Good morning, and welcome to the fourth quarter of 2023 results conference call of Banco BTG Pactual. With us here today, we have Roberto Sallouti, Renato Cohn, 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 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 website www.btgpactual.com/ir, and the platform. There will be 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 file 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. Thank you for joining our 2023 earnings call. I'm going to start talking about the highlights of the full year 2023 on page 3 of the presentation. The first point to mention is that throughout 2023, we were able to both increase revenues and operational leverage of the platform, resulting in a record net income for the year and a 22.7 return on equity, even as we face the challenging, I would say, macro environment, both globally and specifically in Latin America, as well as some idiosyncratic events in the credit markets. We're very satisfied with the financial results of the year.
Going to the second point, we're also very satisfied with the qualitative result, results of the year as we continue expanding our client franchises, specifically very strong growth in our investment management platforms. We had reaching a total of assets under management of BRL 1.6 trillion, with a net new money of BRL 205 billion for the year. We also continued to grow our corporate credit portfolio, growing 19% year-over-year, while at the same time keeping the top quality of the, of the portfolio as well as a, a very diversified one. So we're very satisfied not only with the growth, but the quality of growth of our credit portfolio. And finally, we finished the year with a very robust balance sheet.
It's extremely liquid, well-capitalized, funding base growing 60% year-over-year, and a capital ratio of 17.5 at the end of the year. For next year or, or the current year, 2024, we continue to expect, continued gains in operational leverage in our platform, and with that, we continue to expect to have return on equity expansion, throughout 2024 when compared to 2023. This will be a result of, continued growth in all of our business lines, in 2024, and a very controlled growth of our expenses as we exactly as we explore this operational leverage. If you turn to the next page, on page 4, we start talking about the highlights of the fourth quarter of 2023.
We had total revenues of BRL 5.7 billion, 56% year-over-year growth. This is a bit, this, this 56% is impacted by the one-off, credit expenses we had in the fourth quarter of last year. Net income of BRL 2.8 billion for the quarter, compared to BRL 2.7 billion in the previous quarter, 61% year-over-year. Again, this was impacted by the credit one-off that we had, in the last quarter of last year. And for the quarter, we had, a return on equity of 23.4%, the highest return on it, the highest return on equity of all the quarters we had throughout the year.
Going to page five, we had BRL 41 billion of net new money in the quarter, with wealth under management growing 31% year-over-year, reaching BRL 713 billion, and assets under management growing 21% year-over-year, reaching BRL 856 billion. When you turn to page six, we talk a bit about our balance sheet. As I mentioned previously, we finished the year with a 16% year-over-year growth in unsecured funding, with a total unsecured funding base of BRL 204 billion. We finished with a capital ratio, Basel ratio of 17.5%, net equity of BRL 49 billion, and we grew our credit portfolio 19%, reaching BRL 172 billion, of which BRL 21 billion in the SME segment.
We again, after a reduction in the first quarter of this year, we're back to growing this business line. If you turn to page seven, we talk about the, how we traditionally report every quarter the results. So once again, total revenues of BRL 5.65 for the quarter, net income of BRL 2.85, return on equity of 23.4%, net income per unit of BRL 0.75. We had a bit below historical or historical average cost income at 36%, compared to, let's say, a more recent history between 38% and 39%. We finished with total assets of BRL 493 billion on our balance sheet, 49.4 net equity, 17.5 capital ratio.
We also announced in the quarter a JCP distribution of BRL 1.45 billion. We continued with a stable VAR throughout the year, so there was a bit of an increase in the second quarter, if I'm not mistaken, but third and fourth quarter relatively stable, with fourth quarter an average of 31 basis points VAR. On the next page, on page 8, we talk about the full year results. BRL 21.56 billion of revenues, BRL 10.42 billion net income, 22.7% return on equity, BRL 2.73 net income per unit. A cost income ratio of the year 38.2%, on the, say, bottom range of what we consider, let's say, an average cost income.
