Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Armac's conference call to discuss results regarding fourth quarter 2025. This video conference is being recorded, and the replay can be accessed on the company's website, ri.armac.com.br. The presentation is also available for download on the platform. We would like to inform that the participants attending the conference call will be in listen-only mode during the presentation. We will then open the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. We would like to inform you that the presentation is being recorded and translated simultaneously. The translation is available by clicking on the Interpretation button. For those listening to the video conference in English, there's an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on Mute Original Audio.
Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Armac's management and current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks, uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors, analysts, and journalists must understand that events related to the macroeconomic environment, industry, and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements. Joining us today are Mr. Fernando Aragão, CEO of Armac, and Marcos Pinheiro, CFO and Investor Relations Officer. Now, I would like to give the floor to Mr. Fernando Aragão, Armac's CEO. Please, Mr. Aragão, you may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for attending our conference call to discuss the results of 2025.
2025 was a very important year for the history of our company. We are facing a very hostile environment, high interest rates, and for all the companies that make investments is a very challenging scenario. With all the work that we've done this year, we ended 2025 with the company positioned not only to face the challenging cycle for a number of companies, but also to take advantage of it by growing and consolidating in the market when it's more profitable, when the companies of our sector have no capital. This is a very challenging mission. Our team has been working hard to deliver those results. The journey that started in 2024 and went all the way through 2025 in order to position the company for this position and return the growth in a more smart way with quality went through three important pillars.
The first was adaptation in the way the decisions are made at Armac, especially those affecting the clients. It's a management model that evolved to be more autonomous for those who are close to the client, so that the decision-making process can be more similar to a small company. It's a long work, but we ended 2025 with a level of maturity, very satisfying. The second one was a full review of our commercial aspect, so that we ended 2025 with relationships and operations where we can generate value to the shareholders and to the clients. The other relationships where we do not have this mutual positive relationship were left behind, so as to say. Important lessons were learned along the process, making the company ever stronger for the future.
The third major pillar was to build liquidity to our assets to have a net balance. That had to be driven by the entrepreneurial spirit of the company. In a very fast way, we created a new network of some new assets with thousands of relationships that were established for the people who are looking for those products. We ended 2025 looking at our balance sheet with a high level of liquidity, where we can use our assets to recycle capital and restart a new growth cycle. This work has already led to important results. We see that EBITDA margin is back to the levels of 50%, which is something that we went after when the company was still small. That is the same as to say that we are an addition of small companies.
We are back to that margin level, and cash generation was also very strong. That made us very confident to start in growth as of the second half of last year in quality, in a very responsible manner. This is something that has already materialized. We are consolidating our business units, where the unit leaders are those responsible for the origination of opportunities, and also in relation to integration, where we developed a very proper playbook. We also started to generate growth. We have to have the recommendation by clients to other clients. 2026 promises to be a very good year for the company. We are going to see the results that we started with initiatives in 2025. We are going to have a robust cash generation in addition to rent cash generation.
Used car sales will also be very relevant and. The cash will be lower than what we saw in the previous year. The 2026 is positioned to generate good cash, and the cash will be used to pay the shareholders using the exemption of income tax and also deleveraging and also growing. The growth initiatives that we have seen use less of our own capital than the previous cycle, and this is likely to improve the returns in the years to come. In summary, it was a great year. We end the year very happy, very proud of everything that everybody has done. I'm very proud of the team that we built. It's a high-performance, diverse team that really embraced the idea of being the owner of a small company and hold the responsibility to the decisions.
I would like to thank everyone who worked with us along 2025, and I wish that 2026 can be even better. With that, I turn the floor to Marcos so that he can discuss the results.
Thank you, Fernando. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in Armac earnings conference call for the fourth quarter of 2025. We ended 2025 in a substantially better position than when we started the year. We did what we set out to do. We reviewed our customer portfolio, improved our margins, generated record cash flow, and still managed to invest in fleet renewal and growth with three acquisitions during the year. In the next slides, I will go through the main figures, the main outlines, and then we will open up for question. We will discuss the highlights for the fourth quarter.
