Good afternoon. Welcome to Unidas conference call, where the results for the fourth quarter of 2021 will be presented. At this moment, all participants are connected only as listeners. Later, the questions- and- answer session will be opened, when instructions will be given for you to participate. If assistance from an operator is required during the conference call, simply press star zero. This conference has simultaneous translation into English, and questions can be asked normally by participants connected abroad. Questions can also be asked over the Internet through the webcast platform. I'd like to remember that this conference call is being recorded. The audio will be available on the company's website within 24 hours. If any of you do not have a copy of the Unidas earnings release, you can obtain it from the company's website at ri.unidas.com.br/en. Before proceeding, I would like to clarify that statements that may be made during this conference call regarding these prospects of the company business as well as projections, operational and financial goals regarding its growth are forecasts based on expectation management in relation to Unidas future. Such expectations depend on the performance of the sector, the general economic performance of the country. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to 4Q 2021 and 2021 Unidas conference call. Today with me are Marco Túlio, our CFO and IRO, and Carlos Sarquis, our Head of RAC. Starting with slide number two. In this quarter, we acquired Sofit. Sofit is a technology company in fleet management with more than 12 years in the market, trucks and machinery. It has complete technology platform and comes to further accelerate our technological innovation fronts. The company believes in a culture that fits the eco efficiency of its aspiration and is concerned with future generations. In a pioneering bold way, we were the first Brazilian company to be certified by EV100, a global initiative by The Climate Group that brings. We aim to acquire a total of 2,000 electrified vehicles, 1,600 of which are 100% electric. In slide three, I would like to celebrate with you two great achievements of the company in 2021. The first one is our total fleet that surpassed for the first time the amount of 200,000 vehicles, a growth of 20% compared to the previous year, as shown in the chart above. The second graph, though, we present the evolution of the average rented fleet for both segments, with an expansion of 29.5% in the fleet management and 12.6% in the RAC segment. In the next slide, we show our fleet investments made this quarter. We added 18,700 cars, the highest net volume of cars added for a single quarter in the company's history. Moving on to the fifth slide. With fleet management, just looking at the fourth quarter, we note an expansion of 29.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, reaching BRL 1 billion and a higher fleet of 6,300 vehicles. We ended the year with a record volume of 83,000 vehicles in this peak for the next quarter, as illustrated in the chart below, reflecting the excellent moment for this rental segment. In this next slide, in the chart above, we present again an expansion of 23.2% compared to the previous year. We also show the evolution of our average monthly rate that reached the record level in the quarter of BRL 1,922, an expansion of 12.9% compared to the previous year. If we compare this quarter's new contracts against the fourth quarter of 2020, we note an expansion of 70%, offsetting asset price increases and new interest curve. In the bottom left chart, the segment's occupancy rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 reached a level of 97.8%. Finally, rental revenue from fleet management beat a new record in the full year and the fourth quarter of 2021. In the year we grew 39% and reached BRL 1.8 billion. In one quarter we went 44.3% up, reaching BRL 528.3 million. Such results do not take into account the backlog of 22,000 pending cars for the operation, demonstrating that these strong growth could be even better in a scenario where car delivering by the supplier was normalized. In slide seven, we talk about used car markets in the quarter and in 2021. Especially in the last months of 2021, we noted an important comeback in the used car markets considering vehicles with age between one and three years. Besides, we have slowed down our sales pace in 2021 due to the bottom potential to capture this demand in a fast and profitable way through technology, the expertise of our sales team, and the assertive offering of vehicles, resulting in faster fleet renewal. Going to the chart below, we present the record in vehicles average selling price, which went up 35.4% compared to the previous year, on page eight. Used car sales net revenue totaled BRL 3 billion in 2021, and BRL 553.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The chart below, we present the change of our total stores in this year that ended with 91 stores, a reduction of 30 stores compared to the previous year. Part of store closures is related to the company's constant pursuit for efficiency and profitability, and the low expectation of used cars normalization in the short term. I now turn over to Carlos Sarquis, our Head of Rent-A-Car Division, to present with more details the company's results for this segment. Thank you, Luís. Moving on to slide nine. Starting with the first chart, we show the growth of 16.1% of daily rentals in the year, reaching 8.1 million daily rentals. The growth rate in the daily rentals volumes was limited by the low offering of brand new vehicles in this period. This limitation was partially offset by the strong growth of average daily rate, which reached the level of BRL 92.8 in the quarter, 33% higher compared to the previous year, as demonstrated in the bottom right. If we look at the average daily rental in the end of the quarter, it already surpasses three digits, demonstrating the high demand for the segment in all channels and the company's capacity to continue to pass on to prices. In the chart above, we show the record of new revenue from RAC excluding franchises, which reached BRL 1.4 billion in 2021 and BRL 428 per operation. In the bottom of slide 10, in the last 12 months, we had a net expansion of 28 stores in our own customer service network and an increase of 10 stores in the total. We did not interrupt our growth strategy at any moment, even when limited by the current lack of brand new cars. I turn over to Marco Túlio, our CFO and IRO. Good afternoon, everyone. These results had a positive impact in BRL 84.4 million due to the increase of fiscal fees credits related to the change of the mean life of the operating vehicles in the RAC segment. Going to the EBITDA of the RAC segment, we reached the record of BRL 327.9 million in the quarter and BRL 1.2 billion in the full year, an increase of almost 40% for both comparisons. If we look at the EBITDA per operating car, we noticed an evolution related to the previous quarter, despite the drop of fleet management's EBITDA margin of 3.5 basis points in the quarter. EBITDA reached its highest historic level with almost 12 months. Meanwhile, fleet management reached 18 months, even with the growth of 32.6% of our fleet in this year. Finally, we had, throughout the year, non-recurring expenses with Sofit and iTrack acquisitions and with the merger with Localiza around BRL 8 million, which also affected rental margins. Another highlight are yielding a margin of 22.2% and 19.1% for each period. In slide 12, we present the evolution of our consolidated recurring EBIT. We reached the record of BRL 1.9 billion in 2021, more than doubled the 2020 amount. EBIT margin for each company's operating segment presented expressive expansions. In fleet management, we reached a margin of management, an evolution of 3.4 percentage points in RAC, reaching a margin of 59.2%. In slide 13, the net financial result went up 59.2% and 145% in the quarterly and annual comparisons, given the increase of net debt of 113.7% and 272.6% in the same periods, offset by the result of hedge in our fleet management contracts. In the chart below, we can see one of the greatest achievements of the company in the year, with BRL 1 billion reaching the amount of BRL 1.016 billion in 2021. In slide 14, we present the ROIC of 14.4% in the accrued of 2021, an expansion of 0.5 percentage points. The spread between ROI and the cost of debt continues to present expensive values, reaching 10.1 percentage points, even in a scenario where the cost of debt is going up. Our current cash balance almost covers the entire outstanding balances of the principal of our debt and such levels. I now turn over to Luís. Thanks, Marco. Before we move on to our Q&A session, I'd like to give my final considerations. This year was filled with challenges, learnings and victories. In fleet management, we surpassed the mark of 120,000 cars in the operation, even with a pending backlog of 22,000 cars. We had the record hiring of 42,500 cars and a global value of contracts record of BRL 3.8 billion, reflecting the commercial power of our team, the company's expertise in its business segment, and the capacity to offer several types of products. We invested heavily in 2021, structured a new business unit, Unidas Trucks, with an exclusive management and staff which is specialized in the management of our heavy assets to be supported by the use of higher intelligence from the more than 12-year experience of Sofit, a company focused on the management of assets. We broke records in net revenue, number of daily rentals, and average daily rate in RAC, despite the impact of COVID and bottleneck in the car supply, demonstrating our strength in this segment. In used car sales, we broke the record of average selling price that reached BRL 64,400 margin of around 20%, even though we kept our strategy to give preference for rental customers, restricting the volume of cars sold and preparing the operation for a normalization. Finally, we achieved the 25th position in the GPTW ranking, an evolution of nine positions related to 2020, demonstrating our focus on being an even better company to work, and the recognition of our team, which is of high performance. I truly thank you all for the efforts achieved. Such results when combined contributed to records in consolidated net revenue of BRL 6.3 billion, EBITDA of BRL 2.4 billion, and net profit of over BRL 1 billion, crowning the year of 2021 as the best year in the company's history, strengthening the base for the upcoming year. For such achievements, I dedicate my sincere thank you to the Unidas teams, our customers and partners that believed in us. Thank you all that attended this conference call, and please count on me. The Unidas Investor Relations team. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the Q&A session with investment analysts and investors. At the end of the session, we will have another one for press professionals. To ask a question, please press star one. To remove your question from the list, press star two. Our first question comes from Pedro Bruno, XP Investimentos. Our first question is from Régis Cardoso, Credit Suisse. Please proceed. Can you hear me? Just a minute, Régis. I have two questions. One of them is about the acknowledgment of PIS/Cofins credits. It seems to me that the amount in the fourth quarter was a little bit higher than it would be normally in the recurring basis. I wanted to know if you have an estimate of what the recurring amount will be per quarter. I think that it has to do with the reduction from 60 months to 24 months. The other question is regarding the margins. I think that the recent dynamics with the three rentals, we had some diverging margins, and I wanted to better understand if you believe that these normalized margins has to do with the convergence or do you believe that the sector as a whole, you know. I wanted to know if you could give me an idea about that. Thank you for your question, Régis. First of all, regarding the impact of PIS/Cofins. The reduction of the mean life was to 24 months. Then the size of the operational fleet, we're talking of something between BRL 20 million. At that level of operational fleet, that is perhaps what we call the recurring effect for the quarter. Now regarding the margins, maybe Luís and Sarquis can complement, but in general, as I mentioned regarding our EBITDA, right now we have some cost pressure which give us lower margins than expected. The mean age of the fleet, it is much higher than normal, and this has a pressure on maintenance costs. Also, the cars sold are also older, and that leads to a need to better prepare the vehicles for the market. With that, we have more expenses. In addition to that, we have other non-recurring expenses throughout the quarter and the year. Also when we talked about the acquisition of Localiza. That had an impact this quarter. Also with the closing of the year, we have also differences in price. When we look at this together, we can see that as we renew, we won't be at such pressure. Now, looking ahead, our expectation is that we'll have operational leverage in the next quarters, and this is the result of more availability of delivery of new cars by the assemblers. In 2021, we had to think about the mid and long-term. We increased the numbers of rental car stores. Throughout the year, we made relevant investments in structure. We carried a bigger structure than necessary because we were looking at this leverage within a higher number of cars for both businesses and consequently a larger number of vehicles to be renewed and sold in the market. In the case of Unidas, adding everything that had already been mentioned as an expense, I would also take into account operational leverage. We do expect to have better margins in both rental segments in the upcoming periods. Okay, I understand. Thank you very much, and congratulations for your results. Our next question is from Pedro Bruno, XP Investimentos. My question was about the relevant reduction in the stock of new or used cars. What called our attention was the strong acceleration in the fourth quarter with a reduction of 10 stores throughout the year and 20 others in the fourth quarter. We didn't observe that in this sector in other companies. I wanted to know what your strategy is. This goes a little bit against what Luís has just commented. He talked about operational leverage, but I wanted to understand this dynamic of used cars. Thank you. Excellent question, Pedro. For us, the last quarter was very important. We had an expectation, just as the rest of the market did, that in 2021, especially in the last quarter, we would start having new deliveries of car as expected, and that the first quarter of 2022 would also not be the moment for that. They postponed deliveries. At that point in time, we had different information. In addition to that, we carried out a study with a change in the cars and also where these cars were rented. We reorganized our structures of stores for used cars. Of course, if you have a store in a neighborhood where the type of cars sold no longer makes sense with our car mix and the stores is no longer performing well, and then we had a period of nine additional months without the number of cars we expected to be sold, the fourth quarter and then the first and second quarter this year, we made a decision thinking about profitability. We closed some stores, and we will have to open them again in 2022. When we calculated everything, we made the option to reallocate the physical structure of our market in the fourth quarter, as you indicated. On one hand, we were informed that we would not have cars available for sales, and then on the other hand, change in the areas and the car mix and a concentration of cars. All of these actions combined led to our decision, thinking about profitability. This was exactly it. Thank you very much. Well, I thank you, Pedro. Our next question comes from Bradesco BBI, Victor. Good afternoon. Congratulations for your results. I have two questions. The first one has to do with the RAC fees. We noticed an intense growth in the fourth quarter, but that also has an impact of the segment. I would like you to talk a little bit about this and how much the RAC fees would be. The second question regarding the new Unidas project. I would like to know if we've already had an impact of the fourth quarter or whether we will see the impact of this new product in 2022. This is Sarquis, Victor. Regarding the Rent-A-Car fees, we don't open it for each segment, but as I commented during the presentation. In the last month, the ticket was higher than three digits, so it's been increasing. It's been improving month by month. The revenue percentage of the physical person segment and throughout the year, we didn't want to close that channel because we thought there would be a risk if we didn't meet the needs of these clients. Because we didn't have enough cars, we had to consider the size of our operational fleet, take into account physical persons, so we ended up reserving some cars at the end of the year, but it was only for that period. The fees have been evolving, and I think that they will continue doing so. With this demand by physical persons, it will increase as the pandemic winds down. Well, Victor, regarding the second question, you and the market as a whole already have a vision. We're always looking for innovation at Unidas, especially of new markets and products. This is a characteristic of our company when we understand that clients' needs must be met. Here we have two impacts that are very important and should be highlighted. Number one, our commitment with the reduction of emissions. This is part of our emissions program. A second aspect, which is not less important, with the higher prices, we understand that some clients cannot rent a car for a longer contract with the current fees. Therefore, with this new product, we're looking for clients which are not part of the target with these higher tickets. We wanted to reinforce our commitment with reduced emissions. The product was just launched. We are adapting, so the impact has not been very relevant on the results for 2021. Thank you. I thank you. Our next question is from Filipe Nielsen, Citibank. Good afternoon, and I thank you for the opportunity to ask a question. I have two questions. The first one has to do with the supply chain. We've heard for a while now that car supply has problems. The expectation is that it was improving in the second half of the year or in 2023. I would like to know if you have any expectations of improvements in the receipt of new cars, especially because of the conflicts that we're going through and all of the inflation issues and commodities. I wanted to know what the impact is on car supply. When you talk about this, I will move on to my second question. Thank you very much for the question. We do not have any expectations of changes. Really, we had some reports in the media saying some essential components or parts were coming from Ukraine, and that is true. But also we expect the Russian car market to be very low or close to zero. According to the conversations we've had with our partners, this is more than enough for us to be able to meet the supply agreements we have here in Brazil. Of course, each company has a different supply chain and it varies case by case. In the case of Unidas, with the agreements we have, to this moment, we've been guaranteed this return. We do not have any signs of worsening caused by the war or anything else in the short term. Everything is guaranteed for us to continue evolving this year. Well, thank you for your answer. I have another question regarding your results. You had an improvement in your EBITDA and in the profit. We can see that you're keeping the growth strategy, but I wanted to understand how that fits in with Localiza, and I wanted to know whether you've discussed repricing with them, based on things that were not taken into account. Or have you aligned with them how this is going to work? Well, thank you for another question, Filipe. As you noticed, we have maintained our strong growth strategy with better profitability and better margins. This is the concept here at Unidas that we've used for a while now, and for the time being, we have not discussed it with Localiza, especially because of the process we're going through. We still do not have the final integration so that we can work together and therefore Unidas' strategy to this moment and what we're talking about here has to do with Unidas' strategy and not of the new company that will result from this merger. Actually, we cannot arrange any type of strategy until we had a final decision by CADE. You can expect Unidas to keep this strategy throughout the year. We think that we still have a lot of opportunity to grow in the two rental channels and also in the new car channel with brand-new cars. We're not going to give up on this growth because of profitability. There are many opportunities in different products and channels that we have available and others that will come. Perfect. I understand that this growth was already taken into account when you closed it for last year. Yes, definitely. Well, thank you for your answer. Well, I thank you. Our next question is from Rogério Araújo, UBS BB. Thank you for the opportunity. Good afternoon, everyone. I have two questions. The first one has to do with the fiscal fees credit. You mentioned a recurring effect of about BRL 15 million, which would be 3.5% of the margin at RAC. We calculated a percentage of up to 7%, but that would depend on changing fiscal fees or use or deducted from other federal credits so that you could use more credits. My question is the following: Are you taking into account a level where you zero fiscal fees and do not use any other credits? You do not take them off from any other federal credits? Or could it be higher than this level if you acknowledge more revenue or find a way to deduct it? Is there any potential for this to increase? Can you take into account the whole RAC fleet as two years of depreciation and use it all as credits? This is question number one. I will ask the other one later. Well, thank you, Rogério, for your question. Basically, I think, as we mentioned, we talked about BRL 15 million-BRL 20 million, and when we look at the other fleet and the fourth quarter, it could be a little bit higher. If you have it in recurring basis for the whole fleet throughout the quarter. So cars which were already available for sales, they do not have this increment for this quarter. As you work with the freight, you have a potential of being a little bit higher, and it could be compared to the total freight as you asked. We are evaluating this year. We want to bring this whole potential and in the upcoming quarters, we will analyze how we can use this additional credit. In summary, we have a potential for it to be a little bit higher regarding our total freight. Perfect. It was very clear. Thank you very much. The second question is regarding PDD. We've seen an increase of BRL 6.7 million-BRL 17 million when compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. Could you tell us whether this is a recurring effect and where it comes from? Wonderful. Once again, thank you for the question. When we compare this with the fourth quarter of 2020, PDD is something that we work with constantly. We discussed the impact of default. We have evaluated credit and how you can have more business and also the comparison with the fourth quarter of last year. Because of the levels when we compare revenues in terms of provisions, because if we look at 2020, we provisioned too much in the second quarter, especially in the beginning of the pandemic. The third and fourth quarters had some reversions of the things that did not happen when compared to our expectations in the beginning of the pandemic, when we didn't really have a good visibility of what would haven't happened. At the end of the year, nine months into the pandemic, we had some reversals, and now we have a more normalized scenario. It was very clear. Thank you very much. Our next question is from Rogério Araújo, UBS BB. It's me again. I wanted to ask another question. Could you talk a little bit about the next steps in the CADE process where now, we have some time before CADE can approve it. Could you give us an expectation of the time it'll take and what might happen in the next months? Thank you once again. Thank you, Rogério. Well, the operation was approved by CADE in December and then in the first quarter most, more specifically last week, this was decided and now the next steps will be to present a buyer for what was negotiated with CADE. This is a process that the company is working with. Then in the next months we will present a buyer to CADE. Then once we have done it, CADE will approve or rectify this approval. Then after that, we can conclude the merger of Unidas with Localiza. It's difficult to say when in terms of dates, but this is going to happen over the next weeks or months. Perfect. Thank you. I now turn over to the company for the Q&A session with the webcast. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Francesco. We're now going to start with Pedro from Eleven Financial. Pedro greets everyone, congratulates us for the results, and he asks: When we observed results without PIS/Cofins, we can see a more neutral result. He would like to know first how are cars going to be delivered in 2021? Are we going to have a higher sales volume? Can you tell us about the schedule of this credit based on the RAC mean life? Thank you, Pedro. In response to your first question, we have an expectation of higher sales volume, consequently receiving a larger number of brand new cars. Then especially at the end of the second quarter. As I mentioned before, for the time being, the car assemblers and our partners are confident that we're going to receive a better volume of car this year, and consequently we will have more cars and a better renewal of our fleet, which is wonderful for our business. Regarding the second question, I will add it here, and we had another one from DCI asking what our strategy would be regarding the credits from fiscal fees. In general, we expect in the next quarters to continue acknowledging this credit which comes from this current fleet, where we have an accelerated mean life, and then we can expand that to the total rent-a-car fleet. Especially as new cars come in. Regardless of the process, you have it until you sell this asset and therefore we're going to continue with this process in the next quarters. This generates recurrences. Furthermore, we started a study, we're working on it. We are evaluating the operations of fleet outsourcing. This is something that we analyze case by case, and there are results that we're not familiar with, but there is a potential for positive results, especially taking into account that all possible segments of the industry and the Brazilian market will be included, including a more intense use of this asset. We continue working with that in the company. We have three other questions, but they all have to do with the merger with Localiza. I thank you for the question. In general, Luís talked about it. Unidas maintains its standalone strategy with growth and profitability of the business regardless of the potential merger that could take place in the near future. Also, at the same time, we are working with other deadlines that we have to meet so that we have the final authorization from CADE for the merger of these two companies. If we have no further questions, the Unidas results conference call is now closed. Thank you for your participation, and have a good day. Thank you.
Loading workspace