As mentioned previously, the shareholders' equity of BRL 49.4, growing 17% year-over-year, and a VaR of 35 basis points throughout the year. So pretty stable compared to 2022. On the next page, on page 9, we show a breakdown of the growth in the different business units. We have a bit of an outlier here in the corporate lending business, which was impacted in the last year because of the one-off credit events we had. And the rest are pretty much growing across the board, with faster growth in our investment management business clients.
As I said in the previous quarters, we continue to like the way the business is diversifying and growing, and we especially like the distribution, where we have roughly one-third in corporate and investment banking, one-third linked to markets, and one-third of our revenues linked to the investment management business. With that, I'll pass the floor to Renato Cohn, which will talk about the performance of the different business units.
Thank you. Thank you, Roberto. So moving and starting with our investment bank, as usual, on page 11, we recorded solid revenues of BRL 464 million during the fourth quarter, which is a decrease of 21% from the very strong revenues of the third quarter of 2023, when we had record revenues in DCM. And, are now more in line with revenues we recorded during the fourth quarter of 2022 and even the third quarter of 2022. Specifically on DCM, after a very weak first half of 2023 and a very strong third quarter of 2023, we had a strong contribution as market volumes normalizes and the number of transactions continue to gain momentum.
We also had higher contribution from M&A transactions as we continued to execute our pipeline, and we had weak revenues from ECM transactions as market continues to wait for better conditions. When we look at the right side of the chart, we see that in 2023, we recorded revenues of BRL 1.62 billion, which is a 12% decline when we compare to the previous year. And this is a good result, considering the events at the beginning of the year that strongly affected DCM markets and also the absence of IPOs throughout 2023.
We are also happy to announce that we were awarded for the fourth consecutive year as Best Bank for Sustainable Finance in Latin, Best Bank for Sustaining Communities in Latin America, and Best Bank for Sustainable Finance in Brazil, as we continue to support our clients with their sustainability approach in their financial needs. Going now on page 12, to corporate and SME lending, we had record revenues of BRL 1.353 billion, which is a 2.4% increase when we compare to the previous quarter. Total credit portfolio increased by almost 7% during the quarter, and 19% when compared to the previous year, reaching a total portfolio of BRL 171.6 billion....
And important to note here that we continue to expand our SME credit portfolio, which grew by 16% during the quarter. As you recall, and it's, as it's shown, in the right side of the slide, we reduced our exposure by BRL 8 billion during the first quarter of 2023, then we maintain it, more or less flat during the second quarter, and then we resume the growth process during the third quarter as market conditions improved. And as we expand our product offering for this SME segment, we expect to continue to increase our presence, and market share, in this, in this segment, with more diversified sources of revenues. Going now to our sales and trading on page 13.
We had revenues of BRL 1.4 billion, which is a similar level when we compare to the previous quarter. Looking at the right side of the slide, we see the evolution of Sales and Trading revenues during the last five years. In 2023, we recorded BRL 6.235 billion, which is an increase of 17.5% compared to last year. When we consider a longer period, we see a compounded growth rate of 22% in the last four years as we continue to expand to expand our product offering, as well as enlarging our client base. We also see the structural reduction in VaR and also the market risk component of our risk-weighted assets.
VaR ended the quarter at 31 basis points, and we had an average VaR of 35 basis points for the entire year, while the market risk component finished the year at 25.5%. Going now to our asset management on page 14. We had record revenues during this quarter, with revenues of BRL 509 million, which is a 9% increase during the quarter, driven by higher management fees and also some performance fees that we recorded in December. New money was 14.5 billion reais during the quarter and 80 billion reais during 2023, which is a very positive number, especially if we consider the total asset management industry outflows of BRL 138 billion.
