Good morning everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to our earnings call for the disclosure of our results in the second quarter of 2022 at Assaí Atacadista. I wanna highlight that if you need translation, we have this tool available on our platform. You can select the button Interpretation through the globe icon at the bottom part of your screen and select the language you prefer, English or Portuguese. We'd like to let you know that this earnings call is being recorded and will be provided on our IR website in the company. Access our ir@assai.com.br where you can also find the earnings release. During this presentation, all participants will have their mics turned off, and soon after we'll begin our session for Q&A.
If you'd like to submit a question, please select the Q&A icon at the bottom part of your screen and select your name, company and language to enter the queue. As you are announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen, and that's when you should activate your mic to submit any questions. We'd like to let you know that all of the questions should be submitted at once. All of the information in this presentation and possible statements that might be made during the earnings call regarding business perspectives, forecasts and targets operationally for Assaí are just beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information that's currently available.
Future statements are not a guarantee for performance. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions as they refer to future events, and thus rely on circumstances that may or not occur. Investors must understand that economic conditions, market conditions and other operational factors could affect the future performance at Assaí and lead to results that materially differ from those considered in these future statements. Now I'll pass on the word to Gabrielle Helú, our Investor Relations Director at Assaí.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. I wanna thank you once again for your participation in the earnings call for the second quarter of 2022 at Assaí. We are presenting those. We have Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes, our CEO, Daniela Sabbag Papa, our CFO, and Wlamir dos Anjos, our Commercial & Logistics VP. Before we begin this presentation, I'd like to pass on the word and the floor to Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes for his initial remarks.
Thank you, Gabby. Good morning, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation.
I hope this information we share today could be beneficial to demonstrate the moment we're in in the company and our results in the second quarter. The second quarter is above expectations and in line with our historical pathway in Assaí, with high rates of growth, combining a healthy combination of evolution and of the volume of sales and results. Our sales volume reached an important level of BRL 14.25 billion. It's significant expansion compared to the previous period. This increment of BRL 3.6 billion reais for the company, more than doubled the amount of sales in the last three years, comes from a combination of many factors.
First of all, the increase in the customer flow we've registered within the same store network, the smaller effects of the restrictions from the pandemic, which have made the food service public that's very traditional in Brazil for Assaí continues to perform this supply process like monthly shopping. This flow in the store is about 5% positive. The flow in the total base, including the stores and the openings, were above 22%. We went over a barrier of over 50 million tickets within the second quarter. Besides all of this, we also have very strong performance in our new store network of Assaí stores. Our expansion has been very assertive as we've seen this in the last previous periods and batches of new stores.
The 30 stores we opened in the last 12 months represented over 18%, share. That means that the total growth of the company was 32%, even, with a strong, customer base growth in the last periods, which means that Assaí continues to gain share in our total store base and gaining market share. This adds up a total volume of sales of about BRL 50 billion in the last four months. When we take a look at the store network that's opened until June 2022, annually you have a sales of BRL 60 billion. Within the sales volume, we still do not consider any kind of contributions from any of the stores coming from the Extra acquisition. Now we're gonna get into this in more detail. We've already inaugurated two of the first stores.
The first one was this Tuesday, and just now our team in Campina Grande launched the second unit of an Assaí coming from the Extra stores and this last batch of stores required. This keeps the numbers that we presented in the second quarter and also the numbers we're looking at for expectations within the guidance we have presented to the market of the total revenue of BRL 100 billion in 2024. Even with the strong growth rate and even with the contribution of the expansion stores, the company's still been able to have a very healthy combination between growth results and expansion.
With this, the EBITDA, despite the fact that we had mentioned a possibility of even working with a level of lower EBITDA within the first semester. Plus the strategy and commercial dynamic and other initiatives we've done, that our VP, Wlamir, will get into more details about made the EBITDA have very strong stability and an important increment in the EBITDA. That's clear, that's near the increment in sales, about 30% between BRL 978 million, with an important evolution compared to the first quarter. That's supported by the dilution in expenses and the returns from customers in the fifth service, but especially due to an increase in the customer flow, where we have an evolution of 0.8% compared to the first quarter of 2022, with very strong discipline for expenses.
Daniela will highlight some of the financial results. With this, even with the company being at a strong moment for investments, considering the project that was done and all of this important movement with investments necessary for the conversion of the store network, the net income of the company reached BRL 243.19 million in the second quarter of this year. To give you more details on this and give you some interesting news that we have up ahead, I'll pass on the floor to Wlamir, our Logistics and Commercial VP.
Thank you, Belmiro. Good morning, everyone, ladies and gentlemen. I think that to contribute to this discussion, I want to talk about this quarter. This was a quarter that was extraordinary for us when it comes to sales and commercial dynamics. We had significant consistency in our strategy, and this was repeated in the last three months, April, May, and June. It's a characteristic that we have at Assaí with this normality. We don't really have sales peaks or what we call the highs and lows. We have a lot of consistency in this evolution and the monitoring month by month.
We have an important intensification of our competitive advantages this year, considering the macroeconomic scenario. But we also have been able to balance this out with sales and our competitive advantage as well, which made us grow by over 30% in the quarter. There was even a question from the market overall, as you've seen. We added in most of the stores that are already open some additional services and new categories as well. This was an important.
This concern that we could maybe have an impact in expenses. But actually, we had a reduction in our expenses contrary to this, which Danny will show. That's about 60 basis points. Part of this dilution comes from this commercial dynamic that's stronger and more aggressive. 50% of this reduction in expenses is coming from a dilution, and 50% is coming due to reduction in expenses, whether this is with trips, third-party services. Many different initiatives in different areas in the company really focused on expenses. We've already prepared ourselves for 2022, knowing that expenses would be very relevant considering the inflation scenario in all of the different sectors as well as with expenses.
We started the year with an issue and discipline that's very strong, and we were able to have this combination between sales, adjustments, and expenses without losing the operational efficiency and quality in services. I think this combination of factors made us have a brilliant quarter when it comes to sales, EBITDA and expenses. This combination was excellent. We can move on to the next slide, please, Gabby .
