Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call to talk about our results in the first quarter of 2024 and progress in our transformation plan. As is our practice in our company, we posted a video with more detailed information, our earnings release, a full presentation providing more details on some of the leverage in our plan, and greater visibility of what's up ahead. Today we're going to have a meeting on.
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Before we start, I just want to share this slide here [Foreign Language] , cleaning supplies, water, clothing, everything people may need. We have another campaign also through the Casas Bahia Foundation with a Pix dedicated to donations, and at every BRL 1 donated, the Grupo Casas Bahia donates another BRL 1, doubling the donation. So if you want to contribute through this channel, we are also available for that. The Pix is disclosed on our presentation website and all the official pages in the group.
On the next slide, we just want to reinforce a bit of this. We've been also sharing a bit of donations to help. We donated pillows, some simple furniture, beds, and pillows and covers, etc., blankets. We have 38 stores there and 1 distribution center. We have 7 stores that are closed down there, and we're trying to help all of the employees that suffered and were impacted by this. Let's get into the results of the first quarter. Before we start the presentation here, first of all, I think we want to share a bit about the first quarter, where the macroeconomy is still challenging, a bit of a restrained demand, although some indicators demonstrate a bit of an improvement. This improvement is still not impacting consumers directly, so demand is still restrained, and it's very similar to that white line scenario we had mentioned in previous quarters.
We have significant improvements and progress in the plan, and we have some highlights for the show. The main messages here from the quarter: first, we're talking about new revenue sources. As an initial pillar, we brought this here because this is going to be very important from now on. We already have a big level of growth when we look at the leverage for new sources of revenue, with omnichannel transportation, fulfillment in the market that's growing, Casas Bahia Ads brought in 7 times more ads, so it's going to be a big leap in our contribution to profits in the company, and also services growing a lot, reaching 15%, increasing 10% of the revenue from services, which is going to help us build new benchmarks for gross margins in the business of home appliances and electronics we have here in the company.
So the first quarter, when we look at the second column, delivers a gross margin that gets back to historical levels, 30% in the first quarter. For us, this is very good because we're completing the correction phase, and now we're talking about the evolution phase, with the leverage we have for the future, are to improve our operations, grow our revenue, optimize and use our mix, optimize our pricing with analytics, to help increment margins and create new benchmarks in the sector when it comes to mid-term to impact the gross margin. This is very incremental, no big leaps for each quarter. This is an incremental improvement quarter-over-quarter, so we can have a healthy company in the beginning of next year. From an expense perspective, we brought excellent results, 7.5% reduction in the total SG&A.
If you look at personnel expenses, that dropped almost 50% year-over-year. It's structured and sustainable, and the EBITDA margin is about 6.1%. This is still impacted by the months of January and February. We had some ruptures in certain product lines, but in the beginning of last year, we're trying to kind of burn the balance of old or outdated products, but if we increase too much of the new products, we would not be able to finish off the old stock. So basically, now we have a gradual improvement in this ramp, and with this, we'll be able to reach our plan of having a company that's sustainable, healthy, and profitable by the end of 2024. From an ecosystem perspective, we've been evolving, so this has been growing with the migration of 1P to 3P. Ads will help a lot.
Since our own capital we're directing to the core of the company to 1P, which allows the sellers to take advantage of the main audience in our website, implementing different measures on the website and all the ecosystem, and there's a lot to be done in the stores with digital panels and other features we're adding to our sellers. So these are two adjacent businesses, and we were able to have profits in our fintech entering in this new phase in 2024 to take advantage of new opportunities here. The fifth pillar is the highlight when we look at the free cash flow, and this is the lowest cash consumption in the past five years. So for those of you who know the business, you know that in the first quarter we're still paying off the suppliers from November, Black Friday, and Christmas.
