Good morning. Welcome to Americanas SA conference call to disclose the results of 2022. Here with us today are Leonardo Coelho, CEO of Americanas SA, and Camille Faria, Financial and Investor Relations Director. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and that all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. We will then begin the question- and- answer session when additional instructions will be provided. Should you need any support during the conference call, please request assistance from an operator by typing star zero. Also, it's important to remember that today's event has a supporting presentation that can be accessed at ir.americanas.io. Forward-looking statements made during this conference call regarding Americanas business prospects, financial and operational projections and goals, constitute beliefs and premises of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance.
They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could affect Americanas' future performance and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. The company clarifies that accounting information underlying the comments is presented in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards issued by the Brazilian Securities Commission, CVM, and in reals. Now, I would like to turn the call to Americanas SA CEO, who will start the presentation. You may proceed, Mr. Leonardo.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Leonardo Coelho. I'm CEO of Americanas, and I would like to start thanking everyone, all the professionals that made this disclosure possible.
It was a stringent, intense, and very determined work, without which it would not have been possible to present to the market and all Americanas shareholders the 2021 and 2022 numbers, free from the effect of the fraud. It's important to be with all of you here today, not only to present those financial statements, but also to tell you about the transformation we have been bringing about in this nearly 100-year-old company. This year has been particularly challenging to our company. We live a unique chapter since we saw the inconsistencies at the accounting level that were revealed as a fraud in the results. Americanas was a victim of this sophisticated fraud, well planned, and that made the financial statements remake extremely extensive and rigorous, involving all the teams of Americanas.
At every stage, we sought to adopt best practices to perform this work, as you are going to see in the financials that we are about to present. In spite of the critical numbers than those previously disclosed, the representation of the adjusted financial statements in of 2021 and the schedule of 2022 are a commitment to transparency and, above all, to the truth, which is what guides us in this new management. I'm also here with our CFO, Camille Faria, who, in addition to seeking to the company operational recovery, is leading the construction of this new capital structure and the negotiations of the judicial recovery plan with creditors.
We took over the management of Americanas already in judicial recovery, with the important mission of promoting an operational turnaround and reaching an agreement with creditors that can guarantee a sustainable future for the company, as well as, as this is very clear to all of us, the maintenance of the economic contribution of the tens of thousands of jobs all across this country. This new team, which comes on board, on board with diverse and complementary experiences, joins Americanas professionals with extensive experience in the retail sector and renowned external consulting firms in the rebuilding of this company. This new management has been operating on three fundamental fronts, which together converge to focus on its recovery.
The first of these is the transformation of the company, which began with the creation of a working group that in a 100-day task force, identified 14 business fronts with opportunities for improvement and an evolution for the reconstruction of Americanas. From this input, we built a strategic plan focused on the strength and resilience of the physical channel, complemented by the operational excellence of our digital area, customized portfolio, financial services of Ame, and the diversity of the media of our advertising area. This is available to our customers and partners with all possible models and a variety of retailers, such as ours.
The other fronts, judicial recovery and, investigation and clarifications, these were segregated from this transformation front in order to generate the necessary focus of our teams on the operation of our multi-channel model and on the implementation of delivering value and, adopting the design productive measures in an independent way from the judicial discovery and clarification fronts. The judicial recovery front involves the company's effort alongside our creditors in favor of a plan that can best meet the needs of the largest numbers of parties involved, while at the same time, representing a viable solution for Americanas in the long term. A first version of this plan was presented in March, and with a wide range of, arrangements, possibilities for each type of creditor. This plan is one of the most complete ever seen in retail recovery processes.
Even so, in yet another demonstration of partnership with our suppliers and creditor, over the last few months, we have continued to review and even improve the proposals. The third front is the clarification. We continue to contribute to the ongoing investigations carried out by competent authorities and also by the independent committee, appointed by the board of directors of Americanas, immediately after becoming aware of the accounting discrepancies in the company's financial statements. Regarding this topic, I repeat that we have been saying all through those months, Americanas is the one who is most interested in clarifying what happened. We will have three blocks of presentations. First, Camille will present the financial statements of 2021 and 2022. Then, she brings a brief status of our judicial recovery plan and negotiations, and how the capital structure will stand after that.
Finally, I will come back to talk about the strategic plan, and then we will open the Q&A session. Camille, you have the floor.
Thank you, Leo. So first of all, we will go into the financial statements. Over the last few months, as Leo mentioned, the company devoted significant effort-
So we show the result of this work. On slide 4 of our presentation, we're going to tell you what we did. All the effects of the fraud before December 31, 2020, as well as others, that became other efforts that became necessary due to the fraud, such as, for example, new processes. They were adjusted in the starting balance for the year 2021, presented in financials in January 1, 2021. We did, and we audited all the numbers of 2021 that had been previously presented and disclosed by the company, and we corrected 2022 by auditing the results of results 2022, and they were already adjusted for the first time. So a re-presentation of 2021 and the presentation of 2022 results for the first time.
It's important to clarify a tech detail regarding 2021 in order to understand the numbers. The starting balance of January 1 refers only to B2W, which was the surviving company of the combination of LASA and B2W, which occurred in 2021. This also applies to the share of results presented in financials related to the months of January to June 2021. The from January to June are in the balance sheet of the incorporation, the merger, and they are not reflected on the results. With the combination of LASA and B2W in June, those are results accumulated until, as I mentioned, were incorporated into B2W balance sheet. As of July 2021, the company's results began to reflect both operations combined. Therefore, the results of 2021 and 2022 are not entirely comparable, as there is a difference in perimeter between the two.
So we can see that there's a, there's a difference in the perimeter. So the, the two results cannot be comparable a hundred percent. Now, regarding the nature of the adjustments that were made, we separated into three types. First, we made all the necessary adjustments to eliminate the effects of the fraudulent results of the company numbers. In addition to this, we carried out a general review of the accounting practices of the company, and we adapted some of this practice to parameters that as we see it, and of course, with the approval of our governance bodies, we believe to be more appropriate to our business. Finally, the two fronts, the correction of the fraud, that is saying, and the adjustment of the accounting practices, we needed to make additional adjustments, such as the recalculation of taxes and the impairment tests.
performed again, and we made all those additional adjustments, but I'll give more details about those operations during the presentation. There is still work to be done on the accounting front, and having finished this review cycle for 2021 and 2022, the team will now focus on the first quarter of 2023, which, as we have already disclosed in the interim fact, we intend to disclose by the end of this year. When disclosing those results of each of these quarters, we will also present again the respective quarters of 2022, with the same corrections already mentioned: the fraud, accounting practices, adjustments, and other effects. Therefore, at the end of the second cycle, we will have presented again the first, second, and third quarters of 2022. So as to be up to date with the financial disclosures.
Now, let's move on to slide five. We are going to do what we refer to as a reminder of the fraud architecture to help the market understand how everything came about. In a simplified way, of course, this is just an example, just to explain the mechanism that came into play. The operating company's result was increased by using as a cost reducer, an advertising budget operator that we call VPC. In fact, the company had many VPC transactions, in addition to other similar transactions with the same effect that we refer in a generic way as VPC. They are encouragements for the supplier to promote their product in our platform, as well as other retailers. This is a very common practice in the retailing companies.
