Good morning and welcome to the first quarter of 2024 results conference call of Banco BTG Pactual. With us here today we have Roberto Sallouti, Renato Cohn, and Julia Rocha. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the bank's presentation. After Banco BTG Pactual's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session for investors and analysts, when further instructions will be given. Today we have a simultaneous webcast that may be accessed through the webcast www.btgpactual.com/ir and the platform. There will be a replay facility for this call from today. Before proceeding, let me mention that this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to the prospects of the business, estimates for operating and financial results, and those related to the growth prospects of Banco BTG Pactual.
These are merely projections and, as such, are based exclusively on the expectations of Banco BTG Pactual's management concerning the future of the business. Such forward-looking statements depend substantially on changes in market conditions, government regulations, competitive pressures, the performance of the Brazilian economy and the industry, among other factors and risks disclosed in Banco BTG Pactual's filed disclosure documents and are, therefore, subject to change without prior notice. Now, I'll turn the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti, who will begin the presentation. Mr. Sallouti, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Before we start, on behalf of all of us here at BTG Pactual, I would like to express our solidarity to the people of Rio Grande do Sul. The floods and the tragedy are really very hard to see. Our thoughts and prayers go to all those affected, and as one, we hope the rains stop soon so that people can focus on reconstructing. And as a Gaúcho friend of ours said, this is probably the biggest tragedy in the history of Rio Grande do Sul, but it will always also be its biggest victory, as we are convinced that the Gaúcho people's strength and values will show up as they reconstruct, and they can be sure to count with us at BTG Pactual on this effort.
Having said that, if we please turn to page three of the presentation, I'd like to start with some of the highlights of the first quarter results. We had record revenues and net income this quarter, resulting in a 22.8% return on equity. We had a very strong net new money, which was totaling BRL 63.8 billion, of which around BRL 16 billion was due to the acquisition of Órama. We're extremely satisfied with this number because it was a very challenging scenario both domestically and international markets. And not only that, but between January and February, investors were still understanding what was going on with their portfolios, given the tax changes that were implemented at the end of last year in Brazil. Going to point three, we had an outstanding performance in investment banking. This was basically led by mergers and acquisitions and very strong debt capital market volumes.
We continued to expand our credit portfolio, which grew 5.9% quarter-over-quarter and 26.7% year-over-year. And again, we're very satisfied here because we continue to gain market share, expand our business banking business. We continue diversifying both in segment and geographically. So we've been growing not only in large corp, but also in the corp sector, in the SME sector across Latin America. So we're very satisfied with not only the quantity, but especially the quality of this portfolio growth. And finally, just as we finished the quarter on April 8th, we issued $500 million in senior debt at 6.45%. Turning to page four, we talk a bit about the numbers. So we had BRL 5.9 billion in total revenues, a 22.7% year-over-year growth. We had net income for the quarter of BRL 2.9 billion, 27.7% year-over-year growth.
Here, as you can see, that net income is growing stronger than revenues as we continue to benefit from the operational leverage in our platform. As previously mentioned, we finished the quarter with 22.8% return on equity. Turning to page five, we had BRL 64 billion of net new money, as I mentioned previously. We see strong growth in both assets, in both wealth management and asset management. We had in wealth management assets growing 33% year-over-year, totaling BRL 756 billion, and in asset management, 23% growth year-over-year, totaling BRL 880 billion. Turning to page six, we show what happened a bit to our balance sheet.
We had growth in unsecured funding year-over-year of 26%, reaching BRL 225 billion, and growth in our credit portfolio of 27% year-over-year, reaching BRL 182 billion, of which BRL 22 billion in the SME segment. And finally, we closed the quarter very well capitalized, with a 16.4% Basel ratio, BRL 52 billion of equity. And you can see that first quarter 2023 to first quarter 2024, we have around BRL eight billion of growth in equity, which is roughly the net income minus the JCP paid. Turning to page seven, we show the traditional format at which we report numbers. So starting on the left-hand side of the page, BRL 5.9 billion revenues, BRL 2.9 billion net income, net income per unit of BRL 0.76. Cost income below our historical average, 37.5%, as we continue to benefit from the operational leverage.
We finished with total assets in the balance sheet of BRL 568 billion and 36 bps of VaR, roughly in line, but still a bit below the average of the last few quarters. Turning to page eight, you see the growth of each of the different business units, the last 12 months versus the previous 12 months. Of course, the corporate lending and business banking numbers are affected by the Americanas, the provisions that happened, I think, five quarters ago, if I'm not mistaken. But you can see consistent growth across all the different business lines, very strong growth in asset and wealth management, growth in investment banking, sales and trading.
So we're very, very satisfied with the very strong growth across all the different business lines, but especially the faster growth in the businesses that are more, let's say, don't use so much regulatory capital as asset management and wealth management. With that, I'll pass the floor to Renato Cohn, which will talk about the performance of each of the different business units.
Thank you, Roberto. Going to our specific business lines, we start, as usual, with our investment bank on page 10, where we recorded very strong revenues of BRL 654 million, which is a 41% increase when we compare with the previous quarter. Revenues came mostly from our M&A and DCM activities, as DCM market continues to face a low level of activity with only a few follow-ons and some structured capital raisings coming to the market. Specifically on M&A, we had our best quarter ever in terms of revenues, while also we maintain our leading position in number of transactions, both in Brazil and in Latam. DCM continues to contribute strongly to our investment bank revenues as the overall market continued to develop, with many transactions being executed during the quarter, and we continue to form an important pipeline to be executed in the next quarters.
During the first quarter, we participated in five international bond issuances, which is a market we didn't have many transactions for quite a long time, and it brought some opportunities for us during the first quarter, and we expect the market to continue to be open in the next few quarters. Going now to our corporate lending and business banking on page 11, we had record revenues of BRL 1,436 million, which is a 6.1% increase when we compare to the previous quarter and a 21% increase when we compare to the first quarter of 2023. Total credit portfolio grew consistently with previous quarter, with a 5.9% growth during the quarter, reaching BRL 182 billion, which represents an increase of 27% when we compare to the previous year, as we continue to gain market share both in our large corporate and also in our SME portfolios.
Our SME portfolio grew at a faster pace than the overall portfolio, reaching BRL 22.1 billion, which represents a 7.8% growth when we compare to the previous quarter and a 51% growth when we compare to the first quarter of 2023. Also important to note here that the share of revenues coming from the business banking services, such as tariffs, fees, and floating related to deposits, are becoming more relevant within our SME business as we continue to develop our digital bank for businesses. Moving now to our Sales and Trading business on page 12, we recorded revenues of BRL 1.371 billion, which is a slight decrease when we compare to the previous quarter. Revenues came mostly from client-driven flows, despite the slow start of the year and also the challenging macroeconomic scenario, both in the domestic and in international markets.
Our VAR increased to 36 basis points, which is a marginal increase of five basis points when you compare to the previous quarter, but still showing numbers below our historical average. Market risk component of our risk-weighted assets slightly decreased to 24%, but basically maintaining the similar levels of what we see during the last four quarters. Starting this quarter, we decided to consolidate our principal investments line within our Sales and Trading business. As we've been noting in the last two years, there was a reduction of the relevance of the quarterly revenues of principal investments. We decided to incorporate that line within the Sales and Trading line. Just as an indication, during this first quarter of 2024, principal investment business contributed BRL 13 million to our Sales and Trading business.
Moving now to our asset management on page 13, we had a very strong quarter with record revenues reaching BRL 574 million, which is a 13% increase when we compare to the previous quarter and a 30% increase when we compare to the first quarter of 2023. We saw revenue increases coming both from management and administration fees, aligned with the growth of the assets under management and assets under administration. Also we recorded positive contribution from our minority stakes in third-party independent asset management asset managers that we invest in. We managed to attract BRL 20.2 billion during the quarter, which is a strong number, especially considering the overall industry performance. Most of the flows that we attracted were directed to our Brazil fixed income strategies.
Our assets under management and administration reached BRL 880 billion, growing 3% during the quarter and close to 23% when we compare to the first quarter of 2023. Looking now at our wealth management and personal banking on page 14, we had another quarter of revenue growth despite the slow start of the year, with total revenues reaching BRL 879 million, which is a 2% increase compared to last quarter and a 27% increase when you compare to the first quarter of 2023. Net new money came at BRL 43.6 billion, which includes the BRL 15.9 billion from the Órama acquisition, which has been approved by our regulators in March. And if we exclude the Órama acquisition, we would have BRL 27.7 billion of net new money, which is also a very strong number considering the start of the year, the vacation period, carnival.
This is very consistent with the net new money levels that we have been attracting on a quarterly basis for the last two years. Wealth under management reached BRL 756 billion, and that represents a 6% increase when we compare to the previous quarter and a 33% growth when we compare to last year numbers. Going now to participations on page 15, we recorded a total of BRL 176 million in profits. Too Seguros contributed with profits of BRL 65 million. Our participation in EFG contributed with BRL 34 million. And Banco PAN contributed with a total of BRL 77 million, which we are splitting, as usual, in three components that we can see in the right side of the slide. BRL 149 million comes from our stake in Banco PAN's profits.
BRL 88 million comes from the accrual of the portfolios that we acquired during the last few quarters. 160 million reais is related to the elimination related to the acquisition of the portfolios during the first quarter of 2024. Important here to note is that the elimination amounts in the last two quarters have been reduced as the size of the portfolio that we are acquiring are also being reduced as a consequence of Banco PAN's decision to reduce the amount of portfolios that they sell to the market. We expect this trend to continue in the following quarters. Going now to expenses on page 17, we see that total expenses increased by 7.4%, impacted mostly by both compensation lines.
Accrual of bonuses increased by 9% when we compare to the previous quarter as a consequence of revenue growth and also the different business lines where revenue originates from. Salaries and benefits increased by 12%. That's mostly related to the mandatory yearly salary adjustments linked to inflation and also our year-end evaluation process when we decide on promotions. The breakdown of this 12% increase is approximately 5% related to the mandatory salary adjustment. 3% are related to promotions. 2% are related to hiring and internalization of outsourced employees. The remaining 2% are based on other minor factors, including the Órama acquisition. As it happened last year, we expect salaries and benefits expenses to have a much lower increase for the next quarters as we do not see significant hirings. We will continue to hire mostly for business functions, and we'll have some internalization of outsourced employees.
But we expect this to be in the similar way of what we did throughout 2023. Administrative and other expenses remained basically stable, and our effective tax rate remained stable at 20.1%. So here, when we compare the numbers of the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2023, we can clearly see the operational leverage that we've been talking about, right? We can clearly see the operational leverage kicking in with revenues growing by 23% while our costs grew by 14% year-over-year, which resulted in profits growing by 28%, as Roberto mentioned in the beginning of the presentation. Looking now at our balance sheet on page 19, we see that total assets remained at close to 10 times our equity. We increased our liquidity levels to BRL 85 billion of cash and cash equivalents, and our LCR ratio reached 166.5%.
Our coverage ratio remains at a comfortable level of 171% as our unsecured funding continues to grow at a faster pace than the cash component of our credit portfolios. Our corporate lending portfolio represents 3.5 times our equity, which is a ratio that has been stable for the last few quarters as our equity continued to grow strongly and at the same pace of our portfolio growth, our credit portfolio growth. Looking now on page 20, we see that we had a very strong growth of our unsecured funding base, adding BRL 21 billion during the quarter, which is 10% growth, and reaching a total of BRL 225 billion, which represents a 26% increase when we compare to the first quarter of 2023.
