I would like to thank God for another results call. We are here thanks to God, who allows us to sit here with you with good health.

I would like to thank everyone who is listening also and watching us at this moment. It's a very important and special moment as it marks our history.

We're going to bring lots of different results, and within these results we are bringing our first consolidated balance. As we all know, Sandro and Túlio, it was months of efforts of our teams, we could not forget the chance to thank these two teams, the team which brought us to this consolidated balance.

I would like to thank the team. Thank Ismael, thank Estêvão, thank Daniel, the president of the company, Vítor, Débora, Roberto.

These people worked hard. I would also like to thank our team which made huge efforts so that this could be a possibility.

In the name of Jesuino Martins, our president, who had all of the strategies and questions, calmed things down when we needed, guided us so that this could happen. Túlio, Leandro, Regis, giants within the company, and all of the team that is working of our leadership.

Lots of people were working hard to make this happen, and that's why we were able to have this first balance. That's what makes us very happy because this is an important moment in our history, and it is also the joining of two regional groups.

When we joined Grupo Mateus and Novo Atacarejo, these are groups which learned a lot with each other through our 40-year journey, but we're also learning a lot through this merger. This merger also allows us to join great brands to great brands.

It allows us to broaden our presence geographically. We are in three different states, three new states because this fusion brought us a lot of competitive upper hand and a huge logistical facilitation.

We were able to occupy the space that was open thanks to this result. Thanks to this union, this joining of forces, we got to this result, and I'll pass the word to Jesuino Martins now.

Thank you, Ilson, Sandro, Túlio. Good morning to everyone.

Thanks for watching us and joining us on this call. I'd like to share some data from our consolidated balance as our VP just told you.

You can see on the screen 26 stores of Giga brand and 36 stores Novo Atacarejo, and what you see on the third column, this adds up to 62 stores. That is what the new company is made up of in those three states that Mr.

Ilson mentioned. If you notice, a good part of the stores are in Pernambuco, 47 stores in Pernambuco, almost 80% of the stores in the state of Pernambuco, and lots of work to do in that state still.

Also lots to be done in the state of Paraíba, Alagoas. You'll see below a snap of our gross revenue, R$1.6 billion in Giga, R$1.7 billion Novo Atacarejo.

This brings the company together to R$3.3 billion in revenue, a company which is already born huge. We look at this annualized data, gross margins below, you can also see 19.3% of gross margins on the side of Giga and 20% gross margins on the side of Novo Atacarejo, and the new company with 19.6% of gross margins.

Below you'll also see the EBITDA of each company, Giga 4.7% of EBITDA margins, Novo 7.6%, and the new company with 6.2% all together in EBITDA margins. You can see to the right the sales percentage we have.

Most of the stores, at least 62% of the stores, have at least one years old, one year old. You'll see that we also have almost 30% of the stores already over 4 years old, there's a difference there in terms of the maturity of the stores.

It explains a bit of the differences that we still have in some of the indicators. As time goes by, and Sandro can share more of this with you about everything we have done, everything we will do, the integrations.

We're full power here. I also wanted to share with you that you can see the new company in these three states, we reach 37.7% of participation in the states which are so important to us in the Northeast.

We're super happy with this participation. If we look just at cash and carry, the new company probably has more than 44% of market share in those states.

Very important step forward. We're very happy with that as Ilson mentioned.

Also the arrival at Novo contributes to Giga in all of the Northeast. Pará, if you look at the bottom right, Giga with a new joining with Novo takes us to 37.7% market share in the Brazilian Northeast.

Very big conquest for us, and we consider this to be a successful phase that we have closed, and I want to thank everyone who did that. I won't repeat the names, but people from Giga, people from Novo, we're now a new team, Novo Mateus, as we're calling ourselves.

Very happy, very satisfied. I want to thank everyone for the effort, for the integration which is still taking place, full power.

As I mentioned, Sandro can later give you more information regarding everything that was done. I want to go and pass the word back to Mr.

Ilson, who has something new to share with us. Thank you, Jesuino.

Following our presentation internally, we have been discussing that we have to talk about innovation, specialization, and we can't stop thinking about that because we always have to think what will our company look like in 5, 10, 15 years. Since we see these markets coming together, we see how big the demand is to have specialized channels for better reaching each type of client, each type of consumer.

That's why we decided to join these brands, and thankfully God gave us this opportunity to open the store and brought a team full of experiences to participate in this. Why do we believe so much in this?

Because it's a complete solution for our clients. It's a professional mix.

Our atacarejo stores are unable to deliver this mix of products and of purchasing which this channel demands and requires. We're always thinking about how we can better improve our efforts to reach our clients, and we're going to have an opportunity to transform this market.

This is a space for building capacity and building trust with our clients. This is our strategy, this is our position, a channel which is very relevant in Brazil, building this channel which is still missing, faulty, and in need of strengthening.

On slide 6, you can see our expansion, our normal expansion, 13 new stores have been launched by this third quarter, and you can see that we have strategic stores in Maranhão. We've been consolidating ourselves and presence in that state.

Stores in Pernambuco, we also opened a store in Sergipe, in Bahia, where we are now marking our presence in that state, and also marking the consolidation of our brand in Pará, a state which we see as a very strong possibility for the company. Here on slide 7, you'll see what we highlighted are the 306 stores, especially thanks to this new merger, which makes us more relevant in the market, and more relevant especially in the Northeast and a part of the north of the country, which to us at this moment is extremely important.

Moving forward on slide 8, we bring relevant novelties as well. We recently opened a store, a service store in Teresina.

It's a store that we call gently, lovingly, João 23, John 23, a service store, a store which was born busy because the public was missing something, these clients. The clients who went to atacarejo are now coming back because they want more service.

They also want specialization.

Wow, the

store that was born with a positive EBITDA in the second month, and this proves that we have to invest in this channel more, and we have great expectations as well.

