CI&T Inc

Since the 1990s, companies have been trying to digitally transform their operations and how they interact with customers. The rapid expansion of technology, driven by the ubiquity of mobile applications and other connected devices, has increased the prevalence of connected consumers. Empowered by these technologies, consumers are more sophisticated than ever and are increasingly demanding seamless digital experiences. CINT is a global digital services specialist and has helped companies adapt to these new demands since 1995, quickly gaining a reputation for providing digital solutions that delivered on both speed and quality. From its humble beginnings, CINT now provides strategy, design, and software engineering services to enable digital transformation for the world's leading brands.

cint is a technology service company with a global team of more than 5 500 digital professionals including software engineers designers data scientists and digital strategists cint has long-term relationships with more than 50 large enterprises and fast growth clients with a solid track record of continuous growth best-in-class profitability and a highly recurring revenue model with a strong net revenue retention rate cint also operates with a very healthy employee retention figure In the market of digital services, large enterprises and new fast-growing digital firms are facing challenges with digital transformation. The former struggle to innovate and quickly transform, while the latter struggle to scale their operations. To help these companies, CI&T combines digital strategy with customer-centric design and top-of-the-line software engineering to offer end-to-end solutions from the business opportunity to the hands of the consumers. CINT combines these competences under one set of principles, practices, and methodologies called Lean Digital, a methodology unique to CINT that is a combination of the disruption of digital and the discipline and leadership frame of Mind of Lean. CINT generates business impact for clients across several geographies and industries, such as financial services, food and beverage, and pharmaceuticals, always focused on building strong client relationships that expand over time. Metaphorically speaking, giving giants nimble feet

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to CINT 4th Quarter and Full Year 2021 Results Conference Call. I'm Eduardo Galvão, Head of Investor Relations at CINT. Today we have with us Cesar Ghosn, Founder and CEO, Bruno Guicardi, Co-Founder and President for North America and Europe, and Stanley Rodrigues, our CFO. This event is being recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After that, there will be a questions and answers session for analysts and investors only. If you'd like to submit a question, please send it via email to investors at cint.com. This event is being broadcast live and may be accessed through the company's investor relations website at investors.cint.com, where the presentation is available. The replay will be available shortly after the event is concluded. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our expected business outlook, are forward-looking statements, and as such, are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those factors described in our earnings release and then discussed in the risk factors section of our registration statements on Form F-1, in connection with our initial public offering and other reports we may file from time to time with the SEC. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed on this call. We caution you not to play and do reliance on those forward-looking statements because they are valid only as of the date when made. During this presentation, we'll comment on certain non-IFRS financial measures to evaluate our business. Please refer to the reconciliation tables of non-IFRS measures in the appendix for more details. Our agenda for today includes an update on our financial highlights and recent events, followed by some of our successful businesses cases. We'll also discuss our people and ESG strategy and deep dive on our quarterly and annual financial results. After the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Now, I'm pleased to invite Cesar Ghosn to begin our presentation.

