in the end of 2024 of how the customer composition is between B2B and B2C customers. We have 58% of the sales, which are B2C, but 42% is still B2B, and this level will be kept. These are very different target audiences with extremely different purchasing profiles. When you look at B2C and these 58%, of course, this is considering the volume of sales. It's not the customer traffic in the stores, but the company has already reached 44% share in the sales value of customers that are B2B and AB customer targets. When you look at D, it represents 9%. Class C is 47%.

So, this represents a level of resilience as we're present in all of the social levels operating in this segment. So when you look at the EBITDA margin over our results, we may not have reached the same store sales we would like to have, but in the variations of our results before the pandemic, during the pandemic, inflation, deflation, interest rates at 2% and then 14%, but it still hasn't been affecting our results. So it's a very resilient business, strong cash generation. When we talk about B2B customers, the 42% that operate over BRL 30 billion in revenue are split between the food service and transformer customers and also the resellers. And the resellers, they're not only Assaí's customers. They're not loyal exclusively to Assaí.

They'll buy from us, they'll buy from others and other competitors as well as they look at each of their purchase when they consider the best price and the best payment conditions. And why am I highlighting this? Well, considering a movement or trend in the market of offering credit conditions with payments in three installments, and we noticed that, well, did you lose the customer? No, he continues to buy. He just looks at each item or each purchase as a specific business opportunity. And so when he has a different dynamic, the company also looks at competitive advantage in a very different way. We look at the end customer either or to the transformational public, and there's a decision, of course, right?

The company's at this moment where they decide if they're going to keep along or not from a price or payment condition perspective with possible movements that could have been done in the market, and also looking at this in a very segregated manner. If we lose the consumer market, of course, it's super concerning. The resellers, they're just changing the mix, so if tomorrow you shift something, your prices don't come back. They're always looking for the best business opportunities, so whenever we search for the best opportunity with each product, they also do this, right? They can buy the same product in different offerings in the market, not only from cash and carries, but even from wholesale distributors or even directly. [Foreign language].

It reflects, as we had mentioned, the store maturity, the evolution as well in the services, and we had strong investments in services as well, so it's still above sales. It goes from this level of 16.2 to 16.5 and without giving up on the competitive advantage because of the store maturity, services, and strategy, and then you have this another perspective with the EBITDA. When you look at the total base of the company, the company got back. So there was an increase of 0.30. I'm not going to be repetitive here, and 30 basis points also in the fourth quarter, adding up to a total of 40 basis points compared to the previous year. Once again, green returns to the levels of EBITDA the company has always operated with.

We'll now start an important phase of this presentation, which is the financial details, and I'll pass the floor on now to Vitor Fagá, our CFO, as he shares and leads this part of the business.

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

Thank you, Belmiro. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to quickly cover some highlights and get into more details about the indicators that we consider relevant. First, the financial results, as you can see, had an improvement when you compare the fourth quarter of 2024 and the fourth quarter of 2023. This was due to the higher average cash supplied, as well as other revenues and expenses. Monetary updates where we had a positive effect with the swap deal for the market. For those of you who have been watching the company closer, you all know that we have some debt set to IPCA indicators, and we have a swap to CDI.

And then we also have some other foreign currency denominations that in this quarter was positive. So besides all of this, we also have a monetary update or correction on tax credits. And so these are credits that are not recognized or adjusted in our balance sheet. And these two effects made the financial expenses in our income statement in the fourth quarter, our P&L, sorry, below the nominal levels. And also as a percentage of our net sales that went from 2.6% of the net sales in the last quarter of 2023 to 2.0% of our net sales now in 2024. And as a consequence also of the company's growth, as Belmiro has already mentioned. Moving on to the profitability indicators, we see important evolution in the company's profits.

We had both visions, the pre- and the post-IFRS vision, and I'm going to concentrate on the post-IFRS vision on the chart below. We had growth from a quarter-over-quarter perspective of 62%, BRL 306 million-BRL 528 million, and especially an evolution of the net income. When we look at the annual perspective, we also had an evolution, and the net margin was pretty stable at about 1% throughout 2024. Then this evolution is a consequence of this store maturity process, as Belmiro has mentioned, also improving the purchase experience, despite but also the expansion of the gross margin that came from the store maturity process, and especially the rigorous expense control.

Although we had some pressure and some expense lines, we, through this expense committee, were able to control some expenses and also start with some initiatives that could provoke a reduction and keep the levels of expense at a healthy level that really guarantee our business model and the fact that we can really grow by offering to our customers prices that are very competitive. Finally, the evolution of our financial results, as I've already mentioned. On the next slide, we also, just as we brought in the last quarters, bring the evolution and vision of the past 24 months of the cash generation and investments. Belmiro has already mentioned this quickly.

We had investments in this period of about BRL 8 billion, and the company was able to fund practically all of this investment, 95% of this investment here from expansion with operational cash generation. So we had BRL 7.7 billion generated in this period, and as a consequence directly of the EBITDA growth especially, but also an improvement in the cash cycle. So we can notice this especially when we take a look at the three indicators for the working capital. We see there was an improvement when we compare the end of 2022 and the end of 2024, and that brought in an important increment to our cash position.

Moving on to the next slide, we have also the evolution of our leverage, and we've also seen in the last quarters this leverage, and it's always important to mention the comparison with the same period in the previous year to avoid comparisons of periods that have different seasonalities. But when you consider this from this perspective, we had a leverage at the end of 2024 where the net debt to EBITDA ratio reached 3.04, below the guidance we had disclosed of 3.2 times. And an important evolution also when we take a look at the same period in 2023. So it was an important evolution of 0.76 times the EBITDA, 3.8 to 3.04. And beyond this evolution, it's important to highlight that there was also an important balanced composition of this where we reduce this at the same time as we increase the EBITDA in this period.