Going bring in this expansion in October, we open up four more important stores that you're seeing, Pernambuco, Fortaleza, and as I've already mentioned, food service in São Luís. Moving on with page 9, we also bring in some news within the service flag, which is very relevant.

We've created a commercial internal structure to support these stores, and we're going to bring in some important news, one in Shopping São Luís, another in Olho d'Água. We created a structure of logistics not only for commercial, but also logistics.

That's a store that brings in 4,000 SKUs, and in this Spazio premium segment, we also want to bring in innovation with a specific team that will really focus on this moment and this channel because we know the importance of this. Moving on, about next year, following our expansion project, we've been thinking about this for quite a while, as we mentioned in previous presentations.

We're very strong. We focused on the more strategic stores that will bring in a bigger tier, and now we can be more selective.

We are really in this process with another 15 stores underway, as you can see, and Piauí is an important state for us, Pará also, and some other stores as well consolidating our expansion. Now, I'm going to pass on the floor to Túlio.

Túlio, the floor is yours. Thank you, Ilson.

Thank you, Jesuino. Hi, Sandro.

The idea is that we'll have a balance that's consolidated, as Jesuino mentioned, I'm going to try to be more objective and more clear. I'm going to start off with the next slide here with the cash conversion cycle and the topic about valuing stocks.

As the company today, after the IPO, has been dedicating significant energy to restructuring and improving accounting processes and back office as a whole, and the accounting area is one of these. This topic involves different initiatives, the processes themselves, people, a team, systems.

In the beginning of 2024, we hired a external consulting firm to help us conduct this process related to improving processes in the accountability area. As a subproduct of this process, we began at the end of 2024 rewriting this, and our Kardex is the checking account of that stock, let's say.

Any product that goes through this goes through Kardex, purchase, sale, transfer, tax credits, all of the elements related. Conducting this project, we began to have a Kardex and a view of the stocks that are 100% traceable.

We're also going to have automatic integration and all of the standardization of these criterias and the tax parameterizations, and of course you can have an improvement of governance on this. In this quarter, we've identified the need to review these financial balances of the stock, and here I'm talking about the actual valorization of these stocks, and we also reviewed the comparative balances following the same criteria, and you can see this in the explanatory notes of our financial statements.

With the revision of these, our cash conversion cycle, as you can see on the right side, ends the quarter in 57 days. In regards to the axis we were working on up until the previous quarter, we have an improvement of 17 days.

Then when we talk about the third quarter of '24, which is our comparison base, we see 68 days. However, that represented a improvement of 14 days.

If you compare with this language that's more up to date with the 57 days and 68 related to the third quarter of '24, then you have an improvement of 11 days. What's most important here is this new axis with all of these indicators, the cash conversion cycles and stocks as well.

You have the revision that have no cash impact or any type of derivative from these indicators related to cash positions exclusively. In the bottom part of the slide, you can also see that there's a cycle of the main cash conversion cycles for Grupo Mateus that's already consolidated with the Novo Atacarejo, and I'm referring to the dark blue graph where you have the consolidated cash conversion cycle, and that ended the quarter 48 days.

In our previous, we were mentioning the last quarter of 72 days, and now with all of these movements, we're talking about a cash conversion that's consolidated of 48 days. On the right side, you can see the cash conversion cycles that are exclusively the turnover, we have a cash conversion -1, and then you have levels of stock that no doubt in these interactions we're going to have really been inspiring us to search for processes and systems, and learn with this so that we can really focus on this in our operations as well.

When we look at the slide of number 13, we have the numbers of our gross revenue of the company, and as you can see, we created this dynamic to be 100% comparable. We start off with the third quarter of '24.

This is going to work for all of the indicators we show here, and that's going to go over the quarters, and then in the third quarter we bring in this ex-Novo perspective so it can be 100% comparable with the historical basis. Then on the right side, we have this view of Novo, where we can see this yellow bar, and that's the graphic illustration of the amount related to Novo.

Just to explain the mechanism so we can see this in the quarter, ex-Novo was 20%. When we talk about this with Novo, this gross revenue reaches R$12 billion and R$100 [million?]

in the quarter, and then you have a growth of 28.3%, plus R$2 billion 400 million. The accumulated results in the year, this absolute growth is even greater.

We're talking about growth of R$4.5 billion or 18.9%. In regards to the commercial dynamic, Jesuino will explore this a little more, but we have an important point here.

We had a quarter where in the anniversary month performed pretty well, but then the month of September was a lot more challenging, and so there was a shift in the performance axis, and I believe that that's an important point to manage and observe these operations from now on as well. Now moving on to the next slide, we have our numbers related to the gross profit of the company, and here I want to be careful with trying to be objective and trying to be as clear as possible about the elements we consider to be one-off elements, and explain each one.

As you can see in the first column, the consolidated gross profit adds up to R$2 billion 292 [million?] , and then what happens is we have two one-off elements we wanted to share with you guys.

First is related to additional losses related to new inventories or an increase of frequencies, and here I'm referring to physical inventories, operations of the stores where you can see the physical quantities of the stores. When we increase the frequency, or we increase the amount of inventories in practical terms, you anticipate the accountability of this loss that you would have had in future periods.

That does not mean a structural increase of this loss. Here I will ask for Jesuíno's contributions to give us an overview on this change.

You can talk about investment in technology, but then after I'll cover also other... We approved a budget of another R$15 million per year to hire more people.

When you provide a bigger frequency on this, you reduce the losses, right, because we're acting with more austerity and greater speed. With this, we can inhibit a series of processes in the stores with robberies and that generate losses.

We're also bringing in artificial intelligence, which is very important, something we started to perform, facial recognition of the people that perform deviations or rob in the stores. We also know through and Jesuino that from the back of the store.