Now as we get into a bit of our digital strategy and our last mile. First of all, I wanna talk about the last mile. We started off nine months ago with our operation, as I mentioned previously. Now we are operating in 55 cities, and we have significant robust growth. The growth of sales with our partners has been growing at a higher or stronger pace and even quicker than our physical expansion.
We basically tripled our sales in the 2 quarters, in 6 months if compared to the fourth quarter. We've seen that there's still low penetration when we talk about share and sale. It's still less than 1% of our total business. Especially with the store conversions of the Extra stores and even the organic stores where we're opening stores that have better location, there's an interesting convergence providing convenience to customers that prefer this option. We also have the conditions to grow when it comes to the last mile option. Moving on here, we already had an app where we are working on improving, and we just launched this week with an app that we just launched called Meu Assaí. What's our main objective? Improving customer journeys and really having this strategy.
It's not e-commerce, but it's a strategy that we like to call phygital, bringing the digital elements in combined with the physical world. We have three stores that we've started this initiative with in the market of Curitiba, which everyone knows very well. It's a very demanding market. We started our pilot project there. In the first two days, adhesion from customers was above 30%, way higher than our expectations. I think this will allow us in the company, in Assaí, to have a greater loyalty, directing our sales campaigns with customized offers, including additional services.
There's a huge amount of opportunities really in this platform that we plan to work on. We plan to roll this out to all of the stores till December this year, so all of the stores can have this app operating. We had been questioned a lot about this, and now we're taking our first step, and we're really happy with this opportunity. In the first days, our numbers have been quite exciting. On my side, I think that's pretty much it. Now I'll pass the floor back to Dani.
Thank you, Belmi. Good morning, everyone. Now as we move on to our next slide where we discuss our financial results and cash generation. We had financial results in the quarter that were BRL 328 million, and it was equivalent to almost 2.5% of our net sales. Our interest on lease liabilities of this amount. We have an expense of about BRL 221 million and 1.7% of the revenue.
This comparison with last year increased mainly due to the CDI, which was almost four times higher in that same period. We went from 0.8% to 2.9% in this quarter. This increase is mainly 80% of this increase, of our financial results, are mainly due to an increase in the interest rate. I think an important point to highlight here is the cost of our debt in the company, which was reduced by approximately 100 basis points in the last twelve months. In this important initiative and work we've been doing to increase the interest rate, with this scenario of this increase in interest rates. We have some interesting initiatives to offset part of this increase.
There's a less relevant effect, which is probably about 20% of the total of this increase in financial results, which is related to fundraising we've done to be able to fund our hypermarket conversion project. This is all very much in line with what was planned ever since the beginning. With the store launches of these conversions that are already starting, as Belmiro mentioned, we have strong cash generation for the next quarters. These stores bring us, and we'll have a deleveraging of the company very quickly. I'm gonna get into these details more up ahead. Another point I wanna highlight is our debt today, which has a cost of CDI plus 1.5, with an average term of four years. Over here, I think it's important to reinforce this, and how this is very comfortable for the company.
These are all very well distributed throughout the next few years. This is very compatible with all of the cash generation we've had up ahead, and this gives us even more comfort. Now, moving on to cash generation towards the right side of the slide. It's important here to mention that we have a generation of almost BRL 3 billion with growth in the past 12 months of BRL 1 billion. This growth was very relevant. As you all know, the company is a strong cash generator, and we have a cash conversion rate that's also very relevant. 90% of our EBITDA is transformed into cash.
Basically, if we were to add up these two lines of investments and payments of the commercial points or real estate we acquired from the hypermarkets and Extra, we can add this up to BRL 4.6 billion, so it's about 1.6 x our EBITDA. Our leverage position is gonna be completing the quarter with 2.7 x. Once again, this level is really in line with what we estimated and really in line with the forecast for the Extra project. It drops very quickly as we have the store opening. This generation will strengthen the company even more, considering the quality and the very privileged locations.
The leverage at the end of the day will be taking place in an anticipated way, actually, as we can mention, till the end of 2023. Then I'd go on to the next slide, profits. Some other comments. As a consequence of everything that was presented, we have our net income in the quarter reaching BRL 219 million, a growth of 21% versus the last year and almost 50% in regards to the first quarter of 2022. A margin of 2.4%. In the quarter, our profits are over half a billion BRL. These are results that reflect a bit of everything we've already discussed now in this presentation. With a sales dynamic that was really extraordinary and a strong leverage operationally with a dilution and control of expenses, as Wlamir mentioned. All of this was essential considering the inflationary context and peak in interest. I'll pass on the floor back to Belmiro to talk about the status of our expansion.
Thank you, Dani. Well, on our expansion, as I mentioned in the beginning, we had 33 stores. Most of them were organic in the past 12 months. The performance in these stores when it comes to sales and the maturity ramp is very visible in the company's results. The contribution effect in this quarter, but also in the previous quarters, was very significant, setting the scene for a constant trend NSA with the store openings, including growing in sales, but also balancing this out with our results. In the second quarter, we were able to go over 1 million sq m of sales there.
It's an important milestone, and it's an important symbolism with the stores built. I wanna thank our team that's conducting this process not only for the conversions of the Extra stores but all of the new stores as well. Each of these units are almost like an individual company. We had these eight openings in the first semester in seven different states, which demonstrates that the company's strategy to expand into all of the national territory with three stores in the capital. We're entering in Betim with our first unit in a city that's very important in the Belo Horizonte region. The Teixeira de Freitas unit in Ribeirão Preto, our first store as well. Bahia is also in the historical center of Salvador. Our fourth store in Belém. Petrolina, also in the border with Juazeiro.
