Good morning or good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this conference call about the results of Q4 2023 and year-end figures. Today we have Mr. Ricardo Martín Bringas, General Director of Soriana, and Mr. Rodrigo Benet Córdova, Director of Finance and Administration. Together they will discuss the financial result of q4 and end of year 2023. They will give you a summary of the last figures of the company. During this presentation, or at the end, actually, there will be a Q&A session to answer any question you may have. We would like to mention that this phone conference is being simultaneously streamed in English and Spanish. During the Q&A session, we will first answer the questions in Spanish, followed by English questions. At the beginning of the Q&A session, we will give you instructions on how you can participate during this conference call. All conference lines have been silenced to avoid any background noise. Keep in mind that the phone conference could be recorded. I now give the floor to Ricardo Martín Bringas. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining us in this conference call where, along with Rodrigo Benet Córdova, Director of Finance and Administration, we will discuss the financial results of Q4 2023 and the year-end figures. First of all, I would like to thank all of our stakeholders for trusting us every day since the sector has been undergoing important changes over the last few years, and 2023 has been no exception. These changes have led us to a constant evolution that will allow us to continue growing, such as we set out as an organization at the beginning of 2023, a year in which the strategic foundations of this organization were to resume expansion, invest in competitiveness, grow our e-business, and relaunch our own brand. Regarding expansion, I am pleased to confirm that throughout 2023 we made capital investments totaling MXN 7.2 billion, among which we prioritized investing resources in 18 new stores in all formats throughout the country, with 11 units completed during 2023 and the rest opening in early 2024, making this the beginning of our expansion plan that will allow us to open over 50 stores per year in the medium term. We also invested in 45 remodeling projects, store format conversions, maintenance, and equipment replacement in all of our formats, which allows us to provide operational improvements and convenience to our customers. We are also reinforcing our land portfolio, which is necessary to achieve the desired expansion, and we continue to invest in projects that will allow us to achieve the desired expansion in the medium term in both physical stores as well as in digital e-business, strengthening our omnichannel approach. As for competitiveness, we have supported the finance of Mexican families by joining the federal government's initiatives with the PACIC program, by offering the basic food basket at a low price and being recognized week after week as one of the most affordable stores in the different areas of the country. Moving on to e-business, we are pleased to report that the Soriana App had a 61% growth in sales as a result of technological development and improvements that are continuously implemented to further grow the business. This year we achieved a sales growth of 74% during El Buen Fin and 18% during Hot Sale. Similarly, in March 2023, we launched our online City Club, which has been extraordinarily well received by our customers and is growing rapidly in terms of both number of orders as well as average tickets. Going straight to the company's results, in the fourth quarter, total revenues amounted to MXN 49,407 million, which is a 9% increase over those of the same quarter of the previous year, and an annual level of MXN 176,120 million, with a 6% increase in total revenues year-over-year. Regarding real estate revenue, we ended the year at MXN 2,806 million, which is an 11% increase over the previous year, as well as a significant improvement in occupancy going from 83.7%-89% in the last 12 months. Thanks to the amenable conditions we have developed for our tenants with exclusive programs to benefit their businesses, as well as the support we have provided in contingency situations, which has increased their trust and preference when choosing where to locate their businesses. As for the results by format, we had the best in-store sales performance in the low-price formats such as Mercado and Mercado Express, which are strongly targeting the lower-income population, and that is exactly where competitiveness becomes more relevant. Competition is neck and neck with the segment leader, which is why at Soriana we took actions to do better than our competitors, paying close attention not only to price but also to the quality and variety of products, image, distribution, and we even invested in 35 stores to make it easier for customers to browse and significantly improve their shopping experience, thus achieving ticket and traffic growth. In 2024, we will continue with the same strategy, and in addition, we will seek to optimize our sales floor staff to provide a more efficient service to our customers. As for Soriana Híper and Soriana Súper formats, 2023 has been a year of great commercial activity focused on improving our competitiveness and the price perception of our customers. We pushed our own brand and exclusive brands as a differentiator, and we increased the supply of imported goods. We also supported the development of regional and artisanal vendors to complement our gourmet area with the highest quality domestic and imported products, thereby strengthening our relationships with countries such as Canada, where we have a large share of products in all categories. Finally, our