Translation. We have the tool available on the platform. In order to access it, you should click on the button Interpretation on the bottom part of your screen and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the conference in English, you can mute the original audio in clicking on Mute Original Audio. This video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the IR website, where the whole material will be available. Also, it's possible to download the presentation in the chat icon, including in English. During the presentation, all participants will be in mute-only mode. Following, we will start the Q&A session. To make a question, click on the Q&A and then wait on the queue to be announced.
Once announced, a request to open your microphone will appear on your screen. You should do so in order to ask your questions. All questions should be made at once. We highlight that the information in this presentation and eventual declarations that can be made related to perspective, business perspectives, projections, and operational targets of Americanas, they are made on beliefs and assumptions of the companies as well as available information. Future considerations are not guaranteed of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They refer to future events that depend to happen or not. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions and other operational factors could affect the performance of Americanas in the future and consider the results differ from those in the future consideration.
Today, we count on execs of the company, Fernando Soares, CEO, Sébastien Durchon, CFO, and Investor Relations Director Thiago Bacci, and Vice President of Consumer and Growth. I will give the floor now to the CEO of Americanas.
Welcome, everyone, and thank you for your presence here today. I would like to start the call welcoming and our members, store members and clients, distribution centers and office teams. Besides that, the suppliers and partners. The combination of this group of people has been fundamental for our comeback and transformation of Americanas. We are really pleased with the results that we're gonna show today in the first quarter.
One more work quarter of constant evolution in all the indicators of the company that reflect our discipline and better efficiency and execution of strategic plan that is very clear that was announced last October. Moving on to the next slide. To go through the agenda, we will talk about the results. I will share this with the CFO and the investor of Investor Relations. We will talk about our strategy for 2026, 2029. As I mentioned, a good beginning. I would like to highlight the growth of gross revenue in 17.8%, the same-store sales in 22.2%, and right below in the slide we have an adjust in the calendar so that it's a little bit more comparable to the Easter. Still with this, the figures look very relevant.
The growth is 7.8% versus the four months of last year. In this vision, we are adding month April to January to April, including Easter, it was in 2005. We have an expressive growth for square meters of 11.2. It's an important number that reflects not only our growth strategy, but also to be more efficient in the square meters of our stores and a highlight of a digital strategy. We launched the new digital in the stores, these figures came very strong with a 50% growth, what we call O2O, which is ship to store or pick up at the store. On the right, you will see a significant reduction of expenses of 4.3 percentage points, an adjusted EBITDA of 15.
Remembering that last year we had an operational growth of almost BRL 1 billion, so we keep on this way. Also highlighting our service in our customer client with BRL 1 billion and also growth in the insurance in 9%. A quarter very complete that reflects the discipline and delivering the plan that was agreed on October. I will move on to Durchon and Thiago so that they can comment on the figures.
Thank you very much and good morning, everyone. Next slide. We see sales. As it was mentioned, it was a quarter that was a very robust growth. Where we have BRL 3 billion in sales.
Gross margin have even better trend, was up 23.5% with a guarantee of a rate of even higher. The Easter was earlier than last year, and therefore it was favored as we had a 40% of the sales in the first quarter. We bring also here a comparison on the first quarters of the year. In this comparison, we also had a very robust growth with the same-store sales 7.8%. Same store represents almost 2 times the inflation of the period. The greater growth as many retails had a growth of, say, a negative same-store sales in the first quarter of the year.
As it was highlighted by Fernando in the opening slide, if we analyze the evolution of our sales 4 square meters, we had a growth even bigger of 11%. This is due to all the optimization work in the sales teams that we did in the last years, we highlighted this work will keep going from now on. Now going to slide five, I want to highlight one of our special features. In this first, we were able once more to establish a new record of sales in the Easter with BRL 1.1 billion in sales, a growth of 10% compared to 2025. Highlight especially to 74% of O2O in this period of Easter, showing the potential of this new ecosystem that we are building around our physical stores.
Still in the first quarter, we had our event to school, coming back to school year with a growth of 8%. These two events accelerated our sales trend. We have more events moving on. We will have Black Friday and Christmas. From there on, we'll have the World Cup, Junina party, our Chocolate show. We have their anniversary and also Planet Kids and Halloween. In summary, we will have one great event per month that will make a great opportunity to surprise our clients. Now I'll give the word to Thiago so that he can talk about our brilliant first quarter.
Good morning. Thank you, Durchon. I believe that this slide, it is important how we are building our value in the long term. It was an architecture of our business.
