Good morning everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to our earnings call for the third quarter of 2022 at Assaí Atacadista. Whoever needs simultaneous translation, we have this available tool on our platform. For this, you can just select the interpretation button through the globe icon on the bottom part of your screen and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. We'd like to let you know that this video conference is being recorded and will be provided on the IR website at the IR dot Assaí.com.br website, where you can already find the earnings release. During this presentation, all of the participants will have their mics off. Soon after, we will begin the Q&A session. To submit a question, please select the Q&A icon at the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and language to enter the queue.
As you are announced, a request to activate your mic will appear on the screen. Soon after, you should activate your mic to be able to submit a question. We'd like to instruct you that all questions should be submitted at once. We'd like to also mention that the information in this presentation and possible future statements that could be made during this earnings call related to business perspectives, forecasts and operational targets and financial targets of Assaí are all part of assumptions and premises of the company's management as well as based on information that is currently available. Future statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they are related to future events and thus depend on circumstances that could or not occur.
Investors must understand that general market conditions and other factors operationally may affect the future performance of Assaí and lead to results that differ materially from those that were considered in the initial future statements. Now I'll pass the floor to Gabrielle Helú, and she's the Director for Investor Relations at Assaí.
Hello, good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in our earnings call for the third quarter of 2022. I'd like to present those participating today. We have Belmiro Gomes, our CEO, Daniela Sabbag Papa, our CFO, and Wlamir dos Anjos, our Logistics and Commercial VP. Before we begin the presentation, I'll pass the floor to Belmiro for his initial remarks. Belmiro?
Thank you, Gabby. Good morning, everyone, ladies and gentlemen. We'd also like to thank you for participating during this earnings call for the third quarter of 2022. I would like to start mentioning that in the earnings call we're gonna focus on the company. Since it is not aware of these things yet, we will not mention any possible actions or possible news or gossip about shareholders of the company. Our focus here is to talk about the third quarter, which is a very important moment for the company with the opening of the Extra stores and the expectations that we have in the fourth quarter. The third quarter, as you've probably seen in the re-release, is very strong.
That's an important characteristic which is keeping up constant performance regardless of the economic moments, external factors such as deflation and even at a moment where we are performing the biggest project the company ever had, which is the conversion of the Extra hypermarkets that were inaugurated in the third quarter, which really sets this opening. Before I start talking about the numbers, I just wanted to thank everyone and our team. At the end of the day, we reached 70,000 employees in the third quarter. We're very proud of us generating 18,000 new jobs. Probably Assaí will be one of the companies that is going to most have generated job positions within Brazil.
Everything that's being done is a merit of the efforts, work, dedication and work from everyone in the areas, processes and departments with the conversion of the stores, the construction work, and everyone's really dedicated to this with a lot of determination. Thank you so much for your work. In the third quarter, of course, as we are in this project, as you all know, it's a huge project, one of the biggest in the food sector in Brazil, which is the conversion of the hypermarket stores into the Assaí brand. The third quarter sets the scene for the reopening of the stores. The third quarter, more towards the end between August and September, we reopened 14 new units and within October, another 6.
Now, at 7:00 A.M., our VP Anderson Castilho inaugurated one more store, which is our 20th new opening. The processes for reopening these stores and the evolution of the construction and conversions necessary really made us increase our guidance and targets for units opened this year. We will now have as a target 45 conversions in our store network from Extra that are gonna be reinaugurated now in 2022 and added up to another 13 organic stores that are gonna be delivered in the year of 2022. Most is already inaugurated, and we'll have a growth of about 58 new stores in the Assaí store network.
Within the construction work done in many different states, we would also like to highlight that we saw these 20 stores being inaugurated, but we would like to highlight that we have 50 construction sites simultaneously going on. That represents almost 14,000 people working with civil construction, manufacturing, assembling of equipment. Plus another 3,000 employees from Assaí, the workforce training, supplying these new stores, and finally opening them. There is an important effort which generates jobs, but also the amount of resources invested contributes positively to the country's economy. The results, although we're still in the beginning of the opening process, are extremely exciting because they confirm the assumptions and what we had considered when we decided to perform the offer to buy these units from GPA.
When we take a look at them, the strength of the Assaí brand, the value proposition we have, the low-cost model has really made our performance as planned be very exciting. Just to give you an idea from about 239 stores that Assaí has from the 10 main ones, six have already been part of this new store network that were opened recently. Which confirms the expectations that considering the location of these stores, strong density and presence, not only of the end consumer but also a very big amount of commerce in the surrounding regions. We'd had really a good precision in our expectations for sales of these units, and that they would also reach strong and quick maturity in customer flows.
Moving on to sales, as you saw in the release, and then the gross profit is something that our VP will get into more details about. Even in the third quarter, with a scenario of a deflation in some categories of products, we all saw that the level of debt for Brazilian customers reaching a record in the third quarter. The months of August and September impacted commerce overall. To offset these effects, we were able to have a strong growth rate. The combination of performance and same-store sales at a level of about 9%, plus the strength of the new units, and that's where I'm talking about the 44 stores that were opened in the past 12 months. Most of these stores still have a big amount of organic stores still.
This all allowed the company to keep a real high level of growth, overcoming the level of 30% growth, 20% coming from expansion and 9% from our same store park network. With this, the network of stores open already leads to an annualized sales volume of BRL 65 billion. Which keeps up with our guidance of reaching over BRL 100 billion of revenue in 2024. Considering this amount of stores that are underway and the pre-operational employees we had to hire to work for the first time, in our history, we separated the numbers, so you can have a better vision, especially when it comes to expenses for the EBITDA effects as well.
We consider the pre-operational costs, and this is something Danny will highlight more, which is really the pre-opening costs we have that are mostly related to personnel before the store openings. People that are already hired at this moment to take on the management of the stores that are gonna be opening in the next months. In November, we're gonna be opening 18 new units. This entire team is already under training in other units for quite a while, and so that they can really perform the store openings and move on in the company. This segregation really demonstrates in our vision that there's strong stability with a high, you know, level of the company's expenses. This is the first time we're separating these numbers.