So you have double effect in the denominator, and we expect this continuity. So if you've been following us for longer, you've probably noticed that in some quarters we had a deleveraging effect and a stronger EBITDA component. So as we expect this deleveraging to happen now in a more balanced way in both components. [Foreign language]. Reduction of the net debt. And then for 2025, we also reinforced the guidance that we've already disclosed to the market at the end of last year, where by the end of 2025, we should have this indicator of 2.6 times. The net debt to EBITDA ratio will be 2.6, and this is really reflecting on the company's focus of continuing and doing more than this, right? And even accelerate this deleveraging, right?

We actually made the decision to reduce our CapEx for 2025, which should be about BRL 1.0 million-BRL 1.2 million. We substituted this opening of some stores. We reduced this target to 10 stores throughout 2025. All of this is really so that we can continue to keep this leverage and, if possible, even accelerate this over the end of the year. We'll be able to reach 2.6. It's not only about this. If we can move on to the next slide, we've also been able to, especially throughout the second, third, and fourth quarters of the year. We've had a very intense deleveraging process. We had BRL 6.6 billion, and this generates or represents half of our net debt. We also had a reduction of this debt because in the past it represented CDI plus 49.

At a level of CDI plus 125, and we were able to reduce this to CDI plus 136. But what's most important is the extension of the profile of this debt. We had a debt with a period of 32 months, and this term we expected to be extended, and that's what we were able to do, and maybe the operation that's most important is the 11th debenture we had in the beginning of October where we had BRL 2.8 billion, and that was mainly to anticipate the payments in the next year. So this has a very important effect in the extension of this liability. So we reached the end of 2024, and the average term we also had an important reduction in 2026, and a postponing or extension of these maturities in years going way beyond 2028 and 2029.

That represents a lot of the payment term conditions with the debt management process. Before we finish this topic, it's also very important to remember that we've also been really aligned with the maturities in 2025. We don't need to have any issuance throughout 2025 in order to be able to handle our needs throughout this year. With the debt management, we don't have the need to, and we can actually go through 2025 without having to perform any kind of issuance. That does not mean necessarily that we won't have issuances. We're always looking for opportunities in the market to raise good conditions for debt.

But if we identify opportunities that we consider are compatible or even costs that are lower than our current debts that allow us to have prepayments, especially for debts that are expiring in 2026 and 2027, then we will take these on following the similar format we've adopted in the issuance we had in October last year. So if we have the opportunity, we'll do it, but we don't need to, and this gives us a lot of comfort as well, especially if you consider a moment where we're in this macroeconomic scenario with higher interest rates and bigger challenges, as mentioned. Heading to the next slide, it's important to also mention that we consider the company's total cash availability. So when you look at each end of year and compare the last quarters, we can see when I compare, of course, these quarter-over-quarter that are comparable.

We don't have distortions due to seasonality, but we can see this 17% increase, right, from 6.4 in the end of 2023 to 7.6 in the end of 2024. That's because of our cash generation. This is something we've discussed in the last slides, but also because of our debt management and taking on an important stance for research for higher liquidity in the company. As you can see, we have this availability higher, and the cash at the end also grew. As you can see, the sum of these two blue columns and for 2023, we had an increase. So we also had some receivables that were non-discounted that could have been performed and of BRL 1 billion.

We also have, by the end of 2024, a cash position that's more robust of BRL 5.7 billion, but especially a portion of receivables that we've decided to not discount. We chose to not discount these receivables because it wasn't necessary at the moment to have an even higher liquidity position at this point in time. We can see and perceive a more solid position when it comes to liquidity associated, of course, with the deleveraging and cash generation, as well as liability management we worked on. Finally, to wrap up, we've announced the JSCP payment of BRL 109 million, and we also have a proposal to add an additional BRL 20 million in dividends that we're going to present in our general shareholders meeting.

This is an overview, a very summarized overview of how this availability has evolved, which certainly positions us in a better level to be able to face these challenges. We all have been seeing what we experienced in 2024 and also what we experienced now in 2025. Now I'll pass the floor to Sandra Vicari. Sandra, the floor is yours.

Sandra Vicari (VP of People Management and Sustainability)

Thank you so much, Vitor. Good morning, everyone. I want to just show you some important sustainability advances in line with our strategy to leverage prosperity for everyone through the development of people, communities, with efficient operations that are transparent and lead to lower environmental impacts. I wanted to highlight the main advances in the spirit where we're able to reduce our emissions to Scope 1 and 2 by 10%.

We also implemented the correct disposal program, and this program sends our fruits and vegetable products that don't have the adequate appearance for sales, but that can still be consumed to social institutions, close to our stores, and these donations allowed over 1,900 tons of waste to be sent out of the landfills. We were also able to integrate an Efficient Carbon Index, which reinforces our commitment and management of the climate agenda. We were able to get a score B in the CDP, one of the main measurement and disclosure methods for risk. [Foreign language]. Related to carbon emissions and at the Assaí, we're also responsible for all of these social investments, and we were able to keep up with our commitment to fight hunger.