That is, as we said other times, the channels don't compete with each other, they simplify. The client can buy in the store, at the site, in the app, or in the marketplace that are partners and receive at home or at the store. This is what we call O2O, Online- to-O ffline, and we have a great potential to be explored. The figures say that. We see here in the O2O in the, in the middle graph, had an expressive growth from 94 to 146, a growth of 56%, going from 3.3% to 4.4% in the same period. Being that in Easter, as Durchon had already mentioned, it almost reached 10%. We are connecting the physical Brazil to the digital Brazil, using our store as a logistic infrastructure.
On the right on the side, we see that the financial service revenue also grew 29% in the first quarter. The card Cliente A had over 330 clients in the cards in the first quarter. We grew 9%, achieving a record number in products. What we're building is we're monetizing this relationship with the client with revenues that don't depend on discount and have a greater margin, creating a more sustainable EBITDA. I'll give the word back to Durchon.
Thank you, Thiago. Let's move on to slide number seven to talk about EBITDA and SG&A. In the same line, the first quarter was marked by an improvement in our operation efficiency. Our expenses, SG&A, went up 3.9%, below the inflation in the same period.
It's important to highlight, due to the Easter calendar, we had more costs with wages in this first quarter than in the last quarter. Our expenses, SG&A, went 4.3 percentage points year-to-year. With this robust growth in the sales and the improvement of our margin and the control of our expenses, we had a relevant EBITDA adjustment. We had reverted the loss going to a profit of BRL 15 and then excluding IFRS 16, we reduced in 56 points this loss. We, in this register last year, the operational efficiency was even better with a positive contribution of BRL 150 million to the EBITDA of the company. Our net results had BRL 111 million efficiency. This improvement is even better, BRL 176 million.
Moving on to slide eight, I brought an update about Hortifruti Natural da Terra in our operations that are discontinued. I would like to highlight the two important facts. In the 1st place, we did not start the second quarter last year with a turnaround of Hortifruti. With less than one intensive semesters, the first quarter 2026 already showed great improvements. Sales were up 4%, while most of the retail, food retail saw fall in sales. We are coming back gradually, showing the result that Hortifruti had in the past was up 4% in the first quarter with the sales of fruits and vegetables categories that have a better margin. We also having a growth in efficiency. This is relevant.
It had a cash generation in a small period, but positive of BRL 6 million. The second point I'd like to highlight that we signed yesterday, sale of 10 of 13 of Natural da Terra stores that we have in São Paulo. All the stores we sold were in deficit, and this eliminates the gain of cash that we had. In São Paulo, we have the total price was BRL 69 million, which will be abated in our debentures. Now in slide nine, we'll talk about our capital structure. We have up to BRL 1.1 billion. The mostly composed by interest. Our net debt was BRL 347 million. Adding the liabilities that we've been paying since 2024, our net debt BRL 756 million.
We still don't have the sales of the stores that I just mentioned, and also transaction that happened in the second quarter that probably will happen in the second quarter of this year. Once having these two, our net debt at the end of March would be 29% less and would reduce to BRL 536 million. In slide 10, we show the cash flow of the 12 last months, focusing on generating cash in the operation. We can see in the graph that we reduced in a significant way the consumption of cash in the operation to only BRL 40-45 million in this period of 12 months. It was a gain of efficiency, very expressive in the working capital of the company. We spent over BRL 20 million in investments.
We closed last year an agreement to reduce this negative impact in the cash of the company. In summary, a variation of BRL 356 million in our cash positioning. It has been exclusively from the investment and these extraordinary transactions. Now moving on to slide 12. Here, I will remind you that we had an upfront exit of a judicial recovery only after three years when the company started the process. Giving visibility to this process, we had to advance in this period. The public attorney office was in favor, and then we had a request to leave judicial recovery, and then we manifested a favorable from the judicial administrator. Fernando will talk about the strategic advancements of this, the next semester.
Now talking about strategy, I brought once more the slide that was presented in our October call, these are exactly the same fronts, the same slide. I would like to remember that we have two pillars, the performance one to the continuity of these figures that were just presented, the transformation pillar, where we start to rethink our company, its role, and what will be delivered from 2026, 2029, the moment that we will celebrate our hundred-year anniversary. Which one of this area has a commitment with this plan and operations of supply very important of operational excellence. Much more highlighted to performance, where we deal with logistic cost, occupation, productivity, we also think about the future of our stores.
In the commercial block, we talk about, you know, assortment, margin, category vision, journey vision, cross-sales, partnerships, and exclusive items. In the performance block, we talk about commercial has been delivering as the results have been seen, extreme growth. We also have a group of work talking about the assortment of the futures. For example, our operations in stores that are with Epic with the testing where we can go in terms of assortment. In the consumer growth, represented by Thiago, we look more to the right in the line of transformation digital. We see express of results since in the year 2026 is the new digital financial service, our loyalty program, Cliente A, and a specific customer vision.
We also launched Americanas Ads that helps contributes to our future growth and talks the sales with our store, so store pools and our consumers. Today, we like to highlight the three first. The next slide, I will talk about operations, commercial, and then I will give the word to Bacci to talk about consumer growth. I'd like to highlight we have an important gain of productivity of our members. In store, we're talking about almost 10% of improvement using the reference of the first month of 2025. In the first months, the first month of 2025, we have a reduction of turnover of operations in the store so that the teams improve the service they provide.
We had a re-reduction in 1.3 percentage points in the cost of logistic and an expressive decrease of expenses of 4.3 percentage points. We also have NPS in our checkout store. The best way for us to measure the service in the time that is happening, this number has a consistent base of our reading was over 88 point. We are very pleased to start this initiative to measure our service in the stores. The cost of rent had also important figure with a number below inflation coming the first 12 months.
In the commercial, I like to highlight the strength of this number, the same-store sales of growth, because it already puts Easter in the right period, 7.8% increase, digital going up 50%, sales per square meters 11.2% growth, a record Easter sales with 22.6% growth. It was very important for us and crowned the beginning of the year for us, having shared what we call operational excellence and commercial results. Now I'll give the floor to Thiago so that he can talk about what's been happening with financial services and digital.
Thank you, Fernando. I believe that this slide also summarizes our thesis here for the next years. We are building a platform where the physical stores and the site and the app will create an integrated ecosystem where each interaction generates data, and each data improves the next offer. Integrating these assets, we are creating a vicious cycles of business. Let's talk about where we have our channels: store, app, site. 90 million of monthly visits, besides generating sales, also feeds our intelligence engine, and we are able to serve these identified clients. This allow to give personalized offers, engage more the clients in different channels. This is tangible through growth in sales in the digital and also in the physical stores. Looking below those clients that are closer, we can monetize this traffic through cross-selling and financial service sales.
At the same time that we extend the purchasing power of the client so that they can consume here, providing them credit. This is so tangible, increasing our conversion of insurance sales and cards, also launching our credit service in our store. In the end of the business cycle, this is where we see the program Cliente A, where we have almost 1 million clients belonging to it, where we provide cashback, discounts, and exclusive benefits, making that the participants spend 3.5 times more than those that are not participants. This increases that these clients come back to our channels. It one feeds the other. In summary, what we are building here is a consumption platform with multiple layers of monetizing for the client. Fernando?
Thank you, Bacci. Before going to the Q&A, I would like to say once more that we are very proud of the growth. It's a growth in our quarter, including Easter. This growth that is better from the last quarter. In our understanding, we have consistent growth of our results in the rebuilding this company, combining operational growth, better efficiency, and a lot of financial discipline. At the same time, it's worth reinforcing that we are totally aware that the consumption environment is very challenging, and the speed to execute this plan is very critical so that we can say that it's a complete recovery of our company. With that, we can go to the Q&A, and then we'll do a final closing later.
Our first question was sent by [Nicole Junior], investor. He says, "Once more, I congratulate the team for the growth every quarter. Related to the relation to the investors saying that the results have a better organization of other retailers, the judicial recovery is still pending. It still shows that the company needs more support. What's the experience with the consumer?"
About, you know, coming closer to analysts, we are available. We are here to inform analysts, in this time there are no analysts making covering this role. This is in the radar. We are working to have to come back to a normal situation also in this part. We are not providing guidance. There are no forecasts to provide any guidance in the future.
Our second question is from the investor Michael. He says, "Although the improvement, the company still has some loss month after month. In this scenario, it's not realistic that the judge will approve the judicial recovery. Should we wait longer until the company becomes operational viable?"
Fernando highlighted in the opening we have to look at the whole journey. You're right in looking. So we'll look. The EBITDA is still negative, you're totally right, but this EBITDA has been improving in a great way. It was almost BRL 1 billion last year, but we are still in this journey of continuous improvement and relatively quick. It's an important point.
The second comment about this topic is that we cannot forget that this second quarter in this year with this partial support from the Easter is usually a weak one, this first quarter with January and vacation in February. They're not strong sales. If you look back at other first quarters, it is a more difficult one in terms of results. With the great events that are coming, they are come more in the end of the year. The incidence of having the results of this quarter over the judicial recovery, it has no, you know, they look at the whole journey, and the public attorney's office has already analyzed. They issued a favorable decision.
