Or properties like Sorocaba, the development of JK Iguatemi here in the city. It's an emblem of the city. So these were all projects that we had already been thinking about, markets that we had been studying, and this is part of the Iguatemi DNA. And we know that this is always; there's always the financial discipline. And in the company, we always; we were always very careful in the allocation of capital, the discipline, the acquisitions, the evaluations. So the market lived this. So we look at 15 years, from 2007, 2008, 2009; the players were extremely aggressive, making lots of acquisitions. And we were also very loyal, always very loyal to our strategy. So we were present in the best markets and using the additional value to be able to conquer a partner that wants Iguatemi as a partner.
It's not a partner that pays more, necessarily, but it's the one that brings greatest value to a property or to a society. These pillars with a lot of financial discipline, this is what brought us here, and it's going to continue to take us to the next through the next decades. You definitely look and emphasize tomorrow, right? What were the main evolutions since the restructuring of the organization in 2021? I think that definitely reorganization in 2021 was important. I would look at the film that would talk about since the IPO. Iguatemi was the first company in the market to make its first offering of shares. This is a moment of institutionalization.
So you have the regulators, you have, you know, the best in the market, the shareholders and the investors, the company, the information on a quarterly basis or an annual basis. So I think that our evolution in terms of governance has been happening since the implementation of the IPO. And we were also very careful at the time to take our people, the people who were with us, and give them the opportunity to grow, also strengthening the teams, bringing in other people that could add to the attributes we already had. We strengthened the committees. Today we have statutory committees, and there's a lot of work. And the committees were not statutory, but they were very important in our governance, and strengthening the board. We have a board, and if we look back, it was basically a subsidiary and less active.
Over the years, we brought people who actually add value, expertise, and attributes that we went to look for. So in some moments, there was concern. There's still a little concern. You know, there's an opportunity for digitalization. So we brought people that add to the discussion of digitalization, of relationship with the customers, and other points of contact. And we also went through the succession process, evolution of the governance. We have our board. We've had it for several years. We have experienced people. There's a person who is a specialist in governance and training and people management. So I think these attributes that we added to the board and to the committees and to the teams, this strengthened the execution of the company and also the capacity of delivering sound results with wonderful and excellent people working together in the same direction.
So can you still give us some additional information about how the governance works in practice? So how are decisions made on a daily basis? Well, I think today we have a structure, an administrative structure. Carlos, until 2021, he was in the position of the CEO. I was the, administration part of the administration board. And since then, we already had a decision process that separated the execution and the routine and the day-to-day management from the strategic decisions and the direction followed by the company. So today we have different committees for our statutory and some that are not. And they talk about robust issues and fixed or variable topics and things that are discussed. These are all discussed. And one of our characteristics, characteristic of our management model is being there. So we are very close to the company. We're very close to management. We're aligned.
We're making the decisions together. We're studying the comfort in the decisions that are taken. And if we're not comfortable, we check them out, and maybe we have to call another country or wait a few months to do a board meeting because you have people who are close making decisions. So I think in practice, these are examples that have worked very well. And this was a natural evolution of our management model. So Cris, who today is the CEO, she's been with us since 2008. So it's almost 16 years working together. So I think this naturally creates this confidence, the facility of working together with the governance model that is going to move over time. So Carlos, I wanted to talk about leadership, a recipe for leadership. Is there a recipe for you to become a leader, an absolute leader amongst the luxury global brands?
I think, in fact, it's knowledge. So you have to try and understand how the market works. I think Iguatemi had this interest back then, and we adopted a segmentation strategy because this allowed us to notice the important nuances of what it was like to have this kind of strategy. And it was a natural path of evolution with the relationship of international brands. So we were pioneers again. And I think this is a word that talks about the history of Iguatemi, of the industry, of the IPO, and these strategies, the segmentation strategy and internationalization as well. And we were able to understand very well how this market worked. And we went abroad, and we looked for these brands, and we explained how the country worked. And we had a very close relationship. We brought them over.
Having this close relationship, we understood the nuances of how the industry works, learning to internalize this knowledge in our structure, strengthening our structure. I think it's the only company in Brazil that has a marketing relationship working together with our customers and our international partners and the national ones too, and the, those who have relevance in our portfolio. All of this provided confidence for these partners looking at Iguatemi as a strategic partner in Brazil. Today we have a relationship with the best brands, the biggest brands. I always say that it's interesting to see a brand that the origin is Tupi-Guarani, and Iguatemi is from Tupi-Guarani. It's a language, and that's an international reference of luxury in the country.
So this shows that, in fact, this brand has this concern of knowing how to understand and knowing how to receive these companies in Brazil, being prepared for that, and being successful. So we're very happy because most of the brands that entered, they only grew up in Brazil. We have two, three, or four stores, several of them around Brazil, and they show this confidence relationship. You always talk about, and you always remember, concepts like pioneering and essence, work, purpose, the DNA of the group. What are the values of the family that built this culture over time?
That's, it's a nice question because I think that a few years ago, more than a decade ago, actually, when we designed our family structure, we also talked about these values because on a daily basis, it was very important for us to show this, right, and write this down. And we saw how much these family values are in the company over time, things like excellence, the concern with content and form. We're very concerned about doing things in an impeccable manner for our customers from beginning to end. So I talked about the design, the quality, and this relevant content, different content. And we're always a step ahead, even in marketing and the events that we promote and the way that we relate. So, you know, this is noticed, and this is a value that my family always had.
I think that this is inside the business, and this is connected to the professionals. We see that today people talk about this. They live this. Things like entrepreneurship, this thing about being pioneers and launching ourselves. So not only in terms of malls, but, for example, we had our first undertakings that used the malls and commercial and residential buildings and also in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina. So I think that we're always we created the, the retail unit in our business. And we're always trying to develop. And we see that this is inside the different verticals in the company, innovation, creativity, entrepreneuring, making things happen. And we're talking about work. So I think it's a family that has a work DNA. And this comes from my, my father, my grandparents. And we like what we do. We work. We're present. We travel.
We're close to business. We like to follow up. We're available to people. We had talked about the relationship that we have on the board with the executives and the executive committee. Being close, being interested, and being very present and available for people so that things can happen in a better way. I could talk about several other things, but I, I would take up all of our time. Okay. We're talking a lot about the history, action, and purpose. I think there's a huge expectation about tomorrow, right? Pedro, what can we expect from the future? I think in the future, we come from a very successful path. In terms of the future, we're going to continue working with a lot of discipline in terms of execution, with a lot of efficiency.
As Carlos said, one of our values, which is entrepreneurship, is the will to continue to grow, but growing with discipline as we've always done. So we believe that we have opportunities. The market that we work in has growth opportunities. And we would like to be in the best markets and the best properties. So we don't have any mission, you know, being the best shopping mall, having an exact number of malls, but things that make sense in our participation and keeping consistency in our portfolio. So unfortunately, I don't really have anything that is different for what we expect for tomorrow. So let's do more of the same. Let's carry this out in an efficient manner, and let's grow with responsibility. So I think this is the way for us to continue to deliver what we've been doing.
So talking about alternatives to continue growing, I'd like to know from both of you, what is the path to position yourselves beyond consumption? So what can we expect for this sector with the Iguatemi, in the next five, 10, or 15 years? Iguatemi in the first place there. So I'm going to repeat the words here. So growth is very close in our daily business. It's disciplined and qualified growth. And I think continuing to be creative. I think Iguatemi is extremely creative and able to do things. So I think continue doing that, looking at the world, looking at the opportunities. And we also talked about pioneering. I talked a lot about this word, being you know open to new ideas. You know, there's a luxury conference that we have, and this supports national fashion.
There are sponsors for special events that reinforce Brazilian culture, that reinforce business in Brazil. I think that we have a very important role. I always say this because I remember that many years ago, I was in a conference in Turkey. Somebody asked me, "Oh, but how do you see the relationship of the malls with society?" There was always this discussion about there being spaces that are not integrated to the city. My view was completely different. I saw the experience in Brazil over time of how the Brazilian society learned through a private-public space, public-use space, you know, improve and understand several of the issues that you see over there. Behavior and how malls, with the quality of these private spaces with public use, they help the cities to evolve in terms of landscaping because there is a natural interaction.
So it's not immediate. It is transforming over decades. So I think the power of being able to participate, and this is a great stage for several topics that are happening in society over time, and with the aspect we're talking about we have partnerships with several associations, and you have different causes that participate in our business. And we have come into contact with them for the first time. So the role of our business and where people have—I say, you know, sometimes you work in an industry, in a gas industry, and nobody knows what you're doing. So you have the final product at home, right? But the mall is recognized by the consumer. So if you ask, everybody has an opinion about this business. So I think we have an important value that includes interaction and development and, you know, the daily living of the population. Pedro?
Well, if I say anything, I'm going to repeat what Carlos has already said. I think, mainly, you know, just keeping it short, the novelties that we bring. So we cannot stay put over time. And we saw other markets. We saw what happened with undertakings that get old and outdated. And that's why there is constant search for novelties participating in people's lives and not only being an isolated, a purchasing center, right? We're part of people's lives, if it's for food, if it's for just going out with a family, with the kids, and several different uses. And I think the dynamics that our undertakings have, that the mall industry has advanced compared to the rest of the world here in Brazil because we are present, and we're always trying to bring new things for our customers. Okay.
So we're almost finishing our conversation here. I'd like to know if you have any final remarks, any messages for our friends and partners at the event.
First of all, thank you for joining us, everybody who is watching us. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to be able to talk a little bit about the history of Iguatemi, a little bit of our history together with that of Iguatemi, the role of the whole Iguatemi team over time. And I'm sure that Iguatemi is always surprising. And, you know, it's incredible how you grow. There's always something new, and this happens in all Iguatemis.
I think that when I look at it, when I look at the story more than 30 years over here, what I see is that every decade, this market has a way of transforming itself and including new things and being able to transform itself not only into a building. It opens up, and it puts things in. So I am sure that we're going to continue to see a very dynamic sector. There's the opportunity of growth and transformation and technology. This is going to make small spaces extremely interesting for people. I'm very excited. It's a company that I miss because, you know, there are things that I'm not going to see. It's incredible how dynamic this sector is and the capacity it has for transforming and to deliver new things. I would like to thank everyone for joining us.
I think that this Investor Day is the opportunity of knowing a little bit more about the company. I think many people know about the numbers, the strategies, the main things we do. But I think the most important thing today is the opportunity to know our team. I think we have a spectacular team of people who are committed, people who like the business, people who deliver results, who think like the owner, that are hands-on. And I think this is the opportunity to know these people better, to know the areas, to understand the dynamics of the mall and what is behind the numbers and how all of this happens behind the scenes, right, behind the cameras. So I would like to thank you, and I'd like to wish you a great event.
Pedro, Carlos, thank you very much for your explanations and for the information. Hugs to you. Enjoy the event, everyone. He's a gentleman, right?
Thank you.
So guys, I think that it was an extremely interesting conversation. It gave us a great view. I always feel that something was added when I see this kind of interview that flowed. What they said a lot was that you need to know the team, right? Is there a better thing than knowing this team with the big boss, with the president, and who has been here for 16 years, as Pedro said, Cristina Betts, the president of Iguatemi, please?
Let me help you here.
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you in person, some virtually at home, or even after the recording. I'm Cristina Betts.
I'm the CEO of the company and part of the restructuring. I was the CFO from 2008 until 2021. And as Pedro said, I've been here for almost 16 years. Well, let me start by saying that it's the first and last time that we did the Investor Day. It was in 2008. So we had done an IPO in 2007. We got BRL 500 million. Then we did another BRL 200 million from a debenture right after that. And then we ran off, trying to use this money well, right? One of the first things was to buy what gave us most in Iguatemi, São Paulo. And definitely, that was very important for us. And then we made several acquisitions, and we started to make several investments for greenfield shopping malls that started with Brasília and several others. And then in the middle of all this, the subprime came in.
So it was a riot. It was a mess in the market and the global market. But Iguatemi was still strong with all of its growth expectations in line. And we were working. And that's when we decided to do an Investor Day to, to show the market that we were really very sound in our purpose. We've just done an IPO, and we were fine in terms of our growth strategy. So we, we did this Investor Day at the end of 2008 to show this, growth plan. And it was the first time, and we were the first to do this in the market or the only ones to do it for a long time to, to provide guidance. So we had short-term guidance for that following year. That was 2009. And we also have long-term guidance for commitment to growth.