Thanks, Eduardo. Good day, everyone. I hope you are well and safe. It's an honor to be here again with all of you. We are delighted to end 2021 with robust results outperforming our growth guidance for the quarter and year in our first year end as a public company. Before diving to those results, a word about our industry under the current economic macro environment and the opportunity for CINT. Yes, there are clouds in the sky. The global economy is yet to recover from a devastating pandemic, and we have a new set of geopolitical threats on the table. But one thing has not changed. Software continues to eat the world, enabling unprecedented and radical shifts in society, values, and consumer behaviors. Companies need to react, and uncertainties are the best fuel for change. Digital is the answer to reconnect companies to a new breed of consumers. The result is a secular demand for digital services in the corporate world and an extraordinary opportunity for a decade of high growth for CI&T. And that's why we continue to present solid results and a bullish long-term outlook. Our net revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 72% year-over-year. And I'm proud to say this is our 22nd quarter of consecutive revenue growth. In 2021, our net revenue totaled 1.44 billion reais, 51% higher than 2020. This growth was boosted by three main factors. The first was higher demand from existing clients with a net revenue retention of 128%. Second, the addition of 36 new clients with annual revenue above 1 million Brazilian Reais to our portfolio, moving from 58 in 2020 to 94 in 2021. Third, the fast and smooth integration of Dextra as four new growth units. On top of our solid growth, our adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.4%, a benchmark in our industry. And our cash conversion was 66%. It's an outstanding result, and I want to express my gratitude to all CIN tiers worldwide. I'm very proud of what we've done as a team. Thank you. Stanley will present our financial results in more detail shortly. Another relevant update. In January this year, we announced our first post-IPO acquisition, aligned with our goal to pursue strategic M&A to foster our organic growth. SOMI is an award-winning digital project agency based in the UK, with a very similar culture. They are founder-led, innovation-driven, and have a strong reputation with global brands, delivering digital solutions across several verticals, especially automotive and utilities. The company recorded 25 million British pounds in net revenue last year, a 41% growth compared to 2020. Somo adds around 300 digital specialists with deep expertise in digital products, a strong leadership team and offices in the UK, the US and Colombia. It will accelerate our growth in Europe, the second largest market for digital services in the world. Now let's take a look at recent powerful stories we are building with our clients. The first is a high-end US manufacturer reinventing the home audio experience. The second is SOMO helping a large UK utility company. boost customer experience at scale. And third is the successful launching of a financial service marketplace to millions of consumers in Brazil in just four months. There we go.

We are very proud to partner with Sonos, one of the world's leading sound experience companies to support its growth ambitions and deliver stellar customer experiences. Our services play a critical role in several technology solutions that enable Sonos to move faster and fulfill business needs that drive innovation. One very important aspect of our joint work is the modernization of Sonos core platforms, which has helped to deliver the Sonos radio subscription service to customers and enhance the company's key digital offerings. in the data realm we are helping sonos structure and evolve its data platforms leading to faster and more accurate decision building cint is also working in close partnership with sonos to empower its product organization and enable deep internal alignment through digital value streams and a strong focus on consumer needs this brings a disciplined and deliberate approach toward progress Accelerating value creation and increasing efficiency at scale.

Eon, a European utility company operating in over 30 countries with over 33 million customers, approached SOMO to design and build a self-service customer platform. The goal, to launch a new digital product at rapid pace, with the scale to adapt and manage new and existing customers. At the same time, provide a one-stop shop for account management, to boost customer experience for E.ON Next, the renewable energy arm of E.ON. Delivering at pace, only 14 weeks from briefing, SOMO launched an innovative digital product that transformed the leading energy provider into a digital-first business. Executing its scale by migrating 5.7 million customer accounts onto the platform served as a key lever towards a multi-million-pound cost reduction. The digital product enabled the migration of millions of recently acquired in-power customers onto a single platform. Working with the backdrop of COVID-19, causing global chaos and forcing numerous countries into lockdown, SOMO quickly pivoted to develop an effective, agile and transparent way of working. Delivering remote customer testing to enable rapid response and accelerate launch. Using cutting-edge technologies, including the integration of Octopus Energy's Kraken platform and an agile approach to delivery, ensured a more enjoyable and meaningful experience for customers. empowering EonNext and their customers to take a fresh and flexible approach to manage their account requirements in one place. SOMO and EonNext continue to work together to drive forward digital services that benefit both customers and employees of Eon and sustain their market-leading status.

next shop is the marketplace of next bradesco's digital bank with more than 10 million users next created the next shop marketplace to enhance its position as a digital platform offering different financial services within the digital financial landscape the marketplace offers instant cashback an important competitive advantage cint partnered with bain company and vtex to orchestrate the solution The project demonstrates CINT's unique approach of articulating and utilizing deep technical skills to build impactful solutions in partnership with different providers and business units. We were responsible for the deployment of the business strategy and all the development of the V-TEX platform. Within four months, the next shop marketplace was successfully launched and the high-end technology was ready in time for Black Friday 2021, enabling the next app to reach a new record of downloads. In just two months, 100,000 products were available across over 30 departments and categories.

Well, these are just a few examples of how CINT is generating business impact at pace and scale to some of our clients. Now I invite Bruno to talk about our delivery model and to comment on our people and ESG strategy.

