Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vamos Conference Call to discuss its results for the third quarter of 2024. Today with us at this conference call are Gustavo Couto, Chief Executive Officer of Vamos, and José Cesário, Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer. This conference call is being recorded, and the replay will be available on the company's website, ri.grupovamos.com.br. The presentation is already available for download in Portuguese and English. We would like to inform you that all participants will be in listen-only mode during the presentation. We will then start the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. Before moving on, we would like to let you know that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business outlook, projections, operating, and financial goals represent the beliefs and assumptions of Vamos Management and are based on information currently available to the company.
Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions since they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. General economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors may affect the company's future results and lead to results that will differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Now, we are going to hand over to Gustavo Couto, who will begin the presentation. Mr. Couto, you may go on.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call for the fourth of 2024. Let me begin with slide one, highlighting three main messages.
First, following this spin-off of the dealership business at the end of 2024, we started a new cycle with more focus and dedication to the leasing segment, a leaner structure allowing us to allocate our resources to continue to develop the heavy vehicle leasing business in Brazil with larger scale and building competitive advantages that reinforce our unique positioning in the sector. Our 2024 results were solid. The results we're sharing have a comparable basis, excluding the dealership segment, which was a spinoff, to provide you more transparency. Adjusted net income increased by 57% compared to 2023, reaching R$ 780 million. Adjusted EBITDA, R$ 3.4 billion, up 32% year over year. Also, record sales of used vehicles, R$ 705 million, up 34% from the previous year. Finally, we are confident in the opportunities ahead and fully aware of the challenges that will come.
We ended the year with a strong cash position and see the opportunity to keep the pace of growth in the generation of new leasing contracts. While executing a much smaller net capex, we are going to renew and extend contracts with customers using assets already in operation. As a material fact issued in the end of 2024, we project to have $1 billion in new leasing contracts in Sempre Novo, which are already part of our available fleet. In addition, we'll continue selling more used vehicles in our own network and through partners that grow every day. This means increased operational efficiency, higher fleet utilization, lower working capital, and inventory levels. As a result, our need for new capital or net capex will be the lowest in recent years, BRL 2.1 billion.
In other words, as already announced, we'll sign a similar volume of leasing contracts compared to the past three years, but with less need for new investments, which should help reduce our leverage by the end of the year. On slide four, again, we show the spinoff of Vamos Concessionária, which now is part of Automob, as previously disclosed. Net revenue and EBITDA for 2024, both before and after the spinoff. Vamos Consolidated net revenue was $4.7 billion post-spinoff. It's important to mention the effect of tax-credit losses of $238 million, which has no short-term cash impact, as these were expected future credits. When brought to present value, they are about BRL 40 million based on estimates presented at the time of the transaction and presented to the shareholders meeting that approved the spinoff. The write-off is non-recurring and recorded under discontinued operations in our financial statements.
On slide five, we provide you a quick overview of our organizational structure after the spinoff. Customization business, BMB, and truck and van equipment manufacturer Truckv an continue to develop independently while benefiting from commercial synergies with Vamos. The leasing business operates with a lean, dedicated team focused on release, fleet management, and used vehicle centers. The leadership of Vamos is aligned to commitment to our short and long-term goals. Together with our team, we are confident that we have the right foundation and are in best conditions to take Vamos to the right level of operational efficiency, delivering strong results in the coming years using what was built before. On slide six, we have some additional information. First, our fleet profile. 79% of our leased assets and those that are available for lease or sales are trucks and road equipment.
The remainder, over half, 54%, are forklifts leased to the interlogistics sector, a segment in which we are market leaders with excellent credit quality customers. The rest includes agricultural and construction equipment. Second, on the right, we highlight our unique scale, pioneerism, and leadership in the sector shown through truck registrations over the past three years compared to competitors and new entrants. Vamos alone accounted for 59% of all truck registrations by leasing companies in Brazil. That is 50% more than the combined total of all other players. This naturally shows competitive advantages that are important for Vamos. Third, I want to point out the diversity of our sectors reflected in revenue contributions by sector, the quality of our customer portfolio. The largest sector includes traditional customers in companies that are referenced in ethanol, meat packing, and agribusiness, with 27.9%. Then we have transportation, industry, services, beverage, and energy sectors.