We had the donation of over 5 million meals that take place in our solidarity kitchens and different campaigns for engagement, donations of food baskets and other initiatives we have in the institute to guarantee our commitment to fighting hunger. We also launched our volunteer program for our employees. We had, throughout this year, four different initiatives, and this is a very low program by our employees. It was very successful. Finally, as Belmiro mentioned, we ended the year of 2024 with over 87,000 employees, keeping up with the culture that guarantees diversity, inclusion, respect, and numbers that are very consistent that also demonstrate this diversity that's present in our operation from north to south in the country. Here we have some important highlights. We have over 45% of Black people in leadership positions, over 25% women in leadership positions, 5.3% of people with disabilities.

This is a number that is kept stable and above the legal quota for the past eight years consecutively, and in our operation, we have over 10% of our employees that are over 50. So this work has been more and more representing the solid approach of our company that's sustainable and diverse and has been recognized by the market, and I want to highlight that this recognition we had this year by Great Place to Work for the third consecutive year. We were certified by GPTW among the best companies to work at, and this year, we were present also in two rankings, the national ranking and also the retail ranking, where we were the best company for food retail to work at in Brazil. And this recognition definitely levers us to become more and more of a sustainable company for all of our stakeholders.

That's it. Thank you so much. I'll pass this on to Belmiro as he discusses other recognitions we had as well.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you, Sandra. I also believe that this recognition is very important, and it's due to recognizing the work of the team and the company's position throughout 2024. We received a lot of different awards and acknowledgments for our different work. We want to highlight the Best and Biggest by Exame as the best cash and carry and wholesale company. It would be almost impossible for a cash and carry company to occupy this position a few years ago. This is something that makes us very proud. We're one of the brands that's most known or remembered as a physical and digital retailer in Brazil.

In the next page, I'll also show you what this represents for the company and what the company believes they can extract as value. Besides other forms of recognition, they really demonstrate that from the customer's perspective and the brand assertiveness, the company has really been recognized and acknowledged in the market. Now we can move on. We also talked a bit about the expectations that we have, and the company continues very focused on cash generation. I'd already talked about this. Vitor also talked about this with the reduction of the debt, and we've been working on this in a balanced manner, counting on cash generation. That was always the main characteristic at Assaí ever since we began this work. That really made the company go from 38 to 302 units. Ever since that initial movement in 2011, we never had any outside investments.

Everything we did was done with our own cash generation. Everything we built and developed was really with our own cash generation. And for this year, we also have 10 stores expected in 2025. These are projects that were already underway and stores that are very important. Most of them are already in construction work. And in the first quarter, we should have a revision of the guidance for the openings in 2026 that could or not lead to a shift in this number if necessary. Of course, we're also looking at the expansion, considering our leverage due to the interest rates that are so high. And so reviewing the level of store openings in 2026 should probably lead to a reduction in the amount of stores opened in 2026 to levels that are more similar to those of 2025.

The company last year in 2024, it was for the last year where we were paying installments for the supermarket, for the hypermarkets we bought from Extra. The level of investments this year is very different than what we had in 2024, 2022, and 2023. This reduction already took place, and we had already mentioned this to the market to BRL 1 billion or BRL 1.2 billion, which allows us to keep this guidance for the leverage reduction to 2.6 times the net debt to EBITDA ratio by the end of 2025. In this period, the company went through an expansion process that was huge. Part of these efforts are really in leveraging the value of the assets. We were able to build, finish the process with the store maturity as well.

The project we have today considers a flow of about 500 million people going by our stores annually, about 38-48 million monthly. That allows us to explore the retail media project in and out projects as well. If you've participated in the Assaí, we have over 4.4% of the market of tires, and that represents many other categories of products and opportunities. We still have other units that are going to receive these services as well. Our business is really about servicing this physical store well, having digital ad support in this process, and the galleries also that really contribute to greater loyalty as well as new opportunities that should come up and new projects throughout 2025, considering the fact that the company is the retailer with the biggest flow around the national territory. On my side, I think that's pretty much it.

Now we can head to our Q&A session. Thank you very much, everyone.

Operator (participant)

Now we're going to begin our Q&A session. If you have a question, please select the Q&A icon on the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and language to enter the queue. As your name is announced, a request to open your mic will appear. Then you may select your mic to submit a question. Please do send all of your questions at once. Our first question comes from Danniela Eiger at XP. Danniela, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. Please, you may proceed.

Danniela Eiger (Head of Retail and Co-Head of Equity Research)

[Foreign languag Hi guys, how's it going? Thank you for taking my question and congrats on the results and the consistency you guys have been searching for. But the question I have here is a little broad.

It's going to address maybe some points that I think are interesting to cover, which are the issue with being more competitive. We've seen some different strategies among the two main players in the sector, one focusing more on a volume dynamic and you guys are focusing more on profitability. And sometimes we ask ourselves about what's the best equation considering this narrow of a consumer that's fragile, right? It also doesn't mean that they're responding at such a high intensity considering the price sacrifice, right? But my first question here, considering the competitive scenario, it's kind of like how you guys consider this balance from now on, right? If you guys have been really strong in this dynamic with profitability protection, with really good margins, then you continue to expand.

But how much elasticity do you consider you have from a positive perspective to give up on a bit of the margins that can bring some operational leverage? And how have you been seeing this balance? You see consumers are not responding so well, maybe due to this dynamic with paying in installments. But I wanted to hear from you a bit, Belmiro, on your vision of this equation between the volume versus margin, especially considering you're at a margin level that's already very good and maybe even have a little extra margin, considering that the conversions are already considering pretty good level of performance on average with the rest of the company. And then the second question I have would be more towards the mix issue with the B2B and B2C.

You mentioned this, Belmiro, in your presentation with the installments taking place in a more attractive manner to have a bigger appeal for the transformational public that searches for price and payment terms, and along with that, we also have the maintenance of pricing and how that's been evolving with pushing this mix that way, and so how have you guys been looking at this shift in the mix changes and how you've been looking at this more like from a long-term perspective? If Assaí is really going to head to a bigger weight onto B2C, and then of course B2B maybe keeps up with this, but more as a complement than a focus, and then understand a bit more of how you're seeing this, and alongside this, I would also like you to give us the vision on private label. Maybe I had too many questions here.

It might be a little bit confusing, but for private label, we see this as a very strong trend abroad, and maybe that could even have more of an appeal to B2C, but also to B2B. Are you guys assessing this as well? And what's the first competitive scenario, volume versus margin? And thanks.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you, Danni. Well, you were the first one here on the queue, so you have a bunch of questions. So first, let's talk about private label. If you look at the difference, this is very different than what we have in Brazil compared to other countries, right?

And so this phenomenon, although there were other initiatives that happened considering the logistical costs in Brazil, so the biggest supplier of a specific product, if I transport this product, which is normally low-added value products and the cost of transportation to Campo Grande, it's going to be a lot more expensive than if you have a local leading brand. So to show you a bit of this scenario, that was always one of the biggest challenges. It doesn't mean the company doesn't have this option, right? If you look at this today, we never imagined producing a private label and trying to take that to Recife because it would arrive and it would be a lot more expensive, right? And just visit any state and you'll see how many local brands are really strong.

But of course, it is possible that considering we have greater density with over 112 stores in the state of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, maybe we can assess this. It might not be considered a priority, and we're a lot more geared towards entering the market with new categories, taking advantage of this customer flow, especially A and B customers, that in our vision really gives us a big opportunity to service other categories. An example we had was the investor day as well was an example of this, right? We have over 4% of the market. When it comes to tires, that's a category we wouldn't expect because we didn't even have the assembly of those tires at the stores. But it demonstrates the capacity the company can have to enter new categories.

The private label has a certain level of caution, and it's not in our priority projects. If you look at the penetration of private label, it's about 20% in most countries. In the food sector, it's about 1% or 1.2%, and this number has been completely stable due to logistical issues. Trying to give you this quick answer, but of course, we can explore this more at another moment. Now, about the topic on competition between the market and the opening in B2Bs. Like if you ask, "Oh, do we have more B2Cs and B2B?" No, it's just that the difficulty cash and carries have is that you have this mix, right, of the wholesale approach besides the cash and carry approach, right? So if you look at the market, the end customer, we have different customers from different social levels that have different product mixes and brand preferences.

In wholesale, that also happens, right? The metrics for customers that are resellers or customers that are transformers are really different. Their decision-making process is very different. Normally, these customers buy from our stores at a competitor A, B, daily, and he always considers what's the best option. The idea of not following this movement that the market followed is that we don't see this happening with all of the B2B and B2C customers, but it could be that we make a decision to have something occasional for this kind of public that's more affected, more geared towards customers that have this difficulty with working capital. But in our vision, it wouldn't lead to an actual additional sales volume.

When we look at the levels in the market, we see our same store sales are very similar, but even our same store sales never consider the conversions we've done as the market has been. If you deduct the conversions and you compare that with our biggest competitor, it's very similar to the results that Assaí has, right? Without hindering the cash or debt positions. We still notice there's a bit of a challenge in the market to understand this format where it's not a format that's comparable for like drug stores or in our case, we have 40% of the public geared towards the wholesale. This customer behaves differently, has other decision-making processes, and we also need to look at them differently. There are different projects in the company, such as the financial services project that's geared towards the B2B customers.

We want to expand and continue to advance with this public. We see major opportunities for distribution and products that are distributed. If you ask us if we're only focused on one, no. Actually, the focus is quite frequently having a store in Congonhas is really to service the restaurants in that region. The cash and carry in Brazil is balanced out by servicing consumers and also B2Bs. Is it in the same way with the same policy? No. The differences between these products and the policies we use and competitors use are really that it's like you're treating two different business opportunities. This is one of the biggest challenges to operate this kind of model. The analysis is done differently. I hope I answered your question.

Danniela Eiger (Head of Retail and Co-Head of Equity Research)

Very clear, Belmiro.

Just to follow up on this issue with B2B, do you think this could also explain the gap in the same store sales besides the conversion? Because then it's a bigger ticket and maybe possible shifts towards price and payment terms could impact this gap?

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Yeah, it can. Because if you consider the leverage being a little lower this year, it could be that we'll make a decision to do something occasional geared to a specific public, but not like a general approach. Because the risk of this migrating a sale that you already have upfront in cash to sale in installments or on credit. So these customers are making decisions at an order-by-order basis. So if we decide we're not going to follow a specific payment condition policy, it doesn't mean that we lose the customer. He just looks at us and he makes his things.

He buys between competitor A, B, and C. But if you isolate this effect of the conversions, you'll see it's very similar to the same stores. And then you look at the overall market because you had an acceleration in the inflation plus the purchasing power of the consumer when you consider this. So the year of 2024, as we've already mentioned, we also had an impact of the reduction of inflation. We had the biggest amount of product packages dropping or becoming smaller. Reducing the size of the cookie or the chocolate, you will reduce the amount consumed. But if you change the size of a rice pack, you're still going to consume the same amount of rice. So there's some categories that we consider indulgences, and customers buy smaller packs to be able to keep their expenses down, right?

But when you look at the volume per unit, you have a drop. But when you look at the volume per weight of product, right, there's a variance.

Danniela Eiger (Head of Retail and Co-Head of Equity Research)

Okay, great. Thank you, Belmiro.

Operator (participant)

Well, our next question comes from Felipe Rached from Goldman Sachs. So Felipe, we'll open up your audio. You can proceed, please.

Felipe Rached (Equity Research Analyst)

Well, thank you for taking my question, guys. And good morning. We have a question that's similar to what I had asked to your competitor yesterday. Got a lot of feedback from the market about a lack of labor and the difficulty to hire them. And considering that it's an industry with high turnover, I wanted to understand if you've also felt the same challenge and if you guys have been working with less employees per store or if this in some way impacted the operations throughout the fourth quarter.

And if you could tell us how this also contributed to savings on personnel, etc., that would be great. But then when you consider an expense topic, if you could show us a bit of the levers that were impacting this in the quarter, that would be great. Thank you, guys.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Okay, thank you. We didn't reduce personnel in the fourth quarter, no effects. There were some people that had reductions, but to talk about the labor issue and the expenses. We have Sandra here. She's really leading this point and working on this challenge. And Anderson can also talk about the expenses. Sandra, you're on mute, please.

Sandra Vicari (VP of People Management and Sustainability)

Hey, good morning, Felipe. Yes, no doubt. You have the labor issue as a big challenge for us and all the sectors, but especially retail. And so what we felt is an impact in our turnover.

But we've also noticed that with other benchmarks, that our numbers are still below the rest of the market players. And we've also evolved to fight and face this challenge considering the selection model with more assertiveness, more agility. And also, we've been really highlighting our culture of care for people, investing strongly on the training and development and other growth and recognition opportunities. And also, as I mentioned in my presentation, we were also recognized and acknowledged as the best company to work at in the food retail sector. So this intends to strengthen our brand and also improve our retention. So we've been working strongly on investing more on our culture of caring for people to face this challenge with the lack of labor and the turnover. I'll pass the floor to Anderson to add on as well.

Anderson Barres Castilho (VP of Operations)

Thank you, Sandra. Thank you, Felipe.

I think I always talk about how we see in our presentation throughout the years when we talk about expenses. There's a lot of initiatives with the maturity as well of a network. We've been really developing this work with the team. And when we consider expenses and what's being absorbed, we opened up 192 services and 112 stores as well. And within this, you have strong efforts from the team, but it's just about implementing this at the day-to-day level. And it's constant work. It's really about the team bringing in more productivity so that we can keep this up. And I think it's about stability in our business. We're really conscious of this. Vitor talked about this and working with the expenses as a whole. It's not just about the store expenses, but the expenses in the company as a whole.

So we have this work group where we search for alternatives to keep stability and bring in results that are better and better. So I think this is the work we constantly have, even with this new store network and a big amount of new services. This year, in the first quarter, we've had over 80 stores with new stores that we're going to be implementing. That's very positive. And we have really impacted our customers positively. It's been a major differential. And so I think that's really in line, and it's definitely a really good point to work on. And it's about the diverse initiatives we have in our business to keep this work moving along.

Felipe Rached (Equity Research Analyst)

Perfect, very clear. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Joseph Giordano, JPMorgan. Joseph, open up your mic so that you can proceed, please.

Joseph Giordano (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, everyone. Belmiro.

This is a quick question here. The first one is about the point Belmiro mentioned in the beginning of the Q&A about new categories, products. I wanted to explore how the relevance of these new categories has been and the evolution of these new categories. So I would like to know how relevant this is for your revenue. And besides this, where we see the important quick evolution, I'm sure it's very relevant. I wanted to understand a bit of if you could help us understand or quantify how much of this comes from more of a B2C mix and how much of this comes from the categories that are maybe not that traditional for cash and carry that we could even have margins higher, margins that are higher. And when you look at the cash flow, you have a guidance of 2.6 net debt to EBITDA.

But I wanted to understand if you guys can share us a little bit more about the rationale and how we should think about cash generation in 2025. Thank you.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you, Joseph. When we talked about the evolution of these SKUs and new categories, most of them were products we already worked with. But when you expand the target audience in Brazil, you see we have a lot of social inequalities. So some stores you have higher income and lower income public in the surrounding area. And sometimes you need to have an expansion in the amount of offerings or brands for like mayo or any other specific product. So now you have a broadness of different brands in the same categories. It's a lot greater.

Joseph Giordano (Equity Research Analyst)

And the new categories want Belmiro to talk about and highlight, such as tires and other products, but also when it comes to the expansion of the offerings as well. So besides this, also with the cash generation issue, keeping up this guidance at 2.6, and we don't intend to in any way issue some guidance like this. This could happen, though, throughout the time, depending on how we assess the first quarter's performance. Do you want to talk about in-and-outs?

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Okay, sure. Good morning, everyone. Joseph, thanks for the question. When we look at the categories, I think cash and carry had an important evolution in the last five or six years with the increase in assortments, adapting to customer needs and the mix and the increase of consumers and stores with different desires and profiles. And we had an important movement that was very intelligent.

We were able to take advantage of it. So I normally say that we can do the hardest part, which is bringing customers into the store. And as mentioned, retail, physical retail in Brazil has the biggest amount of transactions and customers and penetration in Brazilian households. And what we have to take advantage of this. Along with this, we've also started working on some tests for products for in-and-out. And we talked about this in the investor day. We also had some work with different international trips as well. And now in the second half of the year, we're going to have products arriving that are also going to provide a different dynamic. It's not only about expanding the assortment or categories, but the new suppliers as well. And so it's an ongoing process, but we also like to test some categories.

And we want to test some things that if they're not well successful, we can quickly review them, right? So I think this is an ongoing process, and this has been adding to revenue generation, not only in these categories, but also in the new services that contribute to the maintenance. And we have to take advantage of this moment, right? So when we talk about this assortment, we are not only talking about the end customer, but when businesses are at the store, they sometimes buy tires for their own car or a television for their company or even for their own home. So at the end of the day, the sales in these different categories kind of service both publics.

So at the moment, when they're there as end customers, but also B2Bs, when they're service buying to supply their business, they also end up buying these in and out products and these categories that we included in this assortment. So I think that's it. I hope I answered your point.

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

Joseph, this is Vitor. As we talked about leverage this year, I think it's important to also highlight that we expect deleveraging this year. That's really a lot more balanced than what we saw in 2023 and 2024. So in 2024, especially in the first half, sorry, in the first quarter, we noticed that there was deleveraging that comes especially through the growth of the EBITDA. So very small variation in the net debt.

What we noticed in the third quarter was a reduction in the net debt, especially in the fourth quarter, but this was a reduction that was even more significant in the net debt. So we've noticed throughout the quarters that there was an important evolution and balance between the component of the debt reduction and the overall deleveraging. So when you look at our cash generation for 2024, 2025, sorry, we expect continuity of what we've already seen, right? So deleveraging that comes from a more balanced component and also the reduction of the net debt. So that's what we can share with you guys at this moment. So we've been absolutely confident about this guidance, although we have this shift in the macro scenario that we've observed over time in the past months.

And also, despite the challenge of handling the interest rates at the levels there are, and so we're reinforcing this guidance of 2.6 times by the end of 2025.

Joseph Giordano (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much, guys.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from Lucca Biasi at UBS. Lucca, we'll enable your audio so that you may proceed. You can continue, please.

Lucca Biasi (Equity Research Analyst)

Bom dia, pessoal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking our questions. We have two. Primeiro, se vocês puderem comentar pouco como que é. Could you guys talk about how the sales have been evolving throughout the quarter, especially at a month-by-month perspective, and how this has evolved now in the beginning of 2025? That would also be interesting.

Secondly, if you could talk about the store profile you expect to open up in 2025 and 2026, the size of the stores, et cetera, and then also what you've observed as CapEx per store.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you, Lucas. The projects we have are, of course, the best projects from a ROIC and TIR perspective, which are the two criteria we use as we decide to open or not open any expansion projects. This is really considering all of the big cities where Assaí is not even present yet. Even in São Paulo, you have regions where you have 400,000 or 500,000 inhabitants, and you don't even have an Assaí yet. Most of the stores are really concentrated in the southeast region. You see that store opening time and really being able to achieve all of the licenses require times.

These are stores that are maybe about 5,000 to 6,000 square meters. We've assessed some smaller stores as well for regions with more density. I think from all of the different players, Assaí is the player with the biggest diversity of store formats up until 9,000 square meters of sales area. These are the biggest, the best projects, older projects. Normally these projects have a cycle of about three years, reaching up to seven years, which is the time between the decision, approval, and obtaining all the licenses and the operational and building licenses as well. We're really optimizing and prioritizing projects that have extremely high returns. Eventually, we'll be reviewing the number of stores expected for 2026. This is normally postponing where you grow this project to 2027.

Then when you look at the CapEx per store, we have seen a bit of the acceleration, the inflation from a construction material perspective and also the labor as well. But it's about BRL 70 million. And of course, there are some stores where, depending on the location, which are normally the ones with high revenue, you can perform a higher investment, especially when you consider the foundation and the structure. Because in Guarujá, for example, you have a really deep terrain, so you have to be careful for more complex reconstruction. Then in the fourth quarter, December was the month that was difficult for Assaí and all of the market, and the sales accelerated again in January and December. It was a little frustrating for us and the rest of the market, especially in December in the Northeast, because there was this expectation for a greater performance.

We had October, which was reasonably good. November was very strong with Black Friday, and then we had a slowdown in December. In January and February, we've seen a trend that's very similar to the fourth quarter of last year.

Lucca Biasi (Equity Research Analyst)

Very clear. Thank you, Belmiro.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Rodrigo Gastim at Itaú BBA. Rodrigo, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. Please, you may proceed.

Rodrigo Gastim (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone, and two questions. We want to talk about the slowdown in the Northeast. Was there any specific point that really surprised you guys? And about the sales dynamic when we entered 2025, we have all these calendar effects of calendar effects like Carnival, Easter, et cetera. But how do you all see this? Is there any very relevant points related to your dynamic?

So just what do you do to offset or compensate these effects? And secondly, it might not be a surprise, but the biggest topic for discussion has been possible privatization of Carrefour with them closing capital, right? No one has the answer. I'm not going to ask you for that, but do you think that in your perception after the Carrefour IPO, when they became a listed company, which were the main levers that they changed from a strategic perspective or value creation perspective to help us have an overall panorama in industry? I think that would help a lot. Thank you.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Great. So those two points from backwards. Obviously, we're aware of Carrefour's movements. And as controlling shareholders, you've probably seen the price of the stock, et cetera.

But I think they're a lot lower than what would be considered value for Assaí and even Carrefour, where we consider the potential and stability when it comes to cash generation. They probably saw an opportunity, but from a corrective dynamic, we don't expect any changes. And I think the actual Carrefour management is going to talk about this, right? So more than what we see with Península, et cetera. So we've already been competing with Carrefour before going public, during the process with going public, and after we'll continue to compete with them. So looking at how Carrefour manages their business, the fact that they have such a big amount of capital won't make any changes from a target management perspective.

They're going to privatize that, close the capital, and not going to have to be delivering results or not having accountability with the French investors still as well. They still have a publicly held company abroad, right, despite privatizing here. We don't think it's going to change much of the dynamic. I don't think there's going to be any big shifts as well. It's a lot more about the shareholder perspective than the actual impacts from a strategic perspective, commercially or price or payment terms, because Carrefour and France will always demand them for results in the same way. Vitor can also share comments because he has a lot more experience on this point. The Northeast, I think apparently the frustration was for the overall market, right?

By what we saw, we're going to have this dominant player, and that's always a warning sign, right? So there was this big frustration in 2023 and 2024 about the stability and better purchasing power conditions in the population. So we haven't seen this that much, but when it comes to seasonality, of course, you have the calendar effects, but we also react according to each event. So in Carnival and Easter, et cetera, we always disclose our results and earnings adjusted to the calendar or seasonal effects. So normally these dates don't fall within one quarter or the other, but this year maybe it's going to be a little more challenging, maybe, but no big changes from an impact for expectations in the first quarter.

Rodrigo Gastim (Equity Research Analyst)

Well, perfect, Belmiro, just to make things clear.

Some people asked about this, and when you mentioned the previous question and answer with the dynamic up until now of the activities that are similar to the fourth quarter, just to understand, because there's an expectation of marginal captures with the food inflation, and they ended the quarter but evolved over the quarter. But do you guys still see this increase in the inflation carryover, the inflation at the actual end customer? And also from the moment when you went public, when Carrefour went public and they were closed and opened and now they're closing again, but you guys haven't seen any major relevant changes in investments, et cetera, or strategies as well?

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

No, we haven't. So we had some changes. We're always going to be publicly held in France, right? Maybe they'll have a bigger level of pressure, but we haven't seen big changes in positioning or stance.

The issue with Atacadão also, they invested, and the change is more of a shareholder structure or investment structure change than an actual commercial strategy perspective, CapEx, et cetera. So, like, now Carrefour is going private. They're not going to demand sales and sales results, et cetera. No, I don't see this happening. There are some issues. Of course, each competitor is free to decide how they want to operate, but we don't expect any impacts on this. But the inflation that the government disclosed is low, lower normally by products, and we kind of follow along with this. So maybe it's more of a retail inflation of about two points below.

So when you consider the same category, 2.2 below the official inflation, but the dynamic in the first quarter is with a volume that's very similar to the fourth quarter, but we need to wait on this. We have the month of March ahead of us. It's very important to be able to then talk about trends because the scenario for 2025 is still a scenario of a lot of caution. We have to focus on deleveraging and looking at our competition differently so we can keep achieving our objectives.

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

So, hi, Belmiro. Yeah, thanks. I'll hop in. I agree with this point. They continue to be controlled by Carrefour regardless, right? So no big changes in attitudes or strategies due to this procedure.

What's important is that we must continue to grow and improve our experiences, reducing leverage and really managing working capital, which is super important to have the reduction of this leverage and especially bringing in more customers through an improvement in purchase experience, right? So you talked about the in-and-out examples and services, and these are all important tools as well. Excellent. Thank you so much. But you said the average inflation of your basket is about two percentage points below the headline inflation of the IPCA. And so that's essential.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Yeah, it is below. Okay. And there were periods where it's already been the same or higher because the category mix composition at cash and carry is different than the food basket overall.

So where it's at now, two points lower or two points below, but it could be that in February we'll have some changes, but at this moment it's about two points below.

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

Correct, Belmiro. That's correct. And the inflation delta up or down really depends on commodities and how commodities, when they're stable, can contribute to lower inflation because they have a relevant, they weigh in in a relevant manner. Well, it's still about like 80%-90% from January to January.

Rodrigo Gastim (Equity Research Analyst)

Excellent, guys. Thank you so much for these answers.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from João Soares, Citi. João, we'll open up your mic so you may proceed.

João Soares (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just taking advantage of this point here on volumes and price. When we look at the fourth quarter, I wanted to understand this a little better, just to make it clear.

How are we considering the dynamic for volumes in the fourth quarter, considering that the inflation was operating at a level that was about 8% and you guys should be operating, if you look at the cash and carry, it's about like two percentage points and even a little more if you consider this range about six and comparing with the same store sales? I just wanted to try to build this dynamic here with price and volumes to make this a little more clear and so that we can project this with greater precision. And the second point is about financial revenues. So we saw the tax credit value here, but just to understand what would be like a more recurring value, just so that we can have more precision up ahead as well on the financial revenues.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Do you want to answer that one first?

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

Yeah, I can answer that. In the financial revenue, we have two important events in this quarter specifically that positively impacted us when we compare with the previous year. The first one was the mark-to-market. These two items are in the expenses and other financial items. We have this on page eight. First, you have a financial impact with the mark-to-market of the swap operations we have for our debts. Here, it's difficult to foresee. You have some adjustments in some quarters that are positive and others that are negative, depending on the behavior of these assets and the swap adjustments we have to work on. We've seen in previous quarters, we had negative adjustments and positive adjustments in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Besides this, we have a monetary update of tax credits that we have and that we consider within our balance sheet. It's also difficult to foresee some points that could be higher or lower, but it's difficult to foresee this or forecast this with greater precision when it comes to the evolution of this line. Anyways, we have the breakdown of these four main lines that are part of the financial expenses and then in profitability. We can see cash and cash equivalents. We can see the evolution. Our cash is going up. The average applied cash is going up quarter-over-quarter, as I've already mentioned previously. This is some information that we've already started disclosing so that you guys could have a better perspective on our cash position.

We have the fees on the debts, which are mainly due to the costs of our instruments with the different debt instruments we have in debenture and also the cost of the receivable anticipation. We had the discounts on receivables in the fourth quarter, for example, in 2024, we had a position of BRL 1.9 billion that were not discounted compared to a BRL 1.9 billion. This is a line that has been evolved positively.

João Soares (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Once again, the discounts on receivables are up to us, right? We can balance this out and consider that we should discount more receivables or less receivables according to the applied average cash position. If I got just a point, you say the monetary update, does that include the revenue of the interest rates upon the stock of tax credits? There wasn't new credit in this quarter, no?

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

No, no new credit. It's just revenue, financial revenue coming from the monetary update of these credits. When you have these credits that are recognized and acknowledged, you update them as well as when you have contingencies and liabilities, so this is a revenue considering this update, and it's a non-cash effect for our balance.

João Soares (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, perfect. The next question, of course, has some other components. When you look at the same store sales, it's below our internal inflation, so where do they see this difference downwards?

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Well, we have a loss in volumes for the resellers, and we saw this at the payment conditions policies ended, and we didn't follow along, and if we look at our cash position, I think the decision we made was the most correct decision.

When you consider the end consumer, we have a different scenario like B2C because we don't have a drop in the amount of volume sold, but we have a drop in tons sold because of the effect that I've mentioned multiple times, which are the reductions of sizes of packages. So especially in food and beverages or even cleaning and personal hygiene have reduced the sizes of their packages. So you can see we sell the same amount of cookie packs, but the amount that was like 1,000 tons now is only 700 tons. So that's where you start registering a drop in volumes. But in some categories, this is very visible. I used to buy four packs of cookies that are 200 grams. Now it's four that are 180, 160, 140 grams, and now 120 grams.

This didn't happen in some products like rice and beans, but we've been highlighting this effect because it's a really heavy effect. A lot of products went through this throughout 2023, and that was very strong throughout 2024 as well. But we expect some stability, and if we choose to be a little more aggressive with the B2Bs, we'll see the same store sales balance out even more with the food inflation. In our vision, the strategy to work on this that would have this impact of customers that make a decision order by order. We've talked about this multiple times already during the presentation, but in our perspective, that wouldn't make sense versus the cash energy we wanted to have and the reduction in the leverage we would like to have as well.

João Soares (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you, Belmiro.

Vitor Fagá (CFO)

I think there's another point also, Belmiro, that I think is important.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

We had a bit more brand trade-down effects with consumers substituting product brands, which is also impacting the same store sale base. So that also impacts not as much as it was maybe in the prior years, but it did have a slight effect in the fourth quarter.

João Soares (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, Belmiro, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ruben Couto from Santander. Ruben, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. You may proceed, please.

Ruben Couto (Sector Head Brazil Retail)

Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my question. At the end, after such a long call, but just a quick point here. About the 47 stores that were converted in 2022, the average sales per square meter has already reached 93% of the organic stores. Has the EBITDA margin already in line with the company's average?

Could you update the expectations of up until where the store maturity should reach and what's the level of average revenue that you still believe is possible to achieve in the next few years? If you still expect the levels of margins to be at 50 or 100 basis points above average?

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you.

Thank you, Ruben. Great point. The expectation is that we'll continue to evolve. Of course, it won't be a store maturity where that's just like the organic stores where you do the same thing and you have the same results. A lot of the innovation projects with the in-and-out products and the inclusion of new categories are geared towards this, right? Most of the stores are more positioned towards the higher-income customers if you look at those 47 stores, right?

There are other categories, of course, that we're going to disclose throughout 2025 that were already part of our strategy to be able to reach this level. An important point is that it's not just because it's an Extra conversion that it should head towards this direction. Even some organic stores where we're able to add in the more central regions closer to the higher-income public are also following the same line. You've probably already seen that we started a discussion on the sale of merchandise. Sorry, merchandise, no, drugs, right? The sale of drugs. This is something that ABRAS is proposing where you have space to sell other types of products, of course. If that happens, that would be including all of the public, right?

But there are serious products that we believe could be positive for these central stores, regardless of it being a conversion or an organic store, to continue to evolve in the level of margins in the stores.

Ruben Couto (Sector Head Brazil Retail)

Great, thank you, Belmiro.

Operator (participant)

The Q&A session has officially ended, and now we would like to pass on the word to the company for the final remarks.

Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes (CEO)

Thank you so much, guys, for watching us so far, and thank you to all the team working on this result during 2024. It was a very challenging year with highly emotional moments, but the company is stronger, especially from a debt perspective, and it's a business that's very resilient. So strong cash generation, and the company has always tried to lead innovation in the market.

So, the challenges we will have in 2025, I think, are our focus with a lower volume of expansion will allow us to optimize our operation even more. So, sometimes the first question, like Danni asked about the margin increases. Well, this is not happening in a way where we're going to lose competitive advantage, right? If we thought this would not be healthy, we would be more aggressive. But there's moments when you look at this and you say, well, how much does my sales ratio that I bring in with this really impact the strategy? So, for 2025, we really follow what we've already been highlighted in 2024. And of course, as you can see, this focus in deleveraging pretty much follows the same approach when you consider the amount of stores for 2026.

But I think that in 2025, we'll have a more productive year and continue to evolve in the purchase experience and evolution of the results and drop in the deleveraging. So thank you all, everyone.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for participating. The Earnings Call for the Fourth Quarter at Assaí is officially ended. The investor relations department is available to answer future questions or comments. Thank you all for participating. Have an excellent day.