There's a bit of a cash consumption, but we consumed a bit more than BRL 100 million. Well, before it was about BRL 1 billion. So we shifted a bit in the dynamic for working capital and CapEx in the company. We brought a discipline that's really focused on the cash flow in the company, and this is going to become more clear in the next few quarters where seasonality allows us to have a better assessment of what would be normality for the company. So we had a net impact with this which also impacted this process. So the execution continued to evolve very well. The initiatives are bringing profitability, and we have a lot to move on with as we bring improvements at every quarter. We have more details on our website about the capital structure.
I think you guys mentioned this with the reprofiling of our financial debts, and about BRL 4.1 billion of our debt was recalculated and considered a new profile going on to 72 months on average term. So we also considered the reduction of the credit risk, which allowed us to reduce the average cost of debt by 1.5 percentage points. So this is a big gain, and it provides us with more comfort to really focus on operational levers. We have a big benefit in our cash position, which is a preservation of BRL 1.5 billion this year, plus a total of BRL 4.3 billion in 4 years. But the big benefit here is our focus as management. We're always discussing treasury measures, etc., with debts in the short term, but now we can focus a lot more on the operational levers and in the overall company.
Having said that, just very quickly over the main topics of the business, from a GMV perspective, we've been seeing a bit of our strategy as a specialist player, which led to a reduction in our COGS in the GMV, sorry, with a bigger impact online. Here we're stopping what was generating negative contribution margins. Even in the core items, certain channels were not generating positive contribution margins. Our commitment is towards profitability, the net income and bottom line of the company, so we decided to adjust the company. Now we're going to be accelerating these channels that are more profitable, getting back to better operational leverage, dilution of the SG&A, contributing to a healthier bottom line.
At the bottom, we're going to reinforce that even with these adjustments we look at year-over-year, we were able to keep up with the share leadership in our core categories, gaining share in certain categories and products. And for furniture, one of my mistakes actually is we were going to have burning on old stock, and when we went to replan the new supply for furniture, the receipt term was a little longer. So that impacted the first quarter a little bit. But by the end of March, we already had better stock. April was even better when it comes to the receipt of furniture in our stock. We're seeing consumer sales in our furniture deliver a higher gross margin.
So throughout the year, we'll see a transformation in this category because I think this is core company, and it's really where the company started off, and there is a lot of potential. If we compare the top-of-mind research, it's the company that's a leader when it comes to furniture, and in market share, we're very far from the top of mind when it comes to space for growth in a category that has a lot of margins, there are high results, and has major potential for growth, and will help contribute to the profitability of the company over time. We can move on. Now here, as we talk about Casas Bahia, so there's a bit of our platform here, which is the most complete platform. We have many ads platforms, but a lot of them are focused only online. We're launching this, including many physical stores and out-of-home media.
So the amount of advertisers is really growing, and the returns have been very positive, which is what gives us the endorsement or certainty that this platform will bring material contribution to the bottom line of the company. This year will already be quite significant, but for next year, it's going to be even greater. We can move on. As we look at logistics, we continue to grow. So omnichannel logistics, we can grow the fulfillment in marketplaces when it comes to revenue and customers. And on the bottom part of the slide, we continue to deliver better operational efficiency. We've been evolving in the delivery terms in the marketplaces and the non-manageable deliveries, and also in the manageable deliveries by Casas Bahia, and fulfillment, and 1P deliveries. So this improves sales conversions, customer experiences, and allows us to really win the market and accelerate with this.
So the buy now pay later is something that's core, and here you have another positive result. So besides keeping the aging above 90 days, so the best results in the last five or six quarters, contributing to the health of our portfolio, we have a historical NPL that's a lot lower than our history, actually, and the quarterly net losses were generally all-time high, BRL 190 million, but you have an occasional recovery that's a little stronger here. So you won't see this kind of number maintained over the next quarters, but we operate a little better than the year of 2023 throughout this year, even without the stronger recovery we had in the first quarter of 2024. When we look at the penetration of the buy now pay later, we continue to be healthy.
We've been accessing all municipalities, and we do see opportunities to start growing this portfolio in the buy now pay later around the second quarter gradually, without facing major risks, prioritizing customer niches that have the lowest risks for the company. Maybe they don't have that much profitability, but it's good, healthy, and low risk. The idea is not to have very risky bets. We can move on. Having said this, I'll pass the floor on to Elcio to talk about the financial highlights of the company. Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Renato. Thank you, everyone, for your presence during this 1Q final financial results. We are always keeping the same consistency of the main three fundamental blocks here, if we can advance a bit first, the discipline to execute the transformation plan, and it's always about transforming this and going back to the basics.
So getting back to our core businesses and our buy now pay later, keeping up with this transformation to really structurally improve the operational results of the cash flow in the company. We also want to perform this by piloting the company through the cash flow in the company and some of our priority equipment. Finally, we're going to talk about our capital structure, reprofiling of our debt that will provide greater confidence and safety in the main topics we discussed. This is the results you already saw in our income statement, most likely, but I want to highlight some points. When you look at the revenue in this projection, it's associated to the actual measures for the transformation plan, and so there's a lot of focus on the profitability of the business in the mid to long term.
We also entered the 2023 categories, and we also reduced the incentives, uncertain , and the closing of certain stores, 57 overall, which helped us reach the end of the first quarter. So these are measures that already consider a conceptual reduction in revenue, but when you look at this straight into the gross margin, we get back to the historical levels of the company by 30%, so we can see this ramp from the third quarter of 2023 to 27.6%-30%. So the second semester last year, we had the performance of some special sales that, of course, impacted our gross margin, but this was a very positive event for our cash position, and we're going to talk about this again as we discuss the quality of our stocks as we get back to the levels of 30%.
All of the initiatives for the plan we worked on in. [Foreign Language] .
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[Foreign Language] BRL 9 billion, keeping the same levels, and really improving the quality. E esse é tema fundamental. So this is a fundamental point when we consider the capital employed capital discipline. Most of the employee capital is here in the stocks, considering a retail operation, and so we have to really pay attention to the quality and management of the stocks. So about the suppliers, we keep the same amount of days, no major changes in regards to our suppliers. We keep up with everything as is.
We can move on to the next one, please. So here are the indirect cash flow, a big highlight here, that we're driving the company through the indirect cash flow and liquidity with a better free cash flow in the last five years for the first quarter. The first quarter is more challenging as all in the retail and all of the purchases we performed for Black Friday and Christmas. We pay off in the first quarter, and the first quarter, we have a lot of bills to pay, and retail overall has been, it's a little weaker, but even so, we were able to finish with the best first quarter in the last five years.
BRL 76 million, e quando we look at this variation in regards to the previous year, a really significant focus here is on managing the employed capital and the CapEx and the working capital, and we'll be mentioning this. We have a lot of products we continue to work with that are going to be phased out throughout the year. We also have the tax monetization that you've been monitoring. It's been a big point for our cash. It's been requiring a lot of focus from our management team, and also when it comes to the payment for legal processes, late, we're going to be controlling and focusing on cash, generating positive returns on operational activities.
[Foreign Language] Fechando cash in BRL 2.9 billion, BRL 2.9 billion, and our cash position a little lower than the fourth quarter, but still higher than what we had in the second and third quarters last year. I think we can move on. And finally, here about the liquidity and our debt position, [Foreign Language]
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When we consider these potential downsides, we already set up a structure and cash flow that is a lot better structured for the next period, besides the reduction of the cost, CDI plus 270, with 150 bps reduction about BRL 1 million per year when it comes to the cost reduction and interest in this extension of the debt, a perimeter of BRL 4.1 billion when it comes to the results in the graph on the right side. So with this, I'm going to pass the floor back to Renato, and we'll keep talking during the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Elcio. Now we'll continue with our presentation just to show you a little bit of our transformation plan. We can move on to slide 16. It's the next slide.
