Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to Helbor's Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This webcast is being recorded and simultaneously translated. If you need translation, this tool is available by clicking on the interpretation globe icon located at the bottom of your screen. There, you can choose the language you prefer, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the conference in English, there is an option to mute the original Portuguese audio, just by clicking on mute original audio. Participants will only watch and listen during the company's presentation. Then we will open for the Q&A section. If you need help or want to ask a question, please use the Q&A icon on the bottom of your screen.
Before proceeding, we would like to inform that any statement made during this webcast related to the company's business perspectives, perceptions, and operational and financial goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Helbor's management and on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of the company's performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions because they relate to the future events and therefore are dependent on the circumstances that may or may not occur. General economic conditions can lead to future results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I will turn the floor to Mr. Henry Borenstein, President. You have the floor, Mr. Borenstein.
Good afternoon, everybody. It is a great pleasure to be here for Helbor's results presentation with Marcelo Bonanata and Leonardo Piloto. We will present the results of the fourth quarter of 2024 and the accrued. In 2024, we kept our strategy according to strategic regions, reduction of the ready inventory and the levered cycle. The highlights total gross sales, BRL 574 million in the fourth Q of 2024 and BRL 2 million in the year, 33% above 2023. 56% belongs to Helbor's share.
Our VSO, we had 20.5% in the fourth quarter of 2024 and 52% in the accrued of the year 2024. Launches. We launched three new developments in the fourth quarter of 2024 with a PSV of BRL 50 billion, 80% Helbor's share. Totally BRL 8 million, 57% of this BRL 1 billion Helbor's share, reinforcing the strategy of the company that was launching less developments in 2024. Deliveries and on landings. We had BRL 1.9 billion totally on landings, 27%, with 61% referring to Helbor's share. Our cash generation was BRL 263 million in the fourth quarter and BRL 135 million for the year.
Our leverage reduction and the net debt over shareholders' equity of 56%, a reduction in relation to the end of 2023. The result shows our robust growth, improvement in capital, and capacity to market adaptation. We still generate long-term value to our investors. Now, I give the floor to Marcelo Bonanata, who will share the operational highlights.
Good afternoon, Henry and Leonardo, and good afternoon, everybody. I would like to thank you for listening. This is our land bank. Our gross land bank is BRL 11.5 billion. It is worth highlighting that almost 40% is concentrated in the city of São Paulo. What is also important is that we reached a maturity level where today our land bank is well-aligned with what we want to offer our clients.
During the years 2023, 2024, we sold some lands that did not have the profile of location and income, and we acquired other land banks to replace them. This is one of the better assets, is our land bank, a quality land bank. That is translated in the final product within our profile. We are very happy with the very robust land bank that we built over the years in certain points when the market was not so hot as it is today. Great part of this is in São Paulo, almost 80%. Talking about Great São Paulo, this is the composition of this BRL 11.5 billion. Now, let's talk about the launches. Eight launches and BRL 1.1 billion of PSV. It's important to note that of these eight launches, only three are new developments. We have described the Fazenda Itapety, Roya.
We launched in the past, Fazenda Itapety in 2022, very successful. Roya, we launched last year. Metropolitan was the opening of the second phase. Patteo Vila Mariana, we opened the first phase at the end of the second quarter, and the second at the end of second quarter. Américas in Rio de Janeiro, a partnership with Cury, very successful. At the end of the year, we launched Alegria. Very surprisingly, the first phase was expected in October, and the second only in 2025. But the first phase was such a success that in almost four days, we have sold almost the total of the development. Right after, we launched the second part. We anticipated due to the market. So the total, eight developments, three new ones, and BRL 1.1 billion of PSV. Going to the next slide.
We see the sales, and it's important to make a reflection on how big was our sales in comparison of the fourth quarter of 2023. We had an increase of 35% in contracted sales. We went from BRL 426 million to BRL 574 million and BRL 2 billion PSV at 33% increase in relation to 2023, which has been a very good year. So we exceeded all expectations.
Well, you're right, Marcelo. This reinforced the focus of the company, especially in selling the inventory that was in development. The launches had also a good performance, but the great volume was the ready ones and under development. This translates into our strategy to reduce leverage. We see that 82% of the sales were ready and under construction. Of course, we need to have a good performance during launch, but also to have a strategy to have a performance in those under construction.