Most of the flows were directed to fixed income, strategies and alternative funds managed by BTG Pactual Asset Management. When we look at the right side of the slide, we can see the evolution of total assets under management during the last five years. We can see that assets under management grew 21% during the year. When we look at the longer term, we see a compounded growth rate of 33% in the last four years. Moving to wealth management on page 15. We had another quarter of record revenues, and this is the 20th consecutive quarter of record revenues.
Revenues reached BRL 862 million, which represents a strong increase of 9%, compared to the previous quarter, and 25.6% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. When we look in the bottom part of the slide, we see the evolution of revenues over the years. During 2023, revenues reached BRL 3.074 billion, which is a 21% increase when we compare to the previous year. When we look to the longer term, we see that revenues multiplied by 5 times in the last 5 years. Net new money for the quarter was almost BRL 27 billion, which is a similar number that we've been bringing during the last few quarters.
Overall, during 2023, we brought a total of BRL 124 billion. With that, total wealth under management reached BRL 713 billion, which is an increase of 7% compared to the third quarter of 2023, and an increase of 30% when we compare to last year number. Looking at the evolution of wealth management throughout the years, we see that wealth under management multiplied by more than 4 times in the last 5 years. So overall, very strong numbers of growth, both in revenues and wealth under management for our wealth management business. Going now on page 16 to participations and principal investments. So in participations, we recorded BRL 50 million in profits, and as customary, we break down the components in the right side of the slide.
Too Seguros reached BRL 55 million in profits, which is a slight improvement from the previous quarter. We recorded BRL 128 million in profits from our stake at Banco Pan, BRL 78 million from the accrual of payroll loan portfolios that we acquired during 2023. We recorded 210 million reais elimination from the portfolios that we acquired during the fourth quarter of 2023. In principal investments, we posted BRL 117 million in revenues, mostly driven by a higher contribution from our investment, as well as lower funding costs. Moving now to expenses, on page 18, we will see that we managed to improve efficiency as our revenues grew more than our costs.
Overall, throughout 2023, we managed to reduce our costs, our cost income by 2 percentage points, coming from 40% in 2022 to 38% in 2023, while in the fourth quarter, our cost income was only 36%, which is below our historical levels. Salaries and benefits increased slightly by 2% during the quarter, while administrative expenses increased by 5% due to some one-off year-end expenses. Our effective income tax rate was stable at 19.8%, mostly impacted by interest on equity distribution. Going to page 20, on our balance sheet, we see that total assets slightly reduced to 9.5 times our equity.
We continue to maintain strong liquidity levels with BRL 76 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and our LCR closed the year at 172%. Our own balance sheet credit portfolio grew in line with our unsecured funding, which result in a stable coverage ratio of 162%. And our corporate and SME lending portfolio now represents 3.5 times our net equity, which is a very conservative level. On page 21, we look at our unsecured funding. We see that total funding grew by 5.5% during the quarter, reaching BRL 204 billion, which means a 16% growth when we compare to last year.
And even with a strong BRL 28 billion funding expansion during 2023, we managed to slightly increase the share of retail funding to 31%. During the quarter, we successfully issued another tranche of our ten-year subordinated CRA totaling BRL 3.5 billion during the fourth quarter, and a total of BRL 10.5 billion during 2023. Finally, on page 22, we look at our Basel ratios. We see that our balance sheet remains very robust and liquid, with total Basel ratio, total capital ratio stable at 17.5%, with core equity Tier 1 at 12.5% and Tier 2 capital of 4.9%.
Important to say that as we communicated to the market on January 15, we will redeem on February 15, our subordinated bonds due in 2029. The impact of this redemption is estimated to be around 60 basis points in our Tier 2 capital. As mentioned before, our VaR decreased during the quarter to 31 basis points. With that, I think we can open for questions.
