Morning to all, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the video conference with the results from our third quarter of 2025 for Grupo Mateus. For those who need simultaneous translation, click on the Interpretation button through the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your language of preference: English or Portuguese. For those who are following the video conference in English, the option to mute original audio exists. We would like to inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be on the company's website, where you can find the full information of the results call. You can also download the call through the chat. During the presentation, all of the presenters will have their microphones turned off, and later we will have the Q&A session.
To ask questions, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen and send us your questions so you can join. You will see a microphone icon; you can activate your microphone and ask your questions. We suggest that all questions be asked at once and would like to highlight that the information in this presentation and any other declarations that may be made during the video conference regarding the business prospects, projections, and operational goals for Grupo Mateus are based on beliefs, the company's beliefs, as well as the information that is available. Future considerations are not any type of guarantee or certain performance. They refer to future events and circumstances that may or may not take place.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions and market conditions, as well as other operational factors, may affect the future of Grupo Mateus and cause results which differ from those which are expressed here. Today, we will have the presence of the founders of the company, Ilson Mateus, also Jesuino Martins, CEO, Túlio Queiroz, Financial VP, and Investor Relations, and Sandro Oliveira, Logistics and Commercial Operations. I'll pass the word to Mr. Ilson Mateus.
[Foreign language]
First of all, I would like to thank God for another results call. We are here thanks to God who allows us to sit here with you with good health. I would like to thank everyone who is listening also and watching us at this moment. It's a very important and special moment. As it marks our history, we're going to bring lots of different results.
Within these results, we are bringing our first consolidated balance. As we all know, Sandro, Túlio, it was months of efforts of our teams so we could not forget the chance to thank these two teams, which is gracious to this consolidated balance. I would like to thank the team. Thank Ismael, thank Estevão, thank Daniel, the president of the company, Vitor, Deborah, Roberto. These people worked hard. I would also like to thank our team, which made huge efforts so that this could be a possibility. In the name of Jesuino Martins, our president, who had all of the strategies and questions, calmed things down when we needed, guided us, so that this could happen. Túlio, Leandro, Regis, giants within the company, and all of the team that is working of our leadership.
Lots of people were working hard to make this happen, and that's why we were able to have this first balance sheet balance, and that's what makes us very happy because this is an important moment in our history, and it is also the joining of two regional groups. When we join Grupo Mateus and Novo Atacarejo, these are groups which learn a lot with each other. This is through our 40-year journey, but we're also learning a lot through this fusion, through this merger. This merger also allows us to join great brands, two great brands. It allows us to broaden our presence geographically. We are in three different states, which are three new states, because this fusion brought us a lot of competitive upper hands and a huge logistical facilitation.
We are able to occupy the space that was open thanks to this result, thanks to this union, this joining of forces, we got to this result. I'll pass the word to Jesuino Martins now.
[Foreign language]
Thank you, Ilson, Sandro, Túlio, good morning to everyone. Thanks for watching us and joining us on this call. I'd like to share some data from our consolidated balance, as our VP just told you. You can see on the screen 26 stores of GMAT brand and 36 stores of Novo Atacarejo. What you see on the third column, this adds up to 62 stores. That is what the new company is made up of in those three states that Mr. Ilson mentioned.
If you notice, a good part of the stores are in Pernambuco, 47 stores in Pernambuco, so almost 80% of the stores in the state of Pernambuco, and lots of work to do in that state still, and also lots to be done in the state of Paraíba, Alagoas. You'll see below a snap of our gross revenue, BRL 1.6 billion, in GMAT, BRL 1.7 billion, Novo Atacarejo. This brings the company together to BRL 3.3 billion in revenue. A company which is already born huge. When we look at this annualized data, gross margins below, you can also see 19.3% of gross margins on the side of GMAT and 20% gross margins on the side of Novo Atacarejo, and the new company with 19.6% of gross margins. Below, you'll also see the EBITDA of each company.
GMAT 4.7% of EBITDA margins, Novo 7.6%, and the new company of 6.2% altogether in EBITDA margins. You can see to the right the sales percentage. We have most of the stores that are in the new, at least 62% of the stores are at least one year old. You will see that we also have almost 30% of the stores already more over four years old. There is a difference there in terms of the maturity of the stores, and this can be explained. It explains a bit of the differences that we still have in some of the indicators. Our intention is, as time goes by, and Sandro can share more with this with you about everything we have done, everything we will do, the integrations. We are full power here.
I also wanted to share with you that you can see the new company in these three states. We reach 37.7% of participation in the states which are so important to us in the Northeast. We're super happy with this participation. When we join retail, and if we look just at cash and carry, the new company probably has more than 44% of market share in those states. A very important step forward. We're very happy with that, as we also mentioned. Also, the arrival at Novo contributes to GMAT in all of the Northeast. Pará, if you look at the bottom right, GMAT with a new joining with Novo takes us to 37.7% market share in the Brazilian Northeast. A very big conquest for us, and we consider this to be a successful phase that we have closed.
I want to thank everyone who did that. I will not repeat the names, but people from GMAT, people from Novo, we are now a new team, Novo Mateus, as we are calling ourselves. Very happy, very satisfied. I want to thank everyone for the effort, for the integration, which is still taking place, full power. As I mentioned, Sandro can later give you more information regarding everything that was done. I want to go and pass the word back to Mr. Ilson, who has something new to share with us. Thank you, Jesuino. Following our presentation, internally, we have been discussing that we have to talk about innovation, specialization, and we cannot stop thinking about that because we always have to think, what will our company look like in 5, 10, 15 years?
Since we see these markets coming together, we see how big the demand is to have specialized channels for better reaching each type of client, each type of consumer. That is why we decided to join these brands. Thankfully, God gave us this opportunity to open the store and brought a team full of experiences to participate in this. Why do we believe so much in this? Because it is a complete solution for our clients. It is a professional mix. Our Atacarejo stores are unable to deliver this mix of products and of purchasing which this channel demands and requires. We are always thinking about how we can better improve our efforts to reach our clients, and we are going to have an opportunity to transform this market. This is a space for building capacity and building trust with our clients. This is our strategy.