Norte Shopping in Aracaju, and our second unit in Porto Velho. About expansion, we've also started off with some conversion projects for Extra stores. Within what we had presented as information for the market, the company's fulfilling its schedule. The first units we had mentioned we would launch, we already opened. You see on the left side of the screen. A big unit in Ceilândia, in the Federal District. It was opened on Tuesday. A huge store. It's a very beautiful store. Less than 100 days for construction work. It was one of the quickest construction projects we've ever done to be able to supply the unit and perform all of the construction work.
The unit already performed exceptionally in the first stage, as well as the expectation for the store network that's going to be transformed up ahead since these are stores. As you already mentioned at many moments, most of the stores that come from the Extra hypermarkets are within capitals or metropolitan regions. These are stores that when it comes to physical structure and capacity for stocking up and sales area as well as parking spots, and especially the surrounding public, are in really high density regions. The performance expected for each of these stores on average is about over 50%, 60%, or 70% compared to an organic store opening. Just today in the morning, Leo and Claudemir launched our second unit, which is this unit in Campina Grande in Paraíba State. Now we'll continue with a very strong store launch schedule.
The second semester is gonna have a very intense store opening schedule. We can move on to the next slide. At this moment, just so you can have an idea, we have 50 construction projects underway at the same time in all of Brazil. This means that just in personnel in the construction work, we have about 12,000 people working on processes for the foundation, all the work with the switching of flooring, installation of equipment, all the remodeling necessary to be able to transform a property that was supposed to be for a hypermarket into a wholesale operation. This, of course, considers a shift in the furniture, pallet ports, and inventory in the store, but also installing the freezers, cold chambers, other kinds of visual communication and visual merchandising. Part of these stores already have a big shift.
You can see in Ceilândia, you can see like this area where you can add cold cuts and also an expansion in the assortment and offer for new services. Which is all part of this evolution in the model and an adaptation of the wholesale model for a target audience that you have in these regions with results that have been extremely positive, even above planned, as we perform adjustments and fine-tuning in the model. We have 61 hypermarkets for conversion. 20 conversions are gonna take place now in the third quarter of 2022, and we should have 40 stores till December launched. As these stores start the conversions really made the company reach cash generation, which is very significant in the business model of the historic drop in this leverage curve that's very quick.
It's a huge effort in our team to take advantage of this opportunity. Also, I wanna thank all of our teams involved, many different partners in the company that are really standing together with us to make these construction projects happen. They're all going on in 15 states, but the Federal District and different states in Brazil as well. On our side in regards to expansion, that's pretty much it. Then within the call we'll have more time for Q&A. The main message we wanted to share is that everything is in place and according to what was planned. Everything we considered for the execution of the construction work capacity to open up stores and all of this is actually even a little better than what was planned originally.
When it comes to the market as well, an increase in our vision, and we're gonna get into this as well when we talk about ESG, but we have an economic moment that's gonna be very favorable to us in this opening now in the second semester. Now as we finish a bit and we talk about ESG, we celebrated this a lot. We had a certification as a Great Place to Work, and this is what considers the best places to work and recognizing, of course, from an external perspective, what our team has already seen in practical terms when it comes to Assaí culture, really being a company where people like working, where they work. This has been a very strong differential. Culture is also what's been supporting our growth.
You can't grow the volumes we're growing and the speed we have if you do not have, besides training and processes, also a very strong culture that can permeate, create this ownership feeling. Really seeing this clearly demonstrated by an external company is a very important, fulfilling sensation. In the end of the second quarter, we ended with over 60,000 direct employees. With the new hires and the job generation in the new units, we should end 2022 above 70,000 employees. An important highlight is within this seal that we've received with the diversity requirement, which a really high score above 90% in the market. Besides other forms of acknowledgement and recognition that the company has achieved according to the different initiatives we've worked on from Instituto Assaí and also the corporate initiative for racial equality.
We also performed a first census for diversity as well as a partnership with the Instituto Plus de Educação e Inclusão Social when it comes to diversity for LGBTQ hires and also people with disabilities. We're almost 10% higher than the legal requirements. We also had some incentives from the Assaí Academy, where we create an important support platform for small SMEs. We had an increase of about 82% of the people that signed up. From this group, about 54% were women, also as entrepreneurs. We have many SMEs that are women, that are really led by women and over 56% are Black or Brown.
As well as the reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions and another set of initiatives that the company has been working on strongly to be able to consider social responsibility topics and equality and inclusion of people. I think now we'll reach the end here as we move on to questions and answers. The third quarter, very strong expectations. We've entered the first semester with all the turbulence we saw and the uncertainties coming from the pandemic and many adjustments we had to perform considering the external impacts, inflation impacts, and the company was able to keep a very solid results and store openings. We have a second semester that's also super challenging up ahead considering the amount of stores we have to launch.
When it comes to the market, what we're seeing up ahead is that for the third and fourth quarter we'll have something that's really in line with what we've seen in the second quarter due to the different initiatives being made by government for income distribution, vouchers and incentive programs that will impact the food sector as a whole. When it comes to store openings, the peak is over 5% of the volume of customer within the same store they are based. There's a search online. We believe Assaí is really a reference company in this sector, and the reopening of these stores in our vision will take place, considering a ramp that's even a little better than what was expected. There'll be a natural search for lower prices and the purchase experience. Making an effort to offer.
Everyone from our 60,000 employees in different areas, and functions, and roles for their work. When we look at the numbers and we talk about being a company that has BRL 60 billion in a year as revenue, you can be sure that there's an effort from many different areas and teams and departments working daily to deliver not only the numbers we're presenting here because we're a publicly held company, but also especially the customer service with each purchase, each ticket and each sale we perform at an Assaí store. Having said that, I'll pass the floor back to my colleague, so we can start with the Q&A session.
Now we'll begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask questions, please click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen. Write your name, company, and the language of the question sent to the queue. If announced, a request to activate your microphone will show up on your screen, and then you should enable your audio to ask your question. We would kindly ask you all to make your questions at once. We'll move on to our first question. Danniela, our sell-side analyst from XP. Danniela, I will open up your mic so that you may proceed.
Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I actually have two points. The first one is the main focus here about the Extra store conversions that started off, effectively this month. My question that calls my attention a lot is the fact that you used a lot of the word at least in the conversions when we consider like 40 conversions and then at least 52 new stores this year. I wanted to know, first of all, if there's room to surprise us with these numbers a little more, and if this is maybe just because you can accelerate even more than what's previously expected. Also if you could give us some updates on, I know it's still really starting, but, if you could give us some of the expected economics or the conversions and what you considered in the past, just so we can have an update in this sense.
My second point is about the sales dynamics and the acceleration of the same-store sales, which is really strong, not only with you guys but, with your peers as well. I think there was also an important contribution from the distribution wholesale operations as well for them to have performance above expected and even in the profitability strategy. My question is, looking ahead, how are you looking at this? You mentioned that the corona vouchers and government support should help, but we'll still have a month of July without this support. Has this accelerated your sales and how the B2B recovery has already kind of gone back to the pre-pandemic levels? Or do you still have a bit more room for same-store sales also with the continuity of the recovery of this channel? I think these are my questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dani. Well, about the conversions, yes, we've used at least because we have a bigger amount of construction sites, and then the number of openings we had considered. We have another eight units that should be entering in now with the legal licenses. Why are we being careful with this? Because of course it depends a lot on external factors, public authorities, licenses, and even the capacity to deliver these construction work. They depend on the structure. The idea is to open up a bigger amount of stores. As I mentioned once, the leverage came in first from these investments before the store openings. For us, the sooner we open these stores, it's gonna be even better.
The objective, yes, is to have a bigger amount than what we're announcing. We should have some visibility throughout this. If we can bring it a more positive number in this sense. In regards to the re-openings, we already have a very strong expertise. Opening up stores from hypermarkets and even from other companies we've bought points in downtown regions. They have this kind of characteristic, and when you consider the sales ramp and considering the strategy of trying to open this out with the biggest volume of sales, even if we work with businesses in more distant regions, even if this impacts it, which is even stronger. The expectations are very positive.
Even for the margins and density higher- density regions, especially at the standards of stores we're opening at this moment, which are very positive. The numbers we've highlighted in the beginning of the project, when we had the business plan for the project, are adjustments upwards. Of course, it's very soon. Still, we've just launched our first store. Just to give you an idea, this unit in Ceilândia we've launched, if you look at the first day, there is an estimate of revenue about 4x or 4.5 x of what they were making before, even after correcting the numbers according to the inflation. We would highlight the numbers in this sense.
About the same-store sales point, I think we have to compare same-store sales, same stores with the same, and also cash and carry, same cash and carries with the cash and carries. Because I'd say we don't have the distribution wholesale operation, where of course, you can reduce margins and you can burn a big amount of margins and have a higher volume of sales. But this doesn't generate recurrence. Strategically, we are focused to work with the final end customer, the utilizers, which have high recurrence. And we work with the reseller public. If we look at the sales per square meter with the highest indicators, we've reached almost BRL 5,000 per square meter, and that's already considering the expansion, of course.
When you move on to a mature store network, that reaches about BRL 5.5 thousand per square meter . That's a lot higher than if you look at the other market players. What we saw in the first quarter, we have an event that took place in this company, which considers a really high volume of sales. This of course could sometimes bring in this kind of strategy and sometimes give us a bit of a lack of room for margins and competitive advantages, especially considering the new stores, which is where, of course, we invest. Because in our vision, this is the target audience that will generate loyalty. They'll buy with you this month, next month. The rest of them will come every week.
This is a competitive advantage that we're really looking at, and this is visible when you take a look and compare not only the same-store sales indicators, but the combination of the total sales indicators and profitability. When you have this combination more and more, I think each company has its own strategy. There's no right or wrong strategy. Someone could be better or worse, but I think it's the strategy we used. Considering that we have only a cash and carry operation, that was a very precise strategy when you combine these three factors. I hope to have answered your question properly.
Yes, you did. Thank you very much. Congratulations on the results.
Well, moving on. The next question is from Luiz Felipe, the sell-side analyst from BTG. We'll open your mic so you can proceed, Luiz. You may proceed, Luiz.
Well, good morning, everyone. Good morning, Belmiro, Dani, and Gabby. I have two questions here. I think the first one is just about a specific question on the capitalization of the interest. I understand there's an occasional effect, considering the amount of stores that are closed. Could you mention a bit of the schedule for this capitalization during the next quarter? It is to be reduced over time.
I think you mentioned this point, and we're seeing this scenario for cash & carry in Brazil, considering inflation, which is very favorable, in this migration, in the format. There, it's already gained a lot of share considering the straight down effect, and we've seen this now more than ever. With the conversions that we'll see in the next quarters, do you think there's an expectation with some of these estimates, six months ago when cash and carry was in a good, favorable scenario? Well, these are the two questions.
Well, I think, I'm gonna start off with the last point, and then I'll pass it on to Dani to talk about capitalization because I think there's a curve for this. I think this scenario is favorable. I think, as I had been, what's really pushing the market a bit more, so it's not just about the price, of course, that is, a lot, they're very important. We've made some adjustments and changes, and but of course, we've been very careful with this.
We've made these operational costs reach about 9% in this quarter, and this of course makes you keep a margin that's lower even today with a purchase experience that is a lot more attractive. Our purchase experience, it's better or comparable at least with the market itself. This has been taking place and this of course makes the channel migrate this amount of companies or customers we've been able to work with. We've had about 3.5 million customers more per month. What we see is the scenario is even more favorable. When you consider the increased prices in the food sector as a whole, this creates in a population with more income.
The search for a cheaper purchase or even buying the same product follows this movement. Depending on the store, even with a high-income public, they've adhered to this model. We see a lot of room for this as well. Really looking at the assumptions in this project when it was idealized and the acquisition of the Extra hyper stores that would be kept at in a stable level or even higher. We're gonna be careful with the openings and seeing what they actually deliver. The expectations, considering our expertise and experience in the market, we do have room for improvements, as you've interpreted, and I think that's completely correct. I'll pass the word on to Dani. She'll talk about capitalization. Just before we move on, Luiz, is this clear?
