Good morning, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the video conference for the release of GPA's fourth quarter earnings results. Please note that for those who need simultaneous translation, we have this tool available on the platform. To do this, just click on the interpretation button on the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. For those that don't speak Portuguese, we have English simultaneous translation that can be activated by pressing the interpretation button on the globe icon on the bottom right corner of the screen, and choose the English option. For those listening to the video conference in English, there is an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on mute original audio.
We would like to inform that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's IR website, where the complete material of our earnings release is available. You may download the presentation in the chat icon. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphones disabled. Soon after, we will initiate our Q&A session. To pose questions, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type your question to get in the queue. When you are announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen, and then you must activate your microphone to ask your questions. We recommend you ask your questions all at once.
Please note that the information in this presentation and forward-looking statements made during the video conference concerning the business outlook, projections, and operating and financial targets of GPA are beliefs and assumptions of GPA's management and information currently available. Future-looking statements are not guaranteed performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions because they refer to future events, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operational factors may affect GPA's future performance and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. With us today are GPA CEO, Jorge Faical, CFO and IR, Guillaume Gras, and CEO of Grupo Éxito, Carlos Mario Giraldo, and the CFO, Ruy Souza. Now I will give the floor to Guillaume Gras to initiate his presentation.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending the GPA Group earnings results. I am glad to present to you today the first results of what we call a new GPA, which has registered a positive growth in Brazil while markets are taking a dive and presents solid profitability in a challenging environment. I will start the presentation talking about our financial performance and the evolution of the hypermarket transition. Subsequently, Jorge will talk about the operational highlights of the period, strategy, and business perspectives. Well, number one, on slide five, you can see the consolidated performance figures, which take into account all the GPA Brazil operations, including hypermarket and drugstores, and the results of Grupo Éxito.
Consolidated sales totaled BRL 14.9 billion in Q4, growing 6.7% when compared to the last year, and showing solid performance in a difficult macroeconomic context, and despite the demobilization of hypermarkets in Brazil. Year to date, consolidated sales reached BRL 51.3 billion in line with 2020, even with the negative impact of the pandemic in the first half. In this challenging environment, we maintained our control of SG&A, improving our percentage of revenue by 0.5 bps and 30 bps in the year. Our consolidated EBITDA totaled BRL 1.2 billion in Q4, and BRL 3.8 billion in 2021, and was impacted by the hypermarket activities in Brazil, which reinforces our assertive strategy of exiting this unprofitable format, selling this asset at a good price in order to deleverage our group and reinvest in more profitable formats.
Well, finally, GPA's net income totaled BRL 805 million in 2021, including the income tax gain on investment subsidies. Excluding this IR gain, the net profit amount is BRL 300 million, which is still twofold last year's profit without tax credits. On slide six, we can see that the company ended the year with a low leverage level of 0.3 times net debt/EBITDA. We ended the year with a cash position of BRL 1.3 billion, which is 5.6 times our short-term debt, which guarantees an excellent liquidity. This level of liquidity is a result of a strong operational cash generation of BRL 1.8 billion, excluding the hypermarket and drugstore operations as shown on the slide with the debt evolution.
In the discontinued perimeter, Extra Hiper stores and drugstores, there is a neutral variation with the use of funds received with the first installment of BRL 1 billion to resize working capital to the new operation and to finance project costs. Now finally, in the next 3 years, we will have cash of BRL 4.2 billion regarding the transaction of the hypermarket. On slide seven, you may see the evolution of the hypermarket transactions announced in October 2021. An announcement in which we announced the end of the hypermarket format operation in Brazil with 70 commercial points to Assaí and 33 stores to be converted to other formats. Closing the rest of our assets.
We set up a schedule for the demobilization of the stores that began in October, and stopped the purchase of several non-essential and non-food categories, and continued with reduction in store size until their closure between December and January. During this period, we continued, committed to our customers, especially in the supply of essential products. In December, 31 stores were closed, and the remaining stores were closed in the first half of January 2022. In the same period, we started the conversion of 28 stores into Pão de Açúcar or Mercado Extra. These stores will be opened during the first half of this year. At the same time, we began the readjustment of the company to the size of the new GPA with the adaptation of our headquarters, IT structure and network logistics.
On slide eight, we have our P&L and cash details of the transactions and its expected impacts. In the fourth quarter's result, we had a net impact in other income and expenses of BRL 400 million, where BRL 1.2 billion in capital gain, which represents approximately 23% of the total estimated capital gain of the transaction. BRL 0.8 billion in expenses corresponding to the dismissal of employees, cancellation of contracts, breakout of inventory and other expenses regarding transactions. This net result before taxes of BRL 400 million recorded represents between 15%-18% of the transaction. With this, we cannot yet determine the exact final amount, but the company expects to recognize something close to BRL 1.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Already considering the operating losses expected for the transition period of the abandoned activities with the completion of the operation. In terms of cash flow, the company had already received BRL 1 billion in 2021, and will receive an additional BRL 4.2 billion by 2024. From these funds, between BRL 1.2 billion and BRL 1.5 billion will be used for project costs and taxes. BRL 500 million will be set aside for minimum dividends generated by the net profit transaction and between BRL 1.2 billion and BRL 1.5 billion to accelerate expansion CapEx, renovations and conversions of stores. The remaining balance of BRL 1.7 billion-BRL 2.3 billion will be used to deleverage the company.
Finally, after this operation that represents a gross sale volume of BRL 11.7 billion in 2021, in which approximately will be assigned to Assaí and 20% to store conversions, the size of the new GPA becomes BRL 20 billion against BRL 27 billion before the operation. This is based on 2021. Now on slide nine, you can see the financial performance of new GPA. Brazil repositions as a premium digital and proximity food retailer. This is including the 103 Extra hypermarket stores and the 102 drugstores. It is important to emphasize that this result is a pro forma and already considers the approximate readjustment of the logistics network of our headquarters and other costs for the new perimeter.