This is our position, a channel which is very relevant in Brazil, building this channel which is still missing, faulty, and in need of strengthening. On Slide 6, you can see our expansion, our normal expansion. Thirteen new stores have been launched by this third quarter, and you can see that we have strategic stores in Maranhão. We have been consolidating ourselves and presence in that state, stores in Pernambuco. We also opened a store in Sergipe, in Bahia, where we are now marking our presence in that state and also marking the consolidation of our brand in Pará, a state which we see as a very strong possibility for the company.
Here on slide seven, you'll see what we highlighted are the 306 stores, especially thanks to this new merger, which makes us more relevant in the market and more relevant, especially in the Northeast and a part of the north of the country, which to us at this moment is extremely important. Moving forward on slide eight, we bring relevant novelties as well. We recently opened a store, a service store in Teresina. It's a store that we call gently, lovingly João 23, John 23, a service store, a store which was born busy because the public was missing something. These clients and the clients who went to Atacarejo are now coming back because they want more service. They also want specialization.
[Foreign language]
EBITDA. It's a store that was born with a positive EBITDA in the second month, and this proves that we have to invest in this channel more, and we have great expectations as well.
When we bring in this expansion in October, we open up four more important stores that you're seeing: Pernambuco, Fortaleza, and as I've already mentioned, Foodservice in São Luís. Moving on with page nine, we also bring in some news within this service bag, which is very relevant. We've created a commercial internal structure to support these stores, and we're going to bring in some important news. One in shopping São Luís, another in Olho da Ágora. We created a structure of logistics not only for commercial but also logistics, and that's a store that brings in 4,000 SKUs.
In this Spazio Premium segment, we also want to bring in innovation with a specific team that will really focus on this moment and this channel because we know the importance of this. Moving on, about next year, following our expansion project, we've been thinking about this for quite a while. As we mentioned in previous presentations, we're very strongly focused on the more strategic stores that will bring in a bigger tier, and now we can be more selective. We are really in this process with another 15 stores underway, as you can see, and Piauí is an important state for us, Pará also, and some other stores as well, consolidating our expansion. Now I'm going to pass on the floor to Túlio. Túlio, the floor is yours.
[Foreign language]
Thank you, Ilson. Thank you, Jesuino. Hi, Sandro. The idea is that we'll have a balance that's consolidated, as Jesuino mentioned, and Jesuino also mentioned. I'm going to try to be more objective and more clear. I'm going to start off with the next slide here with the cash conversion cycle and the topic about valuing stocks. As you know, the company today, after the IPO, has been dedicating significant energy to restructuring and improving accounting processes and back office as a whole. The accounting area is one of these. This topic involves different initiatives, the processes themselves, people, a team, systems. In the beginning of 2024, we hired an external consulting firm to help us conduct this process related to improving processes in the accountability area. As a subproduct of this process, we began working on, at the end of 2024, rewriting this.
Our product is the checking account of that stock, let's say. Any product that goes through this goes through CapEx, so purchase, sale, transfer, tax credits, all of the elements related. Through conducting this project, we began to have a CapEx and a view of the stocks that are 100% traceable. We're also going to have automatic integration and all of the standardization of these criteria and tax parameterizations. Of course, you can have an improvement of governance on this. In this quarter, we've identified the need to review these financial balances of the stock. Here I'm talking about the actual valorization of these stocks. We also reviewed the comparative balances following the same criteria. You can see this in the explanatory notes of our financial statements.
With the revision of these, our cash conversion cycle, as you can see on the right side, ends the quarter in 57 days. In regards to the axis we were working on up until the previous quarter, you have an improvement of 17 days. When we talk about the third quarter of 2024, which is our comparison base, we said 68 days. However, that represented an improvement of 14 days. If you compare with this language that's more up to date with the 57 days and 68 related to the third quarter of 2024, then you have an improvement of 11 days. What's most important here is this new axis with all of these indicators, the cash conversion cycles and stocks as well.
You have the revision that has no cash impact or any type of derivative from these indicators related to cash positions exclusively. On the bottom part of the slide, you can also see that there is a cycle of the main cash conversion cycles for Grupo Mateus that is already consolidated with Novo Atacarejo. I am referring to the dark blue graph where you have the consolidated cash conversion cycle, and that ended the quarter at 48 days. In our previous, we were mentioning the last quarter of 72 days. Now with all of these movements, we are talking about a cash conversion that is consolidated of 48 days. On the right side, you can see the cash conversion cycles that are exclusively the turnover. We have a cash conversion of minus one.
You have levels of stock that no doubt in these interactions have really been inspiring us to search for processes and systems and learn with this so that we can really focus on this in our operations as well. When we look at the slide of number 13, we have the numbers of our gross revenue of the company. As you can see, we created this dynamic to be 100% comparable. We started off with the third quarter of 2024. This is going to work for all of the indicators we show here. That is going to go over the quarters. In the third quarter, we bring in this ex-Novo perspective so it can be 100% comparable with a historical basis.
On the right side, we have this view of Novo where we can see this yellow bar. That is the graphic illustration of the amount related to Novo. Just to explain this mechanic, the mechanism, we can see this in the quarter, ex-Novo was 300%. When we talk about this with Novo, this gross revenue, which is BRL 12.1 billion in the quarter, you have a growth of 28.3% + BRL 2.4 billion. The accumulated results in the year, this absolute growth is even greater. We are talking about growth of BRL 4.5 billion or 18.9%. In regards to the commercial dynamic, Jesuino will explore this a little more. We have an important point here.