When we see the plan continues to have excellent execution on track, many levers taking place a little quicker than one's expected, and some of them, very few, delaying slightly, but the best point is that the impact we're bringing here is really in line with what had been estimated. So when we look at our plan to increment our profits after income tax, we are on track and confident about this delivery to the end of 2024, with some occasional anticipations. We can move on. Having said this, I'm coming into the short-term vision in the company to remind you all about how we're doing and what we see up ahead. We, of course, that the plan has two important operational levers like capital structure.
When we consider the capital structure, reprofiling is very important because it already addresses liability management, and we continue to have the strategic levers that will increment our capital structure to have a healthier structure with lower leverage in 2025. So these are mid-term levers, not very short-term. But when we look at the operational aspects, we can reaffirm the issue of being a specialist player. So we're not here to promise absurd growth. It's just incremental growth as we focus on our categories. We have growth in the EBITDA.
[Foreign Language] . The people, the greatest asset in this company, the capacity to deliver, the love for the company, everything is being done. It really impresses me. Yesterday we had the honor to open up our first mega store. We have a store in Marginal, which is beautiful and very profitable, and we're replicating this concept with a concept that could be extended to many other shopping mall stores.
The level of engagement when they opened the store and did the construction work there was sensational. Everyone's excited toward this opening. Soon after this first phase of the correction and the transformation plan and reprofiling our debt and making important deliveries makes us even more confident, excited about what's coming. I want to take advantage of the opportunity to share a video that demonstrates a bit of this mega store so that you guys can get to know it, but I also want to invite you all to go to Aricanduva to get to know the biggest retail shopping mall in Latin America, so you can all get to know the new Casas Bahia store. Can you guys share the 4, 3, 2, 1? [Foreign Language] .
So just to share a bit of the happiness and excitement and the beauty of this store format that brings the store-in-store concept, and it also helps monetize each spot in the store. We have electronic tags, we have LED and LCD screens spread around the store that are monetized through advertiser investment, and what's even better is it improves the purchase experience, increases the average ticket conversion rate, and brand exposure for advertisers, which allows us to have a healthy ecosystem that's more profitable for the company and our suppliers. So now we'll get into the Q&A session, guys. Thank you once again for your presence.
Boa tarde a todos. Obrigado, Renato. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Renato. Thank you, Elcio. Now I'll call our first question from Felipe Negrão at Citibank. Felipe, you may proceed.
Bom dia, Renato. Elcio, tudo bem? Hi, Renato.
I was here to take most of the questions. We have two questions. The first question is if you can understand a little more about the cash generation operationally in the first quarter and how sustainable this is if we look up ahead. Is this something like one-off or something we can replicate for the next years? And the second point we want to also look at is you talked about the migration of 1P to 3P, especially for products that were not very profitable. Having said this, when do you guys expect a normalization in the top line so we can start seeing growth that's at least in line with inflation? I don't know what you guys are considering for the second semester. Thanks.
Obrigado pelas perguntas, Felipe.
Thanks for the questions, Felipe.
So about the first question on cash generation, Elcio can provide more details, but the first quarter already brings this without the non-recurring effect, so we have very little excessive consumption, [Foreign Language] . And I believe this stock level is sustainable because some categories we could [Foreign Language] .
Because of the ecosystem we have and the infrastructure we have, we can be working together with industries and sector phases and capture some synergies between industry and retail. So we can talk about some additional offsetting of our stock differentials to slow and to create a growth. So, of course, considering the seasonality year-over-year, so look at each quarter, we'll have the seasonality pre-Black Friday, and that, of course, increases a bit and keeps up. So what we can see is a bit of this 1P and 3P. [Foreign Language] . The second quarter is a little stronger. You have Mother's Day. The fourth quarter has Black Friday, etc. But when you look at the second semester, it's normalizing what we're going to see.
[Foreign Language] . So we're going to have more or less a growth cycle. So first, we're concentrating on increasing operational efficiency, performing some adjustments in the processes of the company's business. [Foreign Language] . So to be able to consider this real mais inflação and also with growth in the offline and online.