So then you already know the story, right? I think every year, we complied with our guidance, our long-term guidance. We maintained, after 2014, our practice in terms of providing guidance every year. We always provided guidance, plus the two years of the pandemic that we removed the guidance because really, it was, you know, a more complicated time. But we always maintained this sort of guidance. This year, we're going back to our practice of having an Investor Day. It's the first day since 2008. Our commitment is to do it every year. We're already planning for 2025. We're going to have an Investor Day in the first quarter of 2025. But today, we're not really going to talk about numbers.
We're going to talk about subjects that we don't usually talk about when we talk about the quarters and the quarterly conferences. So first of all, and maybe the most important thing, is to introduce the team. We have a wonderful team that is highly engaged. We are GPTW ever since we adopted this methodology in terms of climate research. And in the 16 years that I've been here, the highest grade we've had is the pride of being part of it. We can have the most admired shoppings, the most valuable ones in the market. But if we don't have a good team, nothing works, right? So I think that today, we really want to open up this channel with the executives of the company.
You want to open up this dialogue with everyone so you know a little bit about our team and also, also the commitment, opening up other opportunities in the future of talking to each of them. So we have a very strong team, a very experienced team, and in love with what they do. And they've been here a long time as well. And first of all, we work very well together. So we support each other and also in decisions. So these years of experience, they count at this moment when we have to make decisions. The second thing that I think is important that we have to talk about today is show how we work on a daily basis. So a very important point in our delivery is our execution.
For that to be perfect, we need to have methodology, discipline, integration between the areas, a PDCA routine, and always improving our insights and what we have to do on a daily basis. We always say this in the company. I have to see that there are several executives that will repeat. I'm going to repeat a few things that Pedro and Carlos have said. And I'm sure that the executives are going to repeat things that we've said because we are very integrated in our values. But one thing that we always talk about is having plans A, B, C, and D. We have reserve plans for everything. We practice, and we prepare for everything. So, you know, we do, we do, simulations and the holding and the mall, everything of what we have to do.
If there is some surprise someday, something that we never imagined, the next day, we already have a routine for that as well. The third thing that we're going to talk about today is our leveraging of value. The first one has to do with improving profitability per meter squared in our existing malls. I think that we did some important work during the pandemic in those two years. Today, we have indicators, and Guido's going to talk a little bit more about that later, that are better than before the pandemic. It was better than before the recession. We are already at levels pre-recession. We're going to talk about meters squared. When we talk about meters squared, it's not, you know, where profitability comes out. We separate how we work on this into five pillars.
So the first thing we talk about is the design. So the design is not only how the mall is, the external, internal design of the mall. It's also taking care of what happens inside the mall. So last year, we did more than 400 redoings, so redesigning. So it could be redesigning of the bathroom or the flowers, the flower pots or our skylights. So keeping our assets new is very important. I've had several people coming to me, especially people from abroad, when they come to Brazil and they see Iguatemi São Paulo for the first time. And they say, "Wow, but this is the oldest shopping mall, and it looks new." And it looks new exactly because of the work that we do. And the second pillar is content. In 2023, we had 371 launches. That's 15% of our portfolio.
Out of these 15%, more than half were either stores that did not exist there or they did not exist in the malls until then. It's very important. We talked a little bit about this with the controllers. You know, it's important to have this, in all innovation dynamics. Judy's going to talk about that and Charles and Satomi as well. We had launches happening in 2024 that already were part of our forecast. A few weeks ago, we had the launch of Sephora in Iguatemi, Rio Preto. It was very successful. People were lining up at 5:00 A.M. to get in. It was really crowded. Now, in the middle of the year, we're going to have Outback in Iguatemi, São Carlos. I have no doubt that it's going to be very successful.
We're also going to have in Iguatemi São Paulo, the first Loewe in Brazil. That's one of the most desired brands in the world today. Then it was Tiffany at the end of the year in Iguatemi São Paulo as well. Services, that's the third pillar. Services are many things. I'm going to give you the example. Renata Zitune is going to talk a little bit about that. There's our loyalty program. Inside this program, we have the promotion of collections. This already allowed an increase in 55% of our customers that were registered. During the promotion, we have more than 20% of sales identified per unit. That's very important for us, for us to start creating a database, to have better understanding with hardcore data. The fourth pillar, events and marketing.
So we did more than 500 events last year in all of our shopping malls. So it's a simple theater day inside a bookstore until a Barbie Dreamhouse that we had over here. And during two months, you're going to see the images of the Barbie Dreamhouse if you didn't come. In two months, there were 70,000 people who came to see it inside the mall. And the last pillar, and I think Charles is going to talk a lot about this, is the operational silence. So everything that happens in the backstage, you know, we don't understand that. But, you know, we only understand things when things don't work out. But everything works out well. But this thing about making it work in an invisible manner, it makes us have well-being in the shopping mall.
A good example of the things that we're always improving is, for example, safety. So we did several investments in the safety equipment. The last analog cameras, we exchanged them for digital ones. And we put all of our security guards with a body cam, also the audio, not only the image. And we're investing in this so that our service becomes better. And these pillars are extremely important for us to be able to do what Ciro's going to talk about, which is to charge the rent that we deserve from our properties. Okay. The second leverage we're going to talk about in terms of value is organic growth. And I think that our last shopping center that we inaugurated was in 2018. It was the Fashion Outlet in Santa Catarina. And before that, we expanded in Porto Alegre in 2016.
But honestly, with everything that we have seen in terms of sales and the demands for, for stores that want bigger spaces or new spaces, today, we have, repressed demand in terms of space. So finally, we're able to go back to see organic growth in the company. So we have already announced a retrofit of Market Place. You probably saw that. And today, we're going to talk a little bit about our expansion in our Iguatemi Brasília mall. The third, leverage that we're going to talk about today is to use our surroundings to bring a greater flow. So today, we're going to talk a lot about our project around Iguatemi Campinas, which is 1 million square meters area. And it's going to bring 50,000 people every day to that, to the surroundings. It's an incredible area with all of the new urbanism concepts.
I'm going to ask Cláudio to talk about this. Guido is also going to talk about this. The fourth leverage is inorganic growth, M&A. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Guido's going to talk about what we can and cannot do. I think 2023, we ended the year, as you saw, in a spectacular manner. We were able to get results from everything that we've been doing over time. We opened an important space in our balance. It was lower debt over EBITDA. Just in terms of organic growth and the search for efficiency, we should finish 2024 closer to 1.5 times, which is quite low. It gives us a lot of opportunity for anything that we want to do over the next 15-18 months.
Finally, last but not least, we're going to talk a little bit about ESG. Dilene Teixeira and Ben are going to talk about this. We had great advances. We looked at our first sustainability report that, it was a lot of work. We had to collect all of the information that was spread out. We have to put it on paper. Then at the end, this shows that we are going through the wrong, go taking the right path, actually. We're going to talk about the commitments we've already assumed, our collaborators, our shopping system, our mall system. Pedro is going to talk about the governance that we have in the company. Well, in 2009, going back, we did the exercise of placing the mission, the vision, and our values onto paper.
Every year, we, we try and see if we are continuing on track. The good news is that it has changed very little all of these years. We adjust a little word here and there. We try to make it smaller to make it more user-friendly. But everything that we have in the essence of what we wrote in 2009, that's exactly the same on paper. It's nice. As I said, you're going to notice the executives that we use the same words. That comes from the same exercise. But to talk a little bit about some values that are my favorite, and you're definitely going to hear about this as well, my first, my favorite is WOW. Enchantment and excellence in values and also dreaming with the impossible. We get there, innovating as always.
And the third one that Pedro said, and I told you that we would repeat things, we definitely are hands-on. And we, we wear the shirt, as we say. And we'd like to surprise and enchant people providing consumption and entertainment experiences that are memorable with a great purpose. Our strategy and our numbers are a result of this purpose. So I hope that today is a great day. And every day you go to our shopping malls, I hope you are able to see our execution, our passion to make this work. And now, before the first panel, I'm going to put a video of the images of our undertakings and our events. Thank you.
Says Guido.
Did you see that? You're learning, right? Always. Thank you. It was great to, to follow all of the data that Cristina provided us with in terms of seeing the growth of the company and looking at what happened over the last few years. She also talked about what we expect in the future. There's been all of these growth lines in Iguatemi. There was a view of the opportunities as well, opportunities that are still going to be seen in the panels today. I'm going to start the first panel. We're going to explore this subject. I'm going to call Charles Krell, who is the Vice President for Operations, and Ciro Neto, the Commercial Vice President. Please come up on stage.
Thank you. Thank you for, for coming, both of you.
And we're going to start with you, Ciro, because we heard a lot about the leverage, right, the leverage of Iguatemi, that Iguatemi has for sustainable growth, right, not just to grow anyhow. So we know that the malls, the closing of the empty areas, that's a very important financial point, right? So Iguatemi has had excellent results in 2023. Could you give us the reason how you got to this?
Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be with you today. I'm very happy. I came back to Iguatemi about a year ago. I stayed for 10 years. I was the operational director and a commercial director as well. Over the last three years before I came back, I was working in a retail company in the expansion development area. And it's a great pleasure to be here.
I think the great challenge that we had in 2023 is that we separated the work into four very relevant pillars for the commercial area. First of all, people. So we looked at our team. It looks a little obvious because people, you know, the commercial team, the main resource is somebody negotiating with somebody else. And I think that the work that we had was to train people better and put the right people in their places and to establish a team that would have a high performance. And the second pillar that we established, I think it has to do with high performance. They were very clear KPIs. And it seems obvious, but it's not that obvious. The commercial team has a series of activities that can also be measured, not only measuring the end of the negotiation but also the signing of contracts.
I'm going to talk a little bit about that. Now, the third point is governance. So how are we going to govern the work of our commercial team so that we would be able to achieve the results that we wanted in 2023? I think the last one was how to, to mix this up and work with quality and speed. So we can never lose quality. That's basically what our controllers said, Pedro as well as Carlos. They talked about the importance of bringing into our business everything that we have in our DNA in terms of quality and everything that we want to do, in carrying things out well. We worked on high-performance people. We changed a lot of people. We brought new people in to help us in this process.
We established very clear trainings, precise and speedy information to provide the best opportunity for our partners and our stakeholders. In terms of KPIs, just to describe that a little better, how did we see it? Today, we are able to measure exactly how many times, you know, something comes in and out of the committee. We can look at individual productivity, how much does it take to get a negotiation through from beginning to end. We looked at the effectiveness of each of our professionals to know how many times this proposal was coming back to our committee. So today, we can have very objective measurements, clear measurements of speed. And in terms of governance, we strengthened our approval committee so that they would be faster, more objective, less bureaucratic, where everybody would be able to participate in one go and approving that in one go.
That would be very clear with our legal structure. This would come out as quickly as possible. We would be able to send this contract, accelerating this process and definitely reducing the vacant spaces, which is very important. So where does quality come into this process? It was never set aside in our management. I can give you some examples. A great example that we have was Zara from Higienópolis because it was a very important negotiation for that asset specifically. It increased the flow of customers, you know, 10 basis points. Then we also had some malls like Iguatemi Porto Alegre. There was a negotiation with Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana. They opened up in Iguatemi Porto Alegre.
This reinforces, and this is a clear image of what we work with in this balance between speed and quality of what we deliver, the speed in terms of reducing vacant spaces, preserving our mix, which is a very important value for us. You talked about the values. Everything that you've said, how does this reflect? Everybody wants to know, right, how does this reflect on the results of the company? I think Carlos said this too. Form and the content, that's very important for us. We worked on the form and the content. This reflected on the results. We finished 2022 with an occupation rate of 92.7%. We improved that until the end of 2023, 2.4 basis points, ending 2023 with 95.1%. That's absolutely important. It's the best performance we've had since 2018.
This is the reflection of this work we've done. So planning, control, effectiveness, we had a record in terms of contract signing. It was 445 contracts we signed. There was a very important change that we also reached. And it was 26% above the average of the last five years. So we believe in this, the form and the content. So this brings results in the end. And I think we were able to do this with all of these pillars that we established in 2023. Great numbers, right? And we want to know what it is, what happens, you know, what can we expect in 2024? How are you preparing for this year? So as Ruy says, Ruy works, has worked in Iguatemi for many years. And I admire him a lot.
