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Welcome to the video conference of the results of the fourth quarter of 2024.

I want to highlight that for those of you who need simultaneous translation, we have this tool available on our platform. In order to do so, please select the interpretation button. through the globe icon on the bottom part of your screen, and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. We'd also like to let you know that this earnings call is being recorded and will be provided on the IR website of the company, at ir.sae.com.br, where you can also find the earnings release. During the presentation, all participants will have their mics off, Soon after, we'll begin with the Q&A session. To submit a question, please like the Q&A icon on the bottom part of your screen, write your name, company, and language to enter the queue. As you're announced, a request to activate your mic will appear on the screen. Soon after, you must activate your mic to submit questions. We'd also like to ask you to please submit all your questions at once. We would want to highlight that the information in this presentation and possible statements that could be made during the earnings call related to business perspectives, forecasts, and operational and financial targets at SAI represent beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information that's currently available. So, future statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve future events and they could rely on circumstances that could not occur. So, investors must understand that market conditions and other operational conditions could affect the future performance at SAE and the results that differ materially from those that were listed in such future statements. I want to present the SI team, which includes Belmiro Gomez, the CEO, and the VPs, Lamir dos Anjos, Commercial VP, Anderson Castillo, Operations VP, Sandra Vicari, People and Management and Sustainability, VP, and Vitor Faga, the Finances and Investor Relations VP. And from the IR team, we have Marcel and Ana Carolina, the IR managers. Now we're going to begin our presentation for the results and earnings in the fourth quarter of 24, and I want to pass the floor to Belmiro to begin the presentation. Thank you so much. First of all, I want to thank all of you for being here today and participating in the earnings call for the fourth quarter of 24. the closing of the year, of course, we'll talk about the fourth quarter, but we'll also focus a lot more on the overall 24. And before I begin, I want to thank the Acai team. In 24, we had a 50th anniversary year with over 87,000 employees. So, first of all, I want to thank the team for their work and for our people in the stores and different areas, support from the management as well. In a year, that seemed to be, of course, more challenging than what we expected. In my assessment, we finished well despite the variations and the challenges we had over the year. either related to the shifts in the dollar, the interest rates, the losses of subvention credits, and also the purchase power of the population that continues to be highly pressured. So it's a year where we end a little below expectations. It was challenging. for shareholders in the company, but we're going to go over the numbers because the closure in 24 demonstrates a lot of the market concerns and concerns of the board related to the company's management were extremely well addressed. I want to start highlighting the openings, the 15 openings that were performed throughout 24. Açaí continues to keep up with a trajectory of growth related to the units opened up in 2024. And these projects were postponed when we had the acquisition of the other extra conversions, where we also had our entrance into very important markets. A lot of people from here in Sao Paulo had seen the Paruiri unit, and they saw how beautiful that unit looked. And that's when we deployed our first unit in São José do Rio Preto, in the interior of São Paulo, a very important city, and the unit in Caraguatatuba. And also at the end of the year, we had the first Açaí unit in Guarujá, a unit that has been performing very well. And so we had a lot of work there. We were highlighting these openings. And so, and it's still a market where Acai has strong presence. But on the other hand, we also have a really big market in regions where the brand, the company's brand is not present. So we had six stores that were opened up now. And with this, the company went over 1 million square meters of sales area, which add up to the 302 stores in operation around the entire country so when it comes to sales we had a volume of 22.1 in gross sales in the fourth quarter this year, and this was an increase of 1.8 billion, and in total the company reaches 80 billion reais, adding on about 8 billion reais compared to 2023, and the same stores are still a little below expectations, and I'll highlight the reasons for this. There's evolution in the fourth quarter, which is also levered a lot by the advances in in food inflation, but we've been working throughout the year to balance out margin generation, maintaining competitive advantages. And this is all presented through repercussions. When you look at the level of the EBITDA, we've highlighted this vision of the EBITDA pre-IFRS. So, of course, impacted by the lease values. And, of course, after the conversion projects with the hypermarket stores, the level of lease that the company has to carry on, especially the downtown stores, is a level that's above the historical levels at the cash-and-carry stores. And within this project of taking cash-and-carry to more central regions and cities that are more important and really reach new target audiences. So the company, of course, in that period, We have strong store openings in 2022 and even in 2023. We had a drop in the EBITDA, which was really motivated by the amount of new stores. And as these stores reach maturity and as these new strategies commercially also start generating results who start having gradual returns of the EBITDA margin, which is what we've observed with an evolution of 30 beeps upon the fourth quarter of 2023. In the post-IFRS vision, it reaches 8.1, but now we have this correlation between the EBITDA, the pre and post. It's very different than what we had in the past, especially after the conversion period and the pre-EBITDA, of course, getting back to the levels of 6%. which was a level we had prior to the conversion project. So now we also have the profits after income tax, which had an increase of almost 83%. This does not reflect the net income because we also had some important regulatory changes with the end of the subvention credits and that would lead to about 400 million reais and so of course there's significant advances and Peter will get