Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to the earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2024, Grupo Multi. If you need simultaneous translation, we have this tool available on the platform. To access, please click the interpretation globe at the bottom of the screen to choose the language you prefer. If you're listening to the conference in English, you have the option of muting original audio. We'd like to inform that this conference call is being recorded and will be provided at the company's RI website, where you find all of the material available for our earnings, and you can download this presentation on the chat icon, also in English. During the company's presentation, all participants will be with their microphones turned off.
When we begin the questions and answers session, in order to ask a question, you can simply click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and write down your question to join the queue. Then you will receive a request to enable your microphone to ask your question. We ask that the questions are done at the same time. We also highlight that the information, the forward-looking statements that may be made during this conference call relating to the company's business prospects, projections, and operational financial targets are based on Multi's management's beliefs and assumptions, as well as on currently available information. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance, so please check the legal disclaimer on the last slide of our presentation. Today, we have Ale Ostrowiecki with us, our CEO, Eduardo Belelas, our Controller, and myself, Flavio Lima, Investor Relations Director.
I'll turn the floor to Ale so that he'll begin the presentation.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your presence here at our earnings conference call. We will start with two minutes of a new institutional video that the company made. It's managerial data, so it doesn't necessarily correlate to the official financial statement. They're more about operational aspects used to disclose this to our partners and retailer customers. So let's check it out.
Grupo Multi is one of Brazil's largest companies with decades of experience that make the group fearless and versatile, facing adversities in the market and reinventing itself every day, always with an eye at opportunities and connected to the needs of its consumers. Behind everything we do, there's an idea that's very powerful: that technology can make life better. And to democratize technology is our mission.
In the north of Brazil, at the Manaus industrial pole, Multi has two plants where they make TV sets, electrical motorcycles by Watts, and other products. In Extrema, Minas Gerais, we have the computer plant, appliances, memory, and telecom devices, among others. And on the other side of the world, in China, Multi has a modern laboratory that allows us to ensure new releases and the quality of our products. All of that makes Multi relevant, and it stands out in the markets where it acts. Here at Grupo Multi, we have our own plants that guarantee us more flexibility and quality to our products in the different segments. Through our clients and partners, we are present at thousands of points of sales and marketplaces in Brazil. With a high investment in automation, Multi's logistics can serve thousands of orders per day.
In 2022, Multi started its international expansion, and today it's already present in different parts of the globe. Multi is a partner of major international brands in Brazil, being responsible to manufacture and operate exclusively in the country, combining the soundness and structure of the Multi Group with the highest global technology directly to our customers. With multidisciplinary teams specialized at each business unit and marketing working in 360 degrees, Multi works in the entire brand funnel, with major influencers being present in online and offline media and direct actions at the point of sales with our team of promoters. Grupo Multi is with all Brazilians everywhere in the country, growing and helping the country, its employees, customers, consumers, and investors to also grow. Grupo Multi is tech, and wherever technology is headed, Grupo Multi is going to be there.
So just a little bit of a few images.
If you're getting to our base or want to know more, this gives you a little bit of color of what's behind the numbers. So speaking of numbers, we have basically on the last call, we talked about the improvement and the results overall. We had something already improving in revenue, growth, and income, and some logistics concerns. So let's talk about all of that today, show you how the quarter was, a little bit about our expectation looking forward. And basically, we had a major challenge. We expected higher revenue. We were supposed to deliver more revenue. But as we talked on the last call, there are a lot of delays in the logistics chain. So a lot was still delayed for the fourth quarter. Still, if you think about the continued portfolio, we have the first growth of 3% versus the second quarter.
In terms of net revenue, there's a slight drop compared to the second quarter. So we're between the first and second quarters on the year's average this quarter. So revenue was stable. We would have liked to deliver more, but there were a lot of order delays due to replenishment. Gross margin, I think, is the major piece of news. That was another 200 basis points improvement in gross margin. So it's the long way towards our historical margin of above 30%. That's what we're seeking, the long-term ideal. And we need to resume or recover that 30% gross margin. We had 24.56%. So there's an additional 200 basis points compared to the previous quarter. So another step towards gross margin. So in terms of absolute margin, we actually delivered slightly above the second quarter. Even with that drop in revenue, we delivered more gross margin. EBITDA is still squeezed.
It's far from what we want, of course, at BRL 4 million. And net income this year, or this quarter rather, had a slight FX help, which dropped 11 basis points in the quarter. Now, in the fourth quarter, it went high up. Everybody knows. But our FX average in the third quarter was slightly down. So we maintained our net income not too far from EBITDA. So symbolically, that makes me very happy to see everything in the blue. Of course, it's a small number. There's a joke in the letter. I don't know if you saw it at the board meeting. One of our members came with a box of chocolates to celebrate. And I said, "Bro, don't book this under the company's expenses. Otherwise, our income will be negative." And people were laughing and joking that it is very small.
But if we've been for one year operating in the red, to see it in the blue, it's definitely a good direction. So we had a non-recurring event in the second quarter of 2023, second quarter of 2023. So if you think of net income, it's the first operating net income with nothing that is not extemporaneous since the fourth quarter of 2022. So it's the fourth quarter of 2022, all of the quarters of 2023, and all of 2024, for the first time, we're in the blue. So it's a symbol of a good path that, of course, has to exceed that greatly. We can't be at the stable level. But another important point is that we continue to liquidate the lines that are being discontinued, especially in materials of our total inventory. Only 1.5% of the discontinued lines are there.
So we also have slow movers, of course, that are current lines with a slow turnover, but it is not discontinued. So we're going to see that a little bit down the line. Then, in terms of total inventory, we're still in a downward trajectory, improving inventory efficiency. But the inventory in-house, that's the blue, took a leap this quarter, and it was practically everything arrived at the end of the quarter. That's why the revenue wasn't so strong. So we're rushing to sell it with TVs and TV materials, drones, speakers. Everything is late or stopped at customs and containers and the global chain that had these delays. So a lot of things came in at the end of the quarter. So you can see here that the share of in-house inventory went up from 48% to almost 60% today. 60% of our inventory value is in-house.
In practical terms, what that means is that we have to deliver robust revenues in the fourth quarter. There's no excuse. There's no way you can eat our liver for dinner if we get to the end of the quarter without the revenue, because that's what the inventory was acquired for. Of course, we need to get everyone on the same page. The customers, there was an increase in seeing an increase in revenue was really good in October, a slight leap in the plan. November, we have to deliver a lot as well. We need to be good on the top line so that everything goes well. You see that we sold a lot and cleared. There's less orders in transit that impacts the cash, because if we have to clear, we have to pay 80% straight up in Brazil.
Every $1 million of materials you buy, you pay about 80% ahead of time at the exchange for customs. So that consumes cash, but it's how it is. It's what we need to grow. And we'll see this impact in cash a little bit later. A little bit of color on logistics. Everybody always wants to know issues. The Suez Canal with a lot of issues and the Panama Canal as well. To summarize what happens, you know that there's geopolitical issues in the Red Sea. There are rebels, risks to navigation. People have been decreasing navigation through Suez. Asia and Europe are going around Africa, and that increases transit time a lot, consumes more vessels. The demand for vessels going up, the prices go up, the time for delivery go up.
So it's not as much a Multi direct issue, but indirectly, we are being affected because these ships that should be on the China-Brazil route have to cover the European route as well due to the Suez Canal. The Panama Canal as well, a lot comes through there. There's a bottleneck. So basically, we're talking about a transit time that is getting to 90 days to get to Manaus. So that's pretty insane. Also getting close to the Chinese New Year, there's always a bottleneck of orders. Everybody needs to buy ahead of time before the Chinese New Year. And on the other hand, the green channels, I mean, it's not a Multi issue. You're probably seeing this broadly. It's a structural market thing. So 95% here on the green channels. And the topic about the freight cost, we had a history of $4,000 from $2,000 to $4,000 .
In the pandemic, we got to $20,000. In 2023, we got to a low of $1,000. And again, we're at around $4,000. Let's see where these tariffs go. And with the U.S. dollar going up, it's very important for us to try and reduce freight costs to offset it. So here are the routes. We started to also do or run weekly bids. It's nothing new. Some periods are better for you to close a big package of containers. And at other times, it's better to buy spot. So it's a lot about feeling the market and negotiating as best as possible. At this time, we have opportunities to close the 2,000, 3,000 containers at a slightly better price. It's an investment. If the market drops too much, we lose. But if the freight remains stable, there's savings to be made.
Transit time here that I mentioned, 80 to 90 days to Manaus. So whatever is for Manaus, the boards, TVs, the products that go to Manaus, they have significant delays, which have delayed deliveries as well. We're also expanding. Manaus has a big bottleneck. So we're expanding our warehouses there, leasing a new 15,000 square meter warehouse so that we'll have more space to be able to have more inventory since the share of Manaus products has been increasing. We only have 7,000 square meters of inventory in Manaus compared to almost 70,000 square meters in Minas Gerais. So it's one to 10, and this is out of balance. Now, a little bit about inventory turnover. This is new. We broke down in two blocks the in-house inventory. Black would be long turnover above nine months in-house. Note that there's a downward trend, even though it's slight.
There's still a lot of long turnover. We have the opportunity to bring this down to 15%, and that unlocks a lot of capital. But the long turnover, as the name says, it's hard to get it out. It's easier to buy more, but then whatever doesn't sell, it's complex. Normal, regular inventory, 47%. So these two are the actual in-house inventory. That would be the combination of blue and black. And gray is just to give you some color. It would be the stockout, the shortage, the orders that we have in-house where we have no inventory. It's a negative inventory that's at record high at this time, at the point that I mentioned, because of the delays on shipments. There's a lot of TVs, speakers, drones, a lot of products there that are being replenished but are still bottled up.
Net revenue, those 8% drop that we mentioned, there's a lot due to a big non-recurring event that it would have been flat. With a continued portfolio, we would have grown 3%. Just to give you food for thought, the gross margin going back, we can't compare it with last year. Last year was really squeezed, 7% to up to 22%, and now 24.6%. That's the gross margin that I mentioned, seeking to make the most of it to get to 30%. How are we going to do that? With commercial policies, reducing discounts, renegotiating, replenishing only high-margin products, streamlining the portfolio, removing slow movers, a lot of long-tail items. So it's a long work to remove the bad things and bring back good things. According to the logistics, it takes time, and we need to climb this every quarter.
It's a fight, many fights against it, but we have to deliver. So this gradual increase in gross margin, that's the main point for improvement at the company. And of course, EBITDA, a lot due to commercial expenses, as we'll talk about. So for me, two focal points today are the S of SG&A. Our G&A is relatively low. It's below 4%. It doesn't really stand out, the G&A and our P&L, but sales expenses is above 20%. That's where the money is. So we need to improve commercial expenses and improve gross margin. That's where we have the money's there. We need to seek it. The continued line, the margin's 1% higher. Discontinued line would be a very low margin, just 1% of the gross margin. So we have to remove that from the base, and then the overall numbers improve.
The point of government here, you can see that last year was very robust. This year was a big drought in government. And the second quarter, we mentioned that would be an improvement. It did improve one point. Fourth quarter should come slightly better as well. So there's a gradual improvement in government business. EBITDA, slightly worse here due to commercial expenses. So a lot of funds from the past being paid, a lot of rebates, a little bit of credit. Or EOL for products, it doesn't get good for the credit. The net income, the point that we mentioned from -24% to -6%. And now at least we're slightly in the blue. So we need to continue with this evolution so that we get to numbers that are suitable profitability to this level of capital invested.
Talking about cash a little bit, we had that consumption that I mentioned. We had a strong agenda of cash generation in 2023. In the first half of 2024, we went from BRL 600 million net debt to BRL 300 million of net cash at the peak of cash there. And then we switched the key a little bit and said, "Okay, we're sitting on the cash. We need to replenish the company with good things." So we released purchases again of streamlined portfolios with good gross margin levels. And the agenda is to consume that cash with good things. That's our plan. So we consumed BRL 140 million in the quarter. We're at BRL 700 million with BRL 700 million in cash and BRL 175 million net cash. And then from now, it's still comfortable. We only have BRL 270 million here to pay in the next year 2 months.
We have an idea to start raising funds again in the first quarter so that we can fill up this cash. Even though there's no rush, we have an agenda to refinance something to maintain the cash level for at least a month, a month and a half of expenses. And we'll continue to consume. The expectation for the next two quarters is to consume cash. And then, on the other hand, to deliver top line, EBITDA, and profit. Delivering this three tripod using cash for good reasons, that's fine. It's part of the game. Looking down per channel, the first interesting point here, you'll see our e-commerce direct-to-consumer continues to grow gradually in share. And note that it offsets the drop on the blue. So you can see this green here on e-commerce increased 2.5%, and it dropped the same percentage in the blue that are small retailers.
Is Alexandre that bad? We're losing capillarity or I don't think so. It's the commercial policy. It's the effect. What are we losing here? Basically, you're losing sellers. Fewer small sellers, fewer people buying and burning it on the internet, bringing volume to our e-commerce with more disciplined prices. That's one of the reasons why gross margin's been improving. That's why we've been able to maintain a healthier purchasing price. We had a planning meeting for tablets, for example, and we saw an improvement in the tablet margin. The main factor that salespeople were talking about is that internet is more organized. The prices are more organized. We have fewer sellers buying, but there's less price burns, and the big players can also work. Things are better in terms of discipline.
So the template for tablet is an example to be used for other BUs as well. So I think at this point, it's positive. The company is healthier. Governance has this turnaround. It went back in share. The governance fair share would be closer to 15%, thinking about the long term. So that's still below, but it improved compared to this flop here that we saw. So there's a nice pipeline. We should be able to deliver another increase in governance for the fourth quarter. Here's that non-recurring business. And we brought by order an import for a client. It's a favor that we did. We brought it and sold at a low margin that increased revenue, but didn't help with the gross margin. So that was in the corporate side that leaped and then went back. So this doesn't really mean much in the blue.
That's a very one-off issue, and the rest is in line. Big retailers gaining some share, improving margin, and it's interesting to see that the company's gross margin increased even with the gain of share of big retailers. It's that point of selling to the big ones, but in a more disciplined way with healthier prices at the end. So it's not going to be, they know, it's not going to be a huge margin, but they can work at a minimally healthy level. By segment, we're going to see this drop in the blue. That's the non-recurring business. So that's in the IT and supplies that went from 40%- 27% due to that deal. Kids and sports grew again, and the others grew slightly. So basically, it was the removal of that non-recurring deal. Then getting into the different areas, we have mobile devices here.
Smartphones are pretty much done. We went from -47% to 20% to 18%. If we exclude what's left of smartphones here, we would have delivered 20%, thinking about the recurring portfolio, and there was a leap in sales, resuming sales of mobile devices, and government also is here, so that's part of this recovery. The government coming back in is 100% mobile devices, part of office and IT. There was also an important improvement in margin. Again, that non-recurring deal squeezed the margin here significantly because it was a coupled import, and then it resumed normal levels from 20%- 21%. I would look at this evolution. From 20% - 21% would be the normalcy for this business. This was only pulled down because of that one-off deal, so looking at the recurring portfolio, it's completely recurring, so it's 21%.
Home electric products here is driven by screens and displays as the biggest retail category in the company. The two biggest ones are providers and TVs. We had here a stable margin with a slight drop, but still at healthy levels, 27%. Revenue going up year on year. Audio is also performing well. Screens are going well. Portable appliances, it's a bit of a detractor. Healthcare and portable appliances are replacing portfolio a lot. So I'd say that here there's room for improvement. The costs abroad have dropped significantly, and we have a portfolio with a lot of SKUs per type of product. So we end up having a lot of blenders, a lot of air fryers, a lot of variety. And now the agenda is to reduce to one-third of the number of SKUs with more in-depth, making the most of the smaller costs.
So there will be a replacement of portfolio that will contribute to gross margin for portable appliances, healthcare as well. We're pretty much ending this line. Kids and sports. There's a share of drones here that's significant. It's a business that's growing significantly, taking over this category. So it has a very healthy margin of 33%. But if you weigh kids, Multi-kids, that's toys and baby, remain stable, the share of drones blew up. It's an important business, but it's an import business at a very high ticket. Remember that a baby stroller that we sell, it's BRL 400 the ticket. And a drone is more than BRL 5,000. So it's five times the same price. So the margin's extremely healthy, but it doesn't get to 38%. It's closer to 30%. It's more of the mix.
But increasing revenue, you can see that this was the family that grew the most, 21%. So this is no reason for concern. We'd like to continue to grow. And there's important news coming up for drones as well. Here are some events going quickly through them. We received the Reclame AQUI Awards. We have a lot of awards in the post-sales. And we also attended significant trade shows with ZTE, Futurecom, ABRINT , the biggest trade shows for technology and providers. We're diversifying our portfolio. We're at a point of technology change. We have Wi-Fi 5 that is getting out of the discontinued and Wi-Fi 6 coming in to replace it. There's DWDM. That's the technology to transfer data from one provider to another. There's also the IP side of cameras, and there's energy.
All of ZTE's mix and a lot of projects that we build the providers' network. So it combines services and products. It's not just a business of selling access, the internet access device, but it becomes a business that is more diverse to serve the needs of our providers. We launched the Neo Drone . It's a revolution. Drone, as you know, is a product that's for photography, for enthusiasts. The average ticket is of around BRL 10,000. It starts at BRL 8,000, BRL 7,000. Some cost BRL 15,000, BRL 20,000. There's drones that cost BRL 100,000, but it's an average ticket of 10,000. And we launched the product line that's Neo by DJI. That's BRL 2,000. So it's a revolution. They're highly portable, very lightweight. They can take off from your hand. You put the drone on your hand.
It takes off, filming you and records you, follows you to practice sports or make a video. So it will get into a layer of consumers who had no access before. So it will be democratized for drones. It's going to be a great growth driver for next year. That point about the campaigns, we took Cauã Reymond, a Brazilian actor that's a Multi's ambassador. We have Wesley Safadão, musician, for Pulse and sound. We have Viih Tube for children, a Brazilian influencer. So always adding to it. Viih Tube had a baby again here, so she renewed with us. She's a major influencer in the kids' universe. We had our leadership meeting as well. Day M with our employees. The IHRSA trade show for gym equipment, noting that Multi also has a very good division that keeps growing in kids and sports, which is the gym equipment for gyms.
Another important point, we are selecting our CFO, so we're interviewing people, and I'm acting as CFO at this time, but there's no huge rush. We want to make the right choice of the right professional who will be the best for the company's needs and also someone respected by the market with credibility, so we are seeing a lot of interest for this position. We're talking to a lot of good people. Finally, we have a subsequent event. You know that we have an obligation to invest in R&D, so we need to run research projects, and we have them both internally at Multi and with institutes, but there's also the possibility to invest in technology fits, so we invested in Bertha Capital's FIP. This fund invested on Luby, BRL 14 million. Now the decision at Bertha was to divest. I think it was a successful divestment.
Part of it was paid on the spot, and the remainder will be paid in installments, a total of BRL 38 million . There's a term there, discounting present value to get the right return. But basically, we put in BRL 14 million , and we're going to get back BRL 38 million of money that was considered lost because it's stamped. If we don't make that investment, we need to pay additional taxes. So I'm happy to see that instead of paying additional taxes, we invested in a technology company. It grew, it developed, generated jobs, and we're divesting in a good position. And then this money will be invested in other businesses, but part of it will come back to Multi. Finally, maybe you've seen we announced yesterday, Royal Enfield announced yesterday the partnership with Multi to manufacture motorcycles. You saw in the video that we have the motorcycle plant in Manaus by.
It's a Watts plant. It's a niche business where we expected to see great growth, but in the market, we didn't see the electric market growth. We remain as leaders. We hold about 25% of the electric motorcycle market, but the total market is still very much a niche market. It's less than 1% of the motorcycle market, so that we don't have a plant stuck serving only that, we started to seek options, and we closed with Royal Enfield. It's an Indian company with English origins. It's a giant, one of the biggest brands of combustion engine motorcycles, and we will manufacture Royal motorcycles for them, comparing with other partnerships. It's a business that's similar to the Hisense business. We'll import the parts, we'll manufacture and sell for Royal at a guaranteed fixed margin, so it's a capital investment that's very small. It's their working capital. We're simply manufacturing.