He, he always says something, "Always forward," you know, "Always look forward, never backwards." In 2024, we're going to continue to accelerate the consolidation of all the work of the pillars that we established. There's also two new directors, two very experienced people in the market. They're going to act in their regionals and also in the key accounts that we established inside our partnership. These are people who already know about the retail market. They know a lot about real estate as well. I think the most important thing when we consider what we're saying is the opportunity of improvement of our income per meter squared. We also reviewed our commercial tables. We provided a lot more criteria and effectiveness for each opportunity, for each store specifically, always looking at our top tiers, payment tiers. This brought us great robustness.
This is going to allow us to negotiate better rent, per unit, per asset for each customer.
Your explanations were very clear. Everybody understood. It became very clear about quality, quality in content, quality in design, quality in the operation. This conversation showed an almost neurotic concern with that. But anyway, Charles, can you explain how I can see the excellence of Iguatemi as a differential aspect the company has?
Well, it's the neurosis. Oh, my microphone isn't working. Sorry, the microphone isn't working.
So the truth is that everything that we've been doing will result in the excellence in Iguatemi. That's part of the DNA of the company. So the difference is in the mixture of stores, the choice of plants, the landscaping in general. It's from what's complex to what's simple. The culture of excellence is already embedded.
It has been for many years in all the professionals. It's very important. It's a property. It's an asset, right? There's no if, you know, if it's not done, if people don't do things, it doesn't work. In terms of operational management, many of the processes so in this task, in 16 undertakings distributed geographically around the country, it makes things more complex. The third point about complexity is that we work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. After the last customer leaves, the customer, we have another 12 hours with construction, with safety, with deliveries. So it's 24 hours of a daily attention to each property. Many of them are more relevant in terms of consumption compared to Brazilian cities.
To keep the operational quality with a high-level equipment, we work with three areas constantly: processes, technology, and people involved in the organizational culture. The well-being of the customer is the primary point of our strategy. That's also according to the salespeople. You're saying something really nice. How does this work in practice? In this conversation, I'm going to give you some examples. This is the result of decades of expertise that was accumulated and opportunities and the absorption of contexts and practices of the industry and the commerce and the service activities. The elements of this is incorporated in the management of shopping malls. If you have any questions, I can explain this better. It's incredible. We have the disciplines involved in management.
So we have processes that need details, the painting of a wall or a skylight, as Cris said. It's very, there's a difference between a customer having to go to a shopping mall or wanting to go to a shopping mall or wishing to go to a shopping mall. We have to think, you know, we would like them to go to, to try and solve something important. The attractiveness and the different elements, this definitely gives us the motivation, the customer wanting to choose going to Iguatemi, best experiences, architectural projects, a mix that is tailored according to every place we work in. It's not the same for everyone. It doesn't make sense. Great stores, therefore, very nice events. It is not a ready-made recipe for one year or for one shopping mall. It's continuous work, eternal work.
That has been like this. It will continue to be like this.
So you gave a lot of color. You illuminated, at least for me and hopefully for everyone, how everything works. But I'd like to go back to Ciro. So all of this reflected in a record sales. So how is this translated into results for Iguatemi?
I think sales, if you worked in retail, I think, you know, sales cure everything. So I think sales are the main thing. In our operation, we're retailers. We're real estate in our essence. And I think Iguatemi had robust results since 2019 with significant growth. I think 2023, we had more than 11% of growth, two-digit growth. And the reflection of this is a very healthy operation. And I think another effect that this opens in terms of opportunity is since IGP-M last year was negative.
We have a double positive event in the results. So first of all, more sales. IGP-M was negative. So this opened up an opportunity for us to improve our income per meter squared. So we started doing this work. We had the fourth quarter last year that ended in 11.1. We saw that this opens up a window of opportunity to improve our income per meter squared. We started doing this work. When we look at the leasing spreads for renewal compared to last year, 7%, this number is already a negotiated number. So we have this capacity of inserting new incomes in what the storeholder is paying now and making it healthy. With a new table that we're going to have, this is going to be the work that we're going to have.
So, Cris talked about this a lot in her presentation. We would like to reinforce this positioning of improving our income per meter squared, taking in this window of opportunity of increasing sales and also the more healthy occupation by the storeholders. We believe that it's going to be possible to do this work with an effective and, and clear challenge for this year.
Thank you, Ciro. I'm going to go back to Charles. I have a last question. So this management that is efficient in terms of operational costs, this has contributed to, to close, a positive account, right, in terms of the rent. How have you done this in the last few years?
So I'm going to elaborate a little bit before I answer this question so that I can really answer your question.
So it's more than 10,000 items that we check on a daily basis in shopping centers. So there are 16 properties that are very big. So 10,000 is colossal. And it is. But it is divided into 16 units operating the way that I said, you know, 24 hours a day. So we check the temperature of the different areas, you know, the air conditioning. There's also the working of the parking lot gates and also measuring the floor if it's shining according to high standards and also if they're not slippery or not so we can avoid discomfort and lawsuits. It's a very simplistic view of the enormous amount of processes we work with. We also look for excellence in tangible elements and even in the intangible ones. But we want the customers to also notice this.
So I'm just going to ask you for some support, to project two slides for you, allowing me to make two more comments. So we work intensely in what we call the back of the house, so the scenarios before the behind the cameras, as has already been mentioned, so machines, deposits, areas that are not visible to the customers. The mentality of quality permeates deeply also in what is not seen by the customer, the discipline. It contaminates. It's a, it's a negative word. But it contaminates everybody positively. And another point for this group that is involved in investments, this preserves the value of the units, the asset value of the units. So there's the disciplinary value of quality or also preserving high-value equipment if you're talking about civil equipment or mechanical equipment or any other kind of equipment. So there's a value in the balance.
We can't just neglect this in operations. Then over here, we have another two support areas. We have dozens of slides in all the shopping malls in areas that the customers don't see. But definitely, they are more beautiful than in my own living room, in my home. I assure you. If it's not, we are going to hear it. We also have yeah, you're going to hear it, right, because at home, you don't say anything, right? I try. You know, they beat me up very quickly at home. We have a huge budget for maintenance and in the installation to work with the shopping malls. There are three points. A high standard for services in general, reliability of the installations, of the facilities. If there's an internal crisis, if there's a problem, we attack everything immediately.
Everything has to work. Finally, very important, safety of the people who go to the shopping malls, if they are customers, if they are stakeholders or, you know, elementary safety, things about a fire. There's huge complexity preserving the tranquility of these elements. The excellence in everything I'm talking about, it is supported by training, abstinence, and always trying to create the effect that, Kris also talked about. Now, I'm going to show you a third slide. We have specific programs for all the areas. I'm only going to mention a few. There are many. But for example, cleaning, maintenance, landscaping, marketing, controllership, among others. The difference is not something trivial. You need talent. You need money. You need attention. And you need persistence.
So when you try to copy, you can see that this stomach and this pocket and this quality of management is extremely important. So now, I'm going to answer your question, Fátima. So the actions that I talked about that result in attention, clear attention, looking at the cost of occupation that supports the negotiation mentioned by Ciro, the cost of occupation has two main pillars. So it talks about rent and the costs of the condo so that the storeholder can actually occupy that space or those spaces in the malls. Over the last few years, I'm proud to say that we have reduced the occupation spaces in strong currency. We implemented a lot of initiatives that are efficient, which is doing what you do better or, efficacious, changing the ways that you do it.
Then about this graph that Fátima talked about, asked about. So two examples. Between 2018 and 2019, we talked about consumption of water in the malls. We implemented a system. And there was a physical economy of 12.6, so 16 shopping malls that are the size of a city. And this is in one year. So changing of the toilet bowls, taking up nine liters, instead of nine liters, six, also other ways of dealing with it. And even better than that was the result, you know, what do you get from this? In this case, the expressive reduction in the water intake is equivalent to 97 Olympic pools, swimming pools a year. So that's two months of consumption of drinking water in a city like Campinas. So it's extraordinary. The result is extraordinary. Just talking about this, that's one action.
Another example, in 2022, we changed all of the illumination. Now, we have the LED technology that has been proven after so many years of promises and results that were not concrete. So we changed everything. In 2022, there was savings of 9.6% in terms of consumption volume. So that's almost $1 million of economy a year. So I gave you two examples that culminate in this graph that you can see over here and the result of so many different management tasks supporting the occupation of the stakeholders. So this made, in 2017—I only got these years, 2017- 2023—we increased the debit of the stakeholders 17.5% or 2.5% an average per year against an inflation that was measured by IPCA in 31.9% or in IGP-M, 86.4%. So guys, it's colossal. It's very strong. It's colossal.
It requires a lot of work, for many people. This definitely administers quality and tries to maintain the cost for the stakeholder. This allows for the commercial evolution that Ciro talked about. We're going to continue working, going to fairs abroad and in Brazil, visiting companies in Brazil, and working with expert consultants in terms of air conditioning, for example, constantly trying to get efficiency or efficacy and always looking at costs, which is very important for our stakeholders, our great partners. I would like to end with a round of applause. What do you think?
Thank you very much. Thank you, both of you. Thank you. Thank you for your participation. Thank you. All right. Now, we're going to continue the panel. I am going to call Satomi, the Director of Mix and Retail for Iguatemi. Satomi, please.
Thank you. Thank you, my dear.
Sit down. I'm going to sit down beside you so we're closer. Until now, Satomi, we heard a lot about care in terms of the curatorship of stores. This is reflected in the results for Iguatemi and coming to an occupation rate that preserves this quality. I'd like to know how you balance this. It can't be easy, right, how you balance this equation so that your area can generate good outcomes.
Sorry, I can't hear her. Her microphone is closed.
No? Not working yet? Just one minute? I think we're going to have to change the little box. Oh, they'll just give you a handheld microphone.
Oh, I prefer that. I prefer that. Okay, great. Okay, everything's going to be solved here. Yeah, I'm a karaoke singer. So I like it. Good morning. If you don't know me, I'm Satomi Namba.
I am the director of the mix and retail area and also relationships inside Iguatemi. I'm here. I've been in the company over 14 years. So curatorship, that's part of the DNA of the company, of Iguatemi. It's my area of mix. And it's, it is part of what we have in our 16 undertakings. And we do this curatorship locally according to the regions where we are, the experience of our customers. And we believe that it's really a differential aspect in terms of the competitive competition. It's a competitive advantage. As Pedro said, our view is a medium and long-term view. So of course, we want to sign good contracts. We want to have, you know, zero empty spaces. We want to increase the occupation. But we want to do this with quality, so not just closing with any kind of operation.
That's not going to help us to improve the experience of our customers in our malls. So the greatest challenge we have is to sign good contracts. And with good curatorship and brands and services, we can do this in a way so that our customers are satisfied, the stores have good sales, and therefore, we're going to have good outcomes, right, good income. So everybody asks, how do we do this? So we developed our own methodology inside Iguatemi, inside my area, where we follow all of the behavioral standards and consumption in different areas in the shopping mall in terms of gastronomy, in terms of buying things for the home, services, fashion. And we use this, these trends according to the needs of the customer, the journey of the customer. And then we're able to transform all of this into retail operations and services.
And my area also works with four pillars, under four pillars. A very important one is innovation. This is what helps us with behavior and consumption. We create a new operation. We add a new project. We add a new service. We have another pillar, which is planning. In the planning pillar, we're talking about the strategy. We're talking about the ideal mix for each of the shopping malls. There's also a pillar, which is of intelligence. Over here, we're talking about GPI and KPIs, a lot of research is involved, a lot of studies that we develop internally, and also an analysis of the competition and the pillar of relationships. That has to do with following the journey of the storeholder. We're very close to our storeholders. We consider them our partners.
They're going to help us to develop these operations that are exclusive and differentiated. Just so you know, we have a database of more than 8,000 brands. We maintain this active and updated. How do we do this? We have lots of meetings with the stakeholders. We're close to them. We're going to know if they're going to grow, if they have any other ideas. We love new stuff. We have a pillar of innovation, as I told you. You also love new things. So I'm going to interrupt you because we would like to know what's new, especially for this year. I'm going to tell you.
