B3 Sa Brasil Unsp/Adr

Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the audio conference call of B3's earnings results for the third quarter of 2023. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct a question and answer session and instructions to participate will be given at that time. If you should require assistance during the call, please press the star key followed by zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and broadcasted live via webcast. The replay will be available after the event is concluded. I would now like to turn the conference over to André Milanes, B3 CFO, who will be joined by Fernando Campos, Investor Relations Associate Director. Please, you may proceed.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining. joining our third quarter results, call for the third quarter results. I'll start with a few remarks about the quarter. So we had a quarter where we finally saw the beginning of the easing cycle here in Brazil with two rate cuts that took place during the quarter and after the quarter more recently, a third cut that was done to the interest rates. But as we have been saying that that's the beginning, we should see activity picking up when interest rates are lower. And with that, we had a quarter that was more influenced by the by the global environment, with the performance of the more mature economies remaining with tightening cycles and higher interest rates for longer. That has had a negative impact on the equities market, not only here in Brazil, but across the globe. And to add to that, we typically have some seasonal impacts here on the third quarter, especially when compared to the second quarter, given the holiday period in the northern hemisphere. With that, in that context, we posted consolidated revenues, which were pretty much flat. we saw another quarter that reinforces the strength of our diversified revenue model. Even with the decrease of approximately 10% in the ADTV of cash equities against both the second quarter of this year and third quarter of last year, as I said, we were able to post stable, consolidated revenues. Even if we exclude the addition of Neurotech during this quarter, where it was consolidated in full for the first time. Fernando will discuss revenue performance in more detail. On the expense side, as we have been saying, we continue to reap the benefits and the results of the long-term initiatives that we began to implement last year. And I think the expenses for this quarter show a little bit of that. If we exclude the neurotech expenses, which were not part of the comparison with the last quarter and the same quarter of last year, our expenses would have grown below the inflation for the period, even considering that in August we had the annual inflation adjustment of our year. salaries of our personnel expenses given the collective bargaining agreement that happens every year. It is also worth highlighting that the increase that we see in personnel line in relation to the third quarter of last year above inflation also reflects not only the inflation that we have on salaries, but also on another important line on our on our personal expenses, which is the health plans. We will talk into that in a little bit more detail, but remain focused, as we have been saying, in staying closer to the lower band of our expense guidance for this year. I'm going to call Fernando now to talk a little bit about the operational performance, and I'll come back afterwards.

Thank you, André. Talking a little bit about the performance by segments, starting with the equities, we saw ADTV of 23.7 billion in the cash equities, which was a drop of 12% quarter-to-quarter to 9% year-on-year. The turnover stood at 134% and was impacted by the reasons that André mentioned before, the challenging market environment with interest rates in mature economies. Regarding margins, fees, the slight recovery that we saw compared to the second quarter of 2023 reflects mainly the customer mix for the quarter. And it's two other important aspects on the revenues. First, the performance of indices derivatives, Ibovespa futures, which presented solid volumes in line with the volatility of the period. And it's a little further from the results that we saw from the cash equity market. and we saw lower seg lending revenue, mainly as a decrease of the lender rate. Talking about listed derivatives, we saw a decline in revenue in low single digits, but it's still a good and solid performance with the strong volumes in interest rates in ERL in shorter terms that has a lower RPC, as a driver for the segment's results. In OTC, another good quarter, benefiting from an environment of higher interest rates, the volume of new issuances in the average outstanding balance of bank funding instruments grew 3.7% compared to the second quarter, to the third quarter of 2022, and two other Aspects that are worth mentioning here, corporate debt, which we saw a market that we saw favorable conditions in this market. And we saw a growth of 12% in outstanding balance year on year for this product. And also the growth in treasury direct with outstanding balance growing almost 30% when compared to the third quarter last year. So as a result, we saw revenue growing 14% year-on-year and 3% quarter-to-quarter. And finally, in technology data and access, the aspects that are worth mentioning here is the growth in the OPC utilization line. mainly 14% versus the third quarter, 22%, and 1% the second quarter, 23%, and basically grows with the finance industry. It's also worth, and I think just to complement what Andrea mentioned, there was in the data, we saw the consolidation for the full quarter of Neurotech, revenue and that represented a revenue of approximately 24 million reais. Now I'm going to give the floor back to André to talk about some of the other highlights of the results and some of the strategic advances in the quarter.