But as to the results fraud, in addition to VPC, which are legitimate, other operations of the same nature were manufactured to change artificially the results of the company. So these are the entries shown as letter A on the slide, improving the company's result by 100 BRL in our simplified example. The accounting counterpart to this entry was an entry of equal value, reducing value, equivalent to accounts receivable from supplier shown with C on our slide. This operation generated a consequence that the company needed to address. Since it was a fictitious VPC, the account receivables were never converted into cash. So this created two problems for the embezzlers: one, lack of cash for the company, and two, we had a VPC account that reduced the supplier account that only increased over time.
To hide these effects, we had the forfait operations or transactions, which were incorrectly accounted for in the supplier's account. So they were entered in the supplier's account. These forfaits funds provided the company with the cash, supposedly created by the fictitious VPC transaction, as we see in B, and nullified in the supplier's account, the cumulative effect of the reducing account, where we can see as letter D. And these transactions matched and were hidden on the balance sheet. Letter C was offset by the forfait transaction that was corrected, entered as letter D on the slide. So this was the main instrument of the fraud, but it was not the only one. So now moving on to slide six, we can see the total entries that were made.
We show not only the adjustments that were necessary to detect the fraud, but as I said, all those related to the general review and the accounting practices and all those that needed to have to be as a result of both. In short, on the left, as to fraud, we have the fraudulent VPCs and the forfait transactions already commented on the previous slide. Other working capital financial transactions related to working capital that were unduly entered in the supplier account, generating cash for the company and improving the leverage levels for the company and creating more space for false VPCs.
Financial charges on forfait and working capital transactions, which should have been reflected in the company's financial results, but instead were improperly charged to the supplier account, reducing this account in a manner similar to false VPCs and increased net income of the company because a financial expense was not entered. Expenses that should have been reflected in the company's result, like, freight and payroll, they were instead unduly capitalized, inflating the operating result. On the readaptation of accounting practices, we reconciled several accounts, such as bank accounts, accounts payable. They were pending issues, and we re-evaluated our accounts receivable. We changed the criteria of provisioning for criteria that we believe are more adequate to our business.
We made a general review of provisions for contingencies, and this was essentially focused on contingencies of tax nature due to review of the best forecast by our external advisors. And on real estate contingencies due to prospects of the outcome of stores and we see the renovation processes. We revised IFRS 16 calculations related to the same rental or lease agreements, now incorporating a renewal clause period, depending on the company's history. This generated an increase in the property leasing liabilities, but the counterpart of an increase in our assets related to the right to use them. So this asset was increased as the right to use those real estate, as I mentioned. So we can see the increase of the liability related to lease because of this.
And finally, we made adjustments to the revenue recognition, recognition regime for some partnership agreements, which had been previously recognized as on a cash basis, where we received the upfront payments for a service to be provided. So this revenue was recognized all at once, using the cash basis, and now we needed to re-make the adjustments to an accrual basis, as it should have. On the right, as related topics related to those previous topics, it was necessary for us to make a recalculation of taxes due to the calculations that affected profit, revenues, income. We needed to classify all the long-term debts to short-term debts. We redid all calculations of impairment because, of course, we reviewed the operating projections, income projections, now without fraud, and this generated the need for provisioning goodwill from acquisition, fixed assets, and tangible assets.
We also needed to make provisions for our deferred income tax due to this reduction in the prospect of using these credits because we had a change in perspective of the generation of income. These were the main adjustments, but the description of all the adjustments are provided in detail in our financial statement. For those who want more details, you can see all this.
So now let's move on to slide 7. In this slide, we show four EBITDA metrics just to make understanding the result a little bit easier. We have a lot of non-recurring effects because of these adjustments. So we have the EBITDA that was reported in the statements for 2021. I just wanted to explain a little bit what the concepts are before we move on to the figures. All right? So we have the reported EBITDA, and now the represented EBITDA, following all the adjustments we've described for the new statements that were represented, that I summarized in the previous slide. Then we have the recurrent EBITDA, which is the one without the non-recurring effects that were the result of those adjustments, and then the recurrent ex-IFRS 16 EBITDA, which is the same recurrent EBITDA following or clear of payment of our rent obligations.
The reported EBITDA for 2021, which was BRL 2.1 billion, went through a number of adjustments because of the fraud. Those adjustments amounted to BRL -3.7 billion, accounting to BRL -1.6 billion post-fraud, which is the chart we see on the left-hand side of the slide. The most significant adjustment of the fraud was MDF or VPC after the adjustment, as I mentioned in the prior slide. In addition to the adjustments for fraud, there were other adjustments, most important of which was impairment, BRL -1.6 billion, which is now in the middle chart in the dark bar. Following these adjustments, the represented EBITDA, which is the one we are presenting just now for the statements for 2021, was BRL -3.4 billion for 2021.
Now, going back for the non-recurrent results and going with the impairments result, we have a BRL -1.8 billion for 2021. Excluding rent costs, we have the recurrent EBITDA ex-IFRS 16, at BRL -2.4 billion for 2021. In 2022, the reported EBITDA was a BRL -6.2 billion. That was much because of a growing gross EBITDA and an SG&A that grew even faster. The recurrent EBITDA, excluding the non-recurring effects, which also included a great impairment for 2022, BRL 2.4 billion, led to a recurrent EBITDA at a BRL -2.9 billion, and the recurring EBITDA, excluding IFRS 16, following the payment of rent costs, was a BRL -4.1 billion for 2022.
We'd like also to remember that, as I said at the beginning, these figures for 2022 are not comparable to those of 2021 because of the incorporation of the two companies we merged with in 2021. Now moving on to slide 8, we'd like to show you the net profit for the company in 2021, as well as a little bit of 2022. The originally presented net profit was BRL 544 million, and this was the profit reported at the company's statements. Historically, the company showed its earnings release with a pro forma version to include 100% of LASA results to B2W's results for the year. So depending on what statement you will be looking at, you'll be seeing a slightly different figure. But we are now looking at the official statement results.
With regard to those results, considering the company's earnings release and considering the elements that were shown in the previous slide, we had positive effects in depreciation and amortization because of the fixed asset with impairment, so the depreciation and amortization of those assets was lower. We had about BRL -800 million, fully because of the reclassification of interest on forfait transactions and working capital, and we adjusted them in the correct way according to the results accounts. About BRL 700 million in taxes, which may be a little counterintuitive because the result was, is now poorer, but it has to be remembered that there was a decrease in the income tax because of the reduced profitability and the impairment.
With all of that combined, we have a loss that initially a net profit of BRL 500 million, but we come to the adjusted negative figure of BRL 5.2 billion. In 2021, we had a loss of BRL 12.2 billion, considering a worse EBITDA compared to 2021 of BRL 6.2 billion, as we just saw. In addition to that, the company was also severely impacted by the financial result, which was negative by BRL 5.2 because of the interest rate, as we will see a little bit further down the presentation. So let's look at slide nine, where we will look at the suppliers account.
This is usually not a measure that we account for in the release, but because of the fraud with this account, we broke down the numbers and disclosed it so that the market could reconsider what was our suppliers account before the fraud and what it looks like now after the adjustments. So in the originally presented 2021 statements, which is the chart you see on the bottom side, on the left-hand side, the suppliers account opened the year with a BRL 4.1 billion balance. This is the account where the fraud took place, where BRL 7.7 billion had been not shown. We're talking about the fraud that was accumulated up to this point, and this was virtually fully accounted for, as we can see in the chart with the 6.9 forfait transactions.