It also demonstrates that the changes in our business model, especially for the stores that are in locations that are a little more privileged, closer to higher income populations where we had the addition of many different services. None of this has impacted the SG&A levels or expenses of the company. The main value proposition, which is low costs and expenses, which leads to an improvement of the purchase experience, searching for ways to work with a broader scope of clients. Of course, the numbers in the third quarter in our vision reinforce this. I also wanna highlight that with all of this we're overcoming the milestone of BRL 1 billion in EBITDA in the quarter, 1.1 when we exclude pre-op expenses.
It's also higher than BRL 1 billion, even when you consider the expenses that we have now pre-operationally. The cash generation is something that Danny will highlight a little more, but I think that's an important message here at the moment, considering all the investments performed for the Extra stores and the commercial points with construction work and equipment. We've been highlighting this. We're really at the moment we expected for leverage. We have very strong cash generation increasing over BRL 1 billion in the last year, going over the milestone of 3.2, which is an important cash generation coming from our working capital and our business model. Of course, that sustains all of the company's plans, which supported the decision to acquire the Extra point and also have an important leverage level.
This, since most of the investments are in the new units, they have leverage process as a beginning, middle, and end. As we start the strong cycle for the inaugurations, you start having the cash generation and also the working capital, which is something that Wlamir will highlight a little more. Considering the locations of these units, they also lead to an improvement in the working capital of the company. Even with these high levels of leverage and financial expenses, the net income of the company is still over 2%, BRL 281 million. It's not very comparable with the third quarter of last year. We had a series of different recognitions for credit that we had to separate.
If we just consider the pre-operational expenses, we would have a net income of about BRL 318 million, which would be a lot more normalized. Of course, this leverage is pressuring this due to the high interest rates we've seen when it comes to deflation and also when it comes to inflationary trends. There's an expectation, just as the whole market has, that by 2023 we'll have interest rates levels that are little less aggressive. When you add this up to the cash generation capacity of the company, will really help with the pressure on results and quick deleveraging of the company. With this, I would like to pass the floor to Wlamir. He will also mention some of the other impacts that we had in the third quarter. Thank you, Wlamir. Good morning, everyone.
It's a great honor to participate in this conference with everyone. Actually, Wlamir has already mentioned a few points that when we take a look at the commercial dynamics, we see there are many factors that contributed to this result. We have effects of the inflation that pressure a few categories, and the deflation, of course, which also has some perverse effects when you take a look at the sales. Even with the deflation in some categories, especially in commodity categories, we were able to offset this. Our team is very used to handling inflation and deflation moments.
We have a commercial dynamic and a close relationship with suppliers to be able to anticipate some of these trends, whether this is a currency array or other climate issues or any other event, so that we can really anticipate ourselves as we are, really precise with how we're gonna define the volumes of purchases, the inventory levels and the price dynamics. We were able to go through this third quarter, sorry. We do have a loss of purchasing power among the population, which is very significant. There's still a trend that we've been talking about throughout the year, which is trade down continues to happen. It's still very strong.
There's a migration of categories that we still notice a lot in our business, but connected to all of this and even partially related to the deflation, which is helping with the purchasing power in these categories. We see an increase that's very significant in this third quarter. We've still noticed a migration of customers, whether they are legal entities and businesses like B2B customers, due to proximity with the stores that were open, that they didn't really have an option for cash and carry stores close by to them. And now they do. Or even due to working capital issues, because sometimes small entrepreneurs have some working capital limitations, and we become a very good option for purchases and stock for these customers.
Of course, you still have this migration of the end customers that still visit our store, the B2C customers. All of this connected to our anniversary campaign in the month of September, which is now gonna continue until the thirty-first of October. This combination of this dynamic, plus the anniversary campaign with no effects, with restrictions that we had in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, this year we were able to be more aggressive in our commercial and communication strategies. Even with the negotiations and activities with our suppliers, we could have a more robust campaign. Our birthday campaign or anniversary campaign is the biggest actually now with the biggest special conditions for customers in the food sector.
This combination of factors helped us to gain share in the total base and also in the same store sale base, which is very significant because we have expanded a lot in some markets that we're already present in and maybe differently than what we had in previous years, where we were occupying areas or states where we're just starting to operate in. Now we're strengthening our brands. That's a whole nother scenario. With this shift and this project of the store conversions in the hypermarket, we started to notice this in the beginning of the year. Also, regardless of this issue, as we were adapting the assortment of services in the stores, and so we've been trying to adjust our business model to the Brazilian reality.
We've been very fortunate with the inclusion of these additional services and assortments in these stores that really make sense and that have the public for this, regardless of it being a converted store, an organic store. We think that when we take a look at the stores we are converting and we see the locations that were already mentioned quite frequently, but we like reinforcing that the points are irreplicable. They're very good real estate. This also helped us not need investment in marketing or margins in line with the brand strength and the business model. That's a low cost model. Regardless of the addition of these services, we can still, of course, work with this 9% expense rate. This all helped us to have substantial gains in this year in our gross margins.
We ended the third quarter with this percentage of gross margins, 16.3%. Well, we have 44 stores that are still ramping up for maturity or that were recently inaugurated. We opened a lot of stores in the third quarter, and then we were able to balance this out considering all of these characteristics. This makes us very confident for the next periods in 2023 and 2024, considering the precision of the strategy that the company have in the conversion of these hypermarkets and in our organic process. We are very confident and we'll have some very substantial results up ahead. When we talk about the working capital, even with the establishment of this network of stores that's very significant.
We were also able to have a good alignment with our suppliers and very good improvements in our terms. Also due to the fact that these stores are in regions that are more centralized, where the industry is closer. We were able to balance this issue out very well. We had levels of stock that were smaller than when we reach a new market or a more remote location in the country or where we maybe don't have distribution centers. Basically, this expansion of the project is very much concentrated in 16 states spread around all of the regions in Brazil, but the main concentration is in the south and southeast, and that's where industry is closer, so it allows us to have a lower level of stock, favoring the working capital of the company.