We think that this improvement, it has already been proved, will continue going on.
We have one more question. It's from [Angelo Campos], investor. He says, "Thank you. Congratulations to the results." Speaking of that, this gross of BRL 2 billion, what would be for the net one?
I don't know if I understood the question really well. Let's do this math together. We had the gross debt that we have is debentures. When our debt is reconfigured in 2024, there was a debenture of BRL 1.8 billion, plus the interest in the end of March was almost BRL 2.1 billion. From this debt to talk about the net debt, we have to remove all the available cash position in the end of March.
This brings the debt, to give you an exact number, is in the slide 10. In slide nine, it's a net debt of BRL 356 million. Besides that, we put in the net debt of the company, the remaining debt of the judicial recovery. In 2024, we paid almost all the suppliers from the companies, but there were installed, there were some debts that were in installments that we're still paying every month since March 2024. In the end of March this year, there were still BRL 400 million. We put this in our net debt of the company. That's why in slide nine, I don't know, we set BRL 750 million net debt. There is a point that was not in the first quarter.
There are non-events in the first quarter, the sales of the stores that we signed yesterday, the sales of that it will close in the second quarter this year. The price of sales of these two transactions will be abated in the debentures. Our net debt will reduce BRL 200 million. This calculation, yes, there is a gross debt of debentures, BRL 2.1 billion. If you take cash position, all the liabilities of judicial recovery and then all the sales that we have done recently, we have BRL 550 million net debt around that.
We have one more question. It's from [Murilo Duaci]. He says, "Congratulations for the company on the excellent results and the great recovery." Now the question. Look at other players. We see that many work with marketplace in the digital as the main strategies. In the past, Americanas also did a lot of that with marketplace. For the next five years, Americanas is resuming this, the, and looking for, you know, better positioning.
[Murilo], thank you for your question. In fact, I think the first point, we did not deactivate marketplace. We talk about O2O because this is where we position our focus. First, because it's complementary to the stores, and also because the margin is three times higher than the marketplace. We did not deactivate it, we just put more focus on O2O. Now talking about the marketplace, we still have marketplace with two main focus.
We have, you know, we don't have more this, we have a lot of difficult operational efficiency, you know, 300, 400 thousand sellers as other people do. It's not our strategy. In marketplace, our strategy is to have few but big players that have own logistic, that have a service area, customer service, and a high NPS. Also that complement the assortment that we have in the store. Because we also did not make this comment, but a great part of the store, around 5% is the sales. It's 5% of what we sell 5% that we sell in the site.
It's what we call infinite shelf, where the client goes to the store, they don't find an item there, like a phone, but they find in the site, especially of these robust sales that we have. We focus on the robustness, the size, the complement of our assortment in the store, and a positive margin. In the next five years, it's difficult to say now, but we're not gonna come back with a long- term, you know, 300, 400 sellers type of marketplace, not to have this operational and logistic complication.
The next question is from [Paulo Schmaltz]. He says, "Congratulations on the results in the first quarter. I would like to understand what is the process of sales of remaining sales of the other Natural da Terra stores and the generation of value.
About the sales of the remaining stores, you understand that our strategy was to solve first to deal with the São Paulo stores. In the transaction, we sold 10 of the 13 stores that we have Natural da Terra in São Paulo. The 10 stores are deficit stores that were working with in the Hortifruti segment. We get rid of these stores with the transaction. We have three stores that are that we are now in advanced talks to sell these stores. I cannot for natural reasons say anything here, we are working hard to sell these three remaining stores.
On the other hand, we have now Hortifruti concentrated in here in Rio de Janeiro with, I talked about the turnaround that is better. We have an expectation to improve the results. We also in talks, whoever is interested, whoever wants to buy Hortifruti now concentrate, can concentrate on doing so now.
The Q&A session is now over. I'll give the closing remarks to the executives of the company.
We've ended this call. I'd like to once again reinforce with all of you our commitment to keep on working with a lot of intensity and a lot of sense of urgency. I think it makes sense once more to thank our members, employees, suppliers, partners for the trust and for the support that they have been providing us. Now we are a lean Americanas, more disciplined, more focused on data, digitally integrated, and much more closer to the client. As the client has a lot of people, I'd like to invite you to go to our stores, live this new experience, criticize if it's the same using the NPS. We are here working very hard in order to follow this on this journey of consistent results and positive results that we have been able to, as we shared today. Thank you so much.
The Americanas S.A. conference call is now over. Have a great day.