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Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Itaúsa's conference call to discuss the first half of 2019 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. Should you require assistance during the call, please press the star key followed by 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. The file will be available at the company's website at www.itausa.com.br/en at the investor relations section. This conference call and the slide presentation are being transmitted via internet as well. You can access the webcast by logging on to the company's website www.itausa.com.br/en. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Actual performance could differ materially from that anticipated in any forward-looking comments as a result of macroeconomic conditions, market risks, and other factors. I inform that during the presentation, the questions can be sent by webcast, and it will be answered in the Q&A session. With us today, we have Mr. Alfredo Egydio Setubal, CEO and Investor Relations Officer at Itaúsa, Mr. Henri Penchas, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Itaúsa. Mrs. Priscila Grecco Toledo, CFO at Itaúsa, Mr. Bruno Salem Brasil, Investor Relations Manager at Itaúsa, Mr. Alexsandro Broedel, Executive Finance Director and Investor Relations Officer at Itaú Unibanco, Mr. Guilherme Setubal Souza e Silva, Investor Relations at New Business Manager at Duratex, and Mr. Carlos Biel, Investor Relations Manager at Alpargatas. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Alfredo. Sir, you may now begin.
Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here again, to talk about the results and the strategy of Itaúsa for the coming years and semesters. For those who are following through the internet, we are on page three. A little bit about us. Just to remember, Itaúsa is a public holding company that controls several companies, including Itaú Unibanco, Duratex, Alpargatas, and NTS. We are present in more than 20 countries considering all these companies. We have a focus on strengthening our management and a long-term view on value creation of our portfolio. Itaúsa is the eighth largest company in the Bovespa, and we have a very high dividend yield that we are going to talk later, around 9%, considering the dividend that we announced yesterday. All the companies that we have participation have very strong brands.
Itaú itself, Itaú Personnalité and private banking that are high-end individuals, ready, Itaucard. In the case of Duratex, we have Deca in appliance, Durafloor for flooring, Hydra for valves. Also Portinari, that is a company that we just bought in the ceramic business that we are investing in Duratex. In the case of Alpargatas, of course, we have Havaianas and Osklen that is a premium fashion brand. Going to page five, we are going to talk briefly because all these companies are listed and already made their conference calls in the last weeks. We go to page six, the highlights for the Itaú results. Always remembering that Itaúsa numbers, in the case of the bank, doesn't match exactly because Itaúsa use the IFRS numbers and Itaú release their numbers under the central bank rules for accountability, for accounting.
We continue to grow our loan portfolio among individuals and small and mid-size companies. We continue to have a hedge our payment company in a very competitive environment, with all the companies fighting very hard to gain market share and impose their brands in these markets. It is a completely different market when we compare to some years ago when we bought the totality of the shares of Rede. We announced changes in our commercial policies during this quarter to really be more competitive among all these new entrants in this sector. The bank continued to pay dividends. We are creating more capital than we need in the circumstance of the Brazilian economy, especially related to credit. The bank announced BRL 8.5 billion dividends in these periods. They continue to be a high yield also for the bank.
The bank continues to be very active in the digital transformation of the system, with huge investments in technology, people, in products to serve better and cheaper our clients. We have almost 12 million individual clients using the digital channels offered by the bank. We opened 205,000 accounts through our digital app. It is much more simple and easy for the clients to open an account with us. Of course, as I said, we continue to invest a lot in technology this year to reduce costs and produce more products and technology and apps for our clients, using always the brand Itaú, to compete in this new environment of digital transformation in the system that we are seeing here in Brazil and in most of the countries around the world. The portfolio for loan and small companies increased in the last 12 months, 18.4%, and individual 13.6%.
Large companies are using less because they are making less investments also, less demand for credit, because the economy is not hitting at all. Most became more important for the company and according the strategy of the company to increase our share in these markets. The JV with Lenzing related to dissolving pulp, we already have the permit to start the project from the environmental authorities. We started this month, some months before, project the first infrastructure, in the site in Minas Gerais. We are completing, probably in this third quarter, the expansion of Ceusa, doubling the capacity in ceramic tiles. Probably this new plant will start commercial producing, in the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year.
In terms of use of assets, like we made in the last quarters, that we sold forests and lands for Suzano that were in excess for the wood business. We closed a factory of panels here in the state of São Paulo. Now we announced it, close to shut down a factory in the south of Brazil, related to bathroom porcelain, that we are going to transfer the production of these units to other factories or other units of Duratex, and we are going to close definitively the factory in the south. This means more gains, reduction of costs for this line of as I said, that we have some non-recurrent deals, like the sale of the lands and forests to Suzano. This year when we compare the results, we have some decrease, also in the ROE.
This year, Duratex is in line with the budget that was approved by the board of directors in the end of the year. We're not expecting a very heated economy, so the numbers are still in line with the budgets that we project for the company. The same for the EBITDA, that continues to be in line with the projections that we had. On page eight, Alpargatas that released results and made a conference call yesterday. Alpargatas had a very good quarter, the second quarter. We continue to change management, we continue to make changes in the company in terms of culture, people. We changed the management in the North America operation. We started off a JV in India. We are starting business in China.
The company is doing their plan to be more international, use more technology, especially commerce, with deals with Amazon, Alibaba, and others to increase the sales of especially Havaianas in the international market. The company had a double-digit revenue growth. This when we compare to year-over-year, driven by Havaianas. All the business of Alpargatas did well when we compare 12 months. Havaianas, of course, is the biggest by far business of Alpargatas. Mizuno, Osklen also increased their sales and increased their e-commerce. The results increased also 31.5%. ROE reduced because we had some non-recurrent last year, and we made some impairments this year, this quarter, related to the sale of assets in Argentina related to the textile business of Argentina that we announced and sold for $14.4 million. We announced that some weeks ago. The company had a very good quarter.