I guess from talking about financial results, we saw a quarter without any significant surprises, so I don't think there's any major highlight here. But on that topic, I think it is worth mentioning that we concluded at the end of October the issuance of the ventures that we had announced to the market. We raised 2.5 billion reais, taking advantage of a very favorable market window to do some liability management, to have more flexibility. We have maturities coming during the first half of next year. So we saw that opportunity, took advantage of that. We had a very good demand for these issuance, almost three times the size of the amount that we were willing to raise. And as a result of that, we ended up obtaining the best rate in the company's history for that period, for that term, which was CDI plus 1.05. In relation to the taxes, I think it is just worth explaining a little bit. We had some non-recurring effects that impacted our tax lines this quarter. So in summary, every time you have a tax credit that is monetarily adjusted, that generates a financial income. And there was a discussion around whether that financial income should be taxed or not, from 2016 to 2021, we've paid taxes over that financial income. In 2022, we've obtained an injunction which allowed us to stop paying those taxes. Since that injunction was obtained, we started to recognize only a provision for that tax amount in our books. And during the quarter, we finally had a decision on that discussion, which was favorable to us. And that favorable decision, we reversed the provisions that have been made during the that period since 2022. Part of that was reversed against revenues, as you probably saw. And in relation to the tax that were paid in the five-year period before the injunction was obtained, we have a a tax recovery and that's why we had a tax credit, let's put it this way, being recognized during the quarter. So those were the, I'd say, the non-recurring impacts that we had on the tax line and on the revenue side in relation to that favorable decision. Our recurring EBITDA totaled 1.6 billion during the quarter with a recurring EBITDA margin of 72.3% and our net profit reached 1.1 billion during the quarter. We had distributions in the total amount of 1.3 billion reais during the quarter with almost 700 million being deployed in share buybacks, 280 million in dividend that were declared during the quarter, and 322 and 20 million in interest on capital that was also declared and paid right after the quarter end. Up to now, we have already distributions of capital over 3 billion reais being returned to our shareholders through these three instruments that I mentioned. I guess just to finalize here in relation to our platforms or solutions for trading of blocks, of large blocks, as we mentioned, we recently received the regulators approved for our platform. And we have already announced the launch of those solutions to the market still this month. So our expectation is that by the end of this month, those solutions will already be operating and being used by our customers. Let's see how it goes. And another thing that I guess is worth mentioning is the agreement that we announced during the period as well, more recently with MBO, which is a technology company specialized in electronic trains. It is aligned with our diversification expansion of business adjacent to our core business, The agreement also includes a minority investment by B3MBO. With that, we do believe that we are joining efforts with a player that has a very good product and very good technology to offer a more complete and better solution to our clients, giving also MBO access to those clients. I think that there was an important announcement in advancing and increasing the value of our solutions to our customers. I think that's what I wanted to highlight for the quarter. I'll leave room now for Q&A. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session from investors and analysts. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by one key and you're touched on phone now. If at any time you would like to remove yourself from the questioning queue, please press star then two. The first question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Andre and Fernanda. Thank you for the call. Taking my question. A couple of questions, if I can. I guess now on expenses, now that you've incorporated neurotech, is this the recurring level of expenses we should go forward? And should we think recurring expenses from here kind of grow roughly in line with inflation? And this is sort of like the margins to roughly expect? And second question, is there any update you can give on just the other lawsuits, Goodwill and FX, if there's anything new there?

Thank you. Hi, Tito.

Thanks for the question. In relation to the expenses, as we As we mentioned, I mean, I think we had a quarter where we saw expenses accelerating a little bit in relation to what we've seen during the previous quarters. But that was already expected. As you know, we have the impact of the annual adjustment of salaries, which takes place in August. Every time you have that, we ended up adjust provisions like for holidays and this sort of thing. So it tends to have a bigger impact initially during the first month where we recognize that adjustment. That explains a little bit why these expenses accelerated. We have now a full quarter with Neurotech. As I mentioned, if we were to exclude Neurotech from that, we would be growing expenses below the inflation for the period. Remembering that we are carrying already an adjustment of almost 10% from last year. So our inflation dynamic in the expenses does not necessarily follows the more recent trends that we are seeing in the inflation index. Our expectation is that we will be able to deliver, as I said, expenses much closer to the lower end of our expense guidance. We do have some acceleration of expenses as well during the last quarter, some projects that are picking up in terms of activity. Then we have the full quarter with the the correction with a new base of salaries adjusted going through. But we are confident that we will be able to meet the very low end of our expense guidance for this year. In relation to the litigations, unfortunately, there hasn't been any developments that we could share with you, unfortunately. Again, nothing has changed. We remain very confident in a favorable outcome of those discussions, but no major developments.