Offline considers the store opinions and also taking advantage of our ecosystem where it has the potential to grow with our added capacity and online. It's really involving the customer's experience and also some SEO techniques that will help with our organic growth online and also some other categories from 1P to 3P, which had a leap downward. So I can't migrate everything since our group. But our sellers expect and see this return; this will grow rapidly and we'll be able to recover the quality in a model that's really different with repeat sellers investing. So when I look ahead, growth that's on that page that will be one-digit growth. It's really healthy for the company as we allow those two components to support this crescimento without additional measures to support this.
Perfect. So I just wanted to add on here, Felipe.
Thanks for that question about the cash and the recurring. [Foreign Language] . But in the first quarter, there was no non-recurring events in the cash position. So it's kind of what we expect considering very controlled management. As Renato talked about the initiatives and levers for working capital, we plan to evolve with this cash flow over time as the measures for the transformation plan become captured and we transform that into cash. So I think that's our main challenge: to continue to work and transform all of the operational results into cash. And when we look at this up ahead, we also consider the labor issues and claims that tend to have a reduction while the legacy items kind of finish up.
So then we start having a reduction in this aged stock, and that's very important because of the overall panorama we see in the cash position. Then you have the seasonality. In the first quarter, that's more difficult, as always. Then you have the Mother's Day event that also levers us a bit, and we move along with the business season. [Foreign Language] ? With labor contingencies and revisions. Well, we considered in the fourth quarter about 70% of the payments, of the labor payments, related to legacy. So it doesn't mean that all 70 will leave next year, but it's going to be.
Thank you, Felipe.
Obrigado. Thank you, Felipe. Não, Renato, Elcio, our next question is from Eric.
[Foreign Language] . Thanks for the question.
On our side, we have two points. If you guys talk muito brevemente sobre isso, como é que está sendo absorvido? Thank you both for details on how the absorption has been with such poor categories. E uma segunda pergunta when you look ahead to other monetization initiatives. We've seen um crescimento bem grande. The logistics is a lot of growth in the revenue in the first quarter. So what do you guys consider as potential for the future and how can we continue to help you when it comes to revenue?
Well, thanks, Eric. When we talk about 1P and 3P, we plan to migrate with the non-core categories of seasonal, cycle, evergreen, etc. [Foreign Language] .
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Thank you for the answers.
[Foreign Language] . All right, thanks, Eric. Our next question is from Nicolas, J.P. Morgan. Nicolas, you may proceed.
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[Foreign Language] . Just give us some color on this.
Nicolas, [Foreign Language] . Oh, hey, Nicolas.
The first question, then I can move it on to Elcio.
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OK, so it's not the gross margin. [Foreign Language] .
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Perfeito. Super obrigado, pessoal.
Thanks, guys.
Obrigado, Nicolas. [Foreign Language] , do Goldman Sachs. Our next question is from Irma.
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Thank you, Irma. [Foreign Language] do Alexandre Namioka, do Morgan Stanley. Alexandre Namioka at Morgan Stanley. Alexandre, may I proceed? [Foreign Language] , Alexandre. Alexandre, think you're on mute. We can't hear you. [Foreign Language] , Alexandre. [Foreign Language] ? Agora sim.
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[Foreign Language] BRL 1.5 billion-BRL 1.6 billion.
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[Foreign Language] , then goes to another house, and then deliver to our warehouse, and then head to the customer. So we can optimize this process, and that will reduce costs for everyone.
With part of this coming from the revenue will be captured from industry. So I hope I clarified that, but that's pretty much it.
[Foreign Language] Renato.
That was super clear. Thank you so much, Renato.
Thank you, Alex. Obrigado, Alex. Renato, não tem mais perguntas. Thank you, Alex. Renato, we don't have more questions. I'll pass the phone to you.
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[Foreign Language] . Take promotions now. We have special sales for Mother's Day.
If you haven't bought anything for your mother, take advantage and buy from our collection on the app and on the website. A lot of discounts available. Thank you so much.