I wanna take advantage of this moment also, before I pass the floor to Danny, to just really thank all of the IR team and the special thanks to our suppliers as well. The challenge we have been facing and it's very pleasant. It's a pretty good challenge. The amount of stores and the volume or intensity, but really being able to deliver these stores, and they've had an important involvement with the support of our suppliers, merchants, but also other providers of equipment and services that have really helped us to perform this expansion plan and continue to grow with a solid stance. I really wanna thank everyone, and I'll pass the floor back to Danny.
Thank you, Wlamir. Good morning, everyone. Well, I'm going to move on to the slide about the EBITDA and the SG&A. In this slide, we are bringing in an analysis with a little more details about the expenses. As Belmiro mentioned, this is an important highlight for our quarter. It's been a quarter that's really been significantly impacted by the expense control, which is our discipline in the company, which is really fundamental in the store conversion process, and considering the significance of these pre-op expenses and what they represent in the quarter. The main nature of this, as Belmiro mentioned, is personnel. As soon as you have hired the teams for the stores, it actually has to be done about three months before.
Here we're talking about another more than 6,000 employees that were hired in the quarter to be able to handle all the conversions. The expenses were pretty much equivalent to 0.4% of the sales, adding up to BRL 56 million. We bring in this understanding that's really normalized, where you can see the expenses reaching levels of 8.8%. Obviously, this led to an EBITDA of about BRL 1.1 billion. A margin that was also pretty much normalized excluding these expenses, which is about 7.7%. It is a level that is very much in line with the third quarter of 2021. Also, of course, demonstrating that the performance of our stores is really solid.
In the year, the accumulated results, this EBITDA is about BRL 2.7 billion with margins of 7.1%. This level of margins, I just wanna remind you all, is very much in line with the expectations of the company, and of course, considering the conversion project. The guidance back there that we had considered for this year. We're finally already in the accumulated results reaching 7.1%. Now moving on to the financial results, Gabi. We now I think the important highlight here is BRL 440 million in the quarter. We have BRL 126 million interest on leasing. The pre-IFRS expense is about 2.26% of the revenue.
This expense is very much impacted by the strong growth of the CDI, which basically tripled in the quarter. We went from 1.23 in the third quarter of 2021 to 3.3 in this quarter. All of this to say that we have the biggest volume of gross debt considering the high investments in the expansion project. Of course, this is completely in line with what was planned and what we've been communicating about this project. Completely expected here. Moving on to cash generation operationally. We just already mentioned this. We have over 90% of our EBITDA that's converted in cash. We have very strong cash generation with about BRL 1 billion and we...
At this level of BRL 3.2 billion, this growth that's over 52% will continue to be accelerated considering the conversions and the new stores open, which were still not considered in these numbers. We've already inaugurated 20 stores. We have 45 until the end of the year. We follow with the first semester of 2023, opening up new stores. This contribution will lead this number to even more substantial levels with growth that's even stronger than what we're seeing now. This is a very important point to call your attention to the levels of investments like BRL 2.9 billion, BRL 1.4 billion, that are all occasional for this moment where the company is investing, that's so relevant.
Of course, with all the cash generation, this will get back to lower levels than 2x, as we had also mentioned, at the end of 2023. With this strong generation and payments and the financial expense is pretty much tripling when compared to last year. We end with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio that's lower than 2.7. I just wanna remind you that the second quarter had been 2.7. We're very comfortable with this. It's really in line with what we had planned for the company's leverage and the project overall. Moving on to the next slide on the net income.
With everything we presented here, we have a net income of BRL 281 million in the quarter and BRL 814 million in the nine months. In this calculation, for the normalization, to give you a bit of a recurring perspective on our net income, excluding pre-op expenses and fiscal credits we had or tax credits we had last year to give you an actual comparable basis of the profits generated by our operation, we would have, 318 million of profit and a growth of 4% with margins that are above 2%, 2.3% in the quarter and 2.2% in the first nine months and a profit of BRL 860 million in this normalized perspective.
I think, just to end the financial part of our presentation, our results and earnings really make the solidity of our business model quite evident. We had strict control of expenses, important share gains that were even bigger than what we had seen in previous periods, and of course, strongly impacted by all of our high investments in expansion work and the high interest rate context. I'm completing this part of my presentation. I'll pass the floor on to Belmiro Gomes to go on to details about the expansion and ESG advances as well. Thank you, Daniela Papa. Well, as we mentioned in the beginning of our presentation, everyone knows that the company has been able to keep year-over-year a very constant track on results and growth in our sales, supported by our cash generation, which is what has made our expansion.
Even with the acquisition of Extra, these are stores that require a real intense process for refurbishing and construction to be able to transform a hypermarket store into a cash and carry store. All of the SI team, supported by many different companies, I just wanna reinforce a special thanks to many partners that have been working with us, supplying equipment, construction work that have really made an effort together with us in different states around Brazil to be able to have such a huge volume of construction projects open. We had 44 stores in the last 12 months. We already performed 28 organically, 16 conversions with these additional ones now, and we added another 30% in the sales area.
The precision of this business model, as we mentioned, has allowed for the company to, despite it has high levels of growth, really keeping in a very healthy balance when it comes to sales and margins. Now in total, we have 239 stores operating. Moving on to the next slide. From these conversions I've mentioned, we won't go over each one, but these are specific points ever since the beginning. We mentioned this. We're of course the most excited with this project. These are points, real estate points that are very precise, very successful, and they're irreplicable from a real estate perspective. This has been able to really place our brand and our strength in regions that were very difficult to reach due to the boom in the real estate market.
It was very difficult to find available spots for a store like ours. Now these stores have become in Brazil, where there's a very big logistical difficulty. This became an important distribution point or center for small merchants and businesses. This all allows us to, when it comes to the format and the brand, really place stores in regions that are extremely valuable. These conversions have been done, and the first numbers really confirm all of the guidances we had presented in the beginning of the project. Today we've already reached 20 converted units. November and December have a very strong calendar of new openings, so we should start seeing the first numbers when it comes to stronger sales contributions in the fourth quarter. Of course, a lot more within the first quarter of 2023.
It's an important work that's being done. When you have a conversion of a hypermarket, you have to change the flooring, the electric installation. You have a huge amount of work. To be able to give you an idea of numbers, what we're gonna use in this year with steel, that represents about 2 Eiffel Towers. When it comes to concrete, it is equivalent to about 6 Maracanã stadiums. Over 8,000 kilometers of electric cables that are being installed. These stores, considering the locations, will allow the company to have extremely valuable spots. Within all of this, we also performed some modifications in our business model. This modification in the model is something we've already highlighted in other opportunities, and it's not related to the acquisition of hypermarkets.
It's a lot more related to an evolution within the actual wholesale model and the Assaí model, so that in regions with a population that has higher purchase power and greater density, you can also offer a bunch of services that customers really needed and wanted. There was a demand from our customers, which is being able to really service their full monthly supply shopping. This has been very important and strong. Along with all of this, we've also advanced with a new Assaí app, which intends to unite the physical and digital experiences with a phygital approach.
This advance in the app is something that we're gonna highlight a lot more in the next quarter because the focus of the company is really on the conversion process, and this will all allow a better relationship with customers and opportunities commercially for sales. Of course, we'll be together with our suppliers. I wanna thank all of our expansion team that's been on the field, led by José León, Dave, Jan, and so they're all very active in this process. This will allow us to, in this fourth quarter, really deliver a significant amount of stores in line with what we have presented to the market. The expectations the company has, considering that we're continuing to have the organic stores. We have some stores that are organic that are gonna be open.
In our land bank, we have another 35-40 projects for new units that are gonna be organic in the next years. Of course, right now the priority is to work with the conversions as much as as quick as possible, which will allow us to reach those BRL 100 billion in revenue and also have 300 stores under operation by the end of next year. This is an important growth trend that is extremely strong. We can move on to the next slide. We always like highlighting ESG. I think that's an important highlight. If you've been monitoring our work and you've been seeing our work daily, you see how Assaí is very important in the market because we're a company that's extremely inclusive, very diverse, with all of the different topics that require attention.
In this quarter, we wanna highlight that we launched the Assaí Institute. Up until the split with GPA, we had the GPA Institute, but now with Assaí, considering its social liability and responsibility that we believe a company as big as ours has, the institute throughout the Assaí will allow us to work with different initiatives. We have one that's very focused on entrepreneurs, and Brazil is a country with continental sizes, and it's made up of small and medium-sized entrepreneurs that are spread around all of the national territory. Through the Assaí Academy, we have training awards, and the institute's gonna be an important support for this, as well as working with sports, which is another initiative Assaí has always had. Our brand has always been very much connected to this and also with food.
We really adhere to the Global Compact on fighting hunger, and we adhere to many different initiatives as companies and citizens. An important highlight is also the reduction of carbon emissions. We had a significant reduction, over 27%. The company is aware of all of the climate change issues. We've made some investments, especially with our new units, considering modern equipment and technologies that allow us to reduce within Scope 1 and Scope 2 some of the environmental emissions and the level of emissions that we were able to put out. This is important to highlight. The company has grown, but we've grown sustainably, not only for cash, as we like highlighting, but also from an environmental impact perspective and also overall social impact. That is what we had to share today.
Expectations for our fourth quarter is that it's been very strong based on the calendar for openings. This is gonna be the first end of the year without the pandemic. We saw this in July. There was an increase in volumes in the third quarter. Once again, we had some issues that were climate related that, of course, impacted food service within the third quarter. The fourth quarter, we have the World Cup. Of course, after the elections, we also have the end of the year, where festivities and parties and family meetings will not have the impact of the pandemic. In line with this model of offering low prices and low costs, even with a population at this economic moment we're experiencing, this model should continue to be extremely strong.
We have strong expectations for growth in the fourth quarter and the third quarter, as you've seen. Even with all of these scenarios, the company was able to keep its stability and its path, which is what we're looking at as well up ahead for the fourth quarter. Having said that, I would like to end and pass on the floor back to Gabi. Thank you all.
Well, thank you, Belmiro. I think we can move on now with our Q&A.
Now we will begin our Q&A session. We'd like to remind you if you have a question, you should select the Q&A icon on the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and language to enter the queue. As you are announced, a request to open up your mic will appear on the screen, and then you should open up your mic to submit a question. We would ask you that you please submit the questions at a single time. Our first question is from Luiz Felipe Guanais, the sell-side analyst from BTG. Luiz, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. You may proceed, please.
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Gabi, Dani, Belmiro. I have two questions here on our side. One is, Belmiro, could you maybe talk about what would be the evolution of volumes throughout the third quarter for B2B and B2C? Within this expectation for the fourth quarter, how do you imagine volumes will behave?
The second question is taking advantage of this opportunity with the openings for the fourth quarter and also for the next year. Do you believe that there would be some kind of a big difference when it comes to the margin dynamics and sales dynamics, considering the locations where you're gonna be converting the new stores? Or do you think it's gonna be very similar to what we've seen so far with the first 20 openings? Thank you.
Thank you, Luis. Actually, the openings for the fourth quarter have an expectation that is keeping up the ones in the third quarter even more, because some of them are very strategic locations, like near the Congonhas Airport or Chico Arqueiro or Penha . These are construction projects that require a little more work, more time in more downtown regions.
Although we did have the openings of Anhanguera, Granada, and Figueiras. The openings in the fourth quarter now have expectations that are even higher than the ones in the third quarter. The expectations are a lot more focused on openings in the fourth quarter that are a lot more positive than the third quarter, or at least stable. There are some stores that are extremely important, like Sans Soucy . It's a very well-located store. I could mention a whole lot more for the fourth quarter. We're very anxious about this as well as the population is, because the level of anxiety in the surrounding population when we close the Extra stores and the expectations they had towards the new store openings have been really surprising us a lot.
We already had high expectations, but now this has been renewed with each opening. We have very positive expectations for the openings in the fourth quarter. The third quarter had a moment when we had a trend of a drop in prices in some categories like rye, milk, soy oil and stuff. We noticed that there was a bit of a concern because we had a shift in the last few years. Especially in the month of August, people were very careful. The B2B public was very concerned with setting up stocks, so they reduced their volumes of purchases. In our vision, this stock in small businesses is probably at the lowest levels.
Expectations for the fourth quarter when it comes to volumes is that it'll be a little more positive than the third quarter, because the main concern with an abrupt drop in prices or a drastic drop that could lead to maybe deflation in some categories or commodities could be harmful if you have high levels of stock. We also worked on reducing our stock in some categories that we consider could lead to some deflation movement. You can have a shorter deflation. This adjustment in the market stock has already happened in the fourth quarter as its base effect. It's gonna be our first year after the pandemic. We have the end of the year.
We also have impacts in the trips to the beach visits, lunches or Christmas lunches and dinners, et cetera. Even with all of the corona vouchers and incentives and money that was put into the economy, people are gonna start prioritizing this more. We're super optimistic when it comes to the fourth quarter.
Excellent, Belmiro. Thank you so much for your answers.
The next question is from Thiago. He's the sell-side analyst at XP. You can proceed, please.
Thank you. On our side, we have two questions. One is a follow-up of Guanais' question. Could you maybe talk about how your performance is in the B2B channel when you compare with 2019? This is an important point for us to understand a bit more.
The second point is also a follow-up from the economics in the Extra stores. If you could maybe just give us a little more details on what your vision is when it comes to sales and margin evolution. You had also mentioned that it's been really surprising to see the level of results in these stores. I just wanted to understand a little more about this surprise, if this is coming from a margin perspective and sales perspective or if there's some important highlight between these two points. On our side, these are the two questions basically. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Thiago. We have the issue with the Extra stores and of course our strongest calendar is in the twentieth of August. There are very few days for activities, but of course, in the first days they're very decisive and the first month is an important sign of this because when I mentioned the top 10 in Assaí, of course, with Atacadão, the cash and carry, you can even have low prices in the beginning. The flow, especially with stores where there are higher income customers, is really where you have the strongest performance indicators. From the 10 ones, we already have 6 that came from this batch, and most probably to the end of the year, we'll have like at least 9 or 10. When it comes to important highlights, this has been really surprising us with the level of activities in the stores.
This is something that we've really seen as an anxiety of the population, the surrounding region and how this is important. When it comes to sales, this is something that is in line or even better than what was planned. We are being a little more careful to not. Of course, you have an initial movement with the inaugurations and the fact that we are waiting even on some more margin compression, as Belmiro mentioned, with 44 stores open in the past 12 months. A lot of them are open, so in this third quarter.
The fact that we do not have more margin pressure is really due to the strong contribution or the lack of a need to work with very low margins in these units, because as I mentioned, these are some store units that are in places where the brand is already strong, and you don't have so much competition. The normal price at some level of activity is already extremely strong for that region. Of course, this is all balanced out store by store, market by market, depending on how we behave and how competition reacts. As expected, this was of course one of the main motivations in this project. The performance will provide a level of EBITDA margin that's above the normalized level. Now considering the...
We can see this part delivering at least 50 basis points more in margin. This has kept in this other store network with a very positive scenario. When you consider B2B, we can see we haven't got back to the level of activities we've seen. The food service sector has been suffering quite a bit. This is really mentioned now in July and the holidays in the middle of the year as well. When you see September had the lowest temperature in 30 years, just go by a street with bars, restaurants, and the rainy period is really impacting the sector. This has been the sector that's been recovering. It still hasn't reached the same level of activity in the pre-pandemic period, but it has been quickly recovering.
Our expectation is that the sector that is so important can also recover a bit now in the fourth quarter. Some economic scenarios, like available income, can really impact this. Another point, which is the B2B, which has not had such an impact, but this is many markets and merchants that are in neighborhoods, and the impacts are very low. What we've seen now in the third quarter as products, when it comes to overall basic products like milk and soy oil have a drop that's very significant. But of course, they're we have this inflation movement where just as us and small businesses, people that have a small business and have an understanding of the market are really keeping their eyes open to these changes.
The inflation period requires more stock, and in deflation period, you feel the categories on a drop and you have the smallest stock possible. Another point which considers the users, right? Churches, schools, and other institutions, they still have a lot of room for recovery to get back to the pre-pandemic level. In our perspective, we still have an important parcel of sales that we need to capture, where the pandemic, with a very small impact, will get back to normality. I hope to have answered your question.
Yes. Perfect, Belmiro. Thank you so much, and congrats on the results once again.
Okay. Moving on. The next question is from Marcela Hekem, the sell-side analyst from Credit Suisse. Marcela, we'll open up your mic so you may proceed. Please proceed, Marcela.
Well, hi, guys. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Actually, my questions were answered, but I did have a question about the share gains that you had mentioned as the main driver in the year. Do you have more specificity on how much these gains have already reflected the recovery in the activities of the stores that were reinaugurated, and what are the main channels that have been capturing this share gain?
Well, thank you, Marcela. The share gains obviously have been growing week after week very strongly, leveraged by the reopening of the Extra stores. Every week, we receive a Nielsen measurement from Nielsen, and we've seen this curve week over week as these are big stores.
You even saw this with the Anhanguera store and others that have a real strong level of performance are gonna be opening up, especially in the region São Paulo and leading to an important share gain. Since you still have the impacts of the quarter in the fourth quarter, we're gonna provide more details about this with more granularity. Part of this has been coming from other cash and carry operations as customers are there. They either didn't have a cash and carry that was close, or they would buy from someone else, or maybe they don't have the same level for value delivery, and some went to traditional retail. When we see this inside the channels, we can notice this that the hypermarkets have had performance that was very challenging considering the issues with the channel and the supermarkets.
Of course, there is also a mix between cash and carries and part of retail. We're waiting on having a bigger amount of stores to be able to have a more precise measurement of this. Just to give you an idea, it considers about two-thirds of the retail and about one-third of the other, cash-and-carry stores.
Well, perfect. Thank you, Belmiro.
Thank you, Marcela.
Let's keep on. The next question is from João Pedro Soares, a sell-side analyst from Citi. João Pedro Soares, we'll open up your mic so you may proceed. You can go.
All right. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Belmiro, the first point is I wanted to understand where you talk about this and how the store conversions have been above the high expectations and how you've already started with this new wave of conversions with adjusted expectations. Naturally, you have the revision of this guidance. I wanted to mention how we can interact with that initial guidance, which talk about those BRL 100 billion for 2024. Now, considering this aspect of the deflation of food in some categories, how can we work on this main message when it comes to the guidance in 2024 with the growth and the mid-term? The second point, and I think this is more directed to Danny, about the margins.
You mentioned about 7% of the guidance for this year, but I wanted to hear a bit more about this because since you have this big wave of conversions going on in the fourth quarter, which is so significant, how can we imagine this from a qualitative perspective and see the expenses in the fourth quarter? Thank you so much.
Thank you. Well, obviously, we did idealize the project, and we considered this together with GPA, considering the major know-how we have for store openings and the potential for these extra units. Of course, we are very much convinced that within our business model and our value proposition, not only this year but from now on, how important this project will be. It's really fundamental for us and it's important differential for the company.
Of course, we've been monitoring, keeping up with the store openings and within our market knowledge that really allowed us to increase our objectives for amounts of stores and also reinforce all the guidances. Even with the possible deflation risk or uncertainty from an economic perspective for the next year, keeping this level of revenue with the amount of stores, of course, which will bring in a positive perspective and evaluation, confirming our expectations and of course, reinforcing, especially when you take a look at the base and the customer flow with the levels of margins that we've been operating with in these units. Obviously, to be able to provide a whole other level, we would have to have a bigger store network open.
Of course, you always have to be very careful about this so that all the numbers we're committed to with the markets, with our shareholders, whether they're minority shareholders or controllers, that we can always deliver and what we establish as an expectation in the market. If we're in plan, yes, it is in line with the plan and even better than what we expected. We're still gonna wait for a bigger amount of openings in the fourth quarter. November is a fundamental month, and we have this huge amount of stores. In the fourth quarter, we should probably have numbers that are a little more optimistic than what we had mentioned now in the third quarter. I'll move on to Danny now, so we can talk about the expense issue.
Well, about the expenses in the fourth quarter, you mentioned that we're gonna keep up with this accelerated schedule more than what we had initially considered with the revision of the guidance for openings, 45 openings in the second semester. This is very important. It's very significant. It will continue to have an important weight in our SG&A. We will keep up with a level that is above 9% on the expenses, as we saw in this quarter. Due to all of these expenses, we will also bring in the opening of these. We're also gonna give you more specificity on this, but it's still quite early to be able to mention any signs towards this.
Of course, it'll be more than 9. These are our forecasts here.
Thank you, Danny. Thank you, Belmiro.
Well, let's keep on. The next question is from Thiago Matos from Itaú. Thiago, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. You may proceed, Thiago.
Thank you, guys. Good morning, everyone. I have two questions. The first one is, Belmiro. I wanna understand if these store conversions in very different locations which you didn't have access to before, have these stores brought in different opportunities with suppliers, specific campaigns that maybe you were never able to do before, considering the type of store you had opened before and that now you're being able to work with? Has this evolved in some way and surprised you in some way? I think this can be an interesting upside.
On the other hand, I've been asking Daniela also about if she could give us an idea of the next periods and the levels we should expect for financial expenses capitalized and in the fourth quarter and the first quarter. Just so we can have an idea. Thank you guys.
Well, Thiago, thank you. First, I'm gonna pass the floor on to Wlamir, so you can answer this more when it comes to suppliers.
Okay. Thank you, Belmiro. Hi, Thiago. Thank you, everyone. Well, yes, actually, I'll answer you this because these stores allow us to develop new things and new agreements with suppliers. But at this first moment, in the third and fourth quarter, sorry, we will probably continue with the conversions in the beginning of the year.
The objective is really to put these stores under operation in the best way possible with the addition of services, the increase of the assortment. For all of this, after a certain period in time, after the stores have been opened, we'll be able to have more potential to develop new things and new agreements with suppliers. Of course, at this initial moment, we decided to open up the stores in a way that we are already used to without wanting to insert new things, so we don't get in the way of the process. We have a lot of people involved, and when you wanna start anything new, the chances of not having success are big if you're not focused. We'll probably leave this more to the third or fourth quarter next year.
That's where we would maybe consider these new models. We still have a lot to explore in these points.
Yes, you did answer my question. Thank you very much.
I'll pass on the floor now to the question about capitalization. When you read those explanatory notes, 11.3 for about capitalization and interest, I just wanna highlight one point. There you see the number, the total capitalization number, and that's where you also see in those numbers of the nine months, about BRL 200 million for the IFRS that is highlighted in the financial results. The capitalization that you want to analyze must consider this difference. This is one of the first points.
The second one I wanted to mention is when we analyze this capitalization and all of the project, considering the purchase of these commercial points and the construction work, as we explained in the previous quarter, with the concept of this accounting standard that we follow, where we have to capitalize, it's not an option for us. What I'm trying to explain here is that there are two main components for this capitalization. One is the acquisition of the commercial point or real estate, and the other is the actual capitalization of the construction work and the equipment related to this construction project, which is gonna be finished as soon as the asset's ready. In this quarter, we have a drop quarter-over-quarter of this capitalization. It represents about BRL 15 million.
However, there is an increase year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter, of about 13% in the interest rate as well. Maybe it's not as evident, but there is a drop, and it is a drop, related to the capitalization that I mentioned. A third point now is that the capitalization follows the schedule for construction work. It's not even related to the opening of the store. As you mentioned, there's gonna be about 20 stores in this quarter, but the schedule for the construction work is a lot more intense. Sometimes you have a displacement because you maybe have an expectation for this schedule; some may be slides around a week or two ahead or before.
It's kinda like when you're refurbishing your house or your apartment, setting the date for when the work is gonna finish is not something we're capable of doing necessarily. We're really in line with our overall schedule for inaugurations. Internally, sometimes you have a shift for one month, one week more, one week less, two weeks more. We're talking about 70. In this schedule, actually, there are already stores for 2023, so the numbers are still very significant, and it's very difficult to maybe consider an estimate. The fact is that it's gonna continue to drop more and more in the fourth quarter. We're gonna work with Gabi here to try to provide more disclosure and keep you up to date, including, of course, IFRS.
Certainly this will drop, and this will certainly impact the fourth quarter and soon after as well.
Great, Danny. Thank you very much. Very clear. Thank you for everything.
The next question is from Nicolas Larrain, the sell-side analyst from JPMorgan. We'll open up your mic, Nicolas, so that you may proceed. Thank you, Gabi and Belmiro and Danny. Thank you for taking our question. You talked about expansion a bit, and I wanted to hear if you had considered any opportunities for M&A, in some region or some other point of sale that you think could be interesting for Assaí in 2023 or 2024.
Thank you, Nicolas, for that. Well, I think I could add on to that as well. A lot of what we're doing in these stores and that have just been converted now to Extra that are really related to location. We had some organic ones in the first November, actually, we had the inauguration at a store that Etna used to operate in. We had the acquisition of a commercial point there, searching for the possibility to be in regions with greater density. We also have a network of projects that we're gonna be executing in 2023, 2024 and 2025 for organic stores. A lot of these are the purchase of a store where there was another operation that was working on due to this search for the companies to really be present in urban centers.
The company's focus, due to our leverage at the moment, is the conversion of the Extra stores. We do have an amount of stores that are in the construction process, so that's our initial focus. The company will then start an important movement to deleverage. Of course, some other operations and alternatives remaining at this moment are not our focus, but they cannot be discarded. After we pass this period, we have a beginning, middle, and end, and till the first or second quarter at most, we will have converted all of the units. We have organic stores and we have opportunities that possibly could appear in the market and they start. We continue to hear the market, but at the moment we're still looking at this.
It could be that we have some other operations that could not be discarded within this growth plan and expansion. I hope to have answered your question.
Well, very clear, Belmiro. Thank you.
We can- Our next question is from João Paulo de Andrade, analyst from Bradesco BBI. We'll open up your mic, João, so you may proceed.
Thank you, everyone, Belmiro, and Danny, Wlamir. I wanted to follow up on your comment. How have you been looking at the evolution of basic food items? Are they on the same trend and in volumes? The dynamic is very clear. So how can we consider this in B2C? Can we consider this increase in volume as a trade-up?
How can we think about the dynamic of the working capital in the new stores with better supply? Could we consider maybe a significant improvement with this full network of stores by the end of the project?
Thank you, Paulo. Well, when it comes to working capital, we did mention this throughout the project, and it's going to be visible when we finish the conversion project. At this moment, we are also stocking up on new units that are gonna be opening now in November. A good amount of them are already have a pretty good significant stock.
As we highlighted, the fact that we negotiated this, we've been able to have an improvement in terms with some suppliers and even the location of the stores being inside urban centers, where we have the whole Assaí network with stores in regions that are a lot more distant or in the northern regions, where you have to work considering the nature of the region and logistical difficulties. There is an expectation for improvements, of course, in regards to the working capital and payment conditions or terms as the stores are open and we get into this cycle of normality where we the stocking up process is always prepared with a bigger volume as we can assess what the mix and each of the stores are gonna have.
Then in the second or third month, it already gets into normality. Of course, this impacts a lot of stores being set up at the same time. This is an improvement that is expected, and it's gonna be visible when we start disclosing the numbers in the first quarter in the next year. When it comes to inflation, there's still a lot of distortion in the market. We've seen this as a drop month-over-month when it comes to some categories of products that are gonna continue to have such as prices going up even more than they should have during the pandemic. This scenario is already considered for the fourth quarter.
The biggest impact is in the third quarter now, with B2B really being a lot more careful when it comes to replacement of the stock. Some products like milk, for example, which is probably the most symbolic. This allows for consumers to redeem that. Of course, you also have the weight of the debt that families carry. It's still quite early for this, but next year we should see stability in the inflation considering the base effects and of course, a trade up based on this movement. We're counting on this for next year, not for this year. Of course, these adjustments with certain categories like oil and milk and other categories also, of course, like perfume, the specialized products and others that require imported inputs, et cetera, still have prices and levels that are really high. This is expected for the next year.
Thank you very much, Belmiro. Moving on.
The next question is from Irma, the sell-side analyst at Goldman Sachs. We'll open up your mic, Irma, so you may proceed. You can proceed, Irma.
Well, thank you very much. I just had a follow-up here on the payment days for suppliers, which seem to have improved in the third quarter. I believe that part of this is related to the terms that wee improved, and you mentioned that. I wanted to understand if this is something that we should also expect up ahead, as something that's gonna be kept, or if there's some part that was maybe a little more atypical, with the own stocks that they were working on here, negotiations for the opening of the stores now in the fourth quarter, that maybe are not replicable up ahead. Another question is about this new app. Could you maybe tell us exactly any other lessons learned about this app experience or things that you're observing in this new journey for the Assaí app strategy?
The improvement in the third quarter is, Wlamir has been conducting this and, from now onwards, they are following. This is not like an effect because of a bigger term for the store openings. It's not related to that. We have been improving working capital management and now at this moment, we've already seen an improvement in the third quarter, but in the fourth quarter, it's really gonna depend on the amount of stores and how you balance out the stock on the anticipated process. We do expect an improvement in working capital, which is what I mentioned previously, which is gonna happen naturally, even due to the location of these stores, by the time we can generate the stock. We're working on this normalization scenario to further levels of the terms. Of course, we always wanna expand this with our suppliers.