We had a quarter where in the anniversary month performed pretty well, but then the month of September was a lot more challenging. There was a shift in the performance axis. I believe that that's an important point to manage and observe these operations from now on as well. Now moving on to the next slide, we have our numbers related to the gross profit of the company. Here I want to be careful with trying to be objective and trying to be as clear as possible about the elements we consider to be like one-off elements and explain each one. As you can see in the first column, the consolidated gross profit adds up to BRL 2.292 billion. What happens is we have two one-off elements we wanted to share with you guys.
First is related to additional losses related to new inventories or an increase of frequencies. Here I'm referring to physical inventories, operations of the stores, where you can see the physical quantities of the stores. When we increase the frequency or we increase the amount of inventories in practical terms, you anticipate the accountability of this loss that you would have had in future periods. That does not mean a structural increase of this loss. I want to ask for Jesuino's contributions to give us an overview on this change. You could talk about investments in technology, but then after I'll cover also other inventory. When you provide a bigger frequency on this, you reduce the losses, right? Because we're acting with more austerity and greater speed. With this, we can inhibit a series of processes in the stores with robberies and the generated losses.
We're also bringing in artificial intelligence, which is very important, something we started to perform facial recognition of the people that perform deviations or rob in the stores. We also know through Jesuino that from the back of the store, and we're developing a system for artificial intelligence where cameras are interconnected with our ERP, and they're looking at those loads there that are unloading there, and they're also comparing with what comes into the system. In some stores and states, we started noticing that you had the invoice coming in and not the product. We're kind of surrounding ourselves with everything we can with artificial intelligence and technology to contain this. We already see a bit of a reversal in this loss. We're super satisfied, and we're investing.
We're bringing in more losses at this initial moment, but this is a moment to solve this and to search for efficiency as much as we can when it comes to loss prevention, right? Just to add on, Túlio, we anticipated future losses, right? We had an inventory we had every four months, and then we bring in this inventory process to a shorter period. Now we have items, for example, that have been working on daily inventories, even in sectors that we performed every four months, but now we do monthly. This is why we imagine this future loss. Just to reinforce what Ilson mentioned, our attention in regards to this topic is on retail's going through a cautious moment at this moment when it comes to controlling losses. What we're doing, as Mr.
Wilson mentioned, is just doubling our level of concern and paying more attention to this. That is why Túlio shared this data with you guys about the loss of stocks due to these additional inventory. I wanted to reinforce a little more with more granularity, Jesuino. We had some months where we had a big loss of some product categories that were employees were picking up more expensive products than the POSs and passing a code that was cheaper. You can see like sausages, they are double the price, and then there would be leftover in the cheapest one and lacking in the more expensive one. With facial recognition and recognition at the POS, we can already see that, and we have found a lot of occurrences within the stores. That is going to help also to inhibit.
The people that perform these deviations are really going to notice that we're focused on these. Moving on to the next line here, we have the revision of the stocks in regards to the first semester of 2025. Here, it's that topic I mentioned on the previous slide. The revision of our accounting policy and specifically related to the first semester of 2025 was also accounted for in the results of this third quarter. We expressed this to be able to calculate what the results would be. Like this, the gross profit ex extraordinary effects adds up to BRL 2.443 billion, and that's considered a gross margin in the consolidated results of 22.2%. When you look at the gray column, it's the same kind of rationale, but that's where you see a gross margin of 23.2%.
When you get into the bottom part of the slide, you can see we have the same rationale in regards to the first nine months of 2025. The only line that's not here is related to the first semester, right? Since we're talking about the first nine months, all of these effects need to be considered, right? When you see the consolidated gross margin in this way, that continues at 8.7% and ex Novo in the first nine months, the gross debt adds up to 22.8%. Moving on to the next slide, we have the graphic visualization of this topic just to give you a better view on the last quarter. As you can see, if you consider these extraordinary events of 23% that remains in the third quarter of 2025, and when we exclude Novo, then we start moving on to 22.7%.
The gross profit, considering Novo Atacarejo, represents 30.7%, and that adds up to BRL 2.44 billion. When you look at the accumulated results in the year, on the right side of the slide, we can see the gross profit added up to BRL 6.324 billion in the accumulated results in 2025, with growth of about 22% and a gross margin of 22.7%. Now, moving on to the next slide, we are going to talk about operational expenses. This has been a very important topic for us in the last months in the company. The company has really been making an effort to bring in more view on this topic. Now we are delivering a quarter with an expense on net revenue of 15.2%, basically the same axis for the year of 2025 as a whole.
Especially the 15.2%, which also had an effect, which is slowing down sales, as you mentioned, and actually more fixed expenses such as personnel, which do pressure things a bit more. In this line, the company has been structuring itself more and more with productivity and expense control and bringing in the methodologies of expense management. We have been also having very interesting discussions that have been generating a lot of value. I think the company has a very constructive view from now on on this topic with intelligent discussions and actual productivity. Since when the macro environment becomes more challenging, it is really important for us to adapt the level of expenses to keep up the efficiency and profitability. When you look at the accumulated results in the year, expenses added up to BRL 4.190 billion and a growth of 19.5%.
The ratio on net revenue was 15%. Moving on to the next slide, we have the EBITDA composition. Here, I am going to follow along with the same rationale on the gross profit. I am going to bring in some topics. I will explain case by case. We are talking about an EBITDA post-IFRS of BRL 833 million and an EBITDA margin of 7.7%. The two next items we bring in are the numbers we just mentioned with the topics that we already had on the reflection and construction of the gross profit. I want to head straight into the third topic, which is the ICMSST Amnesty program at Maranhão the company worked on. This topic is related to divergence of payments of the ICMSST.
We have nothing, this is not something super specific, but there is an important financial result, and we adhere to this, and we are going to pay this in a few years in installments. The next item of BRL 180 million, we have that reduced, which is a positive effect in the results, but that refers to previous exercises. Here you have PIS/COFINS credits and ICMS credits of some different topics we have been developing, and we shared a lot of them with you guys. Within our tax committee, as you all know, the company has during many years been working on all the tax planning anchored by subvention on investments. Ever since in 2023, the law changed, we have been working on intensifying additional opportunities such as this that we are bringing here in the EBIT composition.