Okay, great. Thank you very much, Andre.

The next question comes from Arnaud Shirazi with Santander. Please go ahead.

Hello, good morning. My question is related to the Zinhola program that's going on in Brazil. It's been announced that B3 is operating the platform that makes it possible. And I want to know if there had any impact in the third quarter or if it's expected to happen in the fourth quarter and which magnitude of this impact is expected. Thank you.

Thank you for your question, Arnon. You're right, we are helping with that important project. We are acting as the provider of all the infrastructure that is being used to deliver that project. We haven't had any material impact coming from that from the revenue side or from the expense side, just some investments that we had to make in our platforms to deliver that infrastructure. We were able to accommodate that within the guidance that we had previously given to the market. I think it is early to comment on any impacts, but we should see some impacts coming from that during the fourth quarter. But I guess it's early to give you an estimate of how much would that be. both from a revenue standpoint and also from an expense standpoint.

Perfect. Thank you.

The next question comes from Antonio Ruechi with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hey, Tim. Good morning. Thank you for the time. So two questions on my side. So first, on tech and data, If you could discuss a little bit your perspectives for revenue growth here and what should be the main drivers following the inclusion of Neurotech. And so what is expected in terms of synergies, growth that should rely on inflation and new customers or is anything new here? And that's pretty much it. I can ask my second question.

Thanks, Antonio.

Look, I think we are going through a period where we are now organizing those things. So, as you know, we recently added Neurotech to the portfolio. The acquisition was concluded in May. We have now the elements that we believed were important to deliver our strategy on data. B3, Neurotech, and Neway now combining efforts. We do feel that we have the tools necessary to deliver our strategy on data solutions. And I guess we are seeing a lot of opportunities here. in combining those efforts and increasing the value of those already existing solutions that they have with B3's data, cross-selling between these companies, opportunities of new products that can now be developed, leveraging from the skills and capabilities of those two companies and the valuable data that we have. So I guess those are going to be the main drivers of growth in the upcoming years. Opportunities of cross-selling and upselling in existing customers. opportunities of increasing the value of existing solutions with additional data and therefore being able to extract more value from those solutions, increasing the penetration of some of those products now with, I guess I would say, an easier access to certain customers now that these companies are part of the of the B3 group and a lot of opportunities for new product development. So I cannot give you now how much of the growth will come from each one of those initiatives, but we are still seeing a lot of potential to explore those opportunities now that we have Neurotech on board.

All right. Thank you. And also my second question on the end of an interesting capsule, if you could discuss a little bit with the potential impact and the potential outcomes from this discussion for you. Thank you.

Look, if the IOC goes completely away, as you know, we have an impact of between 300, 400 million reais to our bottom line, around 9, 10% of our of our income. It is a discussion that has been on the plate for a while now. More recently, there was the project that was presented by the government with an urgency stamp which has already been taken. There are some discussions around that, the proposals that are being discussed that potentially to have some adjustments to the existing mechanism rather than its full extinction. But we do not have visibility now that this is gonna go through this year. I think it is a discussion that will remain uh on the radar last time around that discussion came together with the discussion of taxation on dividends and and reduction of corporate income tax rates uh it seems to us that this potentially is the the best way to to to deal with with that uh because you need to look at taxation as a whole. It doesn't make a lot of sense to look at one individual item, but we will have to keep monitoring those discussions and that situation. So far, I don't think there is anything new in relation to what we have been discussing with you guys.

All right. Thank you.

The next question comes from William with . Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for hosting the call. Two quick questions here from my side. So the first one regarding trading and post-trading margins. If you could comment on the reason for the sequential improvements from last quarter to this quarter. especially consider that the collocation gained some share in total volumes. This would be nice to know the reasons. And the second question here is regarding the large block solutions you'll be launching in November. So I'd like to understand your expectations for the product now that it is a little bit more mature. If you could go through, your view would be nice.

Thanks, William.

So let's start with the first one on margins. I guess two main things here. So first, the share of the ADTV that is traded through co-location, we typically use that as a proxy for high frequency traders. But as we have been discussing, There are other types of participants and clients that are using the co-location for some low latency strategies. They are not necessarily high frequency traders. So although it is a proxy that we use, that does not reflect necessarily the full activity just for the high frequency traders. What we saw during the quarter in the mix of clients, there was a decline in the participation of those clients of the high frequency traders that ended up paying less or have access to larger discounts. And that had a positive impact on our margins. In relation to the second question, the second question was the block solution. Look, I mean, I think it is too early to give you any expectations. I mean, we are confident in our solution, but I think we will have to see how this is going to be. I mean, we are hopeful that this could help to unlock some some volumes potentially some some value uh offer a better solution for trading of large blocks to the market but that remains to to be seen i think we will launch we will have to test that with the market and and you know keep monitoring that closely to see if there is need for any adjustments etc uh we want this to be a successful initiative and as i said hopefully to help to unlock or add some value to our customers. But I think it is too early to give you an expectation in terms of volumes or revenues coming from that new product, new initiative.

Thank you very much. The next question comes from Yuri Fernandes with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity of asking question. A follow up on the IOC question. This is a very common topic we see with investors. And there are some discussions about what people call the European allowances for corporate equity, right? The ACE model for a compensation of the IOC. How do you see this model? Is B3 involved in those discussions? Could you see some kind of offset if that's the case? And also in other discussions we usually see is regarding the tangible equity, like IOC being paid over a tangible equity. And when we look to B3, if you adjust for goodwill or not, your tangible equity can be negative depending on the adjustment you make. So, if there are discussions on tangible equity, how should we think about this, you know, like on this IOC? And my second question is regarding Pismo. Just double checking if you have a timeline when the sale of this investment should be recognized for you. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll pass on to Fernando to comment on Pismo. I'll get back on the IOC.

So Pismo, the only expectations that we had was to have an approval this month in November, so we have an impact on the fourth quarter, but it's not up to us. It's up to CADI, the interest entity here in Brazil. So more expectations for this quarter, but it's not a certain thing because, like I said, it doesn't depend on us.

In relation to the IOC, Yuri, I mean, Really, I think it is too difficult to make those assumptions without having a lot of details. I mean, in relation to the comment that you made about the tangibles equity, excluding that from the math, I mean, it will depend a lot on exactly what that proposal is going to be, right? And I think There are cases where potential internal reorganizations were used to sometimes to inflate the value of your shareholders' equity. And those are perhaps the sort of things that should not be captured by that benefit. Now, in relation to our case, if you consider what happened was Basically, one company acquiring another, and instead of potentially selling shares in the market and using the proceeds from that sale to increase capital, that was done through a merger of shares. I would argue whether this should be excluded or not. But again, I think that will depend a lot on what will be a proposal in that respect. And I think the same applies to the mechanism that the capital allowance that you mentioned. It will depend a lot on what exactly is going to be proposed. I think we have been hearing discussions around that. We have been monitoring that very closely. But so far, we haven't seen anything very, let's say, concrete in that respect. So I think it is really hard to make any assumptions without having having a more detailed proposal around that.

No, super clear. And just to be sure, if there are discussions in 2024 and approved, like the base case is that this is only valid for 2025, right? And as you said, this comes and goes. This is not the first time we're discussing IOC in Brazil, but in the case they discussed this and approved this in 2024, understanding is that this should only affect you uh i i don't know depending on the impact in 2020 25 right that's the base base case yeah i think that that's our that's our understanding no perfect thank you very much guys thank you the next question comes from carlos gomez with with hsbc please go ahead

Thank you for taking my question. My question is about leverage. You have gradually increased your target from 1.5 times EBITDA, now a range between 1.9 and 2.3. You have accumulated more than that. We have now developed 0.6 billion. Is there a limit as to how much debt do you want to sustain, especially given that we are not in a period of revenue growth? So that's the first one. And second, is there any other acquisition that you have in the horizon beyond the one that you have just concluded? Thank you.

Thank you for your question, Carlos. Look, in terms of leverage, we give our guidance, but we have been working with a leverage ratio between 1.8, 2.3, 2.5. I mean, we do not believe the company will go much above the 2.5 times. As I mentioned, I think here, that increase should be to a certain level temporary. We saw a very good opportunity to access the market at very favorable conditions. That gives us flexibility to do some liability management to potentially be ready to anticipate some of the maturities that we will probably be be refinancing during the first half of next year. So that was more towards capital structure discipline, taking advantage of good moments in the market and adding value to our shareholders through an efficient process. capital structure management. So that's basically what is behind that temporary increase in our leverage. And that hasn't to do with any acquisitions that might be on the radar, as we have been discussing. I mean, we have our plates full. We've done the two big acquisitions that we we wanted and we felt were important to deliver our strategy. We have now an execution effort here. There might be some small add-ons here and there that we could be looking at, but definitely nothing of the size of what these two acquisitions were for B2E.

Okay.

Again, my question was more in terms of your general feeling about leverage. I mean, even leverage of the level that you have is relatively unusual among the exchanges, but this is something that you expect to continue as a feature in your company.

Sorry, can you repeat? I didn't understand.

Yeah, the idea is that in your philosophy, you will continue to operate with debt and with a certain level of leverage in the company. There is no intention to reduce that leverage going forward. I think that was clear.

Thank you very much. No, sorry, we had some technical problems here.

I think you're right, yeah. So I don't think that there's any major changes to that. We will be operating with that growth, that level that I mentioned. There is, as you mentioned, I think there is room to make that our capital structure more efficient because at the end of the day, net debt is pretty much close to zero. but we are not anticipating significant changes to that strategy, at least not for now.

Thank you so much.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star then 1. The next question comes from Caio Prato with Banco UBS. Please go ahead.

Hello everyone, good morning. Good morning Fernando and all the team. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two here, please. My first question is just a follow-up on the solutions for block trade that was approved by CVM. Two quick ones here. First, do you know if other solutions were also approved by CVM or no? And second, I see when you mentioned that it's difficult to measure the potential impact because we need to see how much volumes go there and so on. But just trying to understand here, will the prices be lower for participants that use this solution? I'm just trying to understand what would make participants use this solution. The second, if I may, is related to the tax reform that was approved in the upper house this week. We understand that it will be discussed again in the lower house, but looking at what was approved right now, what do you believe would be the implications for B3? If indeed it could be negative, as it seems to be for census companies. So if you can provide a bit of your views here, it would be helpful. And if you foresee any special regime for decrease, similar with what was discussed for banks. That's it. Thank you.

I'll start with the... Thanks for your question, Caio. I'll start with the one about the tax reform. and I'll get Fernando here to help me with the one on the block trading solution. So, I mean, there is a provision already on what was approved on the constitutional amendment that was approved, as you said, this week, of the possibility of special regimes for certain financial services. That was a discussion that we had also together with banks and other associations. So I think it is early to say because a lot of discussions will still need to take place. I mean, how those regimes will work, what's going to be the rate applicable to those regimes. But I guess it is a first step to ensure that we have a tax reform that is very good for the country, but that is taken into consideration other experiences from other jurisdictions where exceptions have been made for certain services or certain sectors. to avoid the creation of any big distortions in that model. So it is already there, a possibility of having that regime, special regime for certain financial services. But again, this is only, as you said, the first step. There still will be a lot of discussions probably next year in relation to that. In relation to the blocks, Fernando can comment on. I'll add anything relevant here as well.

Good morning, Caio. We haven't heard about any approvals from CVM to other platforms. We heard that there are other companies that are trying to make the intent to launch a solution any other platform. And regarding prices, at first, the prices will be the same as it is in the cash equity market. So, no change here.

Okay. Thank you very much, André Fernandes.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to invite Andemio Lannes to proceed with his closing statement.

Thank you very much for joining the call.

And again, thanks for your continued support and interest in our company. I would like also to thank to thank all the team for helping with the disclosure of our third quarter results, all the team that worked hard to make this happen. And finally, just to remind you all that we will be hosting our investor day, our B3 day in December, on the 12th of December. So... for all of you interested in joining us during that day, a day where we will have the opportunity to discuss some of the strategic developments on the company, discuss a little bit about our initiative. So we hope it's going to be provided with useful insights and information in relation to what we are seeing for next years and the years after. So feel free to reach out to us if you are able to join us in our B3 day. Thank you very much. Have a nice Friday and a good weekend ahead of us.

Thank you.

That just concludes B3's audio conference for today. Thank you very much for your participation. Have a good afternoon. Thank you for using Chorus Call Brazil.