Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Falabella Earnings call. I'm Gigi, your coordinator for today's session. Participants are currently in listen-only mode. Present with us are Alejandro González, interim CEO and CFO of Falabella, Juan Manuel Matheu, CEO of Financial Services, Francisco Irarrázaval, CEO of Falabella Retail, and Benoit de Grave, CTO of Falabella.
First, Mr. Raimundo Monge, head of investor relations, will provide a summary of the consolidated results for the Q4 of 2023. Following his presentation, we'll open the floor for questions. If you would like to participate in this part of the call, please press * followed by 11 at any time during the conference. Now we'll start with the conference with Mr. Raimundo Monge.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Falabella Q4 2023 Earnings call. I would like to remind you that during this presentation, management may make forward-looking statements relating to our company, its results, operation expenses strategy, potential restructuring, and other matters alike. This will be characterized by the use of terms such as plan, pretend, expect, anticipate, estimate, hope, and seek.
Such statements are based on assumption and expectation of future events that are uncertain and contain risks. Therefore, and for further information on this matter, I kindly refer to the disclaimer on forward-looking statement that is displayed on the screen. Also, the numbers presented during the call will be according to the FedRAMP rules expressed in U.S. dollar and rounded to millions. Therefore, certain small differences may arise with the published financial statement.
I will start this call by going over some key operational highlights of our physical digital ecosystem and its capabilities. Let us begin reviewing from slide 3 onwards. The slowdown in consumption trends continues impacting operations. In the case of our retailer, the businesses that suffered the most were home improvement and Falabella Retail in Chile, and the retail business in Peru.
The consolidated revenues of Falabella Retail reached $1.1 billion in the quarter, under an environment of markdowns and lower decrease in sales of the electro category versus three quarters of 2023. During the Q4, we opened one department store in Quito, Peru. In home improvement, consolidated revenue reached $1.4 billion, a decrease of 9%, mainly influenced by the construction in the construction sector. Supermarket revenue decreased 4%, reaching $695 million. Non-food categories continue their downward trend in sales participation, in line with the value proposition adjustment.
Mallpl aza revenues reached $122 million due to higher occupation levels that reached the highest level of the last four years. On the e-commerce, online GMV remained stable year-over-year, while our 3P online sales grew 7%, representing 28% of total online GMV. Overall, our e-commerce platform achieved $2.8 billion in GMV during the last 12 months.
We now have over 20,000 sellers reselled in the region, and more than 45% of the online sales were delivered to customers through Click-and-Collect options. We have successfully reached nearly 19 million participants in our loyalty program, fostering enduring relations with our clients and driving up transaction levels, spending, and customer retention. In the last quarter conference call, we announced a plan to strengthen our financial position, and we have continued working hard on it.
In the first place, our cash position has increased 73% year-over-year, in line with better management of our balance in the business and better performance of our leaders. Secondly, our inventory levels are returning to normal levels, registering a decrease of 21% year-over-year, containing the margin in our retailers. And third, we continue to observe year-over-year decline in SG&A as a consequence of the efforts that our teams made in the execution of our operational leverage plan.
Consolidated revenue decreased 6% year-over-year, mainly due to the decline in the Chilean business of home improvement and Falabella Retail and the retail business in Peru. Gross profit decreased 1% due to the home improvement segment with declines 22% year-over-year. Falabella Retail decreased 4% year-over-year originally, mainly due to reduction in contribution for Chile and Peru, partially offset by an improvement in Colombia.
This was, to some extent, offset by the banking business in Chile, mainly due to improvement in cost of risk, and by Mall Plaza with a 5% year-over-year increase. The consolidated numbers in the EBITDA, we experienced an increase of 30% year-over-year, reaching $333 million. Finally, we closed the quarter with a net profit of $80 million, 9.2 times the numbers of Q4 of 2022. As part of our financial position, we have decreased 12% our net financial debt and reached a 6.5 net debt to EBITDA ratio.
We would like to highlight that we don't have any relevant maturities until January of 2025. At the beginning of the year, we unveiled our 2024 investment plan, reflecting a 24% decrease reduction versus 2023 plan. We are allocating more than $200 million in technology and logistics, essential for integrating our capabilities across the ecosystem.
Additionally, another $270 million for store renovation and opening, with plans to inaugurate 10 new stores by year-end, deepening our experience and the omnichannel value, and improve our value proposition in most urban centers. Now, I would like to leave you with Juan Manuel Matheu, Financial Services CEO.
Thank you, Raimundo, and good morning to everyone. We continue advancing in our goal of becoming the main digital bank in the Andean region. Our value proposition is based on up-front customer journeys, strengthened by a comprehensive set of benefits. These benefits include discounts both inside and outside of our ecosystem and the favorite loyalty program of the Andean region, CMR Puntos. Digital transformation has revolutionized how we interact with our clients, leading to substantial enhancement in our service standards.
Currently, over 95% of transactions are executed digitally. It has also helped us to adapt faster to our clients' needs and to boost our growth. To mention a few examples, recently in Peru and Colombia, we launched immediate transfers using a phone number. In Chile, we integrated into the bank's app the functionality to automatically pay for parking in Mall Plaza. Our operation in Mexico continues growing fast.
Mexico represents 25% of total credit card openings in 2023. Our credit card, also Mexico, is becoming the main card of our clients. Our customers started to use the card not only in Soriana stores but for all their needs. Purchases outside our ecosystem have tripled in volume, surpassing purchases inside our ecosystem. Finally, our digital transformation has led us to evolve from being a credit card bank to a multiple-product bank.
In Chile, we are the number one player in checking accounts, and client deposits have increased 37%. This shift has allowed us to reduce our funding costs. Currently, more than 70% of our funding comes from personal deposits. Our goal to become the main digital bank in the Andean region is progressing rapidly over the past four years.
We have threefolded the opening of credit cards and checking accounts, doubled purchases using our credit and debit card, reached 7.4 million clients, and grown our loan book by more than 35%. We are facing a challenging macroeconomic environment. High inflation levels increase our risk costs because our clients have less disposable income. To reduce our risk costs, we have restricted credit origination, which has impacted our revenues.
In addition, inflation increased our cost of funding. For 2024, we are expecting an increase in the bottom line driven by lower risk costs, a decrease in the cost of funding, and operational efficiencies. However, we expect lower interest income due to the restrictive credit origination measures. Our loan portfolio is expected to remain unchanged. Now, I will leave Francisco Irarrázaval to talk about our retail operations.
Well, thank you, Juan Manuel, and hello to everyone. Consumption has been challenging in recent quarters in the region, but I believe that we have taken measurements that have allowed us to increase our consolidated EBITDA margins by 130 basis points. It was mainly about efficiency programs and about inventory reduction. We have successfully reduced our inventory levels by 19% year-over-year, which we believe is going to allow us to have a better margin in the future as well.
Nevertheless, during year 2023, we continued strengthening our omnichannel value proposition, being the leader in the three markets where we operate, with more than $3.4 billion in revenues on year 2023. Over the last years, we have developed a clear roadmap with three pillars, and I would like to refer today about the first two ones. We are improving.
First, we have to continue to win over our customers with the best value proposition, combining the strength of our private label brands, with exclusive brands, and with local and global brands at the best possible price. So we believe that with this strategy, our clients will be always at the center of the decisions that we take. Second, we are enhancing our omnichannel proposition. We are leveraging the strength of our stores with our e-commerce platform to deliver the best value proposition to our customers.
I would like to give a couple of examples here. First, we are improving our services and experiences in the store to delight our customers. Today, we have personal shoppers. We have Taller F, which is a small shop where a client can fix a product or maybe bring back to fashion the same garment.
We have gaming zones on several stores, and we have always been working to provide the best buying experience in our store floors. We are also adjusting our physical footprint. In the last year, we have closed 3 stores in Chile, and we have opened 1 in Peru. But we have been constantly changing the proportion of the square meters allocated to categories with greater inventories.
Our main goal here is to become a fashion specialist and to devote the most number of meters to those categories. On the e-commerce side, we are enhancing the digital experience, adapting the user experience to the different types of products and customers. In Chile, for instance, more than 70% of our sales from the online channel went through our stores, either through Click-and-Collect or the stores as a location of the shipment. Now, we're going to continue with Alejandro, who's going to talk to us.
Thank you, Francisco. Good morning, everyone. Before we get into the questions and answers section, I'd like to give a brief summary of our view on 2023 and then an overview of what 2024 looked for us. 2023 was a challenging year for Falabella, without a doubt. We began the year with a very negative macro environment, with high inflation and interest rates leading to a slowdown in consumption.
In addition to that, we started 2023 with high levels of inventories and higher than expected risk levels in our loan portfolio. Our company turned its focus to recovering profitability and improving our customers' experience. We finished 2023 with relevant milestones in the construction of our physical digital ecosystem. We launched Falabella.com in Colombia, completing the deployment of our e-commerce capabilities in the Andean region.
We opened the first IKEA store in Colombia, and we also became, as Juan Manuel mentioned, the number one bank in checking accounts in Chile. The summary of this is that more than 35 million customers in the region chose Falabella. We also completed the operational leverage plan we announced at the end of 2022 and focused our strategy and rationalized our operations to recover profitability.
As a clear proof of this was the closing of our digital wallet and the launching of a plan to monetize non-core assets for up to $1 billion. Today, as Raimundo mentioned, we are starting to see the results of the efforts of our team. We were downgraded below Investment Grade during the last quarter of 2023, and we will continue working on the different fronts of our customer-centric steady plan that will lead us to strengthening our financial position.
The Investment Grade is an integral part of Falabella's future growth plan. We have recently announced the evolution of our e-commerce strategy, enhancing and focusing our customer Omnichannel proposition. Our proposal will definitely aim on offering the best brands with the highest quality and competitive prices to our customers. In simple terms, the power of our brands, we will add the offer of sellers of excellence, allowing us to differentiate ourselves with high standards in both products and services, all this with a more efficient operation.
Finally, we anticipate that 2024 will continue to be challenging, but we are convinced that our customer-focused strategic plan, leveraged on our powerful retailers and brands, our network of stores and malls, and the ecosystem's capability we already built, will allow us to significantly recover the profitability of Falabella. With that, now I will open the line to any questions that you may have.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to open the lines up for your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please press * followed by 11 on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to withdraw your question, please press * 11. Again, press * 11 to ask a question. Please stand by for your first question. Our first question comes from the line of Nicolas Riva from Bank of America.
Thanks very much, Alejandro and Raimundo, for the chance to ask questions. My first question is if you can give us an update on your asset sales, if you have completed any so far in the Q1. And I remember that you had previously mentioned a target, I think the last round was called, the $800 million-$1 billion in asset sales, and you have highlighted as kind of first large transaction, this one related to the shopping malls in Peru. Out of that target of the $800 million-$1 billion, how much had you factored in for this specific transaction for the holding company selling the shopping malls in Peru to Plaza SA?
Also, I want to confirm if my understanding is correct that this transaction would bring in cash to the holding company, but it will be neutral for leverage on a consolidated basis, assuming that Plaza SA issues new debt to finance this acquisition of the shopping malls. Second, I think clearly one of the main positive highlights in the quarter was the increase in the cash position to $1.2 billion in the quarter. With that, I know that you have the maturity of the 2025 bond in January next year, I believe, the $200 million. If you can talk, as of now, what will be the idea, the plan in terms of financing the $200 million maturity January next year? Thanks very much.
Thank you, Nicolás, for your, I would say, questions. Several questions. Let me start by tackling the 2025 bond and give you some flavor on what we can do on the Plaza transaction, and then I'll let Benoit give you more details on the asset monetization plan that we have. The bond is mature on January next year. You mentioned correctly that we are today holding a relevant level of cash.
That's more than enough to cover that. We're basically in the plan to analyze whatever we do with that. And given that this is a publicly traded instrument, it's hard to come out with some anticipation of what are we going to do. But what you can rest assured is that we will hold the liquidity to face that without any problem.
And just to emphasize, this level of cash that we have is before any success on the monetization plan that we have. Now, related to the Plaza operation that we announced and the potential impact that it can have on Falabella, this is two things. This is also a transaction that involves two publicly traded companies to start with. This is also a transaction that involves two related party companies.
So I mentioned this because there's a limit level of information that we can do that we can share with you today that's not considering the material facts that we will have to. There's a very thorough legal process that we need to follow to comply with this. What I can share with you is that the process is as advancing as we are expecting it, but there's several legal requirements that we need to comply.
Now, to your question, which I think it is, what will be the impact on the leverage of Falabella, it's going to be super related to the market conditions at the time of the execution of this. We're not doing this solely for leverage or helping the leverage of Falabella. The main driver to do this transaction is because we do think there's a lot of value of putting these assets in one hand.
If you see the level of operational success that Plaza has been showing lately, it makes us think that in one single hand, and specifically in the management of Plaza, the assets that we have in Peru will generate more value. That said, I will let Benoit to share with you some, I would say, update on the monetizing plan of the different non-core assets that we have.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Benoit here. So just to complement Alejandro, just a reminder that our plan to improve our financial position has three pillars. The first one is the improvement of the EBITDA. The second one is the focalization of the CAPEX. And the third part is the monetization of non-core assets, mainly real estate. So we remain committed to the goal of raising between $800 million and $1 billion, $800 million or $1 billion, through asset monetization.
Our efficiency efforts, as we mentioned at the beginning of this call, contributed to improve our profitability, reducing SG&A by 8% in the last quarter. And we have also announced an investment plan for 2024, which is 24% lower than the one we announced in 2023. So regarding the studies of the asset sale plan, we are in several processes, working with investment banks and progressing in this plan.
I think on the Mall Plaza transaction, Alejandro said everything. In terms of land banks, in 2023, we managed to close transactions and sign purchase agreements, some of them not yet materialized, but very soon. This is in the order of $25 million. We are progressing with the plan, and we are committed to that plan.
Thanks very much for that, Benoit. And Alejandro, maybe if I can just do a quick follow-up. So you have just said we remain committed to the plan of raising between $800 million and $1 billion through asset sales. Is there a time frame to achieve that? And then second, if you have that specific target, I would assume you're factoring in a specific number for how much you are raising with this transaction of selling the shopping malls in Peru. Can you share that or not at this point?
Related to the mall operation in Peru, it's hard to come out with. There's so many things going on. At the end of the day, we think this transaction, as I said before, is going to be creating a lot of value for us. Your question is how Plaza will fund this and therefore what Falabella will do with that funding. The good thing is that we have so many options. It's highly likely if the markets are, I would say, as positive as they are improving, and that's what we're feeling also from a, I would say, fixed income or from a share perspective, it could be a mix of both things. If the market switches and it goes, I don't know, into the negative side, I don't know. If it has to be full debt, it will be full debt.
The main reason why we're doing this transaction, as I said before, is because of the value creation that we believe there is. In terms of the question about the time frame for this, we always mentioned it was going to be between 12-15 months. We expect to get a lot of, I would say, closer stores during this year. It's hard for me to come out with dates. Actually, what we've seen lately, I don't know if you're that familiar with the interest rates market here in Chile, but rates are trending down. Actually, the interest that we're getting for these assets is higher today than what we saw towards the end of last year.
I am positive that we will be able to, as Benoit said, to fill in the gaps for these transactions and probably second half of this year, year-end, something like that.
Thanks very much, Alejandro.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolás Larraín from JPMorgan.
Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Alejandro, Juan Manuel, and Benoit for taking my question. I had a couple here on particularly first on the retail side. I wanted to understand very briefly if you have seen any change in trends for top line, particularly in Chile during these first few months of 2024, maybe an inflection after the Christmas season of 2023.
My second question has to do with inventories. We've seen a strong normalization of inventories across most of the discretionary business lines in Chile. I wanted to understand if you see that there is further need in some particular banner or business for inventories still to be adjusted. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nicolás, for your question. What we're seeing today is similar trends compared to what we saw in 2023 Q4 in the sense that things are improving. We're seeing margin improvements in sales. We're seeing margin improvements in margin, which is on the positive side. Even though sales are still a bit lower than what we had last year, this reaction is changing as we speak, and the reaction is going down. So we're positive on that side.
And the other positive thing, and I think goes in line to your second question, is that given that we got, I would say, a big reduction and if you allow me, instead of calling it reduction, I would say normalization of the inventory levels, we think we are where we would like to be, especially thinking of 2024 as a challenging year.
So we think this is a position that had allowed us also to keep our margins, to handle them, and to manage them in a positive side. A similar thing is happening in the cost of risk. If you allow me, I will allow Juan Manuel to give some flavor on the perspectives on risk that we have for 2024, at least for a start.
Yes. Nicolás, in terms of the cost of risk, we are expecting to reduce it in the bank in Chile during the first half of 2024 and continue the downward trend during the year because we are observing improvements in the early delinquency of our loan portfolio. Regarding, I would say that we expect the trend to continue during the year.
Hi, Nicolás. This is Francisco here, if I'm allowed to complement. You asked if we see further need in the future to reduce the inventory level. And as Alejandro said, I do believe that we have achieved what we should call a normal level. Nevertheless, in Falabella Retail, we have been very focused on reducing the buying cycle for the seasonal merchandise, at least.
So, for example, our fashion brands such as Basement, Sybilla, and Americanino, in the last quarter, we air-freighted about 40% of our purchases. We were able to distribute the merchandise to the stores in less than half the time we usually had. So we are very focused on reducing the buying cycle.
This, in the long run, should lead to less inventory levels, but mainly it's going to lead to a better value proposition in the sense that the merchandise that we will be selling to our customers will be more aligned to the fashion, will be more up-to-date. So basically, we do want to become and behave more like a specialist in fashion, and that should further reduce down inventories. But what we are pursuing here is to become a fashion specialist more than anything else.
Understood. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Felipe Vallevona from Santander.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. I have 2 questions regarding operations and another 2 regarding the MOU. Starting with the operations, January retail sales came out this morning with hard goods increasing year-over-year for the third consecutive month and fashion growing year-over-year for the first time in, well, over a year. So are you seeing a recovery in line with this trend and in what segments? And then my second question is related to gross margin.
Are you seeing pressures due to current FX levels? And well, I mean, this is a side question related to that one. Do you think it would be more convenient for you guys that rates are cut more rapidly despite FX depreciation, or do you think demand is still enough that rates could be cut more slowly and thus with a lower FX impact? I can ask the MOU once after so we get this out of the way first.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, Felipe. This is Francisco. We do observe the same trends that you mentioned. So garment sales have been regaining its usual strength for us, and electronics and consumer durables in general are still depressed. Regarding the exchange rate effects, we as a company carry a coverage policy, so we're usually covering three, four months short-term changes.
But I think that the best coverage that we have today is the fact that we are carrying less inventory, less buying cycles, so we're not that exposed to long-term dollar value. And of course, we can always translate the price into the commercial price for the client. So we're not that concerned about exchange rate effects on the EBITDA in the short term.
Great. Thank you. That's very helpful. And to piggyback on that, is there an FX level that you feel comfortable with, like a cap sort of thing, or it just depends on how the volatility behaves?
Thank you, Felipe. But if you allow me, more than having a level in which I feel comfortable, the lower the level of the FX, the more competitive we can all be with the customer, and it's good for consumption. So basically, the hedging policy that we have, what it aims is basically to protect the capacity of us being able to offer competitive pricing, as Francisco said, for 4-6 months.
I don't have a view on this, but certainly, if FX goes up, there's some pressure of FX on the CLP to depreciate, but we don't see it going to levels in which it would be super dramatic for this. What we see, on the other hand, is, as Francisco mentioned, we're facing this in two ways. The first one is certainly shortening the cycle of buying and therefore holding more competitive levels of inventory.
The other thing, as he also mentioned, is the fact that we are also, when FX goes up, the possibility of looking for some local suppliers, especially we have some apparel in Peru and Colombia, that allows us to be competitive in case the CLP U.S. dollar keeps going up. So there's some operational hedging that we can do with shortening the cycle, as Francisco said, and looking for other sources of products.
Okay. That code is actually very helpful. Thank you, everyone. And just a couple of questions regarding the MOU. The first one, maybe the most important, is the financing decision also part of this agreement? Is it how Plaza is going to finance this asset, either with debt, equity, or a combination of both? Is it also being discussed as part of the agreement? And second, when you should be giving out information regarding the agreement? When is the deadline? Thank you very much.
There's a deadline, but the process here, I think, as Benoit mentioned, it's within the time frame that it has. We expect that to move on. It is moving as we expect. Actually, as we've been getting some questions about the time frame for this, as I said before, given that it is two publicly traded companies and it's a related part of transaction, there's several legal stages that have to be complied, and there's nothing we can do to avoid that.
You know how Falabella is. We do things in a fair way, so we will go through every single step that we need to go through. To your question about the financing, I know there's a lot of, I would say, inquiry questions about this. If you think about this, it's super hard to come out with an answer of that because it's super related to the market conditions. Today, I have an idea of what it can be, which I certainly cannot share with you because it's something that it's part of something that can change tomorrow.
But if the debt market goes down, sour, or if the equity markets change, I will have to change the way I finance the transaction. And I would like to emphasize, please, keep in your mind that the main driver to do this transaction is the creation of value for the whole group. That's what we're aiming here. And also, certainly, it will bring a lot of value not only for Falabella but also to Plaza.
Okay. So the financing part, it's also I mean, the financing decision is also part of the MOU. That's what I understand. So it's like a whole it's not like an independent, separate decision.
No, no. Actually, it's the other way around. If I try to close the.
Oh, it's a separate.