City Club format had two openings this year, one in the state of Jalisco and the other in the state of Campeche, and it continues to improve our growth in active members and in this year with 1.2 billion members. Similarly, as part of our commercial strategy, we reinforced our alliance with Dunnhumby, thus strengthening our commercial strategies not only for better interaction with our business partners but also to pursue the greatest benefit for our customers. As a result, the total company gross profit for the quarter reached MXN 11,435 million, which represents 23.1% of total sales and a 9.3% increase. On a year-over-year basis, gross profit reached MXN 40.134 billion, accounting for 22.8% of sales, an expansion of 60 basis points, and a 9% increase compared to the previous year, as previously mentioned. Moving on to the expenses and to mention the most relevant items, the cost of personnel with an 8.5% nominal increase as a result of the seven new stores and a better coverage of vacancies across the country. On the other hand, the cost of energy had a 9% increase due to a disruption in the generation of energy that we had in a wind farm, which lasted four months, with a 170 million kilowatt impact at higher rates during that period, with a MXN 100 million impact to the company as a whole. Similarly, equipment and building maintenance had a 7% annual increase due to the acceleration of remodeling and corrective works to have our stores in the best operating and structural conditions. As a result, EBITDA for q4 2023 reached MXN 4.24 billion, which represents an 8.6% margin with a contraction of 30 basis points and a 4.6% increase. On an annual basis, EBITDA reached MXN 12.905 billion, which represents 7.3% of revenue. Net financial costs reached MXN 737 million in the quarter, indicating an 89.6% increase, mainly due to the closing of the equity swap in the month of October, which generated a MXN 170 million reduction in the financial product compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Financial expenses showed a 36% increase, mainly due to the increase in the reference rate or benchmark rate. Finally, the quarter ended with a net income of MXN 2,046 million, which equals 5.8% of sales and is a 17.2% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year. On an annual basis, net income was MXN 4,908 million, which equals a 2.8% increase. In the case of Sodimac, our home improvement format, we now have 13 stores nationwide with 115,000 square meters of sales floor, a 31,000 SKU catalog, and one opening in 2023, which performed very positively and had an excellent customer acceptance, significantly boosting our digital business with a focus on delivery times nationwide. Furthermore, the financial business with Falabella has physical and digital modules to cater to customers in 485 locations with 669,000 active cards, and it closed the year with a loan portfolio of MXN 4.7 billion. This is one of our most important alliances that has positioned itself quickly in seasonal events such as El Buen Fin 2023, where it ranked first in sales with interest-free promotions, beating some of the most important banks in the country by more than double. Without further ado, we would like to end our presentation by thanking you for your participation, and we will now open the floor for questions, where we will gladly address all of your concerns. Thank you. We will now go on to the Q&A session in Spanish. I also remind you that once we finish Spanish questions, we will move on to English questions. Should you have any questions, please press eight in your number pad. In case your question was answered beforehand, you can cancel it by pressing star eight again. The first question is from—I don't remember the name of the other from Santander. Go ahead, please. Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. I would like to know—you mentioned the private brand. If you can shed some more light on how much sales are represented and how much you're expecting from here on out on this matter. Thank you. Of course. As a company, we're looking at 12% performance. It also has different purposes, of course, or different goals. For example, the goals of one of the stores is to take it 23.5%-40% in the next three years in terms of market share. Now, in the case of Mercado and Super, we're looking at 20%-22%. In the case of City Club, we want to make it to about 20% as well. Thank you very much. If I may, you mentioned the expansion plan. What formats are you focusing mostly on? We're mainly focusing on the supermarket format and Híper, Mercado also. In terms of investment, that is, both volumes in all other formats, which imply less investment such as Express, is a bit higher. Now, your question, I believe, has to do with my comment on the expansion program of upcoming years. We want to reach 50 stores. Yes, exactly. So in which format are we expecting to see more stores? Well, that would be Súper, Express, Mercado, and Híper in that order. And supermarkets investment is less rather than Mercados and Híper. Now, in terms of money investment, I would say they will be balanced out considering the number of stores and supermarkets. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your question. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star eight in your numpad. Our next question is from Miguel Ulloa from BBVA. Go ahead, please. Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for this call. As to 2024 expectations, what do you expect in terms of results? Thank you very much. Hello, Miguel. Yes. Items we're following summarizes the four main items. We expect a sales growth in-store, which is 6%. We want to expand 25 margin points. We want to break the CapEx investment record. We're looking at MXN 8 billion in CapEx, as Ricardo mentioned, with a strong market share in new stores. And within this CapEx, we have the 17 stores that we are planning to open. And not forgetting stores, we are planning to open for Sodimac along with our Falabella partners. Obviously, we will continue investing strongly in our technological platform, especially with the latest versions of our website and our app. As we have mentioned, this is also a very relevant part of our strategy for the future of this organization. Basically, that's the guidance in a nutshell. Thank you very much. I have a couple of more questions with regards to growth in the digital aspect, which shed some light on what you're expecting for this year. And the second question is regarding competition in this component. Is there any concern or any action you will carry out? Yeah. As we mentioned, we are very pleased with our channel. Specifically, the app is leading growth, which is, well, aligned with the market. Let us remember, if we look at nationwide statistics, I think it's about 70% internet access in the world through mobile devices. So it's not important for not only is it important for Soriana, but also for all the departments. So it makes sense that our app is leading growth in all of our channels. Let us remember that currently, the company has 5 channels within the digital world or e-commerce, if you will. We have the website. Now, we have a City Club website. We also have the app. We have two third-party channels. Let us remember, we're still operating with Rappi and Uber, previously Cornershop. And we also have our phone channel, but that one is increasingly being unused. And the app has grown a lot. In fact, its growth on a yearly basis surpasses 61%, which is where we are focusing most of our tech releases, the latest versions. We have taken a swift approach to develop new features for our customers, which has been giving us really good results. We are also adding personalized offers, as Ricardo mentioned in his initial statement, which has to do with all of our work with Dunnhumby, which focuses on customer knowledge, and it gives them a direct way to contact them. Honestly, app downloads have been increasing, and we can now personalize offers or customize offers. That's for your first part of the question. As for the second part, it is no surprise that there's a competitor that all of our competitors are taking seriously, which recently presented an initial offer in U.S. markets. Of course, it's one more competitor. I'm sure it is more relevant for you because of this, but for us, it is a competitor that we have been looking at for the last few years. We have mapped them out, and we compete with them out in the streets. Just as with all of our other competitors, we have to monitor them every day, especially when it regards to competitiveness, supply. Great. This only goes to show that the Mexican market still has great potential, and there's room for several players. One more competitor we have to continue fighting with. This is not news. This competitor has been around for several years, but for our market, it became more relevant due to its offer. It's nothing new for us. Thank you very much, Rodrigo. If you wish to ask a question, please press star eight and your phone numpad. Thank you very much for your question. That was the last question in Spanish. We will now open the floor for English questions. We will hear a quick pause while the translator presents the questions in Spanish. Moment. There are no questions in the English channel. However, we have one more question in the Spanish channel from Nicolas Pietsch from MetLife. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question. What do you expect with regards to debt for this year? I want to know if your CapEx plan is to be financed with internal resources, or do you need any additional debt for that? Thank you very much. Hello, Nicolas. Pleased to greet you. This is Rodrigo. And no, as we mentioned, basically, the organization planned all of its debt management so that we didn't have any overdebt this year because it's an election year. We tried to be very conservative, and all of the planning took place a while back. So from here on out, we want to decrease our debt. We will continue with that plan this year following the same strategy. We don't have any expiration in debt for 2024. They will actually expire in 2025. However, we are getting ahead to have all of the refinancing ready. So really, throughout the year, we will simply take some of our working capital lines because we have bilateral loans with several financial institutions for working capital, really. But no, we do not expect any increase in debt. And in fact, the flow generated by the company will be targeted at CapEx. We also expect to end the year with a net cash position, which is part of our piggy bank, if you will, for 2025, when we will start paying our debt. But in conclusion, we will not increase our debt, and we want to finance all of our CapEx with the flow of the same organization. And it's all pretty much set in that regard. Perfect. Thank you very much. No. Thank you for participating. Thank you very much for your question. Our next question is from Alejandro Fuchs from Itaú BBA. Go ahead, please. Hello, Rodrigo. Ricardo, thank you very much for taking our questions. I have a couple of questions. First one is, you mentioned extraordinary revenue. In terms of gross revenue throughout the quarter, we would like to know a little more about it. And secondly, I want to understand what should we expect for 2024 in the future in terms of salaries and covering the vacancies you mentioned with some minimum wage pressures and some constitutional changes for the labor week in Mexico? How is the company planning to mitigate these potential impacts? And the final questions, if I may, considering your exposure in the north side of Mexico, I want to know if you have trouble finding staff or personnel. So if you can shed any light on this, I would greatly appreciate it. Of course. My pleasure, Alejandro. So going to your first part of the question as to other income of the company, let's go from the most to the least important. What gives us most increase is the recovery in the real estate business. We are very pleased. We have practically reached pre-pandemic levels. In 2024, in fact, considering our trend, we will surpass pre-pandemic levels in terms of average capability of the organization. And in fact, we have a lot of recovery in all real estate items. Our parking lot business is doing quite well, and we are very happy our tenant base is showing that we have very good diversification. Honestly, we have about 50% of our real estate business with institutional customers, maybe a little more. The rest are more regional businesses, if you will, which has given us a really good plan of long-term contracts to increase income. This pleases us very much. That's the first part that helps us with income. Now, secondly, we have some sales in this expansion plan we are resuming efficiently, as Ricardo mentioned. This has led us to check our land portfolio. In that review, we are using many of these lands to open new units. But on the other hand, it's helping us invest in exceeding lands. For example, we have some parking lots that are next to our stores that we will no longer develop, and we will sell them. That will be part of additional income that are helping us. That's not a continuous thing. I mean, it is continuous because we always have any additional pieces of land that we can sell, but these are different units at the end of the day. Lastly, in Q4, we have the recovery of insurance, which is also a very specific case given the incidents in Acapulco. In that order of priority, basically, this is what's going on in terms of other income. Now, as to your second question concerning work cost, indeed, as you mentioned, or labor cost, labor cost is one of the most important expenses for this organization. Without the latest increase in minimum wage, they'd have an impact. Let us remember, a couple of years in the company, we didn't have any minimum wage collaborators. So when increasing minimum wage significantly, even if we didn't have any collaborators with minimum wage, it does, of course, put in some pressure. However, I think the organization has been able to absorb by better using all other expenses. Let us remember that throughout last year, towards the end and early this year, we mentioned sometimes some efficiency and optimization plans, specifically during our second most important expense of the company, which is energy. I can proudly say today that all of our stores are, first of all, connected to sustainable energies that provide us with significant savings. And now, we have also switched all of the lighting of the organization, and we are in the process of changing all of the cooling equipment all across the organization. This has presented very significant savings that allow us to make up for the pressure in the labor item because, you mentioned, this is the second most significant expense in the company. Now, savings and compensation could have been greater if we hadn't had the events that Ricardo mentioned because due to incidents such as that in our wind farms, one of our wind farms was out of service for over a quarter, which represented an important amount. But well, we are figuring out how to make up for this. Honestly, we can't do nothing else. At the end of the day, minimum wage is a legal government matter, which we have to follow. Of course, this pressures us. But on the other hand, let's consider the positive of this. When there's an increase in minimum wage in the country, Alejandro, we're looking at a part of the population who have basic needs. So we regard this as a positive thing because a lot of this increase will be returned in household finances that will represent expenses in our store. It's not that their increase will make them book a holiday in Europe. They're still covering their very basic needs. And part of this increase will be reflected in consumption or in store purchases. So it's really not any bad news. We have to face it. I think the organization is handling it quite well. And of course, this has been some sort of pressure. And lastly, you mentioned our northern location when it comes to hiring. First of all, the company is a lot more diversified. Currently, the central part is more important now by 3 points rather than the northern part of the country. The south part is still a great area of opportunity. But yes, we do have very important conditions in the north side of the country, and there's more pressure in terms of hiring. We also have the nearshoring issue, and we also have a lot of overseas companies in terms of manufacturing and automotive have changed. And we would like if we said that in addition to an increase in minimum wage, we have to have some increases to be more competitive as bosses or contractors. Yes, we need to continue doing this. Yes, we are a very intense company in terms of human capital, but there's also a positive in terms of expenditure and consumption. Thank you very much, Rodrigo. My pleasure. Thank you very much for your question. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star eight in your phone number pad. Very well. Thank you very much, everybody. We hope to have answered all of your questions, and see you next time. Thank you.