The EBITDA margin consolidated in the quarter adds up to 7.9% with an EBITDA of BRL 855 million. When you exclude Novo to have the 100% comparable basis, we're talking about an EBITDA margin post-IFRS of 8%, which adds up to BRL 744 million. When you look at the accumulated results in the year, the rationale is pretty much the same. We're talking about an EBITDA margin ex Novo of 7.7%. In the consolidated view, 7.7% also, showing the profitability axis and in the gross margin and the EBITDA margin. The next slide is to give us more of the sequential graphic view. We're talking about, as I mentioned, an EBITDA margin in the quarter ex Novo of 8%. In the second quarter, we had a margin of about 8%.
When we include this, we're talking about an EBITDA of 7.9% and a growth of about 32% year over year. In the accumulated results, the EBIT adds up to BRL 2.147 billion, with a growth of 21.8% and a margin of 7.7%. On the next slide, when we consider the TRE topic, if we keep the same right now, we have the composition of the income. In the first column, we can see that the consolidated net income in the quarter was BRL 846 million. The first line is the extraordinary effects that are condensed here, as we just mentioned, the EBITDA and the gross profit. I'm going to talk about them up ahead that I refer to bring to the impact on the net income. The first item is about the PIS/COFINS credit for the JCP intercompany.
This is when you have subsidiaries and you increase the resources you have to pay the PIS/COFINS credit upon this equity. This year, we decided to participate part of this in the third quarter. This is just like a shift between quarters, and actually it brings in pressure in the third quarter, and it provides some relief. As a comparison base, we added this here to be able to compare, right? The next item, which is the most important, is the reversal of the provision of subventions for investments. This is a topic that everyone watching the company knows about. The company, ever since the rules changed, has been adopting a conservative policy, keeping provisions on the taxes for the new law. We need a legal discussion with really top quality, and we remember the constitutional topics, the Federative Act agreement terms.
The company has a favorable view on this. Among the companies that are considered references, this is one of the last ones that we were missing to reverse. We got a lot of confidence and were able to make this decision from this almost BRL 211 million referring to 2024 and BRL 129,700 related to the first quarter of 2025. The next elements have less impact, but here's just the income tax on extraordinary effects. The next topic for capitalization of the interest on loans from previous years. Here, you're just going to be adopting the CPC rule, where throughout the construction of a store, you consider the interest of funding related to this topic, and you can capitalize according to the existing accounting rules. In this way, the net income, excluding these extraordinary effects, adds up to BRL 508,971,000 and a net margin of 4.7%.
When we look at the same rationale, we're talking about a net income of BRL 400.7 million, a net margin of 5.1%. When we look at this, we can see the bottom part of the slide, we're considering a net income of BRL 1,514 million in the consolidated reverse. Considering the necessary adjustment, that adds up to a net income in the first nine months of 2025 of BRL 1,246 million, with a net margin of 4.5%. Now, when you exclude that, it's BRL 1,208 million and a net margin of 4.6%. Moving on to the next slide, we have a sequential view. Here, it's interesting because we saw consistency in these criteria, and we also saw consistency in the EBITDA axis. Now, we have important growth in the net income, which is the main topic of the reversal in the income tax.
Here, you have the recurring values related to the current period. We go back to this topic of tax efficiency that is really strong, as we've already seen in the past. In the accumulated numbers in the year, net income of BRL 1,246,000 and a growth of 28%. When we consider this quarter, considering Novo, 48.5%. Moving on to the slide where we're going to talk about the net income, we can observe that the sequential line is in dark blue. We add the new company with a combination of GMAT and Novo. With the sequence, only GMAT, we end with a net debt of BRL 943 million and an average level of 0.39 times the EBITDA. Now, the new company has a debt of BRL 489 million. This new company, on its own, has a leverage of 0.8X the EBITDA.
You add up a consolidated net debt of BRL 1.438 billion. Novo, and even in the same stores, even the stores of GMAT that incorporated this new company, they were stores that were really new at the beginning of their maturity curve. GMAT, even more, as Jesuino mentioned in the slide, initially here in the presentation. Novo is also a really new operation, right? You have a level of leverage that's really balanced with an operation that has been growing at a very interesting level. The consolidated leverage is at 0.5. Even the consolidated results in this variation axis among quarters in the company, right? These are our initial comments. Now we are available, of course, to get into questions and answers. Thank you very much. Now we're going to begin our Q&A session.
If you have questions, you should select the Q&A icon on the bottom part of your screen and then write your name into the queue. Once you're announced, a request to activate your mic will appear on the screen. You must activate your mic to submit your question. We'd ask you to please have all your questions submitted at once. Our first question is from Luis Guanais at BTG Pactual. We'll enable your mic, Luis, so that you can submit your question.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, Lulu, Mr. Ilson, Sandro , Jesuino. I have two questions here on our side. First, Lulu, is about the controls and processes you mentioned that impacted the company's cash cycle. I wanted to understand what would be the cycle if you look at stocks and the recurring view from now on.
There's some work you guys have been communicating about that you've been working on for many quarters to try to improve this level of stocks. After these adjustments with more precise controls, what could we consider to be the recurring cycle? You have a second question, which is related to the slowdown. Would you already have a diagnosis maybe of the cause of this for the loss in traction consumption in these categories? Is this related to government incentives? Is this related more like to income pressure? I wanted to hear a little more about this . Thank you. Good morning, Bonais. Thank you for the question. Now I'm going to start off here, and then Jesuino can also hop in. The numbers we saw here in the presentation for the cash conversion cycle and in the release are already following the reviewed language.
These are the recurring levels for stock and cycle. Of course, the operational aspects on this topic remain at the same pace. We are very much focused on this, especially in the fourth quarter. Throughout this discussion with Novo Atacarejo, one of the topics we learned about a lot and their financial cycle demonstrates this. They have 53 days of stock. We have learned a lot with them. We have brought in some dilemmas here, and I think it is a very interesting topic to share with you. We really defended our understanding of what we have as open to buy. This is a topic we have been improving more and more. The other elements you already know, but what we have been connecting is variable compensation of executives in regards to this. There has also been a level of relevance in management's meetings in a very accentuated manner.
More and more, the team has become conscious of this value creation perspective, not only the sales margins and results, but also all of the capital consumption aspects. This is a topic that has been gaining maturity. When we look at this from a consolidated perspective, we are talking about 65 days of stock. When we look at this without Novo, we are talking about 68 days in this quarter. Of course, we want to search for opportunities from now on. All of the variable compensation is really focused, right, Lulu, on this indicator and sales contributing to Bonais' answer. No doubt, we should consider this recurring level and a search for this improvement. We can really see this when it comes to the growth in July and August and at least half of the growth in these two months, right?
It's difficult to set a specific reason for this. We've been coexisting with a weak consumption environment, and we know about the entire scenario. These consumers, especially in the north, have very limited budget, right? Their pockets are pressured. When we look at the data that Nielsen audits in the northeastern and Brazilian retail, you can see the level of adjustments and inflation. It's at least three percentage points above. Despite this scenario in the northeast, we also have this inflation scenario in retail that indicates even more pressure. We also notice families that have more and more debt. This is growing more and more, and delinquency is also growing. I understand that the merger of all these factors has certainly been the reason for this weak consumption environment. We know that consumers are also migrating to categories that are cheaper.
They shift categories. The guys that are buying beef now prefer to buy chicken. They buy protein, but it's cheaper and sometimes trading down to cheaper brands. All of this behavior contributes to this, right? This is the scenario we have been experiencing throughout the quarters. Now it's important to mention that even in the scenario of weaker consumption, let's say, we continue to grow. When we look at data that Nielsen also audits and the growth we had in the Brazilian northeast and the market rates, we've been growing above market levels. We've been gaining share in the market with Novo Atacarejo even more. Now we need to reinforce our commitment to the EBITDA margin. We've been really trying to balance these factors to be able to deliver a resilient EBITDA, as Lulu just mentioned.
Maybe just to take advantage of your question and share that in the fourth quarter, the scenario has not changed. It is still very similar to what I shared with you. We still have in the fourth quarter Black Friday, the end of the year. We are still betting a lot on our multi-channel aspects that are very important for us. That is pretty much the view we have had. We continue to work on delivering the best results possible, as we have shared with you. I hope I answered. Just to reinforce your comment here, we have been really trying to find a balance between the growth of sales and margins. What matters at the end of the day is our EBITDA. We have been highlighting this a lot and really getting down on expenses as we can carefully.
[Foreign language]
Thank you so much for the answers. Our next question comes from Danny Eiger at XP.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question up too. First, about the accounting revision. This is really clear with the consulting company. I just want to understand what are the possibilities of other possibilities for revisions. We want to understand if we could have other movements like this, or if in your view, the work was completed and there's not much more to be done. I think it would be great to get more visibility in regards to this. A second point, more geared towards next year, now that your work consolidated with Novo Atacarejo and with this new company that's more structured and discussed. You already talked about how you're working on encounters with management to define synergies and next steps.
Maybe you guys can share what your mindsets are for next year when it comes to expansion. You still have a scenario of uncertainty. You have some factors that could improve income and even the issue with the benefits from the government. You still do not have major shifts in the sense. You also have this new format, as Mr. Ilson mentioned. I would imagine that is smaller. There is also Novo Atacarejo with more opportunities. How are you going to consider this mindset on returns on investments versus maybe taking advantage of this opportunity? Considering the weakening of this competitive scenario, that would be really good. Okay, Daniel, thank you for the questions. We will start off with the first one. I will pass it on to Mr. Ilson, Jesuino, and Sandro about the risk of having variations here.
I think the work then developed was finally reaching a level of maturity that's really great. Today, it's already traceable. I'd say that the chances of having some item on this is low and definitely non-material because we have more visibility today with a lot more security and full traceability. With this, we're really confident. Now, the general topic for back office and other areas and some derivatives for accountability are very much complementary. Of course, we're on this pace for evolution. These are topics that we believe to be central. Now, since the work is really mature and you have very small phases where we have more than 95% of the work completed, the visibility and traceability and standardization of the criteria and parameters will be implemented now with integrated automatic integration. You really have a level of security that's really high.
The level of confidence becomes a lot higher. I think if there are any other questions, you can add on later on to Jesuino's answer. In regards to expansion, your question is very interesting because we have actually been discussing this a lot. I am always thinking about what Professor Mateus mentioned in the 1990s, where a company needs to have cash. We are keeping a close eye on our cash. We are being a lot more selective with the expansion because now we can actually, we are basically in all states. We have already advanced a lot in cash and carry in retail. We are also considering a food service brand that we think we are at the beginning of with a spazio service store. We have a long path ahead. We are really keeping a close eye on what the tier is, right?
If this return rate is not above average, we're not going to keep on, right? We want to be very comfortable because with this kind of interest rate, we have to really take a close look on our steps and really keep up with the guarantee of the future of the company and without risks, right? We're going to continue with this expansion, but with our feet on the ground, which is what we've done in the past 40 years. Perfect. Also, just a follow-up point here. I want to understand the revision itself. Sorry about maybe not having the technical knowledge, but what was this revision of the financial balance? Was that because you were reviewing this stock? You had mentioned the losses that maybe were not accounted for. Just to have some more tangibility here on this.
