Good morning. We welcome you to Sonae's first half of 2023 results conference call. During the presentation hosted by Mr. João Dolores, Sonae CFO, all participants will be on a listen-only mode. There will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end of the presentation. If you wish to ask a question during the Q&A session, you may do so by pressing the star key followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you're experiencing any difficulty in listening to the conference at any time, please make sure you have your headset fully plugged in, or alternatively, please try calling from a different device. I now hand the conference over to Mr. João Dolores. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sonae's first half 2023 results conference call. Besides myself and the investor relations team, we have on the call, Cristina Novais from Bright Pixel, Luís Mota Duarte from Sierra, Paulo Simões from Worten, and Fernando Van Zeller, our recently appointed CFO at MC. As you know, the second quarter of the year continued to be marked by a challenging macroeconomic environment. Geopolitical tensions remain high, and inflationary trends and rising interest rates continue to pressure the disposable income of households. In any case, the Portuguese economy was quite resilient, and our businesses maintained high levels of agility to adapt to changing circumstances, namely by continuing to partially absorb inflation to protect households and cater to the needs of consumers. As usual, I will start by going through our portfolio management activity in the period. As you know, during Q1, we acquired the remaining 10% stake in Sierra at a 10% discount to NAV, and we now own 100% of the company at this point in time. We also reached an agreement with Bankinter Consumer Finance to create a 50/50 joint venture with Universo, which aims to become a leading consumer credit operator in Portugal. That agreement will be executed up until the end of this year. Bright Pixel, our corporate venture arm in technology, made 3 new investments in Q2, so totaling 6 new minority investments in the first half of the year, and already has 40 companies in the portfolio, including 3 unicorn companies. MC, in Q2, reached an agreement for the combination of Arenal and Druni in Spain. This will result in a leading health and wellness and beauty player in Spain, with about EUR 800 million in turnover, a transaction which increases our international exposure in a sector that is benefiting currently from clear tailwind. This transaction should be concluded by the end of the year, turning NC into the, the leading health and wellness and beauty retailer in Iberia, with over EUR 1 billion in revenue, if you include Wells and Portugal as well. A lready in Q3, Sonae received a notification from JD Sports, communicating its intention to acquire the remaining stake in ISRG with an equity value of EUR 1 billion. This transaction implies a EUR 300 million cash in for Sonae and an estimated capital gain of EUR 175 million, and completion should happen until October. Sonaecom acquired Sonae's direct stake in NOS, a total of 11.3% for EUR 213 million, Sonaecom now holds the 37.37% stake in the NOS share capital, this had no material impact on the voting rights in NOS, which are attributed to Sonae. Regarding our key businesses, I will start with retail. I would like to point out that MC continues to face challenging market conditions with food inflation remaining high, although at lower levels than the beginning of the year. In Q2, we saw inflation around 11% versus practically 20% in Q1. This, coupled with evolving consumer behaviors, significantly changed the context for MC, where we continued to see trading down movements, which were quite significant. In any case, MC was able to grow by 13% year-on-year in Q2, with a like-for-like of 11%, to over EUR 3 billion in the first half of the year. This was fueled both by food and non-food formats. Continente continues to expand its market leadership position in Portugal. In terms of profitability, trading down movements, coupled with the partial absorption of the inflationary pressures in prices and costs, pressured gross margin. These negative effects were more than offset by a reduction in energy costs and also the implementation of efficiency measures, which enabled us to maintain a very solid profitability level. Underlying EBITDA grew 16% year on year in Q2 and reached EUR 279 million in the first half of the year, a total margin of 9.2% versus 9% last year. MC continued with its expansion plan by opening up 18 new stores, of which 4 new Continente Bom Dia, which, as you know, is our proximity format in Portugal. As for Worten. Worten also delivered a positive operational performance, being able to increase market share in core categories, but also growing well in new product categories and adjacent services. Turnover grew 5% year on year in Q2, to a total of EUR 557 million in the first half of the year, which implied a 7% year-on-year growth and a like-for-like of 5.5%. The online channel continues to be an important growth avenue, representing now more than 15% of total sales, underpinned also by the marketplace expansion into new categories. Profitability also evolved positively, despite the pressure on operational costs, coupled with a challenging market backdrop with increased promotional activity. Underlying EBITDA increased 6% year-on-year, with a stable margin of 4.8% in Q2, leading to an underlying EBITDA of EUR 25 million, corresponding to a margin of 4.5%. As for Sierra, Sierra maintained its growth momentum in Q2, with the trading performance of our tenants in shopping centers significantly above pre-pandemic levels. In Europe, tenant sales increased at a double digit pace, 15% year on year, and shopping centers recorded an occupancy rate of 98% throughout the European portfolio, also with improved footfall being registered in the beginning of this year. The services activity also showed a strong performance in the period, fueled by