Companhia Brasileira de Distribuição (NYSE:CBD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Marcelo Pimentel: Sure. Thank you, , for your question. About the out-of-stock issues, that is an obsession we have. We want to be able to meet customer needs. I remember when I joined in April 2022, one of the main complaints that we had from customers regarded the lack of assortment, consistency in our stores. The customer came, bought a product. And when they came back another day, the product was no longer there available for them. So this was quite orectic. So I would say that 95% of product availability on the shelves consistently because it’s important to highlight here that this number that we are sharing is not a snapshot of the last week of the quarter. This is a consistent weekly number that we track in our stores.

And when we look at the delta difference here when we see expansion of reduction of out-of-stock items and increase in sales, I think the two things are closely related. And I would even say that in 2025, we would reach a best-in-class rate here in England. When I worked at Walmart, our metric was 97%. So I believe we can still improve this number. This is a solution that comes from an internal work that we do and also work that we do with our suppliers and the main challenge to exceed this figure of excellence as to be able to improve these rates in more distant capital cities, especially in the Northeast region of Brazil. We are working hard to improve our out-of-stock numbers in the Northeast because when we compare the numbers of the Northeast to the numbers of Sao Paulo and Rio, they’re not at the levels we want.

Although it’s already considered an excellent rate, considering the Brazilian standards. But we expect this number to improve in 2024. Now about working capital. You saw that last year, we reduced 5 days as compared to 2021. And in 2023, when we look at the quarterly numbers, we have reduced this by 7 days. This is fruit of hard work. And the management of categories at o Pão de Açúcar, we reduced our assortment at o Pão de Açúcar by 10%. And as you know, we are now working on this for Mercado Extra and the Proximity format brands. Even so, we’ll still have the opportunity to reduce not as much as we were able to reduce in the first 2 years because the levels were higher, but now we’re going to focus on the detail and make sure that the assortment in the Mercado Extra stores will bring improvement in sales and margins and working capital.

Would you like to add anything here, Marcelo?

Rafael Russowsky: I think you said it all. The opportunities are in the work that will be done in the stores that are left for the category management work, and this can give us another 2 to 3 days of additional gains. These are our estimates. But as Marcelo said, the hard work has been done. And so we might have some a few days to improve our working capital only.

Operator: The next question will be asked by [indiscernible] from OMS.

Unidentified Analyst: So referring to leverage. I understand that you’re not providing you guidance on what level of leverage you will be at. But can you share anything about how much cash you think you’ll be able to get from additional sales of non-core assets excluding, of course, Éxito, which you’ve disclosed about. How much do you expect from Cnova’s sales and the other assets that you intend to sell? Another question. Looking at the different brands and how they’re performing, in your release, you mentioned conversions from Compre Bem to Mercado Extra. So what kind of performance have you been seeing after these conversions?