Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm representing WOOD & Company, and I have again the pleasure of moderating the call with AmRest to discuss the results of the fourth quarter and full year of 2022. We have a great representation from the company side today. There's CEO with us, Luis Comas, CFO, Eduardo Zamarripa, and Santiago Camarero, Chief Strategy and IR. Try not to take too much of his time. The mic is yours. Thank you.
Thank you, Lucas. This is Luis Comas. I am AmRest CEO. Good afternoon, thank you for joining us. I hope that you and your families are doing well. Today, I'm truly honored to present the full year 2022 results for AmRest and also share our expectations for 2023. As usual, let us start with an update regarding our presence, brands in slide number two, please. As you know well, AmRest is Europe's leading restaurant operator with a portfolio of over 2,340 restaurants in 23 countries across Europe, Middle East, and China. We have a nice balance of franchise and proprietary brands that cover a wide spectrum of occasions. Reviews for our guests that find in our restaurants a distinctive service provided by over 51,000 passionate employees, AmResties, as we call them.
In the slide three, let me remark the most relevant events for 2022 that I would like to summarize in five points. We have achieved an all-time revenues record that reached over EUR 2.4 billion with a remarkable growth of 26% versus 2021. The EBITDA generated during the year amounted to EUR 384 million, up to 7% compared to 2021. The profit attributable to shareholders amounted to EUR 1.3 million, despite the big impairments booked that amounted EUR 55.4 million, of which almost EUR 53 million was due to the Russia business valuation. This is at the low end of the group's targets range.
Finally, once we have completed the key strategic financial milestones marked, we have significantly accelerated our investment as reflects a 40% increase in CapEx. In slide four, we are illustrating the evolution of AmRest revenues. We left behind the restrictions derived from the COVID pandemic in most countries over 2022. This situation significantly boost mobility, which, combined with our omni-channel positioning, resulted in the highest sales on record at EUR 2.4 billion with a growth of more than 26% compared to 2021, and double-digit increases in the number of transactions. In addition, AmRest generated an EBITDA of EUR 384.4 million in 2022, up 7% compared to 2021.
As you can see in the right-hand chart, this is also the highest figure in AmRest history, excluding the extraordinary contribution of EUR 37 million generated by the sale of Pizza Portal in 2019. Despite this progression, margins deteriorated more than expected. The EBITDA margin reached 15.9% compared to 18.7% in 2021. On slide five, we are presenting some of the reasons that supported our strong commercial dynamics. First, our omni-channel commercial positioning, and second, the advances in terms of digital sales. In addition to an excellent service and an attractive value for money offer that distinguishes ours, we have been very effective in adapting our commercial position to the search and demand for off-premise consumption. That represented over 65% of our sales during 2022.
Let me remark that to excel in delivery and take our channels as we are doing, is require a constant improvement of our technology and digital capabilities. Focusing on the second point, the rapid growth in terms of digital sales is illustrated in the left chart. The pandemic has modified the way we work and interact with each other, and has led us to incorporate and adapt to the use of new technologies, which has been becoming part of our daily lives. These changes have resulted into a more digital customer who demands new ways of ordering and even understanding consumer experience. Currently, almost half of our sales are generated through digital channels, which allows for a more customized offer to our customers' needs, while increasing the value of the transaction.
In summary, our industry is suffering one of the biggest transformations in its history that is providing an incredible opportunity for the companies that are able to adapt. In AmRest, we are trying to be at the forefront of these changes. In this regard, in slide six, let me illustrate some of the works that we are doing from an IT perspective. The group is immersed in an ambitious technological transformation that already is providing clear competitive advantages from front to back end. AmRest maintains the majority of its IT services in cloud, which provides high flexibility, especially from the scalability perspective, a key capability for a clearly growth-orientated company.
It also maintains a centralized and integrated e-commerce platform for the entire group that enables accuracy, the speed of execution, and a stability of systems, resulting in an exceptional experience for the growing number of customers who choose our digital channels: web, mobile, kiosk or aggregators. From a back office perspective, the development of our new inventory management or forecasting systems are improving the management of our restaurants, reducing waiting times for our customers and at the same time decreasing waste. Through Global BI, we have been able to connect in real time all the restaurants operated by the group and access valuable information on the millions of transactions that take place in the different countries and brands of AmRest, providing a greater starting point to better understand the preferences of our customers and adapt efficiently to them.
In slide seven, you can find the evolution of the 12-month trailing average revenue per store that stands at almost EUR 1.2 million. We have had a significant increase of revenue supported for quality sales improvement. As Eduardo and Santiago have mentioned in the quarterly calls, the positive evolution of revenue per restaurant provides sales leverage, which is a key factor to fight for margins in an inflationary environment. Precisely during 2022, challenges have also materialized in the form of high inflation, exacerbated even more by huge geopolitical tensions around the world. You can find this information in slide 8. During 2022, we have confronted the highest cost pressure seen in the last decades. This has led us to redouble our work to improve efficiency so that we can continue to provide the best value for money to our guests.
In order to control cost pressures and position AmRest to expand margins, an ambitious value-added program has been put in place, which, through multidisciplinary teams from different brands and countries, identifies, develops, applies, and shares opportunities for savings in cost of sales, G&A, semis, and CapEx. This allows for increased visibility on costs, facilitating the implementation of best practices and establishing new routines and work processes. Some of the main pillars of work have been energy efficiency, process control over suppliers, waste reduction, packaging management, and delivery model. All this work is placing us in the right position for new future margin expansion once cost pressure tensions start to ease. In slide number nine, we are providing a view about the changes in the AmRest restaurant portfolio.
We ended 2022 with a portfolio of 2,340 restaurants after the opening of 109 new restaurants, most of them concentrated during the last months of the year. Likewise, we continue with the execution of the portfolio optimization strategy with the closure of 63 non-strategic restaurants in the year. In addition, several business strategic adjustments were made. Pizza Hut Russia business was transferred during the second quarter of the year, and the Pizza Hut Germany business during the fourth quarter. The combined number of restaurant transfer amounted to 145. As we have already communicated to the market, we have reached an agreement for the disposal of our remaining business in Russia, comprising 214 KFC restaurants.
The transaction is subject to the approval by the Antitrust Agency of Russia and two other regulatory approvals which could be applicable in the country. In slide 10, let me share a few thoughts about a very important topic for us that is sustainability. At AmRest, we are increasingly mindful of the importance of taking care of the environment, the people around us, and ourselves. Therefore, we have continued to integrate sustainability into all of our processes and decisions, investing in both the development of our human capital and in innovating, aligning our objectives of growth, of generating value for our shareholders and the society, and complying with the demands of our customers. In this regards, the three pillars of our sustainable strategy are our food, our people, and our environment.
You can find the specific information in the slide and in our corporate website on the key projects and initiatives that we are currently working on. Next, I would like to review with you all the KPIs for 2022 that I shared one year ago. Let me contextualize that those KPIs were calculated and studied just before the start of the war in Ukraine, a situation that we obviously did not envisage under any possible scenario. Nevertheless, our level of delivery has been high. I remember last year saying a successful business need to meet consumers on their terms. Over the year, our business model once again demonstrated its resilience and ability to adapt and even thrive under any circumstances.
In this sense, we expected to achieve over double-digit growth in terms of sales, which we have exceeded, providing over 26% increase of not only sales, but more importantly, on quality sales, as I have been trying to explain through my previous slides. In terms of profitability, we have stated that our aim was to maintain margin levels, acknowledging that it was an ambition goal. The cost pressures registered during 2022 has been a tsunami that it has required important effort from the whole team to overcome. In this regard, the almost 16% EBITDA margin is below guidance. We have over-delivered EBITDA in nominal terms with an increase of 7% versus 2021.
We have also increased our capital expenditure by more than 40% to almost EUR 150 million, in line with our forecast, dedicating a record allocation of resources to modernize a significant number of restaurants as a part of our renewed focus on our customers and to invest in our technological transformation. New opening, it has been our Achilles heel. We delivered 109 new openings, a few below expectations due to several factors that have delayed our projects, but have not changed the fundamentals and our intention to continue to grow.
We expect the number of restaurants in the portfolio to begin to increase again soon as we leverage the strategic adjustments we made during the year. Finally, our leverage is under control, consolidating the progress made during the last years and keeping a convenient leverage ratio of 2x plays at the low end of the group's target range. As a last point, I would like to also share our view and expectation for 2023 that you can find in slide 12. We expect a year of two halves. We foresee a first half that will likely bear a strong resemblance to 2022 as elevated inflation and pricing carry over from 2022 before trends reverse in the second half.
In terms of revenues, our target and expectation is to continue to be delivering double digit growth despite the challenges that consumer spending may face in most countries in the next coming months. Next, profitability is one of the most difficult KPIs to forecast at this stage. We are positioned towards margin expansion, but given the high level of cost pressure is still expected, we forecast an EBITDA margin level similar to that seen in 2022. No surprises in terms of leverage, which we plan to keep within our target range. We should allow an adequate capacity for action to face potential challenges and opportunities that may arise. In this regard, potential non-organic transactions could cause deviations that should correct it from the short term. In terms of CapEx, we expect to increase investment over EUR 200 million.
Our plan is to accelerate the transformation of the company through new renovations, IT investments, and new openings of the stores. In this regard, in terms of organic growth, we expect to accelerate the new opening with a final figure above 2022 and also reduce the number of closures once the portfolio optimization process is maturing. With this, Eduardo will cover the main financial highlights. Eduardo, please.
Thank you, Luis. It's a pleasure to have you with us today. Good afternoon to you all. As Luis has shown, for another quarter, despite expectation of a slowdown in consumption, AmRest commercial dynamics continued to show very strong growth in quality and quantity in most of the markets in which we operate. The big exemption was China, where COVID infections soared in the country after easing of restrictions which has caused disruption in our business. The disruption of most of our business dynamics and explanations have already been provided by Luis. I will go very briefly through the big highlights in the next slides. In this regard, let me skip the slide 14 with the full year 2022 highlights that we will be covering in the next slide. First, in slide 15, we will focus on the main financial highlights for the fourth quarter.
Group revenue increased by more than 20% and reached EUR 651 million in Q4, with a same-store sales level of 117% versus last year. The most updated information in this regard points to similar levels with a regarding of 119% at the beginning of February 2022. The EBITDA generated in the quarter reached over EUR 94 million, with a slight decrease of 3.7% versus last year. The comparison is affected by the depreciation of the ruble and the disruption of the business activity in China. Finally, CapEx accelerated over 40% to most EUR 72 million, supported by a strong generation of operating cash flow.
In slide 16, let me point out that AmRest, we provide an extraordinary consumer experience delivered by passionate AmResties with a fully integrated omni-channel approach across all regions and supported by technological innovation. This value proposition is the basis of the almost straight trend line that has been shaping the evolution of our sales for more than two years now. In slide 17, you can find our quarterly and yearly EBITDA evolution. As already explained, cost pressures in energy products, in addition to the rise in the prices of many raw materials, has led to a rise in inflation levels unseen in several decades that has affected AmRest's profitability. Nevertheless, AmRest generated an EBITDA of over EUR 384.4 million in 2022, up 7% compared to 2021. This is the highest figure in AmRest's history, excluding extraordinary contributions.
In slide 18, you can find the cash flow generation. The group's operating cash flow generation reached almost EUR 363 million for the years, of which almost EUR 113 million were generated in the fourth quarter. The consolidation of quarterly operative cash flow generation above EUR 100 million is supporting our thesis in an additional and significant increase in the investments in 2023. In this regard, in the slide 19, you can find the organic changes in the restaurant portfolio. Following the seasonality shown in previous years, we accelerated the number of openings during the fourth quarter to 63 new restaurants, bringing the total number of openings for the full year to 109. On the other hand, the portfolio optimization led us to close 16 restaurants in the quarter and with a total of 63 during the whole year.
Slide 20 and 21 cover cash and debt evolution and structure. The group net financial debt amounted to EUR 425.4 million at year-end, which a reduction of more than EUR 200 million since the beginning of the pandemic, of which EUR 42 million was accomplished during the year. A prudent cash level of almost EUR 230 million is maintained, which represents an increase of EUR 31 million through the year. This increase, as already explained, has been compatible with an acceleration in CapEx. With this context, the group's leverage ratio continues sitting at the low end of our target rate. This is 2.0x . In terms of financial debt structure and maturity profile, there has been no relevant changes during the last quarter. We will focus on the results by different segments.
On slide 22, you can find the breakdown of revenue, EBITDA, and the number of restaurants we have in each segment. Starting with our more relevant region, in slide 23, we provide the main metrics for Central and Eastern Europe. For the full year 2022, sales in this segment amounted to EUR 1,134 million, representing 47% of the group sales and year-on-year growth of 30%. EBITDA generated was EUR 215 million, EUR 19 million higher than in 2021, representing an EBITDA margin of 19%. This figure represents record sales and EBITDA generation in nominal terms. The commercial activity has been gaining momentum throughout the year, explained by the gradual recovery of dine-in following the sanitary normalization and by the increasing of use of takeaway by our customers.
The restaurant portfolio reached 1,127 units after increasing by 41 restaurants with the opening of 52 restaurants and the closure of 17. In the slide 24, we cover Western Europe. Revenues in this segment reached EUR 829 million, 15% higher than in 2021. The EBITDA generated amounted almost EUR 108 million with an EBITDA margin of 13%. Once more, sales were gaining momentum throughout the year, mostly due to easing of restrictions that supported gradual recovery of the dine-in. Nonetheless, there were important divergency among countries. Spain and Germany recorded the best performance with 30% sales growth. Total number of restaurants in the region stood at 919 units, with a net increase of 79 during 2022.
From an organic perspective, there were 43 new openings and 36 closures, in addition to the transfer of the 86 Pizza Hut restaurants located in Germany at year-end. In slide 25, we have China. Revenue generated during the year stood at EUR 82.6 million, minus 17.6% than in 2021. The EBITDA generated, EUR 15.6 million, represents a margin of almost 19%. The business performance during the year was conditioned by the evolution of the restrictions marked by the Zero-COVID approach. The affection during the fourth quarter was especially relevant. After COVID restrictions were lifted, the infection spiked, resulting in significant business disruption. A strong recovery of activity has been observed since the beginning of the year as COVID infections decrease. As of today, all AmRest restaurants in the country are open and fully operational.
In terms of restaurants, we closed 2022 with 80 restaurants in the region after increasing the portfolio by three units with the opening of eight new units and the close of five. At year-end, all the restaurants were operated. During the fourth quarter, up to 20% of the portfolio was affected by closure. This is from my side. Back to Luis.
Many thanks, Eduardo. I just wanna say that I'm very optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead for AmRest, and the results presented are further proof of the excellent work being done. We continue to see most challenges as opportunities that we face. Many thanks to everyone. With this, we are open to any questions that you may have. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad to register a question. Our first question today is a written question that reads: You are guiding for double-digit revenue growth but existing 214 restaurants in Russia. Can you give a more clear guidance on new openings for 2023, since it will be hard to offset the revenue generated from the 214 restaurants that you previously had in Russia?
I think, we presented on our guidelines what we are expecting. I think we are aiming to have 100 stock openings similar to this year, last year results. That continuously plus the better efficiency that we are forecasting on those units will leverage those businesses that are gonna be transferred. We are expecting to have a, let's say, regular path of openings as we had in 2022 with better margin, hopefully.
Thank you. Our next question is from J.P. Rolandez from LT. J.P., please go ahead.
Yes, hello, congratulations one more time for these excellent results in very difficult circumstances. I have to say, I've been investing in this sector for 35 years, and I'm pretty impressed. I have three questions. The first one, there was a time when you acquired quite a few chains or franchisees, new franchisees. My first question is, do you have any plans to resume this strategy? It was a successful strategy, especially with the Sushi Shop, for example, or that others. The second question is related to this oddity called Bacoa, which it's a detail, but I wonder why it stays in the portfolio if you don't do anything with it.
My third and most important question is that, are you not planning to list your shares elsewhere than in Warsaw or in Madrid? Because you are followed by local brokers, which are nice and which are doing a good job. I'm not sure they fully appreciate how strong your fundamentals are, how strong your management team is, how strong your brands are, whereas in the U.S., for example, your stock would be rated twice as high, at least twice as high as it is now. Any vague plan to list on the Nasdaq, for example, or which is a market which would reward much better your successes and efforts.
Thank you. Thank you very much, J.P. I loved your remarks. I really appreciate your push and courage to our performance this year. I'm really having a very good time listening to your questions. Thank you very much in behalf of the entire team. Let me tell you about the first one. Are we planning to buy any other franchise in terms of other M&A opportunity? I think the answer is that we are in a status mode of listening and considering options. I cannot warranty any action today, but definitely we are swinging from a very cautious and transitional path to a active listening status. That means that opportunities that land in our desk are gonna be considered, so they are currently considered in some occasions.
More to come, more to see in the future, but I cannot confirm any singular action today. About Bacoa. Bacoa is a brand that, as you know, has been steady. We have licenses the business, and the business is operating as business continuity in kind of a business as usual mode. We are expecting just to get through this turbulent times for the brand, understanding much better the business opportunities for them, for the margins and for the business market share penetration. This is a standing by at the moment in the regular terms as it is today. About where to list our shares. I think this is a fantastic question for Eduardo. He suggested to go to Nasdaq.
Eduardo, I don't know if you will agree with J.P on that one, but I think you will give us another overview of the thing on that one.
Thank you, Luis. J.P , we appreciate your feedback on opportunities to increase exposure of the company and of course, all the consequences that that may have in terms of the value of the company. At this moment, we have not that in our scenarios, but of course it's something that it's always worth to take into consideration for a potential increase in the exposure of the company. I appreciate a lot the feedback that you are giving to us.
Well, thank you very much. These were my three questions. Again, really congratulations because frankly, what you have achieved and what you have been going through for the last three years is great.
Thank you, JP. I love to have you around to give you a big hug for your works.
It's, and thank you, JP. This is something that we have been working.
Yes.
of course, a lot on this, no? It's a balance, no? If we see the performance that we have had in terms of the sales, the transactions, same-store sales, openings, even in these challenging times. The performance of the debt, reduction of the total debt, getting better levels in terms of leverage, a lot of accomplishes, we have been done. This pushes us to have a bright future, and we are committed to delivering and continue delivering that in the foreseen future.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today is a written question that reads: You have mentioned the highest pressure in the first half of 2023 results. Will the first quarter of 2023 be the toughest with regard to margin?
Okay, I can take this one. We are now talking in the speculation territory, and it's all about understanding forecasts of mainly the energy costs. As you can already understand, energy cost is the biggest driver and trigger of our inflation cost. After a few spikes, all these increasing costs translate into the entire supply chain within a range of one-three months. Rapidly, it goes to our vendors, to our products, and therefore to our margin erosion. For us, it's a continuously observation, almost on a by hour if I may say, where the energy flows look likes. As we can see today, there are some kind of flattering trend, in some occasions, a little bit down, but it's still not enough to consider a full really downwards trend to understand.
That's why, on a very cautious analysis mode, we are expecting the first half to be probably the toughest one to cross, because we are just exiting a similar run rate path from the last quarter on Q4. We cannot see today any significant data that allow us to consider inflation is decreasing rapidly or going down in a different speed. Just flat with some lights of some declination and some market, and some goods and some categories, but not a full market trend yet.
Thank you. As a reminder, if anyone would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad.
Okay, let me use my first moderator. I will ask a couple of questions, if that's okay. Well, first of all, I want to understand that, as a follow-up to the presentation and the previous questions, you expect pretty flattish profitability over this year. It breaks down into continued pressure in the first half and recover of the margin in the second half. Is it the way we should read your statement?
Yes, Lucas. I think this is an evolution in a conservative approach, as I mentioned, where we are just observing the current trend as we exit route from 2022 and the starting of 2023. What I would like to highlight, and I think Eduardo already mentioned, is that due to the major investments that we have made, let's say, on the energy efficiency management, where we have done huge investments on how to reduce not only the power usage by cost, but the consumption by kilowatts and gas. This is leveraging us for a brighter future in terms of energy optimization. It's not only about the price, but it's also about the true usage by unit. This is also, let's say, we are trimmed now for a better margin forecast in that regard.
Same-wise on the digital platform, which is leveraging a lot of opportunities in sales. I say that almost the entire QSR platform of restaurants is already covered with the digital kiosk installation that you know, that leverage productivity as well as higher ticket average, so revenue. Those actions that took place in the last year has put us in a, let's say, very, very nice position to take advantage of any favorable win as we move. This is why we are optimistic that with only a small declines of the, of falling of the energy pressures, all margin recovery is well set ahead because all these strategic actions that we took this year.
Okay. Thank you. Can you give us some timeline maybe for the disposal of Russian KFC business? Expect this to happen and over the first quarter, it will be still booked by you as the continued operations or the discontinued? What are the technicals behind it?
Sure, Lucas. I wish I could. Unfortunately, this is completely out of our hands. As you know, there are some regulatory approvals to happen, and we don't have this ability on those internal government authorities, Russian authorities processes. I cannot share any expectation yet in that regard.
Okay. Thank you. The other question of mine would be: Well, you have trimmed the fats, over the last, couple of quarters, disposing the part of the business in restaurants which were below your expected standards. Should we expect this to be over or we should assume another 50 or so restaurants to be potentially closed over the course of 2023? You're just done and once you handle over KFC in Russia, Pizza Hut in Russia and in Germany, to another owner, that's done and you are going to well, continue roll out from the clean basis.
Sorry, Lucas, I'm not sure that I fully understood your question. Are you talking about the network of the amount of restaurants that we are maintaining or reducing? Sorry, I missed because noise connection at the very beginning of your question.
Okay. Sorry, sorry. Again, I want to understand whether the closing restaurants which were.
Okay.
your standards and who didn't meet your expectations.
Sure, sure.
is that already behind us? Or we should expect another whole material number of restaurants to be closed? Of course, like, for 10 restaurants per quarter, it's normal churn. But last couple of quarters you've been above it. How should we look about it? That's
Fully understood. Thank you, Lucas. Sorry. The closure of units is a natural and organic process at the company at any time. Obviously, we are expecting to close the less as possible, and definitely this is part of the optimization exercise. In some occasions, as you may understand, there are some units that are closed because external factors. In some occasions, there are technical reasons or malls developments, reshaping of size that force us to exit and relocate stores in different occasions. On the optimization exercise, what we are expecting this year is hopefully to shut down less units that we closed last year. That's part of the aim. This is a cleaning portfolio exercise that we conduct rigorously.
You can imagine that some of the performances last year were still contaminated by pandemic results, and therefore, visibility on true performance was not so clear. That exercise was taking place through all the months in the last year, and it will continue always to improve the profitability expectation of entire company and better use of our resources and capitalization. Yes, the process will always happen. I don't know if the number is gonna be ever zero, I doubt, but definitely it will be less than last year.
Okay, thank you for the answers. Operator, are there any questions in the room?
We do not have any further questions.
Okay. I believe that, let me wrap it up.
Lucas, let me add something. I think I can add some other angle to the conversation.
Okay.
I think Eduardo was sharing good insights about why do we feel confident about 2023 results. Let me add something that is probably not so visible in terms of financial reports, which is the people's capability. I would like to share with all of you that something that is related to our culture and to our organization design has been proven as a very successful business structure model. Why I'm saying that is because simply there is a very important KPI related to people rotation or turnover. This is one of the metrics that any company in restaurant business use to measure team stability and therefore productivity.
We have been able to reduce that turnover figure year-over-year, which in a very turbulent scenario of people turnarounds around the globe, especially in the hospitality sector, I think I can proudly share with you that we have reduced that number for the good. On top of that, something that you probably read last year, we were awarded by the Forbes magazine, economic magazine, as the best industry hospitality employer around the globe. That was conducted after over 800 anonymous interviews to AmResties and different people of different companies, and we were awarded as number one worldwide. I think this is one of the most rewarding statements that I'm saying today, because this is proving that our happy AmResties are delivering great results because the right level of confidence, trust in our future all together.
That was the human touch that I wanted to add into this perspective today. On top of that, I already mentioned something about our digital improvements. We have applied a huge effort on this CapEx that we invested last year, not only in digital, but we also referred so many stores that are now bright and in shape for future customer experiences that are proving that even at crisis time, we were taking the ground stoned actions of solidifying the better future. We have been taking very strategic ground actions to prove and to expect better business performance in the coming years. Very happy with the investments we made. Very happy with the results. I think the turbulent times is affecting any company in the world, especially hospitality and retail. You probably have seen different erosion margins in different degrees.
I think our erosion margin of less than 3% was, let's say, very good, in, into the benchmark with any other industry. The good thing is that the one that I'm much more proud of is that the like for like transactions growth. This is a proven number that our market share penetration strategy is proven right. We are gaining more market share, we are gaining more sales. We are delighting more customers than ever, and that's why we are achieving those records. We are just ready for the best to come. That was my only comments to add to the conference call. Thank you very much, Lucas and Santi.
Thank you. That was great.