property management on the back of 47 new contracts signed in the first half of the year across several geographies, and also the good performance of assets under management, demonstrating the company's ability to add value to managed assets owned by its partners. Net results increased EUR 10 million to EUR 38 million, on the back of a strong direct result evolution, although we did record a positive indirect result in the quarter. NAV increased EUR 50 million since the beginning of the year, having again surpassed the EUR 1 billion threshold. Regarding NOS, the company published its results last week and continued to deliver a strong operational performance with both turnover and profitability improving year-on-year. NOS continues to lead the deployment of 5G in Portugal, with a coverage of 90% of the population, and today the company offers the best mobile network in the country, which has enabled higher levels of growth, particularly in conversion customers. Revenues increased 4.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2023, on the back of the telco growth, which grew 3.5% in the first half, and cinema theaters, which continued their recovery path, growing 15% in the first semester of this year. EBITDA reached EUR 353 million in H1, with a 45.5% margin, a 2 percentage point increase versus 2022, and net results stood at EUR 81 million. As you know, NOS distributed EUR 0.43 per share in dividends, of which EUR 0.152 was extraordinary dividends following the sale of the towers-- mobile towers to Cellnex in 2022. Still in the technology segment, Bright Pixel continued its active portfolio management activity with 6 new investments in H1, with a total CapEx of EUR 32 million, and currently, cash invested totals EUR 166 million in more than 40 companies, and the portfolio is currently worth roughly double this amount. In a rather volatile period for tech companies, Bright Pixel's portfolio has shown strong resilience, and we haven't registered, nor do we expect to register significant changes in valuations up to the end of the year. On a consolidated view, Sonae maintained a strong top line growth in Q2. Total revenues grew 11% year-on-year in the quarter, reaching EUR 3.8 billion in the first half of the year, mainly fueled by the performance of MC. In terms of profitability, underlying EBITDA increased 16% or EUR 23 million year-on-year to EUR 163 million in Q2, and reached just over EUR 300 million in the first half of the year, with a margin of 7.9%, 15 basis points above last year's 7.7%. Total EBITDA followed a similar trend, but increased slightly less, 9.5% year-over-year to EUR 350 million, with a positive contribution from equity consolidated businesses, mainly NOS, due to our increased shareholding, which was partially offset by lower capital gains from Bright Pixel this year. Direct results decreased year-over-year to EUR 84 million in the first half of 2023, due to increased depreciations following our investment efforts, coupled with higher funding costs and tax expenses. Indirect results also reduced in the first half of 2023, mostly due to lower valuation gains in the minority stakes of Bright Pixel in H1 when compared to 2022. And also to lower revaluations of Sierra Shopping Centers when compared to last year. All in all, net results group share stood at EUR 43 million in the second quarter of this year, and EUR 69 million in the first half of 2023. All in all, Sonae generated EUR 202 million of free cash flow before dividends paid in the last twelve months. This is a quite solid cash flow generation and is a function of the strong operational performances of our main businesses, also our portfolio management activity, and lastly, the dividends received from our investment company. Consolidated net debt decreased to a bit above EUR 1 billion, after dividends paid to our shareholders and partners, which totaled EUR 161 million. The group's capital structure remains solid, with a low leverage level, strong liquidity available, and a stable debt maturity profile, four years. At the end of June, our holding LTV decreased significantly year on year to 7%, so -2.4 percentage points versus last year. At the individual BU level, leverage metrics remain within our defined thresholds. MC decreased its net debt to EBITDA ratio to 3 times even after dividend, dividend payment of EUR 214 million. NOS presented a net financial debt to EBITDA after leases of 2 times, and at Sierra, gross LTV reduced significantly to 38.7%. Lastly, a brief overview of Sonae's NEV. Our NEV based on market preferences, amounted to EUR 4.2 billion at the end of H1, 4% above the Q1 level, mainly fueled by the positive contribution of ISRG valuation following the recently announced transaction, the operational performance of our retail businesses, and the NEV evolution at Sierra, which more than offset the negative evolution in the NOS share price. Going forward, the outlook remains volatile, but we are confident that we will continue to deliver a strong performance in the second half of the year. Thank you, and you can now open the session to Q&A. Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from João Pinto of JB Capital. Hi, good morning, everyone. Your line is open. Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two on Sonae MC. On, on margins, if you could share, the gross margin evolution in the first half, it would be my first question. My second question would be, how should we, how should we think about EBITDA margin in the second half of the year? It seems that pressures, from volumes and mix, have eased based on the difference between like-for-like and food deflation. We are also seeing a big deceleration in terms of food PPI, while electricity prices, are driving to, some, some savings. If, if you could guide us through the different moving parts for margin, it would be great, and if you foresee the same margin resilience, in the second half of the year. Many thanks. Thank you, João, for your questions. They're both on MC, so I will hand it over to Fernando to take them. Sure. Thank you, João. Hi, João. Just in terms of profitability for the first half and just breaking it into parts. As you know, we see the like-for-likes spread split between price, volumes, and mix. As you rightly said, as João Dolores mentioned in the beginning of the call, we have seen a significant decrease in the growth of inflation, food inflation in the second quarter versus the first quarter. Obviously, that has a huge impact. We have on the mix part and contrary to what you said, we still see the same level of pressure in mix and people shifting more to the more affordable products. On the third part, as you mentioned, in terms of volumes, yes, we are seeing an improvement in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. It's also important to mention that compared to last year, we had a pressure on the first quarter, which was related to both COVID in January 2022, and the beginning of the war in March 2022, which obviously impacts positively the volumes in last year, in these two months, and obviously makes the comparison difficult for the first quarter of 2023. Obviously we are seeing a more healthy volume evolution in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. Now, going into the margins as you asked, obviously, we are seeing a gross margin contraction in the first semester. There are... I will break it down in 2 components. The first one is, is price investment. We have been quite focused on price investment in the, in the, in the first semester. João mentioned in the beginning of the call, the food inflation. The food inflation for the market that, that João mentioned is higher than, than for Sonae MC. We are really investing in price and absorbing part of the inflation that we are seeing. Obviously, that has an impact on, on gross margin, and that's the majority of the impact. There is also part of the impact related to the trading down and people shifting to more, the more affordable products with lower margins, obviously. On the, on the flip side, we are seeing a benefit from the energy costs. As you all know, energy costs decreased in this semester, and obviously, that has a positive impact in our margins. Also we have been implementing efficiency measures across the company to make sure that we are focused on profitability. All in all, what we are seeing, and as you rightly pointed out, we are seeing a stable EBITDA margin with a slightly increasing in the semester, a negative impact from gross margin from what I said, but which is compensated by the energy cost reducing and the efficiency measures we have put in place. Obviously, we don't give guidance for the second semester. We see a more benign inflation environment in the second semester. In terms of margins, it's, it's difficult to say yet what, where, where we end up. Obviously, the energy costs will increase because the part of the benefits that we had in the first semester in the access tariffs will, will go away. We'll continue to be focused on, on executing the plan and, and making sure that we do our best, also investing in price, but also maintaining our focus on, on margins. That's very clear. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Jose Rito of Saxo Bank. Hello. Hi, good morning to all. I have 2 questions on Sonae MC. The 1st one is a question regarding the margin increase that we had in the 2nd, in the 2nd quarter. Conceptually, why are you allowing the EBT margin to increase? My question is, why not further reinvest and mitigate the risk of other players winning market share? I know that's you increased market share in the quarter, in the half, but still, you have a very high EBT margin, so why not reinvest these, maintain broadly stable margin and further accelerate the like-for-like and market share? This will be my 1st question, the 2nd question on the energy weight as% of sales this quarter versus last year. How much was energy as% of sales versus, versus last year? I have a question on, on Sierra. How much was the yield expansion across the different markets in first half this year? Thank you. Thank you, José. Maybe I'll, I'll hand it over first to Luís to tackle the, the Sierra question, and then I'll ask Fernando to cover the, the two MC questions. Go ahead, Luís. Sure. This one is very simple. The impact of the increase in net initial yields in our portfolio across Europe was around 32 basis points. Okay. Okay, thank you. Fernando, do you want to tackle? Sure! The first question? Thank you very much, again, just elaborating a bit more on the price and investment in price on your first question. As I mentioned, food inflation, our food inflation in MC is lower than what is in the market. We are really, as I mentioned, investing in price, and so that's our key focus to remain obviously competitive in the market. As well, your question around our competitive positioning. As you know, we are the market leaders. Over this semester, we have consolidated our market position, obviously, despite these important efforts in the investment in price. Obviously this is an important balance we need to make. Our focus is ensuring that we also, in this difficult environment, help the, the consumers, mitigating a little bit the impact of the inflation. So that's why we are absorbing obviously part of this inflation. We are relatively comfortable in the levels we have seen in the semester. For the energy costs, we are not able to disclose the percentage, but as, as I mentioned, is obviously a relevant impact in the first semester, which more or less offsets the investment in price and the and the and the decrease in commercial margin. Okay. Thank you, Fernando. Okay, thank you. Thank you, José. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from António Seladas of AS Independent Research. Please go ahead, your line is open. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you for the presentations. I have three. The first one is related with Universo. You mentioned that the new partnership should start at the end of the year. Nevertheless, just CTT just presented the figures, non-performing exposure at Banco CTT has increased, and one of the reasons, apparently, was exactly the credit card loans. My question is, should we be worried about any kind of impact at Sonae figures related with the, with this performance on credit card loans? First question. Second question is related with NOS stake, that now that you change to Sonaecom, in fact, through Sonaecom, you are diluting your, your position. Which is, for me, is a little bit weird, because I, I guess that you believe Sona- NOS has a higher implicit value than the current stock price. Finally, related with Sierra, again, another quarter with CapEx. I don't know if you can explain what in which sectors are you investing, for us to have an understanding of what you are looking for. Also, if you can explain why the net asset value went up by 4%, I think, quarter-on-quarter. Thank you very much. Very good. Thank you, Antonio. So I'll, I will take the first two questions on Universo, NOS, and Sonaecom, and then I'll ask Luis to cover the third one on Sierra. On Universo, the short answer to your question is no, you should not be worried. We, the operational activity of Universo is actually quite sound and solid. We have continued to increase the number of credit cards that we have in the country, albeit at a slower rate than we've seen historically, but that's part of the business reaching a more mature level. But we see production continuing to increase, and we're seeing activity continuing to be quite solid, obviously impacted by the current context. We see a change in consumption patterns, but overall, the activity doing well. The transition from CTT to Bankinter will happen throughout the rest of the year, that implies, first of all, making sure that we have everything aligned with the Banco de Portugal, to ensure that we have all the authorizations needed to reach the agreement. Progressively, we will, we will transition the credits book from CTT to the new joint venture up until the end of the year. That's the plan. If everything goes according to this plan, we will have a smooth transition, in terms of activity and operations, everything on track with what we were, we were expecting. In North, yes, we concentrated our participation in Sonaecom. I think it's, we've always said that this was our goal. After we did the offer, the tender offer on Sonaecom, we said that our goal would be to concentrate our investments in telecoms and technology within Sonaecom, which is our sub-holding dedicated to these two businesses. We did the transaction at an arm's length valuation. We considered the average price of the last 6 months. We executed that operation recently, and we feel that's the right structure for organizing the portfolio. Obviously, ultimately, we basically maintained the same level of voting rights and influence in the company. It was just a matter of reorganizing the portfolio. I will hand it over to Luís to cover the Sierra question. Okay, very good. On the first question around CapEx, two-thirds of the CapEx figure that you've seen have to do with our development projects. As you know, our strategy, one stream of our strategy is clearly to increase our activity in development, particularly mixed-use development. We are seeing significant opportunity in that market, and we, we are investing in that market. There are two main activities at the moment related to this, which drove the CapEx spend in the period. One has to do with the office tower that we're building, next to Colombo, and another one has to do with the residential, high-end residential project that we have acquired and that we are developing at the moment in Lisbon. Another quarter of the CapEx has to do with other growth projects across the portfolio, particularly with food markets that we're doing in Italy, for example, but also with additional asset management initiatives that we are doing across our shopping center portfolio. That's the main question on CapEx. In terms of the increase in NAV, the increase in NAV has typically has three main factors. The first one is directly related with the strong operating performance that we have recorded across all business lines. The second one has to do with an increase in valuations. So despite the 30 basis increase in yields, that was more than offset by the strong operating performance of the assets, but also of the effect of inflation. The third element on the NAV increase has to do with FX. It's around EUR 15 million, one-five of the 12 16. That has to do with our exposure to currency in Brazil and Colombia. Okay. Thank you. Just thank you very much. Just a follow-up question on Universo. I think on the news that you are still, you asked inaudible to, to offering saving products. Is that right or? Sorry, António, I didn't get the question. Could you please repeat? Sorry, I didn't explain well. Sorry. I read in the press that Universo will start to offering saving products, so partly through a partnership with the insurance company, but it was just a press view, so. Yes. That's part of our strategy to continue to offer a wider range of products to our customers. We are looking to extend our reach beyond just consumer credit, extending it to insurance, extending it to savings. That's part of the strategy that we have there. Obviously, it's still early stages in those new business lines, I think the goal here is to start to explore those new areas of activity with more intensity whenever we have the JV formed at the end of this year. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, António. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the call back to Mr. Dolores for additional or closing remarks. Okay. Thank you very much for your questions. Thank you very much for listening. For those of you who are going on holidays, I wish you a good, a good holiday period, and we'll be back with the Q3 results in November. Thank you very much, everyone. That does conclude today's conference call. We thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect.