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Good morning everyone and thank you for waiting.

Welcome to the earnings call for the second quarter of 2025 at Açaí Atacadista. We would like to highlight that if you need simultaneous translation, we have this tool available on our platform. To access, please select the interpretation button on the globe icon on the bottom part of your screen and choose your language of preference, Portuguese or English. We'd like to let you know this call is being recorded and will be provided on the company's IR website at ri.sia.com.br, where we already have the release available. During the presentation, all participants will have their mics off. Then we'll begin the Q&A session. To submit a question, please select the Q&A icon at the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and language to enter the queue. As your announced request to activate your mic will appear on the screen, then you must activate your mic to submit questions. We would also like to instruct you that all questions be submitted at once. We want to highlight that information in this presentation and possible statements that could be made during the earnings call related to business perspectives, projections, and operational financial targets represent beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information that is currently available. So future statements are not a performance guarantee. and they depend on circumstances that could or not occur. So investors must understand that market conditions and other operational factors could affect the future performance of SAE and lead to results that differ materially from those listed in future statements. Now I would like to pass the floor to Gabriela, the Investor Relations Director. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in the earnings call for the second quarter. We want to present the executives present here. Bomir Gomes, our CEO, Aymar, our temporary CFO. Bomir is our VP. of Commercial and Logistics and Anderson Castillo and Operations. Now I'll pass the phone to Bill Meadows so he can begin the presentation. Thank you, Gabi. Thank you, everyone, for participating. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for this participation. I want to start by thanking our team for the work done in this quarter. And I'm going to also say that the numbers we're going to present today are also very important because we're going to provide also, of course, more context about the market opportunities and challenges we've seen now looking into 2025, especially in the second and third quarter. We believe that the second quarter was very positive in our assessment. When you look at the overall scenario in combination with a competitive environment and market environment, the purchase power of the consumer and revenue reaches 21 billion, so the same-store sales is below the level. of the food inflation, which has been internally around 7% or 7.5%. Of course, the objective of the company is to search for the same source at the level of the inflation. But what we see is the persistence of the trade-down movement of about 3.5% to 4%. And this has a variation according to the social levels and regions in Brazil. this exchange and the swap for cheaper products and more economic products and trade downs. And we've already talked about the causes of this, high interest rates and the sports bet, et cetera, which has really made us keep up with the scenario where consumers are forced to buy cheaper products. So this is a movement that not only affects SAI because when you look at the share, it was completely stable, but when you look at the progression of the volumes in the quarter, excluding part of this where we've seen a strong trend as part of the market with a real high concession of timing and deadlines that impacts reseller customers. And besides all that, we still have a stable volume. So within the scenario, the company has, as you've mentioned, working on store maturity. And I'm going to talk about this a bit more. especially for the converted stores. And I think maybe mentioning a number that could surprise a lot of people about the results of this project, which is still not at its final phase, but the company has searched for balance. And so there's an important balance that was made from an expense maintenance rate. And despite some expenses of projects, that are really important considering the wave of innovation in the company. And so with this, we've been able to have a series of expansions in services and butchery, sliced cold cuts, bread, et cetera, and bakeries, which could lead to some effects and impacts on the expenses. The inclusion of these downtown stores, etc., could maybe pressure the EBITDA, but this demonstrates this as the company is delivering an EBITDA margin pre-IFRS of 5.7. This is an increase of 30 beats compared to the previous year. reflecting the store maturity and innovation that was made, despite this combination, of course, of strict expense controls, which helped us increase our EBITDA margin by 30 pips. Now, when we look at the EBITDA pre-IFRS, we see that it is important if it leads to actual cash. In the second quarter, when we look at the LTM, SAE has really been able to deliver a conversion rate this EBITDA margin into free cash flow of about 90% of our EBITDA, which has been transformed into cash. So as the investment cycle is a lot lower than what we had in previous years, we present free cash flow before the payment of interest of 2.7 billion Riyals. either in the evolution of the EBITDA and reduction of the investments, but also major discipline also in the working capital and the policy on receivables and granting of paint. Since we saw this relevant movement of increasing prices and the strategy of the company has proven to be quite assertive when we consider our leverage, the company is focused on deleveraging at this moment And this combination of this amount of half a billion plus the direction of $300 million in the net debt at this moment, where we may be at the peak when it comes to the SILIC rate. at 15% rate, of course. And so the fact is we have probably one of the highest actual interest rates in the world, which leads to financial