Yeah, it's very clear, Belmiro. Thank you.
Before we move on, I would just like to contribute one point that I think is important. Luiz, I have some data from Nielsen here. Just to give you an idea, cash and carry, this is a modern market where you have, retail cash and carry and pharma. The importance of cash and carry in the beginning of January was 36%, as a channel, and it ended June with 41%. Just an important point of 5% in the importance of food retail. This reinforces what Belmiro mentioned about how we have a long path ahead.
Excellent. Thank you, Wlamir, for that. Well, Luiz, thank you for your question. Now we'll talk about capitalization. I'll take advantage of your point here to answer this because we've seen some questions in the overall market. First of all, we're following an accounting standard. They should be kept leading this process. I think this is. It's important to remember that this capitalization is not only about doing it or not doing it, but doing it because we're following this accounting standard, and this is not something new.
If you consider quarters over quarters over quarters, within the CapEx, we always have an interest line that capitalized as well. This amount, of course, started being more significant due to the relevance in the hypermarket conversion project, but this is a practice that's quite recurring. You also asked about the point in regards to how this amount will behave over time. Certainly, that's it. As you launch the store, you don't capitalize more of these interests.
As Belmiro de Figueiredo Gomes mentioned to you guys, we have a number of stores that are quite relevant that we're gonna be opening every quarter. Just to share a bit of our assumptions and estimates, of course, this will keep in line with the schedule, and there could be some variations. The amount for this quarter should be dropping halfway in the next quarter and then once again halfway, considering the fourth quarter. This capitalization, naturally, considering the store openings, will drop as expected and of course, according to what's established by the guidelines.
Okay, super clear, Dani. Thank you very much.
Moving on. Our next question is from Rodrigo Gastim, a sell-side analyst for Santander. We'll start your audio so that you may proceed. You can proceed, Rodrigo .
Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Just to confirm this point here about the margins. This quarter had a very healthy margin considering this context with the inflation and the store opening rhythm and conversions. The pressure of course, considering all of what we expected to see in the first quarter did not happen. Now with the delivery of these conversions in the second semester, should we expect some kind of an impact in the EBITDA margins in the second quarter? Or is it strong growth considering the maintenance of the margins at these levels that we're seeing now?
Well, Rodrigo Gastim, you saw that in the beginning of the year, we mentioned that the EBITDA margin could suffer a bit of a penalty of about 50 basis points this year. This has not happened in the first semester. Considering all of the positive scenario that we had so far, it's still too early to say it won't happen, but as we look at the trend, it shouldn't probably happen with the 50 basis points. We're still keeping up with this forecast considering all the scenario with the Corona vouchers and market shares. The reopenings are always a necessary point, and the need to keep competitive advantages could come around. Even though we have a different profile of reopenings that maybe require less levels of investments and margins, but there's still a big amount of stores.
If it's strong performance in sales and the store openings, we may have some kind of dilution effect. That's why we keep that with that estimate that we mentioned, about 50 basis points. Now maybe considering this to be a little lower. We're gonna be careful and a bit conservative as we look at the third and fourth quarters. If we have the need to do so, we'll invest margins, but if not, we're always gonna be working on balancing this out. If there's no need, the company will deliver always the best or highest levels of margins possible.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much.
Let's continue. The next question is from Thiago Macruz, our sell-side analyst from Itaú BBA. Thiago, I'll open up your mic so you may proceed.
Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. A few questions here. You'll have amount of store launches in the second semester this year that no other cash & carry has ever had in history. I think this relationship with suppliers is already very good. With such a huge amount of store launches in six months, do you think there will be additional opportunities for procurement and improving the dynamics for the purchase of these products? I wanted to understand what's possible. We've also seen a bit of a dynamic in the pricing in Cash & Carry that's a little more intense.
As we've spoken to you guys and some other private players as well, we've noticed that the gross margins were also by the dynamics that we've seen. Can you give us an idea about if this dynamic will stick around in the third quarter? If the reasons why you consider the environment is gonna be maybe even more less competitive, how are you looking at this? These are my two questions. Thank you very much.
Just getting back to this, I'll pass the word on to Wlamir so we can talk about the margins and negotiations with suppliers. Competition, it had very strong performance in the first and second quarter, but part of this is a lot more related to the significance of the representation that this expansion has. About one-fifth of the sales in the 33 stores, we generate an important dilution effect. Just as they performed better, we had less impact in the expenses than in the significance that this represented in the previous years. Of course, we're always focusing on our competitive advantages. It's difficult to say an exact answer about this.
In the entire scenario in the market, even with the government incentives and everything, there's a very different scenario than what we had looked at now in this quarter. Maybe you have a bit more, you have the right interpretation. It could be that the third and fourth quarters will have a less level of competition activity than what we noticed in the second quarter. Because of course, the result of a good amount of the operators in the market that are looking in this channel, everyone kind of also had a second quarter that was also very strong. Naturally, this should lead to greater concern and carefulness in having a very significant drop in prices. In our sector, there's another point also about how we're still going in a very high inflation period.
If you don't correct your prices, for the sales of small businesses, you could maybe lose a bit of inventory 'cause these customers have the capacity to buy and their elasticity is very big. If you look at the third and fourth quarter, we see a stable scenario for margins in regard to what was practiced now in the first and second quarter this year.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thiago will continue here. Thank you for that question. Now about the suppliers. We do have excellent relationship with our partners. When we take a look at this, I think the biggest concern we have really is we're in this inflation period or process ever since 2020. This of course makes the negotiations a little more challenging, the price adjustments.
We're not the first ones to give the bad news to customers about our price increase. We have a negotiation process that's done a little more intensely. We do have some structure and a way to lead opportunities for purchase opportunities in this inflation moment. Our procurement areas are decentralized. We have commercial offices spread around all of Brazil to be able to facilitate and take advantage of regional opportunities, not only in the big urban centers. What we've done to support this expansion we'll have up ahead is strong planning.