Thank you, Celso. Good morning, everyone. It's nice to be here with you again. We are very proud of our organizational design, which has been perfecting over many years. It is a model designed for growth and has entrepreneurship at its core. We approach the market through autonomous units called growth units, which are in charge of bringing together multifunctional teams that work on multi-year journeys along with our clients. And to foster innovation and corporate learning across the growth units, we created the powerhouses. Our houses are virtual, cross-growth unit communities focused on speeding up learning on marketing verticals, new technologies, security practices, or any specific subject relevant in the digital world. With our powerhouses, we can assemble teams that are fluid in industry verticals, have deep expertise in the lifecycle of digital products and its practices, master a wide range of technologies, and are also role models for a new organizational culture, more agile and more collaborative. Now, let's take a look at a practical example of one of our successful powerhouses.

The Open Finance Powerhouse brings together a global team of strategists, designers and technologists who have been immersed in the financial services industry for years or decades. It includes teams that have been implementing open banking in some of the largest global banks and market expertise from countries at different stages of open finance adoption. It goes beyond the regulatory demands of open banking where those exist and explores the business benefits of embracing a broader open finance strategy. One key example of how the powerhouse works to leverage this global network is the participation in the Global Open Finance Challenge, which resulted in us winning this global competition proposed by four global banks. and now having an opportunity to develop, in partnership with them, a platform that enables global mobility from a financial perspective and solves an age-old problem that millions of immigrants continue to face every year. Overall, the Open Finance Powerhouse allows CI&T to serve its clients in their local markets with the perspective of multi-markets experience, a more intelligent approach for a world that is increasingly connected.

Now on to our most important asset, our people. In 2021, we surpassed the incredible mark of 5,000 CITers around the globe and ended the year with more than 5,500 people. It represents a net addition of 2,300 CITers, a 73% growth year over year. Our attrition rate at the end of 2021 was 15.6%, an increase compared to CIT historical level due to M&A activity and the current competitive environment for tech talent. Our leadership attrition, though, was only 3.6%, allowing us to continue projecting consistent growth and high net revenue retention. We continuously strive to enhance CITers' experiences and opportunities internally, speeding up their careers. Our strategy is to attract people at entry and mid-level positions, develop them, and promote from within. As they grow with us, they stay longer with us. So due to that strategy, we are very proud of having an average tenure of 15 years at the executive level. At the beginning of 2022, we onboarded 400 new hires into our trainee program called NextGen, which has been going on for more than two decades. We have long-term partnerships with the best universities in Brazil to foster our program and promote our employer brand. Our hiring and training machines have been operating at full speed globally to attract and retain the best talent in the industry in order to support our accelerated growth. We are proud of being nominated as one of the top five great places to work in Brazil in 2021. a recognition that demonstrates our continuous effort and commitment to providing an innovative and collaborative environment for our employees. Moreover, CINT is top-ranked as a great place to work in most countries it operates, and now we add Columbia to that list, a recognition received by SOMO in 2021. Over the last two decades, we have been perfecting a robust and distributed delivery model that allows us to provide superior performance to our clients and therefore keep our net revenue retention at a very high level. Our operating model is based on a combination of on-site teams close to our clients with near-shore tech talent from cost-effective and time-zone compatible locations. Due to our origins, Brazil is still our main source of tech talent. And although Brazil is ideally located to serve the massive U.S. market and the largest pool in America, just behind the USA, we are yet working to diversify our talent pool. In those lines, we're very happy to see the recent addition of Columbia to our footprint, an operation we are integrating from the Somo acquisition. We are committed to building and promoting a diverse, inclusive, and equitable company focused on creating a better tomorrow around us. It's a long journey that requires an inspiring vision, solid actions, and a lot of pragmatism. We don't just want to do the right thing. We want to be a lighthouse for change in society. Our ambition is to be a role model of a more responsible leadership in the corporate world. with a broader vision of what success looks like, beyond simply the company's success, to a more significant impact on the lives of our people and the communities around us. Last year, we signed a global compact from the United Nations, and we chose six sustainable development goals that connect to our cause and served as a starting point to define our goals and actions. In the second quarter of 2022, we will release our ESG report, detailing our main initiatives, results, and ambitions for the future. Now, I will hand it over to Stanley to comment on our financial results. Stanley, please.

Thank you, Bruno, and good morning, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. I am excited to present the details of 2021, another great year of CIMT. In Q421, our net revenue was R$ 456.8 million, an increase of 72% compared to Q420, and above our guidance of at least R$ 440 million. Net revenue organic growth was 40%, while our net revenue in constant currency grew 69% in the comparable period. During the quarter, we expanded our engagement with our existing clients and we added to our portfolio 19 new clients with net revenue above 1 million in the last 12 months, going from 75 clients in Q3 2021 to 94 in Q4 2021. Our adjusted EBITDA was R$101.8 million, an increase of 78% compared to Q4 2020, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.3% in Q4 2021. Adjusted net profit reached R$47.7 million, an increase of 62% compared to Q4 2020. In 2021, CINT's net revenue was R$ 1.44 billion, an increase of R$ 488 million, or 51% year-over-year. Net revenue growth in constant currency was 47%. Our performance was driven by our net revenue retention rate of 128%, demonstrating the recurrency and the resilience of our business. Adjusted EBITDA was R$ 324 million, 36.2% higher than in 2020. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.4% in 2021, below the level of 24.9% reported in 2020 when the results benefited from lower costs and expenses during the first year of the pandemic. The adjusted net profit was 157 million reais, an increase of 22.6% compared to 2020. The adjusted net profit margin was 10.9% in 2021, a reduction of the level observed in 2020, mainly explained by the increase in the cost of services provided and higher expenses with depreciation and amortization and financial expenses. CINT continues to deliver solid cash flow. In 2021, CINT generated R$ 214.4 million in cash from operating activities. 37% higher compared to the amount of R$ 156.9 million recorded in 2020. Deducting payment for income tax and interest on loans, borrowings and leasing, net cash from operating activities was R$ 132.4 million, an increase of R$ 31.4 million in relation to 2020. CINT ended December 31, 2021, with a financial net cash position of R$ 145.8 million, composed of a gross debt position of R$ 788.7 million and R$ 934.5 million in cash, cash equivalents, and financial investments, including the net proceeds of our IPO. Moving on to our pro forma numbers, our pro forma net revenue for 2021 totaled R$ 1.62 billion, 39.4% higher than in 2020, and above our guidance of at least R$ 1.6 billion in 2021. In terms of geography, the U.S. operation continues to be the fastest growing market, recording a 50% organic growth in Q4 2021 compared to Q4 2020. All industry verticals presented significant growth. It's worth mentioning that technology, media and telecom, and retail and manufacturing were the verticals that grew faster in terms of revenue in Q421 year over year. In 2021, we improved significantly our revenue breakdown by client. We reduced our top 1 client concentration from 21% in Q420 to 16% in Q421 and reduced our top 10 client concentration from 72% to 54% in the same period. And, as of the first quarter of 2022, SOMO will contribute to increase our revenue exposure in Europe and in hard currency, add exposure to two new verticals, automotive and utilities, and diversify our client concentration with its portfolio of solid and well-known brands. Now, talking about our Lend and Expand strategy, the average net revenue retention rate in the past 5 years reached 120%, and in 2021, our net revenue retention was 128%. Most of our growth in the upcoming years happens by expanding within current clients, which provides greater visibility of the trends in our business. In addition, we pursue the entry of new logos every quarter to foster future growth. In 2021, we successfully increased the number of clients with annual revenue above 1 million from 58 in 2020 to 94 in 2021. The number of clients above 5 million and 10 million also consistently grew over the same period, building a solid cohort for the upcoming years.

Thanks, Stanley. Now let's talk about the future. It's worth looking back to understand how we will move forward. Founded in 1995, C&T has 27 years of consecutive growth and profitability. From 2006, the emblematic year we launched CIT in the USA, to 2016, we had an organic 10-year CAGR of 30% in revenue. From 2016 on, we introduced three new growth forces. A domain-driven digital strategy as a core component of our offering. our growth unit business architecture, fostering a scalable entrepreneur organizational model and a programmatic approach for M&A as an enduring new capability focused on a flow of selective and strategic acquisitions. As a result of those moves, we are accelerating our annual growth pace 41% in 2020, 51% in 2021, and guiding at least 56% in 2022. To operate at this new pace, we are constantly increasing our investments in hiring, training, and leadership development, while keeping solid margins and cash conversion rates. That said, we can indicate a solid business outlook for Q1 2022 and full year 2022. Based on current market conditions, we expect our net revenue in the first quarter of 2022 to be at least 485 million Brazilian Reais, a 64% growth compared to our net revenue of 296 million Reais in the first quarter of 2021. For the full year of 2022, we expect our net revenue to be at least 2.25 billion Brazilian Reais a 56% growth compared to our net revenue of 1.44 billion reais in 2021. In addition, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA to be at least 20% for the full year of 2022. This guidance for 2022 assumes an average exchange rate of 5.2 Brazilian reais to the US dollar for the full year. That's what we had for today. We are fully committed to generating value for our clients, investors, society, and our people. And we are confident we are on the right track. Thank you all for your trust in CINT and for attending our call today. So we conclude our presentation here and we may now begin the Q&A session.

We'll now begin the question and answer session. I will announce your name. Once you hear it, please unmute your line and ask your question. Then when you're done, please unmute your line. The first question comes from Ashwin from Citi. Ashwin, please.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for the presentation. If I can start with... a question on the growth and margin cadence that you expect through the year. If you can comment on that and the drivers, particularly because of the comp associated with Dextra and so on.

Thank you, Washington. Great to see you again. Well, as we mentioned, we are guiding an annual growth of 56% for 2022. And part of this is organic. 41 plus percent of this growth is organic. And then we have the contribution of SOMO. in for this growth and and in this guidance we are not considered any additional mna move even though we have a very strong uh pipeline confident we are going to do a few next moves in this space so uh this is basically uh uh falling uh our uh really an amazing opportunity in the market. I think digital is more than ever being important and strategic for every single company. And I think we are really showing our ability to manage the supply side of this equation, combining a very aggressive, again, hiring, training, and leadership development strategy with our M&A, very, I think, very programmatic M&A strategy.

And in terms of just the cadence of what you expect, you know, roughly speaking, 1Q, 2Q, 3Q, 4Q, how do you expect that to vary over time, both for margins and growth?

Yeah, I think in terms of revenue growth, we probably will have a very similar pace quarter over quarter along the year. In terms of margins, there is some seasonality. especially because of salary inflations. Normally we have a lot of costs in Brazil, salary costs, and we have normally adjustment of salaries in the beginning of the year, January, and our price adjustments are designed to occur along the year. So normally first half is more challenging in terms of March than the second half. But everything is, as we said, we are confident we are guiding 20% plus EBITDA along the full year.

If I can ask this one quick question, because we get this a lot because of the geopolitical situation you mentioned with Ukraine and Russia as well. I know you have no direct exposure there. But are you seeing maybe more opportunity as clients who may have done some work in those areas maybe turn to you for more work? Or do you see maybe on the margin side because of those companies hiring in other regions, are you seeing any pressure on rated patients?

sure as you mentioned cnt does not have office people or or any meaningful client exposure in the region certainly there's an if this is an event that uh creates imbalance globally and we we are closely monitoring the the developments in that region really in order to to prepare to adapt ourselves and more important is support our clients as needed. But at this time, it is difficult to make any further projections or expectations. We do hope this conflict will be over soon and we are prepared to support our clients as needed. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Ashwin. Our next question comes from Diego Aragão from Goldman Sachs. Diego, please.

Yes, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe just a quick follow-up on Asher's question. If I would try to bridge your revenue growth expected in 2022, considering your NRR, new clients, and maybe M&A, how should we be thinking about it? And the same for margins, maybe just trying to understand what will be your margins without SOMO, because if I'm not mistaken, SOMO comes with lower margins. that's the INT. So this is the first question.

Sure. Thank you Diego. I think first our growth profile is basically 41 plus organic and then a little more than 10% coming from some acquisition. Again, we are not considered further M&A in this. growth uh it's it's concentrated in the in the main markets we are we are well established uh us brazil and now uk and and we we we see foresee a lot of growth coming from europe compounding our historical growth in in the us and in brazil The second, in terms of margins, you are right. SOMO and our M&A targets are operating in lower levels of margins than CI&T. And so basically, but it's a small impact. If you consider that SOMO is a company with very good margins, by the way, in the high teams. maybe the high teens, but in less than 10% of our business. And we see also a very good opportunity to gradually improve their margins because of the current exposure to near shore is only 20%. There is in Colombia for that. And we believe that gradually as they grow, we can increase adding CINT global, a near shore capability to increase their margins. So we foresee that basically our strategy and that we can expect as our M&A strategies move on, we expect some volatility in bottom line because of this part of the game. We are adding CINT ability to increase margins to the companies we are acquiring.

That's great. Thank you Cesar. And I guess looking to your net revenue retention of 128%, if I'm not mistaken, this implies a great increase relative to 2020. So can you just maybe give some colors on what is driving such improvement? maybe new applications, new solutions, new services. Just want to understand where the incremental demand is coming.

Sure, sure. Historically, our net revenue retention was around 120%. We are seeing an acceleration of this rate. It's basically more demand coming from our portfolio of clients. I think especially our global companies are really investing, increasing their investment in digital. There is plenty of opportunity regarding of cloud data, really improve customer experience, using more aggressively technology to support their customers. And that drives more demand. And I think we have a very strong positioning and reputation with them. And basically that help us to really not only increase the current engagements, but navigate to new business unities and geographies with our portfolio. And that's driving this new level of net reputation. That is very important to guarantee this new pace of growth. So our strategy continues to be lend, expand, where the short-term or this year and next year growth will depend a lot on our ability to increase our positioning and revenues in our current portfolio while having the discipline of adding new logos, new clients every single quarter that will guarantee future long-term growth that's what we have been doing and to to go for this new pace of 40 plus percent of organic growth we definitely need a higher natural rotation and we are i think we are we are being able to to do that perfect thank you thank you diego our next question comes from pune from jp morgan pune please

Hey, thanks for taking my question. With RIAIs appreciating versus the US dollar, are you seeing any impact on pricing for your either Brazil-based or US-based clients? And what are margin implications from this currency move?

Sure. Bruno, can you take this one?

Sure. So of course there's no implication for the part of the business that are in Brazil, right? So as it's the same currents, the implications for we're serving the U.S. market, right? From Brazil. Of course, there's some short-term implications and margins, but in our experience, you know, being operating for more than 20 years, it's evens out and mid to long-term. And, you know, it's kind of a, The FX ended up incorporating more than enough the inflation of the local market. And in the end, it's kind of a givens out on the midterm. But we can expect some volatility in the short term, yes.

And then how much visibility you have on 2022 revenue guidance? 40% organic growth. And excuse me, like if you already mentioned this, how much is SOMO contribution going to be this year?

From this number, really 41 plus percent is organic. And then we have the rest for the 56 is almost contribution. In terms of visibility for the expanded part, that is basically the majority of this growth. We have full visibility by now. And I think there's, I think the part that we have less certainty is the land part, but the market is, the demand is really high. We have been able to really onboard new clients every single quarter. in a good number in different industry and geographies so but now the visibility is i would say is full i think that as as always in this industry and and for cint i think the complexity is is is the way is is the supply side and i think we are doing an amazing good job in the hiring front training our people develop our leadership to be able to cope with the demand

And a quick clarification just to make sure. Organic growth calculation, that does not include incremental contribution from dextra.

yeah dexter was we we end the integration of dexter uh last november so now is is we integrate dexter as four new growth units now they are operating in our our platform so it's now about organic growth by now we have 26 growth units and and and we are fostering growth in each of one of them so uh it's it's basically we are counting uh uh For 2022, it's CINT as a platform, growing 41% plus SOMO as a new growth unit, growing in a very good pace that will contribute for 56% year-over-year revenue growth.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you, Pune. We have a question here via email from Arturo Langa from Itaú. Could you please provide coloring to the pace and climate for hirings? How are you seeing wage inflation and are you being able to pass on this to your clients?