We see our SoS. We see this increase every quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2023, we went from 13% to 20.5%, which is a very acute velocity in sales. 52% at the end of the year shows the strategy of the company, how we were prepared to 2024 and getting all these results. Now our inventory. The total inventory of BRL 2.4 billion, 97% located in the Southeast region. This is extremely important. In this BRL 2.4 billion, BRL 1.4 billion is Helbor's share.
Of this BRL 1.4 billion, BRL 1.1 billion is spread in the medium high and ultra-high. So developments of high quality, and also we have an inventory of quality. It's important to talk about our inventory as well. When we talk about especially the ready inventory, we had the problem in 2015, 2016, and we lived with this legacy. But this legacy is getting to the end.
We used to have. If everything goes right, we will remove this slide from the presentation. That's what we want. It's important to highlight that we have a very acute position with the ready inventory. Now we have BRL 52 million at the end of this legacy. The new inventory are deliveries we've made. We are very comfortable with our inventory because it's of really high quality, and it's turning very well. Our deliveries. 2024 was a very important year of launches and sales, but also deliveries. We have a year of very few deliveries, but this year we have almost BRL 2 billion of deliveries in 2024. With 91% of the units sold. We are not only delivering quality developments, but it's important for the cash of the company where we are able to do the on lendings and have the return.
This performance of these developments delivered in 2024, I'd like to mention W Residences that we delivered in March 2024, at the end of the sales. At the end of the year, we opened the W Hotel. The first W Hotel in Brazil with a very interesting performance. It's an icon in the market that Helbor had the pleasure to create, to idealize. Now we will touch on landings, and I'd like Leo to talk about it.
This was also an important year. We have the deliveries over the year with the increase of own landings unit. We had a growth quarter after quarter. In the total of the year we made BRL 1.7 billion on own landings, which is the double of 2023. This was boosted by the deliveries we did.
On the next slide, we show that looking ahead, what are our next deliveries. We have 18 developments launched or under construction close to the deliver and more BRL 1 billion to be delivered. I'd like to highlight the developments of the first quarter 2025. They are well sold above 80%. Comparing 2024 to 2025, the year of 2025 will be a year of strong own landings, very similar to what we did in 2024. It's important to say that most of the deliveries will happen in the first semester. This is important. In 2024, the deliveries were concentrated in the third and fourth quarter. Now we start the year that deliveries will be in the first semester, which will help even more the own landings. Now let's go to the financial data. We're starting with the net operating revenue in line when you compare 2023 to 2024.
For 2023 and 2024, a slight drop of 12%, but nothing of impact. In this slide, we show our gross margin reported in the quarter was of 38%. I'd like to highlight and make it clear that in this 38%, we have the reversion of all those legacy units that we sold. The units we sold in 2024, some were a legacy that were already provisioned. Since we sold it with a slightly higher price, we had this 38% margin. Excluding these effects, the margin is around 31%, in line with what the company says that we deliver 30%. This is a non-recurrent event, and nobody should report that the margins of the company would be 38%. No, just the opposite. We'll continue with 30%. This is the backlog and the margin, launched and sold.
We had an important increase of 4 basis points compared with the Q4 of 2023, reflecting the increase over the year. 70% of what we have to backlog margin come from the launches we did last year. Mogi das Cruzes, Vila Mariana, among others. With this, we close the accounts. These are the general administrative and commercial expenses. What we see here is the part below, how much these expenses represent according to the net income or revenue, about 7%-8%. We had important savings in commercial expenses year-after-year, going from 7% to 5%, reflecting the improvements that Bonanata did over the year. We are now less dependent on premiums and commissions. On next slide. This is a very important information in line with our strategy of gradually increase the participation in our projects. We are comparing year-after-year.
Last year, the company profited BRL 133 million and received BRL 51 million, representing 29%. This year, we increased our participation of 35%, so we had 6 pp in the value in relation to last year. This should be a trend. Helbor now holds a higher share in these developments. Yes, exactly. We did some strategic movements to have a higher participation, a higher share in the projects. So our share in 2025 will be even higher than the previous year. Now on slide 20. This is one of the most important lines of the company, which is our debt. We say that 50% of the total debt is self-liquidating. It is paid by the amortization of the guarantees being receivables or units in inventory. We showed that of this BRL 233 million in the long term, we did a breakdown.