The market received very well the results, and we are very happy with the investment, and we continue to see very good years coming for the company. On page nine, we started to talk about NTS. NTS is our stake in the gas pipeline that we bought some years ago. I think the company continues to present results a little bit over the numbers that we considered when we bought this investment. The company had revenues of BRL 2.2 billion and a net income of BRL 1.1 billion. We received in the first half this year, 2019, BRL 84 million in dividends. Going to page 11, main events of Itaúsa in this first semester. We declared BRL 2.9 billion dividends yesterday. It is going to be paid on the 23rd of this month with the stock holding position of 15th of August.
This dividend make the dividend yield considering the last 12 months and considering the dividend that we announced yesterday, a dividend yield of 9.1% for the shareholders. That is very good and very high, especially when we compare to the Selic rate that is 6% here in Brazil. We achieved almost 250,000 individual shareholders by the end of June. This number today is already higher than that. Our liquidity also increased. Our market share is BRL 108 billion by the end of June. We, in terms of sustainability and corporate governance, we released for the first time the integrated report that was published, the first holding company publishing this kind of report in Latin America. Also we created here at Itaúsa, a social impact committee, to follow the investments in social, cultural, and environmental of the companies that Itaúsa has participation. We increased our share in the Alpargatas company.
We increased by 0.9, almost 1%. We bought that in the stock market in an auction of minority shareholders that decided to sell his stakes in the company. We used this to buy shares in the market, increasing our position and showing our confidence in the future of the company. We merged Itautec and with Itaúsa. Itautec now is 100% of Itaúsa, and we already delisted Itautec from the market. Our Itaúsa Empreendimentos, there was a subsidiary that all the people and all the employees and everything was made through them. This company will be 100% Itaúsa by the end of this month. This company, this subsidiary will not exist from September. The objective is to reduce costs of the holding and give more transparency in terms of numbers, expenses, and administrative expenses for our investors.
On page 12, numbers of Itaúsa in the end of June. Net income increased 10.7%. Always remember that is in IFRS numbers, BRL 4.9 billion, an increase of 10.7%. ROE increased from 17.6%-18.7%, recurring ROE increased from 17.1%-17.8%. Total assets, BRL 56 billion. Of that, BRL 52 billion are shareholders' equity. The payout in this page does not include the dividend that we announced yesterday. That's the difference of numbers that appears in 9.1 against 8.2 in this page. We continue to distribute.
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold. Speakers, you may proceed.
Sorry, technical problem here. Really starting on page 15, the portfolio of Itaúsa. The term of the parts, the companies are all listed, 138
Billion BRL. Itaú is trading at BRL 108 billion. That means that there is a discount of 21.8% than we compare the sum of the parts and the market value. Daily trading is increasing year-by-year. We gained from an average of BRL 156 billion there in 2017. This year, the average daily trading is BRL 390 million. That's a very good number. We don't have Itaú listed in any of the international exchanges. The number of shareholders and the trading volume is improving rapidly. Page 16 is related to the integrated report that we released on last this year. I deeply recommend the reading of the report because it explains how Itaú takes decisions and strategic decisions in M&A, in investing, divesting, how Itaú influence the companies that we participate in terms of strategy, capital, culture, people.
It's a very interesting read for those who are interested in investing or already invest in Itaú shares. On page 17, our performance in the capital stock market. We have good returns considering 10, five years and this year. Return for our shareholders in 10 years, 15.4% a year. In five years, 23.1%, and the last 12 months, 52%. Again, good news for the investors. This concludes the presentation, and we are open for questions for those who are with us.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by the one key on your touchtone phone now. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, press the star key followed by the two key. Please restrict your questions to two at a time. Our first question comes from Adriana de Lozada, Scotiabank.
Good morning, and congratulations on the results. I just wanted to know a bit more information about potential acquisition of the Petrobras subsidiary. I wasn't able to hear very well the last part of the presentation. I don't know if you already mentioned it, but if you can give us more details about that, I believe it was postponed. Yes, any information helps. Thank you.
Adriana, it's Alfredo speaking. We have many M&A signed with many companies. Always looking for alternatives for good investments that really can create value for our investors. Under the policy that we have to find good business for our portfolio that we are trying to build in the coming years. As you know, the deal of Petrobras was postponed for this week. We are following this business, we are not totally involved in the business for the company. We are following the groups, the consortium, and we are interested in it, depending on the price, depending on other conditions, to contribute a stake in the company. Today we have no news about that. We continue to follow and continue to talk, but we have yet no announcement today about this potential deal that will come from Petrobras.
You have all to remember that the conditions of this sale from Petrobras is under theGive to you here in Brazil, there is special rules of that, in terms of participation of the members of the consortium and so on. There is a lot of movement in consortium that we are in, but today we have no news, nothing really to say about the eventual participation of Itaúsa in this business.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thanks.
This concludes today's question and answer session. Mr. Alfred, at this time, you may proceed with your closing statements.
Okay, thank you for the participation. We have a very strong and very good semester. I think Itaúsa is in a very good moment. Of course, challenging moment for all the companies in Brazil and all over the world. We think we are making our homework and preparing the Brazilian company that we have a stake for a period of growth that all of you can review in the coming years. Reducing costs and investing in productivity, investing in new companies like Duratex did in Cecrisa, looking for new investments that make sense in our portfolio. I think Itaúsa is in a good moment with shares, increasing our number of shareholders and the liquidity. It's a good payout. We are very happy with all aspects of the company and wait to talk with you again in our next conference call. Thank you.
That does conclude our Itaúsa's 2018 results conference call. Thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect.