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

Marcelo Pimentel: Thank you, Alexandre. I’ll go straight to your point. Of course, we can’t give any guidance, but what we can say is that the main element that we expect to sell and monetize on has been announced, our participation of 3.3% in Éxito. Besides that, we also have about additional BRL 500 million. This includes assets that we have that will be sold in the next quarters. So I’d say that pretty much how we should consider it. So about BRL 500 million besides what we have in Éxito, the other assets that we can still monetize. Concerning Compre Bem, it’s still early to say because, as a reminder, when it comes to assortment, when we transform this banner into Mercado Extra, this allowed us to had a lot of assortment to Mercado Extra.

And it also allowed us to include our own brand, which is now becoming more relevant. So we’re starting to see some performance improvements. But more than sales, we are definitely seeing contributions to our margins. Some categories and different departments have been unified, things that were done separately before and that now have been able to piggyback on Mercado Extra’s performance. So that includes meat products, grocery products and so on. So clients will understand a new value proposition. They’ll recognize the improvement in assortment proposed for these formats. And they’ll also see an improvement in pricing, especially in perishables. And just as we’ve done in other formats, we’d like to reinforce these. On the other hand, the main point here is not only sales growth, but also optimizing our results.

And this has been seen significantly.

Operator: Great. Thank you, everyone. This concludes our question-and-answer session. We’ll now pass it over to Marcelo Pimentel for the company’s closing remarks.

Marcelo Pimentel: Once again, I’d like to thank everyone for being here for our call. I’m very pleased, I’m very happy and confident with the results we’ve presented, which validate the consistent work and business strategy that we’ve had. In April 2022, we started a turnaround process that was set to last 3 years. We’re in the second stage of this project, and we’re starting to be rewarded for our work which focused on operational and structural improvements so that their results would be long-lasting and sustainable. I’m confident that we’re fully capable of continuing to deliver on these fronts. I’ll close by thanking the team for their dedication and commitment. They really have believed in our projects. So thank you to the stores team, the distribution center team, e-commerce, everyone who’s making a difference to make our business turn around. Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator: This concludes our conference call. The Investor Relations department is available to answer any outstanding questions. Thank you, and have a great day.