results that are quite strong, especially when you consider the net sales, but when you, of course, pay off the investments the company made in the last few years. So with this leverage drops at about 50 points, closing at 3.17, dropping 0.48 in the ratio we've seen in the second quarter of last year. So the net income also had an important evolution. Of course, the interest rates and the debt carryover costs are pretty high at this moment, but there's an important evolution in the net income, even when just part of it is the recognition of some credit that was made. You have all the information in the earnings release as well. We can advance to the next slide. And then as we were saying, we bring in this page here, which is the Campinas store, very important store. And then you can see this vision of how things were doing. We all know that this is one of the most challenging projects in Brazilian food retail, but also from the perspective of shifting paradigms, which was the objective of the company. to really place stores in downtown regions so that we could expand the target audience we had, right? So, obviously, putting in stores in central regions, like the store in La Moretas, if we consider Campinas, Abolicão, or Açaí, these are stores that have a different rationale. So... Of course, they also bring in a higher interest rate and an expense rate that's higher, which was also requiring this grass margin that was more healthy in the store. So when you look at the EBITDA margin pre-IFRS discounting the rent, There's a leap of 4.1 to 5.5, and so that was delivered in the second quarter, and an average sale per store that's way above the average sale in a company of about 26 million yards. So they still don't have the same level of productivity if you look at the sales per square meter of the organic store network, but the stores are still in this maturity period, and The first store opening just ended the third year. We still have stores with two years or one year of operation. And so, however, they do have a store maturity hired up ahead. But then we can, of course, advance to the next slide. And we bring in this research that we've done. with over 19,000 respondents that was conducted by a baiting company, and they're helping us in important projects in the company. And after this conversion period, now SAI has stores that are 1,400 square meters in South Area and 10,000 as well. So there's stores that are located in the outskirts of the city, but there's also stores that are in regions that are downtown regions. very important cities in Brazil, especially the big capitals, such as Brasília, Goiânia, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and so on. So what was the result we've seen? Well, the strategic objective was to break down some stigmas there was with cash and carry, because it used to be just limited to a specific type of public, right? Yeah. So meeting the public, the B2B public, is challenging, right? But when we look at this research in the markets of these presidents, it's a penetration rate that's really high for Class A, B, C, and maybe... Actually, this research was done by electronic means, but that demonstrates how now the company is really, within its portfolio of stores, has, especially based on its customer portfolio, a penetration and potential. And so when we look at the... gender, which is 60% men, 61% women. When you look at age ranges, that's another important metric for us, since each age range has a different purchase power, right? But if you also see a lot of stability in this, especially from the customers that are 18 to 24, 25 to 29, and so with 61% penetration rate. So this is a split today of the more than half a billion people that go by our stores, the 500 million customers today that ask our services, and that's why the brand became the most valuable. And so this completeness also allows us to break down on some stigmas And it's not just about having this, well, it's really about what this is going to provide for us up ahead, right? So in the last two years, the company has really been focused on delivering the conversions, the level of productivity and EBITDA margin that we had in the organic network, and implementing new strategies. services which are also vital to this kind of model, but the company's not stopped here. So the fact that we have this penetration in social levels, gender, age ranges, et cetera, this really allows us to explore new product categories. and really search for an increase in share of wallet, important projects to make companies start. And there's a very important project also starting off now, where ASE is going to start taking its first steps, which is exploring its private labels, especially in the southeast region of Brazil, and especially in Sao Paulo, where you have a logistical cost that's lower, and that's providing a course of broadness that's going to help us really improve the margins we have. So there is a movement towards either in-and-out projects, or whoever has been watching us has seen our entrance into home appliances and electronics, which is like the air fryer, et cetera. So there's this movement, and that's a very important process within the pharma channel. And that really has been evolving. We've been very vocal and participative. And I believe that the project and the way it was presented now allows for greater potential to explore another product category and other categories that are correlated. just as the In-N-Out project that, in our perspective, should bring in relevant gains, and also financial services now with SAE's credit card machine project bringing in another opportunity for the B2B customers as well. So I think we've already seen this on the release of the pre-IFRS EBITDA. It goes from $965 to $1,079 billion. And then after this, you have the cash for the company and the net income of $86 million in tax credits. It goes from $165,000 to $264,000. And I think Emma is going to get into that as well, including the impact of some of our debt reprofiling work. There's also an occasional impact in the second quarter with prepayment costs. Now I'll move on. We can advance to the next slide. IMA. So we're going to talk about IMA and leveraging this as well.

Thanks, Belmiro.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here in our call. I'm going to talk about how, due to all of this operational conflicts Belmiro mentioned, from a financial perspective, we ended up having as the main highlight in this quarter operational cash generation of 3.9 billion in the last 12 months. So that demonstrates the capacity the company has to generate cash despite Or even after paying the 12 months capex at 1.2 million and the free cash flow generation was 2.7 million. And so with this, after paying interest and everything, the net debt of the company ended up dropping by 200 million. You can just notice that before the adjustment of the discounted receivables, the variation of the net debt, the financial net debt was $700 billion year over year. Now, another thing that we also observe in an interesting manner here, and we start observing more over time, is that on the left bottom chart, You can see that in the second quarter of 25, our net debt drops at 1.3 billion in regards to the second quarter of last year. Of course, a reprofiling process and prepayments, and then also an absolute reduction of the gross debt as you have over time and over the years, paid and refinanced. a lot less than what we pay or what we have as debt maturities.

And so, with this, and with this cash donation program,

behavior, we had in the quarter a reduction of almost half a percent of EBITDA, and so there's still this important move towards reducing the leverage, now reaching half an EBITDA year-over-year, and that allows us to imagine or state that the guidance of about 2.6 cents per tributa will be reached at the end of the year. So I think this is an important milestone, this number for the end of the year. When it comes to financial net debt, it's about two times the average. And when we consider the contractual covenants in the second quarter, we're at about 1.78 times against a maximum covenant of three times the EBITDA. So that's what it is when it comes to the leverage and debt. And on the next slide, we also have the information on the continuity of the debt reprofiling. This process has been super important, and actually, it not only extended the timeframe, but it also reduced the average spread of our debt. in a very important manner. So, as you can all see on the right side of this page, below the flow of maturities here, we have an average timing of 39 months, and a year ago it was 31 months. So it's an increase of over 25% of the average term in one year. So the average cost that was now at CDI plus 1, a year ago was CDI plus 1.46. It's almost 20 pips of a spread reduction in a year. And so we understand that there is a possibility, considering the current fixed income market, and that our next transactions in regards to re-profiling of our debt will be able to even reduce the spread a little more even. So to add on to the slide, besides all the movement we had in 24, where we prepaid and postponed 3.6 billion with new fundraising of 3.6 billion, and that total amount of 6.6 billion. In this second quarter of 25, we had another 1.5 billion of fundraising to prepaid that 2 billion. This already took place, and that's already been reflected in our sheet. And now we have this operation with opportunities that appear where we prepaid a commercial note from December of 500 million. And we refunded basically at the same spread today for $0.95. And this is an all-in cost and basically almost the same value, $50 million, but a maturity in three years. And this operation is already reflected here in this flow of maturities where once again,

I can highlight that in 2025, we already have finished all the payments.