I can take this one. Thank you for your question, Arturo. Regarding your first question about hiring, in 2021, we hired more than 2.3 thousand people, so 73% growth year over year. About half of that was the incorporation of Dextro, and the other half was just our ability to go into the market and hire. As we accelerate organic growth, we are also investing more in the support our hiring, training and leadership development teams. As you know, the market for talent continues to be very competitive, but we believe we have a very strong value proposition to offer to this environment and to the professions in this industry. which is always focused on offering them a place where they can develop their careers the fastest. And this has always been very compelling for this market. And it's important to highlight that our hiring strategy is focused on attracting talent on the early stages of their careers. So not in the kind of last minute market for senior people. So just for example, we were just on board last month, 400 trainees. So we will develop and prepare to support future growth. So overall, our strategy is designed for the long term. So for us, 2022 initiated years ago when we started developing the new leaders and the new key positions that we will take on the new client engagements and the growth that we're expecting in 2022. So this consistency is what actually guarantees the quality of the services that by consequence guarantees the high recurrency on the business of our clients. So I think just to finalize that point, we're very comfortable that we are also operating in very big talent pools in the US, of course, which is the biggest one in Brazil, which is the second biggest in Latin America time zone. And now we are kind of diversifying, getting into Colombia, which is an important Latin American market that we just got into through the SOMO acquisition. Second part of the question is about inflation. We covered a little bit, right? Maybe just add that we're seeing happening this across the board, right? So the Asian wage inflation, but that's happening more on developed countries where the shortage of tech talent is higher than in emerging countries. But at the end of the day, we'll create a price elasticity that will help us do the price adjustments with our clients along the way. And we've been very successful in doing this year over year based on our close relationship and the value we create to our clients.

Thank you, Bruno. Our next question comes from Rodrigo Gastin from Clave Capital. Considering the SOMO acquisition, how should we expect the growth breakdown among the different regions? Should we expect a growth pace in Europe similar than in the US? And regarding the 2022 guidance, how much of the revenue and EBITDA comes from SOMO?

Well, I think we already talked about the contribution of SOMO. In terms of regions, I think the acquisition of SOMO was a very important move to really put Europe, especially UK, as a main source of growth for CIT. Europe is the second largest market in the world for digital technology. And we have now an amazing platform reputation, skills, strategic strategy skills, design skills, and of course, full stack technology skills to operate there. So you were right, we are really foreseeing a very aggressive growth in UK as we have been doing in the US.

Thank you, Cesar. So that concludes the questions we have from email. I'd like to extend here to see if some of the analysts, Ashwin, Diego, Pune, would like to do a follow-up call, follow-up question. Well, with that, thank you all.

Sorry, Eduardo. Yes. Apologies. Yes, I was trying to unmute my phone. So just a quick question. Can you just comment on the attrition rate for 2021 and how this compares to 2020? I know that 2020 was, you know, a year, a very different year, right, because of COVID, but just want to understand what are the trends in there. Thank you.

I can take that one. Bruno is on mute, but Stanley, can you take this one?

Well, we have 15.6% of attrition. And mainly we see two effects that, of course, we have the market conditions, current market conditions. If you compare 2021 to 2020, 2020, we had the first year of the pandemics. And we had a... the higher rate of retention at that time in terms of insurgencies of the market, etc. And then later down the road, we had the opposite effect. We played very well in the field as we continue to be a reference in the market, even in comparing to our peers. and of course we have this um the acquisition of dextra that came in with a higher attrition but already we incorporated as mentioned as caesar mentioned and we are driving their attrition to our lower levels let's say so if you compare this higher attrition comparing to 2020 most the two biggest factors are those two that I mentioned.

Thank you. Diego, just adding, I think there's another KPI very important that we are monitoring carefully. Our leadership attrition in 2021 was only 3.6% that allow us really to continue projecting consistent growth and natural revenue rotation, higher natural revenue rotation rate. I think it's important not to look only the overall attrition, but the leadership attrition. At the end of the day, leadership is the main bottleneck for growth in this space.

That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Diego. Well, that concludes our Q&A session. I'll now pass to Cesar to proceed with his closing remarks.

Sure. So thank you, Eduardo, Stanley, Bruno, for joining me today. Again, thank you all the analysts and all the questions. I want to really take this moment to thank all CIN tiers, clients, investors, and partners for their continued support. We continue to be very confident we will have another great year ahead. And at the end of the day, I think I expect you all stay safe and well and looking forward to see you in a couple of months. Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you.