Grain transportation, especially in Brazil's Midwest, currently accounts for just 2.7% of our revenue based on the volumes we had for December 2024. On the right, we highlight a long list of customers with whom we have a strong relationship, most of them long-term. On slide seven, I start to highlight our biggest opportunities for 2025, shown in billions of reais. The chart shows the evolution of our gross fixed assets. The percentage above indicates the portion of this asset base generating revenue in each quarter. In other words, I'll call this indicator as lease or utilization rate. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we had a 90% lease utilization rate. This was even higher in prior years, above 95%. As our fixed base grew through recurring investments, the utilization rate fell. This was due to two key moments.
First, when we built up Euro 5 truck inventory, a strategic move that allowed us to acquire assets that appreciated a lot over the past years and helped us grow our customer base. As the company signed new contracts, the rate went up again when we had an important crisis, the grain transportation crisis, soy and corn, and a record of judicial recoveries in the Midwest. With that, the rate temporarily went down. In the last two quarters, we are improving this utilization rate. Now we are aiming at operating above 90% again, a realistic, achievable goal and not so distant, we expect. In a material fact at the end of last year, we said that part of our 2025 contract growth will come from leasing Sempre Novo assets.
As we deploy these assets with reduced inventory levels, we will improve this indicator, really contributing to our results in all our lines. The focus of our teams is to rent these liquid assets with pre-qualified customers, further driving operational efficiency. On slide eight, despite the evolution of the company we showed, we show the path of the new Vamos already excluding the dealership segment, using a comparable basis. This shows the strengths of what we delivered in the past six years, a rare evolution in the market with consistency, resilience, and continuous learning, and the certainty that we can do more and better. The foundation is built. The investments have been made. Now we are going to do more with less, higher returns, growth with less capital, more efficiency, and growth only under sustainable, profitable conditions.
Okay, now we'll hand it over to Cesário, who will give you more color on the results of 4Q 2024, and I'll come back for the closing remarks and the Q&A session.
Thanks, Couto. Good morning, everyone. Continuing with the presentation, on slide 10, I'll talk about the results of the quarter and full year 2024, starting with consolidated figures. It's important to clarify that 2024 numbers presented here reflect the second quarter of 2024 adjusted, excluding the non-recurring effects of that period, as we did in previous disclosures. We closed the year with strong operational performance, a 57% increase in adjusted net income, reaching $780 million, excluding the discontinued operations. Consolidated net revenue grew 40% for the year and 32% in the quarter. All business segments contributed positively to revenue growth, 35% in the leasing segment, 34% in asset sales, and 13% in the industrial segment.
Consolidated EBIT grew 30% in the year, driven mainly by the leasing segment, even with the impact of early terminations of some lease contracts. Compared to the fourth quarter 2023, the growth was 27%. Finally, EBITDA grew 32% year over year, mainly supported by leasing, reaching BRL 3.4 billion in the year. On the next slide, I'll talk about ROIC and ROI from continuing operations. As shown, consolidated ROIC was 15.6% in 2024, a decline compared to 2023, but still delivering a very unique, healthy spread in the leasing segment, 7 percentage points.
In the lower chart, we show return on equity, ROI, from continuing operations, which remained consistent over time and across different stages of the company, reaching 33.4% in 2024, already adjusted to the spinoff of the dealership business, that is, the proportional reduction in equity connected to that business that was discontinued, the spinoff of Vamos in November 2024. On the next slide, I highlight some financial key metrics that demonstrate the company's sustainable growth, solid liquidity, and controlled leverage. I'll start with a recent debt transaction we signed with a syndicate of six banks, which is expected to be disbursed in the coming days, in the month of March. It is a significant transaction of $325 million, BRL 1.85 billion, with final maturity of three years. The deal includes derivative instruments to hedge the foreign exchange risk and should carry an all-in cost close to 100% of the CDI.
The transaction was completed in March and will be disclosed in the subsequent events section of our financial statements. The charts on the slides that I see here do not yet reflect the transaction, as they refer to the numbers as of 31st of December 2024. On the left-hand side, we show the evolution of our net debt and leverage for covenant purposes, considering the new Vamos, that is, excluding the dealerships, which held approximately $300 million in net cash in the comparative periods. The chart shows net debt in September 2024 and December 2023, with and without the dealership business, to provide a better comparison with December 2024. Thus, we ended the year with $11.6 billion in net debt, in line with the September 2024 figure, and 24% above December 2023.
Leverage for covenant purposes of 3.3 times, 0.2 times from 2023, and in line with what we reported in September 2024. On the right, we show the movement in gross debt from December 2023 to December 2024, closing the year with $11.6 billion, as I mentioned before. Debt profile. We ended 2024 with $2.8 billion in cash and short-term investments. Including and drawn standby lines, total liquidity was $3.8 billion, enough to cover bank debt maturities through May 27. The average maturity of our net debt at year-end, that is, 31st of December, was 4.6 years. Now we will move on to slide 14 to talk about the leasing segment. Here we show the performance of our leasing services across key financial metrics, which confirm the resilience of our business model and the predictability of our growth.
Net revenue from services, excluding used vehicle sales, grew 34% for the year and 26% in Q4 compared to the same periods last year. The growth already reflects revenue suspensions related to early lease terminations, repossession of some contracts, as we discussed throughout the year. EBIT and EBITDA followed a similar growth pace and margin evolution, reflecting higher costs and lower revenues from those same early terminations, which temporarily lower our fleet utilization, as Couto mentioned before. Now, on slide 15, we close the year with R$ 5 billion in new leasing contracts, contracted capex. In Q4 alone, we signed R$ 1 billion in new contracts in line with our plans. The breakdown of these contracts between expansion, renew, using new assets, or extending contracts with the same assets, as well as Sempre Novo leases, are shown on the right-hand of the slide.
Again, in this 4Q, we signed $166 million in Sempre Novo and a significant portion of extensions using the same assets, which should be a trend for contracts maturing in 2025, as we indicated in our guidance at the end of 2024. On the top left corner, we also show average yield and IRR per quarter. As you can see, in all quarters, we closed contracts with IRR above 20%. In 4Q, 21.03%, that was the average IRR, which reflects the price adjustments to adjust for the new interest rate curve, preserving our ROIC and margin and spread. It's important to say that the yield we see in 4Q reflects both the adjustment of prices, but also the sales mix in the quarter, which had a proviso of services. It's not reasonable to assume that the 2.8% will remain from now on at this level.
Our backlog of contracts to be implemented remained relatively stable at year-end compared to the previous contract, total portfolio of around $900 million. On slide 16, we bring information about deployed Capex. We closed the year with a total amount very close to what we sold, as shown on the previous slide. Here is also worth highlighting the volumes of Sempre Novo and contract extensions with the same assets that I'll disclose, which are part of the total deployed Capex, as shown in the top right corner of the slide. Finally, on the slide, we see our contracted revenue backlog. The balance grew 9% compared to December 2023, highlighting our ability to generate new leasing contracts, especially when considering the reductions we had throughout the year due to asset repossessions and revenue suspensions.
In this quarter, we also recognize that $390 million adjustment in the backlog related to the change in the contract term of part of the spot fleet lease of a beverage contract. This fleet had its term ended early, but that does not affect the original contract terms disclosed in Q1 about this customer. On the next slide, quarter by quarter, we show, since December 2023, the evolution of assets available for lease or sale. Growth since January 2024, basically because of the repossession of assets we have in a year, with a peak of $448 million in the quarter ended June 30, but that has been decreasing since then, falling to $232 million in 4Q24, in a total of $1.2 billion in the year, as shown in the bottom chart of the slide.
Here on the slide, we also have a breakdown of repossessed assets by deployment for both 2023 and 2024, showing that all the repossessions came from contracts implemented in 2022, mainly with grain transportation carriers in the Midwest, and before the reinforced credit assessment and approved for new customers or projects. On slide 18, we talk about used vehicle sales, or assets retired. We are very focused and optimistic about the pace of growth we have achieved in this important process that is the last cycle of our assets, with CAGR year over year since 2021, above 70% in used vehicle sales. This growth is driven by the expansion of our own sales network, store openings, and also new POSs with partners.
Gross margin from used vehicle sales closed at 20.7% for the year, 18% in the quarter, showing the value appreciation of our fleet over time and the effectiveness of our conservative depreciation policy. Finally, I'd like to comment on a chart that we always include in our presentations, now updated with 2024 data. It shows the correlation between new and used truck prices along the years. This reinforces the resilience of our business model and a natural hedge that we have in the mid and long term against inflationary movements, since the pricing of OEMs of passing inflation through prices also appreciates the market value of used vehicles and therefore our assets. With that, I'll hand it back to Couto, and I'll be with him in the Q&A.
Thanks, Cesário. We have loads of opportunities.
As I mentioned before, we are confident in this new chapter for Vamos, lighter and more focused. On the next three slides, I'll close the presentation, giving you a more detailed view on our priorities in this new phase. We'll continue seeking diversification across the sectors we serve. We believe this is one of the key pillars of sustainability, predictability, and resilience in our results. We will focus on the Sempre Novo products and on renewing contracts with the same assets, contract extension, which allow us to reduce both new and used assets inventory. We'll continue to adjust our leasing prices to preserve our unique ROIC spread in the sector. There are many opportunities to create value for our customers through complementary services, new contract models, and products. As for used vehicle sales, we'll open more stores in high-potential areas and continue expanding commercial alliances with resellers and dealers.
With this, we'll further increase our footprint and consolidate our position as the largest and best used vehicle network in the country. On slide 21, our great opportunity to optimize working capital by increasing lease utilization rates using the assets we already have. With appreciated liquid assets, we have a unique opportunity with our scale, signing new contracts, boosting recurring revenue and backlog using our inventory, and recovering historical recent utilization rates. At least 34% of our year's growth, about $1.7 billion, will come from investments already made by the company. This reduces the need to purchase new assets, and this is the primary operational goal for 2025. Finally, on the last slide, I will emphasize that our growth will be sustainable only when it meets the minimal profitability required for today's business environment in Brazil.
Discipline in capital allocation, reduced needs for purchases, lower inventory in new and used vehicles, and continued growth in assets. All this places us in a unique position to execute the lowest net capex in recent years without missing out on good projects or opportunities. This concludes our presentation. Cesário and myself are now available to take your questions. Thank you very much for listening so far.
We will now start the Q&A session for investors and analysts. If you have a question, please click on raise hand. If your question is answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on lower hand. If you want to ask a question in writing, please enter your question in the Q&A field together with your name and company. Our first question comes from André Ferreira from Bradesco BBI. Mr. Ferreira, you may go on.
Hello, good afternoon.
Couto, Cesário, thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. The first about asset repossession. I remember in the call of your third quarter, you had mentioned up to 5% of fixed assets could be repossessed in 2025, but that was almost a sensitivity analysis and not a hard number. In your results yesterday, you said the exposure of agro in Midwest is 2.7% of your revenue. Should we expect something closer to 3% than 5% in fixed assets for 2025? Second, a better monthly yield? Cesário talked about the mix effect, more contracts with services. I would like to understand three points about the topic, very quick ones. First, on a comparable basis, how much do you estimate the yield repositioning if you see room to continue increasing prices?
In the first quarter of 2025, you might have a negative seasonality with a concentration of contracts to the sugar and ethanol sector, but if you see for the future, stability. Thank you very much.
Hi, André, this is Couto. Thanks for your questions. I'm going to answer some, and then Cesário will add to that. Asset repossession. We gave you the 5% as a reference because the company grew a lot in long-term contracts, and therefore it is natural to imagine that at some point we are going to have some kind of renegotiation of contracts, which is business as usual. We had a peak because of a specific sector, grain transportation. The peak is apparently in the past. You can see that our exposure to the sector decreased a lot. It is just natural that this will stabilize at lower levels.