But before that, I'm going to continue to explain a little bit more of what we do because I think this is a great opportunity, as Cris said, for us to expose ourselves so that you can understand what we do and how we do it. So we don't really expect a storeholder to knock on our doors trying to sign a contract. We do the opposite. We go after them. We do active prospecting. We're always listening to, you know, what the customer wants and what the storeholder wants and then combining these factors and the analysis of the trends. And a lot of trends, we are able to get a good mix of stores locally for each of our shopping malls. There's also an equation, Fátima, that is very interesting that we use inside Iguatemi.
We say that it's to, you know, solving things, taking advantage of this. So every customer goes into the mall. He has to, you know, solve everything he needs. We have to balance this equation well. What does that mean? So what does it mean to get everything done? It means that we have a services area. So you need, you know, to polish your shoes. You need to fix some clothes. You need the laundry. We have this service area waiting for our customers. We also have the other side, which is to take advantage of your life, so, you know, to enjoy life. So the shopping malls today are not just consumption centers. This is also for entertainment and socialization. We're prepared for that. So the area has to look at this. You have to have this feeling.
The mix has to have it. So just for us to, for me to understand the novelties in this mix, you look at the customer or the storeholder? Do you use both? Who do you look at? That's a good question. So we look at both, so the journey of the customer and what does he do in the morning, in the afternoon, at night? What does he do during the week, on the weekend? And we try to put this into retail areas. And also for the storeholder, we have an area that is also with us, which is relationships. And we definitely get close to these storeholders, national and international ones. And we make events. And then we increase sales. So we work together. And then you asked me about the news that we have today for 2024.
So Ciro and Cris have already talked about it. But I'm just going to reinforce it because it's really nice. So we're going to have the first store of Loewe here in Brazil in Iguatemi Faria Lima. So if you're looking at the at Jonathan. And it's going to be a new collection. It's beautiful. We're going to have this in May. We're also going to have a second store of Balenciaga in Iguatemi Faria Lima. We're also going to have a flagship from Tiffany in two floors here in Iguatemi. That's going to be in October. And we're also going to have here in JK a new Manioca, the second unit in a shopping mall. And this is going to have a beautiful view. It's going to surprise everyone. great. Yeah.
I can also talk a little bit more about how we study these trends because that's what people ask me the most. So how do you, you know, how does my area, how does my team understand these behavior trends and then transforming them into retail operations? So our focus is always to improve the experience of the customer inside our malls locally, in a customized manner in all of these regions that our stores are in. But there's nothing better than giving you some examples, right, so in terms of gastronomy. For a while, this is part of a trend, has been part of a trend that we have followed. People, they like cooking. People like experimenting new kinds of cuisine. They are traveling more. And how do we unfold this trend, this gastronomy trend? So I'm going to give you three examples.
One, for example, is Urban, that we opened in Shopping Galleria in Campinas. Urban already existed in the city of Campinas with a few units. But we wanted for Galleria something that was closer to an emporium, a little more sophisticated in the brands and the products and also stronger and more robust. We called Urban to talk to them. We exposed our project and the fact that we wanted this emporium. There's an area of teas, of cheese, and a greater offer of noble meat. Then we created this sensorial experience. Then we also built what we have, what the Urban that we have in our portfolio in our shopping malls. It's very successful. We did a project with Bruschini. The Urban that we have in Iguatemi, in Galleria, as well as in Brasília, we've also done a rollout in Market Place.
I'll tell you, it's different. It's exclusive. It's according to the needs of our customers. Still within this gastronomy trend, I can also talk about Kitchin, the restaurant. Kitchin also existed. It was on the street, a small restaurant in Itaim. Here in JK, I'm looking for a restaurant that could, you know, solve, you know, take advantage of the, you know, our, customers could enjoy life. So to do everything here around JK, there were several companies that needed or people needed to, you know, have lunch and not too expensive. It had to be something quick. We also wanted a restaurant that was a little more female, lighter sort of food, that women could come here and, you know, maybe call a friend to have lunch and then extend to, to shopping in the afternoon.
And we also had a customer that asked for a nice restaurant to be able to take his family on a Sunday, on a Sunday lunch. So we called the people from Kitchin. And then we were able to bring this new project for Kitchin with a menu and a menu that could actually solve all of these different profiles at different moments, things that you need in different restaurants. And they accepted the challenge. So we built Kitchin. And we also did the rollout. So that's where Aima in Iguatemi, Faria Lima. We also had Su is also in Pátio Higienópolis. And the last example that I also like to talk about is the one of Mani. So I told you that we have Manioca that is going to open up in JK in October. That's different. But what is it, the story of Manioca?
So Mani is a restaurant, a street restaurant that everybody knows. It has stars. The chef is great, Helena a nd she has an appetizer menu, so you know, a tasting menu. So you know, we went there. We knocked on the door. And Mani Manioca opened in Iguatemi Faria Lima inside a bookstore. And then we said, "Okay. So we have this space. It's a beautiful space with a great view. You can see the boulevard and the parking lot of Iguatemi. And we would like a shopping mall version." And that's where Manioca came. So it was also a forehand project. We could also suggest things for the menu, even in the uniforms of the waiters. And we also talked about you know, the table linen. And that's how we work. Yeah.
Definitely, we were able to see clearly that Iguatemi delivers what the customer wants in the form that the customer wants. It's not easy to put this up. But you were able to connect all of these different behavioral trends because, you know, it's people's behavior. You know, it's on the street. So, you know, you bring it in. And you make an equation that I think is extremely well perceived by the customers.
Thank you very much. Did you want to have some last remarks?
No. I'm finished. Thank you.
Thank you for your participation. Thank you, Satomi.
So it's great to learn with all of these narratives. And I also remind you that we're going to have a Q&A session afterwards. So if you want, you can start elaborating your questions. So it's not only myself, Fátima, who is asking the questions.
So we're going to continue this panel. We have one more presentation by Renata Zitune. She is the marketing and sponsorship director for Iguatemi. But she was not able to be here with us today because she's representing the company in an innovation event in the U.S., SXSW. But she recorded a video for us. So I'm going to ask her the questions. So I'd like to know about the main conquest that you've had in the marketing area over the last few years and especially how she quantifies and monetizes the sponsorship area. Let's go.
Good morning, everyone. I am Renata Zitune. I am the marketing and sponsorship director of Iguatemi S.A. So first of all, I'm going to talk about how we structure our strategies. So in marketing, we want to understand the experience of our customers and how that can impact our business physically or digitally.
We do a lot of research and segmentation of the customers to be able to design and trace the trends and then direct our communication and our efforts in marketing. So I'm going to divide my speech into two. First of all, for us to generate the experience for our customers. And the second part is about the assertive investments that we have made in media. Just so you know, we identify eight different types of customers that come to our shopping malls every day. And each of these profiles and this segmentation has a standard for behavior and shopping. And therefore, it makes them different. And this gives us great knowledge of all these opportunities.
So coming to your question, all of this is reflected in a series of initiatives and actions that are created in the malls as a part of what we do for our customers, as motivation or through our campaign for Iguatemi collections. We were sure that this campaign would be a success. Customers wanted to participate. Then this helped us in the store. It was great. Iguatemi is always bringing this every year for our public. The products are different and innovative and great quality. We are also able to take advantage of the action in the mall to bring a greater flow to our store. This generates movement and opportunities. I thought it was great. I loved it. I have all. I've already got it. I got a bag and some luggage and the glasses. I'm going to continue because I want more.
I even spent more money. I want to be surprised. And that's what we've been seeing in every edition. We're surprised with the product, with the quality, with the details. So I think that we can maintain the level with these great brands that we bring to our customers. And I would really like to have Iguatemi collections all year, Iguatemi collections, the moment, with memorable products. So we're already in our third collection. And, you know, there's great engagement. We had the moment at the average ticket of our customers, an increase in the average ticket, and also an increase in loyalty. We had more than 268,000 gifts that were taken and more than 500 participants. Our first collections happened in the first, part of the year. And the third collection, that was 2023, we had greater identified sales.
There was a growth of almost 300% in the customers who participated. All of this is reflected in our own content, exclusive content. In 2023, it was almost 200 million views. If you haven't seen it yet, if you were not able to see it yet, it is our platform that has videos and podcasts and other formats. Then we have a very special curatorship for our customers. This is seen and elaborated by us. It helps us to, to look at the to get desire from our customers. So it's definitely something that increases our sponsorship. So if it's offline or in our platform, Iguatemi 365, we can increase the points of contact with us and elevate the opportunities of our business, creating this great digital ecosystem of opportunities.
Our focus this year is going to remain and transform opportunities into new business for our stakeholders and for our partners. São Paulo Fashion Week that we've been doing for more than 10 years is a great example of this. So it looks like the fashion curatorship. We've been a stage for very important fashion shows. This year, for the first time, we're going to have the complete edition in our shopping malls, partly in Iguatemi São Paulo and JK Iguatemi. And the content is going to be connected to this ecosystem and our stakeholders. And we cannot forget Iguatemi Fashion. That is the greatest conference in fashion in Latin America. We've had very powerful names in the fashion world like Remo Ruffini, the Executive Director of Ruffini, Christian Louboutin from Louboutin Shoes, and several other important names. So Iguatemi has a robust calendar of events.
Annually, this moves our malls. Iguatemi Media, we're able to translate these trends and marketing and negotiate more than 650 temporary locations, media merchandising, and also our event areas. All of these properties are strategically positioned so that we can stimulate sales and the tasting of our products and services. Over the last few years, we monetized all of this with sponsorship and even operating them, so bringing the whole ticket to our revenues. A great example of this is what we did for Stranger Things. It was a great success. It was with Netflix. So we inaugurated the first store of Stranger Things in JK and São Paulo. And besides that, it was an Instagrammable area that was very successful. This experience has been through several other cities like Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Milan. And it definitely shifted our flow. It moved our flow.
Another super case we had last year was the Barbie event that was a phenomenon. It was the first project of international licensing where we developed it 100% in Brazil. And with that, we were able to get more than 3 million in terms of tickets. We increased our flow of vehicles and also a relevant participation in the income of the café and the store. Barbie was an entertainment, the best entertainment that we had in Iguatemi in terms of income. And with this change in the strategy of events, we're able to go to the monetization of these events, always working with exclusiveness and personalization. And now the second part of my presentation, over the last few years, we were able to be more efficient in our expenses, so lower than inflation. And we contribute to our level of occupation, which we have also reported.
Part of this is directed to the famous promotion fund that is responsible for the events and pay the campaigns and support everything that we do in terms of disclosure for our events and who are more assertive in our marketing tasks. Today, our efficiency is greater compared to before. A good example in our area is that today, we are able to save 42% in our costs and in our digital campaign in 2023. So in other words, we're able to talk to the same people but spending less. This is the result of research work that we did and the mapping of our consumers. So our campaigns are going to be more assertive for our customers. We have a great asset, which is the customers.
So they circulate, daily, on a daily basis, and maybe because of our relationship program or the shopping they do through Iguatemi 365 or when they see our view, our content inside Iguatemi. Today, I'm going to talk about Iguatemi One. It is the relationship program for Iguatemi. So to participate, you have to download the app on your phone. And you can take pictures of the invoice, get the CPF. And the more you put in, you will have other benefits. So if the events and the campaigns have an important role in the daily flow of our undertakings, we are also able to, to get this, more make this more profitable, but not only with the object, objective of getting more customers but also making it monetizing it. Thank you for the participation. And it was nice to show you our good results.
We're still focused on challenges on new challenges.
It's great to hear, Renata. Thank you. She sent us the message. She gave us data and numbers and also showing how much this increases the flow in the mall. So now we're going to another part. We're going to have another panel. In the second part, we have three people: Dilene Teixeira, Vice President of Governance, Risk and Compliance; Joyce Leal, Human Resources; and Daniele Zaia, Management and ESG. So can we have all three of you here with us? I wish you a good panel. Over to you.
Good morning. Okay. Now it's working. Good morning, everyone. I'm Dilene It's a pleasure to be here with you to talk a little bit about our ESG area.
Well, although the ESG area is relatively recent as part of the structure of Iguatemi, only two years, the point is that this has been with us for a long time. And as you saw in the video of our contact with our controllers, where it's like innovation, our concern with the environment, with the social aspect, this has always been part of our values, our essence, and our behavior. And to show how true this is, 16 years ago, when I got the company, I got one of the social responsibility projects we had in the company. And it's called Parceiros da Educação. And we support some public schools through partnership actions. It's been 16 years. So although it's something recent, it's not something new for us. And two years ago, we created a formal structure in the company to look at this topic.