There's nothing else to be paid. And in 26 and 27, the level of total maturities of the principal amounts 1.2 and 2.4. And when you compare with our potential EBITDA in those two years, you see it's going to be a value that is really non-concerning when it comes to payment capacity. And that helps us state that we are relatively comfortable in going past these two years that could be maybe continuity in the tributes of the financial market without needing to have new fundraising for the company at least in 2026. So that's very probable. And the maturities of 28 and 29 are a little greater. We have nothing else basically after 30 and 31. And then that will consider that we should remain throughout 26 performing our prepayment movements and extensions of a maturity in 28 and 29. So I think that's it. That's what we consider basically leveraging that in the company. Okay, thank you, Imar. And to wrap up, we bring in the evolution of the targets and policies in the company and different initiatives from an ESG perspective. SAE is recognized as one of the companies with many different initiatives when it comes to social inclusion and diversity, so we highlight some important points. We went over 1,000 employees, including migrants and refugees. This is something our area has been working on when it comes to labor. And we also had a solidary kitchen, 10 kitchens in over eight states around Brazil. over 530,000 meals and more than 100% of our goal. The brand became, considering the most valuable brand in food retail of 500 million customers, demonstrates how the brand has become very strong and we're ready to adopt different initiatives from now on.

And once again, within the GPTW research as one of the best places to work, especially the best in the segment.

in the retail, wholesale, and cash and carry categories when it comes to excellence and customer service, besides a series of other initiatives when it comes to climate. impact reductions, reusing waste, and increase of over 30% of the stores that have a composting project in place. So I think when it comes to presentation, that's pretty much it. Now I'll close, and we can get straight into the Q&A process so we can value our time as much as we can. Thank you so much, everyone. Now we'll start our Q&A session. Please, if you do have a question, please select the Q&A icon. At the bottom part of your screen, write your name and company and language to enter the queue. As you're announced, a request will appear. Then please activate your mic and submit your questions. We would ask you to please submit all of your questions at once. We'll start off with our first question from João Soares at Citibank. João, we'll enable your audio so you may proceed. OK. Hi. Thanks, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. We're in the scenarios. of disinflation, and I think this is going to be important for the sector, since the consumers' purchase power is really pressured, and the price is going up. But I want to understand how you guys, in the overall cash and carry, have been positioned, right? We also see the price slowdown in categories that should be a little less significant. And so if you could explain your expectations and if this could be beneficial to generate more volume. And then we also see this situation with the working capital, right? So could you explain a bit of this effect and if we can exclude this or how does this impact the third quarter, right? And so, well, we talked about the closing of the stock after July and see the working capital. And we see this, that the last half of June for the overall retail, as we've seen in all sectors, was way below expectations. So this ended up making the stock in the quarter end up being a little higher than what it was stated as our core objectives. But when it comes to the stock of our accounts receivable or accounts payable, And our category that we work with also allows us to perform group adjustments when it comes to stock. So the stock that we closed was in June is already 100% normalized. When we look at inflation, we should see some movements, like some categories of products that had high inflation. you would imagine some normalization when you consider a patch that's very positive. And so some of these impacts, of course, our expectation is that they should get part of the resources When we consider trade-down, it's not only due to a brand substitution. In some of these, we also saw the size of the reduction of the packaging and consumers having shorter purchase periods, et cetera. And this could, of course, generate a positive point for us. But what we look at when we consider from now on, is that the scenario for the second quarter would be relatively stable and not necessarily repetition because the second semester, of course, is more important than the first, but there's no big expectations from the perspective of a drop in volumes or so. So the company's focus at this moment has really been towards new projects, including new products, new categories and assortments. As I highlighted in the presentation, maybe in a more broad manner, but the commercial team has also been working on this daily in a granular manner in microcategories, and I hope to have answered your questions. Yes, you did answer, but just a quick follow-up on trade-down. What do you guys see as trade-down, and do you think the trade-down itself, how much room do you have to improve in the second quarter? When it comes to volume, that's clear, but I think this metric would be maybe a driver for acceleration, would you say? Well, it should be. We have to be cautious, though, as we're careful with what is operating in the market because the trade-down we've seen was not expected. from last year and this year, all right, well, we've had quite tough food inflation years, but when you look at the unemployment rates, even the levels of social programs that we've seen, we shouldn't have the levels of trade-down we've had in the second category. So we see there's another phenomenon, which made companies with families with lower income lose even more of their available income. So that becomes more visible when you see each region in Brazil. And so in the next season, we should have results disclosed in a more complete manner. But this is quite visible in the Northeast due to other kinds of habits and activities that are forcing the population to do this. Should this get back? Well, it should. But if part of this is not due to a lack of income but because of new habits such as the sports bets with 270 billion reais, even if you have more cash come in, this could actually make more money going to the bets market. So we have to be very careful about how we consider this, right? There's a drop in prices and now we're going to have a resuming in trade down because what we see is sometimes the behavior is different. It's not what it should be or how it should be. Was that clear? Yes, very clear. Thank you, Bermuda. Now our next question comes from Thales Granello at Zafra. Thales, we'll enable your audio so you may proceed.

Good morning, Belmiro, and everyone.

I have two questions here on my side. I want to understand why you have a higher tax rate, and this is a bit higher than what we expected in last year, etc. But I also want to understand a bit more about If you guys are still noticing a reduflation or a reduction in packages, right, sizes, which would be like this package reduction inflation. Well, about the tax rates, as I may have talked about this, also with the smaller packaging for products, the difference of this net and gross sales, this is related to the movement towards the tax substitution process because of the tax reform. So in Rio de Janeiro, they actually removed some of the parties from the tax substitution process. So as a sixth place, you have a bigger part of these taxes that would be in the cost, and that doesn't really change the gross sales. But just to switch the net sales, you can see the complexity of this tax system in Brazil. But at the end of the day, these are shifts. the changes that the states have with the inclusion of categories and removals also in the tax substitution. And then you get into the credit-debit regimes, and at the inflow and outflow, you have more products paying ICMS tax, and then this tax impacts the correlation of the net and gross sales, and not necessarily reaching the COGS. I hope that's clear. Let me, if you could maybe talk about this a bit, and reductions of the sizes of the packaging. Well, good morning, everyone. Thanks for the question, Thaddeus. And just to talk about the reduction of packaging, we... this is a movement we imagined in a softer manner in 25 but to our surprise the industry continues to try to search for ways to make the products fit into the consumer's pocket and besides this um although it's not as strong as what it was in the pandemic or in other periods, it continues to be an important movement. And besides this, we also see that prices, the modification in the chemical composition of the products, products like chocolate or juices and cream and condensed milk, etc., you have modifications in the actual formulas of the products, that keep prices stable, but basically have a reduction in the quality of the products. So the industry has been moving in this direction with the reduction of packaging and the shift in the composition of the products, so it doesn't impact consumers anymore. I hope to have answered. Great, very clear, Valmir. Now just to follow up on all of this, and this entire scenario you mentioned in the beginning of the presentation and even in the release, having said all of this and considering the fact that maybe a price accommodation in the second quarter. Do you guys think it would be possible to accelerate this level and recover a bit of the same store sales as we had in the first quarter, or should it be like a slower second quarter? Well, there is an expectation for recovery, of course. There are economic scenario factors that could impact this, but the company's focus is to recover. You always focus, of course, on having same-store sales above the inflation, not below it. But when you look at most of what we have as bets to recover this, we can see a possibility of an increase in share of wallet, so over 70% or 80% due to the new products the company has, considering the customer base we have at the moment. And so also imagining... There's a bit of reversals also when it comes to behaviors or trade downs. So, of course, this is a lot more connected to the competitive advantage we have between us and the cash and carries and other retail channels as well. And the biggest bet, really, that we see up ahead is really from a new project or perspective and an increase of the share of wallet. That was already the strategy when we had the acquisition of Exchequer. and really breaking down a bit of the stigma that cash and carriers are just for poor people, but really to add this format into all of the customer classes and levels, because that allows you to enter new products, selling new categories of products, and generating a positive pressure on the same store sales. Oh, great. That's fine. Thank you very much, Pomido and Vermeer. Our next question comes from Luca Biazzi, UBS. Luca will enable your audio so that you may proceed. Please. Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. We have two, actually. First, on the product mix, if you could talk about... The demand you've seen breaking this down into individuals and B2Bs, and it's a change in the third quarter. And the second point is about price elasticity. Could you talk about how you imagine this in the current scenario? And if you guys think it makes sense to maybe have a little more competitive advantage in pricing to gain volume? Well, thanks for the question. There hasn't been any big change in the product and the customer mix. Well, 42% of the sales are made to B2Bs, and so... What we've seen ever since last year is that we had a competitor with a policy to search for volumes. There's two ways to achieve this, reducing price or increasing terms, payment terms. It's very relevant, especially for the reseller public. So looking at the numbers we've seen and that the company has already disclosed, that expanded even more. They've burnt a lot of cash. And that doesn't seem like such a good strategy because the reseller public is really focused on pricing in terms of If you eliminate this public, you can see there's really low levels of elasticity because consumers have low levels of elasticity. So all of the tests we've been working on since we're in 25 states allow us to have a lot of different initiatives. And what we see is there's no price elasticity. So the movement of Reducing margins, imagining that it will lead to positive aspects, is really not what we've seen at this moment. So that is why we've been working on the maturity and services broadening this improvement in margins. And if this were the strategy, maybe we could say, okay, well, that would be stable in the margin to deliver 27 beefs, but with the same store sales of 70% or 90%. But that would not happen. You only see this when you look at the share effect, which is rigorously stable. So the best combination, or that's least worse, is the company's strategy. And so the market has not had elasticity when it comes to customer mix. We haven't seen any big movements in this sense. I hope that was clear. Yeah, you did answer. Thank you. Our next question comes from Vitor Fuziharu, something there. Vitor will enable your audio. Okay. Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking your questions. The first one is a follow-up for the deflation segment in B2B. So I just wanted to understand if you already see some of the slowdown in B2B with this dynamic. And the second one is if you also looked into different points about the stories maturing. And since you still have this small gap, I wanted to understand if there should be a sales of the square meter that's above what we imagined. Well, starting off with the last one, there's an issue with the size of the stores. The average square meters, considering that the hypermarkets were bigger stores, there is a potential to operate with the sales per square meter that's greater than the organic store network.

But part of this... But part of this...

is also due to other projects.

And so the objective was really to be enabled to enter new categories of products and expand their scope.

And so some new projects the company has that I've imagined understand this. Of course, the deflation movement, we don't see any loss of stock because VTBs don't have high levels of stock with the interest rates, the levels they were at, and with the level of purchasing. Because the consumer lipworms trade down, well, it's a reflex of the entire population. So even for the B2Bs, whoever's from food service, they already operate with minimum stock levels, but the resellers didn't really stock up. Our vision is that they should react according to their sales. So their sales will determine the purchase more than a purchase or acquisition movement would determine. And that's because of the frustration it's possible to trade down at a lower consumption level that impacted everyone in the sector. I think there's a real clear vision on this, and that's probably why the company created the strategy to expand or increase payment terms. Okay, great. Romero, thank you. Well, moving on to our next question. It comes from Pedro Campina at XP. Pedro, I'll enable your audio so you may proceed, please. You can proceed, please. Hi, guys. Thanks for this. Bermuda, I wanted you to talk about the private label implementation project, and if you could talk about the main impacts this could lead to when it comes to margins and the potential relevance also for other firms, please. Well, obviously, within the limits of what we can discuss, what we see is One of the main reasons for this private label project is that private label around the world is about 20% of the food sector. In Brazil, it's like 2% to 3%. And why does this happen? Well, because you don't want to fall into the same mistakes, right? So this is really related to the logistical costs and volume and the tax issues. And the objectives are really to try to improve the levels of margin the company has due to the volume. When you look at the food service, you have over 60%, 50% of the consumption result. There are products who have like 40% share. And so when you look at the city of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the share is really relevant. And if you consider the phase where the company was focused on the conversion of hypermarkets and deploying services, And so the implementation of this private label market process, we really intend to have a more competitive price for the B2Bs, and it's also an option for consumers. um and also considering the pressure in with some suppliers as well considering the size we have and we represent almost 50 of our revenue so this makes us now really be able to implement a project this without having such high logistical costs or being subject to tax issues that may be force you to produce a product with a private label, but then you maybe have to face different scenarios than a regional brand. So regional brands, of course, represent an opportunity that could come from the private label brand. And this is going to start off now in the second semester, but there is a major potential for this. Moving on, our next question is from Rodrigo Gastin at Itaú Bebea. Rodrigo, we'll enable your audio so you may proceed, please. Well, good morning, Belmiro and everyone. Two quick questions here. First, everything you mentioned so far, trade down and deflation and even the base effect you mentioned in June, to understand how the third quarter started. Well, one question I had was when I read the release and the supplier financing that got better in July, matching this with what you mentioned and the improvement in the stocks, Was this due to a recovery in the levels of days in stock, or was it a nominal stock difference, right? So just to match this would be important. And the second question is what you just mentioned about some of the cross-margin projects. I wanted to detail this a little more, right? So how much do you imagine would still be the gross margin issues? And what you can still, you can already capture from the pricing project. Could you share a few of the details about this? And, well, yeah, some things, yes, but others you can't. So when you look at the second quarter and you see obviously it's better, but if not, we wouldn't have adjusted this as quickly. So this correction is really related to the number of days. But, of course, we have to be careful with this because the second quarter really demonstrated this, right? The performance in April and June was pretty weak, especially the last half of June. compared to what we had seen in April and May. So July is the positive month. August is starting now. So we have to be careful, right, because you could have July positive and then August positive and September being more challenging. So the phenomenon in June had happened last year as well. We had seen last year that June was weaker. And then July was getting back to school phase. That was strong as well. But now we're going to wait on the third quarter to get a little more details on how this is going to behave, right? So when you see the margin evolution and the levels we've been operating with, you'd probably imagine that it would be impossible a while back. So, of course, now keeping the competitive advantage, the company has been searching for improving margins and Once again, I want to highlight that especially what we believe in strongly is the project. Since once this has been completed, you've had the deployment of this service, and then you also have, of course, the self-checkout of 9%. And so why am I highlighting this? Well, obviously, in a scenario with higher prices, this would be our objective, right? keep up this as one of the biggest solutions for bulk shopping but also for smaller day-to-day shopping so this is also in behind or backing up different projects we've been working on and the company and when we think about why we share that slide with a penetration per age range or social level. It's really just to show you that there are opportunities for the company still. Because if you look at the gender effect or the social level effect, and especially the age range effect, it's not very common to see what we have on that side, right? It's not common for, like, a company or one specific brand to achieve this, right? It's either variable position for B or CDE. or one specific customer profile. Acai has probably the most complete penetration rate because of this diversity and being able to work with many different formats and people. So if we want to sell a new category or this other person, this other product, then we have people in the stores that are faithful to our brand and that can buy. So I think that's what we really bet on, and that's what we've been highlighting at this point a lot. Excellent. Super clear. But just a quick point of curiosity here, just to understand here on our side, what happened in June in your perception with consumers? Was it more like from B2B or B2C? Or is it also something difficult for you guys to understand month by month? I just have quite a curiosity.

Is there a highlight?

To be very honest, it's really difficult. We looked at the market, Nielsen and everything else, and we see that the market overall, and so...

When you consider this movement in the next month, it tends to be stronger.

And so the next month tends to be fuller. Or the next month would tend to be stronger.

Excelente, Belmiro. Obrigado pela resposta.

Well, excellent, Belmiro. Thank you so much. Thanks for the question. Our next question comes from Irma Skards at Goldman Sachs. Irma, do you want to proceed, please? Well, hi. Good morning, everyone. And I just have a question about the potential drugstore in-store. And I just want to get an update. I know that this is still a legal issue in Parliament. It still hasn't been approved as a law. But I want to get your mindset on how this format has been evolving and understand how this has been going on. And so... Of course, not polluting the ticket of the existing store. And I wanted to understand better about what the mix would be. And so the level of profitability as well. And maybe you don't even have a pilot yet, but I just want to understand your mindset on this. Well, yeah, thanks, Irma, as you mentioned. It's a project that is still under discussion. and we've been accompanying this discussion and the way that this new project has been presented. So there was a demand to sell over-the-counter drugs, but now we're working on having a complete pharmacy or drugstore with the pharmacist with all the bonuses and onuses and performing the segregation required. since we would have a controlled or prescription-only product area. And so we see that it is, there are challenges, but probably it's not more complex than a drug, than a factory that we already have, for example, with refrigerated goods and specialists. So once this is approved, the advantage we would have is that most of the expenses and costs are already in-house. There are costs like safety, lease. Power. And all of this would already be available, so we would have the possibility to be even more competitive in this category. And I don't believe that customers are going to come into SAE to just go to the drugstore specifically. But if they know they're going to SAE and they know they can find certain drugs, like ongoing chronic purchases, where we want scheduled purchases, and people already know about what they need to buy, so we don't expect them to leave the hospital with a prescription to come into SAE. the ongoing day-to-day shopping is really like when you consider the amount of customers we have today. I believe we do have a potential to address this opportunity as well and include this department into the store because that becomes more than just a department, right? And that's the drug sales outplace Brazil at the same level as other markets that are mature, such as Europe or other countries where this already happens. And when you look abroad, it gives us a good idea of what should happen within the Brazilian market. So it is a category that is so important, and it gives us the opportunity to reach other subcategories with vitamins, supplements, and as you start having a space for items geared towards health, right? So once this is approved, I believe it's going to be very relevant for our industry as well. Great. Thank you so much. Our next question comes from Nicholas LaHine at JPMorgan. Nicholas, we'll enable your audio so you may proceed. Perfect. Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Romito, thanks. I have two points here. You talked about new categories of projects, but could you share, like, how much this category is representing today for SAE sales and maybe some categories that the company wasn't selling a year ago or two years ago? And then also getting back to Irma's question, what's the – Working capital structure now with this potential sale of pharmaceutical products and drugs. What would be the structure change in the company when it comes to stock of the suppliers, et cetera? Thanks. Thanks, Nicholas. I think from drugstores still really early to talk about this. We still need to have approvals. And whoever operates with drugs would basically have a sum when it comes to sales and results, but also when it comes to working capital. Of course, although you sell, it's not maybe such a relevant volume to change the fundamentals when it comes to working capital. We're just going to reflect on whoever is already in the sector operating considers. So about the new categories, some projects we already discussed now. are at the initial phase. Others we've already shared at the off-site last year, such as tires. SAE became one of the biggest sellers of tires in Brazil. We had over 4% of the tire market in Brazil and over 5% of air fryers. So in the off-site now, we should have more visibility about share and even more. I think probably the other bigger point is going to be captured up ahead, considering that a lot of the projects are still starting off. And now, of course, the company will provide more speed. Perfect. Thank you, Bill Meader. Now moving on to our last question. It's going to be in English, and it comes from Andrew Rubin at Morgan Stanley. Andrew, we'll enable your audio so you may proceed. You may proceed, please.

Hi. Thanks very much for the question. I'm curious if you could provide some more detail on the converted stores. I think you said they've reached a bit over 90% of the organic and some narrowing of the EBITDA margin gap. But if you could refresh us a bit on the targets for those figures and how far along you think you are for full converted store maturity. Thanks again.

Thank you, Andrew.

In fact, the numbers we shared demonstrate their performance, but there still is maturity up ahead. And so most of these projects, especially some of them from an operational improvement level, and so they intend to continue with this sort of maturity. But there is still some maturity to be hired. It's not a standard procedure because the competitor is also in the region, et cetera. But you have a similarity among these stores, and they're split into different regions. But, of course, getting back to this, this was the project that allowed for that penetration rate in classes A and B, and that brings us a few different opportunity windows, let's say, to be able to really explore this more and add on more gains and opportunities in the next semesters or years ahead of us.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Our Q&A session is officially ended, and now we will pass the phone back to the company for their final remarks. Thank you, Rodrigo. I just want to thank everyone once again and thank the team. We've seen the market has a lot of challenges from a competitiveness perspective, and before we would never expect the same sort of sales at this level, but the company has not stopped. The company has a series of projects and innovations, and it's really been the brand that has been a protagonist in changing the sector. So there was a lot of stigma saying that it was good towards a lower-income public, and that brings us a lot of opportunities. But with a lot of hard work, I'm sure we'll make it. Thank you so much, everyone, and let's hope for a great third quarter. The earnings call for the second quarter of SAI at 2025 is officially ended. The Investor Relations Department is available to clarify any other questions or issues. Thank you so much for participating. Have a great day and weekend.