There's also an effect that the mix in sales involves categories in the new stores that are already where we have terms that are a little higher. Of course, this is probably gonna be more visible from the first quarter onwards, where at the moment this previous stock period finishes in the stores, they start entering operation in a normal situation. The experiences the new app will present in more details in the fourth quarter. The focus of the company is converting the stores. In the third quarter we did advance, of course, with another last mile partner within our relationship and our policies. What we're focused on is really digital.
As we mentioned, we have about 30 million people per month coming through our stores, and we have many different demands from these customers to have a more digital experience, and even some demands from our suppliers when it comes to CRM identification, and especially for customers that are B2B, that are going to be explored through this new app. We are working strongly within this project. We've performed tests in different regions. Some of this news I'm still gonna hold out a bit more, but it'll definitely help with the brand and this strategy that the market has been calling phygital. Where you have the strength of our brand and also some other levels of services when it comes to information, special sales and other things directed to that customer through a digital experience. This is the company strategy.
Perfect. Thank you.
Well, moving on. The next question is from Bob Ford. He's the sell-side analyst from Bank of America. Bob, we'll open up your mic so that you can submit your question. You may proceed, Bob. Bob, you may proceed, please, to your question. Bob Ford, your question.
Congratulations on your results. How are you thinking about the real estate market, and where have you seen opportunities for this? And also, could you talk about your experience with more services and how this is affecting the sales and frequency, and how many units do you see you still need to update?
Sorry, the sound is really bad. Your sound is cutting through. If you could, please repeat a little bit of your experience. Your audio was really bad. If you could, please repeat that question.
Where are you seeing opportunities with greater quality in the real estate market? And could you also explain a bit of your experience with this and how this has affected the sales and the frequency, and how many units do you still need to update?
Yeah, I think that's what he said. The real estate issue, of course, the land bank is where we're choosing these points, of course, something that's very secret for the company, but within what we can disclose, we've searched for this business model, the modifications and this balance of improving the purchase experience. This has also led us to search for points in more centralized regions because a good part of the stores in the beginning were in these outskirts of the city or in more distant, remote locations.
Within this focus, we've been really seeing that the Extra acquisitions is really one of the steps in the organic plan. We've been facing in our real estate market, which is very challenging to be able to approve a project in Brazil. It's very difficult from a logistical perspective because you have capitals that have high density, with huge difficulties for urban mobility, which is just gonna get worse and worse. That's why we positioned the wholesaler as a complementary distributor for the industry. Of course, real estate is something we don't see that the real estate market's gonna become easier. It is extremely warm and booming. There are some barriers, of course, and we're gonna keep up this strategy of searching for these points in central regions.
We have a strong effort from our teams to really follow this with inorganic expansion and what's up ahead. The experience we've had when it comes to more services for customers was already a desire from the customers. When we started the project to add sliced cold cuts or butchery service was really based on the understanding that considering the wholesalers, although there are many cash and carry operators, some of them were more specialized. Some of them more in B2B, others more in B2C. Since we're very active in good service with the end customer, we have this experience with the new services, which is something that's been very positive and has really helped us to continue in the company.
Doesn't mean it's gonna represent all of the store networks, but we do have a very important store network. We have stores that have maybe 10,000 and some that have 1,000 square meters. Stores that are in poorer regions for lower income populations. This, of course, brings in major diversity. Considering the regions and the level of services. This experience has been positive.
Well, thank you very much. Moving on. We're gonna move on to our last question, which is in English from Andrew Ruben. He's a sell-side analyst from Morgan Stanley. We'll open up your mic so you may proceed. You can proceed, please.
Hi, Andrew Ruben here. Thanks very much for the question. Thinking about the older portion of your store base, how are you thinking about the need for remodels? And are there any learnings from the Extra conversions that could change maybe how quick you might think about remodeling or what or maybe some of the new features that these older stores could have? Thank you.
Thank you, Andrew, for that question. As I mentioned, the fact that we are providing additional services in the hypermarket conversion stores is something that we already had in the organic stores. Of course, we are different store models. Together with the conversion movement, we also have a huge refurbishing plan that's also being implemented with the butcheries and other levels of services, the recovery of the flooring, for example. Yes, there is a plan. Some very old stores that we worked on now in the third quarter for example or even in the second quarter, we had like five stores that were closed because of bad locations and substituted by new units. The company does have a plan to modernize this store network of older stores.
Although there are stores that are gonna have one role or the other kind will have another role. There are some lessons learned in the conversion stores, and we're gonna apply these to the older store networks. Some improvements in techniques for construction like flooring and lighting in stores. This is gonna be considered in our year plan for next year because some stores of course are gonna have to go through a retrofit process. Of course we'll bring to these stores, depending on the location, a better purchase experience than what we have. Yes, there are lessons learned that are gonna be applied to the other units of the Assaí stores.
Very helpful. Thank you.
The questions and answer session is officially ended, and I'll pass on the floor to the company for their final remarks.
Well, thank you everyone, ladies and gentlemen, for participating in this third quarter call. It's just one quarter within a whole consistent approach that Assaí and our team have been able to have delivering results quarter over quarter. Of course, we're looking at this from we've already inaugurated 6 stores and we're really considering these challenges that we have at the end of the year to perform these amounts of store openings. We also have actually with the store opening today, we overcame our record of store openings of 29 units. We have another 29 expected, so we have a huge achievement for openings of stores.
The numbers we have are very exciting and that's why we highlighted this a lot within the third quarter. Now when we look at the consumer environment, just to mention, this just reinforces our confidence as a company with the business model and the business of the company. We have very positive expectations and our team has been fundamental. I just wanna thank all of the Assaí team once again. A lot of people are listening to us as well because the numbers we showed and the results we showed are not like my work or an individual person. It's just the sum of many people that work together and make the company greater and greater. 70,000 employees. We should reach 100,000 in a short period of time.
This culture has been very strong, which allows us to have stability, solidity and delivery of results even in more challenging environments. Thank you all once again, and I wanna thank you so much for your support and complete this call. Thank you very much.
The earnings call related to the third quarter of 2022 at Assaí is officially ended. The investor relations department is available to answer any other questions or comments. Thank you so much to all participants and have an excellent day.