In March, we reunited about almost all of our suppliers or those that were most significant, to be able to talk about our expansion plan and so that they could be prepared considering the scenario with some industries and supply chains that are lacking products so that we can maintain our inventories in a healthy position and competitive manner. This relationship is very close, and we're quite comfortable about this. It's a little more tense considering the inflation pressure as we've already seen in other periods in Brazil, but it's under control. I hope to have answered your question.
Yes, you did. Thank you. Very clear. Thank you so much for the answers, everyone.
Moving on to the next question, it's about Felipe, a sell-side analyst at HSBC. Felipe, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed. You can continue, please.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. My question is about price and margins already been answered. I'm gonna go on to the digital aspect. Wlamir dos Anjos mentioned that there would be some new features in this platform, and it seems that the strategies really focus on discounts and prices. Could you give us an idea about the strategy for digital? Is it about being more aggressive in the pricing, compared to the competitors? I wanted to understand a bit of the strategy for digital.
About the converted stores, besides the introduction of service areas, as you mentioned, with cold cuts, butchery, et cetera, is there room for creating a dedicated area for e-commerce considering better services for these consumers? I understand that the store network, the space is really limited for the sales area, but these new stores have an area that's a lot bigger. I would like to understand if there's any strategy in this sense. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Felipe, for that question. Just getting back to this point on digital, we had already highlighted that, in Assaí, when we were with GPA, before it really made sense to. It wouldn't make sense to compete with Extra products within the digital front, but we had this initial process with the last mile operators. Now with this new app, we're gonna work on what we call phygital. You provide digital experiences, but you can keep customers in the physical stores as well.
Of course, it's gonna be an important appeal for discounts, prices, product launches and things that the industry itself has an interest in. There's an important interest in the segmentation. We're gonna be working on this pilot project. We should bring in more details throughout the third quarter, but there's a lot more interesting stuff going on, uniting what the market has seen with the digital experiences towards the physical world and even in the services itself, to be able to maybe schedule something in the store. There are some innovations and some interesting things that have been going on in this app.
For the converted stores, yes, considering their location and the size of these stores, you have room to explore the pickup from store and to explore some other features that the current store network maybe didn't have the conditions to work on, or even the region where these stores were located do not have this demand that we see in these regions with a higher purchasing power. Yes, there is this objective to be very focused on the reopening of these stores, considering this traditional model. Yes, there is this trend for adapting other services to the customer with what's connected to this digital universe, of course.
Thank you very much, Belmiro, for that.
Moving on. The next question is from João Soares, our sell-side analyst from Citi. João, we'll open up your mic, so you may proceed. You may proceed.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Two quick questions on our side. The first one is about services. Could you talk about more specificity from a regional perspective and where you've had to offer more services and a greater expansion in the assortment? Understand a bit more of the competitive advantages and dynamic, just to understand from a regional perspective where you have to perform more adjustments. The second question, which is more geared to Dani. I wanted to hear more about the leverage, considering the higher investments we've seen with these 50 construction projects underway. I wanted to understand and also of course the money from the real estate fund that you're going to be receiving. How will the leverage look like for the end of the year? A bit of the expectations, if there's any changes in regards to this.
Well, thank you, João. For the services point, it's not connected to a specific region in Brazil, but maybe more regions within the capital cities or locations where the stores are located. Of course, we have a bigger trend of expanding assortments, as you're in a scenario with higher purchase power and also the amount of businesses in the surrounding region as well. The services of adding butchery services, cold cuts, slicing cold cuts and wines and stuff like that. These are extra services that are being done in all of the regions in Brazil for cities where you maybe don't have such a high offer of services. For example, in the interior of Bahia, but this continues in the capital cities as well.
The objective is not to have, like, a big monthly shopping, but those the need. For example, they have the need for a slice of cold cuts or butchery services that can be supplied when they come for their big monthly shopping. You may have an increase in expenses with this, but most of this has been very marginal because most of the expenses and the fixed costs of these stores already take place naturally with the rent and other expenses that take place or are incurred with or without those additional services. We actually went over the number of about 100 butcheries that were deployed, and they continue in all of the regions in Brazil.
Also with the beef and we had some changes that allowed us to also gain a little more of a competitive advantage compared to the neighborhood butcheries. There's a search for quality in the population that also comes to the profile of a public and Cash & Carry. We see this natural evolution in the model, but there's not, like, a specific region, like, going to be more to the north and more to the northeast. All of the regions are receiving these new services.
About leverage here, this level of 2.7 is very similar till the end of the year with very little variation. As we mentioned from 2023 onwards, where we already have a significant volume of store launches, we'll start off in the second semester to deleverage the company so that it can be below 2x.
Thank you, Dani. Thank you, Belmiro.
As we continue, our next question is from Vinicius Strano. He's the sell-side analyst from UBS. Vinicius, we'll open up your mic so that you may proceed.
Hi there. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Could you maybe talk about what you've seen when it comes to the evolution of volumes in the current scenario? And here a second point also about the offer for financial services. Could you talk about the main features and how you plan to scale this up with the Passaí, and if it should gain more importance now with the opening of the hypermarkets that have been converted. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Thank you for that question, Vinicius. When it comes to volumes, as I mentioned, we had a positive increase in our flow. We've gained volume. This is not materialized in the total amount of same-store sales because we still have trade down within evolution of the prices for food. The population has still performed trade downs for brands of products or even categories of products to be able to handle the increase in prices of food. When we look at the volume measured by kilo, there's an evolution that's a lot greater than when you update the inflation on the volume of sales. It's been positive ratio, and we've been looking at this carefully considering this increase in the customer flow. As long as the trade down effect exists, we wanna capture this entirely in the sales volume. I hope this was clear and also about financial services. Dani, do you wanna answer?
Yes, Belmiro. Certainly we are foreseeing an acceleration in the amount of cards, Assaí cards, which will naturally accelerate and grow with the store openings, the conversions as well. We're estimating a growth level of over 30% for the credit card base growth. We should be talking about over 600,000 cards issued. We have real big estimates. Anyways, with this, of course, there was a growth impact that was very important in this quarter, and our revenue was above 20%, so this growth was very significant. The card really would help this acceleration process.
Thank you, Belmiro. Thank you, Dani.
Now we'll continue with the next question from Joseph Giordano. He's the sell-side analyst from JPMorgan. Joseph, we'll open up your mic so you may proceed. You can proceed, Joseph.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for this question. I wanted to explore a bit of the options that we still have based on this platform to accelerate growth, because we've seen some competitors exploring this a bit more. I wanted to go back to a topic here. We see the digital platform with the app being added, and Belmiro mentioned also that you're starting to see food service growing a lot. So I wanted to understand how you've seen this opportunity to accelerate this initiative with the distribution wholesale in the company and considering how this could be something that's more digital to connect this. I wanted to know also about what you're seeing when it comes to the inflation of costs and how this has been, I wanted to understand if there's any shift from a CapEx perspective that you've noticed today.
Thank you, Joseph. The distribution wholesale is still a possibility that we have. Our focus is to continue with this conversion of these Extra stores. But there's still an underexplored market. Part of what the market also considers as digital is not always digital. It's the same operation that happened 20 years ago that was already happening online, but is then placed with like some kind of a digital backup or something.
We already have a good amount of the orders that are made and posted when you work with stores in the digital realm. We should be structuring this, but there is of course a capacity to explore this and we should be looking at this more carefully. There is of course an important advance in this, but the focus this moment is to have the Extra conversions and of course to provide a digital experience with this digital strategy for customers that are in the stores today. But there's a possibility for a wholesale distribution as well as it's gonna proceed as it's implemented with the new technologies as well. Considering the construction material, I think I'll answer this point.
Yes, this has been impacted by the inflation, and so this of course should reflect on the cost of the stores. On the other hand, with this amount of construction projects, we've been able to have gains and scale to reduce a bit of the cost. There are some companies that have two, three or four conversions taking place. This of course led to some gains and negotiations and we saw an important growth with the prices of steel. This of course, was impacted by the increase of fuel. They're low added value products and when you have an increase in fuel costs, they have an increase that's significant and very strong. It seems like now this is stabilized, of course at a really high base. This is nothing that in our vision will lead to a major impact in the overall project and what we established and planned.
Okay, perfect. Just a quick follow-up on the distribution wholesale. As we look at this, from five or six years, we've already passed Extra and we've gone to the expansion of 30 stores per year. How do you look at the potential for distribution wholesale, considering the share of the revenue? Because the ROIC for this investment is pretty high, considering the asset base and you really increase your store turnover.
With the distribution wholesale, big part of them don't work with perishable goods or like commodity products or modified value products. The line of products that are sold are modified and reduced. Possibly now it'll start having some stabilization. Same customer that buys from a cash and carry operation will also buy from a distribution wholesale, but they normally are not gonna deliver like oil or rice or flour because the cost of transportation for distribution wholesale would eliminate all of the obtained margins. In the distribution wholesale market, it's really focused on price.
You have a customer that's buying for 30 years at a cash and carry operation, but then tomorrow you have another guy selling the same product with a lower price, this customer will quickly shift. There's not much loyalty and he'll just start buying from the cheaper guy. Basically in our strategy, what we saw is this window of opportunity. Considering the commercial points where you wanna be the first place, have a good location and have a loyalty in the customers.
About three years ago or one year ago or four years ago, there's not much of a shift. The strategy that the company adopted was first looking at the map in Brazil, place units in all the national territory, and once you have the structure, you create a possibility for this. This project is going to happen as we worked on this now with the Extra movement. This took on our priorities for obvious reasons. It's difficult to estimate what this would represent in the share. When you look at the total share, sometimes you could say, "Oh, it's not that significant." When you look at some specific categories of products, especially non-perishable, high added value products, it could be very significant.
We've seen that in the market, depending on players can operate about 10% or 15% or 20% even in the distribution. It's an operation that you have a high ROIC because a good amount of the assets you place are added. Of course, it messes with your cash dynamics because you have to grant some payment terms when you have this volume of sales. It's an important growth lever that's not been explored by saying it's very important.
Perfect. Thank you very much, Belmiro.
As we continue, our next question is from Irma Sgarz, our sell-side analyst from Goldman Sachs. Irma, we'll open up your mic so that you can proceed. You may proceed, Irma.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I just have a very quick question here about this, these two waves of conversions. The first one is what happened now and if in some way is separate from the second wave, and if there's some characteristics in common that could maybe be different from the second wave of store openings. Also, with this situation with the store conversions, of course, this is a huge project and congratulations for what you've already started as the first steps. I wanted to know how you're looking at this issue with really delivering this little clock of 10 stores per month. Do you have some concern or some other factor that maybe you're looking at more in regards to the authorizations from the municipal governments and the volumes of people you need to hire, construction materials you need to have?
I think that no, considering the previous comments, but anything else you're considering with a bigger focus on to be able to be sure that all of the deliverables will take place within the schedule. The third question is just to confirm if the other stores, about 30 stores, if I'm not mistaken, that will be coming around in 2023. What's the schedule like for these stores? I had imagined beginning in the first quarter, but I wanted to confirm this.
Thank you, Irma, for your question. Well, normally the first wave. Well, you'd imagine that it would be the stores with the best sales and the best ramp up, but that's not possible. We have to have a balance with obtaining licenses and also the execution process. Depending on the construction and the amount of which is the case of the stores that were worked on. You have these projects for stores where you have underground parking, where the time for construction is a little longer. Depending on the region and the neighborhood, there are some different operational schedules where you can work.
Of course, what's most determining this is the documentation, the legal documentation. If you already have most of the licenses for the beginning of the construction work, there are other documents you also have to have during the construction process or even after the completion of the construction process. There's not like a profile of characteristics that's very different between the first or the second wave.