Thus, our new GPA presents a good recovery on Q4 with strong resistance from our premium e-commerce and proximity formats, which registered positive growth like for like with the self-service market, while the self-seller market was in decline. Tight control of expenses in an environment of accelerating inflation allowed us to improve our EBITDA, totaling 8.4% in the quarter and 8.8% in the year. Now moving to slide 10. You can see the result of total GPA Brazil, which was impacted by the demobilization process of the hypermarkets, with the reduction in store size and the closure of 31 stores already in December. The EBITDA for the quarter totaled BRL 393 million, down 3.6 points.
Everything concentrated on gross profit, which was impacted by the higher level of out of stock, lower industry investment, giving the destocking process the strong reduction in purchases and the impact of the mix effect with the demobilization of hypermarket stores. Now, we go to slide 11 with the results of Grupo Éxito, which once again will present strong sales growth, reaching COP 8.4 billion in the period with a growth of 17.8%, where 15.33% in the same-store sales. This growth was driven through focus on innovation in Colombia, where innovative formats represented 33.3% of sales. Now strong omni-channel performance with sales penetration of 9.9% in 2021, and a GMV of COP 771 million.
Finally, higher contribution from complementary businesses benefited by the lifting of restrictions during the year in the countries of operation.
In addition to the rise in sales, our gross revenue improved 30 basis points over the quarter and 80 basis points over the year. Our expenses grew below inflation across all the countries where Grupo Éxito operates. That was because of the gain in efficiency of our stores, operationally speaking. As a result of those effects, the Éxito Group performed greatly financially with an adjusted EBITDA in Q4 2021 of BRL 802 million, up 18.1% versus Q4 2020. Over the year, the EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin grew 0.5 percentage points versus 2020. With that, I've finished my presentation, and I'd like to turn the floor over to Jorge.
Thank you, Guillaume, and good morning, everyone.
I will quickly go over a few of our highlights, the highlights of our operations here in Brazil with Grupo Éxito, and also go over some of our future plans to give you an idea of where we are right now. It's important to talk to you about the new term that we're using, Novo GPA, which is GPA without some of our old supermarkets. This is a term we'll be using across the entire presentation. The demobilization of Extra Hiper, as Guillaume Gras said, gives us a lot of confidence that we made the right decision at the right time and did it the right way. This was something we did in record time. We emptied the store and, or pretty much emptied the over 70 stores that we had within that transaction. Guillaume Gras has shown you some of the timeline for that project.
We expect to have all of those stores or as many as 28 stores converted and for Mercado Extra, which is a really grand strategy and very complex as well. This was an extremely intense project for our team's management. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank our team because of what they did with this project. It really feels like flying a plane while building it. We are now at the last stretch with the empty stores, but really having some of the operations with Assaí. This is essentially a page that we've turned with our operation, and we now have the entire team focused on Novo GPA or New GPA. With that, we re-dimension and streamline the company significantly. This was a resizing that was proportionally larger than what we had with our revenue.
Even thinking about the current times, it was a way of protecting us in terms of expenses. Now it's time to look forward. We wanna look at our profitable plans and our expansion plans. Just to give you some more details about our plan, we consider our expansion plans like a locomotive. It takes a while until it picks up speed. Expansions often rely on or depend on licenses. There are a number of regulatory aspects, but I'd like to tell you that this train, this locomotive, has started to pick up steam. Last year, we delivered 13 proximity stores. Especially with Minuto Pão de Açúcar, in 2022, we expect to deliver around at least 50 additional stores. Thirteen in 2021, plus all of these this year.
We have a number of stores on our pipeline, many of which are already in the last stretch headed toward delivery. We also delivered a store within the state of São Paulo, the city of Limeira. Right now, we have 14 Pão de Açúcar projects already in protocol at the several levels of government with the city or in negotiations with the landlords. We have another 14 conversions underway. Over the course of this period, we are not giving the exact date with Pão de Açúcar, but we expect to, starting in the second half of the year, to see some of these Pão de Açúcar stores come out within our expansion plan. Bearing in mind that our expansion plan through 2024 includes at least 100 proximity stores and 100 stores in the Pão de Açúcar format.
It's good to remember that Pão de Açúcar is also accounting for about 43% of our sales, not considering Minuto Pão de Açúcar. Pão de Açúcar already accounts for 43%, and we expect it to account over 50% of our sales within the new GPA. On the digital front, I have two charts here I will go over very quickly. We're very proud of the figures we've attained. We came to BRL 107 billion in 2021. Bear in mind that in 2020, our base was already strong, and we grew 53% over 2020. I'm really proud of that work. This is a transformation journey, and we know that in the Brazilian market, the share of grocery on in online sales is very low.
I wanna talk a little bit more about our partnerships and how we came to these figures last year. Let's finish this chart. I'd like to say that Novo GPA Brazil, as we said, had growth by 2.3%, which is below inflation, with a decrease in volume, with an external macroeconomic environment that's very challenging. It shows that we are going through a rebound and seeing figures that are much better than we had in the third quarter of 2021, especially with Pão de Açúcar, which has clearly gained a market share that's very representative. Mercado Extra and Compre Bem in their markets of operation has consolidated with a double-digit growth in this fourth quarter of the year, it really cemented itself in that period.
Although low because of the challenging environment, this is a growth rate that's higher than that of other retailers that have all released their results recently. With Pão de Açúcar, Proximity, Minuto, and Compre Bem, the new GPA stands as a neighborhood grocery business that provides services and is very strong in perishables and produce and has a good level of service and preserves the entire consumer journey. It's important to highlight that because neighborhood retailers or neighborhood retail stores are more stable in services and consequently in results as well. Now a little bit about digital. In 2019, we sold BRL 360 million, give or take. We had that really impressive tailwind coming to BRL 17 million sales.
