SMU SA

SMU SA

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Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 18, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and I would like to welcome you to SMU's fourth quarter results conference call on the 18th of March 2026. At this time, all participants' lines are on a listen-only mode.

The format of the call today will be a presentation by the management followed by a question-and-answer session. Without further ado, I would like to now pass the line to Ms.

Carolyn McKenzie, Head of Investor Relations at SMU. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Carolyn McKenzie

Thank you. Thank you all for joining us today.

I'm here with our CFO, Arturo Silva. As usual, we are going to start today's presentation with a few slides describing some of our business highlights, and then we will go to the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025.

After that, Arturo will be happy to take any questions. You can send your questions by chat or you can raise your hand, and we can unmute you.

An audio recording of this call will be available on our website later today. Also, please note that we may be making forward-looking statements today.

As always, please remember to take a look at the caution regarding forward-looking statements on slide number 2 of our presentation. We'll get started on slide number 3.

2025 was the final year of our most recent three-year strategic plan, and especially in that final year, we laid the groundwork for what's to come. The main initiatives we implemented provide important context for our 2025 results and also for our expectations for 2026 and beyond.

The omnichannel growth pillar featured an ambitious organic growth plan with 43 new store openings in Chile, which we successfully completed: 25 Unimarc stores, 10 Alvi stores, and 8 Super 10 stores in three years, and 16 stores in 2025 alone. The new stores have been outperforming our expectations.

In the fourth quarter, on average, sales and EBITDA were more than 20% higher than the plan that we evaluated when we made the decision to approve the projects. We assume a three-year maturity curve, and over 60% of these stores, which have been operating for less than three years, are already outperforming the average sales per square meter and sales per full-time equivalent for their respective formats.

On slide 5, we have one of the most important accomplishments of the 2023 to 2025 period and one that is extremely relevant for our plans going forward. During this period, we transformed our mix of formats in Chile.

In 2025, we made the decision to accelerate the conversion of our Mayorista 10 format. We had been gradually converting these stores into the Super 10 format, originally intending to finish the conversions between 2026 and 2028.

However, we decided to speed up that process, and we also identified an opportunity to convert some of those stores to our Alvi format and not just to Super 10. This is because we realized that a number of stores had a significant B2B customer base and also were located in areas with a higher number of mom-and-pops, and therefore, we saw more sales potential for Alvi in those locations.

This streamlined our operations as we went from having four formats in 2022 to having three clearly defined value propositions that have the critical mass to compete effectively and contribute to growth. On the next two slides, we have a double click on that decision.

The 15 conversions to Alvi all took place as part of an overnight operation on November 1st. We have pictures of that on the slide.

In addition to those 15 conversions, Alvi opened six stores last year, including its first store in Punta Arenas at the very southern end of Chile, which means that its footprint grew from 36 to 57 stores in just one year, providing significantly more scale and geographic coverage. Similarly, on slide 7, Super 10 has grown from 16 stores at the end of 2024 to 54 stores today.

Given the new scale, we are now better able to communicate the value proposition to customers and build brand awareness because we have the critical mass to do so. At the end of October of last year, we launched a new campaign with the tagline Super 10, Super Barato, which means super cheap, reinforcing the soft discount value proposition to customers.

Finally, in Peru, we opened 11 stores in three years, growing our presence in the Piura zone in the northern part of the country and helping build the scale we need to compete more effectively. As part of that growth, we also opened a new distribution center to help make our logistics operations more efficient and supply our stores more effectively.

On slide 9, we go to the second pillar of the plan, which is customer experience, where private label development has been a key initiative. These products enhance our assortments across formats, offering excellent quality at convenient prices.

Our portfolio of specialized brands covers a wide range of categories, including bakery, fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood, pantry basics, cleaning supplies, paper products, and more, achieving 13% sales penetration with over 500 product launches during the period. We have also been growing our supplier base using the trading company we acquired at the end of 2024 to strengthen our global sourcing, achieving cost savings that help us compete better.

Another key part of the customer experience is the promotional activity we offer in order to deliver savings. We have been adapting our promotional strategy over the last two years in response to changing customer needs and preferences.

This has led us to our current layered promotional strategy, which combines long-lasting campaigns with short, high-impact campaigns. This is an adjustment to our previous high-low pricing strategy.

We still have some high-low activity, focused especially on fresh products, but we also have these longer-lasting low, lower campaigns. We are able to leverage our multiformat strategy by designing promotions that cover the same product categories across formats, while remaining true to the marketing and pricing strategies that are specific to each format.

On slide 11, the next pillar of the plan is efficiency and productivity. In the face of rising labor costs and higher electricity rates, our efficiency initiatives have contributed to productivity gains throughout our operations.

These include self-checkouts, self-service scales, digital shelf management technologies, and a digital treasury system in our stores, as well as other technologies in the supply chain and back office, allowing us to optimize our organizational structure, carrying out two restructuring plans in 2025: one in the first quarter and one in the fourth quarter, generating savings on personnel expenses going forward. On the slide, you can see that our sales per full-time equivalent, which is an indicator we use to measure productivity, increased 3.4% in the fourth quarter, although revenue was down 0.7%.

In the full year, even with a 2.4% decline in revenue, we still managed to improve sales per full-time equivalent. On slide 12, we have also been working to offset the higher electricity rates, migrating qualifying stores to lower unregulated electricity rates.

In 2024, 15% of our energy consumption in Chile was contracted under unregulated rates, and in 2025, we increased that number to 20%, migrating 36 facilities over the course of the year. We were previously expecting to reach 50% of energy consumption under unregulated rates by 2027, but we have made even further progress, and we now expect to make it to 55% in 2028.

As an added benefit under these contracts, we are also using electricity from renewable energy sources. We are more than tripling the share of renewable energy in our operations between 2024 and 2028.

Finally, with respect to the committed and sustainable organization pillar of our plan, we were pleased to be included for the second consecutive year in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook, which recognizes companies that achieved an outstanding score on the S&P Corporate Sustainability Assessment. We were one of only 10 companies in our industry that qualified for this recognition, and with our score, we ranked first in Chile, second in Latin America, and eighth globally.

The Corporate Sustainability Assessment provides us with an external benchmark with which to monitor and evaluate our sustainability management in areas that are key for our industry. As these results show, that our sustainability strategy is aligned with global best practices.

These results have also allowed us to qualify for the Dow Jones Best-in-Class Indices, giving us access to a broader investor base. That concludes our summary of the 2023 to 2025 plan.

In December, we launched our plan for 2026 to 2028. If you missed that presentation, it is available on our website.

Today, we just have a brief summary of the main initiatives. Our focus is to drive growth, competitiveness, and efficiency, and we will do that by building on the foundation of our newly streamlined multiformat strategy.

Today in Chile, we are operating three formats with critical mass, each of which has a clear, well-defined value proposition. The new plan has three key pillars: growth with value for the customer, technology assets, and efficiency and productivity.

Our sustainable culture will support the execution of the plan. On slide 15, the growth with value for the customer pillar encompasses many different areas of our operations and strategy, but the overarching goal of this pillar is to grow and enhance our value propositions for all of our customers in all of their shopping habits.

This includes both final and B2B customers with different levels of sophistication, and both fill-in and stock-up purchases. Our initiatives target all components of the customer value equation: assortment, freshness, private label, offline and online purchases, competitive prices, and fast and easy shopping experiences that help save time.

We plan to open 60 stores and upgrade 80 stores in the next three years, while also growing our omnichannel coverage and expanding our private label penetration from today's 13% to 16% in 2028. As we look to grow sales, open new stores, upgrade existing stores, grow our logistics network, expand private label, and increase efficiency, we need to implement digital technology assets that will help us build a more flexible, efficient company that is prepared to deliver greater value to customers, which brings us to the technology assets pillar on slide 16.

Between 2023 and 2025, we updated our ERP system, SAP, to the S/4HANA version. We are prepared to take the next steps to transform our existing transactional core into an agile digital core that accelerates the adoption of new technologies.

In 2026, we will rationalize our infrastructure and migrate to a modern cloud, enabling cost savings and laying the foundation for adopting new technologies, such as an enterprise AI framework to build optimization algorithms for operations and new digital business capabilities. All of this will be implemented under ISO 27001 security standards.

Building our digital technology assets is key for the next pillar of our plan, efficiency and productivity on slide 17. This pillar has been a constant presence in all of our strategic plans, as a disciplined approach to expenses is part of our culture, and we will maintain that while adding further process optimizations and technological tools to drive productivity and help mitigate cost pressures, thereby contributing to profitability.