As Cris said before, once in a while, we like to take a look at our mission, our values, and see what kind of updates we have to make. When we talk about ESG, it was important for us to incorporate some relevant topics. We bring the inclusion of different people, our looking at sustainable results, innovation always, and the impact that we would like to cause in our ecosystem. Looking at our strategy, this is how we saw our materials: so intense work, talking to several stakeholders, the board, the shareholders, collaborators, to be able to, to look at the material topics for Iguatemi. So we have the translation into 12 points divided into environmental, social, and governance. When we talk about environmental, we talk about our concern with climatic changes, sustainable construction.
You're going to know a little bit more about this later on in the next presentations, looking at waste management. When we talk about the social aspect, we're not only talking about people. We're also talking about all of our society and governance. It's important to say that we were always concerned with ethical behavior, not only inside Iguatemi but looking at our whole chain of vendors. How do we manage all of this? We created forums, governance forums. Dilene is going to talk a little bit more about our committees. But I can talk a little bit about the people committee, ESG. It is the organ that looks at the strategy and it makes, it gives advice in terms of the board. We also have the commission of sustainability.
It looks at our commitments and our advances, looking at the indicators of each topic. The ESG squad, it has the objective of managing all of the initiatives that are necessary for us to be able to deliver our strategy. It's been two years. It, it seems like it's recent. But a lot has happened. It was two years of a lot of progress. We organized our policy for sustainability. We also did two inventories in terms of greenhouse gases. We're doing, going on to the third one. We did training in the company about ESG and compliance. Dilene is going to talk a little bit about that. We had one week of ESG, training for 100% of our collaborators. Then we had three movements in the global impact. Joyce is going to talk about that.
And the importance of this commitment, we incorporated ESG, 10% weight. And as I've already said, we structured all of our committees in terms of support for advice. We published our first sustainability report, as Cris said, where we consolidated several initiatives. And I recommend that you read it because we're not really going to have a lot of time to talk about it all. And finally, showing that we are persistent in our path and we received some certifications. And at the end of the year, we started to be part of the EASY. And the advances are also in the environmental area. Charles brought a few examples for us. But I'm going to bring you some others. So we had three assets that were certified LEED Gold last year: the Sky Galleria, Sky Galleria's in Campinas.
It is our last project, the two towers of Market Place in São Paulo and also Casa Figueira. It's a beautiful project that you're going to know about more today. It also received a certification in the AQUA phase of the project. All of our projects are thought of in a sustainable way. And throughout their construction life and operational life, they're we also take care of that. When we go into waste, we had an interesting history last year. So we committed ourselves to 90% of reuse of waste and 10 basis points above what we did in 2022. And even so, we were able to get 91.2%. And the target for this year is even more aggressive. And looking at our emissions, now we're going on to the third inventory in terms of greenhouse gases and always trying to get improvement in our processes, continuous improvement.
We're going to have an auditing system and going to have an audit being done. That's a good market practice. I think, you know, we don't need to talk about the water that we saved, you know, the Olympic swimming pools and besides what we said what was said, the treatment of sewage and also the uptake of water from new areas. So several initiatives that contribute towards our advances in this topic. Finally, I would like to invite you to hear a little bit more about our sustainability report, read what is available, and wait for the next one because very soon, it's going to be published. So let's watch the video before Joyce comes in. Here in Iguatemi, ESG has always been what we do. We always looked at our environment for energy, for water, for materials.
People have always been central in terms of diversity and also in terms of governance. We have also done a lot of evolution. We decided in Iguatemi to make an ESG report to be able to communicate everything that we do. More important than that is for us to look at the opportunities that we see in the ESG pillars. The market is used to look at financial indicators of the company. It's very important to see what the company does with the financial resources. Where they apply these financial resources, what are the impacts of those financial resources in society as a whole? The ESG report helps us to see the opportunities that we have to improve and what we do well and what we can inspire other people to do as well or help to do better.
So besides this report, sustainability report, you're going to understand Iguatemi. You're going to understand Iguatemi not only in the financial aspect but also the history of our company. And you will see how we work with our resources, always looking at the long term at our company.
All right. Thank you. I'm going to call Joyce here to talk about the social pillar of people.
Good morning. I'm Joyce Leal. I am the Director of Human Resources. And I am more well known as Joy inside the company. It's a pleasure to be here. Our view of human resources is clear for all of our collaborators and our employees. Ciro made this very clear. Talking about people is very important for everyone.
After they talked about this a lot and how talking about this is important, I'm going to bring a summary in one sentence what our priority is for the next cycles. So our priority is to attract, develop, and plan the succession of our team, thinking about the next leadership cycles and sustainability of our business. For this, it's very important for us to know our numbers and our actions. So I'm going to bring a little bit of data about our people. So today, we have about 2,200 employees. Out of these, 42% are women and 58% are men. A very significant fact is that if we look at the leadership areas, we already have the same equality in gender. So women are 60% of our leaders, 51% of our leadership. We have our directors. There are 60% women.
We have 50% of women here in our executive committee. Definitely, this is our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We chose four main things to work in. They are people that are above 60 years of age, women in leadership positions, people with deficiencies, and Black people in leadership areas. We believe this is continuous evolution. We've been working to improve our indicators. We also invested in a variety of training and development programs for all of our people. Charles talked about several. Ciro also talked about the importance of training our commercial team. These programs, they focus on developing technical abilities and behavioral competencies, so focusing on the professional development of everyone. I think all of the executives that were here, they are examples of this development. We had at least one cycle we went through.
So in these 13 years, I went through different positions. We tried to integrate people according to the programs. And I like but my favorite one is to, to stay one day in a different operation. So this reflects about what happens and how we can improve people's daily lives. I've had the opportunity of being a cleaning assistant, a firewoman, and a security guard. It's not easy. And all of our collaborators, they participate actively in our Iguatemi Academy, which is our platform for courses and trainings. Today, we have 290 courses available. And this allowed us in 2023 to accumulate more than 84,000 hours of training. And this reinforces our commitment with continuous development of all of our employees in all levels of the organization.
How to develop leadership is, since that is our priority in Iguatemi, we have several programs for all of the different levels of leadership. So I'd like to highlight one over here, which is essential to start the process, which is Lidera Iguatemi. It is a program directed at forming the leadership. So it started in 2019. And since then, it's more than 380. And there's significant increase in 2023. And our social responsibility is also very important. And it's a reflection of our vision and our values. So we invested in projects that increase citizenship, education, and improve the quality of life in the cities we work in. Today, we have three pillars: education, cities, and citizenship. And Dilene has already talked about our partnership. In cities, we work to improve the infrastructure of the places we work in.
An example of this is Parque do Povo, all the maintenance and preservation that is done. In citizenship, we try to engage our collaborators and society, supporting cases like Outubro Rosa. One day of everything that we get from our parking lot is converted to an institution that works with this cause, which is for breast cancer. In 2023, we got several certifications. Cris has already talked about this. When I saw Charles and Ciro talking about people, my dimension of pride in GPTW went up because I think this is the objective of anyone who works in human resources: guarantee that the leadership is engaged with this topic. For the fifth consecutive year, we are in GPTW. In 2023, we were certified as the best company or one of the best companies to work in the retail sector.
We were also recognized as one of the best companies in the Midwest and in Rio Grande do Sul. We also have high, healthy practices also in the ranking of diversity and inclusion from Ethos. We're the only company in our sector in this segment with this kind of recognition. Also for the third consecutive year, we were recognized as top employers. For the first time, we worked in the resilience industry in Aon. We got a maturity of 85% in the actions for resilience and determination in topics that have to do with well-being and health of our employees. As we move forward, it's also very important to stop and reflect on our commitments. Dilene has already mentioned that we took on three commitments. These are the movement of dignified salary.
We believe that this reflects the working environment that we have that is fair and feasible for everyone. So now, I'm going to give the floor to Dilene to talk a little bit more about governance. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for coming. And thank you for the opportunity of sharing with you a little bit of what we do. I am Dilene Teixeira. I am the Legal VP. And since 2021, I was also in the GRC area. I have already worked in the compliance area. And I've already controlled the entrance into this building. It's not easy. So since 2021, the legal VP took on the GRC area. So this is an extremely important subject. And it's the G from ESG. And this is something we're always concerned about.
Iguatemi is an extreme and a company that's extremely concerned with its processes, its dynamics, the routines. We believe in this way of organizing things. We believe it's an important mechanism for decision-making. We also understand that a good governance guarantees a balance of interest among all the people that we have relationships with, especially in the market. So I'd like to remind you that in 2021, we did our restructuring. We also improved our systems and governance mechanisms. We're always concerned about this. It's important to say this. We have an example in our area. There's a person who's been there for 20 years. She came from the energy sector. When she arrived 20 years ago, she was already part of our water and energy committee.
This shows a way of organizing that is consistent and comes from many years and also a concern with sustainability, you know, from back then. So, reminding you of our operation was that the IGTI incorporated the area of IGTA, creating two classes. And they migrated to level one of governance in the stock market. But this does not mean that there was a loss with regard to governance structures or management of our business. So we were committed to maintaining the same recommendations of the companies listed in the new market. And we continued like that. The exception is in the class of preferred actions. And I think it's important to mention that our preference today has rights that are not commonly used in this class. So we give advantages to our preferred customers.
Everything is explained in Article 7 of our statutes and this, and our articles of incorporation. This was changed because of this operation where you talked about this. Okay. Within this reorganization, everything that we did to update ourselves in terms of this new moment, not only with the growth of the operation but also maintenance and preservation of culture, which is our DNA, we created four statutory committees that did not exist with the objective, the main objective of helping our administration board in the decision-making. The first committee that I think deserves to be highlighted here is the one of auditing that is made up of three people, three members. All of them are independent. They get together six times a year or extraordinarily whenever necessary.
It is responsible for following up our financial statements, the work of internal auditing, internal controls, also the management, the risk management of the company. It's working actively. There is a very robust agenda with a strategic basis as well, just like the others. The second committee is the one of risks and compliance. It's also made up of three members. Two of them represent the controlling shareholder and one independent one that is also a member of the board. They get together four times a year, extraordinarily whenever necessary. They follow our work in the risk area. So basically, the follow-up of our risk map, the probabilities of the impacts, the plans regarding these mapped risks, and also our compliance program. It also became more robust over the last few years.
I think it's worth mentioning that although we have this fit that is very clear when we talk about the organization of the processes and governance, we made an important investment to be prepared for this new moment the company is going through. So the legal area took over the GRC area, creating a board for GRC. And one is auditing and risk, that has a manager for auditing and risk. And the other one is compliance and governance. And we applied more modern technology. Today, we do auditing based on risk. We also established, as I said before, this program, the compliance program that is structured in nine pillars. And last year, we also did some training that worked with 100% of our employees.
So we went to all the shopping centers, all the shopping malls, and some even started at 11:00 P.M. just to guarantee that we were covering all of the different shifts. We had almost 2,000 employees being trained to be able to understand the importance of ethics, of the correct attitude, the culture of integrity in the company, without a bias because we believe that engagement is the understanding of these topics. It really makes sense. It was very successful. This is how we're going to continue working, trying to reach our objectives. The fourth committee is about people, culture, and ESG. It also has three members. Two also are who represent the shareholders and the controllership. Another one that is a member of the board. They also get together six times a year or extraordinarily when necessary.
It also talks about relevant topics, our employees, our culture. This follows our cycle of people, our salary structure, our succession plans, the issues that have to do with culture, the DNA of the company that we believe strengthens all of our actions, and also the ESG guidance, which is the objective of our panel and treated by this committee. Finally, the last committee, which is finance and allocation of capital. There are also three members. Two represent the controller, one that is independent, also part of the board. They get together four times a year. They follow up all of the financial area, the capital structure, investment, de-investment, and financing, and also provide support for our growth, so doing managing our cash.
Oh, and it's also very important to say that although I talked about these four committees that are statutory and formalized, and they are foreseen in our articles of incorporation, we had another two created in 2021. These are internal committees. One is CDI, that is the committee for institutional development. The other one is CND, which is the committee for business and structuring, digital structuring. So I think we have great governance, robust governance to help us in our consistent growth and our longevity, always focusing on transparency and ethics. And these are values that we believe in. And we never set aside. All of this work was crowned, as several people have already mentioned, with the ESG B3 and V.E. And we still have a lot to do. We're still very excited.
And so we're very sure that we are following the path that we believe to be correct. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, girls. Thank you for your participation and for all of the knowledge and having us go deep into this topic that has been talked about for a long time. Many times, we don't understand how it's done. Before I start the next session today, I'd like to remind you of two things. First of all, that at the end, we're gonna have a Q&A session. Usually, there are answers, right? Some places only have the questions and no answers. But we have answers here. So if you want to ask questions, just access the QR code. It's there on the screen. If you're with us online, you can also participate and ask your question.
I would just like you to ask only one question per person because we want to try and respect the time. So now, we're going to start our last panel of the Iguatemi Investor Day. And we're going to give you financial information. And first of all, we're going to talk about growth opportunities, organic growth opportunities. So I'd like to call Caio Teixeira and also Cláudio Soares for engineering.
Thank you. Thank you, both of you. So my first question goes to you, Caio. So I'd like you to talk about the strategy of development, real estate development, and the business objectives of Iguatemi. So are some of these assets in this stage of maturation? Can you tell us how this works?
There's no sound, please. Good morning. Okay. Good morning, guys. Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here with all of you in this Investor Day from Iguatemi. I think you don't know me. I'm the youngest one here. I've been at Iguatemi for four years. I am the director of development and real estate management. So I wanna talk about our assets. But I'd like to say that the location of a mall is very important for the maturation cycle. Most of our customers, it happens around our mall. So in this ray of influence, in this ray of influence, this is how our customers come to the undertaking. If it takes 10, 15 minutes by car. It means that the denser, the quality of this and the income, we have more available in our malls. All of our malls were built in areas with these characteristics.
So there are large growth centers, qualified growth centers in the city. So besides this, besides our undertakings being strategically located in the vectors of growth in these cities, you also have a lot of land where we can develop our complexes. And they can become multi-use complexes and then attracting the people around. And this is due to the relationship with great real estate owners. And we sell fractions for the development of projects, residential projects, and offices. And we also create partnership with these incorporators so that we can have these real estates. And I'd like to say it's a huge benefit because besides the cycle, the incorporation cycle, it takes four or five years for this asset to be ready. It also anchors our malls with greater flow, with greater income. And of course, these incorporators are more attracted to develop new projects around our malls.
And we also create a virtuous cycle. So the more people we have around us, the bigger the flow, the bigger the sales. And this, you know, sales cure everything, right? And cures all evil, right, as they say. And now, I'd like to show you one of our cases. It's Iguatemi Ribeirão Preto. It's a mall that clearly, according to this image on the left, it shows how it was around the land that we bought. And now, 10 years later, in 2023, completed 10 years, and how much this grew, the surroundings of the mall grew. So it was almost 200% growth of new residences. And more than 60% of them were Class AB. Our mall is in an area of about 100 sq m. And it already had two office towers, more than 60 rooms, 25,000 sq m of private area.
Next year, we're going to have a launch of a residential tower. We sold this to a local real estate dealer. We also have an ideal fraction that was sold in another office tower. So this shows how the area around actually attracts people so that they will do things with us. Something else I wanted to show you is from Iguatemi Rio Preto. In the same way, on the left, this is the image of when we bought the land. Now, 10 years later, the shopping mall is completing 10 years of age, 2024. We have more than 100% of this family growth and almost 50% of residencies as well. If you compare with the growth of the city, this was much bigger. Iguatemi Shopping Ribeirão Preto is also an area of 100,000 square meters.
It was also anchored on three residential towers. Now, 10 years later, there are five towers with a shopping mall. So one, hotel, one office tower, very elevated occupation rates in the hotel. Last year, we had the three residential towers with high level. Now, we're going to have another. And this is in an ideal location. And this is being constructed. And this is also for next year. And in 2023, this is an office tower, more than 300 units. And this was a success when it was launched. I'd also like to show a video of the corporate tower of Sky Galleria. Can you please show that?
Thank you. So Sky Galleria is our greatest example of this in my area in terms of real estate development. We do a quarterly evaluation everywhere we are.
We can see that in Campinas, you know, we have quality products. So we did a partnership with a local with the local people. And this is for the building of Sky Galleria. And that was very successful. So we had more than 50% of the allocated tower. And then one year and a half after, we have 100% of occupation. And companies like Itaú, Cartier, Prudential, PricewaterhouseCoopers, this means a daily flow in 1,800 people. Translating this into the mall , we have an increased movement, more than 90% of our food court. It has accelerated the closing of our areas and also the reduction and the development, the active development of our complex. It doesn't bring only flow and income and revenue. We can also monetize all of this.
And just so you know, we commercialized more than eight residential projects, two office towers, eight residential towers. When these assets will be ready, it's about 60,000 square meters of private area. And we're going to bring more than 5,000 people per month circulating in our shopping mall. So it shows that our direction, active, direction in around our mall, so this contributes to our maturing. We still have 1 million square meters to commercialize in the selling of fractions. And this is important for growth, especially in terms of the younger assets that we have. The last data is that these sales, the recurring sales that we have in terms of the shopping malls, this generates BRL 25 million a year. So we think that shopping malls are just shopping malls. But no, it's not enough to be in the shopping mall and having the shopping mall.
But anyway, gosh, getting everything that Caio told us about this development of the surroundings and projects and things that have to do with it, so there are actually opportunities not only for you. So I heard recently about, Mayor. I cannot talk about the cities or things that journalists can't talk about. So it's not Campinas. It's another place. But I would just like to have an Iguatemi here. He said that. So it's really developing the city. And in this sense, I know that you are going to revolutionize Campinas. And I would like you to tell us a little bit about the Casa Figueira. What is this? How did you think about it? How does how does the story work?
Okay. My microphone is working now. So first of all, I am Cláudio Soares, the engineering director of Iguatemi. And I'm very happy.
I'm very excited to be able to talk about the Casa Figueira project. It's a very special project because we thought about it 40 years ago. We're inaugurating Iguatemi Campinas. It's a privilege to be here talking about it to all of you and for our staff here from the company. Anyway, thank you very much, Fátima, for the question. Caio talked about qualifying and active densification of the surroundings. Casa Figueira is maximization of this qualified increased number of people in the surroundings. Casa Figueira is 1 million square meters. That's equivalent to Vila Olímpia, which is a district right around here beside us. It will be implemented with about 50,000 inhabitants, like the total population.
That's equivalent to the second-best district in, in Campinas, in Cambuí, because ours is going to be the first one, which is Casa Figueira, right? So it is made up of buildings that are completely vertical. So we're not gonna have any residences, any houses. It's all gonna be vertical. At the end of it, there's going to be more than 100 buildings, commercial and residential. Caio, help me. How many square meters of sales do we have there? We have 303,000 square meters for plots of land to sell. So 1 million. And I still have 60% of green areas inside the project, green area or institutional areas. So I wanna talk a little bit more about these green areas and what they add to the project. So all of this with qualified architecture directed by us. So it's a very special project.
Casa Figueira is very special. And our learning, you know, the way we do it, the way we do shopping malls in Casa Figueira. I'm going to explain how we used this knowledge that we have over there. We started the project with urban concept. The first thing we did was choose a qualified partner, well-known around the world, to develop our master plan. It was Broadway Malyan. So when Broadway Malyan started participating in the project, we went to what we call a definition of microcentrality. So it's dividing this 1 million meters squared in parts. What are these microcentralities? So these are areas where people are going to, you know, have leisure, services, commerce. They're going to live at a distance that is a distance that they can walk.
The main centrality is the main anchor, which is Iguatemi Campinas, right beside these microcentralities. Just like in the shopping mall, we have anchor stores. We did this, in the district, which is Iguatemi Campinas. That's the anchor. That has been consolidated for more than 40 years. Then, defining these microcentralities, we started defining the principles of quality of this urban environment. We were based on the Gehl principles. I'm going to ask a test question. Are you prepared, Caio? Do you remember the four principles, quality principles of the urban undertaking, Casa Figueira?
Yes. We have an safe, it's alive, it's healthy, and it's sustainable. Okay? Let's put the answer. Oh, wow. Wow. Well done. Well done. You passed the test. Well done. This is what we want for the area. I'm going to explain.
These are the four principles. Effectively, how did we practice this? How did we put these four projects or four principles in the project? It's more than 100 actions that we developed to be able to, to place these four principles. I'm only gonna talk about some main ones so I just, don't take too long. Definition of public, qualified public space is always prioritizing use by people. Project, the project that was seen with more than 60% of green areas, institutional and cultural areas, and defining the use of mixed-use space, commercial, residential, institutional, health, different ones, and defining standards of architecture. The project Almeja, you're gonna see in a minute what they what they want to be. We also have mobility. The first element is people and also the implementation of ESG. Dennis has already talked about the project.
In the construction and in the useful life of the project, I'm gonna show you how. So definitely, you know, I took more than 20 minutes. And they cut me. So I'm gonna stop here about this. How are we going to guarantee that all of this is going to work in the Iguatemi way of being? And it was instituting the association that already existed. And the objective was to maintain and take care of this district. So we're going to stay there our whole lives. We're gonna take care of it. And we're going to be the leader of this association. And this is how does Iguatemi do in, in the malls? And Charles said it well. Sound processes. And what are these processes? These are the guidelines of architecture so that we have the curatorship in this.
We also have the AQUA Certification that we already have. We want to use it as a process to maintain this, you know, to make it sustainable. The results we expect, of course, the acceleration of economic development in the location, generate business opportunities, consequences, generate employment for the adjacent area, and also having a creative, collaborative, sustainable form of life and also perpetuity of Iguatemi Campinas, which is the anchor of this business. Then what, where do we want to get to? We would like to build a district that is alive. It's for the future. It's for people. We also want to get the best one in Campinas, the best one in the city of São Paulo. We want to be a reference in Brazil. We will be.
And we're gonna put the video of Casa Figueira.
If what moves you is transforming dreams into reality and being able to create and build something new and unique, if what is important is to plan the future that enchants you and to place all of your strength and competence, have new encounters, and go beyond what you started to think about, and knowing that all of the aspects count because every instant is the beginning of a new reality. And even with all the effort that is necessary, you're able to make you change your ways. And the quality and sophistication, all of this is present in all of the details of this new undertaking, even though pauses are necessary to be able to build, very well and with excellence, build everything that we want to do.
As a result, we're going to find the balance and harmony in all the different phases. At the end, every seed carries the tree that it will become one day. So only planting is not enough. You have to really make a big effort to take care of it and bring the best of technology close, the best talents, the thoughts, the best thoughts and hands for what we wish to build. The dream is to put our lives in constant motion. Casa Figueira district, come and be surprised with the future that we have already started building together.
Fantastic. So I'm very touched by this video. And I can definitely say that it's very touching, you know. Emotion is definitely the biggest ingredient in our projects. So everything that I said, and it's always great to be in our project.
The main piece of news is that we've already started Casa Figueira. We have started to make the streets and everything. We have a short period of construction, 24 months. We started in January. That's the main news for you. I'm going to end here. But I just wanted to say that this is how we work. This is how Iguatemi works. This is how it develops its projects, not only this one but all of our projects, the smallest ones and the most iconic ones, always placing our identity, our culture, our brand, and our emotions in each of the projects. Finally, Fátima, thank you very much for the question.
Thank you above all. I think thank you for that emotion because maybe we only want to think about the investment or thinking about all of the issues in terms of quality.
But if all of this comes in, you know, dry and hard, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for life, right? So now, I'm going to throw you the last question, which is about growth. So how do we see this future? What can you anticipate for us?
Yes, of course. Thank you. That's a great question. I have the opportunity of talking about our growth. So our shopping malls, they are born modern. Our great mission is in our DNA, as has already been mentioned. We have the mission of keeping them modern over time. One of the growth fronts is the development of our surroundings. And there's the flow. There's the revenue. And that's that monetizes things for us. There are other things that we work on, the development of greenfield projects and expansion as well.
I can tell you that today, our focus and our priority is on the expansion of our assets in our existing shopping malls because you have greater return, high returns. And there's also great generation of value for our company. And there's the addition of this in the assets. And there's a high demand. And there's the potential for adding new things in this area and for the shopping mall as a whole because there's the mix of opportunity. And so today, we can work on the new stores and new trends and also looking at the new ones. And I'd like to share some images now of our project for the expansion of Brasília, as mentioned by Cris. It's a great example of this. Iguatemi Brasília has a low vacancy rate. And there is representation of the luxury stores.
This is a segment that brings great productivity per square meter. There's also a differential aspect in our malls. We communicated more than 15,000 square meters in the shopping mall, Brasília. It's going to go to 50,000 square meters, consolidating our presence in the capital of the country. We believe that this expansion is going to be very profitable because more than 50% of this new expansion will be of satellite stores. This is a segment that has high profitability and also due to our productivity and construction capacity, right? So this has already been the expectations. We started beginning of this year. They're going to take 18-20 months, we hope.
So besides Brasília, which is one of the projects that we talked about, and the Sky Galleria, the Casa Figueira district that Cláudio talked about, I also wanted to show and we also talk was, and we work with the information of our data of our malls. And there's a retrofitted Market Place. So residential tower. And we also have the private area, 11,000 square meters of private area. And there's an open mall. There's an office with an auditorium with a business center with a rooftop with an area for events, restaurants, and others like tennis courts, beach tennis courts. This is the first phase of the modernization of Market Place. The two next phases, we're going to do the retrofit of the facade, facade, and with the restaurants opening our shopping mall and the retrofit of the corporate areas.
And then we also [have] the selling of the fraction of the land. It's a corporate tower, 17,000 square meters. And as I said, Campinas needs corporate products, quality corporate products. So until today, we have received calls from companies asking if there is space in Sky Galleria. So this corporate tower in Iguatemi Campinas, it connects with the area that we're building, the district we're building, having a flow of customers and people who live there. It is also going to increase our ABL in the corporation and strengthening Iguatemi and keeping its innovation strategy. And it's important to tell you that we work actively with mixed products and trying to improve the surroundings of our business. That's our core business.
Thank you, Caio. Thank you for the detailing of the new projects that are going to come in.
Actually, you managed to show very clearly how much Iguatemi puts its unique brand in everything that it does. So thank you very much for your participation. Let's give them a hand.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So guys, we are getting to the last part of our event, our program. And I'd like to reinforce that if you're interested in asking questions, please access the QR code and ask your question to any executive. And for the next one, I'd like to call the Vice President of Finance, Guido Oliveira. Guido, thank you for being here, for joining us. We heard a lot in the previous rounds about the strategy that is based on robust development of Iguatemi and, you know, urban and real estate development. We also heard about the importance of cash generation for the company, right? No companies can survive without that. Several investment possibilities.
And this definitely attracts us. And this has been pointed out by all of you. So first of all, I'd like to know if I'm in the right view of, of the logic that I just presented and how Iguatemi has been concerned about financing its projects.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to have to entertain people with numbers, only legal issues. And now, I'm gonna have to talk about numbers, right? That's horrible. So I think everybody knows me here. I'm Guido Oliveira, the CFO of the company. It's a pleasure to have you here with us, our Investor Day. Very proud to have this whole team in Iguatemi that did very well in all the presentations. But thank you very much for the question, Fátima. It's important to talk about cash generation because we have to finance all of this.
I think we can start talking about our results. As Cristina said, we have been setting records over the last few years. We offset all of the problems that retail sector had during the pandemic. We had a record year of 2023. I'm showing you a slide with our results. Over here, we have most of the results from the company, the operational and financial ones. But it's important to show, to talk about the results of 2023, you know, that financed, the cash. We have to talk about sales. It was the best sales in the sector, as Ciro said, sales cure all evil. I, I always say this. We sold BRL 18.9 billion. It grew 11.2%. As Cris said, we've always, always produced guidance. Our short-term guidance, we complied with this in 2023. Our net sales grew 14.7%.
Our FFO came to BRL 562 million, our EBITDA, BRL 919 million, and several other indicators. We were the best in the sector, and also the best EBITDA margin in the sector. That and the margin is very important because it shows the results of the company. It's important to mention that the state of the art in the delivery of the indicators, which was the work of the team, these 2,200 employees that Joyce talked about, it brought a growing FFO ever since 2019 until 2023. Our FFO grew 84%. This year, we're closing 2023 with an FFO of BRL 570 million. This FFO allowed de-leveraging of BRL 137 million in 2023 so that our net numbers was 1.96. So definitely, this reduced the net debt to 0.60 at the end of 2022. It's 1.96 at the end of 2023.
The year 2024, we start that in a very with a very positive carryover of what happened in 2023. So talking about the carryover, we talked about this a lot. But the most important thing is that we start with an occupation of, it's at 2 basis points, better than what we had in 2023. It is 95.1%. And we start the year very strongly with discounts. We close the discounts 2023. And this is the smallest level since 2021. And they are at lower levels compared to what we had before the recession of 2015. So definitely, this is very important. And talking about our guidance, I would put the guidance here just to show you. It's important to mention that we start the year very strongly with these two things that I talked about. Another metric that is important is talking about the expenses.
So we did this in 2023. I talked about this. And this project generated an important reduction of our expenses, the famous G&A, G&A. So we're going to take advantage of this in 2024. So we really believe in the guidance of 2024. And this guidance is going to follow four pillars. So first of all, the continuous optimization of our portfolio. A lot was said about the improvement of the efficiency with regard to occupation, the take rate in terms of renting, the leasing spread, especially, it's the main KPI the company has looking at renewals and new locations. And we also talked about this, Cristina and I, and the soft guidance. We go from 95.1%. We're trying to get to 97% at the end of the year.
We're going to be able to see this occupation going up in the second quarter in the second half of the year. We're also still working on cost and expenses. This is work that is done in Iguatemi. We always focus on this, same that we did in 2023. In 2024, we're going to have less costs and expenses, lower than in 2023. That's very important. The monetization of our land bank, as Caio said, we've been working on it. He showed this. Over the last few years, our average in terms of selling lands, it brings us about BRL 25 million. We continue doing that. And also in maintenance of our break-even of our retail operations. We celebrate that in the fourth quarter, we achieved what we promised in our retail area.
So all of the retail area, it was done. And we're going to see this operation being positive in the next quarters. So looking at this guidance, which is challenging, it's an EBITDA margin of 82%-85% and 75%-79% in terms of the total EBITDA margin and the growth of to 4%-8%. And today, it is negative. So we have good news to give you. In January, we have already talked about our sales. It was 9%, 79%. And now, we're gonna already talk about 11% of gains in February compared to January. And until Sunday, you know, I didn't get the Monday number, it's we're 7% above what we had in 2023. So it shows that we're doing the right thing to to reach the guidance that we have. So, we're very we're doing very well.
Our cash generation for 2024, and you are experts on this too, to calculate our FFO. So if you use half of our guidance about the margin and the total EBITDA, you know you'll know how much our FFO is going to be. So we're very, doing very well to finance the investments that Caio and Guido presented. And also, we also have BRL 110-190. And in the investment, we're going to talk about BRL 200 million. And we're still rebuying shares, about BRL 140 million. So we did BRL 14 million in the second half of last year. And we are also buying on a daily basis BRL 340 million, which is what we're using in our generation to bring the payout and buyback for our shareholders, returning the results. So our generation is doing really well.
Thank you.
I think this consolidates everything that we'll think about, everything that we were able to segment during the different panels. You were able to tie everything together, showing great growth, very sound growth. I just wanted to ask you about the opportunities about mergers and acquisitions, M&A. So how do you evaluate the future opportunities in this area?
It's very important to talk about this. There were some shareholders who said, "So talk about, you know, allocation of capital, do a panel about it." Because when we talk about allocation of capital, you know, "No, let's talk about that." Yes, we're going to do that. But it's a very important aspect in terms of growth. It's not unique. And I said it. And Cris said it. I'm going to repeat it.
So the use of our assets, the generation of cash, qualification of our mix, and the growth, all of this gives us organic growth. So M&A is definitely an important part of it. And this has to be done, as has already been said. You have to have financial discipline. And we've been doing this, throughout our history. So a lot has been said. But today, we have 757 area that can be sold. And 20% of that was added in our portfolio through M&A activities. So we had several operations that started right after the IPO in 2007. And they're there until today. So these are operations that follow the financial discipline that Iguatemi has, bringing results to the investors and to the company. And all of our M&A processes, as Julianne showed, we have a financial committee, an allocation of capital.
We have investment criteria that we follow in the M&A operations as well as in the optimization of the profile through monetization of our land bank. This investment, again, has to be complied with. We respect this in all of our governance models. Now, when we talk about M&A, we have to talk about the track record Iguatemi has. It's important to highlight. Everybody's seen this. It was discussed quite a bit. It was JK. So JK, we bought it with a Cap Rate when we announced it, looking at 12 months before in June of 2020, it was a Cap Rate of 8%. Then January of 2023, it was more than 10%. Today, it is an acquisition that is extremely successful and well done in Iguatemi.
And just so you know, the growth of revenue of JK over the last five years was 14%. So it is a unique asset that was a very good purchase. And today, it's the second best in the country. And it's only in the 1 per meter squared, sales per meter squared, and profitability per meter squared to our flagship, which is Iguatemi Faria Lima. And besides JK, we also announced a small acquisition. But it also shows a little bit about our financial diligence. It was the acquisition of Fashion Outlet in Novo Hamburgo. We bought 10% of it. It gave us control of the mall, up to 51%. So there's no work for Ciro because there's no vacancy, no vacant areas there. It's 100% allocated. And it grows above our average in our portfolio.
A lot talks about it because, "Why doesn't Iguatemi take advantage of the strategy of sales? And who started doing recycling of assets?" It was Iguatemi. Who was the first one, the first company to sold a mall? It was ourselves in 2012 when we saw that Iguatemi Rio did not fit into our portfolio anymore. We sold this in 2012 with a cap of 6%. And that's 18x multiples. And it was a great sale. Another example of financial discipline of Iguatemi, it was in 2019 when we sold assets. And we noticed that there was no more fit with the portfolio, no more fit with our administration, Iguatemi Florianópolis and Caxias. We sold these two. And we used the resources from these two to improve our portfolio. And we also bought more from Iguatemi Esplanada, taking the portfolio of EPI.
And then we bought a minority share in Iguatemi Porto Alegre, which is the best asset in the south of the country and one of the 10 best in the country. And this generated more profitability for Iguatemi, improving the portfolio, polishing the portfolio. And Iguatemi Sorocaba, at the end of 2023, it got to BRL 100 million. So it's very, very big. And all of our M&A actions, they respect the returns that, that are allocated. And we also look at the shareholders' view. And we're also talking about, returning the to the shareholders and the company. So we always look ahead to generate capital, to generate a return for our shareholders, as Pietro said in the beginning of his speech. Always looking at five or 10 years. So in other words, discipline and M&A is everything.
We're going to continue looking at this with discipline and with also returns for the shareholders and growing with responsibilities.
You don't need anything else, right, all this energy and this excitement and the emotions that we were talking about. So I'm going to ask you to continue. But before, I'm going to ask you to give him a round. Yeah. Give him a hand. So now, I'm going to invite the president of Iguatemi S.A., Cristina Betts, to sit down with Guido. And we're going to start the Q&A session. Where are my questions? Cristina, please. Yours is over here.
Okay.
Your, your chair here in the middle.
Thank you.
Okay. So the first questions. And let's see how long we're going to have to ask them. Okay. So Cristina, for a change, the first question is always for it wasn't me. It's here on the paper. Yeah.
I'm not the one who did it. Iguatemi women are a majority, right?
Well, you know, the numbers, you have to grow even more, okay?
Yeah. Let's go. I think that's how you have to do it. I'm just going to look at the list of salaries, okay? No problem . No problem. Okay. Okay, boys. You can see that most of us here are women, right? But that's okay.
We're already there are more men here. But we are also gaining as much as you are. So Cristina, when you talked, you said we had 371 stores that were opened in 2023. And that's what Satomi said about the mixed strategy. How do you see the qualification, talking about the assets in terms of new operations?
Well, thank you for the question. I think Satomi and Ciro talked about this in their presentations.
But it is in our DNA and I think Pietro and Carlos talked about this. We always have to look at what's new because this is what makes our malls stay ahead, you know, always the desire also that Charles was talking about. And then at the end, this is translated into sales. So our daily work has been this. And we have done it consistently, especially we talked a lot about this in the beginning of the recession. And then during the pandemic, we thought about making this turn more intense, maybe removing the operations that will already be coming out, right, and repositioning with stores that are that have more desire, they have more desire for anything new we wanted to put in inside what the customer was talking about. And all of this seems to be a small movement. But there are many small movements.
Then you have the sales result that Guido was talking about. So during 2024 until this year, I talked about a few stores. Satomi talked about a few stores. It's very important for us to continue forever, to continue this movement of always trying to qualify our malls. So this brings news. This brings flow. It brings sales. And it brings greater profitability per meter squared. So when we remove the center that we have in Iguatemi Esplanada, stores that were there since the beginning of the mall, since 1966, and then you put a flagship Tiffany, the sales per meter squared, you know, to generate that, this kind of movement is what we do in all of our malls. So it's like a Sephora in JK Iguatemi.
The first Sephora, people, you know, line up at 5:00 A.M. to get into the store, you know? And that Satomiday, the mall was, you know, great chaos, wonderful chaos, yeah, the way we like it because there were lots of people going in. And this is what generates the whole buzz and, you know, the happiness, the excitement of being able to participate. So it is important. We're going to continue doing this. It's part of our routine. And this is what brings an increase in sales and rent and everything.
Okay. So the production brought together a few questions about occupation, the occupation rate, the cost. And so I'm going to allow you to decide who's going to answer and what actions will be implemented to, to reach this. And what is the contribution of the brands?
So you just talked about, the luxury brands.
I can start. Guido, if you can add on to it. The work, you know, what we saw over the last few years is that sales went up faster than our rent. This is natural because when we have our rent, our rent is, you know, for five years. It's a five-year contract. Every time we sit down to negotiate, there's time involved. It's not that we renegotiate 100% of the contract every year. No. Obviously, we have the opportunity of having new locations. That's what we call it. Ciro talked a lot about that, about the vacant areas, you know, the old people that leave and the new ones that come in. We have the renewals, right, the cases that are going there. We're going to continue. We're going to renegotiate the contract.
So every time we have the sales that are going faster, this is an opportunity for us to look at what we are charging for rent and the base rent that we have and the break-even, which is the percentage that we try to bring it to so that we always have a minimum standard guaranteed. And then we continue our work so that we can continuously increase sales. I think it's also important in terms of the space that we have. Charles also talked about it. It's in the occupation rate when we talk about the condominium. And Helen also talked about the opportunities of reduction and better use of the promotional fund. So when we have a reduction, it's not only the sales that is outpacing. It's also our efficiency work in the other two components in the occupation rate.
So all of this together opens up this space for Ciro to work in, for his team to work in. I think that's what we're doing. Did I forget something? Are you going to add something?
I'm going to add a question to that.
Yes. I just wanted to add on to that. Can you hear me? Yes? Okay. So no. It's because we gave support in reinforcing the team, as Ciro said. It's also important to mention that this is based on remuneration according to the KPIs so that we'll be able to work together with the consultants and the whole operational team in these positive spreads and the renewals and lease spreads in the new locations, allocations. This is daily work that we have trying to improve the occupancy rate. We did our planning, our credit planning.
One of the points is to show the part of rent that we can improve. This is work that starts or has already started, of course. In 2024 and 2025, we're going to have good results.
Can you add what exactly is going to be done in the short term and what is the healthy level for that?
For occupation, we're going to go back to the 97%, which is what we're thinking for the end of the year. This is a standard that is above the historical average that we had between 2015 and 2018. Remember that we had a recession between 2015 and 2017. GDP went down 7%. All of our operational data was still positive.
So going back to 97%, you know, that's the only indicator that we have not gone back to according to the numbers in 2014 because today, as I've already said, our level of discount is already the percentage of discount in the rent is at the same level as 2014. I didn't say this. But our delinquency from December, January, and February, it is above, it's below our level in 2014. So it's a very important level. And January and February, they were interesting months because we had strong sales, 9% and 11%. And the delinquency is the same as in the best month, retail month. And in January, there are two rents to pay, right, for the storeholders. So this shows our change in the portfolio. So as Erika says, Erika is one of our executives, said we exchanged 1,000 storeholders in these last few years.
Now, we are seeing the results. Now, we try to make only two occupation points, right, only two points to get to 97% at the end of the year.
I'd like to understand how you plan to work on your client basis when you talk about the loyalty programs and the proprietary events and how this can leverage the results of Iguatemi.
I think all of the work, the digital work, is important for us because Iguatemi is a consumption company. It's a real estate company. But it's also a consumption company. It's a mixture of both. And our heart, I, I usually say it's a, a basis of has a basis of consumption. But different from a consumption place, you know, we have the stakeholders.
So any consumption company has all of the data that it needs to have of the final end consumer. But we have, you know, the people in the middle there. So when we have our work in the digital world, so we do 365. When we do the daily. When we do one. When we have the collections, we're able to have information about the end customer firsthand. So it's very important because we are increasing our knowledge, our granular knowledge of the customer that comes in every day. And why is this important? I'm going to give you an example. So in our second edition of collections, it was knives, cutlery. When we took a look at the 10 biggest point exchangers and gift exchangers, four were men.
And it's funny because depending on the prize you have, you have a greater incidence of women or men. This one was basically men. It was male. And when we looked at the customers, they were not in our radar when we talk about our relationship, when we talk about the zero level. They were just not there. And I said, "Well, who is this person? We have to understand this better. We can offer other services, other products." So there is a way of working, so a more granular database so that you can address our end customer better, so to understand what they want, more data for the mix so that we can understand in terms of qualification. And Satomi talks a lot about the journey.
It's very important to talk about this journey and for us to really be able to, obviously, at the end of all of this, be able to increase sales but not in a forced manner, definitely, you know, addressing them better, serving them better. The beneficiary is the stakeholders. The customer is also the stakeholder because they sell more. So the work that we do together, if we're able to understand better and then get better access to the data, this is very relevant. So we're still giving baby steps. We're starting. I think we are forming an important database. We're forming a team to do this kind of analysis because it is a different competence, different from what we have in the company.
But all of this is going to lead us in this journey of having closer relationships, so not only at the top of the pyramid of our with our consumers but with all of our consumers. So we have an aspirational basis that is big in Iguatemi. And we want this aspirational basis to be achieved and for us to, you know, throughout the lifetime of the customer, we can put him up in this pyramid wherever he is.
And the last question is, it's a compliment. I think it's not the last one. Yeah. I think we're going to have more. Yeah. We have more. But it's about Casa Figueira. But the person wanted to know a little bit more about the existing shopping malls in terms of sustainability certification.
Well, we've been working on this. This is led by Caio.
We were able to certify our towers in the Market Place as well as in Galleria that was just inaugurated. The whole district has certified its work, that we have been studying. We've been studying the investments related to the certification of all of our assets. It's not easy. It's 16 units. It is, you know, slow work. We have to identify the certification points. But it's something that is in our agenda. So it's interesting to say that everything that is going to be created, any ABL that is in the portfolio is going to be certified, certified. So in Brasília, for example, the part about retrofit and Market Place and Iguatemi Campinas and the Casa Figueira district as well. Just adding on to that, I think we have this in our plate, you know? We look at our older assets.
Everything that is new is much easier, right? And what is old, it was built in another era, right, of all of this activity. So we are mapping things. And everything that, you know, everything it takes. And we have this commitment to creating this roadmap and understanding the movements to be able to justify our assets. Yeah. Then in the report, we're going to talk about this, our targets.
And this last question, it was really done. It's here. It's written by hand. I did not just invent it. It has to do with what you just talked about. And, you know, this is a question that I'd like to make as well. Ever since the pandemic, there was a behavioral change in the consumer. And how should this impact the future of the malls and the company?
I think a lot is said about the pandemic. Everything changed.
I don't know if everything changed. It accelerated. That's my opinion. Things went faster in their evolution. We're talking about the people who were not digitized. I play with my mom. My mom is over 70 years old. If I tell you her age, she's going to kill me. But, you know, they started, you know, using iFood to order food. I remember also, you know, now, the malls are, you know, it's the end, you know? It's the end of the malls. The first day that we opened the mall, you know, with a mask, with, you know, tar, carpets. The first day, we had people, you know? The second day and the third day, one week after, you know, it was almost normal. So, you know, it's part of it.
So we're in this, you know, social we can see the operations. And we're human, right? We want to be human there. And the malls are exactly this. So in Iguatemi, we have this thing about enjoying life. And this means more restaurants. This means more places to exercise, Helen, you talked about events. And we see when we bring a qualified event, something different, everybody loves it. They love it because it's something, you know, different in their daily life. And they see Barbie and the Food Spot and gastronomy. And I saw the Champions Beer in the Galleria now with a cover of Coldplay, gigantic, and lots of people. It's incredible. And this is enjoying life. And this is what we can provide to all of our customers. So it's intensification of this part. And this is part of the trends.
So Satomi talked about the trends. We have to understand where the consumer is going and how they're going to translate where they're going to the things that we do in the mall. So it could be in terms of stores. It could be in terms of events. It could be in terms of design. So we're saying, so who would imagine that we would get Iguatemi São Paulo and, you know, we'll take it to the parking lot. And it would be great. It was closed, right? Everything was completely closed, right? And the wow is exactly what we want. And everybody had to come in and say, "Wow." And, I think we have this acceleration. And it's our duty, and it's our purpose to follow this up and provide this for our customers. And I'm going to get some data from Satomi.
I'm looking at her. But she gave it to me. So just to talk about the evolution of the mix from 2018 to 2024, in terms of entertainment, there was a growth of 18%. And this is, you know, creativity. And this is bringing entertainment inside the mall and also sports clubs. This has to do with health and beauty. We had an increase of 17% in health clubs and beauty services, health and beauty. It was a 32% increase. And also the part of enjoying life, the restaurants. And this was something that Satomi talked about, the example of Mani. So we had a growth of 39%. So we went from 132 operations in 2018 to 183 now in 2024. And this is something that, you know, tells us about looking at the trends. So thank you especially for the opportunity of being here.
This is my number 1,402nd event. But I've never seen an event that was so well organized, so carefully organized with such great number of young investors. I can see this. I want to be there. I can see this in their eyes.
So your closing remarks, Cristina. So I just wanted to stand up for the closing remarks. I'd like to tell a story from a long time ago. I don't remember what year. And we were doing strategic planning. And we were doing a summary for everyone in the company. We went to Cine Vista in Iguatemi. And I was coming with Carlos. And I said, "Carlos, you know what? The best thing in this company is that we're very rational, very disciplined. I love this rationality in our company." And then he said, "Me too. It's great. It's wonderful." And then he started talking about strategic planning.
He got emotional. He started crying, you know, tears. And we were just talking about rationality. But I think that's a bit of our company because we do this every day. And I was counting how many times we talked about pillars and discipline and the method. Everybody talked about their area. But Cláudio, you actually brought me back to this story that we get emotional as well. And it's important for us to become emotional because, you know, at the end of the day, that's what makes our days in the mall different. So we talked about the wow in our company. You know, it's no use having a shopping mall that functionally is great. But it doesn't make people. It doesn't touch people. We want to touch people.
And when we do new things, we have new events, everything that we do that is different, you know, people, they get really excited. And we get excited. And that's why we saw that, you know, we are very proud of being part of the company because we love it. We really are in love with what we do. So anyway, to close this, I would like to, first of all, thank all the company executives who were here when we started talking about the investor days that everybody has to be together. Everybody has to speak. And management said, "Look at what Cris is doing to us. They're putting us to talk." Cris, you know, if you know if you know how to do it, you do it live, right? Yeah. Exactly. But, you know, I think we have a spectacular team.
I have the privilege of being together with this team for a long time. It is great to work with everyone. I say that we spend more time at work than at home. If we don't like our people, we'll be in trouble. So, of course, we're all here together. I hope that you noticed how well we work together. So I'd like to thank our members of the board that have helped us in this new governance and the Jereissati family that has also helped us to put everything into practice and also you too, you know, analysts and investors. We always try to be available for a conversation, to be together. It's not always 100% possible. But we try. We have been trying.
Today, it's an important point for us because it is the, you know, going back to our commitment of having an investor day, of having our management closer to you and to continue always being together, giving as much transparency as possible to everything that we do. Thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed our investor day. We can continue this conversation outside the investor day. Thank you.