It does not mean that it is going to be 100% in the sector because, again, it has a lower share, as you mentioned. Again, I continue to have an expectation of around 5% less. This is what we are working with, and it reflects somehow, as Cesário mentioned, an improvement in our credit assessment processes, and it also translates our strategy of, regardless of the economy, that we have to think of things that can bring more resilience to our results. We are talking about long-term contracts. We might have problems, and we might have to renegotiate. That is why we use this number, 5% down, but I would not like to be 100% associated to grain transportation because that was a one-time situation.
As for your second question, the monthly yield, as Cesário mentioned, we breached 2.8% because you had a percentage of contracts with maintenance contracts, which naturally brings yield up, and it did so, as you saw. You see that the IRR is also better, not what we would expect with the same comparable basis. That is why I always like to talk about average IRR, less than yield, because the yield always has a mix effect. This is a very good example. The next quarter as well, if we have a higher volume from sugar and ethanol, the yield can go down. Again, this is an isolated mix effect. Why? Because in the end of the day, we want an IRR of 20%.
This is the number we are trying to seek within the efforts that we have in terms of price adjustments, and this is what our decisions are based on. Yield, of course, is a pricing element, but it does not determine profitability at the end of the project, as we mentioned before. I would like us to try and understand that what we are seeking is an IRR around 22%, given the current interest rate, which would preserve to us a ROIC spread that is healthy and unique in the leasing segment. I hope I have answered your questions. Cesário, do you ha ve any comments?
No, that's it. Thank you, André.
Yes, very clear. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Daniel Gasparete from Itaú BBA. You may go on.
Good morning. Thanks for the call. I have two questions as well.
First, the behavior of used vehicles margins, what do you see from now onwards? The chart Cesário showed, the price at the front end is going down. It is going up, but perhaps less than expected. I would like to understand what you see, the behavior of used vehicles margin for the future and also depreciation, if 2025 should show an acceleration of depreciation. Thank you.
Hi, Gasparetti. Gustavo Couto again. Thanks for your question. Okay, used vehicles margins, as expected, it will gradually go down as our assets appreciated. We adjusted depreciation rates, and therefore this is an expected movement, reduction on margins. However, the reductions, as you could see, are a reflex of our business plan exclusively. That is to have results based on the leasing portion of our contracts. We do not want to make money in selling our used assets. Quite the opposite.
When we price them, we price as they are going to be sold in market value at a zero margin. It's not necessarily something that is going to make us have a more profitable contract. These are opportunities of a long cycle, but not our objective. Our objective is to generate monthly cash through leasing installments. Now, prices are preserved so far, as we know. New vehicle prices are going up and have gone up in recent years. Used vehicle prices followed. Now prices are a bit more stable. We see OEMs already announcing price increases in the beginning of the year to offset for inflation and exchange rate variation. This is already happening. When you see retail prices at OEMs, you can see that, which naturally may bring used vehicles prices up. What we see is a stability for used vehicles prices following new vehicle prices.
With that, we keep the predictability of a gradual reduction of margins given the depreciation of our assets that are performing as you can follow. As for depreciation, your second question, yes, gradually depreciation will grow for two reasons. First, because we have growing the number of assets of the company, and therefore the absolute number will continue to grow. And because now we are growing with an asset base that we are buying Euro 6 products at a different price point, they naturally have a higher depreciation rate, especially in the beginning. If there is a new price adjustment for new vehicles and therefore older vehicles, probably we may review the depreciation rate in the future.
For now, as expected and discussed with you, it's just natural that the depreciation rate will go up because of the new assets that are being deployed and new contracts being signed. However, with older contracts, we see that assets continue to be very well appreciated, and there is no reason to make any changes for older contracts. Gasparetti, I hope I have answered your question.
Yes, excellent. Thank you very much for your answers, and have a good afternoon.
Our next question comes from Alberto Valerio from UBS. You may go on.
Good afternoon, Couto, Cesário. Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on guiding the company in such a challenging year, 2025. I'd like to have an idea of what was recurring or not in the results. There is a line in revenues that was out of the segment, BRL 38 million.
Could you give us a bit more color on this line? Also, if the financial result of this quarter had anything non-recurring or we should carry it on. Thank you very much.