And with that, we want to dilute fixed costs for Watts. And we want, of course, to capture some margin. It's not a high-margin business, but we learned a lot from Watts with the motorcycles improve production and generate a small margin with these products. So in that sense, it's similar to Hisense deal. Toshiba, we do run the entire solution. So distribution, trade, marketing, everything is ours. And for OPPO, we produce and distribute. So it's a family of businesses done with partners which have been growing and will be an important driver for next year. Our growth plans for next year. This is going to be one of the main drivers for growth in the first line or top line. So we'll stop at this point today. These were the messages for today. I kindly ask you to write your questions on the comment section, the Q&A.
If you want to open your microphone, please just let us know through the Q&A that you'd like to ask your question verbally. Thank you. Let's move on to the Q&A.
Following the order here, starting with Rodrigo Costa. Good morning. Congratulations on the earnings. Can people read the—no, okay, I'll read the question. Congratulations. Considering the capacity you have for storage, production, and distribution, could you give us an approximated idea of how much you can improve revenue without requiring additional investments?
Okay, great. Rodrigo. Note that we already make more than BRL 6 billion gross in 2021. It was a different mix with a lot more expensive electronics. We can't have an exact comparison, but today there is room to operate in Extrema as we see fit. Easily 30%-40% additional in revenue without CapEx in Extrema. In Manaus, we have that space limitation for TVs.
So there will be an agenda that I don't think will be that relevant for lease. We're going to lease a 15,000 square meters warehouse. We'll have the amount of that lease payment to structure everything. It's going to be a few million BRL for port of pallets, changing the location, but it's not an enormous business. It's going to be maybe BRL 5 million-BRL 6 million to complete it with a porta pallets and take everything we already have. So it's not a lot of materials in the big picture. What's major is that we're building one warehouse, a BRL 30 million warehouse in Extrema. It was a decision made in the past. We already had the agreement of that investment, and we decided to finalize that warehouse. So there's still an additional BRL 20 million . We delayed a lot of payments.
We paid BRL 10 million, and there's still BRL 20 million to be paid for that warehouse. That's the G7 in Extrema that we're building. That's what we have that is relevant.
Dani from XP will ask live, right? So please, Dani.
Good morning. Thank you Ale. I'll ask here.
Good morning.
I have two questions on my side. First, we've been seeing a trend in the improvement of demand of physical stores of players who also have e-commerce. So Magalu, Casas Bahia have just reported earnings with this resumption of growth in that direction, in that segment. So I'd like to know whether you've been seeing that as well, if it's reflected in the purchasing appetite of our customers in a broader way. They're your customers, but also you have an important share of smaller players.
To understand how you see this appetite on your customer side and how you see the impact of that recent macro deterioration for the future. The second question is, when you expect to see a normalization of the logistics challenges that you faced this quarter, if it wasn't one-off or if it will remain? Thank you.
Dani, the customers are at a better vibe. They're seeking us. We're holding a lot of meetings. I went to two of our biggest customers to have a top-to-top meeting. Players who had a lot of difficulty or financial difficulties in the past. Everybody knows which ones we're talking about. They came to us and we closed a strong growth program for next year. Everyone's excited to buy, but the logistics issue is there. It generated some delays, but now the entire chain is plugged in forward.
Everything that came at the end of the third quarter, we're delivering. There should be no stockout because it was delayed, but that impact already came in the third quarter. So in logistics, there's no trend of increase in freight costs. It's stable, maybe even drop a little bit. But the big surprise is that in Brazil, you have to fight a lion every day. So the big thing is the U.S. dollar. We take a beating, but that's an FX aspect. We're 400 basis points of actually 40 basis points above the U.S. dollar of the previous quarter. We don't know what's going to happen until the closing. So there's still a lot that has been bought and paid for that should not reflect on gross margin, but will come at the bottom line in the FX variation. So we will take a hit in FX in the fourth quarter.
We've been able to deliver revenue and EBITDA and everything. There will be FX variation, and there's an agenda to renegotiate prices. So we're there fighting because there's a good demand. If the clients don't take at least part of this FX variation, it's going to be hard for us to compose our margin. The agenda now is to get things delivered, deliver them, renegotiate price in a scaled manner to recompose our margin.
But historically, when the exchange rate is weaker, you also gain competitiveness in relative terms, right, compared to imported products. So there could be a glass half full there, right?
Well, I'd look at it thinking that every game has the ideal way. Computer accessories, for example, they're 100% imported in Brazil. It's not that there's someone manufacturing mouse and the other is importing. We play the game that everybody plays that's imports.
In that sense, Multi as a competitive entry-level brand suffers less with any adjustments compared to a premium brand. There's an accessory branch that's the Brazilian leader that makes a lot more than we do, and their tickets will go up more in absolute terms compared to ours. And there's a trade down. So historically, we do gain some and trade down. But at first, we get that stress that the market has the price in mind. So for lightweight accessories, the trend is for that to be good for us because we are more affordable and a lot of people trade down. TVs are completely manufactured in Brazil. There's no imported TV sets. That's pretty much irrelevant. So it's the same for everyone. And it's a product that has a very strong ticket on people's mindset.
Everybody's there thinking, "Oh, 50-inch TV is BRL 2,000 ." If BRL 2,000 becomes BRL 2,300, it is a pain for retail. People hold on sales. They go to smaller screens. We have some trade-down advantages historically. But on the other hand, if the U.S. dollar goes up, it's the same. The client will buy less. People always ask the exchange rate that I prefer. I prefer it quiet. If it goes down too much, imported products get too cheap, and then people start trading up. If it goes up too much, it's also chaos. I like the FX rate to remain stable, slightly on the high side. I don't know if I answered your question.
Yes, you did. Thank you, Ale.
Gustavo, from UBS as well.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
First, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have two here.
First, related to this context of costs, higher costs, especially driven by macro aspects, how do you understand the evolution for Q4 next year in terms of transit times? And if you can talk about how you've been able to pass through the prices, if you've done it all, if there's room for more. And my second question about the partnership that you announced with Royal Enfield, I'd like to understand the rationale. If you can talk a little bit more about the partnership, especially in terms of the manufacturing and assembly, this need for adaptation with the industrial park, if you can give us more color of how this distribution is going to work. I know it's not through you, but it's not quite as clear how it's going to happen. Thank you.
Price negotiation is all based on supply and demand and fighting power and information.
We'll try to pass through as much as possible of the cost increases due to the FX rate, and we'll try to bring portfolios with lower costs, lower freight costs to offset it to maintain competitive attractive prices. Historically, part of it is passed through, and part of it has to be recomprised in the chain. That's the agenda for next year and for the Q4 as well. For now, we've had a good month. October was a strong month, the biggest in the year, slightly above the previous month. Nothing wow, but a slightly better than the best month of the year. So that's already an interesting sign, and we need to keep that up for November. December is slightly worse in historical terms, but we're on the plan for top line for now. Royal Enfield, basically what happens is that we have a plant.
We have the bikes and the products. There's the business plan ramping up, and we're manufacturing 20% of capacity only, so there's still 80% of idle capacity at a factory, which makes the Watts business to be in a zero-zero game, the unit cost and the parts, so seeking a solution, if we start bringing price down, burning the price of bikes, it's not how to do. It's a niche market. We have a good share, so we'd need to foster the electric motorcycle market, but there's a high marketing cost. We don't have the appetite to do it now, so we're maintaining electric bikes running, growing organically, and the profitable solution to be found for the plant. Today, there's a number of companies wanting to come to Brazil. Motorcycles are mandatory to be made in Manaus. You cannot compete in the country if I don't.
I think it's 40% or 50% of the IPI tax for motorcycles. So you need to make it in Manaus. Otherwise, if you import or make it somewhere else, you're out, and in Brazil, Royal Enfield was already here. They were working with another player. They were not satisfied. They have their office here, the commercial department. They have everything set up in Brazil, so they signed with us for us to manufacture those motorcycles. CapEx investment is low, subsidized by Royal. All of the assembly line is the same. What changes is that we need to assemble the engine. There's an additional combustion engine line. There are a few stages, not the entire engine, and then they bring the expertise to us. They send the equipment for us as well with subsidized costs, and then there's a fee per motorcycle, basically a waypoint of manufacturing for them.
We bring the parts that they decide. We put it together according to their decision. We test and invoice, always being distributed by Royal Brazil, and they distribute basically it's a CM. The objective is to dilute costs at our factory for this project.
Great. Very clear. Thank you.
From Milton, the company is negotiating close to the value in cash. Is there an expectation for a more aggressive share buyback plan?
After we're in the blue with a good profit margin generating cash, yes, definitely. Excessive cash that have no business plan that's very profitable with a good ROIC. It is part of our agenda. But first, we want to get the company nice and rounded before consuming cash with share buyback. We had a small plan last year, but it was symbolic. It's an indication, but it was not as relevant.
From Hugo. I'm sorry, what?
Tiago will take your question. Kapulskis.
Good morning.
Good morning, Ale. Love you. Thank you for taking my question. I have one that I think is slightly different. Also taking from your background of the other companies that you have, Ale. So a little bit of how you see the China issues for your business with the election of Trump. Yesterday, we had an event with an American diplomat. He's talking a lot about a more aggressive politics in the United States and the positioning of the countries vis-à-vis China. That's a very important agenda there. And we know how you rely on that. Your business relies on China.
I'd like to pick your brain a little bit to try and understand how you think about Multilaser's position and the company's positioning, not only about that, but about what you can do in this environment, bringing products from other places, thinking of other types of logistics. How do you think about dealing with this type of risk given this new scenario? Thank you, Ale.
It's a complex question. I don't really have the knowledge to give insights in addition to what you already know. Starting, speaking as a layman, here in Brazil, looking at this, there's a complementarity between Brazil and China that's great. I mean, we sell commodities. They consume commodities. We consume industrialized products. They manufacture them. These categories, 100% of the global market's done in China for us and for Europe and the United States, for everyone.
Give you an example of the mouse, computer mouse. There's no mouse factory that is relevant outside of China. It's not that everything went to India and it's secure and Multi would have its own risk. Trump's agenda, I understand it's more the protectionism and increasing rates between China and the United States. How much he's actually going to do and how much he's just saying, we don't know. I could be wrong, but I don't think it affects Brazil. It's the opposite. If he increases the rates in the U.S., there will be China will have more of an appetite to sell to us. So I don't see a relevant difference there. What could happen is an eventual possible war scenario. Trump recently said that the United States are not obliged to defend Taiwan if China invades Taiwan.
If there's a war there and it takes long, well, then it will be chaos, and we'd have to, if we get close to that scenario, we would need to really stock up the market because there will be shortages, but the scenario today is still of a more diplomatic approach. I wouldn't think China would start a war out of nowhere. I think it's something we always see signs before. They would have to make moves that would be quickly perceived before invading Taiwan, for instance, so there's nothing here that I see as urgent on this side. We could get another forum to get this discussion. It's very interesting.
No, great. I think your insight of having even maybe a benefit is interesting. It's not, so thank you for your answer. Any thoughts you may have always help us. Oh, and Brazil today.
Brazil is at the best neutral with the United States. The current administration is friendly with China, and it has been. So if they fight, we will actually have advantages in thinking in cold terms. And if there's a problem in Taiwan, then depending on the size of the issue, the global supply chain, I mean, it's a whole different animal. It's not Multi. Then the general market will melt down. It will be chaos for all global chains, for everything.
Very fair. Yep. Thank you.
Sure. So for Hugo, what are the levers to resume the 30% gross margin? Thinking about the market's demand with actual sales dropping, unemployment at a low, it should be a stronger price pass-through window, right?
Yes. More due to the portfolio renewal. It's easier to pass through price on a new item than to increase prices of current products.
The main measure is the portfolio review, so we're here with 12 hair dryers. Let's dry it up for three great ones at the best cost, and those three will have logistics gains, and the first lever, we have a biweekly committee that we created this year called the Product Release or Product Launch . That's this agenda. The committee reviews all of that. What brings the margin? What doesn't? Remove products. We cut them with no pity. It's the best commercial policy, as I said. Is it BRL 299? Okay, so BRL 299. Let's charge exactly what we need from each customer so they can sell at BRL 299. Before, our criteria would be based on volume. If you have a big volume, you get a discount, and that's silly.
Looking back, we were actually wrong there because oftentimes when they have a big order, it would be a seller who doesn't really need margin. So if the product costs BRL 299 and I sell to Casas Bahia for BRL 200, and then they have a huge order, they're a seller that wants the same BRL 200. And then at the end of the month, with the pressure you agree, if you sell to them for BRL 200, they'll sell by BRL 230 tomorrow on the internet. And if it's BRL 230, that's pandemonium. Casas Bahia will ask for a rebate, and the price will melt down. That's why it consumed a lot of gross margin. So these two things combined are essential.
Also from Hugo, this cash consumption for coming quarters, thinking about interest going up, what's the capital structure that the company wants to maintain?
Well, you need to maintain healthy levels of EBITDA, double digits or high double digits, and this net debt up to one time EBITDA. I would not like to have it at one more than one time of EBITDA over net debt. Milton, I love the slogan. You must have it. Não dá para não ter in Portuguese. I know that a lot of people have multi-products and we don't know about it. And it's strategy to get bigger brand recognition. Well, Milton, our strategy is the basics, but well done. Good marketing campaigns and media know-how and to burn a lot of cash. We don't want to do that. We want to have the A-curve products that are always there with margin at the point of sale, turning over without messing up. And naturally, the product becomes more recognized. We don't have any major campaigns in mind.
We are investing in the leverage marketing with a product with a great internet action, everything focused on sales where we can measure turnover.
From Marcelo, the lead time of import from China. Has it improved or there are still delays?
It's the same. The difference is that delays happened on Q3, so it pushed everything. The arrivals now should be with a better pace.
Perspectives for Watch to reach breakeven from Marcelo.
We're talking about our investment? Marcelo, I'm at Watch's Board. It's an invested company similar with what we had with Luby. We took that R&D money, put it at Bertha's fund. They invested on Watch. Watch is a TV company with a recurring revenue that sells through providers. That's their channel. If I'm not mistaken, there's 2, 3 million subscribers, active subscribers.
Revenue is going up year on year, but income is delayed as in a lot of startup companies. The business plan would be for this year, for 2025, to be in the blue. But as happened in previous years, it can be delayed. So we need to be somewhat skeptical. The moment for them is that they're seeking income. They had great opportunities. They accelerated top line, and they will harvest more in the future. And it's true. The company's revenue is leaping forward year on year. I wasn't prepared for this company. This question, I don't have the numbers here in mind, but they're moving towards BRL 100,000 in revenue. A company with BRL 100 million of recurring revenue, a small subscription, is a serious niche. So our policy has been, well, if you're improving recurring revenue, subscription, service, and you need to invest, what would this investment be?