Now in 2021, we are already at BRL 1.7 billion. That BRL 1.7 billion represented about 8% of our overall sales, and we reached an impressive milestone of about 1 million orders a month. It's important to highlight that unlike other digital players in the Brazilian market, our order includes about 30-40 items per order. If you multiply 10 million by 40 items, we're talking about over 400 million items that were shipped via our e-commerce. These are very impressive figures, but still very on a baby steps stage. We have a lot to do. Our current running rate is at about BRL 2 billion. We're coming into 2022, still growing over 2021, and our strategy is to continue on that trend.
Unlike the stability levels we're seeing on the market or even some of our competitors seeing a decrease in their digital sales. Moving forward, our ecosystem, as we always say, is increasingly more focused, especially on our strategies that we call 1P. Our 1P currently accounts for 70% of our online sales, and it's important to highlight that. When I say 1P, I mean Pão de Açúcar ponto com, James Delivery and Extra ponto com, which really has allowed us to navigate market trends, and we wanna take a leading role in a number of other trends. One of those trends is the ultra convenience, which are deliveries completed before 30 minutes. We already have a few pilot products running with both James and Pão de Açúcar. We are going into WhatsApp sales as well.
We already have 11% of sales with Grupo Éxito on that front. Here in Brazil, we are launching a WhatsApp plan that's structured with a simplified navigation, not necessarily with a human being behind the scenes. This is something we'll be launching between third and fourth quarter. WhatsApp is another frontier in digitalization, and not all customers are skillful in using an app, so WhatsApp will bring new digital customers to our stores. OMS, for example, our order management system, is also playing a part in the dark stores we're launching. Those will be launched in three different areas, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, and Salvador. We also have a new initiative that unlocks the value in digital, which is what we call hub stores.
In that case, customers will place an order in the Clube Extra, and a Pão de Açúcar store will actually conclude that delivery. That's our hub store project. A number of initiatives always based on a flawless service level. We currently have over 90% on-time fulfillment in that alternative, and we tend to exceed 95% soon. Another one of our very successful initiative is with our partnerships. We already have six partners locked in, and our mission is to become the number one seller of all our partners in food items. Our focus is to be wherever the customer is. If the customer is seeking convenience with iFood, we plan to be on iFood, providing a very high level of service compared to our competitors, all within the same app.
One of these initiatives we're talking about, which is also an ultra convenience plan, includes the Ultra Fast last mile, but also other fronts. We're negotiating new contracts, and we will be releasing them very soon within this new initiative. Our 3P marketplace has seen a shift in route. As opposed to working in a more generalist market, we are planning to specialize in six different categories. Just as other retailers in Brazil are specializing in a market segment, we plan to specialize in seven market segments: wine, artisanal and special beers, distilled and other types of beverages. This is the specialties we are planning to enter in.
Just one example, to give you an idea, we want all manufacturers, small as they may be, maybe even domestic beer manufacturers, we want them to have the opportunity to sell their product on our website and within the platforms we're working. That's one example of a complementary vertical within what we're talking about.
Within our system, I have to mention our loyalty programs. Our loyalty programs, they already account for 82% of our sales. This is very significant in our total revenue. We have an extremely good database of our consumer, and we always use our database to monetize our business. One of the highlights of the last quarter was the Stix program. We initiated it together with our partner, Raia Drogasil, and this started in the middle of last year. There was a redemption directly at the checkout. Therefore, the customer can redeem BRL 10, BRL 50, BRL 20 in the checkout, and this provides discounts to their grocery shops. This initiative was very successful. We and Stix, during its first year of existence, presented a break-even that we only expected for the second year, and we were able to achieve this in the first year.
It's a program that it has 10% of breakage. For those that follow this market, this is very important. Our philosophy is to have a Stix program that fosters retail and not to make money because the points expire. At the end of the month, we had over 1 million redemptions of premiums, awards, or discounts. This is extremely significant in volume of redemption. This is the biggest loyalty program in Brazil in redemption volume. Our redemptions have a lower value, but this already provides momentum to this program. Now, the mission of Stix of 2022 is to increase the coalition ecosystem and not only work with GPA, Raia Drogasil. We want more partners. We want to broaden to other segments in the Brazilian retail, and we want this to be a currency to be used all over Brazil.
This is one of the highlights of our quarters. Next slide, please. Now the highlights from Brazil. We registered 2.3% growth in same-store sales. This is a clear recovery of trends. Although within our challenging scenario regarding, well, the exit from the hypermarket shows how assertive we were in our decisions. Our main drivers, especially in Pão de Açúcar, would be an improvement in our assortment, a plan of retrofits. In 2021, we carried out 50 retrofits during the second semester of last year. In 2022, in addition to the conversion of 28 Extra Hiper stores, we will retrofit all our Pão de Açúcar. This is what we're going to do with the proceeds of our transaction. These are 130 stores refurbished using the G7 format. Now, our expansion plan, I already mentioned.
These are 100 stores by the end of 2024 in all formats. We always strengthen Minuto Pão de Açúcar. That is a winning format, profitable format, and with great potential in Brazil. Now, this is for the scale-up of the format, not only in São Paulo, but also in other regions of the country. Now going to Colombia's highlights. Grupo Éxito's highlights. Number one, it is very important to talk about the significant recovery during the second semester of last year. Grupo Éxito, the Colombian economy followed a different pace when you compare it to the Brazilian economy. Its economy grew more. Grupo Éxito surfed this wave. They didn't only gain together with all the Colombian market, but they gained in share, which is very important in this segment.
This was a quarter with gains above inflation, with an improvement of revenue profitability, and this growth was leveraged by three main factors. Number one was the growth through innovative formats like Éxito WOW, Carulla Fresh. We've mentioned this in a number of quarters. The second pillar of growth was that they strengthened their omni-channel. The growth in digital was very significant. As a third point here, the recovery of the real estate businesses inside Colombia. Colombia is the biggest operator of real estate, of shopping malls in the country. Éxito also is growing significantly in gross revenue 2.1 times greater than last year, and an increase of same-store sales was 15.6%. Moreover, we are talking about 57 stores that were opened or retrofitted in Colombia or Uruguay.
During the last quarter, we made an important agreement of five stores with the Almacenes La 14 network in the Cali region. Cali is the third biggest city in Colombia. This is a region where Grupo Éxito wasn't prominent. With five stores in the region in addition to Bogotá, Medellín, the second biggest city, we have an interesting representation. This is a city that has around 2.5 million inhabitants. This is a transaction that we would like to highlight to all of you during the last quarter. Now, when we see the digital side. Now, here in sales share 9.9, almost 10% of sales, reaching almost peaks of 12% of sales. The apps, the Éxito and Carulla apps reached more than 1.6 downloads and grew 22% when we compare it to 2020.
Driven by the partnerships with Tuya and Puntos Colombia, and also encouraged by Mi Descuento app, very similar to Meu Desconto in Brazil, which had more than 2.6 million coupons redeemed. The company in digital registered almost 8 million orders fulfilled together with Rappi. Now, this is 36% of share of the logistics platform by Grupo Éxito. Last year they launched ultra convenience with Turbo Fresh, which is a delivery in 10 minutes, which is highly accepted in Colombia. As we see in São Paulo now, the economic rebound of the country, the levels of real estate occupancy strengthened the business of the group, gains of market share, digital innovative formats. Éxito continues being an excellent business because it generates cash, net profit, and in terms of debt, it is very important for our group.
Now, this week, the shares of Éxito during the earnings release result, well, their shares were impacted. They grew significantly in the Colombian exchange, and the market cap is around BRL 8.2 billion. It is always interesting to mention this because they are part of the company's assets, and it's always good to update you regarding these facts. To end my presentation and to embark in our Q&A session, I would like to highlight our ESG. Well, ESG and GPA is not something new. These. We've for the past two decades have had a robust agenda, as it should be with all Brazilian retailers that should mobilize a value chain to have a more sustainable and inclusive society. Here we have the main highlights of the fourth quarter.
Here solidly we can show you figures, and I want you to pay attention to these figures that are very important. One, we're talking about our power consumption in Brazil is already at 88% of our power is consumed through the free market, which allows us to help climate change. Now, the greenhouse gas emissions dropped 7%. This is very important as well. Now, regarding diversity and inclusion, 30% of our leadership positions are occupied by women. We are very proud of these figures, and there are a number of development programs, both in female leadership and also the development of Black employees. I would like to thank the partnership with Zumbi dos Palmares University, that has helped us a lot during the last quarter. We had 131 graduations from our Black population. Now, regarding the social side. This was an important year.
We ended 2021 with 5,000 tons of donations of food. This is around if we would transform this in trailers, this would be over 200 trailers full of food during the entire year. This is in partnership with our customers. Our customers donate to our stores and our operational team, our logistics mobilizes themselves, and they take this food to over 350 social institutions in Brazil. This is a significant figure, and we're highlighting this today. Éxito. We had more than 20,000 tons of store back waste recycled during 2021. Carulla FreshMarket will have a carbon neutral seal. 21 stores were recertified in 2021. Regarding diversity and inclusion, the number of women in leadership position is close to GPA, like around 36%.
Éxito consistently works through their foundation, totaling around reaching more than 70,000 children benefited from Gen Cero. We're very proud of this program, and I would like to congratulate Éxito for their commitment. Now our final messages and our key points here. Now we've turned the page on the hypermarkets in Brazil. It is important that we are totally focused on the foundation of retail, neighborhood retail, a retail market that preserves the experience of the consumer, even improving it. Here we have recovered the RX, but there is a rebound of our expansion. We are strengthening the premium concept of this banner. This is a banner that strongly stands out as soon as Brazil pulls out of a more sensible or sensitive economic downturn. Now here you can see our results in all e-commerce, proximity stores or the stores.
Our structure is simplified. We practically have a level of expenses which is adapted to the new GPA. This is a company that took a step backwards to take two step forwards. Grupo Éxito is a group that not only this year, but has always taught us a lot, has provided us a lot of experience with a Latin American benchmarking of operation, an example of retail practices not only for Latin America, but globally together, not only with their practices. They have provided great results and excellent cash flow for the company.
Well, that's what I had from my part, and I'll stay here for our Q&A session. Thank you.
We will now start our question-and-answer session. Bearing in mind that to ask a question, you should click the Q&A icon on the bottom side of your screen and write your question to enter the line. When your name comes up, a pop-up will come on your screen, and you must accept to come on the screen and ask your question. We'd like to request that all questions be asked at once. Let's hear our first question. It comes from Danniela Eiger, sell-side analyst from XP. Danniela, we will open your microphone. Please, you may proceed.
Hello, everyone. Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have a few of them, actually. The first one, if you could please talk about the trend in the market early this year. We've heard calls from other players in the market with a different positioning than yours, but they've heard this start of the year has been better than the fourth quarter of last year. I wanted to hear from you how it's been like. Also I wanted to hear not only about the Pão de Açúcar brand, but also Extra and other brands that didn't perform as well as those two. If you could talk about this, that'd be great. My second question is, what do you guys see on the horizon in terms of normalized income for the new GPA Brazil?
You've mentioned or went over the background in 2021, but I wanted to hear what you guys see as a potential for 2022 after the Extra stores that were converted into Pão de Açúcar. We wanna just have an idea about that.
Thank you for your question, Danniela. I will cover part of the answers, and then I'll turn over to Guillaume, who will talk about the sales. The start of this year is still very volatile and warrants a lot of caution. We are still facing the effects of high inflation and also consumers decreased income. I would say that this is a slightly unstable or unsteady start of the year for us. It's been improving in recent weeks. The start of January was a bit more challenging, but things have been improving in recent weeks. As I said, still a quite volatile scenario. This is a week that includes a carnival holiday, which will not involve parades or parties as usual, but it will be a holiday that's a holiday like we've had last year.
We expect good results for this period. We will also have the Easter month, which is a very representative for our sales, but this is not a quarter where we're expecting significant recovery for the scenario in general. As I said before, we have already turned the page from an operational perspective with the Extra groups, and we're really focused on curtailing our expenses and paying close attention to the profitability challenge and control the profitability within our neighborhood retail, as I mentioned, which includes Extra, Mercado Extra and Compre Bem. Mercado Extra has sort of fluctuated in its performance. Because this is a store that services people with lower income, it has a share of promotional sales that's higher, and it suffers from effects of the competition.
There are areas where the competition is really strong in their promotional sales and others, where the competition is following more of a profitability step. Its performance is quite erratic. We have regions that are growing by double digits with Mercado Extra, with huge sales from clients that came from the hypermarket. There are areas where we did not have a hypermarket, and those are struggling a bit more. Now, Extra and Compre Bem are formats that are not very digitalized. Part of our strategy for Mercado Extra and Compre Bem is to make them logistical distribution hubs. We had that in some of our stores, and it's our main strategy right now, to have the digital sale warehousing focused on these stores and to place them on a different level of digital participation compared to what they had last year.
Could you talk about the profitability side of the question, Guillaume, please?
Of course. We expect our EBITDA in the continuing operations to stay above 90%. We've already signaled in our release what we see as a pro forma result with an EBITDA of 8.1%. That's the early indication. For 2022, it's important to highlight that we'll be facing a transitional period in the first half of the year. We first need to finish readapting GPA in its logistical network and also IT structure. We also have to conclude our program to convert 26-28 stores. In 2022, we'll be going through this transitional period in the first half. In midyear, we expect to see our profitability levels go back to normal, which would be about 8%.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question comes from Marcella Recchia, sell-side analyst from Credit Suisse. Marcella, we will now open your microphone so you can ask your question. Please, you may proceed.
Good morning, Jorge and Guillaume. A few quick questions. The first one is about the pro forma results of GPA Brazil. Could you explain to us what's behind the 60 basis point decrease in your gross margin that makes up for 20% of your EBITDA margin? And what are the main initiatives in terms of more efficiency and spending curtailment? How will that affect your EBITDA margin? That's my first question. The second question is about same-store sales, also considering GPA Brazil, ex hypermarkets and drugstores. We saw a performance that was even better than the rest of the industry, considering a weaker economic period.
I'd like to hear from you, what do you think that improved performance can be attributed to, and what can we expect for the next few months? Thank you.
Thank you, Marcella. Jorge, if you could take the first part.
Well, you could take that.
Well, the gross margin change that you saw within Novo GPA, which is 60 basis points, is caused by two main effects. First of all, inflation, which was not 100% passed along to customers, and the effect of emptying out hyper stores. To adjust the level of inventories in the stores, we had to make that change, and that affected our profitability in other stores. These are two points that we should recover over the course of the first half of the year.
Perfect. Thank you. Marcella, from the performance standpoint, our performance has slightly improved.
Of course, we are not satisfied yet with how much we're losing in terms of volume, but the improvement has to do with a few elements. There was no bulletproof or there was no silver bullet that improved everything. One thing was that with Pão de Açúcar, we recovered a lot of our assortment, a lot from our assortment that had been reduced. You're now once again finding a few items that we had removed from our shelves over the past few years. We also stabilized our logistical network a little bit better. Our disruptions were eliminated by about 30% with Pão de Açúcar. This was because of a very technical program and a very technical work with our suppliers, and also an increase in perishables. Fruit, ready meals. This was a category that increased a lot with us. Bakery.
Our bakery is seen as one of the best bakeries, one of the best bakery lines in Brazil. The fourth element has more to do with our digital operation. Our growth in digital is obviously we do not have a precise gauge of our online sales. Our brick-and-mortar sales are what's really delivered those products to customers. The digital front is what helped us in that omni-channel strategy that we are adopting.
That was perfect, Guillaume and Jorge. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Eric Huang, sell-side analyst from Santander. Eric, we will open your microphone so you can ask your question now. Please, you may proceed.
Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking our questions. We have two. First, I would like you to talk about your proximity format. This was an interesting highlight over the course of Q3.
I'd like to hear from you what you see as the main driver of those results, and what do you guys expect in terms of the competitive environment in this industry? We're seeing more networks, both local and international, so we wanted to hear what you expect on that front. Now with regard to Éxito. The Éxito Mall and Carulla FreshMarket added a significant incremental sales rate. I wanted to hear about the expansion format. What you guys can tell us about these innovative models? Can we expect them to be more open? What would conversions look like? If you could share something about the Éxito group as well, that would be great.
Thank you, Eric. It's a pleasure. With regard to proximity, we are now starting to scale our model.
This is a model where our profit is near two digits in the EBITDA margin. This is a format that's performing a lot better with Minuto Pão de Açúcar than with Mini Extra. Minuto Pão de Açúcar has a value proposition that was a really good fit with the proposition for customers. This is one that's more focused on supplying and replenishing stocks than to a convenience store model. This is sort of the neighborhood grocery store as opposed to a convenience store that as those you see in gas stations. This is a value proposition that's aligned with good profitability. We found the balance from the real estate standpoint, from the logistical standpoint, because the logistics for these formats is very complicated, and we have a very important brand recall that we rely on for growth on those lines.
These are our distinguishing factors when compared to the competition. Obviously, we are paying very close attention to what the competition is doing. We have great respect for all of those players. But granted, the profitability with this format is not something that's simple to achieve. We're mostly looking at them, but also focused on our expansion, looking at the main points that present a great possibility to grow in that front. Now, with regard to Extra, I'll turn over to Carlos Mario Giraldo, who will answer your question.