Gross revenue was BRL 541 million in the quarter, a growth of 4.4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Rental revenue was BRL 420 million. Yes, a 5% decrease compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, reflecting the termination of contracts with returns lower than the cost of capital throughout the year. That's exactly the point we'd like to stress. We are waiving over BRL 200 million in annual revenue in favor of greater profitability and larger cash generation. Sales of pre-owned assets totaled BRL 111 million in the quarter, more than the double of the fourth quarter of 2024, representing a growth of 141%. Today, our network of used car dealerships already has 18 locations and is, without a doubt, the largest network in Brazil.
The operating management cash flow was BRL 160 million in the quarter and more than BRL 950 million in the year. Moving on to the next slide about fleet and CapEx. Our rental fleet ended the quarter with over 2,500 pieces of equipment. Here, I always like to emphasize that we operate a multi-brand and multidisciplinary fleet, which reduces our risks and ensures good liquidity for these assets. In the quarter, we carried out BRL 344 million in CapEx, with BRL 192 million allocated to expansion CapEx, BRL 90 million for fleet renewal, and BRL 45 million in maintenance CapEx. Moving on to revenues. We ended the year with over BRL 2 billion in revenue, a 5% increase compared to 2024. The highlight here is the strong expansion of assets sales revenue, over 140%.
Regarding the mix of our rental income, long-term contracts accounted for more than 76% of our rental income revenue. As to EBITDA, in the fourth quarter, we had rental EBITDA of BRL 188 million with a margin of 49.5%, an increase of 5 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 and very close to our perception of where the margin should be in a sustainable way. As a reminder, around 50%. Moving on to the next slide, we will discuss our ROIC. The annualized adjusted ROIC in the fourth quarter of 2025 reached 17.22%, an increase of 4.1 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. The ROIC spread of the period was 6.5 percentage points.
Moving on to the next slide, we will discuss our operational and managerial cash flow. This slide presents the reconciliation of our operational management cash flow based on the EBITDA and excluding the non-cash effects of the cost of write-offs of assets sold. We generated an EBITDA of BRL 289 million in the fourth quarter and more than BRL 980 million a year. Throughout the year, we invested BRL 402 million in fleet renewal and structure and infrastructure project. After the accounting of the cash effect of our financial results, Armac generated BRL 393 million in free cash flow for the equity this year. Of this amount, we are allocating BRL 282 million for expansion CapEx, BRL 23 million for M&As, and BRL 30 million for dividend and interest on equity payments.
At the end of the period, Armac's net debt was reduced by BRL 56 million. In the next slide, we will discuss our indebtedness. We ended the year with BRL 1.4 billion in net debt. Leverage, measured as net debt over EBITDA, was 2.36x, a decrease of 0.13x compared to the third quarter of 2025. Our cash balance of BRL 1.1 billion covers amortization up to the fourth quarter of 2029. As a reference, the average cost of our debt is CDI plus 1.1%, with an average term of almost five years. Before moving on to the next question session, I would like to make our vision for 2026 clear. First, we will invest only where our incremental returns exceed our capital cost. We will preserve profit margins and working capital.
We will integrate the acquired companies with discipline and humility. We will move forward with de-leveraging the company, converging towards a ratio close to 2.0x for expanded net debt to EBITDA. With this message, it's clear we are ready for the next successful growth cycle. Thank you, and we can open up for questions.
We are now going to open up the Q&A session. To ask a question please click in Raise Hand. Our first question comes from Mr. Mateus Santini with Bradesco BBI. You may proceed, sir.
Hello, good morning. Congratulations on the results. I have two questions on my side. First, I would like to understand a bit the variation in the account of suppliers. I can understand that it's a very favorable scenario for purchase conditions, but I would like to understand the one-off of BRL 40 million related to the cost write-off and also anticipated expenses by the demobilization of clients. These are my two questions. Thank you.
Mateus, good morning. Thank you for the questions. Let me start discussing the supplier, which is a very relevant topic, not only for the fourth quarter, but it will be very important for 2026. As you know, Armac has a very constructive posture in relation to our equipment suppliers.
Our scale is unbeatable, and we started to work in a very active way in the past year so that we could accommodate, well, or better say an alignment with those equipment suppliers in such a way that today we can make adjustments to the payment terms with many suppliers according to the cash flow generated by the operations and the agreement according to the equipment which is being acquired. In an objective way, we can see the results of the first phase of construction that we started in 2025, which is to use Armac's structure and its spread, its broad operation, so that we could work with those suppliers who have a very strong balance. In relation to your second question, the one-off write-off, this is what we refer to as cost of preparation of assets for agreements.
If we go back to what happened in 2025, you will see that we went through harsh moments where we had to terminate some operating agreements, so the company had about BRL 150 million-BRL 200 milllion annual in revenue with those agreements. These relate to some equipment that was prepared, and everything was recorded as anticipated expenses that would be in the line of other assets in the balance sheets. At the end of the year, we cleared all this out, considering those contracts that were discontinued, and they had a formal termination that were accounted for still in 2025. The BRL 40 million effect that you saw, it relates to anticipated expenses, that if the agreement had not been anticipated, the termination, it would have been recorded differently.
Okay. That's very clear. Thank you. Have a good day.
Our next question comes from Mr. João Aragon with XP. You may proceed, sir.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. There are two topics I would like to approach related to margin. The first one is in relation to the rental margin. I think you managed to have a level which was very close to the third quarter, even with a seasonality factor. I think it was lower than the previous year. I would like to understand how you saw the rental margin from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, and how do you see this margin to behave for the future? Do you think there is any seasonality factor that could impact those results?
I would also like to understand what are the levels that you expect for 2026, considering that you are expecting a level of growth for the year. My second question is related to used cars, used equipment margins. You had the sales of assets which were non-core and that impacted the margin, as I understand. I would like to understand what can we expect in terms of non-core assets, what are your expectations, and what are the perspectives for the sales of used equipment for the future?
Okay, João, perfect. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I'm gonna talk about the rental margin first. In fact, we are very happy when we can see that the efforts made during the year allowed the company to deliver in its core business margins very close to the expectations that we have disclosed to the market. Considering the interest rate at 50% or so, the company is being able to generate the resources necessary for the growth. We understand the EBITDA margin has to run at about 50%, as we said. This 50% were come across as a result of a lot of effort. As we said in the beginning of the call, we reinvented our positioning with our clients.
We have a very proactive attitude by our operating officers who are working very close to our clients. There was also something that I mentioned in the release showing the revolution of our NPS.
The proximity of the clients, this agile management model, this drives a higher satisfaction, and then this is translated into this financial indicator, showing that the model is right. This is what we all see in the revenues. When we have a company that, where we have 76% of agreements that would generate a very high predictability of rentals of a company. Sometimes we see a high level of disallowance, and that affects the results. We are very happy to say that whenever there is something similar, we are going to use the same approach. I think there are two graphs that reinforces the message that the management wants to convey.
In relation to the seasonality, I think that what we have been doing and what we are going to continue doing is to be placing our bets on acquiring more clients, diversifying our sources of revenues. Along our history, we learned that it's great to have major clients, but we can have higher level of returns or higher levels of satisfaction with smaller clients, even though we love all of our clients. Diversifying our source of revenues is essential so that we can have higher control and lower the operating risk of the company. As the revenue becomes more diversified, the seasonality tends to be mitigated. We made acquisitions that would spread our operations in other areas of Brazil.