The share of retail funding slightly reduced to 29% as we saw a strong demand from corporate and institutional clients for long-term securities and also time deposits. In February, Roberto mentioned we called and repurchased our subordinated bonds, which had an outstanding amount of BRL 600 million. Also in April, so not included here in these numbers, we successfully issued BRL 500 million notes of 5-year unsecured notes at the fixed rate of 6.45%. Finally, on page 21, our Basel ratio ended the quarter at 16.4%, coming from 17.5%, with the impact coming mostly from the repurchase of the subordinated bond that I just mentioned, which had an impact of approximately 90 basis points. Here you see the Core Equity Tier 1 remaining basically stable, moving from 12.5%- 12.4%. As we mentioned before, our average VAR marginally increased by five basis points, 36%.
So with that, I think we can go to questions.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions from investors and analysts. If you have a question, click "Raise Hand" at this time. If at any point your question is answered, you can remove yourself from the queue by clicking "Lower Hand." Questions will be taken in the order that they are received. Please hold while we pull for questions. The first question comes from Daniel Vaz with Safra. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Sallouti, Renato, and Julia. Congrats again on the results. Very, very good results. I wanted to ask about your unsecured funding base. We saw a strong increase in this quarter. As you know already, a higher demand from corporate and institutional clients in time deposits and long-term securities. If you could give me a little bit more context here, I would like to hear a bit more about this increased demand from this cluster of clients. Was there anything particularly related to these BTG CDs or securities or an increased appetite for lower-risk products? If you could give us a little bit more context, it would be good to hear from that. Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel. It's hard to pinpoint to a specific factor here. I think it's a combination of various things. I think it's a combination of our increased presence across the corporate sector, our largest capillarity as we continue to expand our network, as we continue to improve the perception of the bank. And I also think there's a factor of some seasonality. Probably I expect year-end companies were using more cash to probably address, let's say, demand issues that probably reduces in the first quarter. Along with that, you have very active debt capital markets, which means that companies are also putting cash on their balance sheets and need to invest that until they put it to work. So it's hard to pinpoint to one specific factor, but I think it's a combination of all these things that I mentioned.
Okay. Thank you. If you may, a follow-up here on your demand deposits. Is this related to your corporate banking strategy? You expect this to get higher and higher as you expand your presence here? Because this is floating, right? This is like 100% reference to you, right?
Yes. I think as we continue to expand both our personal banking efforts at BTG Pactual, our business banking efforts at BTG Pactual, and our consumer banking efforts at Banco PAN, we do expect that these will continue to grow over time. Yes. That is a fair assumption.
All right. Thank you. Congrats again.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Flavio Yoshida with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Sallouti, Cohn, and Julia. Congrats on the strong results. So I have two questions here on my side. So the first one, I would like to better understand how the changes in the market perspectives, mainly related to the Selic and the US rate trends, changed the top management view for growth. So is there any business that you guys became less optimistic than in the beginning of the year given this scenario change? And if positive, how can you offset this? And then I can come back for my second question. Thanks.
Thank you, Flavio. Definitely. I think a higher interest rate scenario makes markets more challenging, which has impacts in different ways. Let's say, on the fact that it does not affect business, our equity is cash. So if interest rates remain higher for longer, we continue making the revenues that we report in interest and other from the higher interest rates. And as they take longer to fall, I say that impacts probably equity capital markets stronger than anything else. To some extent, it also affects Sales and Trading. And to some extent, it also how would I say? It delays the investors seeking credit, duration, equity, and illiquidity risk because they are gaining a higher risk-free rate. But as we said previously, I think we have a very good mix of businesses that is able to adapt to the changing market conditions for us to continue delivering strong results.
But of course, as in any other business, when you have tailwinds, it does help. So clearly, it does make for a more challenging scenario, but nothing that is leading us to change the guidance that we presented last quarter.
Okay. Thanks. My second question is on the loan portfolio growth. So you guys posted a very strong growth on the SME segment, right? But at the same time, we see many other banks also focusing strongly on this specific segment, from smaller banks to large banks as well. So could you please share some color on how you guys are seeing the competitive environment in this specific segment, and what can you do differently from the other banks to keep on growing in this client profile? Thanks.
Very strong competition is part of our life, right? I think fortunately for Brazilian and Latin markets, we have a very strong financial sector, very competent banks, and they're all seeking to serve the clients in the best way possible. And at the end of the day, I think this is good because it makes us even more obsessed with serving our clients with excellence. Having said that, as you mentioned, we are a new entrant in the SME segment, and we're coming with a product that is being and has been developed looking at what are the state-of-the-art parameters of all the competitors put together. So we're coming to market with what we consider a very competitive product.
It's not that as people become aware that we have this product offering, we're seeing the clients using our banking app and using our offering very, very aggressively. So of course, yes, we're following the competition, but it has not impacted the growth we expected and that we continue to expect in that business line. We think it's a healthy competition. We think it's good for the market, but we're still benefiting, I think, from being a new entrant with a very compelling product offering at the moment.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Tito Labarta with GS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for the call and taking my question. Also, a couple of questions, if I may. First one, your investment banking very strong results, even considering perhaps maybe some seasonality in the quarter. But maybe can you give a little bit of color in terms of the M&A and DCM? I mean, both seem to have been very strong, but just thinking about the sustainability of this throughout the year, anything that you think may have been extraordinary, or do you think you can even grow revenues from here just to get a little bit of better understanding on how that can evolve? And then actually a similar question on asset management, very strong quarter despite you don't have the performance fees this quarter. How do you think that asset management revenues can evolve from here as well, just given the strong performance going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Tito. So on investment banking, I think there are different factors at play here. DCM markets continue strong, much more competitive, but we think that this will probably sustain itself for the next few quarters. M&A, the pipeline is still very healthy, but as you know, M&A depends on deals being completed. So there is some lumpiness and unpredictability, unfortunately, there. But we think that if you look at it at a, let's say, not quarter-over-quarter, but on a yearly basis, we're still very, very optimistic with the pipeline and the deals we have at hand. So I think it's hard to say if it's going to continue growing from here, but we're still along the same guidelines that we gave last quarter for the year results, probably with a positive bias given how the year started.
When you talk about asset management, as you said, we don't have performance fees this quarter. We have the dividend pickup from the independent asset managers, of which we're partners. Next quarter and fourth quarter, we will have some performance fees. We are seeing sustained growth on much more our management business rather than our administration business, which is suffering a bit with the market. So we think that we can go maybe a bit up or down, but clearly, we think the trend is around these levels and continue to creep up higher quarter over quarter.
Great. Thanks, Sallouti. That's helpful. Maybe just following up, I mean, just given the potentially higher rates for longer scenario, how do you see maybe your competitive advantage in this type of rate environment relative to some of your peers? Do you think maybe this puts you in a better position? Does it matter just how you think about the products you're offering versus your peers in the current rate environment? Thank you.
I think, as I mentioned previously, the fact that our equity is cash allows us to earn the interest-free rate on that chunk of our equity, and you can see that in interest and other. And as expected, it makes the other business lines tougher. I think contrary to popular belief, actually, I think the financial sector as a whole benefits if we're able to have sustainable lower interest rates and not what is the common belief or the urban legends that is the opposite. So if any competitive advantage, I think the fact that we probably have more of our capital as cash makes that I wouldn't say a competitive advantage, but makes us being able to manage this tougher scenario. And it's something that, I mean, over the last 40 years, it's not the first time we've seen we're ready for this.
We really hope that especially the U.S. interest rates, you continue with the disinflationary process, you're able to bring lower interest rates. I think Brazil as a whole will benefit from that.
Okay. That's clear. Thanks, Sallouti.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Renato Meloni, Autonomous. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Nice here for the space to ask questions. So I have my first question on the corporate and SME lending. Growth here is tracking much higher than you had indicated during the last call. So I wonder here if you're expecting some deceleration on year-on-year growth in the portfolio or if there's some upside risk here. And my second question is a follow-up on IIB revenues. You mentioned that you had record revenues for M&A, but when we look at the transaction values, they've come down from 4Q. So I'm trying to understand the dynamics here and what generates the mismatch. Thanks.
Thank you, Renato. Starting first with the corporate lending business, if we continue to see the same opportunity of quality of credit that we saw in the first quarter, yes, I would say there is an upside risk here to the growth that we had signaled. But this again, we're going to be very, very disciplined strategy on cost, on culture, on risk because we think this is the fact that we've stuck to the strategy, stuck to, let's say, the management style, the risk management. Everything we've done is what has allowed us to bring this consistent growth. So you can expect the same discipline, but you're correct. There maybe is an upside risk here. On the M&A side, as we told you many times, we are always okay in charging a lower base or management fee and working for the performance or the incentive fee.
I think probably here when you compare the volumes to the fees, this is something that comes into play with us. We're always quite convinced that we are going to surpass the expectations of our clients and with that, be able to benefit from higher incentive or performance fees. I would say this is probably what you're seeing when you compare the raw numbers to the fees.
No, that's understood. Thanks. And if I can have just a quick follow-up on the SME lending, can you comment a bit on the strategy to diversify products? Are you able to diversify away from the supply chain financing? And do you still expect to end the year with about 50/50 on that book?
Yes. We have started to see that diversification. It has been from supply chain financing to credit card receivables, now to some, let's say, asset-backed loans. Banking is actually becoming more and more important compared to credit. So yes, we have been able to see some diversification, but we're still very conservative, meaning that we still have very little clean credit in the SME segment because we want to make sure that we know the financial history of our clients well enough before we start going into the riskier lines of business in the SME segment credit.
Understood. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Arnon Shirazi with Santander. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on the strong quarter. My questions may be related to the tax reform if you have the opportunity to assess the impact. Thanks.
I assume you're talking about, let's say, the IVA tax reform. Is that correct?
Yes, that's correct.
It's naturally here, I think the details are what matter. The initial simulations that we've been doing with the federation of banks is that probably we'll have slightly higher taxes on revenues on the service sector, on the fees. What has been said is that the federal, let's say, the Brazilian IRS is looking to have stable taxing on credit. But we still have to see the details. Our expectation is that they will be more or less neutral, but we're working very closely with the federation of banks to ensure that this is the case. It's still too early to give you a final picture here. Great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Jorge Kuri with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Congrats on the numbers. I wanted to ask about two things. One is going into this theme that has been asked before about your business in the context of higher rates for longer. If you look at consensus estimates, very few have rates below 10% all this year, even next year. And if indeed you start to see a little bit of a slowdown in the business, what is the appetite and the room that you have to potentially pay out more than you do today? That would be my question number one. And question number two is if you could give us an update on the authorization and setup and potential launch of your platform for OTC trading. Where does that stand? Thank you.
Sure. On the second question, I'm not sure I got it.
So your ongoing plans to compete in trading in Brazil, trading and registration, where does that stand?
Okay. So I think you're probably referring to the minority investment that we did at CSD, correct?
Correct.
Okay. So on the first part, I think sincerely, what we're seeing now is that everything is pretty much priced in that we will have rates at around 10% for this year and next. So this is what is expected. We still think that in this scenario, we can continue to get the kind of growth that we expected. We still maintain the guidance that we gave last year. And I would say we do not expect to be increasing the payout because we do think that we will continue to have good opportunities to allocate the capital we accumulate. And we also think that there is probably in five out of the six business lines we have, we can continue to gain market share. And as we continue to gain market share, we will be able to have efficient capital allocation.
If for some reason that is not the case, we can stop and revisit, but the bar is very high, and we don't expect that to happen in the next few years. Finally, here on CSD, first of all, this is a minority investment. We think Brazil as a whole can benefit from competition in the market infrastructure segment. We think that clients, including ourselves, can benefit both from, let's say, lower fees and from better service from all the different competitors, which is exactly what we're seeing. It's a small investment compared to our balance sheet. Sincerely, given the business plan that was presented when the investment was made, everything is pretty much on track. But I don't think that you should read too much into this.
Got it. Thank you, Sallouti. Congrats again.
Thank you. The next question comes from Pedro Leduc with Itaú BBA. Please go ahead.
Thank you, guys, and congrats on the quarter. Question on operating expenses, please. No, bonuses, salaries, they went up on a nearly 10% quarter-over-quarter around mid-teens year-over-year. I understand business is doing well, but of course, the Sales and Trading division fell quarter-over-quarter, which usually has a lot of bonuses to it. And when I look at your total number of employees, it looks like you are hiring more ex-autonomous, but the number of partners and associates fell by a notch. So as we look forward into the year, I'm wondering if this is an adjustment that you did in the base, both in headcount and in the salary or bonus base of your force. And then as revenues evolve, you will dilute this, or is this still an ongoing adjustment that seems to be going on on the operating expense side? Thank you.
Hi, Leduc. No, thank you for the question. I think it's important. There was no adjustments, right, in our methodology in terms of accruing for bonuses. If you look at the last numbers, right, last year numbers, we ended up accruing a little bit more during the first three quarters, and we did a final adjustment in the fourth quarter. So now we start in the same, let's say, the same process. That's why you see a slightly higher increase when you see quarter-over-quarter, fourth quarter, sorry, first quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023 because of more of the adjustments that we did in the fourth quarter than the number here. So the methodology is exactly the same. No changes there. And what we expect, specifically that on bonus, right?
On salaries, what we expect is a similar pattern of what we saw throughout 2023. So there is a slight cost bump in January, right, because of the promotions and the mandatory salary adjustments, the dissídio, right, called here in Brazil. Then we expect more stable numbers, right? As I mentioned, we will continue to hire, but in much smaller numbers than what we did in 2021 and 2022. It's going to be similar to what we did in 2023. There is a small effect of internalization, right? So when we do internalization, we hire outsourced employees. So some of the cost that the outsourced employees that are recorded in administrative and others, they go to the salary and benefit lines, right? But this is also minor, right? We see a minor adjustment there quarter-over-quarter.
Overall, we expect salary and benefit lines to grow very slowly from the first quarter to be somewhat stable. We don't expect the same pattern, right? We have the cost bump in the first quarter and then much more stable numbers.
Appreciate it, Renato. Thank you.
The next question comes from Nicolas Riva with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the chance to ask questions. I have a question on your bonds. So this past quarter, you called the 2029 Tier 2s, and you issued the 2029 senior bonds. So that means that you only have senior bonds left in the dollar bond curve. But you do have local Tier 2s outstanding. So I wanted to ask about the amortization or maturity schedule, specifically this year for the local Tier 2s, if you have any needs to raise more Tier 2 capital in the near future. Thanks.
Hi, Nicolas. Thank you for the question. I think, as you correctly pointed out, we issued quite successfully during the second half of 2023 subordinated Tier 2 instruments in Brazil, and those were 10-year instruments. So we just issued them. And again, they are 10 years. We issued at very favorable levels. So they will impact our capital in the same way in the next five years, and then there is the normal reduction of 20% per annum. So I think we're very comfortable for the next five years. We are with more Tier 2 capital than what we think it's even the optimal size, right?
Thanks very much.
Thank you. That brings us to the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now return the floor to Mr. Roberto Sallouti for his closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you all once again for joining our quarterly call. We hope you have a great week, and we look forward to seeing you at the next earnings report. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day.