Thank you. This floor is now open for questions from investors and analysts. If you have a question, please click Raise Hand at this time. The first question comes from Renato Meloni with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the time here to ask questions. So, first, if you could give us some outlook on the investment banking business, if you're expecting some improvement in order of magnitude. I think it'll be helpful to know, like, what you're seeing in the pipeline and how that's going to evolve throughout the year. And, secondly, we again, this quarter, saw a reduced VaR, but the market risk component of your RWA is again going up. So I wonder if this disconnect here is because of the difference in methodology that you mentioned the last quarter, or if there's something else, but then it will be helpful to know which of the metrics is a better proxy of how your position here in first Q of 2024. Thank you.
Thank you, Renato. For investment banking, we do expect to go back to growth. We actually expect all our business lines to grow. And the pipeline, I would say, then on the three underlying businesses, M&A, ECM, and DCM, leaves us quite confident that we will be able to have a, let's say, go back to growth, and then throughout the year. On your second question, this is exactly it. The Brazilian Central Bank it has its methodology for the market risk component of the BIS of capital. We actually...
I personally believe that VaR is a better, let's say, metric to analyze the risk on the balance sheet than the market risk component, which has some lagging effects, has some overweights on some assets compared to others, and some very specific issues.
... Oh, thank you. That's clear. Just a quick follow-up here. On the ID, do you have some order of magnitude that you can give us in terms of improvement for this year, or too early to tell?
I would not like to get into giving specific guidance on each of the business lines, but definitely we're expecting, we had two consecutive years of declines. We expect to go back to growth somewhere where we were in the recent past.
Understood. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much. Also, 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. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please click Raise Hand. The next question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Roberto and Renato. Thank you for the call, Roberto and Renato, thank you for the call and taking my question. A couple questions also. Again, first on just the investment management business. Net new money has been trending a bit lower, but, you know, still getting good revenue growth. Just how much of that do you think is just because of the higher base that you have? Just trying to understand the sustainability of the growth there, and as interest rates come down, could we potentially see an acceleration there? Yeah, you mentioned that optimal, or you mentioned the revenue mix, right, is a third investment management, third banking, and then a third other. Do you think that's the optimal revenue mix?
Do you think the investment management business could potentially represent a greater percentage of your revenues? And then my second question on just your ROE. You mentioned ROE expansion. You expect again, you continue to deliver good performance there. Do you think this 23% ROE level that you're hitting today is that sort of a sustainable level of ROE? Just do you think there could be further expansion from there? Just to kind of think of how you think about the long-term sustainable ROE for the business. Thank you.
Thank you, Tito. So on investment management, I think we. You have to remember that investment management has a wealth management component and an asset management component. If you analyze what happened to the asset management industry, you will see that they had a very good performance. And as you mentioned, in the high interest rate scenario, where you had a lot of the tax-exempt products on the major retail banks being offered to clients, even in that scenario, we were able to deliver solid net new money in wealth management. So that leaves us quite optimistic that we're able to sustain these levels.
A bit of volatility on both sides, but clearly the micro scenario that we are seeing for 2024 and 2025 is probably a healthier scenario for the Investment Management business and consequently for our Investment Management business, and in both lines, both Wealth Management and in Asset Management. On the second part of your question, relating still to Investment Management, we expect these both franchises to be growing at a faster pace than the other business lines. So yes, we expect that year-over-year, the percentage of Investment Management in our revenue mix will continue to grow, which explains a bit of the ROE expansion.
If we are able to generate revenues from, let's say, service businesses, and these are growing at a faster pace than the businesses that use the balance sheet, let's say, credit, for example, this will allow us to continue to explore ROE expansion, and this is, let's say, furthermore, exponentialized by what we said in the last few quarters, that we reached a level of IT technology deployment and delivery, that we think that we can continue to expand volumes significantly on our platform without a significant increase in costs. So the guidance we're giving you is that for 2024, we expect an ROE above 22.7, and we expect, at least for the next, let's say, two or three years, this to be the scenario as we continue to benefit from the operational leverage on our platform.