Would be to buy TV programs, to buy a lot to be able to offer and block the competition. Watch today has no direct competitor at the same size. It's the only player in that game. You can watch Globo through Watch, HBO, Paramount. There's a lot. And they're buying the market to have a very robust offer and keep growing. That's Watch's agenda now.
Just to add and make it clear as well that Bertha decides whether or not we'll continue to invest on Watch and so on.
Yes, excellent. It's an investment made by Bertha's fund.
From Eliseu here, when does Multi intend to have an Investor Day? Don't you consider Multi too diversified?
Investor Day, we can look into it. We don't have anything expected now.
For now, it's a high expense, and we do want to do it.
When the company is running and we have the plans, the company is going to do that and approve it with Ale .
We don't have the budget for it right now. Okay, so I considered Multi way too diversified. One of the mistakes we made during the pandemic and the IPO was to think that if we were firing in every direction, everything would be good. We entered a lot of categories. When you go in, there's always a rationale, a happy story expected. But we ended up getting it too tight. That's why over the last year and a half, we've been cutting BUs. We cut off sports appliances, automotive BUs. All of the security families were removed. We only maintained core. We're taking off the light baby lines. We're only maintaining the heavy lines of strollers and seats and so on.
We're focusing and concentrating on businesses that bring margin and competitive edge. What's left was still a lot of diversity. It's still a diverse company, but a lot less than we were. Speaking about more than 1,000 products discontinued this year.
Can we expect the return of historic EBITDA margins from Thales in the fourth quarter?
I expect nothing, Thales. I'll make no promises. The only thing I can promise you is that we're fighting for this gradual and slow recovery for the company, and I don't promise anything. I wasn't promising a lot before. We're not someone to overpromise. We will not overpromise. We keep fighting to get things to improve slowly.
About tax incentives, what's the impact on profit if there's a discontinuation of this incentive?
The incentive is structural for the entire market. It's not Multi's incentive.
So if by chance there's an incentive discontinued, it's something that is not planned. With the tax reform, the expectation is to maintain incentives in Manaus. But our trend is to the price is to have it pass through. And our advantages and disadvantages in competitive terms are the same. We don't have any advantage based on tax incentives. ICMS, we have a small rebate as everyone who imports in Brazil, everybody doing that. For TVs, it's Manaus. So there's the official Manaus incentive. It's the same for everyone. So I think it's a low impact.
And finally, João Antônio asking to talk a little bit about the negotiations to pass through prices. At the end,
I think we've already talked about it. So we're talking to customers. Overall, we're getting it done. It's more a question of how much and when.
So you come in with 10%, they say 4%, and then you go to 6%, and they say, "Okay, but I need to break it down in three payments.
How it's going to reflect in the gross margin of coming quarters?"
It's a negative force. As I said, we're growing forward. Stop buying bad things. Only buy good products. Renew with best cost. Streamline portfolio. That's more having a tailwind and a headwind from the market. We'll say, "Okay, let's buy or go to somewhere else." And then, so if you look at it, we have to keep fighting and delivering a little bit more quarter by quarter.
So Gabriel, what are the ways to optimize selling expenses without hurting future sales? How much is own expense and how much is commission?
That's a great question.
As I mentioned, we have two problems at Multi: gross margin and selling expenses. Selling expenses, I think we're 22% this year. That includes freight, funds, commissions, everything. Gross margin, we talked about. Selling expenses, we'll break down in two sessions. Freight is one thing. It's one animal, so to speak. Commissions and funds are another thing. In freight, we have a very strong renegotiation agenda to optimize trucks. We implemented two pieces of software that we suffered. They're official SAP models that hadn't entered in 2023 because they're very heavy: Pathfinder and Transport. One of them verifies all of the invoices per transporter or carrier automatically, defining whether there's any additional collection, any money on the table, increases our reliability. Pathfinder is a software that optimizes trucks. For example, let's say you're a stationery store in Osasco, São Paulo.
You were buying products, and you expected us to bill on the same day, delivering the next day. Or you're in Goiânia, and you're going to place an order. Multi is going to separate it, put it on a truck, and the next day, it is headed to the carrier, to the central, and then it will be distributed and get to Goiânia. So you receive it in five or six days. But I released the order and the fractional delivery. What Pathfinder is going to do is cut every week. For example, Goiânia is for Thursdays. Everything that I sell until Wednesday midnight, I'll accumulate, and on Thursday, the system does the volumetry, the cubage, and the truck goes directly from Multi to Goiânia. So you need to wait a week to release the product, but it will go straight to you.
You don't lose a lot in delivery lead time. You lose one or two days, but our freight will be a lot better because the truck goes filled with products straight to Goiânia, and with all of these improvements, we believe there's at least 1% at the bottom line of freight alone, and another point is the funds to customers, we're changing governance. We have a system to approve those funds, so if you're a big player there and you have a campaign and we want to use that money to accelerate sales, until today, any multi-seller can promise funds, but now we have governance depending on the size of those funds, how much is released, and the financial department with a lot more discipline in the order of BRL 100 million per year. Okay, so that's a lot of money. We spend about BRL 100 million per year today.
And any 20% reduction will be used. So these are the main two measures.
Great. So everyone, we close here with that last question. Thank you all very much for your patience and participation on our call. See you next time.