Earnings Call: Q1 2026

May 7, 2026

Summary

Q1 2026 revenue rose 16% YoY to BRL 494.6 million, adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 90.7 million and net income returned to profit at BRL 3.6 million. Expansion, digital growth and cheaper, longer-term debt supported the quarter.

Estapar is much more than a parking lot. Our purpose is to simplify, connect life in a moving society. 840 operations in 115 municipalities, 21 states. We are present in over 20 sectors of the economy. Over 7,000 employees. The Zul+ app counts with over 9 million users. 44 years of commitment to urban mobility. Wherever you go with Estapar. Good morning, and welcome to Estapar's first quarter 2026 earnings release presentation. This video conference is being recorded and will be available on the company's IR website at ri.estapar.com.br, where the full material of the earnings release is available for download. You can also download the presentation from the chatbox, also in its English version. If you require simultaneous translation, please click on the interpretation button with the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. If you are following the video conference in English, you can also mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on mute original audio. During the company's presentation, participants will be on a listen-only mode, and once it is concluded, we will begin the Q&A session. For questions, please click on the Q&A button at the bottom of the screen and type in your question to join the queue. The information contained in this presentation and potential statements that may be made concerning Estapar's business prospects, projections, and operating and financial goals are based on beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance, as they involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and relate to future events. Therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or may not materialize. Investors should bear in mind that the overall economic scenario, market conditions, and other operating factors may affect Estapar's future performance and lead to results that differ substantially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Here today are the company's officers, Emidio Sanchez, CEO, and Daniel Soraggi, CFO and IRO. I will now turn the floor to Mr. Emidio Sanchez to begin the presentation. Thank you, Thomas. First of all, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and we are going to discuss Q1 2026 results. As we have been highlighting over the years, and delivering over the years, we will start with the highlights on page 5. First, I will give you an overview, and then I will turn it over to Daniel to talk about the company's figures, which have been very good. Another quarter that we have delivered on everything that we have been proposing over the last few years. Net revenue was over BRL 494 million, 16% increase compared to Q1 2025. That was thanks to the strategy of our operations department. We talked a lot here at the company. There was increase in new businesses, same-store sales as well, and that allowed us to deliver considerable and significant results to the company strategy. We have maintained margins, and EBITDA has been increasing more than revenue, actually, over BRL 90 million in 3 months. That is practically cash results. We are going to talk about that in a minute. So we have maintained very similar margins, actually close to last year's 18.3%, considering EBITDA and revenue. And we have been making internal efforts, which led to a profitable first quarter. We had not been delivering any profits in first quarters of the last few years, so this is the first quarter that we have had profits. We've reverted 3.6 million loss last year. It's fantastic. We've been able to maintain the company profitable, increasing ROIC, making the rest investments to provide the best results to investors, and to get from creditors, which Daniel is going to mention later on, a new debt, which we issued this quarter, reducing our cost of debt, which will help, and we're also benefiting from the reduction in interest rates. We expect that we will have increasing profits. We're 19 new operations this quarter, on average, six operations a month, so keeping a steady pace. Our commercial and operational areas have been inaugurating new operations across Brazil, and we've kept our churn rate at the historical average, a little bit over, a little bit under, but we have retained a bit more and have lost very few operations. Our digital platform, Zul+, is another highlight. We've been working hard on it. It's been growing above the company's growth rate, 28% year-on-year, BRL 14 million in revenue, and this revenue comes exclusively from the company's digital products, which will continue to grow. We have all the other services, Zona Azul, paying to reserve parking spaces, Estapar Pay, which account for 25% of our results, which is more than the digital platform, so considerable growth, and we will talk more about it in a minute. On page 6, we have the highlight operations that we inaugurated this quarter. These are not the main ones. They're just some examples that we like to share. A couple of airports, which have been key to us this quarter. One of the company's strengths is to manage operations at airports. So we've added Fortaleza Airport and Belém Airport to our portfolio. Another hospital in Ribeirão Preto. We went into the Ribeirão Preto market last year, and we are growing. We started off with a shopping mall, and now we have one of the main hospitals in Ribeirão