BRL 200 million we've paid in the first quarter. BRL 76 million we rolled in the first quarter. They are in the note 33. We anticipated the payment and the rolling out in the first quarter. The others will be paid with the deliveries. BRL 22 million will be paid with the amortization of the guarantees. The resting 43%, we are well-aligned to conclude the rollout or to get new money. So 60% we need to solve over the entire year. So in spite of the short-term number being very important, the company is very active in this short-term liability and management this, and compensates with the volume of on lendings we will have over the year.
Yeah. With the inventory/receivables, this matches with the amortization of our assets. On slide 21, the top message here is aligned with what we designed for our strategy. We went from 70% net debt in the fourth quarter 2023, and we delivered 56% in the 4Q 2024. Well-aligned with what we said, we would sell the inventory, the strategy, and relevant deliveries over the year, and that we would accelerate on landings. So we have a decrease of 13.2 pp, and we are very happy with this important goal that we've achieved.
Yeah. The important for those who follow Helbor, everything we promised, everything we said, we delivered. That's the point. Yeah. We were very objective with our launches. We could have launched much more, but we launched just the necessary, very close to the selling of ready units and under construction, selling of non-strategic assets. Now slide 22. This corroborates the previous slide. The generation of rates in the consolidated company generated BRL 263 million, and we have the cash generation.
When we included the consolidate where we have the partners and we have the equity, we generate BRL 107 million in 2024, reflecting important part in the company in assets that were out of the radar and now in the third quarter of last year, we have included. We closed 2024. We do not have any guidance, but just for you to know what we are doing, we are designing in-house, and we are driving the company. Bona will continue with an active commercial management with very good products, with good acceptance in the market. This is in line with our strategy of location and income. We will sell even in partnership with someone. We will deliver more 11 strategic launches in São Paulo, Mogi, always focusing on medium and high income and the cost management, and consequently, we will continue with the reduction of the leverage.
The trend is to continue with this. We depend on deliveries sometimes. One month delay is enough to delay or postpone the cash generation. With this, we close the presentation and we open to the Q&A session.
The first question is from [Matheus Servo].
Thank you, Marcelo. Thank you for the space. Congratulations for your result. We saw an express improvement in the backlog margin of the company increasing 3.2 pp. Can you detail the factors that gave this improvement, and also could you talk about the perspectives for launches in 2025?
This increase reflects what we launched during the third and fourth quarter and the sales backlog. The sales were summing over this time, making the backlog margin to get a great representativeness. The projects of the previous years were a little smaller. This is what explained the 3.2 pp increase. Matheus, here is Marcelo Bonanata.
We closed 2024, and we have a possibility of launching many interesting things, but very attentive to the market. We did this last year. If you remember, we had a committee for that. We had a development that we could not boost the sales, and we decided to leave it for the beginning of this year. In the first quarter, we launched something that we have a very heat market. We want to feel the market. Our sector depends on macroeconomy. We pay attention to the market. The market is buying. This is important, but we need to analyze the condition of every development. That is Marcelo. Those who follow Helbor know that the company has capacity, operational capacity and launching. But we went through this process of deleverage. It was our strategy to launch less. This year, we know it is a challenging year, high interest rates.
We have a scarcity of land and also labor. Helbor is in a position that we are able to deliver what we promised, and we will be very disciplined in every launching. It is useless to launch for the sake of launch and create inventory, creating problems in-house. We have many things being approved. They will be here on our shelves, and we will see launch after launch how the market is and how this macro situation of the company evolves.
The next question is from Gabriel Silva, Individual Investor.
In case leverage is in an acceptable level for management, do you intend to distribute a higher percentage of the net profit to the shareholders?
Thank you for that question, but we understand that we will continue to attribute what we usually do. What we have in our internal scenarios is that deleverage will continue to happen, but it will not be overnight. We are continuing focusing this deleveraging process and also to launch good projects and good products. Do not predict an increase in the net profit to be distributed. I think that due to this instability, we left some questions unanswered.
If you want, our RI team is here available. We again apologize for this technical problem, and with this, we close our results information. I'd like to thank all who attended this call. We will now see a very challenging year, but the company is well-focused, and operationally is what we say. We are selling, we are delivering, and we are on lendings. We have an expectation of having a very good year. I'd like to thank Leo, Marcelo, and thank you very much for your attendance.