We have efficiency and productivity initiatives throughout our operations, including supply chain, stores, and back office, as well as energy efficiency. On slide 18, CAPEX for the next three years will be around 370 billion pesos, distributed fairly evenly across the period, which means that CAPEX for 2026 will be approximately 120 billion pesos.

65% of that amount will go towards growth initiatives, especially store openings and upgrades. This year, our plan includes 16 store openings and 36 store upgrades, as detailed on the slide.

We are already off to a great start, with four openings to date: two Unimarc stores in Chile and two Maxi Ahorro stores in Peru. Going on to the numbers, on slide number 19, we have revenue for the full year and fourth quarter.

Revenue decreased 2.4% in the full year, but we had a significant sequential improvement in the fourth quarter, where total revenue was down 0.7%, but Unimarc increased revenue by 1.9%, and this was a combination of 0.9% same-store sales growth and the contribution from new stores, which, as I explained before, have been performing very strongly. The weaker performance in the soft discount and cash-and-carry formats is largely related to the store conversions from Mayorista 10 to Alvi and Super 10.

Initially, the sales of converted stores tend to decrease, as the process involves physical interventions to the stores and changes to assortment that have affected the customer experience. However, we believe this is a temporary effect and that these formats will allow us to compete better in the future.

The increased scale and geographic coverage of these two banners, as well as the brand relaunch for Super 10, will increase awareness, helping attract new customers to these converted stores. We are confident that the new format selected for each location, whether Alvi or Super 10, will offer a better value proposition for customers, and that should lead to better sales performance.

In addition, as we have explained in previous quarters, in 2025, we made a strategic decision to focus on profitability, which involved optimizing our promotional strategy in the retail segment and eliminating certain low-margin volume sales in the cash-and-carry segment. The effects of that decision are clearly reflected when we look at the gross margin, which expanded 150 basis points in the full year and 90 basis points in the quarter.

On the next slide, we can see that the higher gross margin led to an increase of 2.5% in gross profit in the full year and 2.2% in the fourth quarter, despite the lower revenue. As you can see in the graph on the right-hand side of the slide, this improvement in gross margin has been consistent throughout the year.

We had already achieved a significant recovery in the fourth quarter of 2024, returning to 31.5% after two quarters in the 29% to 30% range. In the fourth quarter of 2025, we had a further expansion of 90 basis points on top of that.

In the last three quarters, we've had a gross margin over 32%. On the next slide, slide 21, we have operating expenses, which increased by 5.6% in the full year and 5.5% in the fourth quarter, explained almost entirely by extraordinary increases in labor costs and electricity rates, affecting personnel expenses and service expenses, as you can see in the graph on the right.

Specifically, the extraordinary increases were in average minimum wage, which was 9% higher in 2025 than in 2024, the reduced workweek in Chile, and exceptional increases to electricity rates, causing our electricity expenses to increase 17% in 2025. These extraordinary increases had an impact of approximately 20 billion pesos for the year, explaining why our expenses grew above inflation.

However, both the minimum wage and electricity expenses rose less in the fourth quarter, and we expect this to continue to be the case. We accelerated adoption of the 40-hour workweek for stores that are fully adhered to our efficient operating model.

Even though the law allows for a gradual reduction, we have already absorbed the full impact. We also have our operating efficiency and productivity initiatives to help keep expenses under control.

Consequently, we expect to see more moderate growth in operating expenses in the coming periods. On slide 22, we have EBITDA, which decreased 6.1% in the year and 6.4% in the fourth quarter.

Although we did have an expansion in gross profit, this wasn't enough to offset the extraordinary increases in operating expenses. Going forward, we are optimistic that a combination of top-line growth and more moderate increases in expenses will contribute to EBITDA growth and an expansion in our EBITDA margin.

On slide 23, we have net income, which was up 29.5% in the year and down 27% in the quarter. The main effect in the full year was a non-operating gain of 60 billion pesos before tax on the sale of assets and purchase options in the first, second, and third quarters of 2025.

We continue to operate those assets under new long-term rental contracts that we signed with the buyers, there was no impact on operations from these transactions, but this is a more optimal financial strategy. These transactions also gave rise to a higher income tax expense.

The net effect in 2025 was 44 billion pesos. On the other hand, we had a non-operating loss from the organizational restructuring plans that we carried out in the first and fourth quarters.

In the full year, the impact was close to 13 billion pesos, and in the fourth quarter, it was 3 billion pesos. As I mentioned before, these plans generate savings going forward.

On the next slide, we have our financial ratios. On the left, net financial liabilities to EBITDA, including store rentals, was 5.2 times in December.

When we adjust for store rentals, it was 3.6 times. In 2025, we paid around 140 billion pesos in bond maturities, leading to a reduction in financial debt.

Our cash balance only decreased by 70 billion pesos. Even while EBITDA was lower, we still saw an improvement in the net financial debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio.

When we look at total financial liabilities, we have an increase essentially in obligations for rights of use, which is where we recognize store rental contracts under IFRS 16. This is due to both the new contracts for the stores under the leaseback operations and contracts for new store openings.

New store openings have a temporary negative impact on these indicators because when we open a new store and we sign a new rental contract, that contract is recognized as an obligation for rights of use under financial liabilities, and we have to recognize the full amount of that liability. We also have the full impact of the CAPEX that we need to build the store on our cash flow.

The store doesn't contribute its full EBITDA until it reaches maturity, generally around its third year of operations. This affects the net financial liabilities to EBITDA ratio as well as the net interest coverage ratio.

The impact on the adjusted ratios is less because those ratios don't include the rights of use or the respective interest expense. On slide 25, we have our bond covenants.

The net financial debt to equity ratio is at 0.51 times, lower than in December 2024, again because of the lower net financial debt that I described on the previous slide. Net interest coverage is lower than in 2024, but still well above our limit.

On slide 26, at the top of the slide, we have a summary of our cash flow for the full year 2025. We started the year off with a cash balance of 155 billion pesos, which included the cash that we had raised through bond placements during 2024 in preparation for the 2025 bond maturities.

During the year, we generated operating cash of 20 of 266 billion plus 94 billion in net proceeds from the sales of assets and purchase options mentioned before. If you look at our cash flow statement, you will see a cash inflow of 129 billion pesos from these sales, but there was also an outflow of 35 billion from the prepayment of the lease that we had on the distribution center, hence the net amount of 94 billion.

The main use of cash for the period was net debt amortizations of 141 billion pesos, mainly relating to the Series T and AK bonds that matured in March and April, and that we paid using proceeds from the bonds that we issued the previous year. We had been maintaining a significant cash surplus over the last several quarters as we had 240 billion pesos in [coughs] bond maturities over the last two years.

We have now returned to more normal cash levels as our refinancing needs through 2026 are extremely limited, as you can see in the maturity profile below. We have bank debt that tends to be revolving and only 11 billion pesos in bond maturities for all of 2026.

The other uses of cash for the year were lease payments, in addition to the distribution center prepayment, of 62 billion, interest payments of 63 billion, dividends of 51 billion, and CAPEX of 113 billion. We have an ending cash balance that is still a bit higher than normal.

We generally think of 40 to 50 billion pesos as standard, and we ended the period with 85 billion, which gives us plenty of flexibility. Finally, we've had a few announcements in the beginning of this year, we wanted to include a summary here.

In January, we carried out another organizational restructuring plan, which will have a negative impact of approximately 12.5 billion pesos before tax on our first quarter financial statements, but this will generate savings that offset the cost over the course of the year, and then those savings remain for future periods. In February, our Board of Directors authorized management to execute our share buyback program.

As a reminder, this program was approved by shareholders in 2022 for a five-year period, but technically shareholders authorized the board to execute the program. It's not very practicable to have the board actually doing the day-to-day execution, they expressly authorized management to do this.

While the authorization was granted in February, we were in our pre-earnings blackout period, we couldn't make any purchases until yesterday. The board also agreed to call an extraordinary shareholders meeting to evaluate the possibility of approving a new buyback program.

If the new program is approved, that would be for a new five-year period and the existing program would be terminated. Finally, in March, we announced additional sale and leaseback operations for two stores, using the same structure as last year, and we also sold two properties from our land bank.

In all four cases, we signed long-term rental contracts. We will continue to operate the existing stores just as we currently do.

As for the land, that was originally purchased in order to secure the locations for future store openings. For those two properties, we signed rental contracts to operate the stores once the respective real estate projects have been developed.

These transactions will have a positive impact of approximately 2.3 billion pesos on net income in the first quarter, and there'll also be a net cash inflow of approximately 6.7 billion pesos. We rent almost all of our stores, but we do still have four stores that we own and could potentially sell using the same structure, and we also have nine other sites in our land bank.

That is it for our presentation. Thank you for listening.

If there are any questions, Arturo will be happy to take them now.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation.

We are now moving to the question-and-answer section. If you would like to ask a question, please press star two on your phone and wait to be prompted.

If you are dialed in by the web, you can type your question in the box provided or request to ask a voice question. We'll just give a moment or so for the questions to come in.

We have our first voice question coming from Alonso Aramburu from BTG Pactual. Alonso, your line is now open.

Please go ahead.

Alonso Aramburu

Hi, good morning, Arturo, Carolyn. Yes, a couple of questions from my end.

Given the trends you've been seeing, can you give us any sense or expectations about what you are thinking about sales growth and EBITDA margins for 2026? Related to that, also, you mentioned more moderate growth of expenses.

How much is that? Is that in line with inflation, above inflation, slightly below?

If you can give us some color on that. Related to the low-margin volume that has been taken out of the stores, are you done with that strategy or there's more cutting of volume that needs to happen still in this year?

Thank you.

Arturo Silva

Hello, Alonso. Trends for 2026, in the first months of this year, January, February, and the first days of March, show a significant recovery of Unimarc in line with the Q4 in 2025, but even more than this recovery in the last quarter of 2025, with performance in old store and also in opening stores.

However, due to the conversion effect in Super 10 and also in Alvi, because in this store, the performance has been lower because in the first stage of the conversion, this store suffered in terms of sales because the customer suffered in terms of the service in the conversion because the store was not closed, operating in this period. We are expecting that in the next quarter, the sales of this store will be in the level of the average of the rest of the store in the format.

The weight of the Unimarc sales in the total sales is very, very important. Therefore, we are expecting a significant increase in the first quarter in terms of sales for this reason.

In terms of the gross margin, remain stable. In terms of expenses, we implemented, Carolyn mentioned, the restructuring plan that should be paid during of this year.

In general, we are expecting the sales growing more than previous year, and also the expenses controlled in the level of inflation because we are not expecting extraordinary increase, especially in salaries and also in electricity expenses. Also we implemented some measures to reduce the head count in the first quarter, and also the more store with non-regulated rate for the electricity.

These two expenses are very, very important in the total expenses. For this reason, we are expecting growth in expenses in the level of inflation in the next year, especially this year, and not in the level of 5.5% or 5.6% like 2025.

In consequence, we are expecting improvement in our EBITDA margin in the level of 8% or 8.5%, more in line with the Q4 in 2025 for the next quarter. Is another question?

Alonso Aramburu

Thank you, Arturo. Just to follow up on that, the 8% to 8.5% is for the full year 2026, that's your expectation, or is that for the next quarter?

Arturo Silva

No, the 8.5%, we are expecting to reach close to 8.5% this year, and in the rest of the three-year plan to go for the 9% again. Is our long-term target.

Alonso Aramburu

Okay. My second question was regarding the low-margin volume you had been taking out of Alvi.

Are you finished with that, or are you still reducing the number of SKUs? The

Arturo Silva

in Alvi, the idea is to to to improve the the margin, because specifically in the in in the level of in the store in the old store in in Alvi, but in the the gross margin in in the in in of Mayorista 10 store that we convert in Alvi, of course, will reduce the margin, but also we will reduce the expenses in in this store. Finally, the idea is to to have a a perform a performance in terms of the sales, margin, and and expenses as old store in in the in the in the in the new store or in the in the in the in the in the new store in the convert in the in the converted stores, well.

Also, in the volume, we adjust 100% of the store of the sale with low margin in in Alvi because this is a phenomenon, not not only in the in the new store, also in the old store. Now we we are in improving in terms of the direct sales or institutional sales, but with a good margin, not not as was in in the previous year.

For this reason, the the Alvi margin will be stable in the in the next quarter as well in the level of of the last period in in in Q4 2025.

Alonso Aramburu

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Our next voice question comes from Joel Lederman from Itaú. Please go ahead, Joel, your line is now open.

Joel Lederman

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

Can you hear me?

Operator

Yes, we can hear you.

Joel Lederman

Thank you very much. I have three questions.

The first one is just a follow-up on Alonso's question. I just want to understand better the dynamics of the same-store sales of the discount formats.

If you could separate the ticket and the volume and how should we understand the discount formats without this strategic SKU that you're putting out, just to understand how should we understand the evolution of same-store sales going forward? My second question is regarding the payback of the one-offs.

How do we see that in terms of the year? We should be a gradual evolution of the payback, or it's concentrated in the full fourth quarter of 2026?

My third question is regarding the potential for the four stores and the land bank that Carolyn mentioned in the presentation. If you could give any color regarding those, would be great.

Thank you very much.

Arturo Silva

The payback of the restructuring plan is around 10 10 months. As we implement in January, therefore we will recover the investment in November.

We will have one one month with net savings, but the main savings will be in 2027 for this specific plan and the rest of the year, of course. Another question was soft discount?

Carolyn McKenzie

The first question, Joel, the audio was kind of going in and out. I think you asked about

Arturo Silva

the soft discount performance. That was...

Joel Lederman

No, again, I'm so sorry. In terms of the same-store sales of the discount formats, which was 9.1% negative 9.1%, I just want to understand how much of that is related to volumes and prices and how much of that is related to the SKUs that you are taking out of the system due to a strategic kind of way of see the business?

Arturo Silva

No, the idea is to recover the states of sales with our strategy of Super Barato, is that we launch this commercial strategy in November of 2025. The campaign includes this pricing strategy, and also the awareness of this format, because now we have 40 54 stores.

In the past, we had only 16. Therefore, we are betting this more awareness to improve.

Also, we had in the 2025 less sales because we reduce the volume sales in this format as well, but this effect will be not present in 2026. Therefore, the only negative effect we will have in 2026 will be the conversion effect, as Carolyn mentioned, in the first stage, because this store suffered for the remodeling plan in the store.

In the next quarter, we are expecting to improve of sales performance, and especially for the commercial strategy, our improvement in the assortment as well, in line with the soft discount operating model, and to reach the increase in same-store sales as well.

Joel Lederman

Thank you very much.

Arturo Silva

Of course, for the conversion effect, the recovery of growth in terms of sales in Alvi and Super 10 will be slower than Unimarc for this reason.

Carolyn McKenzie

It looks like we have a text message from Santiago Venegas from Principal Financial Group. Santiago asks, "Apart from optimizing promotional activity, what are some other measures to drive top-line growth in the coming periods, and also what is the expected maturity time for converted stores from Mayorista 10 to Super 10 and Alvi to perform at their highest level?"

Arturo Silva

Okay. In general, the converted store should be better performance, or will reach the maturity probably after 12 months, is our experience in these cases.

After 12 months, will to reach the average sales of the rest of the format. We are expecting in the end of this year to reach this level of performance.

Carolyn McKenzie

The first part of the question, the measures to drive top-line growth?

Arturo Silva

Essentially, our promotional activities, our improvement in the assortment with the short-term promotions in Unimarc combined with the long-term promotions for two or three months in the base basket with very, very attractive prices for more long-term period, and the apoteósicos or short-term in promotion in perishable products essentially, meat or beer on weekend essentially, with very good result in January, February, and March of this year, and also in the end of the last year. We insist in this combination of promotions in Unimarc.

In Super 10, the Super Barato strategy. In Alvi, we have also combination of two promotional activities, and also improving our assortment, and also the multi-channel strategy in e-commerce, stores, and also direct sales with sales force with the idea to have more coverage than for each store with sales forces in the institutional sales.

That is the strategy in addition in Alvi as well. Also is very, very important the private label in this strategy because we have a better private label in terms of quality and prices because we are purchasing products directly in the source without intermediations, and that is the strategy to obtain better condition, and this better condition to pass through for the prices, and with more attractive prices and more quality in private label will be also very, very important to impulse the growth of the sales top-line in the next quarter.

Also, we have a upgrade of some stores, 80 stores in the next three years, and this upgrade in essentially Unimarc will allow to convert these stores in the level of the new stores that we will have a very good performance, and with this remodeling plan, we will have a better sales as well in the level of the best stores of the format. That is the combination of measures in addition of promotional activities to improve the top-line in the next quarter.

Carolyn McKenzie

Great. Rafa, I don't see any other questions.

Operator

Maybe I'll just do a quick reminder. If you are connected via the phone and you would like to ask a voice question, please press star two on your phone keypad and wait for your name to be prompted.

If you are connected via the web, you can send your question as the text with the box provided, or also request to ask a voice question. I'll just give a moment or so for any additional questions to come in.

Looks like we have no further questions, let me pass the line back to the team for their concluding remarks.

Carolyn McKenzie

Great. Thanks for joining us today, everybody.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any additional questions, and we hope you'll join us next quarter. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you. We are now closing all the lines.

Goodbye.