We're developing a system for artificial intelligence where cameras are interconnected with our ERP, and they're looking at those loads there and that are unloading there, and they're also comparing with what comes into the system. In some stores and states, we started noticing that you had the invoice coming in and not the product, we're kind of surrounding ourselves with everything we can through artificial intelligence and technology to contain this.

We already see a bit of a reversal in this loss, we're super satisfied, and we're investing. We're bringing in more losses at this initial moment, but this is a moment to solve this and to search for efficiency as much as we can when it comes to loss preventions, right?

Then just to add on, Túlio, we anticipated future losses, right? We had an inventory we had every 4 months, and then we bring in this inventory process to a shorter period.

Now we have items, for example, that we've been working on daily inventories even, and sectors that we performed every 4 months, and now we do monthly. This is why we imagined this future loss.

Just to reinforce what Ilson mentioned, our attention in regards to this topic is when retail is going through a cautious moment at this moment when it comes to controlling losses. What we're doing, as Mr.

Ilson mentioned, is just doubling our level of concern and paying more attention to this, and that's why Túlio shared this data with you guys about the loss of stocks due to these additional inventory. Wanted to reinforce a little more with more granularity, Jesuino.

We had some months where we had a big loss of some product categories employees were picking up more expensive products at the POSs and passing a code that was cheaper. You can see sausages that are double the price, and then there'd be leftover in the cheapest one and lacking in the more expensive one.

With facial recognition and recognition at the POS, we can already see that, and we've found a lot of occurrences within the stores. That's going to help also to inhibit, and the people that perform these deviations, we're really going to notice that we're focused on these.

Moving on to the next line here, we have the revision of the stocks in regards to the first semester of 2025, and here it's a topic I mentioned on the previous slide. The revision of our accounting policy and specifically related to the first semester of 2025 was also accounted for in the results of this third quarter.

We expressed this to be able to calculate what the results would be. Like this, the gross profit ex-extraordinary effects adds up to R$2 billion 143 million, and that's considered a gross margin in the consolidated results of 22.2%.

When you look at the gray column, it's the same kind of rationale, but that's where you see a gross margin of 23.2%. When you get into the bottom part of the slide, you can see we have the same rationale in regards to the first 9 months of 2025.

The only line that's not here is related to the first semester, right? Since we're talking about the first 9 months, all of these effects needed to be considered, right?

When you see the consolidated gross margin in this way, it continues at the 21.7%, and ex-Novo in the first 9 months, the gross adds up to 22.8%. Now moving on to the next slide, we have the graphic visualization of this topic just to give you a better view on the last quarters.

You can see that if you consider these extraordinary events, 23% that remains in the third quarter of '25. When we exclude Novo, then we start moving on to 22.7%.

The gross profit considering Novo represents 30.7%, and that adds up to R$2 billion 403 million. When you look at the cumulative results in the year, on the right side of the slide, we can see the gross profit added up to R$6 billion 324 million in the cumulative results in '25, with growth of about 22% and a gross margin of 22.7%.

Now moving on to the next slide, we're going to talk about operational expenses, and so this has been a very important topic for us in the last months in the company. The company has really been making an effort to bring in more a view on this topic.

Now we're delivering a quarter with a expense on net revenue of 15.2%, basically the same access for the year of '25 as a whole, and especially the 15.2% which also had an effect which is slowing down sales, as you mentioned, and actually more fixed expenses, such as personnel, which do pressure things a bit more. In this line, the company has been structuring itself more and more with productivity and expense control, and bringing in the methodologies of expense management.

We've been also having very interesting discussions that have been generating a lot of value. I think the company has a very constructive view from now on on this topic, with intelligent discussions and actual productivity.

Since when the macro environment becomes more challenging, it's really important for us to adapt the level of expenses to keep up the efficiency in the profitability. When you look at the cumulative results in the year, expenses added up to R$4 billion 190 million, and a growth of 19.5%, and the ratio on net revenue was 15%.

Now moving on to the next slide, we have the EBITDA composition, and here I'm going to follow along with the same rationale on the gross profit, and I'm going to bring in some topics. I'll explain case by case, and we're talking about an EBITDA post-IFRS of about R$833 million, and an EBITDA margin of 7.7%.

The two next items we bring in are the numbers we just mentioned with the topics that we already had on the construction of the gross profit. I'm going to head straight into the third topic, which is the REFIS amnesty program at Maranhão.

The company worked on, and this topic is a topic referring to divergence of payments of the ICMS-ST. This is not something super specific, but there is a important financial result, and we adhered to this, and we're going to pay this in a few years in installments.

Now the next item of R$180 million that we have that reduced, which is a positive effect in the results, but that refers to previous exercises. Here, you have PIS/COFINS credits and ICMS credits of some different topics we've been developing, and we shared a lot of them with you guys.

Within our tax committee as well, as you all know, the company has during many years been working on all the tax planning, anchored by subvention on investments. Then ever since in '23 that law changed, we've been working on identifying additional opportunities, such as this that we're bringing here in the EBITDA composition.

The EBITDA margin consolidated in the quarter adds up to 7.9% with an EBITDA of R$855 million. When you exclude Novo to have the 100% comparable basis, we're talking about an EBITDA margin post-IFRS of 8%, which adds up to R$744 million.

When you look at the cumulative results in the year, the rationale's pretty much the same. We talk about an EBITDA margin ex-Novo of 7.7%, and in the consolidated view, 7.7% also, showing the profitability axis and in the gross margin and the EBITDA margin.

The next slide is more to give us more of the sequential graphic view. We're talking about, as I mentioned, an EBITDA margin in the quarter ex-Novo of 8%.

In the second quarter, we had a margin of about 8%. Then when we include this, we're talking about an EBITDA of 7.9% and a growth of about 32% year-over-year.

Now, in the accumulated results, the EBITDA adds up to R$2 billion 147 million, with a growth of 21.8% and a margin of 7.7%. Now on the next slide, when we consider the DRE topic, if we keep the same rationale now, we have the composition of the income.

On the first column, we can see that the consolidated net income in the quarter was R$846 million. The first line is the extraordinary effects that are condensed here, as we just mentioned, the EBITDA and the gross profit.

To talk about the next that are ahead that referred to the impact on the net income, the first item is about the PIS/COFINS for the JCP intercompany. JCP, when you increase the resources, you have to pay the PIS/COFINS upon this, and this year we decided to take up part of this in the third quarter.

This is just like a shift between quarters, and actually it brings in pressure in the third quarter, and it provides some relief as a comparison base. We added this here to be able to compare, right?

The next item, which is the most important, is the reversal of the provision of subventions for investments. This is a topic everyone watching the company knows about.

The company, ever since the rules changed, has adopting a conservative policy taking provisions on the taxes related to the new law, but we knew that legal discussion was really top quality, and we don't remember the constitutional topics, the federative pact agreement terms, the fact the company has a favorable view on this. Among the companies that are considered references, this is one of the last ones that we were missing to reverse, we got a lot of confidence, and we're able to make this decision from this.

Almost R$211 million by the end, R$81 million referring to 2024, and R$129.7 million related to the first quarter of 2025. The next elements are of less impact, but here's just the income tax on extraordinary effects.

The next topic, the capitalization of the interest on loans from previous years, here you're just going to be adopting the CPC rule, where throughout the construction of a store, you consider the interest of funding related to this topic, and you can capitalize according to the existing accounting rules. In this way, the net income excluding these extraordinary effects adds up to R$508 million, and a net margin of 4.7%.

When we look at the same rationale excluding, we're talking about a net income of R$470 million and a net margin of 5.1%. When we look at this bottom part of the slide, considering a net income of R$1 billion 514 [million?]

in the consolidated numbers, and considering the necessary adjustments, that adds up to a net income in the first 9 months of 2025 of R$1 billion 246 [million?] , with a net income of 4.5%.

That one excludes that, it's R$1 billion 208 [million?] , and a net margin of 4.6%.

Now moving on to the next slide, we have the sequential view, and here it's interesting because we saw consistency in these criterias, and we also saw consistency in the EBITDA axis. Now we have important growth in the net income, which is the main topic of the reversal in the income tax, and here you have the recurring values related to the current period.

We go back to this topic of tax efficiency that is really strong, as we've already seen in the past. Then in the accumulated numbers in the year, net income of R$1 billion 246 [million?]

and a growth of 28%. When we consider this quarter considering Novo, 48.5%.

Then moving on to the slide where we're going to talk about the net income, we can observe that the sequential line is in dark blue, and then we add a new company with a combination of Giga and Novo. With the sequence only Giga, we end with a net debt of R$943 million, a leverage level of 0.39 times the EBITDA.

Now, the new company has a debt of R$489 million. This new company on its own has a leverage of 0.8 times the EBITDA.

Then you add up a consolidated net debt of R$1 billion 438 [million?] .

Novo and even in the same store sale, even the stores of Giga that incorporated this new company, they were stores that were really new at the beginning of their maturity curve, and Giga even more, as Jesuino mentioned in the slide, an initial here in the presentation. Novo is also a really new operation, right?

You have a level of leverage that's really balanced with an operation that has been growing at a very interesting level. The consolidated leverage is at 0.5, and even the consolidated results in this variation axis among quarters in the company.

Right, these are our initial comments, and now we are available, of course, to get into questions and answers. Thank you very much.

Now we're going to begin our Q&A session. If you have questions, you should select the Q&A icon on the bottom part of your screen, and then write your name into the queue.

Once you're announced, a request to activate your mic will appear on the screen, then you must activate your mic to submit a question. We'd ask you to please have all your questions submitted at once.

Our first question is from Luiz Guanais at BTG Pactual. We'll enable your mic, Luiz, so that you can submit your question.

Good morning, Túlio, Mr. Ilson, Sandro, Jesuino.

I have two questions here on our side. First, Túlio, is about the controls and processes you mentioned that impacted the company's cash cycle.

I wanted to understand what would be the cycle if you look at stocks and the recurring view from now on. There's some work you guys have been communicating about that you've been working on for many quarters to try to improve this level of stocks.

After these adjustments with the more precise controls, what could we consider to be the recurring cycle? Then you have a second question which is related to the slowdown, and would you already have a diagnosis maybe of the cause of this for the loss in traction, consumption in these categories?

Is this related to government incentives? Is this related more to income pressure?

I wanted to hear a little more about this. Thanks.

Good morning, Guanais. Thank you for the question.

Now, I'm going to start off here, and then Jesuino can also hop in. The numbers we saw here in the presentation for the cash conversion cycle, and also in the release, already following the reviewed language, and these are the recurring levels for stock and cycle.

Of course, the operational aspects on this topic remain at the same pace, and we're very much focused on this, especially in the fourth quarter. Throughout this discussion with Novo, one of the topics we learned about a lot, and their financial cycle demonstrates this, they have 53 days of stock.

We've learned a lot with them. We've brought in some dilemmas here, and I think it's a very interesting topic to share with you.

We really defended our understanding of what we have as open to buy, and this is a topic we've been improving more and more. The other elements, you already know.

We've been connecting the variable compensation of executives in regards to this, and there's also been a level of relevance in management's meetings in a very accentuated manner. More and more, the team has become conscious of this value creation perspective, not only the sales margins and results, but also all of the capital consumption aspects.

This is a topic that has been gaining maturity. When we look at this from a consolidated perspective, we're talking about 65 days of stock, and when we look at this without Novo, we're talking about 68 days in this quarter.

Of course, we want to search for opportunities from now on. Then, of course, all of the variable compensation that is really focused, right, Túlio, on this indicator and sales contributing to Guanais' answer.

No doubt, we should consider this recurring level and a search for this improvement. We can really see this when it comes to the growth in July and August, and at least half of the growth in these two months, right?

It's difficult to set a specific reason for this. We've been coexisting with a weak consumption environment, and we know about the entire scenario.

These consumers, especially in the Northeast, they have very limited budget, right? Their pockets are pressured, and when we look at the data that Nielsen audits in the Northeastern Brazilian retail, you can see the level of adjustments and inflation, it's at least 3 percentage points above.

Despite this scenario, in the Northeast, we also have this inflation scenario in retail, that indicates even more pressure. We also notice families that have more and more debt.

This is growing more and more, and delinquency is also growing. I understand that the merger of all these factors has certainly been the reason for this weak consumption environment.

We know that consumers also migrating to categories that are cheaper, a shift categories, the guys that are buying beef now prefer to buy chicken, and so they buy protein, but it's cheaper. Sometimes trading down to cheaper brands, all of this behavior contributes to this, right?

This is the scenario we have been experiencing throughout the quarters. Now it's important to mention that even in this scenario of weaker consumption, let's say, we continue to grow.

When we look at data that Nielsen also audits, and the growth we had in the Brazilian Northeast in the market rates, we've been growing above market levels, and we've been gaining share in the market with Novo even more. Now we need to reinforce our commitment to the EBITDA margin, and we've been really trying to balance these factors to be able to deliver a resilient EBITDA, as Túlio just mentioned.

Maybe just to take advantage of your question and share that in the fourth quarter, the scenario hasn't changed. It's still very similar to what I shared with you.

We still have in the fourth quarter, Black Friday, the end of the year, and we're still betting a lot on our multi-channel aspects that are very important for us. That's pretty much the view we've had, and we continue to work on delivering the best results possible, as we've shared with you.

I hope I answered, but just to reinforce your comment here, we've been really trying to find a balance between the growth of sales and margins. What matters at the end of the day is our EBITDA, and we've been highlighting this a lot and really cutting down on expenses as we can, carefully.

Good morning, guys, and thank you so much for taking my question. I have two.

First about the accounting revision, and this was really clear with the consulting company and also. I just want to understand what are the other possibilities for revisions, and we want to understand if we could have other movements like this, or if, in your view, the work was completed, there's not much more to be done.

I think it would be great to get more visibility in regards to this. Then a second point, more geared towards next year, now that you're more consolidated with Novo and with this new company that's more structured and discussed.

You already talked about how you're working on encounters with management to define synergies and next steps, and maybe you guys can share what your mindsets are for next year when it comes to expansion. You still have a scenario of uncertainty.

You have some factors that could improve income, and even the issue with the benefits from the government, but still don't have major shifts in this sense. Then you also have this new format, as Mr.

Ilson mentioned, and so I'd imagine that's smaller. Then there's also Novo with more opportunities.

How are you going to consider this mindset on returns on investments versus maybe taking advantage of this opportunity, considering the weakening of this competitive scenario? That would be really good.

Dani. Thank you for the questions.

We'll start off with the first one, and then I'll pass it on to Mr. Ilson, Jesuino, and Sandro.

About the risk of having variations here, I think the work then developed was finally reaching a level of maturity that's really great, and today it's already traceable. I'd say that the chances of having some item on this is low and definitely non-material because we have more visibility today with a lot more security and full traceability.

With this, we're really confident. Now, the general topic for back office and other areas and some derivatives for accountability are very much complimentary.

Of course, we're on this pace for evolution, and these are topics that we believe to be central. Now, since the work is really mature, and you have very small phases where we have more than 95% of the work completed, and the visibility and traceability and standardization of the criterias and parameters will be implemented now with integrated automatic integration, and you really have a level of security that's really high, and so the level of confidence becomes a lot higher.

I think if there's any other questions, you can add on later on to Jesuíno's answer. In regards to expansion...

Dani, your question is very interesting because we've actually been discussing this a lot, and I'm always thinking about what Professor Marinho mentioned in the '90s, where a company needs to have cash. We're keeping a close eye on our cash.

We're being a lot more selective with the expansion because we're basically in all states, and we've already advanced a lot in cash and carry and retail, and we're also considering a food service brand with a Spazio service store, and we have a long path ahead. We're really keeping a close eye on what the tier is, right?

If this return rate is not above average, we're not going to keep on, right? We want to be very comfortable because with this kind of a interest rate, we have to really take a close look on our steps and really keeping up with the guarantee of the future of the company and without risks, right?

We're going to continue with this expansion, but with our feet on the ground, which is what we've done in the past 40 years. Perfect.

Also just a follow-up point here. I want to understand the revision itself.

Sorry about maybe not having the technical knowledge, but was this revision of the financial balance, was that because you were reviewing this stock? You had mentioned the losses that maybe weren't accounted for, but just to have some more tangibility here on this.

This is a very important question. With the valorization of the stocks, and this is an accounting topic, but the topic that Jesuino mentioned on the inventories is more of an operational topic, considering the physical amount of inventory in the stores.

Both topics permeate stock, but they're non-communicable. In one you have the physical inventory, and you're always looking at the amount of items.

The other is related to revision of the accounting policy. We did a complete review of Kardex, bringing all of the elements that transact and should be considered in the company's stock with all the parameterizations.

Then when this work is completed, and you have a clear value here on trust and traceability, we compared the stock balances, and that's when we worked towards reviewing this. Perfect.

Thanks for the answers, guys. The next question is from Rodrigo Gastim at Itaú BBA.

Good morning, guys. Two questions on our side.

The first is in this stock adjustment topic, Túlio, I think it would be great to get a little more of a view on the adjustments backwards. If you look at the explanatory notes, there's an adjustment of R$1 billion in stock that you considered in 2024.

It would be good to understand, and if you could also share a bit of how much of this adjustment was really from 2024, and how this moved along in the results, right? I think that's the first question.

Then the second question is in regards to Novo, when we look at the calculation here, reaching a net debt of Novo of about R$500 million, if you get back to the anticipation of receivables that you broke down, it would be about R$650 million. Just to understand about this, how this took place within Novo and how much cash you dedicated to this, and how the net debt actually reached this level, and if that was in line with what you guys had expected.

I think it would be good to understand this net debt with Novo. These are the two points.

Great. Thank you, Gastim.

Thanks for the questions. The stock in the past related to this was adjusted from a net perspective, discounting income tax.

The value you mentioned refers to the past, and the specific value of 2024 is R$94 million. When you consider this, it's all from the past.

What was considered as results in this third quarter where the amounts related to 2025, that we considered where we had more clarity when we discussed the gross profit and the EBITDA. We excluded the values related to the first semester, and we absorbed this at Giga with the effects of the quarter.

This is the topic related to your first question. Now on your second question, you're right.

The net debt for the company and combined between the Giga stores and Novo stores that adds to about R$500 million, R$489 million, with a leverage of 0.8. How did that happen?

Novo is a relatively new company, that's been working on its operations, and that's been growing a lot. To grow, they take on some debt instruments with the anticipation of receivables to be able to have self-sustainable growth.

When you have the Giga stores, they were stores that were extremely new. When they went in to the mechanic, the receivables were at Giga, and these stores, or all the rest of the working capital, went to Novo.

These are new stores that need cash, right? In order to stabilize this, we had the anticipation of the receivables, and at some moment we had this mix between Giga and the new company, and then we had this paid back through Giga.

Just to give you the overall panorama about if leverage was in line with what we expected, it was. It's a new company that had an initial investments, but the idea was always to grow in a self-sufficient manner.

The 0.8 in combined results, we understand to be healthy numbers, and 100% in line with expectations ever since the initial conversations. Perfect, super clear.

Túlio, just what was behind these adjustments? No, perfect, Gastim.

The topic, it's important to highlight this. It's not only related to quantities, but it's the average cost, right?

All of this Kardex work really provided for this element. Perfect, Túlio.

Thank you. Our next question is from João Soares.

Good morning to everyone. I want to mention the disclosure here and the points in regards to Novo and Mateus.

Great work. I wanted to explore two points here.

First, a more operational aspect about capital allocation amidst a scenario that is still challenging last year. How are you imagining the expansion, and would this, by any chance, change your mindset on some specific format?

It's really important to understand if this is something that makes sense, maybe to open up less of a mix or by open up more Camino stores, just to understand capital allocation in a scenario that seems to take a little longer to recover. The second point is, Túlio, you had this reversal of the subvention, and so just to confirm, we're seeing a lot of companies that are not provisioning for a presumed credit anymore.

João, good morning. Mr.

Ilson was mentioning how this works in our mind, and the zeal in regards to this topic, keeping the pace, or accelerate, or reduce pace. Your question here is, is there going to be a change among formats considering what we shared with you now with this new model, and Mateus Food Service as well.

The answer is not necessarily. In our view, we're not really thinking of things in this way.

Our strategic expansion plan remains on the same axis, and we actually shared the stores we're already building, and most of our store network is brands that we already have in our day-to-day. We have two new business opportunities that arrived, as Spazio, a service store that's small, and so also Mateus Food Service is also a reality.

We really believe in these channels, and what's happening now, João, is we're really keeping our eyes open to always search for ways to innovate and adapt to consumer's behavior because consumers have changed their behavior. We've been keeping our eyes open, and we've tried to adapt to this.

The transformational market is a reality. We understand cash and carry sometimes does not service this customer as much as it should with the level of excellence and a complete solution, as Mr.

Ilson mentioned. We understand that here in the Northeast in Brazil, we have this role.

Maybe the new brands kind of have this role, trying to adjust this need with new markets. The main expansion axis remains, and I don't think you should consider any drastic changes in brands or business models.

Just one point on your point, Jesuino, we have an expansion plan, and as Jesuino was mentioning, we're going to follow the same schedule. Of course, we have these stores.

We would also consider this strategy, that doesn't change. It's going to have the sequence because now we really have this market, and number of stores is a lot greater than the cash and carry.

We really occupy most of this market. João, just to get into your second question on the reversal of income tax, you're 100% correct.

The reversal in income tax is related to subvention. From now on, we'll stop provisioning it, and of course this is supported by favorable legal stances, and we're always talking about presumed credit.

It's really what you mentioned. I wanted to confirm the expansion for 2026, about 30 stores, maybe half would be mix, and does that still make sense?

We had a plan that's been separated with Novo, and we're discussing this because in Novo, we're already going to have small stores, superstores, and then we're going to have a Novo in cash and carry part as well. Wherever we can feel you have a store that sells R$15 [million?]

or R$20 million, it's going to be cash and carry. When you have space for just one store of R$6 million to R$8 million, we're going to really have a retail store.

How many stores we're going to make, that's something we're choosing still. I can't provide a precise view on this if it's going to be 20 or 25 on our side.

On Novo's side, the trend is to follow the same sequence they had of really occupying this space. Here, we'll definitely make new stores and guarantee this expansion.

Maybe the number of stores will have to be defined throughout the year. We already have an amount of stores, and we're just going to choose this at this moment to add on to this.

Should we have two retail stores or one cash and carry store, for example? Understood.

That's super clear. Thank you.

Our next question is from Tales Granello at Banco Safra. Good morning, Mr.

Ilson. Good morning, Jesuino, Túlio, and Sandro.

I want to ask you something about working capital. We already talked about the stock, but when we look at this, accounts payable, there's a gap of 62 days and 42 days.

I wanted to understand how you guys think you'd be able to close this gap, considering the nature of the operations in each company and the business lines also that are different. I also have another question, which is in regards to the number of representatives.

The company continues to grow a lot, but I wanted to understand if they're split in a pretty equivalent manner among regions, or if there's a big difference between the north and northeast. Thank you for the question, Talles.

Starting here with the question of the suppliers, it's an excellent question, right, because there is this delta. We're already working on this topic, right, because we've been working on integration in the commercial area, that perimeter, and that's going to really accelerate this a lot more.

We're thinking about this, we want to equalize this. We've been really taking on some important steps.

You also bring in other topics, such as efficiency in logistics, in marketing, in trading, and commercial. Sandro maybe can talk about these wins a bit more on what was done already and what we're still lacking.

That's a very important question. Thank you, Jesuino.

Good morning, Talles, and everyone hearing us today. About the payment terms among companies, this is one of the topics we selected as a priority for efficiency gains on both sides, right?

If we were to compare, and of course in a strategic manner, we would reach a better level. We've already done this jointly with the adapting of the windows for payment.

Both companies are already paying in the same payment windows with equivalent terms. Along with this, even if we're still in a process of integration of the commercial departments in all three states, we've already advanced this adapting about 300 contracts from suppliers.

That considers also payment terms, besides other topics also that are considered which involve gains involving other points in these contracts, right? Alongside the operations team, we've been really working on the mission of having synergies and work that can be a good example, not affecting our customers or our employees or our suppliers in a way where we could generate some kind of a loss, but that we can really win together.

We've already seen this. Then I think that this term issue is one of the 25 topics we've elected to work on in the next months till the end of the year.

Now about your second question, Talles, very important, not sure if I was able to understand this completely, but I understand you're mentioning the commercial representatives for indirect purchases in this channel is extremely relevant and important for us. You can see the levels of growth we've been reporting quarter-over-quarter, and the differences are really big when you consider Maranhão, Pará, and Piauí, the legacy states, as we call them.

The biggest concentration, this number is in these three states. The other states in the Northeast are now going through a process of advancing with new sales reps in the same markets.

I mentioned also in other calls that if you look at cities, for example in Maranhão, we have over 20 reps, commercial reps servicing the same small retailers. That's already 50,000 POSs serviced in the Northeast by this team you mentioned.

What happens in the Northeast now is we have this initial number of sales reps in these markets, and now we're adding more sales reps to service the same POS. With this, capture market share more and more at that POS.

We're still at this base, that's about 20% of what it's going to become. No doubt, at the end of the day, when you look at this, and you imagine that most of these representatives are in the legacy states, and you see the state of Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará, and the dimensions of these states, and the amount of municipalities and small retailers, you can still have a great notion of how much more we have to do in these states.

Just to reinforce what you're mentioning, we have some categories even in Maranhão, Pará, and Piauí where we've been working on major expansion with perishables, and we have a whole world to explore still through our DCs that were recently restructured, and we can advance a lot even in states where we're more mature. That's right, everyone.

Thank you, super clear. No problem, Talles.

The next question is from Eric Huang at Santander. I think also when we consider suppliers, and the gross margins as well from Novo, although we understand maturity and format mix, it's a little bit lower, right?

When we consider a possible equation, considering the terms for suppliers, how are you looking at the gross margins, right? Could there be some sort of an impact?

Also another is looking more towards the competitive environment, what we see from industry is protecting margin a little more, and how you're seeing this, if there's some specific difference in the north and northeast, and also considering the competitive environment as well. Thank you.

Do you want to talk about this a little more? Eric, good morning, and thank you for your question.

Now, we've been following this journey of an improvement in terms and gaining efficiency. Up until a little bit before actually this movement with Novo Atacarejo, and just a quick parallel towards your question, they operate specifically in the cash and carry business, and it's like a pure cash and carry, where when look at our average margin, we're going to have margins a little better because we operate with a little more services in our cash and carries as well.

We're not seeing in the short term any type of impact when it comes to setting up the costs. This is really under control on our side, and also from Novo's side.

We understand that this topic is pretty stable, and we've been gaining efficiency without these impacts. Now, from a industry perspective, this is also interesting because I understand that companies are in the same scenarios we are, right?

We've seen all of them trying to keep competitive advantage, right, in this scenario. I still don't feel that, well, we've been trying to keep a real high level relationship with companies, and this is a general assumption, right?

We want to treat our suppliers well, and have a good volume of purchases. This is what we do ever since, right?

Companies are a lot closer to us, and they see us as an engine for growth and a way to get to small retailers in Brazilian retail with our army of sales reps. They've been really keeping competitive advantage.

Our relationship allows for us to consider, when we consider the balance sheets we've been reporting, allows us to keep a joint competitiveness, right, really believe in this way of viewing the business. Overall industry and retail in Brazil have a normally a stressing relationship, but we chose to follow a different path.

If it weren't for this, maybe it would be more difficult. I think it's kind of this.

I don't consider industry to have tried to retain margins, but I think they're trying to keep some kind of a balance, right? I hope I answered you.

Great, thank you for your answers. Our next question is from Joseph Giordano at J.P.

Morgan. Good morning, everyone.

Thanks for taking my question. Now, I wanted to mention some technical accounting aspects, and the first one is about looking at the effects, the difference between the gross and net revenues, and how we should think about this from now on.

Then I want to go back to the balance adjustments where we're talking about stock a lot. When we look at, we can see some relevant changes when it comes to incentives, and in exchange you have part of this heading to deferred taxes, right?

I wanted to split this into two parts. First, when we look at deferred taxes, this has really increased a lot, and I want to understand how we should imagine this drop.

The second is to understand a bit more about the change and it seems like something related to stock transfers among states, and so I wanted to go deeper into this a bit. Thank you.

I think you're on mute, Túlio. Now, yes, Joseph.

Thanks, Joseph. Thanks for the questions.

Now about deferred, it's a topic which I think is important. Since we had the income tax reversal, Grupo Mateus has many subsidiaries, and one of them is Mateus Supermercados.

Then you always have possible accumulated losses from tax planning, and Mateus Supermercados is the main point here for the deferred access. One of the topics in our tax committee is really with working on the relationship between companies in the groups from a tax perspective, right?

The tax changes were very intense in the last 2 or 3 years, and that changed the subvention rules entirely. We had to adapt to that reality.

Although the thesis was always good, we had to adapt. As we adapted, we also brought in some different tax perspectives.

We also need to consider that there are companies that are separate behind this, and especially when you consider income tax, and deferred is one of the topics we're going to discuss and focus on from now on, right, reconsidering this topic. Just to add a background, next year we're going to start the tax reform that considers another element of difficulty and reflection.

As you all know, the company has different distribution centers, and these are 100% fundamental, but they also take on a tax planning role. In tax reform, this is another topic we're going to have to think about what's the optimal point when it comes to the dispersion of logistical centers, right, just to add on another point.

I'd say that this part you mentioned on the gross revenue to net revenue, I don't see big differences. There could be some effects with the consolidation of Novo, but I think there's not much of a difference from now on.

Probably this topic with the incentives is probably coming from this subvention, income tax. Then after, we can also go deeper into a meeting with tax team, right?

As you mentioned, the logistical centers, and also discussing what you had already mentioned on innovation, and having to do this in the future, and we know that in the future, but the future has already arrived, right? The future is an online seller, we have the privilege of having multiple distribution centers really well-located and well-structured.

We already have a budget for next year, and we'll be able to really turn the key to something that's a lot more productive. Perfect, thank you.

Our next question is from Gustavo Fratini at Bank of America. Hi guys, good morning.

Thanks for taking my questions. I'm going to maybe have to reinforce this point of the adjustment in inventories.

We see this adjustment as something really big. It was almost 18%, the question is how you imagine this happened, and how this adjustment is so big in a way that we should maybe not see adjustments, even if in smaller scales, from now on.

Then the other point is, what you guys see within your adjustments of the KPIs in the past that maybe got in the way, or what you guys think already changed, and can change from now on to avoid this from happening again. Last, we still see the inventory losses being relatively high.

If we look at the net amount, these losses continue to be pretty high. If you could give us a bit more color on this, that would be great.

Thank you. Gustavo, I think the main point here was redesigning the Kardex.

When we redesigned this, and we brought in all of the movements regarding this stock theme and all of the tax derivatives and the company grew in a very intense way in the last 3 years, about 25% a year, and we started conquering new states, and each state had their own mechanisms. Then the company started to also import items, which is another topic that has an impact.

This context brings in this impact that you mentioned, right? The specific exercise for 2025 was about R$94 million back then, and behind the historical series.

When we talk about the specific exercise in 2025, then it increases a little bit. I think it's still within the axis, right, when we look at 2024 and 2025.

I think here, essentially you have more traceability, and when you ask me about what makes us confident about this, first of all, the mechanic of the Kardex is already implemented, and here you have the main element. Besides this, you have the automation among the accounting, fiscal, procurement, and operations areas, and also the standardization of these criterias and parameterization of these tax topics.

There's some important elements. I believe that since the mechanism now is 100% traceable, there's a very important point here, Gustavo.

Let's imagine that for some reason the gross margin of a certain month seemed a little strange, and you can see item by item of each category, and what's going on with the margin. If something is kind of strange in the management meetings, then the topic is automatically traced.

I think this kind of control additionally brings in this effort, right? Essentially, the implementation in the system, which is what really provides this in these topics.

Now about the inventory, Túlio. I'm not sure if I understood Gustavo's question, but we had some stores that had inventories that were annual per semester, every quarter, and today we have no inventories.

We brought in the 300 SKUs to monthly, and we brought in inventories of perishables where you have a big practice of deviations, and we brought that into monthly, which used to be semester-based. Initially, if we compare with a drop from '24 to '25, that became greater.

We've already seen this dropping in the last months, right? We have a lot of pressure to keep up with these losses, right, and limit them.

We want to have performance that's a lot better, we want to have profitability. We anticipate this because everything that's going on, we've been monitoring in real time, and this is a big trend.

We've already mentioned the reduction of these losses, right? Just to make it clear, this topic of the physical inventory is a topic.

The other accounting topic is a different topic, but these are completely different topics. What we're doing is we want to clean out as much as we can of possible stock distortions physically, and really make this more clear because this still generated a loss in sales.

When you have this virtual stock, you lose sales, right? We still reduce losses.

Perfect. Very clear, guys.

Our Q&A session is officially ended, and now we will pass the floor on back to the company for their final comments. I want to thank God for being here once again.

We want to honor God, and thank him for everything. I want to also say, on behalf of Jesuino Martins, with over 70,000 employees that are working on their roles and their function to bring these results, once again I want to thank our investors and ask them to continue to believe in our work and really keep up with our credibility, because we're really working hard to make the company be more solid, and so that we can be prepared and structured.

If we have any storms coming along, we need to be firm in this purpose. We've been working constantly in this, and I want to thank our consumers as well, and ask them to continue to believe in our work as well, and also want to thank our family that really supports us a lot, and our work journey is quite long, our days are a lot longer.

I also want to thank all of the Novo team, as we've been working together to search for synergies, and we've seen this happen, and we've had a lot of patience on their side and on our side, because we've found a lot of obstacles. Jesuino, Ismael, Estêvão, and all the team have been searching for solutions, and this is what matters at the end of the day.

We need to occupy this space and search for profitability, search for more results and profitability for our shareholders as well, we're here. Thank you very much.

Now the earnings call for the third quarter of 2025 of Grupo Mateus is officially ended, and the department is available to answer any other questions. Thank you, all participants, and have a great day.