Hi, Alberto. Thanks for joining us today. First question, as for recurring effects or recurring items, I would say that substantially all leasing results that we are presenting are already comparable, and I do not see any non-recurring items. What you are talking about, the 38 million, are adjustments, if I am not mistaken, because of eliminations for the purposes of consolidations. That is sales and operations in between segments, and you might have something related to eliminations related to operations that we had in the past between leasing and dealerships. The results we are presenting is a number that we consider real coming from leasing operations.
The second question, if you could please ask it again, the financial results, if you have anything non-recurring that I should exclude from now on, or if this is the base number for the future. Yeah, obviously the financial result is going to change because of the new debt profile and the new interest curve that we have, a reality that is different from 2024. Here I do not see either anything to highlight in terms of non-recurring items.
Very good, very clear. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Rogério Araújo from Bank of America. You may go on.
Hello, good afternoon, Couto, Cesário. How are you? Thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions on my side. First, the debt issue, 100% of the CDI. This is a very appealing cost compared to other companies in the industry.
If you could give us a bit more color about its structure, if there are any fees that have not been included in the cost, if so, at what cost? Also, if you could talk a bit about your expectations for future issuances, expectations and needs, and if you have room for similar operations. Thank you very much.
Hi, Rogério, this is Cesário. Thanks for the question. The debt issues happened just now. We just closed the contract with a syndicate of banks. This transaction, as we released, 100% of CDI, considered a structure of derivatives to protect from exchange rate fluctuations with a cost close to 100% of the CDI without considering the upfront fees that are regular in this kind of transaction. That is just regular market costs in similar transactions in a timely manner.
We are going to disclose those numbers, but nothing different for this kind of transaction. As for new funding needs, I would say that this amount, almost BRL 1.9 billion, is higher than the needs that we had expected for the full year to carry on with our minimum cash policy. That is the most liquidity policies that follow the policy of the Grupo Vamos as a whole. We expect to use these funds to better manage our debt, repay more expensive debt, renegotiate terms. We are not talking about a very long-term transaction. We continue to look into market opportunities to seek new lines that can bring even a better debt balance profile for the company.
Although we do not have the need of new issuances for the year to cover our needs, we are always looking at the market with interest for potential opportunities, having new issues and an even better debt profile than what we have today.
Very clear. Contract extension, my second question. If you could talk a bit about which segments and what kinds of opportunity you're talking about, what percentage of contracts you think you're able to extend after maturity, and if we can think of any change in terms of average contract term for the company in the future, or if this extension is more an opportunity for the cycle of price increases for trucks in recent years.
Hi, Rogério, this is Gustavo. Thanks for your question.
When you look at the market globally, the process of a second life for the asset that is a contract extension, especially for trucks for two, three years, is completely doable and sometimes healthy depending on the momentum that we are experiencing. Right now, for instance, there is this unique opportunity for us and for our customers. You did mention that when you talked about the price increases. The extension became more appealing for customers now because prices of new trucks are so high, interest rates are so high that somehow the customer accepts a price adjustment because of the cost of opportunity. This is something that we negotiate with our customers, but recognizing the opportunity of avoiding an even higher increase if they were to opt for a new truck.
Of course, they have to have a bit more maintenance, perhaps a bit higher non-availability, but sometimes it makes sense. That eventually can happen at different times, not only because of price increases, but for other reasons, considering the moment the market is going through and the different sectors in which you operate. It is part of our strategy. It has been so for some time now. It is gaining visibility because of the scale that we have reached. The volume last year was BRL 400 million in contract extensions of a total of BRL 700 million of contracts at acquisition price. 58% of contracts that expired were extended, renewed with the same assets. This year, we think we are going to do more. We said in the guidance of November that we aim at BRL 700 million.
I think we can negotiate even more than that, given because you're talking about BRL 1.1 billion contracts that will mature this year. So BRL 700 million, we truly believe we are going to do that. That's the projection that we have, a very clear, transparent projection, and that leverages our results a lot for several aspects. First, because you generate additional revenue because you're increasing prices. You generate a new backlog. Just to make it clear, two, three years has been the extension we are aiming at because the customers stay with the asset for five years. It makes sense to extend two, three years. As extensions happen, you are going to see that the contract is a bit shorter, but because of this characteristic that is very clear if you consider contract duration. The third aspect is that it brings higher profitability for the assets.