This is a very important question with the valorization of the stocks. This is an accounting topic. The topic that Jesuino mentioned on the inventories is more of an operational topic, considering the physical amount of inventory in the stores. Both topics permit stock, but they are non-communicable. In one, you have the physical inventory, and you are always looking at the amount of items. The other is related to revisioning of the accounting policy with all of the elements that transact and should be considered in the company's stock with all the parameterizations. When this work is completed and you have a clear value here on trust and traceability, we compared the stock balances. That is when we work towards reviewing this. Okay, perfect. Thanks for the answers, guys. The next question is from Rodrigo Gastim at Itaú BBA. Bom dia, pessoal.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, guys. Two questions on our side. The first is in this stock adjustment topic. Lulu, I think it would be great to get a little more of a view on the adjustments backwards. If you look at the explanatory notes, there is an adjustment of BRL 1 billion in stock that you considered in 2024. It would be good to understand. If you could also share a bit of how much of this adjustment was really from 2024 and how this moved along in the results, right? I think that is the first question. The second question is in regards to NOVO, when we look at the calculation here, we are reaching a net debt of Novo of about BRL 500 million. If you get back to the anticipation of receivables that you broke down, it would be about BRL 650 million.
Just to understand about this, how this took place within Novo Atacarejo and how much cash you dedicated to this and how the net debt actually reached this level. If that was in line with what you guys had expected, I think it would be good to understand this net debt with Novo Atacarejo. Your point's great. Thank you, Gachin. Thanks for the questions. The stock in the past related to this was adjusted from a net perspective, discounting income tax. The value you mentioned refers to the past. The specific value of 2024 is BRL 94 million. When you consider this, it's all from the past. What was considered as results in this third quarter were the amounts related to 2025 that we considered where we had more clarity when we discussed the gross profit and the EBITDA.
We excluded the values related to the first semester, and we absorbed this at GMAT with the effects of the quarter. This is the topic related to your first question. Now, on your second question, you're right. If the net debt for the company and combined between the GMAT stores and Novo stores, that adds to about BRL 500 million, so BRL 489 million with a leverage of 0.8x. How did that happen? Novo is a relatively new company that's been working on its operations and that's been growing a lot. To grow, they take on some debt instruments with the anticipation of receivables to be able to have self-sustainable growth. When you have the GMAT stores, they are stores that were extremely new.
When they went into the mechanic, the receivables were at GMAT, and these stores or all the rest of the working capital went to Novo. These are new stores that need cash, right? In order to stabilize this, we had the anticipation of the receivables. At some moment, we had this mix between GMAT and the new company. Then we had this paid back to GMAT. Just to give you the overall panorama about if leverage was in line with what we expected, it was. It is a new company that had initial investments, but the idea was always to grow in a self-sufficient manner. The 0A in combined results we understand to be pretty numbers and 100% in line with expectations ever since the initial conversations.
[Foreign language]
Perfect. Very clear. Túlio, just what's behind these adjustments? This is important. It's not only related to quantities, but it's the average cost, right? All of this CARDEX work really provided for this element. Perfect, Túlio. Our next question is from João Soares. First of all, I want to mention the disclosure here and the points in regards to Novo and Mateus. Great work, but I wanted to explore two points here. First, more operational aspect about capital allocation. Amidst the scenario that is still challenging last year, how are you imagining the expansion? Would this by any chance change your mindset on some specific format? It's really important to understand if this is something that makes sense maybe to open up less of a mix or by opening up more Camino stores just to understand capital allocation in a scenario that seems to take a little longer to recover.
The second point is, Túlio, we had this reversal of this event. Just to share, you guys, we're seeing a lot of companies that are not provisioning for a presumed credit anymore. Mr. Ilson was mentioning how this works in our mind and the zeal in regards to this topic, keeping the pace or accelerate or reduce pace. Your question here is, is there going to be a change among formats considering what we shared with you now with this new model and Mateus' food service as well? The answer is not necessarily. In our view, we're not really thinking of things in this way. Our strategic expansion plan remains on the same axis, and we actually share the stores we're already building. Most of our store network is brands that we already have in our day-to-day.
We have two new business opportunities that arrive as Fazu, a service store that's small. And so also Mateus' Food service is also a reality. We really believe in these channels. What's happening now, João, is we're really keeping our eyes open to always search for ways to innovate and adapt to consumers' behavior because consumers have changed their behavior. We've been keeping our eyes open and tried to adapt to this. The transformational market is a reality. We understand cash and carry sometimes does not service this customer as much as it should with the level of excellence and a complete solution, as Mr. Ilson mentioned. We understand that here in the Northeast in Brazil, we have this role. Maybe the new brands kind of have this role trying to adjust this need with new markets. The main expansion axis remains.
I do not think you should consider any drastic changes in brands or business models. Just one point on your point, Jesuino. We have an expansion plan. As Jesuino has mentioned, we are going to follow the same schedule. Of course, we have these stores. We would also consider the strategy that does not change. It is going to have a sequence because now we really have this market and number of stores. It is a lot greater than the cash and carry. We really occupy most of this market. João, just to get into your second question on the reversal of income tax, you are 100% correct. The reversal in income tax is related to subvention from now and will stop provisioning it. Of course, this is supported by favorable legal stances. We are always talking about presumed credit. It is really what you mentioned.
I wanted to confirm the expansion for 2026, about 30 stores, maybe half would be mixed. Does that still make sense? We had a plan that's been separated with Novo Atacarejo, and we're discussing this because in Novo Atacarejo, we're already going to have small stores, super stores, and then we're going to have a Novo Atacarejo and cash and carry part as well. Wherever we can feel we have a store that sells maybe BRL 15 million or BRL 20 million, it's going to be cash and carry. When you have space for just one store at BRL 6 million-BRL 8 million, we're going to really have a retail store. How many stores we're going to make, that's something we're choosing still. I can't provide a precise view on this if it's going to be 20 or 25 on our side.