We, when we go to the Northeast region, have behaviors of rainfall which is the opposite in other parts of the country. As a result, this involves a lot of work. There is no silver bullet. What we expect for 2026 is what you saw in the previous quarter. We are going to continue the quality of our services, and we want to reach a level of return higher than our cost of capital, right? Your second question was related to used equipment margin. In the previous quarter, we sold no core equipment. In an objective way, we are mentioning some supporting vehicles that the company used to have, and half of the fleet was sold in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Part of it will be accounted for in the results in the first quarter of 2026. All of them have been sold, though. The objective is to allocate capital in the assets that we know how to manage and where we can generate returns to our shareholders. For sure is we are not talking about light equipment fleet. Looking down the road. In relation to our used equipment portfolio, we are very proud to say that we created the largest network of this kind of store in Brazil. We have 18 units. I think we are at the right side, and we are likely to end 2026. This is our plan, to end with 36 stores.
Considering the structure of the company, we have a strategic pillar that provides the flexibility for usage in a way that we can be very close to our assets, considering the age of our fleet, and once again, being very close to the demand that our entire Brazil has. The margin of the quarter was not only impacted by the sale of non-core assets, but we have to consider the fixed cost associated with the increase of this network of stores. At the end of the day, we are talking about seven new stores that incur some fixed costs naturally, but they need to have some expenses associated with the beginning of its activities, inaugurations, promotional trade fairs, participation in events. Fernando also mentions this to the team.
All the managers of those units are considered small owners of companies within our platform. The managers of those stores have the autonomy to go after the best clients and to develop the more local communication. The idea is that we should create the best of the two worlds. Flexibility on the one hand, and the benefit of being in a platform that has a high level of scale and has a very solid supporting area. I hope I answered your two question.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Marcos.
Our next question comes from Rogério Araújo with Bank of America. You may proceed, sir.
Good morning, Marcos and Fernando. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I have two questions on my side. First, as you mentioned, this gross margin of used equipment is affected by the mix, but there is the SG&A that is likely to increase. Should there be an increase in the depreciation of the vehicles so as to be aligned with the SG&A expenses? This is my first question, then I'll come back for my second question.
Thank you for the question, Rogério. The plan includes an expansion of our stores, of course. This is the message that we have been delivering in a very consistent manner along the 18 years. When we think about a store and we have our footprints across Brazil, we consider the markets whose demand would make the sales of used equipment about BRL 2.5 million or BRL 3 million a month.
It's a scenario that comes from BRL 800 million for the year until BRL 1.1 billion of sales a year. If I have this number of stores, 32 stores producing in 12 months, of course, there is the ramp-up period, and this is something I mentioned in previous calls. It's important to mention that when we open a new store, it takes at least six months for the store to reach its maturity. The manager, our entrepreneur, our partner, has to understand what's happening, how he can develop his client portfolio. There is a period of maturation, and according to our experience, it lasts about six months. You asked about how we're going to make the adjustment to depreciation. The depreciation is also reflects the recoverability of our assets.
If you remember in the fourth quarter of 2024, we made some adjustments of depreciation because of some parts. Talking about used equipment, we have observed that the value at which we sell the part of the fleet has been higher than the residual values. That makes us believe there is a level of comfort in relation to the depreciation along the way. We have 18 stores, and the beauty of it is that we are making our own FIPE table, our own list of prices. I have a clear perception of what would be the market value of that fleet, considering my size.
If I have to say, what's the expectation that we should have for the EBITDA margin for used equipment, the used assets margin should be between 3%-5% because the EBITDA of this business should be close to zero. The way we understand our strategy nowadays is to help the company to recycle its CapEx and have a fleet that is optimized according to its average age and it makes us handle different scenarios. If you remember in the beginning of the year of 2025, we are very concerned about leverage and the interest rates.
As this model was maturing and we saw the cash results, the company started to notice that maybe there is a better potential when we use the used assets as something strategic for the company and leverage its strengths with our clients and with our suppliers as well.
Thank you, Marcos. That was very clear. I understand.
This is Fernando speaking. Before you ask your second question, let me add to what Marcos said. At the accounting viewpoint, we are going to go about with the depreciation as we should, so that we can have a margin close to zero at the moment of sale. We're gonna discover this over time. We have just created this way of doing business.
We still do not have a list price, but we are beginning to create a volume now. The way we see it as managers, what really matters more than depreciation is the difference between the value I'm selling a used asset and what's the delta for reposition. We call it delta CapEx. How much money do I have to invest after I sold a used asset so that I can replace it with a new one? Of course, it depends on the model, the year of the equipment. The trend of this variable from the viewpoint of cash is the difference between what I sell and what I purchase. It shows us to have a very favorable trend considering the cycle we are experiencing now.
Regardless of what the accounting depreciation is gonna be, the message that I can disclose to my business partners is that we are purchasing very well and we are replacing old asset with new assets with a very small difference, if any. Sometimes there's not even any difference at all. This is what matter. The depreciation is in relation to the price we paid. Depending on the businesses that we close with different partners at the global level, we are replacing the fleet with very low investments. This is something that I would like to draw your attention to. From the viewpoint of cash, this is the variable that matters. If
I could ask a second question. It's just a confirmation of three points if you could provide more details about them. In relation to vehicles, you said it's a market of 70,000 machines where you have 3 points of shares. That would be 70% of the fleet of the company. If you divide one year by 70%, that would be average cycle of six years. Does this number make any sense to you? This is my first point. The second point is the IR positive of BRL 27 million. I see that there is a line of others and it's related to interest on equity and also depreciation and SG&A. It was just BRL 1 million, and in the previous one I saw it was BRL 9 million. What was the difference? What did happen and what can we expect for the future?
I'm gonna answer your first question in relation to the useful life of the machines. The beauty of what we have is that we are a company that can operate old machines as those that we have in the fleet. It's just a matter of finding the right client, the asset. We are also looking at the favorable moment so that we can use our fleet in the best way. We are not strictly bound by the numbers. We are talking to people who have bought machines since they were new. We are going to take the right moment so that we can use the best use of the fleet, you know. When this moment comes, you're gonna see this movement in a very accelerated way because we are replacing old assets with new assets without investing money.
If the market is not favorable and the moment is different, we are gonna leave the fleet to get old. Our business has more flexibility in the sense than the market of light assets. It makes sense what you said, but it's according to the circumstances. If circumstances changes, our decisions will also change.
Rogério, I'm gonna answer your second and third questions. Let's go to the second question. You asked about the effect of taxes. There was an important element to be considered in the fourth quarter, not only for interest on equity, but the third quarter, we also increased a lot our CapEx, and this increased the difference in the fiscal aspect that contributed with the reversal of the interest of the taxes.
I would have to understand what happened to those SG&A, and I'll talk to the team so that we can understand what really happened, and we can go into details in the depreciation account that you see in the SG&A. It's probably a breakdown between SG&A and COGS. I'm gonna apologize for that, but we are gonna get back to you in the future, okay?
Thank you, Marcos Pinheiro and Fernando Aragão.
Our next question comes from Gabriel Rezende with Itaú BBA. You may proceed, sir.
Hello. Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity to ask questions. I would like to go back to the issue about old used asset margin. I understood your point of not being so focused on depreciation. Considering the number of stores that is likely to be open in 2026 and the cost to ramp up those stores, I understand it would make sense to look at the used asset margin being very pressured. Is it fair to understand that this margin will be maintained for 2026?
Just for us to understand there and to refine the way we're doing the modeling and so that we can understand the dynamics of depreciation and the sales of used assets. I think it was Marcos that mentioned the sales of assets, especially the sales of light assets and focus on assets where the company is more competitive. How can we see the limited exposure to light assets? How would that affect the productivity and some result of the company? The high level of competitiveness of the sector.
Gabriel, thank you for the question. Well, in fact, when you're building something from scratch, numbers take longer to reach maturity, and sometimes you have to accept the investment and be patient so that results can be generated. When we talk that we are going to provide liquidity to the assets, it's something transformational. It's something that we really believe, and we know it's gonna generate results in the long run, along decades for the future. We want to invest as little as possible in the process. But as an entrepreneur, I can say that I have a high level of tolerance to have this margin after all the operating costs to be negative for a time.