From a perspective of sales and results, it's more like considering some aspects of engineering than revenue or other things. There's also no other restriction in regards to the region in Brazil. We started some conversions in all of the regions because all of the states where these stores are located already have an Assaí presence or an operation. Even to avoid us from having a concentration of openings in the same region, leading to an important bottleneck in the team. The fact that we have 12 different regional offices and many bases around Brazil helps us a lot at this moment to be able to work on the conversion trend. What we should see is a profile of waves and performance that's very similar.
Some stores where we have a high expectation, unfortunately we still have some processes that are legal to obtain the licenses and improve projects and adjustments for these stores in the surrounding regions that are gonna be left to the second wave. The objective, of course, we already have these projects completed, and so we should complete this round of the store batch for the opening in the first quarter of 2023. The objective is that we'll have this first focus with this project completely finished and the stores inaugurated. I hope to have answered all of your questions.
Thank you. That's very clear.
Okay, continuing, our next question is from Vinicius. He's our sell-side analyst from Bank of America. Vinicius, we will open up your audio so that you may proceed. You can proceed, Vinicius, please.
Just to follow up here about our initiatives for assortment, could you provide some more details on the categories that are being added and what's the percentage of sales there that you should convert? How have you seen the impact of this initiative when it comes to flow margins and cost structure, and if this has in some way impacted the returns on investment that you're considering for the conversions? The second question is, would pharmacies be a category that makes sense for Assaí?
Thank you. Wlamir dos Anjos, do you wanna answer this?
Thank you for that question, Vinicius. The issue with the assortment is that we have this concern because we don't wanna transform our store into a hypermarket because of an issue with operational costs. We're developing some categories, especially when it comes to beverages, general groceries, and also for personal hygiene, and cleaning, where we have opportunities to expand our assortment. This is not a rule that's valid for all stores. We're not adding more of a sales area for this in our stores that already exist in this store network, which comes from the hypermarket conversions. We already have a bigger store area where we can work or expand our capacity for exposure in these sectors. We've been very careful with this so that we don't go over level.
We operate with about 8,500 SKUs currently. These stores we're opening up with about 10,000 SKUs, so about 1,500 extra SKUs and between products for merchandise and services. The mission of the purchase basket is a little different. Customers, normally, they're not gonna go all the way to Assaí to buy beef or something. They go to Assaí to buy their monthly supply. Before we offer the services, they would be directed to a retailer of neighborhood butchery to perform this purchase. We capture this, and there's a bit of a different mix, and this has led to a better purchase experience for the consumer.
When it comes to services, we can also work with B2B, so restaurants especially and butchery that end up buying from us because we have quality products with fair pricing, and you offer the slicing services for cold cuts. We're improving our assortment. This is not valid for all of the stores. There's some different phenomena here we have adapted. With the hypermarket stores, we're gonna open up a lot of opportunities. Initially, at this moment, we want to open up the stores. Over time, we'll see that there's a bit of a profile in each region and store. If we understand that there's a potential and capacity to increase this assortment going over 10,000 SKUs without compromising our operational costs, we'll do this. So far that's the objective. I hope to have answered your question, Vinicius.
Yes. I think if you could just add on, maybe have you noticed any kind of increase in the customer flow due to these new categories so far?
Actually, the customer flow grows because, for example, in a category like car tires, customers are not gonna go to our store to buy tires. Some categories, for example, attract new customers, but for others, you take advantage of the existing customer flow and the migration or trade-down between channels, and you offer a bigger assortment, for the customer, increasing the basket size. You have an increase in the customer flow due to the addition of new categories, but you also have an increase of purchases from customers that are already in the store. It's a combination of these two factors, but yes, you do increase the customer flow.
Okay. Thank you. The last point was just about pharmacies, if this is a category that makes sense to add.
No, at this moment, it doesn't make sense for us.
Maybe I can add to this. In the store conversions, we've seen lots of stores with a gallery. It would be better to rent this out to another pharmacy than to get into the sector. We have no interest in this.
Thank you very much. That's clear.
As we continue, our next question is from Andrew Ruben, sell-side analyst from Morgan Stanley. Andrew, we'll open up your mic now so that you can proceed.
Thanks very much for the question. You mentioned food service customers coming back to the stores. Do you have a sense of where that segment is versus pre-pandemic levels? And also, if there's any other types of customers you'd call out where you still see room for a post-pandemic sales recovery. Thanks very much.
Andrew, thank you. For customers from food service, we've seen them coming back, but it's still not back to pre-pandemic levels because during this period, which food service closed, a lot of people that worked in restaurants. We saw that a lot of the restaurants are really full nowadays, but there's a lot of restaurants that closed down during the pandemic. We believe there's still a possibility for recovery in volume in the food service segment. We also know that the increase in prices also impacts the cost of eating out. I think if this was not for the high inflation in food services, it could maybe be at a higher level. There's still some sectors that haven't gone up totally.
We have this issue with the school cantinas and a part that's connected to, like, a gradual recovery. Also, the restaurants, what we mentioned, these profiles that are really impacted. There's a bit of uncertainty if this is something that's going to be long-lasting or if it's something that's also temporary. We've seen some sectors that still have a possibility for recovery in the post-pandemic scenario. A lot of things are connected to the schools or educational sector and other activities, even for recreational activities that were done with meeting, parties, and festivities, where there's still maybe a little room for progress and growth still. We see there's a scenario of stability in the pandemic with possibility for recovery up ahead as a potential still for recovery.
The Q&A session is officially ended, and now I would like to pass on the word to Belmiro for his final remarks. Gabrielle.
Thank you all for your participation. The IR department is available if you have any other questions additionally. Have a great afternoon.
Thank you. Belmiro, any other final remarks?
I just wanna thank you all for participating till the end for the Q&A, and thank you for the presentation. We'll see you all in the disclosure of the third quarter. Thank you very much. Bye. Take care. The earnings call for the second quarter of 2022 at Assaí is completed. The department for investor relations is available to answer future questions and comments. Thank you so much for participating, and have an excellent day.