On Novo's side, the trend is to follow the same sequence they had of really occupying this space. Here, we'll definitely make new stores and guarantee this expansion. Maybe the number of stores will have to be defined throughout the year. We already have an amount of stores, and we're just going to choose this at this moment to add on to the spreadsheet. We have two retail stores or one cash and carry store, for example. Okay, understood. That's super clear. Thank you. Our next question is from Tales Granello at Banco Safra.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, Mr. Ilson, Jesuino, Túlio, and Sandro . I want to ask you something about working capital. We already talked about the stock, but when we look at this accounts payable, there's a gap of 62 days and 42 days.
I wanted to understand how you guys think you would be able to close this gap considering the nature of the operations in each company and the business lines also that are different. I also have another question, which is in regards to the number of representatives. The company continues to grow a lot, but I wanted to understand if they're split in a pretty equivalent manner among regions or if there's a big difference between the north and northeast. Thank you for the question, Thales. About the suppliers, it's an excellent question, right? Because there is this delta, but we're already working on this topic, right? We've been working on integration in the commercial area, that perimeter, and that's going to really accelerate this a lot more. We're thinking about this. We want to equalize this. We've been really taking on some important steps.
You also bring in other topics such as efficiency and logistics and marketing and trading and commercial. Sandro maybe can talk about these wins a bit more on what was done already and what we are still lacking. That is a very important question. Okay, thank you, Jesuino. Good morning, Thales, and everyone hearing us today about the payment terms among companies. This is one of the topics we selected as a priority for efficiency gains on both sides, right? If we were to compare. Of course, in a strategic manner, we would reach a better level. We have already done this jointly with the adapting of the windows for payments. Both companies are already paying in the same payment windows with equivalent terms.
Along with this, even if we're still in a process for integration of the commercial departments in all three states, we've already advanced with adapting about 300 contracts from suppliers. That considers also payment terms besides other topics also that are considered, which involve gains involving other points in these contracts, right? Alongside the operations team, we've been really working on the mission of having synergies and work that can be a good example, not affecting our customers or our employees or our suppliers in a way where we could generate some kind of a loss, but that we can really win together. We've already seen this. I think that this term issue is one of the 25 topics we've elected to work on in the next months till the end of the year. Now, about your second question, Thales, very important.
Not sure if I was able to understand this completely, but I understand you're mentioning the commercial representatives for indirect purchases. This channel is extremely relevant and important for us. You can see the levels of growth we've been reporting quarter over quarter. The differences are really big when you consider Maranhão, Pará, Piauí, the legacy states, as we call them. The biggest concentration in this number is in these three states. The other states in the Northeast are now going through a process of advancing with new sales reps in the same markets. I mentioned also in other calls that if you look at cities, for example, in Maranhão, we have over 20 commercial reps servicing the same small retailers. That's already 50,000 POSs serviced in the Northeast by this team you mentioned.
What happens in the Northeast now is we have this initial number of sales reps in these markets. Now we're adding more sales reps to service the same POS, and with this, capture market share more and more at that POS. We're still at this phase, but that's like about 20% what it's going to become. No doubt, at the end of the day, when you look at this and you imagine that most of these representatives are in the legacy states and you see the state of Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará, and the dimensions of these states and the amount of municipalities and small retailers, you can still have a great notion of how much more we have to do in these states.
Just to reinforce what you're mentioning, we have some categories even in Maranhão, Pará, Piauí, where we've been working on major expansion with perishables. We have a whole world to explore still through our DCs that were recently restructured. We can advance a lot even in states where we're more mature. Okay, no worries. Thank you, Thales. The next question is from Eric Huang. I think also when we consider suppliers and the gross margins as well from Novo Atacarejo, although we understand maturity and format mix, it's a little bit lower, right? When we consider a possible equation, considering the terms for suppliers, how are you looking at the gross margins, right? Could there be some sort of an impact? Also, another is looking more towards the competitive environment.
What we see from industry is protecting margin a little more and how you're seeing this if there's some specific difference in the North and Northeast. Also considering the competitive environment as well. Thank you. Do you want to talk about this a little more? Eric, good morning, and thank you for your question. We've been following this journey of an improvement in terms and gaining efficiency. Up until a little bit before, actually, this movement with Novo Atacarejo, and just a quick parameter, a quick parallel towards your question, they operate specifically in the cash and carry business. It's like a pure cash and carry work. When we look at our average margin, we're going to have margins a little better because we operate with a little more services in our cash and carries as well.
We are not seeing in the short term any type of impact when it comes to setting up the costs. This is really under control on our side and also from Novo's side. We understand that this topic is pretty stable, and we have been gaining efficiency without these impacts. From an industry perspective, this is also interesting because I understand that companies are in the same scenario as we are, right? We have seen all of them trying to keep competitive advantage, right, in this scenario. I still do not feel that we have been trying to keep a real high-level relationship with companies, and this is a general assumption, right? We want to treat our suppliers well and have a good volume of purchases. This is something we do ever since, right?
Companies are a lot closer to us, and they see us as an engine for growth and a way to get to small retailers and retail with our army of sales reps. They have been really keeping competitive advantage. Our relationship allows for us to consider, when we consider the balance sheets we have been reporting, allows us to keep joint competitiveness, right? Really believe in this way of viewing the business. Overall, industry and retail in Brazil have a normally stressing relationship, but we chose to follow a different path. If it were not for this, maybe it would be more difficult. I think it is kind of this. I do not consider industry to try to retain margins, but I think they are trying to keep some kind of a balance, right? I hope I answered you. Thank you for your answers.
Our next question is from Joseph Giordano at JP Morgan. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I want to mention some technical accounting aspects. The first one is about looking at the effects, the difference between the gross and the revenues, and how we should think about this from now on. I want to go back to the balance adjustments. We were talking about stock a lot. I want to look at if we can see some relevant changes when it comes to incentives. In exchange, you have part of this heading to deferred taxes, right? I wanted to split this into two parts. First, when we look at the deferred taxes, this has really increased a lot, and I want to understand how we should imagine this drop.