The sales growth will never be negative. I believe that depreciation should reflect the recoverability of the assets. This is what I believe. The business margin of the used assets, which we do not consider to be an internal KPI, which is relevant, is gonna be slightly negative while the stores are being ramped up with the new campaigns, with the new actions for the inaugurations. We have to have this level of tolerance for the next one or two years. On the other hand, we are gonna build something really special. Gabriel, in relation to your second question about light assets. Light fleet is something for us to provide support, so we are talking about 8-20. You know, these are the equipment where the staff use to serve our clients.
In 2025, we wanted to be more efficient, and then we thought to ourselves, "It's better to have the asset," or, "Is it better for me to lease the asset?" We bought the idea of our own thesis. These are non-core assets, so our capital are allocated in assets that would generate results. The supporting equipment, so as to say, was provided us with the best-in-class suppliers. This is something that we wanted to make clear. What we did is to use our resources better. I removed an asset that would generate depreciations, and I invested in assets that would generate revenues to the company. I think this is it.
Thank you, Marcos. Thank you, Fernando Aragão.
Our next question comes from Lucas [Melloni] with Banco Safra. You may proceed, sir.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. The 50% growth in relation to the third quarter and the assets for sale, was it related to the ramp up of the stores or the sales of non-core assets? For 2026 and the opening of stores, should it be considered as something structural down the road? Another question, what can we expect of M&A for the year? What you have in the pipeline? These are the questions I have. Thank you.
I'm gonna start answering. First of all, good morning. Thank you for the questions. Here we go. The growth of 150% is related to the sales, to the ramp up of the stores. Yes, you can make the reverse calculation so that you can understand what would be the inventory of a store.
A store should have the capacity to sell something close to BRL 3 million per month when it reaches maturity. Considering it will have an inventory of assets available for sale. If I have more stores, I will have more inventories for sale. In terms of your structural related question, the structure of the stores has a structure, is strategic in our business model. When we learned that and when we had been more confident by operating this kind of business, we understand that this is a very different way of doing business than our core. We gaining confidence knowing that it's very important to have this in our business model.
We have been making investment, as Fernando mentioned, and I expect that this will last for some time, at least one year and a half more of growth in our geographical structure in terms of, number of stores, considering different demands. We are looking at this in a very scientific way. I'm gonna turn to Fernando so that he can discuss the topic of M&A, and I hope I have answered your question.
In terms of M&A, all business units have a large opportunity to consolidate their markets. We are talking about fragmented market. Many of the entrepreneurs that we know operating in the market have been in our relationship for many years, and they have different prospects, the different desires for the future, and they can come to us and discuss partners that look for us in order to grow. Some of them look for establishing their legacy. Some want to accelerate their fleet and such as the case of Teran. We are perfecting this model. This has been a very important year for us. In 2026, we have already closed the deal with one Braslift and another in the Northeast, and one operates with forklift, which is becoming ever more relevant in our portfolio.
We have already completed two M&As, and we are ready for more because they bring in an integrated way of working. The governance of the relationship is well established, so the company is now ready for new transactions and all the business units have opportunities. We are going to be very selective in searching for good assets and good relationship with the clients that has a team that can manage the company with a lot of authority, provided they follow our business model. We see that this is a great opportunity. There is likely to happen other transactions as well because we are talking about a gain-gain situation, regardless of what the partner is searching for, be that a legacy or increasing scale. We see those opportunities.
Okay. Thank you. That was very clear.
Thank you for the questions.
The Q&A session has come to an end. I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Fernando Aragão for his final remarks.
Perfect. Thank you everyone for taking part in this call. Thank you very much for the confidence you have put on us. We have expectation that 2026 will be even better, and count on us for further information. Marcos and team are all available and at your disposal.
Armac conference has come to an end, and we would like to thank everybody's participation and have a good day.