No, that's very clear, clear, Roberto. Thank you for that. Just one quick follow-up, I guess, on the net new money. How important of a metric do you think this is for understanding sort of the outlook for the business, right? As you mentioned, you know, high rates is a little bit challenging. Second half of the year maybe starts to get better. But, how much of the business is driven by accelerating perhaps net new money, or how much of it is cross-selling, maybe other products, and that can also drive the growth in particularly, I guess, wealth management, even if net new money doesn't accelerate as much as, you know, where you were at the peak?
The truth is, there are... We talk a lot about net new money, but that's, let's say, one out of the three variables that matter in how we see the business. A second variable is what happens to the stock, right? Because it's, let's say, important that the assets that are under your care also grow year-over-year. So we have to see the growth of the assets that already our clients have with us. We have to see the net new money coming in, and we have to see the return on assets. And here we're quite optimistic with continued ROE expansion, as we are not only having, let's say, more cross-selling, but we also increase our product offering, right?
We mentioned that we started with investments, now we have local banking, now we have international investments. As we are able to service our clients in more products in a higher percentage of their share of wealth, we are able to, with that, have a return on asset expansion. So the truth is, we're, we're we talk a lot about net new money, but we're always monitoring these three variables. So net new money has a bit, as you, as you mentioned previously, has a bit more of volatility, but as long as the other two are in the, on the right direction, this gives us a lot of confidence in the growth of the investment management platform and the percentage of revenues, uh, of investment management compared to the rest of the businesses.
That's very clear. Thanks, Roberto, and congratulations on the strong results.
Thanks, Tito.
Thank you. The next question comes from Daniel Vaz with Safra. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hi, Roberto. Hi, Renato and Julia. Congrats with the results. I would like to elaborate more on corporate and SME lending. You recently set up a very interesting partnership with Sienge, right? So BTG being their bank as a service provider. And I remember that one of the 2023 goals was to set up a full banking platform, right? So for the business. And with this partnerships, it seems like at least that you're closer to being 100% set up. So, can you comment on the current state of it and elaborate more on your expectations for credit portfolio growth for 2024? I mean, are you expecting to grow above this 20% mark that you reached close to in 2023? Is it going to be boosted but for freight lines? Should SME outpace corporates? Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel. We expect a similar level of growth to this year in 2024. When I say similar, it's, let's say, ±2-2.5 percentage points from the 19% that we grew this year. Of course, this will always be a function of what's going on in the market. On your second question on how, where are we on the launch and development of our platform to corporates? I would say that we are already quite competitive, but we still expect in the next few months to have a few differentiating factors that will come into play, which leave us quite bullish with the growth of this business. So, clearly, we think, we...
Corporates, if they want to have us as the only bank, be it a corporation or be it an individual, we can do that. They can do that. They can have us as the sole bank. But we also expect some differentiating factors, especially on the experience to come in over the next few months, which leaves us quite bullish. And we—yes, we expect, let's say, probably the SME portfolio to grow faster than the rest of the businesses.
Okay. Very, very, very clear. Thank you for the answer.
The next question comes from Jorge Kuri with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Jorge Kuri from Morgan Stanley. I have two questions, if I may. The first one on the comments that Roberto made, a couple of times already about operating leverage being a big part of keeping the ROE, or actually, I think you said, expanding ROE this year versus last year. You know, as I look at the composition of your expenses, half of it is roughly compensation, and I'm guessing it's fair to say that your comp ratio will remain around 22% for the next few years, as has been the case historically, and we wouldn't get operating leverage from that. So it really all boils down to admin expenses, which over the last five years, grew at a 24% CAGR.
I know there were some investments and business expansions that drove that. This year, you grew 16%, which is year you grew 16%, which is evidently lower than that five-year CAGR of 24. So how do you see that number going forward? I mean, that's evidently a really important input in that ROE expansion. Is there a big step down in admin expense growth this year versus last year? How do you see that evolving over the next, you know, couple of years? So that's my first question. And then my second question is on the average daily VaR as a percentage of your shareholders' equity. On slide 13, you show the historical level, 0.67% in 2019... 0.35% last year, that's almost half.
If indeed Selic rates go to 10 or 9 or 8 over the next 12, 24 months, do you think that-- and you know, there's more of a risk on in trading in the market. Is the appetite for you guys to take that number up from the 35%? I guess, in other words, can trading revenues grow faster than your shareholders' equity? Which seems to be one of the inputs that a lot of people have a hard time putting in their models, and if I look at consensus numbers, it just doesn't feel that consensus is giving you any credit for a little bit more animal spirits on the trading. And so I just wanted to get your sense on how much can that move up going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Jorge. So on your first question, first, it's important to mention that we always like to look at salaries and benefits and admin together. Because we, especially in the technology part of the business, we have been insourcing part of that. So to gain agility, we were probably using more outsourcing in the past than we expect to use in the future. So while what you said is a clear analysis of the numbers, there's a bit more to that that's important to mention.
But the truth is, yes, at the end of the day, when you look at this composition of both of them, we expect it to grow slower than it did in 2023 and the previous years, as we think we have a lot of capacity to increase volumes with the current platform that we have. On your second question, on the VaR, I would say that not necessarily, let's say, the Selic going down, it would mean that we would be looking to necessarily increase the VaR. The truth is, and I don't necessarily think that it would increase at a faster growth pace than equity, would come from an increase in VaR.
If we continue growing at the same pace that we have in the previous years, that, that's we think that's consistent, because this would come from increased presence in different markets, different segments, as we gain market share and the market develops. So I don't necessarily see it so much linked to VaR, but I see it much more linked to market activity. So yes, if market activity picks up, and we can see this just at the let's say, the liquidity of the stock exchange. If market activity picks up overall, for us, that's a much better indicator of what will happen to our sales trading business than necessary, necessarily, the VaR.
And you have to remember that we also use a very transparent approach to market risk, which sometimes makes us have to give a bit more explanations, but we like it because that means that our investors will never be surprised. And I'm going to give an example. If we decide that we think that the level of interest rates currently in the market is good for you to lock in fixed rates, and while probably the tradition of global banks is to put that in the banking book, and this does not, the market volatility does not go into results, as we saw in the crisis with the medium-sized banks in the U.S. last year. If we do that, that goes into VaR.
And even though we could put this in the banking book and not have volatility, and the volatility just show up in, let's say, OCI, we think it's much more transparent to our investors to report it there. So you always have to remember that we are quite, how would I say? We are probably more conservative making sure that our investors are aware of all of the market risk we have on the balance sheet. So this is just to say that at the end of the day, I don't necessarily see us increasing VaR structurally as interest rates go down. I do see business benefiting, though, and this would be from an increased level of activity and not necessarily an increased VaR.
Thank you. Thanks for that. That was very clear.
The next question comes from Gustavo Schroden with Bradesco BBI. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the very strong results in the year. I just would like to... My question is a follow-up on the investment management business, specifically on the net new money. It was very clear when you explained that a net new money is not the most important driver to our way and also the stock. But, just to help us here to understand, because although it's very clear and we have the same view about the composition of this business, then we saw, let's say, a very fast deceleration in the fourth quarter.
I just would like to understand if it is, it was, related to any specific point or specific issue in the fourth quarter this year, or if it is a new new, let's say, level of net new money we should model in our models? And also to confirm, if when you mentioning the question about it, you mentioned that we should continue to see the same levels. You are talking about revenues or talking about net new money? To be more specific here, should we work with this, let's say BRL 14.5 billion in asset management and twenty-seven billion reais in wealth? Or you are talking about the revenues.
Just to help us on these. That's my question. Thank you.