The second is to understand a bit more about the change in the, and it seems like something related to stock transfers among states. I wanted to go deeper into this a bit. Thank you. I think you are on mute, Túlio. Thank you, Joseph. Thanks for the questions. Now, about the deferred topic, which I think is important, since they had the income tax tax reversion, Grupo Mateus has many subsidiaries, and one of them is Mateus Supermercados. You always have possible accumulated losses from tax planning. Mateus Supermercados is the main point here for the deferred taxes. One of the topics in our tax committee is really working on the relationship between companies and the groups from a tax perspective, right? The tax changes were very intense in the last two or three years, and that changed the subvention roles entirely.
We had to adapt to that reality. Although the thesis was always good, we had to adapt. As we adapted, we also brought in some different tax perspectives. We also need to consider that there are companies that are separate behind this, and especially when you consider income tax and deferred is one of the topics we are going to discuss and focus on from now on, right? Reconsidering this topic. Just to add, like back around next year, we are going to start the tax reform that considers another element of difficulty and reflection. As you all know, the company has different distribution centers, and these are 100% fundamental, but they also take on a tax planning role. In the tax reform, this is another topic we are going to have to think about.
What's the optimal point when it comes to the dispersion of logistical centers, right? Just to add on another point. I'd say that this part you mentioned on the gross revenue to net revenue, I don't see big differences. There could be some effects with the consolidation of Novo Atacarejo, but I think there's not much of a difference from now on. This topic with the incentives is probably coming from this subvention income tax. After, we can also go deeper into meeting with the tax team, right? As you mentioned, the logistical center, and also discussing what you had already mentioned on innovation and having to do this in the future. We know that in the future, the future has already arrived, right? The future is an online sale.
We have the privilege of having multiple distribution centers really well located and well structured. We already have a budget for next year, and we will be able to really turn the key to something that is a lot more productive. Perfect. Thank you very much. Our next question is from Gustavo Fratini at Bank of America.
[Foreign language]
Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I am going to maybe have to reinforce this point. Of the adjustment in inventories, we see this adjustment coming really big. It was almost 18%. The question is how you imagine this happened and how this adjustment is so big in a way that we should maybe not see adjustments, even if in smaller scales from now on.
The other point is what you guys think within your adjustment of the KPIs in the past that maybe got in the way or what you guys think already changed and can change from now on to avoid this from happening again. Last, we still see the inventory losses being relatively high year over year. You look at the net amount. These losses continue to be pretty high. If you could give us a bit more color on this, that would be great. Thank you. Gustavo, I think the main point here was redesigning the products. When we redesigned this and we brought in all of the movements regarding this stock theme and all of the tax derivatives, and the company grew in a very intense way in the last few years, about 25% a year.
We started conquering new states, and each state had their own mechanisms. The company started to also import items, which is another topic that has an impact. This context brings in this impact that you mentioned, right? The specific exercise for 2025 was about BRL 94 million. Back then, kind of behind the historical series. When we talk about the specific exercise in 2025, it increases a little bit, but I think it is still within the axis when we look at 2024 and 2025. I think here, essentially, you have more traceability. When you ask me about what makes us confident about this, first of all, the mechanic of the product is already implemented. Here you have the main element.
Besides this, you have the automation of the accounting, fiscal, procurement, and operations areas, and also the standardization of these criteria and parameterization of these tax topics. There are some important elements. I believe that since the mechanism now is 100% traceable, there is a very important point here, Gustavo. Let's imagine that for some reason, a category, the gross margin of a certain month seemed a little strange, and you can see item by item of each category and what is going on with the margin. If something is kind of strange in the management meetings, the topic is automatically traced. I think this kind of control additionally brings in this effort, right? Essentially, the implementation in the system is what really provides this in these topics.
Now, about the inventory, Túlio, I'm not sure if I understood Gustavo's question, but we had some stores that had an annual inventory, their annual per semester, every quarter. Today, we have no inventory. All of them are we brought in the 300 SKUs to monthly, and we brought in inventories, perishables, where you have a big practice of deviations. We brought that into monthly, which used to be semester-based. Initially, if we compare with a drop from 24 to 25, that became greater. We've already seen this dropping in the last month, right? We have a lot of pressure to keep up with these losses, right, and limit them. We want to have performance that's a lot better. We want to have profitability. We anticipate this because everything that's going on, we've been monitoring in real time. This is a big trend.
We've already mentioned the reduction of these losses, right? Just to make it clear, this topic of the physical inventory is a topic. The other accounting topic is a different topic, but these are completely different topics. What we're doing is we want to clean out as much as we can of possible stock distortions physically and really make this more clear because this still generated a loss in sales. When you have this virtual stock, you lose sales, right? We still reduce losses. Okay, perfect. Very clear, Chris. Our Q&A session is officially ended, and now we will pass the floor back to the company for their final comments. I want to thank God for being here once again. It's always a reason for we want to honor God and thank Him for everything.
I want to also say on behalf of Jesuino Martins, with the over 70,000 employees that are working on their roles and their function to bring these results. Once again, I want to thank our investors and ask them to continue to believe in our work and really keep up with our credibility because we're really working hard to make the company be more solid so that we can be prepared and structured. If we have any storms coming along, we need to be firm in this purpose. We've been working constantly on this. I want to thank our consumers as well and ask them to continue to believe in our work as well. I also want to thank our family that really supports us a lot. Our work journey is quite long. Our days are a lot longer.
I also want to thank all of the Novo Atacarejo team as we have been working together to search for synergies. We have seen this happen. This has really—we have had a lot of patience on their side and on our side because we found a lot of obstacles. Jesuino, Ismael, Estevão, and all the team have been searching for solutions. This is what matters at the end of the day. We need to occupy this space and search for profitability, search for more results and profitability for our shareholders as well. We are here. Thank you very much. Now, the earnings call for the third quarter of 2025 at Grupo Mateus has officially ended, and the department is available to answer any other questions. Thank you all, participants, and have a great day.