So as we said, we had one transaction obscuring the other account with the fraud in this suppliers account. So following the reversal of these accounts, the balance went to BRL 4.9 billion. So we're now looking at the chart at the top, where we see the correct broken down, with the BRL 4.9 billion being represented over 2021. That account also grew by BRL 1.4 billion because of a losses incorporation. There was a piece of the suppliers account that came with that and BRL 4.1 billion because of the variation in operations because of that account, which ended 2021 at BRL 11 billion. By the end of 2022, the same account had a BRL 6.7 billion account already in the chart on the top, reflecting the postponement of supplier payments at the end of 2021.
So these accounts were frozen, the account went up, and at the end of 2022, that trend was normalized. We see the payments going off and the suppliers account going back to the levels that are more in keeping with those that we saw at the beginning of 2021. Just for the sake of explanation, at the, In the chart, we saw some of the fraud in 2022 that was reversed as we prepared the statement. So we have the same trend for interest, the MDF accounted for, and the working capital, as well as forfait transactions. We're always looking at year-to-date figures in this case. So working capital, forfait transactions that were covering up interest and those all other transactions that are now all presented here.
Now, moving on to slide 10, we're going to look at the cash performance of the company, which is the result of everything that we've seen so far. So starting at the bottom side of the slide, the company's debt position went from BRL 7.8 billion, which was originally reported on January 1, 2021, to BRL 37.3 billion on December 31, 2022. This was especially because of the reclassification of forfait transactions and working capital transactions. So 15.9 in Q4 in the suppliers account for financial leverage duly accounted for, and the very need for funding by the company because of its operating cash consumption. The cash position went from BRL 6.6 billion in early 2021 to BRL 2.5 billion at the end of 2022 because of cash consumption, especially in the second half of 2022.
That's when the company made an effort to try to put the house in order, but this was a small effect, considering how considering the scope that the fraud had already taken by then. On slide 11, we see the trend of everything that we've seen so far and its effect on the company's net wealth. So the wealth that had been the net worth that had been originally reported was BRL 9.5 billion positive. Now, because of the adjustments, it moves to BRL -26.7 billion at the end of 2022. A change that's explained especially by the following items, according to the table we have on the slide. So as positive contributions, we have the incorporation of losses asset, which contributed BRL 5.7 billion to increase Americanas' net worth.
On the negative side, helping to shrink that net worth, we had recurrent effects of the fiscal years, BRL 12.4 billion, and this includes the recurring loss of 2022. We had a BRL -6.7 billion impairment, effects on contingency and inventory that we've already discussed, with an impact of about BRL 900 billion and BRL 800 billion, respectively, which is not detailed on the slide. We had also other items such as tax and recoverable taxes. By the way, what I mentioned about stock, inventory, and contingency is written off in the report. We also have taxes written off by about BRL 2.5 billion. Finally, in bold, we have the most significant impact that helped to turn the statement around.
The fraud, frauded results, which by December 31, 2021, added a BRL -20.2 billion, which is what makes up most of the BRL 25 billion loss that we'll be presenting. So until 2021, you have the broken down of results of BRL 18.2 billion interest that was written off in the suppliers account incorrectly, and also losses that should have been accounted for of about BRL 300 million. So now moving on to the following slide, slide 12. We finally give you how this entire magnitude of the fraud, which is in keeping with what the company had mentioned in the material fact on June 13. Following the intent that the... all the results or all the work that the company made so far, we concluded that the size of the overall fraud was BRL 25.2 billion.
Here we have it broken down by MDF, BRL 20.4 billion, BRL 1.2 billion of expense capitalization, and BRL 3.6 billion of capitalized interest. Here on the side, we show you the distribution between 2020 and 2021 and 2022. It's also important to remember that the fraud was moving forward with a hole in the company's cash position because results were fabricated and did not convert into cash generation. To us, what allowed the scheme to last for so many years and come to such a sizable magnitude, was the mechanism of hiring without a necessary approval from governance, and also the forfait transactions that were hidden in the suppliers account that allowed for cash generation that was in keeping with the reported operational performance.
At the same time, the numerically written off time in a fictitious MDF recorded as reducers of the suppliers account. So on that note, we go to the next stage of the presentation, where we update you on our court-ordered reorganization, starting on page 14.
According to the material fact presented on October 30, the company presented a new proposal to its main creditors, which is strongly based on the increase to the amount of the commitment to capitalize the company to BRL 12 billion. Then, since we have already proposed this proposal to the market, it allowed us the negotiation with the creditor should evolve in a significant manner, and we work hard to have this plan approved by the board until December this year. So, on slide, we would just like to go back to our general framework of creditors and the payments that we have in this new version of the plan. Today, we have BRL 42.5 billion to be restructured, that would exclude the intercompany credit.
So when you see the complete snapshot, as you see that it's close to BRL 50 million, but the difference are related to the intercompany credits. In classes one and four, which are labor creditors and micro and small companies, we have a balance of BRL 148.6 million to be paid, and the plan provides for the full settlement without discount after the approval by the Judicial Recovery Court. As a reminder, we started to pay those creditors through a judicial authorization that was suspended later on. So we have already made some payments, but there is a balance still to be paid. We do not have the class two in our judicial recovery, as we do not have creditors with real guarantees.
We also have class three, unsecured creditors, where we have BRL 5.5 billion in credits from suppliers and BRL 36.8 billion from financial creditors. In this class, we have available payment options, and we are going to start describing on the next slide. The first payment alternative is the general offer, which you can see on the right of the image, and they are automatic for the creditors who do not make an option. They will have a discount of 80%, and the payment of the balance will be made in 20 years, with updated by TR indexes in the case of credits in reais. For creditors who choose an option and those who have up to 12,002 received, they are going to receive all at once.
As you can see, the dotted line to the right, and then where we can also see the information. Creditors must decide whether to take part or not in this reverse auction. This auction has a minimum discount of 70%, and the creditors who accept the highest discount will be served first, and the company will allocate BRL 2 billion for this auction. If there is demand, the company will disperse the BRL 2 billion to repurchase those credits at a discount. The remaining creditors, after the reverse auction, as well as those who are not included in the auction, will have two options. They can choose option 1, that has a 70% discount, and the payment will be made in 15 years, and the amounts will be updated by TR.
option 2, which we believe will have the greatest adoption in terms of financial terms, involves a combination of cash, credit conversion into shares, and... we are going to show the schedule. We also have the repurchase in the short term. option 2 was designed in such a way that there will be BRL 2 billion of credits converted into shares, and the company will carry BRL 1.875 billion of restructured debt and will use BRL 6.7 billion to repurchase the remaining balance of this debt. The size of the discount on this purchase will be a consequence of the amount of credits that those who make this option. The debts, and there will be a balance that will be repurchased at 6.7.
Adding those BRL 12 billion of conversions of option 2, with the BRL 12 billion of capital increase from the reference shareholders, we will have a very significant capital increase of BRL 24 billion as part of the implementation plan, and this will completely change the structure of capital for the company to a better position. The issue price of the shares within scope capital will be decided by the shareholders in a special shareholders meeting, observing all the applicable rules and legislation, including guaranteeing all American shareholders the chance of not to be diluted, exercising their preemptive rights and participating in cash of the capital structure. The plan also offers alternatives for creditors, for suppliers, and we provide details about those alternatives on slide 16. The company will allocate BRL 3.7 billion to the collaborating suppliers. It's a term defined in the Judicial Recovery Plan.
That includes conditions for receiving the supply of goods and merchandise for resale, as well as some future requirements. Probably, the most important one is the granting of payment deadlines for levels practiced until 2022. Nowadays, the company pays its suppliers about practically 100% of its suppliers cash. If the volume requested by collaborating suppliers exceeds BRL 3.7 billion, and if these suppliers are classified as collaborating suppliers, they are going to be served in the following order: First, the creditors with up to BRL 1 million to be received by the company or who will pay BRL 1 million. Next, the company's most representative suppliers in the last 12 months up to September 2023 will be served, those which represented more than 0.3% of our sales. And finally, we are going to serve the other suppliers.
To cover the remainder, the company will allocate another BRL 300 million to be paid in 60 installments. If so, there's still remaining balance from the collaborated suppliers, this balance will be treated as standard suppliers. I will provide more details now. The second category of suppliers with a specific clause, the technology suppliers, as you can see in the middle of the slide. Technology supplier creditor is also a term defined in our judicial recovery plan, and it's really to give a company a deadline again. It's very similar to the first one, and it also has the deadline so that we can offer this different treatment.
The company will allocate BRL 100 million to pay the suppliers in a single statement, and the remainder, the balance not included in the BRL 100 million, will be served as the standard suppliers as we. This standard treatment for supplier, suppliers that do not meet the inflation or technological, nor any balances that were not covered by the two clauses that I have just mentioned on the slide. The standard supplier will have a discount of 50%, and the 50%, will be paid in 48 installments updated by the IPCA. On slide 17, we show the timeline. I would like to give a disclaimer because this is an estimated timeline that depends on several things, such as completing the plan and, finalizing other activities. This is just an estimated timeline, as I said, but it can be extended.
It's the timeline that the company is currently seeking for its judicial recovery plan. It's very ambitious, and we are working hard in order to materialize it. But as a target, as I mentioned before, is to have our general meeting of creditors to take place till this year by December 2023. So we are ending the negotiations with the suppliers so that we can have this meeting held. And if so, we believe that the plan can be approved in early 2024, and from then, we estimated there will be a new DIP for reference shareholders in 15 days, so as to allow for the first part of the plan to be implemented. And in the following 15 days, we are going to pay the collaborated suppliers and the balances of classes 1 and 4.
And within this period, we are likely to conduct the reverse auction, all the documents related to the reverse auction, but these are... This is a financial settlement that will only take place later. At the same time, we are going to summon the shareholders meeting, which is the group that approves the plans after increase 30 days after this meeting. And if the capital increase is approved, there will be a 30-day period for exercising the right of first refusal, and at the end of those 30-day period, the settlement of the reverse plan will happen. That, is related to the capital increase and the entire implementation of option 2 or class 2 of the plan with, the issue, issuance of new debt, and this relates to the class 3 of the plan.
With this, I turn the floor back to Leo so that we can talk about the future.
Thank you, Camille. Camille addressed how we will be addressing the funnel or how we'll be recovering the company's capital structure. Starting on slide 19, I'll begin to give details of how we go back into turning a profit. Since the disclosure of a material fact on January 11, 2023, that was when the company dove into this unprecedented crisis, which had a significant impact on its ability to honor its financial obligations and keep its operations running steady, and most importantly, keep its institutional credibility. That's what led to its reorganization process. As I said at the beginning, in order to recover the company, we had to outline a strategic plan on three different fronts: transformation, reorganization, or judicial recovery and investigation.
The recovery front has been presented by Camille, and this includes the highlighted robust capital increase of BRL 2 billion in cash coming from the reference shareholders, plus BRL 12 billion in capitalization raised from capital from creditors, which is key for us to readjust our liability and rebalance this American capital structure. On the investigation front, we are still contributing to the ongoing investigation, which is being conducted by the competent authorities, and also by the independent committee appointed by Americanas' board of directors immediately after the accounting discrepancies were acknowledged in the company's financial statements.
In addition to that, we've also taken some steps internally to move on with the more urgent measures, such as the ones that were released in the June 13th, 2023 material fact, involving the layoff of many of those individuals who were involved in the fraud that were still with the company at that point. Actually, on this point, this was part of a broader impact or package of replacing leadership in the company through what we call the Level N -2, meaning those who report directly to myself, Camille, and Fabio. And we did that in a way to make these new management practices easier, that were more in line with the journey that we want to take with the company, and also more adjusted to the better improved credibility of Americanas, both internally and to the market.
It's also important to say that the company is also studying together with its legal counsel what steps can be taken for us to try to reimburse people for the damages caused by the fraud, and also the correct moment to legally seek those reimbursements. But as I said again, Americanas is the most interested party in clarifying everything that happened. So let me now focus on the upgrading transformational front, which I'll be breaking down into five pillars. Brick-and-mortar, digital, Ame, our fintech arm, other operations, HNT, and advertising. Generally speaking, the new Americanas will be built based on the existing synergies across all of these building blocks.
According to what we discussed, the many areas or many departments of the company begin to integrate, moving away from the few based design that we had in the past, where you couldn't really see the big picture within Americanas. Naturally, this lack of a big picture view made it possible for fraud to take place because it wasn't noticed by the overall team, and the side effect of that was the lack of synergy being realized simply because of the lack of alignment across teams and channels. But that now has changed. We have a single company, with each department doing the best it can and contributing to the whole.
Our brick-and-mortar arm showed impressive resilience throughout the year, precisely because of the historic relationship that was created with our customers and our business partners, and therefore, it bore most of the burden, which made clear how strong our brick-and-mortar operations are as a brand attribute. But the upgrading adjustments that are ongoing and which we'll give more details about later on is still a driver of our digital arm, both because of the assortment in our brick-and-mortar stores and because of the infinite or endless shelf that we will be talking about as well. The digital arm recovered from a natural confidence crisis at the beginning, and it is also able to drive our brick-and-mortar sales because of O2O and because of the deeper knowledge of our customers' profiles and shopping patterns.
Ame adds to this package a, income profile to our knowledge, and also a loyalty program that's been reinvigorated and whose outline is now in its final stages. Also, combined with an intelligent cashback policy, Ame can also help our digital and brick-and-mortar arms to deliver even more value to our customers. Our other operations are also benefiting from the effects of this transformation package, particularly as they bring different clients from Americanas's traditional profile, complementing our ability to advance those consumer patterns and tendencies. Lastly, our remodeled advertising department offers our business partners in many different media and format, a unique, easily measurable design that can directly access customers that are selected within the media store concept.
This multi-channel system that is continually improving adds to our associates' abilities in stores, distribution centers, and offices to optimize our processes and go back to a customer-centric retail, which is something we stopped doing during the time of the fraud. Now, two very solid foundations are supporting this strategic plan. First of all, Americanas' footprint across Brazil with unequaled capillarity, and also second, the love and recognition of our customers, which is the result of over 100 years of history. But I'll go back to this point in a little bit. But before that, we had to deal with the immediate impacts of the crisis and take immediate steps. So now moving on to slide 20.
The most significant impact of the crisis on our brick-and-mortar operations, cut back in credit by our suppliers and the natural decrease in supply, especially because of the uncertainty environment that we had in Q3. Many negotiation initiatives took place with our suppliers until supply began to be unlocked, even though, as Camille said, with a payment up front. In view of the restricted liquidity, the company responded by focusing its assortment in convenience departments, which, because of the seasonality, especially the seasonal Easter period, ultimately gave us a very significant boost in terms of cash. So from the uncertainty in Q3, we started focusing on the departments that were sort of destinations and within Americanas, and as a result, we ultimately strengthened the convenience side a lot more in terms of sales and results.
We also went back to more directed sales, strengthening, especially the departments relating to variety. So moving away from convenience and going to a more broader reach. So we also focused on the continued promotional sales as a strategy to drive our sales and results. On our digital side, on our digital operations, the impact on our credibility was greater, affecting the number of visits and sales conversions, and at that initial moment, also reduced the number of active sellers within our marketplace platform. Seeing as the partners were obviously queasy about how the online sales were going and whether Americanas would be able to comply with their obligations.
In addition to that, the restricted liquidity at the beginning forced us to prioritize margin over volume, therefore, stopping those incentive policies that we had in 2022, with an additional impact on sales and conversion. We focused our efforts on resuming confidence, the confidence of our sellers, and also reducing purchases of our 1P, whose margins are usually narrower or tighter. The initial steps were strengthening the message that the seller is our customer and that our structure to serve them was intact. As a result, we secured those payments every 15 days and also broadened them with our sellers, in addition to reinforcing a relationship with them by creating Americanas Venda+ , which is a customized service program for selected sellers that offers support and guidance to establish the best sales strategies.
These steps ensured 9,000 new partners between January and October this year, and we are seeing some positive benefits of that over the course of the second half of this year. Of course, all of that combined with the revision in our expenses structure to seek productivity gains in a short period of time. Moving on to slide 21, it's important to go back a little bit to show you where this transformation program is coming from. It's based on our legacy, which provides the foundation for the rebuilding of our business. Even in the face of all of the challenges we're facing, we believe in the strength of Americanas, which over the course of nearly 100 years, built a strong brand that is present in the Brazilian people's everyday lives.
So especially in the first half of that year, at the height of the crisis, our research showed that over 76% of our customers associated the brand, our brand, with some positive memory, which is much higher than any of our competitors. Also, 41% of them had purchased something from us in the three months prior, so the second-best performance amongst our peers, considering that we were at the most critical stage of our crisis. And also, since the beginning of this crisis, we've had consistently over 90% favorability, meaning over 90% of respondents believe that Americanas deserves to overcome the crisis, and we have worked really hard to honor that expectation. The survey also showed Americanas as the top-of-mind brand in many purchase journeys, such as treats, fun and leisure, domestic appliances, and other products as well.
So we now go into the reconstruction plan. Going on to slide 22, we believe that the strength of the brand is, among other things, because of the massive presence of our brand, both on the digital side and brick-and-mortar side, with over 1,600 stores in every state of the country, which is the most capillarity of any company amongst our peers, with a logistics network that's robust and a high traffic of customers. Our stores are not a weight. They are a formidable asset to build our brand up and build communication, as well as logistics capillarity, advertising and sales that's absolutely top-notch, as well as media campaigns with our partners that drive the company's other channels.... including also social impact, considering that we have a footprint in every region of the country.
By the way, as we took those emergency steps to reestablish our operation, we also began to build a strategic plan that set the new guidelines that the company has adopted during its restructuring stage, as we will see starting on slide 23. Now, before diving a bit deeper in the analysis of the transformation plan for each channel, it's important to stress that the fraud, which was complex and sophisticated, took significant time from the previous management and required the isolation of departments in silos. That had an impact on our operations, which were held hostage to Excel spreadsheets, as Camille showed. Therefore, there's a significant value that can be unlocked simply by managing our operations in a simpler way and by bringing our different areas into alignment. The strategy on the physical side is focused on growing our sales with greater margins.
So because of that, we will continue to increase our assortment, especially in those areas where Americanas is a destination store. And importantly, we need to have the right items in the right stores at the right price. So we need to recover the historic DNA of Americanas. So we want to make it again the reference store for Brazilians when it comes to variety and convenience products. So our strategy is based on three major pillars: modulating our assortment, clustering our stores, and optimizing the management of mix so that we can reduce the rupture in supply of products.
If we combine what we have in brick-and-mortar stores in a very structured way as we begin the year, which are now a lot stronger in a few specific items, we begin to look at what's adjacent to them, so as to have higher sales, even when sales are down. We have a low ticket, so that's not a significant share of our clients' budgets, and that has led to an increase in visits, which will be critical for the plan. In addition to that, we don't expect to have exactly the same items in our over 1,600 stores. Depending on the city or neighborhood or block, we expect to have a larger stock, for example, of diapers or and a lower one of pillows, according to the needs of each of those areas.
For us to have the right product within the right store, we need, from a logistics standpoint, address the complexity. Americanas' logistics plans has been one of the most resilient points during this time of crisis. The second pillar is category, the purpose of which is to expand our offer of products, expanding our mix or assortment, which will be operationalized by the negotiation of new commercial basis and prospecting new suppliers integrated to our planning and logistics chain. Again, we thought on both the supplier level and the item level. If one supplier is more representative of our assortment than the market at large, using Nielsen and other research sources, we should be able to sell at more appealing prices within Americanas. That way, we can also have better margins.
It is that combined outline that we are proposing within the category-based strategy pillar that we have already started to introduce with many suppliers. It is therefore a strategy based on thinking together with each one of these major suppliers, how we can rethink this relationship and make it a lot closer, always based on facts and data throughout the process. We have the system to understand how much we sell, from each supplier, how profitable, each product is, and which department it is as well. That gives us tools to improve our relationship with suppliers and to have, for the client, the right product and the right price that makes sense, both, on the brick-and-mortar side and online. We have done that aforehand with many suppliers, and we're still focusing on this bilateral relationship with a balanced supply to our, customers.
Actually, within 2023, our suppliers were an integral part of the rebound or the reconstruction, the rebuilding of Americanas. And finally, we want to renew our stores, and this will be a remodeling based on the time of each customer within the store and the average number of pieces they acquire, without changing the simplicity that's characteristic of their experience within Americanas. We will continue to revise and automate processes to optimize the exposure of items within store, increase productivity, and increase the efficiency of the management routines within our brick-and-mortar units. The idea is to change the experience within store to make it simpler, so that it is still as easy as it is today. We have millions of clients today that go into a store to buy a chocolate or cookie and leave with two or three items more.
We believe that by improving the experience, we can tap into that in a much smarter way. The key initiatives here are supported by a pricing-
... strategy, optimizing occupation costs and reviewing expenses, as well as focusing more greatly on retail media, precisely to upsell those people who are visiting us even during the peak crisis period. We believe that with those initiatives in place, and especially with the execution ability that we have within Americanas, naturally, we will improve revenue and margins. And again, in order to do that, to have the right items at the right stores, at the right price, is critical, executing everything with as much efficiency as possible. The design for the digital channel involves migrating a broad mix without a defined focus that used to aim only gain market share to a model that mirrors the physical mix, which is complemented by an offer of an infinite shelf through sellers with varied offers, and which assume the availability of products that previously belonged to one peak category.
These are items that were previously important in our digital 1P, but were or will become non-existent in our physical stores, but can be purchased through our digital channel. Even for suppliers of these items, Americanas is and will continue to be an important channel. The issue is that we have no longer the appetite or capital to invest in sales that doesn't offer an attractive margin. And in addition to not being remembered by our customers in these categories as a destination, the way to address this is through our marketplace, where we are ready, are a destination for several of these categories. Some large 1P suppliers were already present in our 3P. And this strategy has increased with great receptivity with our business partners. Again, this in the spirit of a collective construction.
At the end of the day, it's another way of thinking together, how to have a win-win strategy with stakeholders, as I mentioned earlier, in the physical strategy. So worlds tend to be ever more complementary in the new Americanas. We are also going to strengthen the online -to -offline, which is to establish a concept of hubs, and the delivery of those products that were purchased online can happen in a simplified way in our physical stores. With this, we optimize costs using this improved logistics, and we also enhance the 3 P, and we make this operation profitable again. This hub store strategy allows us to operate the O2O with the same quality service for the customer, or even better, with a lower risk of disruption and better efficiency. In fact, efficiency is the key word.
Today, the company discusses profitability and is focusing on selling with a margin. Cost optimization is the third pillar of our digital strategy. Moving to slide 25. Ame continues to be a link, a very important link between the physical and digital world, as well as a way to monetize in a smart way our customer base. However, we need to do this with a lot of responsibility, especially in the environment where capital is constrained. What did we do with Ame Digital? The Ame Digital is going through a process of financial and operational restructuring. We are going to expand our loyalty program, which is focused on Ame today, and we will identify and increase the engagement of Americanas customer.
Furthermore, we will reinforce the stimulus that we have been given to our sales with a cashback, and it continues to be a very efficient payment method to enhance the synergies with physical stores. And at the same time, it explores new opportunities, including those related to credit of customers. But of course, using now, at this moment, third-party funding and without carrying risk to our balance sheet. On the financial side, the focus will be on disciplining the use of cash by reducing costs and optimizing the asset portfolio. So as to reach the break-even point by means of strategic measures. We no longer work with any assumption that is not going to be part of the world of Americanas. It's still a fundamental part of our digital world. On slide 23, talking about strategies related to the other assets, and I'm going to go quicker now.
We undid the partnerships, and there are some pending actions to be carried out. At Unico, we resumed the strategic plans. We have a more operational plan by refinancing the operations, but it's still in the divestment strategy.... This is it. Unico and HNT, we have their situation still to be analyzed, but this is not going to be divested. If we find the right place at the right moment, we are going to study the possibility. Although other than that, Unico and Vem are going to continue to be operated, and they are part of the transformational package that we planned for Americanas. And talking about the schedule, we started our transformation in 2023 with a restructuring of several areas in order to adjust the company for the new size, and especially to operate-- to adjust our operational focus.
We had an improvement, which was relevant in 2023, and we continue making adjustments and improvements in different positions such as marketing, technology, logistic structure, considering the new digital platform, as well as the optimization of the store network, which is part of the retail sector. And this plays out for any retail company in the market. With this plan, we believe that in 2025, after the additional stabilization movements and the full capture of the value arising from the transformation already implemented, we believe we'll reach an EBITDA of more than BRL 2.2 billion and more or more than BRL 1.5 billion, the ex-IFRS, which is after the payment of the rents.
This first phase of the business plan, scheduled to end in 2025, aims to restore the company's profitability and especially integrate existing businesses and possible selective sales of assets at a fair value, as I mentioned. In a later moment, it's expected to have a consolidated company with organic growth, and we'll be able to explore other avenues for growth and begin a new phase of our new Americanas. As we mentioned before, all this carried out in a fluid approach in our multi-channel initiatives, without the feudal systems that existed between the physical, digital, financial, and advertising businesses. On slide 28 and 29, we see a summary of the expected evolution of some of our indicators.
In 2028, our expectation is to go from a recurring EBITDA negative of BRL 2.9 billion and BRL -4.1 billion to the payment of rent, to a level above BRL 2.2 billion positive recurring EBITDA in 2025 and above BRL 1.5 billion, as I mentioned, after the payment of rent. The main levers again for this recovery will be the stabilization adjustments already started in 2023, and the store renovation and commercial transformation projects, operational excellence initiatives, and others to make digital profitable. After 2025, we expect to continue growing our EBITDA at an average rate of high single digits. On slide 29, we present a guidance for 2025.
With the implementation of our judicial recovery plan and with the evolution of our strategic operational plan, we hope that by the end of 2025, we will take the company to another level. We closed 2022 with a negative net equity of BRL 26.5 million, and with the implementation of the judicial recovery plan, we will take this income statement to a positive. Revenue will be lower than in the past, but we will be focused on segments where we are on target and/or where we can position ourselves for additional sales, considering the products we are already a target. So we'll have a more robust margin, less dependent on PPC, even though PPC continues to be a relevant factor for retail activities.
With the successful implementation of our strategic plan and our judicial recovery plan, we tend to take the negative values of 2020, 2022 to positive levels, and from a debt of BRL 2.2 billion to BRL 1.5 billion of EBITDA after the payment of rents. With gross debt and the equivalent cash received by credit cards and projected by the end of 2025, we will leave from a net debt of BRL 26.3 billion at the end of 2022 to a situation of net cash at the end of 2025. But even at the start of 2024, after the implementation of the investments foreseen in the judicial recovery mentioned by Camille, Americanas will be a company with the lightest capital structure in the Brazilian retail, allowing total focus on the operation.
If we do not take into consideration the credit card receivables for the leverage calculations, but only the volumes of cash and cash equivalents, we expect to reach a leverage of less than 0.75x EBITDA ex- IFRS at the end of 2025. Therefore, moving on to slide 30. As you can see, we believe that with all these actions, Americanas will be ready to resume its relevant role in the Brazilian retail.... It will be easy, it will be simple, but it will be done. The entire transformation process, reconstruction process, could not be possible without the team of ethical professionals absolutely committed to this recovery, who continued to work tirelessly together for the future of the company. This is probably the hallmark of 2023, which is very present internally and may not have been seen by the external world to Americanas.
We would not have come this far without the partnership and trust of our suppliers, investors, shareholders, and customers. For this reason, we express our deep gratitude and renew our invitation for you to follow us on this journey together for the future. I believe we can begin the Q&A session.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to start the Q&A session. To ask a question, please enter star one. To remove your question from the list, type star two. Our first question comes from Danniela from XP Investimentos. You may proceed.
Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question. Everything was very didactic, the presentation and the material. I have two main questions. I have many questions, but I'm going to focus on two.
First is related to the focus, which is more operational, an improvement for better income statement, and also the stabilization of EBITDA in a recurring positive level. From the viewpoint of the financial statement, could you break down and talk about the increase of capital and how the operational improvement is going to have contributions? So how would the capital increase from the shareholders would play out and combine to the execution? How you see the competitive environment? Because you mentioned the history of Americanas, which is so strong, but we also have to consider the competitive environment of several segments, digitalization, convenience, products, and the entry of new players. So how do you see this competitive environment considering this resumption? And my second question is related to the executive goals.
One of the points that was described in one of the moments of the crisis was the perverse incentive for the goals. And we saw the executives going after incorrect goals or incorrect ways of reaching those metrics. So what is the metrics defined for the C-level, and also how the changes are going to be investigated? Thank you.
Thank you, Danniela. For the first part of the question, when you're asking about the recomposition of the financial statement... Oh, thank you for the question again. Oh. I'm still here. I don't know where this noise came from. It seemed that I had dropped out. Okay, to answer your first question, Danniela, the financial statement turn over depends nearly exclusively on the implementation of the plan.
We are not counting on operational contribution because we are at a very negative level to turn around this EBITDA, and we're not expecting a lot of profitability in the next two years. So this comes from an increase of capital of BRL 24 billion, and the differences related to the gain in capital with a repurchase of-- I would like to remind you that we have some suppliers that were purchased upon discount, and we also have a debt balance related to option 2, that repurchase at 2.7. There's a discount in that sense, and there's a reverse auction with a minimal discount of 7% at the amount of BRL 2 billion. So we have nearly BRL 5 billion in discount in the reverse auction. So we have some billions in terms of capital gain for the repurchase of items in the plan.
So we believe that increasing capital will be enough so that our financial statements can turn out fine.
In relation to the competitive environment, in fact, the competitive environment in the retail market in Brazil, as of 2024, it's much tougher than we saw in the past. I don't mean that it was easy in the past, but as Americanas, we have several levers, and these are important levers at this time around. The first point that I mentioned is that our average ticket is an average ticket, that even if the consumer has restrictions in their, in their income, that would not affect the customer's budget. And why is that? Different from the physical competitors, the recurrence of our consumer is very large. The daily visit to buy goodies, sweets, and chocolate products, it's impressive how it happens, and this is what we saw in 2023.
So I already have the traffic, I already have the flow. So even in an environment in a competitive environment, we already have a flow of traffic that are drawn into the store, and we try to look after them as best as we can. But this plays out in a big different way from the competitors. In relation to digital, we have Asian competitors coming in, but we are undergoing a moment of stabilization. So our digital effort has been shown to be quite resilient. Of course, it suffered all the impacts related to the restrictions we imposed, especially related to publicity and advertising, that we saw in 2023. But in this settlement moment or stabilization moment, we gave the right answer so that we can grow again in the digital. The digital dimension will not, com...
Will not compete with Mercado Livre, this time, not in the short term, but it will be an important arm to complement our physical effort and also will serve a complement where the physical stores are not so important. This is why I say that the competitive environment is going to be more intense, but we have the right tools to provide the right answers at the right time. In relation to the executive goals, I'm going to start answering your question by saying that I couldn't agree that the crisis was caused by the metrics. I think it was a fraudulent manipulation of the controls, internal controls of the company. I, I don't think this has to do with the metrics. It has to do with integrity, with the character.
It has to do with the failure of those who should defend the success of the business. So they should have the best interest of the business as their guiding principle, and that did not happen. That does not mean that the C-level targets are not being revised, and I'm going to mention this. I'm going to talk about it. But it's important to mention it from the start. It had a governance structure that was certified personally by all main certifying bodies of governance available. It was not in the Novo Mercado for nothing. It had a governance structure that allowed the company to be there. But because of the fraudulent manipulation of the internal controls by the high management that knew all the details of the management, and this is what happened. With this backdrop, I'm going to tell you what we have done internally.
Along with the second half, we designed a new plan for positions and functions that is going to be implemented by the end of the year. It's a plan which is much more consistent to what happens in the retail market. What we had before, because of the feudal system construction, we had segregated ways, part for financial services, one for technology, but now we are doing something much more integrated so that we can have clear future pathways. We redesigned the variable compensation. But we haven't completed yet. We have the first, the preliminary design that has already gone through many officers, and the officers made some adjustments, and we're going to make this plan official in the next few weeks.
With this package, we also address the compensation of senior level executives that is aligned with what we see in the retail market in Brazil. Excellent. Thank you very much for the question.
The company has also many questions via webcast, which, Mr. Leonardo and Ms. Camille will address next. Please proceed. Well, I'll be reading the questions. I think most of them are to me, but I will address to you those who are referring to you. So the first one: forecasts for the end of 2025, which were... Today, consider the success of the judicial recovery plan, and what's the main driver for reducing leverage? I'd also like to add another question that relates to this, which is: What's the number of options by executives when it comes to debt and also others that are considered for the guide-guidance of 2025?
Well, the 2025 forecasts disclosed today do consider the approval or successful introduction of our judicial recovery plan, basically in the form that we presented them that today to the market. The main driver for reducing the leverage will be the result of the decreases in payments. So we have class 1 through class 4 paid in full. We have a suppliers group that will also be paid in full, part of it at a discount, and we have other suppliers that we'll be raising capital by BRL 12 billion. We have a reverse auction, by which we'll be rebuying debt at a discount.
We also have the advanced debt repurchase by BRL 7.2 billion, and the remaining debt after the entire restructure work, and I'll be talking about the assumption before that, is the new debenture of BRL 1,885, which is still being settled via M&A. So the leftover debt will be a BRL 1,875, gross debt. Now, the fact that I mentioned here, BRL 1,875, is based on the assumption that the financial creditors will adopt choice two, which to the company is what makes most sense from the financial and economic standpoint. If they adopt the general offer or option 1, the leftover debt for the company will be slightly larger, but when brought to present value, that is still not substantial.
So even if they adopt the general option as opposed to choice two, that doesn't change the guidance on leverage, or it doesn't change it materially, meaning we gave the most focus to 0.75. So that would be the answer to that question. Moving on to the next. One investor asked us to share our COGS for 2022. We did not include our COGS in the presentation on purpose. This is one indicator that we plan to disclose again, only when we start disclosing the figures for 2023. So we're not ready to disclose that indicator to the market at this point yet.
So next, good morning. Negotiation with the creditors assume the same conditions for banks and debenture organizations. Those negotiating new credits can expect what type of easier options? Please give us more details.
Well, the details of the judicial plan will be disclosed to the market once it is approved, if the company really does manage to make the plan happen. That should take place in December, so very soon, and the details we were prepared to, or that we can share with the market at present, is what you see on the presentation. But what I can assure you is that the plan is being designed very carefully so that it provides equitable treatment of all our creditors.
Next question: What will ensure that there's no further problem with Ame? Was the same thing done with fintech?
Yes, Ame is still undergoing auditing. The figures are already final, but the audit is still ongoing. Unfortunately, the process couldn't be finalized in time. It will be finalized, but we didn't want to delay the financial disclosure anymore, which...
This is a more complex audit because it is regulated by the Brazilian Central Bank, but there's no specific issue with Ame that explains the delay other than the very complexity of the process at large.
Next question. Congratulations on the presentation and straightforward items. Thank you for saying that. We could understand the fraud. Now, I only have questions about the financial statements, so I'll be asking you questions and then answer them.
For the financial statements of 2021, we see on the results a loss of BRL 20.3 billion, and on the statement, BRL 21.5 billion with the loss throughout the year. Now, what I take from your question is that the difference between the loss for 2021 did not agree with the BRL 6.2 billion and the exercise that we presented.
Now, this is because all the adjustments before December 31 were done on the statement. So we have the net worth between the beginning and the end of 2021 that's greater than the loss. First, because of the adjustment that we had directly on the statement, and also there was a difference midway through that because B2W acquired LASA. So the figure at the beginning and at the end were not the same.
David is providing me with additional information. Well, question number two: Will you not be breaking down previous years? Did you adjust everything on the statement until 2021?
Yes, that's correct. We adjusted everything on the 2021 statement.
The further back we go, the harder it is for us to correct, so to speak, these fraudulent write-offs and inclusions and entries in the balance sheet, and even more difficult to audit those figures, because it's a lot more difficult to obtain the evidence for audit purposes. So what the company decided to do was to go back only until the beginning of 2021, and we adjusted everything on the income statement for 2021, as I just said. Will you be showing all nine months for 2021? Not really. Opening or breaking down for every quarter an audit that in full will be a very complex work because of the time that's passed and how complex it is to provide adequate evidence of everything that happened.
All those movements, every quarter by quarter, and break it down and also provide the evidence for purposes of, for auditing purposes, would be complex. Are these accounts not audited? When can we expect the reports from auditors? Well, the statements are already available. They have been duly audited, both for 2021 and 2022. The auditor's report is already included in our income statements, both with CVM and on our website. You will see here that there was no opinion, but just to add a little bit of context, it's important to say that the lack of an opinion is closely related to the fact that the company is undergoing judicial recovery or reorganization.
Because the plan hasn't been approved yet, and as I said, we expect it to be approved by the end of 2023 and introduced at the start of 2024, the company is still addressing how it will move forward. Auditors have no choice other than to abstain from an opinion until the company's reorganization plan is approved. Moving to your next question, when do we expect to present the 2023 quarterly results? As we said, our formal commitment is to present those results by the end of the year. What the team is focusing on was precisely on auditing the figures for 2021 and presenting the audit for 2022.
So now the team will be diving deeper into the results for 2023, and we'll be able to confirm that deadline by the end of the year or say whether we'll need additional time. But as soon as the company has more clarity on that, and if we need more time, we will immediately communicate that to the market in the suitable way.
Oh, we have another question that's just coming in. Was the fraud taking place both in on the brick-and-mortar side and on the digital side with Ame?
Yes, it was taking place on both sides and after the incorporation on both operations. All right, so I think this is what we had coming in from the online side.
Perfect. So our next question via audio comes from João Soares with Citibank. Please, sir, you may proceed.
Hello, everyone.
Congratulations on the work that you guys have been doing. I have two points that I'd like to address. First of all, with regard to the team, do you have a timeline to introduce the new leaders for by business unit? We used to have a very similar layout, so now with the new divisions, it's important to understand how this will look like. My second question is about funding. Looking forward, would you like to maintain a digital operation and still work with a high ticket on your brick-and-mortar stores? It's important to understand what funding options do you see, maybe at one point be able to provide credit to your customers. I'd like to understand how you see that moving forward.
All right, so I'll start this one, and then Camille may jump in if she wants.
With regard to the team, the team is ready and working for some time now. Everyone who's been a part of this transformation process are people we rely on to move forward with the work. So as brick-and-mortar operations VP, we have Rosa Maria Limonta, who used to be part of Americanas in the past and came back. On digital operations, Marcos Llobet, on Ame, Carlos Priore. Fábio Marin remains in place. So after that first shift where we adjusted the entire N minus one tier and N minus two tiers, this is the team we've been working with. As for funding, I'll, I'll start by answering it, and then if I forget anything, Camille may jump in. I talked about this when talking about Ame, João.
Our assumption here is that funding for Ame will remain expensive for as long as we are undergoing the judicial recovery plan. So wanting to offer credit with funding from Ame doesn't make sense. We won't be able to offer credit at a reasonable price to our customers. But Ame is still a very important tool when it comes to credit. So what we've been doing is to look within the ecosystems of other fintechs and larger banks, funding choices that are specifically selected for specific campaigns that we're running. This is still very embryonic work because again, on the financial side, we are still working on rebuilding those statements. There was the reorganization and on the operations side, we want to keep our operations running well throughout 2023.
So the next step is to start working on the adjacent operations, and, along those lines, funding comes back into the pipeline. Any additional comment?
Yeah, I just wanted to say that within the negotiations for the judicial recovery plan, we also included funding, as assurance or funding guarantees for the assumptions of the plan. And this is funding essentially as performed, advanced performed receivables. So we just added this stop within the plan to ensure that the company is financed throughout the plan and that the plan can be fully executed.
That was great. I just wanted to add, if you wanted to, especially looking at the online environment, which is still very competitive, I think it's also important to for us to understand whether you have guarantees for other lines of credit, maybe.
Even thinking about maybe joining some sort of, insurance or other elements that you've used in the past. Do you think about other lines that you could secure for that?
No, we don't really have, in addition to, receivables advances or other lines provided in the plan, would have to be thought about. But on the other hand, thinking about the, EBITDA guidance that we had and what the company would have after the plan, if the company performs as expected, I don't see why the company would not have access to other lines available in the market, even without that being part of the plan. Maybe not at first, but once the company delivers on its commitments and its performance, I think it would be possible for the company to have access to those lines.
All right. That was perfect. Thank you, guys.
Our next question comes from Nicolas Larrain with JP Morgan. You may proceed, sir.
Thank you, everyone. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my question. I would like to touch upon the digital dimension. You mentioned that the idea of the company is to have a platform with a number of categories more targeted to the mix of the store. I would like to understand which categories you would consider to be 1P, and which categories would you migrate to 3P? Because when we look at the historical assortment of the store, we can see that there are many categories. So I would like to understand what would be 1P and what would be 3P. Thank you.
Okay, Nicolas, as a general outline, anything that we can move to 3P, that's what... Now, the 1P on the digital side would be essentially bilateral, which will be just a few industries that would be interested, but it's no longer, as a strategy, the anchor of our digital operation. And I'll give you a few examples to make this a bit more tangible. Within the categories, you know, that we do not have an assisted sales plan within our brick-and-mortar stores. So to sell sets larger than 32 inches or to sell what we call white line appliances or laptops, these are not categories where on the physical or on the brick-and-mortar operation we can become a destination store. However, Americanas is always remembered as a seller of products within these categories.
So for these categories, we would be delivering what we call Super 3P internally, meaning the categories that we use to operate with would now be operating with these new companies that we're bringing to our 3P operation.
All right, understood. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the question and answer session is now closed. I would like to turn over to Mr. Leonardo for his final remarks. Please, you may proceed, sir.
Thank you . Well, my first final remark is I'd like to thank each and every one of you who joined us for this conference, and I'd like to say that this is the hallmark of an important turning point as we republish the results for 2021 and publish those for 2022. It's also when we are opening the book for new pages, precisely on what Camille referred to as the presentation of our judicial recovery plan, that will be... that should be approved by the end of this year, and preparing for the presentation of the following quarters in 2023.
Once again, I'd like to thank our team at Americanas, who worked hard for us to have the results that we're showing you today. What I'd like to say on my behalf and on behalf of Camille's is that the statements that we have today fully reflect what we found after categorizing, after calculating for the frauds and also the findings during the investigation.
Thank you. Americanas' earnings conference is now closed. We'd like to thank everyone for joining, and have a great day. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.