If I try to close it, the said financing conditions, the market may go the other way, and I will have to change them. Keep in mind that we're a very conservative company, so we're not going to do anything odd. But if you try to agree on a financial structure to that and the market changes, it would put more bureaucracy into the process. We all want to do this transaction. We all think this is a value-accretive transaction, not only for Falabella but also for Plaza.
Understood. So that means that Falabella's board members that are in Plaza should be able to vote on the financing, right? Because it's not part of the MOU.
I mean, the part of the MOU is closing the transaction, and the board members of Falabella—this is a legal part, and I'm not a lawyer. But what I understand is that all the board members that were elected with Falabella votes, they cannot participate on the Plaza side because they're conflicted. Once we close the transaction, then it's a transaction for Plaza. Plaza has to see what's the best way to fund this.
Okay. So these board members shouldn't be able to vote in the financing decision either, the ones that Falabella appointed?
It's their subject, not mine. Plaza is a publicly traded company. Each board member has their own responsibility, and we have five of nine.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. I just wanted to know if Falabella the board members that Falabella appointed would be able to vote in the financing decision. But that's fine. Thank you so much. This was very helpful. Congrats on the results.
Thank you. Again, to ask a question, please press * 11. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Gustavo Fratini from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I would love to maybe do a deep dive on the home improvement sector, especially in Chile. So I would like to understand better what drove the gross margin pressure that we saw there. Was this more like a negative mix effect from the construction categories, or were you forced to be more promotional to work through inventories? And I would also like to ask about the big year-on-year drop that you had in logistic expenses. Were these coming from efficiency gains, from more click and collect, or were this more correlated with lower unit variable costs? Thanks.
Thank you, Gustavo, for your question. I will address the home improvement question, and then I'll let Benoit to expand on the logistic question that you have. Although it is a smaller drop, the one that we saw during the Q4 compared to the one that we saw in the third one, we still saw a double-digit drop in sales in Sodimac, especially in Chile.
There are several factors that impact the margin. First one, as a result of the efforts made with our Specialist Circle that's a benefit program focused on the professional segment, we reached 1.9 million clients in the region. And the drops in sales experienced by this type of clients are lower than on the other segments impacting the margins. This segment, in particular, has a lower margin than the retail one. So in very simple terms, we have a mixed impact here.
The decrease that we had in the retail part was higher than in the professional one. The other thing is that we saw a decline in the variable rebates for inventory due to the lower levels of sale. And also, margins of non-imported products such as painting, wood, and iron, which are experiencing historically lower margin levels, which has an impact also on the overall margin of the business.
So to summarize this, some impact on rebates and some impact on the mix of professional versus the retail part. And finally, the margins that we had on the non-imported products, painting, wood, and iron mainly. I'm going to take the second part of your question, Gustavo. Benoit here. So our logistics costs have been reduced by 24%. I would say that there's three factors that contribute to this reduction.
The first one is that we have reduced the net shipping costs and increased the click and collect penetration, which reached 45% of the total orders delivered to our customers. The second effect is that we have optimized our warehouse networks, reducing by more than 330,000 square meters, which is a reduction of 17%. And this is through optimization of our warehouse networks between 1P and 3P products.
And on top of that, we have conducted efficiencies in the logistics network, such as common cross-docks for retailers and sellers, great negotiation with logistic operators, and the unification of truck routes. And this is in the entire region. And the third effect is the fact that due to the decline in the top line, the numbers of packages delivered were 6% lower than in the Q4 of 2022.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alejandro Namuica from Morgan Stanley.
Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted you to delve into the profitability of the financial services business, particularly with regards to the provision. And it seems to us that you have I mean, if we look at the coverage ratio for the banking business across the board, we actually see coverage ratio actually decline both year-over-year and also quarter-over-quarter, while at the same time, we actually saw that NPL ratios also across the board actually worsened sequentially.
So I just wanted you to better understand if there was any change in terms of the provision and policy or if there was any one-off effects in this quarter and maybe how should we think about these provisions going forward here. Thank you.
Hey, Alejandro. Thank you for your question. As I mentioned before, we are expecting to reduce the cost of risk in the first half of 2024 and to continue the downward trend during the year. And this is because we are observing improvements in the early delinquency of our loan portfolio. So I think that we need to see a better cost of risk going forward. And regarding to our provision policy, we are always calibrating our models to better capture our clients' information. However, we haven't made any significant change in the period.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Sir, we will now turn to Raimundo Monge for closing remarks.
We would like to thank everyone for joining us on Falabella Q4 2023 earnings call. Our investor relations team. We remain available for any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you and have a nice day.
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.