into more details about this so we brought the profits after income tax because it brings a comparison base compared to what it was in the past where you could still have subvention credits right we still have a level of credit but it's of course a lot lower than what we had registered in 22 or 23 or 21 And I think the biggest highlight this year is considering the company. If we remember, we had invested over 8 billion reais in the last two years, I think 12 or 11 billion in the last three years. So it's a project that is really related to the acquisition and conversion of the extra stores. Once we made the decision in 2021, we had an interest rate that was way lower. We never expected the current level. So it was a huge investment, very heavy. And that brought in extremely important locations and spots for the company. But it led to a leverage. As you all know, we've been working and focusing on this a lot, the deleveraging. And we also had a guidance for the expected debt. of 3.2, but thanks to the historic cash generation at SAE, the maturity of the stores and sustaining of the pre-EBITDA margin, the commercial dynamic, discipline in the operational cash, and maintenance of the working capital as well, we were able to reach 3.04, which is below the guidance we had presented, but there was also a reduction in the total amount It's not only about the leverage because there were some quarters where we had a reduction considering the increase in the EBITDA rate, but it's also a drop in these nominal values. So when we split that, we can see the net debt versus the EBITDA pre-IFRS. So one point we brought in here to provide more of a vision, we can see that interest rates have been pressured The credit market has also maybe suffered a few modifications. And Peter's going to talk about the fundraising and the reprofiling of this debt. But we also brought in this other vision, which is we have a debt of 3.04, and most of our sales take place with debit and credit cards, food vouchers and meal vouchers that are receivables that we always... have the option of anticipating them. For debt calculation effects, we adjust this and we can then keep this market standard. But of course, the company can always choose to anticipate the receivables, which are the receivables that You can reverse, but when you take a look at this, if we had this vision, we would say, well, the company has to perform the anticipation. The debt would reach a level of 2.1 when you look at the total debt plus the balance. you have a level that's a lot lower than what we had in 23, but still in 22 that's capable of really handling the interest levels that we currently have established by the central bank or even by the forecast we have in the market. If we can maybe advance to the next page, please. In here, we have also been working on this throughout the different quarters. due to the level of openings. We've been discussing the conversion project, the acquisition of the extra stores. Of course, that was the biggest project the company has ever performed in its entire existence. It's a project that was not only bold because of the huge amount of investments and the amount of stores, but because this change was also considering the shift in the business model, considering that cashing carries were coming into the regions of the hypermarkets especially for the more central stores that fit into the higher income target audiences so this is a project that is responsible for most of the company's leverage and we bring in the numbers showing that the store is open in 22 and we had a lot of skepticism in the market about the level and the property taxes as well, IPTU, such as Congonhasan, Sanguera, and João Dias. When we noticed the fourth quarter, the EBITDA in the pre-IFRS vision, with all of these impacts, reached a level of 6.4, and that was an evolution of 80 beeps in the EBITDA. In the beginning of the project, we had a curve that was a little more accelerated for expectations in the EBITDA margin, but it's already reaching a level that is extremely healthy for cash and carry sales, even with most of these stores starting a cycle as they reach three years of existence the month of August in 2025, right? So the stores are still ramping up, they're still maturing, and they have an accelerated customer flow with an average sale that reached December of $29.3 million and an advance of 5%, compared to the same period last year, and a total average sale of $27 million. So we leave 2024 with a priori for us EBITDA of 5.5%. So important detail here, the sales per square meter. The acquired stores from Extra that were bigger in size could maybe have sales per square meters that were actually a little lower than the first batch of stores where the stores were smaller. The hypermarkets that are older, they're bigger, and we had strong work with the revenue of the stores and the galleries as well. And the sales per square meter now, these stores are already reaching for 1,600 reais. And this indicator is super important for us because Acai historically had not only the highest average sale per store in the sector, which is an indicator that is extremely important for us to demonstrate our brand strength and our competitive advantage and all of the different aspects that make the client decide to go to our units. as well as the best indicators or the biggest indicators in the market with the sales per square meter. We also, on the right side of the page, you can see that there's opening of the stores that were opened in 23. These stores have a life cycle, of course, of about 13 months or 14 months lower than the previous batch, but they're still ramping up and they've already reached a pre-FRS EBITDA margin of 3%. You can advance. Within this change, this slide is very important because if you take a look at Açaí with 302 stores and other competitors and the size of Atacarejo, the cash and carrying result, This was all very important because this would also accompany in advance in the purchase experience. So then we have a real long series coming along heading towards 2011 when you still had a lot of our Spartan stores and more geared towards the B2B customers. But the expenses in our post-IFRS vision was 9.5%. So since the sector has changed a lot, and we've heard a lot about the new cash and carry or the old-time cash and carry, but the vision of the company, and we have seen other forums and opportunities taking advantage of the fourth quarter, there's an addressable market size in that format, and one size that would

The entry into more central regions and the changes made in the model, following the trend that we've been following, reached 1,000 to almost 2,000 households, depending on the location of the center. We planted coffee trees in the cold, we planted açougue. And all of this took place with a passpoint.