That is, I'm generating more results with items that have already depreciated during the five years. At the same time, I have the opportunity of buying less new trucks to continue generating a positive result. On the other side, I've removed the pressure. I know that sometimes our concerns about this, which is the liquidity of used assets to be sold in our stores. I think it's a positive cycle. It is here to stay. It's part of our strategy. It happens in several countries in the year, and we understand that in Brazil, given our scale, our position, this is going to be seen more in future years, reducing our dependence on new capital. I hope I have answered your question, Rogério.
Yes, you're very clear. Thanks, Couto, and Cesário.
Our next question comes from João Víctor from Lynch Barranco Suno Research. You may go on.
Good morning, everyone. First of all, thanks very much for taking my question. Congratulations on your result. My question is about the company's capital structure. I would like to hear your rationale because we understand the company can pass on inflation costs on its contracts. Given that, I'd like to understand your rationale of having a higher exposure on CDI vis-à-vis IPCA. Again, because of your capacity to pass on costs to contracts, IPCA perhaps could make more sense because it would increase the predictability of real interest paid. I would like to hear your comments on that. Thank you.
Hi, João. Thanks for joining us. Your questions, this is Cesário. This is a recurring topic of discussions and analysis. It's not new. I've been with the company for almost a year now, and we've been having discussions with investors and even with the Simpar Group.
It's true what you said. We have not total exposure, but relevant exposure to CDI, as most of Brazilian companies whose interest rate for the market is the CDI because it reflects the market. We have already discussed internally some possibilities. Every now and then, we do make some decisions towards having a higher exposure to prefix debt or debt indexed by the IPCA, but nothing that will change the scenario of mostly being tagged to the CDI. So far, there is no decision to change this policy of the company, which is to have a higher exposure to CDI. At some point, when we have CDI up, that causes higher volatility in our results and vice versa. I think that that can favor us very soon in an eventual reduction for future interest rates. That's it.
For now, no decision made changing the exposure that you see today and that we see that reflects in our result s.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you have a question, just click on raise hand or just type your question pressing the Q&A button. Vamos Q&A session is now closed. We would like to hand over back to Mr. Couto for the company's closing remarks.
Once again, I'd like to thank our teams, our customers for their support in 2024 that led to another cycle of growth and development and results that, as we mentioned, were very solid. We learned a lot. We have lots of opportunities. We are very much aware of the opportunities and the challenges ahead of us. That gives us the confidence given our team and the basic foundations that we have that are increasingly clear and stronger.
We are starting a new cycle with the new Vamos structure that is more dedicated to the leasing business. I think this is our expectation to seize opportunities and use our resources to focus on the company's core business. The results we brought in 2024, net income, consistent growth of EBITDA, more than 30% increase in the sale of used vehicles have been crucial for the development of the company, as you saw. A growth year over year, every quarter, we are hitting new records in terms of development of these indicators. My third and last comment is that we still have a lot of opportunities ahead of us. When we talk about leasing our Sempre Novo assets, we are talking about opportunities to improve our results, profitability, ROIC, and IRR. When we're talking about contract extensions, we are also talking about something that is a win-win.
Customers are more loyal, and it is good for the company and brings us better profitability and IRR. We are talking that our sales channel of used vehicles has been growing organically, consistently, and in a sustainable manner. We still have a very small share, less than 1% of the total secondary truck market, which is a very resilient market and has opportunities of having players like Vamos making the difference, really becoming a reference in the market. Based on all that, we are very much encouraged with what lies ahead, particularly in a year that we are going to be able to have BRL 7 billion in assets leased, as we mentioned in our slide last year, and the material fact with the lowest need of net capex of the last three years.
That gives us the opportunity of combining sustainable growth and profitability while deleveraging the company gradually until the end of the year. That is what we want: efficient gains, operational efficiency. This is what you are going to see Vamos doing in a disciplined manner in 2025. Once again, thank you very much for being with us here. Goodbye, everyone.
Vamos conference call is now closed. We thank you very much for joining us and wish you a very good afternoon.