In this size, Éxito WOW stores, including the six hypermarkets that we are receiving from La Catorce. In Carulla, now the FreshMarket represents 45% of the total brand sales. It has an ROI of 10%. Sales of those stores that have opened more than 24 months ago have grown 30% against 16% of the pool growth of the Carulla brand. Our full potential for Carulla is around 80 stores that will also be done in 4 years or 5 years. Of those, we will be doing around 12 this year and between 10 and 12. Here we include those that we call full fresh, that is big stores of more than 1,200 meters. The other half of the Carulla fresh market would be mid-size Carullas.
That really are driving growth and are driving market share in Colombia.
Very clear.
Our next question from João Soares. He is an analyst from Citibank. João, we will enable your microphone so you can pose your question. You may go on.
Well, good morning. Jorge Faical, how could you elaborate on the digital channel, which is extremely significant for you and you're evolving on a number of fronts: partnerships, dark stores. When we see things in the medium run, how representative will the channel be now that you have the funds after selling your hypermarkets? I believe that you will accelerate your investment on this front. You will invest in CIC. How do you see the evolution of the channel? And what about the profitability on this channel now that there are the higher number of clicks? Could you elaborate on this?
Thank you for your question. Number one, this business represents around 10% of our billion.
It accounts for 9-something currently. Many times I am asked, "But how much does this account for in GPA?" Well, we still do not know exactly the future share. Nonetheless, we know that in Brazil, the sale represents 1.5, approximately, give or take, of our grocery in Brazil, and in Brazil around 6.5%-7%. The U.S., five times more share in grocery and digital than in the Brazilian market. There is no doubt that our share will be similar to that of the U.S. in 4 years or 5 years, give or take. This market will 4-fold or 5-fold. Well, it's not by chance. Yeah, of course, there are many investors that want part of this pie. Here we see a multiplication of last-mile companies that want to embark in grocery.
Now, João, this is not easy to manage groceries, logistics. It's not easy to work with fresh products that have a short expiration date. It's not easy to do the last mile logistics. You need an infrastructure of distribution centers that are close to the consumer. Three, picking is very important. To work with the picking of a product for the consumer is not simple science. Now, we are strongly investing in technology. We are strongly investing in management so that we differentiate ourselves in these three fronts with picking, with technology, where things are done in an agile way and a simple way, and in a productive way. Point number two, the location of our fixed assets, physical assets. I'm one step ahead of all of these companies that are growing in the country because we already have this.
When I see the multiplication of dark stores in Brazil, we have our brick-and-mortar stores that are totally prepared to be distribution centers and acquisition costs. Well, there is always. There is a complex logic. Many times the acquisition cost is assumed by GPA when we create partnership of these companies. Part of the cost goes to the last milers, not to us. Many times we share the acquisition cost. The cost of acquisition goes to the platform and to us. There is an entire dynamic for that, for the time being, is providing us good profitability. Our profitability was one digit, which is high in e-commerce. This is an incremental profit. This is why there's no reason not to scale. Our digital scalability will go through all the points that I've mentioned in the past, and we will rapidly scale, of course, within our authority boundaries.
That would be food, right?
Thank you, Jorge Faical. Just a quick follow-up on the question. As you recognize the multiplication of last mile platforms and dark stores coming from abroad, creating their operations in Brazil, aren't you bearing in mind some M&As to accelerate a number of capabilities?
Okay, we have James, right? We purchased James. James is an important platform in our revenue. James would be like in quotes, a strategic reserve for us, because the learning curve that we have in this segment, in this market, is applied to James and is also applied to our 1P platform. Now what we're doing aren't M&As. What we are doing, what we're creating are sound strategic partnerships with these last milers.
It is more advantageous for these companies to use GPA as a retailer, as a service, instead of spending money and leasings with dark stores or have, for example, potatoes that spoil in their inventory. We have partnership with Omni Refill. They sell through their platform to the consumer, but GPA sells the product to Omni Refill and also is in charge of the logistic operation for Omni Refill. This is an interesting example of our positioning as retailer, as a service. We're following more or less the path of strategic partnerships instead of M&As.
Thank you, Jorge Faical, for your answer.
Our next question from Joseph Giordano from J.P. Morgan. Joseph, we're going to enable your microphone so you can pose your question. You may go on, Joseph.
Good morning, Jorge Faical. Good morning, Guillaume Gras, Carlos Mario Giraldo.
Thank you for taking my question. These are three blocks that I would like to explore together with you. Number one would be within the strategic alternatives of the group. We've seen a certain relevant movement from the purchaser in order to simplify the operations. I'm talking about crossed operations. On one side we have a buyback announced by Éxito, but we have an Éxito and a Cnova that are under GPA. What do you expect from here on now that the leverage that was a concern that the Brazilian holding had has been approached by the cash that you will receive from Assaí? Another question would be if it makes sense within the entire market context and all the changes the receivable of Assaí. I would like to know about the consolidation as well.
You've talked about the competition, and I would like to know if it would make sense to carry out an M&A to accelerate more. I would like to know if an M&A would make sense so that your operation becomes a more national operation. I know that we have lots of stores, but this is mostly focused in São Paulo. Going back to consolidator apps, I would like to understand how you see the profitability of the business in the long run, because customers are migrating more to apps and platforms and they are no longer loyal to these banners. Although we have companies that have good assortment, I believe that there could be a shrinkage of your margin. I would like to know how you see this.
Guillaume, would you like to answer and talk about the simplification side? Joseph, thank you for your question.
Number one, it is important to answer in order here. Our first stage would be to end the hyper transaction and to exit this format that will deleverage the group, and this prepares us for the upcoming steps. Therefore, we're focused on this currently, and we expect to end this movement by the end of Q1. After all of this, now obviously, we, today, have nothing to share with you. We have no projects to announce, but as a matter of fact, the hyper stage is the first foundation to think about the future. We want to sell our share in Cnova, and we are waiting for better market conditions to sell our share at a good price. We do not have a timeline regarding these actions, but we continue with this intention to sell our share of Cnova. Now, regarding Éxito.
Well, there is a possibility of future actions in our share, but nothing. We can't communicate or disclose anything right now regarding this point. Now, what about the anticipation of accounts receivables of Assaí?
Thank you, Jorge, again. We have analyzed this possibility, and I would like to remind you that in our financial results, we recognize interest rates in the installments that have been agreed upon with Assaí. So the impact of the financial result, well, here we've already captured the interest rates of this transaction. Joseph, I didn't understand your question regarding Pão de Açúcar. You posed a question regarding Pão de Açúcar's expansion. You are properly capitalized, and I would like to know if it would make sense to accelerate more and to bear in mind an M&A. This is a national operation, but strongly focused in São Paulo.
We do not set aside M&As, but there is nothing on our horizon. Currently, we are following the organic expansion path for this premium format that has to be located in premium neighborhoods with properties that are more expensive. This is a slow pathway, but is more solid from the financial point of view, and the returns are more guaranteed through organic growth. We are going to grow organically, not only in the state of São Paulo. There are a number of projects outside of the state of São Paulo. Nonetheless, as I said, our main expansion area would be to saturate the existing cities.
We are now sometimes in talks with small networks with 2 stores, 3 stores or 4 stores. We believe this type of M&A could be simpler and we could advance on that front. Major regional networks are not a part of the conversation currently. Now, with regard to profitability with e-commerce, that's interesting because unlike other business, e-commerce is one part of the business where we will revise and review our plan maybe every 6 years or even less. One year ago, for example, essentially, no one was working on the last mile within the country, and now you have over 20 companies. What we do believe in is, first of all, these are assumptions. These are golden rules we adopt within our business when looking into the future.
Two of them are profitability within e-commerce and a high level of service, or a high-level service. These are our two golden rules. How to have profitability when competition is increasing, which was your question. Well, we will play alongside these players. We will work through them as well or with them, which plays into our partnership proposal. We know that many of these platforms have a sustainable plan because of their venture capital, but with a very challenging P&L. They have to generate a large customer base with a very high cost. Once these companies switch the key to positive P&L rates, then the industry will undergo a consolidation process. These companies are playing the month-by-month game, and currently we've been very successful in the game we're playing with them.
Our next question comes from Vinicius Strano, sell-side analyst with UBS. Vinicius, we will now activate your microphone so you can ask your question. Please, you may proceed.
Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. Could you guys give us more details about the economics of the stores that were converted to the G7 model? How do you see store productivity, sales by square meter and margins for these model compared to the margins for other models? And with regard to Éxito, how can we think about their margin trend moving forward, perhaps thinking about the more accelerated growth for narrow margin models?
Thank you for your question, Vinicius. Once we convert our stores to G7, they see an increase by 6 points-7 points over a comparable base.
Speaking obviously from a sales standpoint, that reflects or that mirrors the sales by square meter. We use essentially the same base for the two. Now, from a margin perspective, it has a higher share of perishables, which is a category with margins that are above average. Their margins are higher than what the same category had before, virtually 1 point-2 points higher in gross terms, but it also brings an increase in expenses by about 1 point-2 points. In percentage terms, it sort of stabilizes, but because it gains 6 points-7 points in sales, it obviously gains 5 points-7 points in cash. This is something that really stimulates us and really helps us to bring corporate costs down. It has quite fast return on investment. I'll let Carlos answer the rest.
The average. On the other side, we have a very strong conversion plan in WOW and Fresh, which have the best margin of the brands. Also we have the positive contribution of our complementary businesses, which is in a very good trend of improvement. That is our Tuya Financial business and our real estate business to only speak about two of the most important ones.
Perfect. That was perfect, guys. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Bob Ford, sell-side analyst with Bank of America. Bob, we will activate your microphone, so please proceed.
Jorge, could you talk about the effects caused by the competition and also the level of elasticity that you're seeing at your construction work? And could you also talk about your figures with Mercado Libre and any of the benefits that translate to your operations outside that channel as well?
Thank you for your question, Bob. A pleasure to speaking with you. Well, we work with relatively more stable competition levels than the rest of the market, both with Extra and Pão de Açúcar. We are now seeing a stability in our promo share levels.
That share is about 25% in each one of these businesses, which for the current time period is a significant and healthy rate for the Brazilian market. In the past, Pão de Açúcar had promo share levels of 15%-20%. We're now working with about 25%. We work with a competitiveness level versus self-service and regular prices at around 103%-105%. But it's always interesting to have a broader view of our portfolio and thinking about our generosity towards customers. Because Pão de Açúcar has its 105% in competitiveness level, its regular promotional sales. But to our most loyal customers, we have what we call My Discount, which adds an incremental discount. The more loyal the customer is to Pão de Açúcar, the higher the discounts they have.
The more loyal they are, the more Stix they receive, for example, and those tickets are converted into discounts on purchases. I'd say that this level of competitiveness at about 100% is more or serves more to customers who are only occasional buyers of our product. The most loyal customers have a significant level of discounts, which also help them to continue to be loyal to our brand. Now, about Mercado Libre. This is one partnership we're very satisfied, very happy with. We're still working in a grocery environment with dry foods. We have about 1-2,000 SKUs with them, and we are poised to start very soon a movement to include our fresh products as well. We have started to run a few pilots as well, and we plan to start selling fresh food with them as well over the next few months.
I can't tell you exactly when. There are some interesting things about this. One is about 80% of our sales with Mercado Libre take place in areas outside of where we have our stores. One example is the city of Belo Horizonte. We have a very interesting level of sales in Belo Horizonte, where we have no Pão de Açúcar stores. It's a learning curve and mutual learning in this case, this is proving to be a very much of a win-win partnership.
That's very interesting, Jorge. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Gustavo Fratini, sell-side analyst with Goldman Sachs. Gustavo, you may proceed.
Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Just following up on a previous question, it was clear to me that this effect that has pressured your gross margin over the quarter was a one-off.
I'd like to understand how you see your bargaining power as compared to the competition moving forward, and how can we think about your gross margin prospects moving forward? And if you could also address your working capital issue, looking at this maybe lower scale in the near term, how could that affect your working capital, especially your accounts payable? Thank you.
That was a very interesting question, Gustavo. Thank you. Well, with regard to our bargaining power, we've talked about this a lot before announcing our transaction. Obviously, we are keeping a close eye on that. Things might change when compared to our prospects, but we're still a $20 million company when it comes to sales. We are bigger than the retail side of our main competitor.
We are much bigger than the number three in the Brazilian market, and incomparably bigger when we talk about regional competitors. This is why one of the arguments we believe we will not lose bargaining power. We work with very high volumes in sales and across all categories, whether it's a more commoditized product or a more structured, more of a modern trade category, so to speak. Another important factor is, as I showed you before, if you add Minuto Pão de Açúcar and Pão de Açúcar, the Pão de Açúcar brand accounts for over 50% of our business today. The Pão de Açúcar brand is a huge trendsetter in consumer goods, groceries in Brazil. It is sort of a flagship in branding for our competitors and our customers. We've helped launch a number of new brands in the market.
We do not expect that to change. Our strength with the share of Pão de Açúcar is going up, which may even increase our bargaining power with some suppliers in some categories. We're building a very close relationship and a very close partnership with many of our suppliers, and this is something I'm very thankful for. I'm thankful for their partnership during this transition period, this one-off result that we had. Our partners really accepted our offers, and we know we can build very interesting business going into the future. Now, about our working capital. We feel we're in a very comfortable position.
It's interesting to understand that although we have reduced the company from BRL 29 billion to BRL 20 billion in earnings at the end of 2021, we moved out of a few major categories that generated a very negative impact on working capital, especially electronics, our non-food categories, our fashion and textile category, where we had 150 days- 120 days to cover the stock. Although we've reduced about 30% in terms of revenue, our inventories are about 50% smaller or 50% lower than what we had previously, which allows us a more comfortable level of working capital. Not that comfortable, but certainly more comfortable than what we had before when negotiating with our suppliers. I don't know if you have anything to add, Guillaume.
Of course. Well, with regard to payment terms to our suppliers, on the food side, they remain the same. We've seen no deterioration in payment terms to suppliers. Now, on the inventory level, we have started to readjust our inventory levels, and the expected impact on our working capital in 2022 is about -BRL 500 million because of the positive working capital we had, thanks to our hypermarkets which we are now concluding their demobilization. It will be about -BRL 500 million.
Thank you. That was very clear.
Our next question comes from João Paulo Andrade, sell-side analyst with Bradesco BBI. João Paulo, we will activate your microphone so you can ask your question. Please, you may proceed.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. This is a very quick and simple question. When we think about the expansion outside of São Paulo, what are the main challenges regarding logistics and customer experience and even margins? Could you give us qualitative numbers or quantitative numbers? What is your expectation here?
João, thank you for your question. Quantitatively, I'm not going to mention a lot because there are a lot of things in our pipeline. Our expansion outside of São Paulo in cities where we already have operations, this is our first strategy. The situations, therefore, we have interesting operations in Brasília. We also have good operations in Rio. We have operations in Recife, Fortaleza, where we already have distribution centers and a logistics network to increase the amount of cities opened in these cities and these regions.
I would say that this is our main strategy now to open operation where we still do not have. A logistic network is more complex, and this would be a second stage, actually, and we will start thinking about this as of 2023. Basically this is it. I don't know if I missed part of your question. If I did, please. I do apologize.
You're right. It's excellent. Thank you.
The Q&A session has come to an end. Now, I would like to hand it over for the final remarks from our company.
Well, once again, I would like to thank all of you for your attention. We have an hour and a half of conversations. Our business as it is, a Brazilian and multinational business, well, it is more complex, right? Therefore, I do thank you for your time and your attention. Brief comments.
We are going through a low sales scenario despite our recovery, our rebound. We are reacting as a new GPA. The macroeconomic scenario presents more inflation. The inflation continues high. The income of our population is recovering at baby steps. We have a presidential race ahead of us. This is a year full of volatility. Until we can interpret the electoral year, we will continue among oscillations. There are also factors that hinder our debt. That would be high interest rates. Selic interest rates are around 11%-12%. Therefore, these are factors with a challenging environment in the short run. Now, this is valid for GPA and for the market. This is not something that only affects us. This affects the entire market. Now, internally, we are undergoing a transition. We intend to go through this transition the quickest possible.
We had an excellent delivery from our teams when we closed the Extras, but we still have 28-30 stores to be converted until the first half of the year. The transition, the re-dimensioning of the company, reducing our logistic network represents challenges internally. Therefore, we are going through a moment of external and internal challenges. Now, in the mid run, when we start thinking about the second semester where transition is left behind, where we will have a more clear electoral situation and a recovery or a rebound of the population's income, we are reassured with our business model and what we're building together with our partners and shareholders. This is a value proposition which is robust, focused on profitable business, focused on value to our consumers. We're absolutely sure that as soon as the economy recovers, well, GPA will launch itself in the forefront.
Together with all of our foundations, we will be valued. Something that we consider fair. I would like to thank everyone, thank the GPA team. I am grateful for all of your efforts, and there is still a lot to do from here on.
Thank you very much. Our video conference has come to an end. The IR department is at your disposal to answer any questions you may have. Thank you very much to the attendees, and have an excellent day.