Preto, Unimed. Another bank headquarter. We were invited through a bidding process, and we have gone into Bradesco. We already manage Bradesco's headquarters here in São Paulo at Faria Lima and now Cidade de Deus and in Pernambuco, a great operation in Recife and Goiânia, where we have been growing considerably in the last two to three years. We're very happy. We're not just growing in São Paulo and Rio, but we are growing across Brazil. This is the result of the work that's been done by the commercial area across Brazil. We've been growing. We've gone into a new state. We had some operations there, but we've gone in strong now with the airport in Belém, so we have 840 operations now in Estapar's portfolio. In the last three years, that we have been focusing a lot on the commercial side of things, showing operational growth. On average in 2024/25, we opened more than 90 operations. Looking at the last 12 months, so from April 2025 to March 2026, we opened more than 100 operations. So steady growth, some major new operations growing significantly. Knowing that the Brazilian market is massive. It's a huge segment, so there's a lot of potential to growth. We have an internal goal, not only for profitability, but also in terms of number of operations. That is a key point, and our portfolio will continue to bring even more important segments, arenas, airports, commercial buildings, hospitals, shopping malls, also a key market for us, and we are continuing to bring in new contracts. On page 8, another segment we are addressing is the Zona Azul segment. This quarter, we have accredited another city. We have a concession and accreditation model. Montes Claros has been performing very well. It started off the year making us very happy, which strengthens accreditation. In our strategy to grow digital even more, we are addressing this segment. We really like it. It is a considerable area, and it is driving growth in this segment. We are adding cities where we have the concession, São Paulo, São Bernardo, Juiz de Fora, Santo André, other city, and Montes Claros is now joining accredited cities, Beagá, Curitiba, and Salvador. We really believe, as well as Fortaleza and Curitiba, it will bring even more growth potential to the company. On page 9, this is our digital strategy. We have the Zul+ app, which is now known across Brazil. It is great when we go to a different city that is not São Paulo. A lot of people are using. We have over 9 million users already, so the growth has been a very positive surprise to us. BRL 14 million was the revenue. We have been growing at two digits every month, every year on year, so BRL 14 million. The main thing in revenue is the number of transactions that are conducted through the app. It is not just a matter of increasing revenue, but the fact that more people are using our app. This quarter saw over 19 million transactions through the app. When we go into a city like Montes Claros, and we start launching new digital products, our app to book parking spaces, paying for parking lots through our app, Zona Azul, also card debts, tags, that makes a huge difference to the company. It brings a lot of people to our digital universe, which is fantastic, and we offer new services. We have a growth combo in traditional parking lots, Zona Azul, and digital products because these are all complementary platforms. As we said at the beginning, we have reached 25% of our revenue coming from the app. This is something new we would like to share with you. We like digital products. We are showing some of them to give them some visibility so you can understand what is available among our digital products, not only in terms of products, but in terms of numbers. A lot of you are already familiar with Tag Zul+, which is a partnership with ConectCar. They are one of the incumbents in the Tag segment. We have a commercial partnership with them, and we use them with Tag Zul+. There are close to 200,000 active tags, a 35% growth. There is a huge market potential to grow in this segment, and if we compare that to incumbents, obviously, this is a player. They do not compete with them, but we have partnered with them. Over 20 million TPVs that have conducted transactions through the Tag. These are still low numbers, but 20 million, when you look at a parking lot company that has positioned itself in the digital segment, you can see the potential of Estapar. When we decide to do something in the digital universe, this is the kind of opportunity we have, and Tag has been growing considerably. We have people who are responsible for this with ConectCar. We are very happy with it. We hope to continue to grow. This is an additional revenue source for the company. It is an important revenue. It helps our margins, and these are different services that we provide to our users. We are very happy with the strategy because it has been very successful. Zletric, we have 59% share in the equity. It is parking lot agnostic, so we are present across many different operations that do not necessarily belong to Estapar. These are electric chargers. We are surfing the wave of the increase in the number of hybrid and electric vehicles. The revenue has been BRL 2.8 million in the quarter. It is still timid, but it is growing, and we are very happy and confident that looking forward over the years, this will grow a lot and make us very happy. Plus, it is an additional service we can provide to our users. Now, I will turn it over to Daniel, so he can give you an overview of the figures for Q1 2026. Thank you, Emilio. Good morning. It is a pleasure to talk to you. Pleasure to be with you again. Q1 2026, another great quarter for the company. The operations are growing. Our margins and bottom line look great. Also, the controlled operations look good. On slide 13, this is our portfolio and churn. As we heard, 840 operations. So there has been an increase of 40,000 parking spaces compared to 2025, driven especially by the segments that we have been growing in the last quarters, which is the managed and leased and managed parking spaces with very appealing margins to our business. There has been an increase in 13,000 parking spaces in the long-term contracts. These are not leased parking spaces. These are very relevant operations, and we have contracted growth not only for the next quarters, but the next years. This is a fantastic segment that we are tackling again very assertively. We also have the on-street and off-street concessions and properties and digital, as we have heard. Montes Claros has joined us as another credited city, so it is also providing new opportunities for Estapar businesses across all segments. As important as growing, it is to keep our portfolio. So once again, our churn was very low, 0.22%, which means the renewal rate was 99.8% in the quarter. The commercial team has been doing a great job, so has the operational team. Very well-managed operation leads to high renewal rates and commercial success. So congratulations to Estapar's commercial team for growth and great renewal rates. Now on slide 14, we have our net revenue. Q1 2026 has been another record revenue quarter, BRL 494.6 million, 16% increase quarter-on-quarter, driven by the base, new businesses, digital products. All company segments have grown considerably. So yet another good quarter. Let us not forget that Q1 is seasonally the weakest in the year. Qs 2, 3, and 4 tend to be better, but it has been a great first quarter. Now on the next slide, we have cash gross profit. Growth was also in line with revenue, BRL 133.7 million, 17.5% increase quarter-on-quarter, which means margins are stable. This was expected in our portfolio. We have had the increase in leased and managed, and that segment converges towards that margin. So it was expected and natural to have that indicator. On the next slide, we have our adjusted EBITDA, which is our main cash generation proxy. In Q1 2026, our adjusted EBITDA was BRL 90.7 million, an increase that is in line with our revenue and cash gross profit, 17.6%. EBITDA margin is also stable at 18.3%, which is also in line with what we expected for our strategy. On the next slide, we will look at growth and leverage. Our EBIT results after investments, and this is where we see results and leverage that we see after investments in leased and managed segments. BRL 42.8 million. It was a 25% increase compared to 2025. This is how we measure and see the successful work that has been done and that we made the right decision in the investments we have made. Margins were 6.18, and now it is up to 9%. Moving on to the bottom line, another profitable quarter. Net income was BRL 3.6 million, a reversal compared to 2025, worth BRL 6 million. As I said, Q1 is usually seasonally weaker, so excellent results, even if BRL 3.6 million is relatively low. We are very happy with the reversal from our historical losses and to have a profitable first quarter. It is worth mentioning that after the board meeting, we did pay out dividends. Last year, the company reported its first profitable year, and Q1 2026 has also been profitable. On May 29th, the company is going to pay out dividends for the first time to shareholders. It is definitely worth pointing that out during this conference call. Let us take a look at cash flow and indebtedness. After our operational growth, we can see our discipline in capital allocation and how we make our investments decision. At the end of last year, the March varied very little, BRL 245 million to BRL 262 million. Operational cash flow, looking at the first two bars, there was a BRL 50 million variation. The first one is cash flow from operating activities. It was 84, so the conversion rate from EBITDA into cash was very high. Historically, that is how our business works, a strong cash generation. Every first quarter since we started on the digital product journey and the IPVA tax journey, our IPVA tax business is where we offer our clients the convenience to pay it in installments. We pay it upfront, and we get paid in installments. BRL 31.4 million is precisely the effect of the first quarter, especially in São Paulo, Curitiba, which is where we have the IPVA tax payment window. Very natural. CapEx was BRL 42 million, which is also in line with our investments in the last quarters, our capital discipline, and all the inaugurations we heard from Emilio. We also have a change in debt net, BRL 39 million positive, which is a result of the debenture I am going to talk about in this minute. We issued this debenture to amortize or to swap short-term debts for longer maturity and cheaper debts. Also, interest paid and others, BRL 34 million. Estapar always pays for its financial commitments, and that leads to a lot of credibility to investors and creditors. On the last slide 20, we are going to talk about the 15th debenture issuance, which took place in March. That is the highest fundraising we had. It was BRL 360 million at CDI +0.95% with a five-year maturity. The results of that debt, we took it to redeem expensive maturities. We have extended the debt profile and a cheaper debt as well. That was a cost of debt, a spread CDI plus. We started off at 2.78 down to 2.15, and now 1.27% Q1 2026. The debt duration, which is our debt backlog at 0.52 and currently at 2.80. Liability management is something that we have been working on for a few years. We are still working on it, and we will continue to work on it. We look at our cash plan, our investments plan, and we are always getting the company ready to continue to grow and to grow healthily. Looking at 2024, 2025, and 2026, we had the 12th debenture issuance at CDI plus 2 for 4 years, then the 13th, reducing the spread, CDI plus 1.5-year maturity. In June, another one, BRL 230 million at CDI plus 1.50 with a 5-year maturity. This is the result of the work we have been doing to extend the debt profile, swapping short-term, more expensive debt for longer, cheaper debts. Moving on to my last slide, we are going to talk about liability management. As we always say, we want the company to grow, increase margins, and to make the company structurally profitable by maintaining our net debt stable. That is what we have been doing the last 2 years. It is roughly at BRL 750, BRL 800. The increase from Q4 2025 to Q1 2026 from BRL 795 to BRL 824 is the investment we make every year. Everything is in line with our strategy. Nothing stands out here. This is the debt maturity and amortization curve. As you can see, our cash position is higher than our short-term maturities, and we are extending that maturity. We have cash available for the company to continue to grow over the next quarters and years. Well, thank you. I would like to congratulate the company for the results. They are owed to the work of every one of our employees. I would like to thank our business partners, creditors. You are all helping make Estapar stronger and becoming an even more relevant player. We will be back for the Q&A. Over to you, Emilio. Thank you, Daniel. Moving on to our closing remarks. This has been a great quarter. It was an inflection point, which was the reversal of company's losses into profits. We always say that since the pandemic, we always have to look at all the different fronts. We said, "How can we change?" The last loss was close to BRL 200 million. We would look at it and we kept thinking, "How are we going to change that game?" It was not so much a turnaround. We started looking at the company in a different way across all fronts with different working groups, working efficiently. The financial department revisited all of our operations. Obviously reducing issuance costs depended on organic growth, efficient cost management, while at the same time, not giving up on top-quality services, our clients, technology. In a way, we were able to very efficiently address all of those fronts, and now we are seeing the results of that. Going back to what Daniel was saying, we are reducing the cost of debt. So let's not forget that in 2020, 2019, it was CDI plus 3, 4, and now it's 0.95, so below 1 the CDI and working to be even more efficient. The commercial area, on average, had 40 to 50, 60 operations. We're now talking about 90 to 100 operations, so considerable commercial growth, the efficiency of our operational area. Then Zul+ coming in since 2022, which is now a success. We're doing things we didn't use to, but not losing sight of investments in technology, making long-term contracts. So in the last recent years, we've gone into the Pacaembu Arena, into Fortaleza Airport, Belém, MRV Arena. So we've been able to do it all. We have done some good capital allocation. We've grown and leased and managed. We have deleveraged the company. We've reduced our indebtedness. We've reduced rates as well. But I believe there's still room for growth. We will continue to grow. We'll continue to be financially efficient. We'll continue to be efficient with our clients. We'll continue to grow without giving up on providing quality services to our clients or our financial discipline, which has been so successful. So I believe this inflection point will continue over the next few years. Our culture is to grow. At the same time, we've been considered by GPTW for the fourth consecutive year and Datafolha, the best parking lot company in São Paulo, which means the best in Brazil, given the competition in São Paulo and the level of our users in São Paulo. So we do believe we are on the right track all across Brazil. And this is thanks to the over 7,000 employees who work for the company. We're very happy, but that's not enough. We still have a lot to do, and we believe that growth will continue. We're going to work hard to continue to grow. We have a lot to do looking forward. New businesses are growing, doing well. We believe we'll have another winning year, very similar to last year in terms of new operations, in terms of churn, should be very similar to last year. So it looks like revenue will continue to grow, so will EBITDA. We'll continue to reduce the spread, continue with our liability management. Interest rates going down will help us to reinvest that money into new businesses or reducing our debt, or even paying out future dividends to our shareholders. So we're in a very comfortable position, but we will continue to be dedicated to grow. We're happy, but we know that's not enough. There's a lot more we can do. The company and all of our employees, all of us want to continue to grow and to make it happen, and we are on the right track. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us, and I'll turn it over to Thomas for our Q&A session. Thank you, Emidio. We'll now begin our Q&A session. To send in your questions, please click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen. Type in your question to join the queue. Please ask all of your questions in one go. The first question is from Ricardo Braga, individual investor. He says, "Congratulations on the management and performance. Every quarter you have been growing revenue, EBIT, EBITDA, and four consecutive quarters with net income and beginning with a profitable first quarter this year. My question, considering all the company's disclaimers, and we know you don't share guidance, would it be reasonable to consider that Estapar has finally had its inflection point? Especially for 2027, can we expect a profitable company that will be generating cash and decreasing its indebtedness?" Thank you, Ricardo Braga, for the question. Thank you for your comments. Yes. We're going through a fantastic growth moment, and that is our objective. That is the objective of every company, to be profitable and to create value for all stakeholders, employees, clients, and investors. That's been our journey. We've been working on that long-term. That's what we've been working on for the last three years, especially now that we've reached an inflection point, going from deficit to profit with good margins and good return rates. Even though it's not a guidance, it is our desire. We have the market to grow. We have been growing our core business. We have been growing our digital products. Our fundamentals are increasingly healthier. When the company's doing well financially, all stakeholders benefit from that. We'll continue to deliver quality, growth, the best conditions for our employees, to creditors. That's the journey we're on. Thank you for your question. Next question is from Paulo, also an individual investor. "Zul+ revenue has grown by 28% year-on-year. How do you see your product mix between IPVA tax with high volume and low margin, and insurance and Tags with lower volumes and higher margins over the next 18 months? Do you have any desire to change that equation?" Hi, Paulo. Thank you for the question. No. We believe digital products still have a long way to go. All of the digital products are new products. We don't prefer one over another, regardless of their margins. At the end of the day, we want to provide increasingly more services to our clients. There is a combo, and we want to continue to be one of the main digital brokers in Brazil. That is an ambition we have, and one of our objectives. We have an insurance policy portfolio which is considerable. We are a parking lot company, but the digital side is growing. Same applies to Tag, over 200,000 active users. We are offering car equity in partnership with a bank and other partners. We want to give clients what they want. We're not going to choose. We'll make those products available, and they will use whatever they want, and they will be available regardless of their margin, as long as they're not leading to losses, obviously. We are agnostic. We want to provide products with a good experience. We'll work on all fronts. We want to be happy, and we want to make our clients happy. Next question is from Sergio, an individual investor. "Is increasing payouts on your radar?" Hi, Sergio. No, it's not on our radar. The company is profitable. We made the decision. Well, the board and the shareholders meeting with the company's management decided to pay out 25%, which is the minimum distribution. As we have successful projects with good returns. Considering the cost of capital, we need to continue to have a good cash position and continue to grow. So it's not on our radar for now. The next question is also from an individual investor. With a better cash generation, what is the marginal cash hierarchy used? Opening operations, dividends, rebuying, repurchase of shares, new operations. Thank you for the question, Paulo. That is the playbook. If we have good projects that provide good return rates, whether it's concessions, digital products, if the return rates, I mean, we monitor them every month. If the return rates are over our cost of capital, if we are creating additional value, then we'll continue to allocate capital, keeping the net debt over EBITDA ratio stable, balanced, and a healthy company. That is the hierarchy. First come growth, second is debt. Our interest rate curves are still quite high, so it's not a great thing to pay so much interest to any company, not just Estapar. That's the second priority, to amortize debt. Our current bylaws, our dividend payout is at 25%, so that's already been contracted for our future cash flow. And share buybacks. Well, for the time being, in our share floating, it doesn't make sense because the company does have value. The company will grow and deliver more than what we see on the screen price. Then decision should be to buy back shares. But if we buy back shares, then we take away even more liquidity, and liquidity is low. For the time being, it doesn't make sense, even if the price level isn't great for stakeholders, investors, and the company to remove liquidity from the shares. That's the way forward. Growing, providing good return rates, debt, dividends, and share buyback. The Q&A session is now concluded. The investor relations team is available to answer additional questions and would like to let you know the next video conference call for Q2 2026 will be on August 6th. I will turn it over to Emilio for his closing remarks. Thank you, Thomas. Well, we've talked a lot. We've shared all the news about the quarter. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us. I want to thank the Estapar team, and we hope to see you soon to share more good news and to continue to grow in Q2. Have a great day.