Thank you, Gustavo. So to be clear, the and I'm going to rephrase your question. Is Q4 what we expect for the next few quarters? No. Is, let's say, an average of, of what was the year of 2023, what we expect for the next few quarters? Yes, that I would say that's, that's more likely. So as always, if you look at things quarter-over-quarter, there is some volatility. This volatility was more present in the Asset Management business rather than in the Wealth Management business. And this is just natural, right? Because when you're looking quarter-over-quarter, there, there are some specific flows, there are things happening to the industry, specifically in the Asset Management industry. There was a time that we were talking about, let's say, taxation issues, so that affected the flows.
The industry was also not facing a favorable moment, which affected our fund administration business. So, no, we think that the volatility was within what is expected. Throughout the quarters, volatility will continue to happen. But when you look at more normalized, let's say, period of time, let's say the average, the moving average of the fourth quarter four quarters, that's what we expect going forward, and that's what we're seeing in the day-to-day. So we continue quite, I'd say, quite constructive with the net new money across the different business units.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Thiago Batista with UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks, Sallouti, Renato, and Julia, for the opportunity. I have two questions. The first one on the tax-exempt instruments. We saw last week that central bank changed the regulation on the tax-exempt instruments, so the CRI, CRA, LCI, LCA, et cetera. Can you comment on the potential impact of this measure for BTG Pactual? And my second question is about the precatórios, or the court orders. We saw that the federal government is paying about BRL 99 billion of precatórios during the beginning of this year. How relevant do you believe that this money can flow to net new money for BTG? And also, if not wrong, you guys you have precatório desk in your sales and trading, and if this should be relevant for your P&L.
Thank you, Thiago. So on the tax-exempt changes, let's put it this way: when you look at our funding base compared to the big retail banks, and when you look at the tenor of the tax-exempt products that we have compared to what the big retail banks, I would say that net-net, this change is, let's say, we are in a better position to deal with the challenges that this, the change in regulations make. So when we look at it as a part of our funding, we think it's net positive for us. At the same time, we also think this change will probably cause clients to have to seek other ways to have good returns on their savings, which is beneficial for our investment platform.
So I would say that net-net, these changes are marginally positive for BTG when compared to the big, the rest of the market. On the precatórios and net new money, personally, I don't see any big connection there. I think it's quite spread out there. And for our business, it's part of our portfolio, but I would say it's not gonna be anything out of the ordinary. It's part of our special situations portfolio, but it's a small part, so it's not gonna be anything that you will notice in the numbers.
Very clear. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Flávio Yoshida with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, guys. I have two questions on my side here. The first one is on the SME portfolio. So you guys showed that the SME book is gaining share in the overall book. But I was just wondering if this pace should continue in 2024, especially taking into consideration that other traditional banks they have been very vocal on a stronger growth in this specific segment. So what should we expect, and how do you guys are seeing the competition in this segment? And then my second question is on principal investments. So the results increased a lot in this quarter. So just wondering here what happened here, what led these results to increase a lot? And what level of results should we expect in 2024? Thank you.
Thank you, Flávio . So on the SME, yes, we expect the business to grow faster than the rest of the credit portfolio, especially as we diversify the product offering to the segment, which goes a bit to my previous answer. And I mean, diversify, I mean, both on the banking side and I mean on the credit offering side. So yes, we expect to see faster growth, especially because we were quite conservative throughout 2023, given what happened in the, especially in the supply chain business. On principal investments, while, yes, percentage-wise, it's a big change. Nominal-wise, it's not that significant, right? And overall, principal investments has lost relevance, and we expect it to continue that way. Q4 specifically was related to a specific opportunity of our energy portfolio.
So that's where you saw a bit of a, let's say, a small increase there. But, as you said, percentage-wise, it is strong. Nominal-wise, it's not that relevant, and we expect it, let's say, the historical pattern there to continue.
Okay, clear. Thanks.
The next question comes from Pedro Leduc, with Itaú. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much, guys. Quickly here on the corporate and SME lending business, but more on the revenue side of it. I know you grew 2%, which was a bit slower than the overall book. I know there are a lot of moving pieces here, be it mix, which actually seems to have favored you, or special situations, or maybe renegotiations, having impact on yields. Just for us to understand what led to the slower pace in revenues relative to the loan book growth, to also make us help model it in 2024 a little bit as well. Thank you.
Hi, Leduc. Thank you for your question. The truth is, as you said, there are a lot of moving pieces, but it's a relatively stable. When you look at, let's say, ROA for the average, it's kind of stable. But then you have to remember, maybe the portfolio can grow in December, and you don't have time to accrue the interest. Maybe it grows at the beginning of the quarter, and then you do. Maybe you grow on more high-yielding credit. Maybe you grow on non-funded credit of very high quality, which has a lower, let's say, average spread. So there's nothing big there. It's within the normal volatility that you should expect. And probably, if you ask me, I think a relatively stable ROA is what you should expect for the next few quarters.
Okay. Thank you. And just to follow up on how you're seeing your relative provision levels, if you could remind us how the specific corporate retail case from the beginning of the year ended up, relative to what you had provisioned for it. Thank you.
Unchanged. We have not changed anything. We think the provisions are conservative, but let's wait until the situation advances much more before we change any provisions. So we're not expecting, or at least for the, for the short term, we're not forecasting any changes in the provision.
Thank you so much, and congrats again.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Rafael Frade with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good morning. Congrats on the strong results. My question, I was taking a look on your payroll book, and I would like to understand. It seems to me that maybe half of the growth of your loan book this year was related to the payroll. I would like just to understand if this met, this amount seems right. I would like to understand if it's how it impacts in your ROA for the credit business. It's higher or it's lower or it's much more in line? What's the idea or the strategy here going forward for 2024, specifically on the payroll? Thank you.
Thanks, Rafael. So on the payroll, yes, you're right. Roughly half of the growth was from the acquisitions we made from Pan. Pan disclosed in their call that their Pan is to sell less portfolios. So consequently, I expect that unfortunately, we will purchase less portfolios because we think it's a very good asset at an attractive spread from... And we're very comfortable with the servicing and the origination, but you should expect it to decrease. And as I mentioned previously, on the previous question, I would say that for the whole credit portfolio, we expect stable spreads or ROAs, depends on how you want to call it, but we expect the levels to remain stable.
Perfect. And if you allow me, just a follow-up here. Just to understand the how it's accounted, because previously I thought that the accrual of those loans were in your line of participations. But, given that you book the loans on the credits, they are in fact, they are accrued there. So just to understand where it's accrued, those results?
So, Rafael, what we've been showing is that you have part of the accrual from the price established when the acquisition happened of the portfolio from BTG, from Banco Pan to BTG, is on corporate lending, right? And this surplus, the profits that Banco Pan makes when they sell this portfolio, that is where we show with participations. We show the eliminations from the what from the quarter, and then from the quarter, and then these eliminations, they will be accrued until the maturity of the portfolio, right? So every quarter, we will some of these surplus that we pay, that we start receiving back, right? So that's the way that we show.
So if I just try to summarize in a very simplistic manner, is the capital gains Banco Pan made when they sold the portfolio to us, we accrue in the Banco Pan line. The carry of the portfolio from the price we bought, we report on the credit line.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Jorge Kuri with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Jorge Kuri? The next question comes from Jorge Kuri with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
I believe it's probably a mistake. Jorge probably has left the call, so I think we can... I see there are no further questions on the queue. I think we can end the call.
Okay, 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.
So I'd like to thank all of you once again for joining our Q4 and full 2023 earnings call. Thank you all once again for your trust and your partnership, and looking forward to seeing all of you again at our Q1 earnings call. Thank you very much. Have a great week!
Thank you. This just concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect your line at this time and have a nice day.