Genomma Lab Intl Sab Ord

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining Genoma Lab's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded and will be available for replay on the investor relations section of Genoma's website following the call. I'll now turn the call over to Christian Ibañez, Genoma's Head of Investor Relations. Please, go ahead.

Thank you and welcome, everyone. On today's call are Marcos Barbieri, Chief Executive Officer, and Antonio Zamora, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that the remarks today will include forward-looking statements. such as the company's financial guidance and expectations, including long-term objectives and forecasts, as well as expectations regarding Denoma's business, assets, products, strategies, demand, and markets. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. They are also based on assumptions as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update them as a result of new information or future events. Let me now turn the call over to Mr. Marcos Barbieri.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Chris. I would like to open the call by announcing we have identified 10 targeted projects where we will invest excess cash and profits to accelerate sales growth. We are confident that the successful execution of our growth projects will drive low team sales growth over the mid-term, while maintaining an average of 24% EBITDA margin. As part of our growth strategy, we have identified a set of focused initiatives across key categories and capabilities where we believe targeted investment can unlock meaningful upside. In Xerox, we are working to expand distribution, support its international rollout, and enter a new segment to further scale the brand. In skincare, we aim to revitalize the category through the relaunch of Asepsia and Cicatricure. In haircare, we are repositioning Tio Nacho, relaunching Banart, and launching a new brand, expanding them in the international markets. In OTC, we continue to enhance our innovation pipeline to gain market share while in infant nutrition, we are preparing to introduce Novamil in Brazil and Argentina. We also see significant potential in supplements and we are building the capabilities needed to support our entry into this category. On the commercial front, we are intensifying efforts across high growth channels, including traditional trade, convenience, hard discounts, and e-commerce, while building a dedicated digital capability to accelerate sellout. We are also elevating the in-store experience by investing in coolers for Suerox, OTC drawers for the traditional channel, and strategic displays for pharmacies, leveraging our in-store as media manufacturing capabilities as a key visibility driver. Lastly, we're pursuing deeper collaboration with our top five clients to strengthen execution and unlock joint growth opportunities. Before turning to our first quarter results, I would like to highlight that together these initiatives represent a disciplined approach to capital deployment aligned with our commitment to sustainable profitable growth. Turning now to first quarter results, Genoma Sell-In grew 5% in Q1 2025, while Sell-Out grew in the low teams. The sell-in-sell-out gap is mainly attributable to the US and Argentina. In the US, a weaker-than-expected flu season and related share loss in cough and cold impacted sell-in. In Argentina, lower inflation led customers to reduce inventories to improve productivity, reversing prior stockpiling behavior typical in a hyperinflationary environment. We delivered strong profitability this quarter. With continued momentum across the P&L, EBITDA grew 12%, outpacing sales, and net income rose even faster. While gross margin was impacted by a higher mix of beverage sales, EBITDA margin expanded 149 basis points to 23.8%, driven by productivity gains. EPS increased 70%. 17.7% to 5.50%. The cash conversion cycle increased by 13 days driven by a strategic inventory buildup for Xerox and shorter payment terms as we transitioned to in-house OTC manufacturing in Mexico. Free cash flow reached 2,678 million over the trailing 12 months, up 62.4% year over year. Our business remains healthy. with 72% of our sales maintaining or gaining market share and 86% of sales outpacing inflation. The next chart highlights core category performance this quarter. Isotonics beverages are driving portfolio growth, while the Asepsia relaunch in Mexico is helping skincare return to positive territory. Derma, OTC, and analgesics remain strong performance, while cough and cold reflects the impact of a weaker-than-expected flu season in the U.S., And the same chart now shows country level performance where key markets delivered growth in the low to high single digit range. Our strong profitability gains begin at the gross margin levels. which has expanded by an impressive 5.9 percentage points. We have improved gross margin from 57% to 63% over the past couple of years, a testament to the impact of our productivity initiatives and manufacturing capabilities on the business. Let's now take a closer look at EVDA margin improvements. The chart shows we have expanded EVDA margin by 3.9 percentage points over the same two years period. More than half of the gross margin gains translated into EVDA growth, while the remainder was reinvested to accelerate top-line growth in our core categories. Looking ahead, we will continue to strengthen core brands by reinvesting excess profits and cash into our growth projects while maintaining a 24% average EVDA margin. The following chart highlights our accelerating momentum down the P&L with the EPS significantly outpacing sales and EBITDA growth, achieving a 23% CAGR over the past five years. This is resulting in a higher free cash flow where we have reached a 71% CAGR over the past five years while returning a healthy dividend to our shareholders. All this efficiency has resulted in a much better ROIC, a variable that is becoming a central focus of our leadership team. In the chart, you can see the evolution of Labs ROIC over the past four years. Our current business model is delivering 1.4 times more value for every invested peso than four years ago. ROIC will remain a key metric throughout investments in growth projects. Our cash conversion cycle increased in preparation for the high season. We have been building inventory of Suerox and limited production capacity. Payable days also increased as we transitioned to in-house OTC manufacturing in Mexico. The new Suerox production line set for commissioning by the second half of 2025 will enhance manufacturing efficiency and help reduce inventory days. The factory acceptance test has been successfully completed at the vendor's site and shipment is in progress. We continue to capitalize progress in our productivity program and remain on track to reach 1.8 billion pesos in accumulated productivity savings targeted by 2027. Looking forward, we will reinvest productivity gains in our growth project as we maintain EBITDA margin in a 24% average. I would now like to provide an update on the progress we have made in our growth projects. A key pillar for Genoma is the expansion of the traditional channel, where we have already made significant strides. As you can see, we have sustainably increased sales through this channel over the past few years. Today, we reach over 600,000 points of sales across Mexico and LATAM out of a 2.1 million stores addressable universe. Our goal is to scale this to over 800,000 within the next three years, accelerating both reach and impact. Our skincare turnaround is advancing well. The Asepsia relaunch in Mexico is delivering encouraging sellout results, laying the foundation for further domestic growth and international expansion. As shown in this chart, sellout has grown significantly since the relaunch. We are also increasing digital content to support the Asepsia relaunch. This chart highlights a snapshot of our social media campaign in the Mexican market. Turning to our OTC innovation pipeline, we are seeing strong momentum with many of the registrations submitted since 2023 now nearing approval. As shown in the chart, submitted registrations have increased significantly, and we remain focused on further strengthening the pipeline. In the US, we are also focused on expanding our distribution points. Today, we have reached over 400,000 distribution points with a three-year target of more than 800,000 within a 13.2 million addressable universe. The US represents our strongest progress in e-commerce. where we are focused on strengthening core brand positioning and gaining market in the general market, we have a clear strategy to enhance our infrastructure and accelerate expansion in this channel. To close, I would like to share our short-term and mid-term outlook. In the near term, microeconomic uncertainty around consumption, FX, and global supply chains may result in softer growth, which is expected in the low to mid single digits range. However, looking ahead, we see meaningful upside. As our growth projects gain traction, we expect sales to accelerate toward low teams levels. In both scenarios, we remain confident in maintaining a stable EVDA margin around 24%. Before handing the call over to Tonio, I want to thank our team for our focus and dedication toward achieving our growth projects. I have no doubt that we have a best-in-class team capable of taking Genoma to the next level. I also want to thank our investors for your confidence, trust, and support. We remain committed to delivering lasting value for all our stakeholders, and we look forward to the opportunities ahead. Please, Tonio, go ahead.

Thank you, Marco, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'm pleased to report strong first quarter results. And let's start by our first quarter financial review. Genoma delivered 4,406,000,000 pesos in consolidated net sales for the quarter, a 5% increase with 86% of our sales outpacing inflation, and 72% maintaining or increasing market share year on year. Sustained sales growth of our Suerox isotonic beverage brought this increase, which was partially mitigated by a weaker than expected US flu season and related market share loss of cough and cold brands in this market. Cross-profit reached 2,767,000,000 pesos, or 62.8% of net sales, reflecting a moderate 1% increase. EVDA for the first quarter of the year reached 1,048,000,000 pesos, with a 23.8% EVDA margin. The 12% year-on-year increase, a substantial 149 basis points, reflects the continuous results we are seeing of productivity gains and cost efficiencies through our operations, which underscores the fact that our strategies are indeed resonating as Marco described earlier. First quarter 2025 net income reached 499 million pesos, a 15.4% year-on-year increase resulting from higher operating income and a favorable FX during the quarter. EPS, or earnings per share, increased by 17.7% to 50 cents per share, benefiting from higher first quarter net income, as well as genomics cancellation of 20 million shares in the second quarter, 2024. Our first quarter cash conversion cycle was 116 days. They're largely related to strategic sort of inventory buildup, which is very typical in the industry. And we do this ahead of the spring and summer season, as we described in last quarter's discussion. and also by a decrease in payable terms resulting from Genoma's transition to in-house manufacturing production in Mexico. Finally, free cash flow increased 62% to reach 2,678,000,000 pesos during the trading 12 months compared to the same period of the prior year. Moving to a brief overview of our results by region, Net sales for Genoma's Mexico operations increased by 3% year-on-year for the first quarter of 2025, driven by strong traditional Chandler Suerox performance, which was partially offset by a milder winter season. It's important to note that our OTC brands continue to gain share of market during the quarter. The ABDA margin for Mexico increased to 24.3%, a significant 145 basis point expansion, again, due to the productivity gains we have noted. As you can see in this slide, the Mexican peso depreciated 20.3% year to date against the US dollar. Remember last year we had the so-called Mexican super peso, not anymore, it's in a more, stable or normal range this year. Turning to the US first quarter net revenue increased by 1%, which had some favorable effects and sustained strength from Suerox sales. During the quarter, the 15.2% net sales decrease in US dollar terms reflects a weaker than expected flu season also in the U.S. market, and also a related market share of Genomas Coffin Coal brands. The EVDA margin reached 16.9% for the quarter. This represents a 282 basis point expansion again, reflecting productivity gains as well as favorable forex. Genomas Latin America operation net sales increased by 8.2% for the quarter, with notably strong performance in Brazil, Peru, and Central American markets, and also with benefit of favorable foreign exchange effects that we mentioned earlier. The EVDA margin for Latin America reached 24.8%, This is a 114 basis point increase due to productivity gains, and again, a favorable for us. A few days ago, Genoma issued a press release detailing the effects of IFRS 5 on the company's audited financial statements related to our non-controlling stake in Grupo Industrial and Comercial Marsan. which as everybody knows is classified as a discontinued operations. I'd like to take this opportunity to briefly reiterate that Marsam's contribution to Genoma Labs consolidated figures is not material and does not contribute to Genoma Labs operational model. IFRS requires that a single line item with the amount for the total of discontinued operations pre-presented in the profit and loss statement separate from the continuous operations. Remember, continuous operations is Genoma Lab. Discontinued operations is Marsanti. Genoma, therefore, reported a non-caste adjustment with a separate line in discontinued operations, underscoring that recent events related to MarsAM's 2024 business performance, as described in that press release, had no impact on Genoma's net revenues, had no impact on Genoma's EBITDA, had no impact on Genoma's cash flow. And what we see is a positive impact is that now performance metrics such as return on equity, ROE, or return on invested capital, ROIC, will show the true performance of the Genoma business. Going back to our results, Genoma ended our first quarter of the year with a leveraged ratio of just 1.1 times net debt to EVDA. It's important to note that although at the end of the quarter, 58% of the company's overall balance of debt is related to long-term liabilities, we are already in the process to refinance short-term debt, and we will provide information as it becomes available in the coming weeks and months. Finally, we made our 11th consecutive dividend payment of 20 Mexican cents per share, totaling 200 million pesos payable to shareholders at the close of March 14, 2025. Our ongoing dividend payment further demonstrates our company's commitment to shareholder value and confidence in Genoma's continued progress. Before moving into Q&A, I would like to close with some key takeaways from the financial results that I just shared with you. We are pleased to inform that we are investing in the areas that drive the most value, which are the 10 strategic projects that Marco described earlier in his presentation, and the investment and strategies we have implemented today, particularly our productivity and efficiency projects, which as everybody has seen, are clearly gaining traction. This reflects our confidence in our plans and long-term objectives. we continue to execute on our strategic roadmap with speed and agility in alignment with consumer trends, further capitalizing on our attractive categories across segments and driving category leaderships. Our plans are yielding results with margin resiliency, as Marco highlighted earlier. We will continue investing in future sales growth while we manage our cost to optimize our business. A strong balance sheet enables genomic and important capital allocation flexibility. With that, let us turn to our Q&A.

Thank you, Antonio. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may raise your hand using the raise your hand icon located at the bottom of your screen. To withdraw your question, press the same icon at any time. This will be required in order to allow you to turn on your microphone and ask your questions. One moment, please, while we hold for questions. Yes, thank you. Our first question comes from Alvaro Garcia with BTG Pactual. Alvaro, please turn your microphone on and proceed with your question.

Hi there. Thanks for the special questions. Hi, Marco. Hi, Tonio. A couple of questions. One on the traditional channel. Marco, I'm hoping you could maybe expand on sort of how you're going to go about increasing points of sale. Is that through you guys, through wholesalers? And I'm interested in how, I'm assuming, obviously, your best asset at that point of sale is Suedos, but how you successfully sort of cross-sell into your other assets. products in your portfolio, that'd be helpful to hear that sort of, uh, strategy piece from you. And on my second questions on, on working capital, when you, how should we think about working cup? I think it's fair to assume maybe a slight cash burn this year. Uh, and it's just tough to wrap our heads around the transition, uh, this transition to in-house manufacturing in Mexico, how much longer, uh, that, that might take from a payable standpoint. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you, Alvaro. Good to hear from you. Let me address maybe both questions and then have Tonio add comments on the working capital piece. So on the traditional channel, I think the strategy is focused on three pillars that will allow us to aggressively expand distribution in the traditional channel. Number one is the portfolio. Today, we have a lot of work to be done in terms of sizes and price points for the different brands for products that can be sold in the traditional channel. So, you know, today we have successful brands like Teonacho that basically have no distribution in the channel or very low distribution. And that's because we still don't have the right size at the right price point. so the product can accelerate distribution in the channel. So we're working on developing that size for Tio Nacho to be sold in the channel. And the same goes for most of the other brands. So what we have done today in the traditional channel is mostly with the sizes that we've historically had in the company, but we are now intentionally going to make a big effort to develop the right sizes for the channel. Second, we are going to be investing very intentionally in expanding our distribution capabilities throughout our distributors, not wholesalers, but distributors, adding more routes of sale in the different distributors. We are re-engineering our trade terms for the channel as well. And then fourth, we are going to be investing in media that is more appealing to this channel, say digital. We're going to significantly increase the investment that we're making in digital communication. That goes for traditional channel. I don't know if that clarifies or you need more color on that.

Is it fair to assume that when you guys talk about reinvesting some of the recent margin gains into growth that this would fit that profile?

Yes, we are going to reinvest excess margin over 24% and cash in building these capabilities.

Great. Thank you.

And then on the working capital, what is happening is that in the past, the company used to contract manufacture all our products. And the payment terms to our small, quote unquote, maquiladores, it was kind of easy to... you know, pay longer term periods to small maquiladores than now that we are, you know, starting production in our facility. We are negotiating with APIs, suppliers, very large suppliers around the world that, you know, we didn't have a relationship established in the past. So it's kind of, you know, harder to negotiate payment terms at the beginning, but we believe that as we prove to be a reliable customer for them and that we become bigger and more strategic for them, we're going to be able to negotiate better payment terms. That explains why the payable days have slightly decreased over the past quarters. I don't know, Tonio, if you want to add something on that.

Thank you, Marco. Just to again highlight Marco's first question about expanding in the traditional channel, as we said, as we have mentioned in different one-on-ones, in the calls, etc., we are reinvesting the excess margin beyond 24% to basically expand distribution is one of the projects. You know, when you start a new route to reach new points of sale, initially, you don't reach break-even. It takes some time to reach break-even. We've seen that over the years when we started to expand our presence in the traditional channel. And this is something that other companies, beverage companies, Bimbo, et cetera, have always experienced and they always know. It takes some time for the new routes to mature, to reach the break-even point. But once they reach the break-even point, they start generating a lot of profits and you have built a new capability, a new strength for the future. So that is why, again, it's reinforcing what Marco mentioned. It's not that we couldn't record a higher than 24% ABDA given the the productivity projects and initiatives is that we are reinvesting that excess margin, as you very well pointed out, Alvaro, in this kind of initiatives. Again, it takes some time, but once you reach the breaking point, you have built a new capability that stays there for the future, and that is very hard to replicate by competitors. And on the working capital question, Perhaps I just want to add a little bit of additional color to what Marco mentioned, which I totally agree what he mentioned. Remember that we are also investing in the future, investing in the infrastructure for future growth. We've mentioned, I'm just gonna give you one example of why payables shouldn't be an issue. And actually the strength of our balance sheet is, It's a capability that we have. We all know that there has been tariffs on steel and aluminum. We all know that we're going to be investing in an expanded distribution center for the future, right? So we decided to place a down payment on new racks. Racks are basically made of steel before the new prices with the new tariffs could take place. Why? because we have wrong balance sheet and it was the right thing to do. Again, we're working for the future. But when you put a down payment, that has an impact on your payable, days of payables. But we're saving a lot of money by buying those racks at a very competitive, very competitive terms. So besides the transition of having new kinds of suppliers for the manufacturing facility. We're also going to be taking advantage of this type of punctual opportunities that are there and given, again, the strength of our balance sheet and our low financial leverage, we can do that. But again, we're investing our money for future growth, which is Again, very consistent with the 10 strategic projects that Marco described at the beginning of this call.

Thanks.

Thank you a lot.

Thank you. Our next question will be from Alejandro Fox from Itao. Please turn your microphone on and proceed with your question.

Thank you. Thank you for the space for questions. I have already two quick ones on my side. First, I wanted to talk about the top line. for this quarter. We saw that out of the nine most relevant categories, around six of them were decreasing the like-for-like revenues during the quarter. You mentioned some of the weakness related to cough and cold, right? And some of the initiatives, Marco, you presented for the medium term to revert this trend. But I wanted to see what is driving some of the weaknesses in some of these categories like skincare or hair care and gastro, nutrition and so on in the short term. And which trends are you seeing in April? And the second is on gross margin. We saw a steep contraction year over year. I wanted to see maybe, Tonio, if you could elaborate a little bit into what's driving that contraction now in the short term as well. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Alejandro. Listen, let me provide very clear perspective on the top line, okay, for everybody. So, When you look at our sellout for the quarter, we grew sellout in the low teens, so double digits, okay? And our selling, sorry, sellout, sellout grew double digits in the low teens, and our selling grew 5%. So that means that our business in general, with a few exceptions, remains pretty healthy from a sellout point of view, which is very important. I mean, it's much better to have a problem where the sellout is growing and selling was not this quarter than the other way around. So that's one point. In the last few months, we've started to see a lot of uncertainty in the US, particularly in the US, a softening trend in Mexico, And a situation in Argentina that has to do with the selling where customers are starting a process of destocking and driving productivity behind lower inventories. Given that in Argentina, the inflation is slowing down significantly. So I think that... because of the uncertainty we are seeing in the short term, I am being very cautious on what to expect in the next few quarters in terms of selling. Now, if everything goes great and we continue to see this sell-out trend of double digits and things go great, we are going to exceed the numbers that I've just provided us. quote unquote guidance for the short term. But unfortunately, the last few months, we have seen a softening of the business in general. And a lot has to do with the uncertainty behind the tariffs in the US, the economic uncertainty in Mexico. And in general, you know, the whole context of doing business in some of the largest customers is not extremely favorable, unfortunately. Okay. So that's kind of like the overall context perspective that I have to share. Do you want some more clear perspective by category or is that good enough?

No, that's very clear. Thank you, Marco. Sure.

And then in terms of gross margin, I think what you guys should expect for this company going forward is a gross margin that gravitates in the range of anything between 63% and 65%, so a very healthy margin. If you look at one quarter, like this past quarter in the first quarter of the year, slide contraction has to do with the loading that we did on Xerox for the season, preparing for the season in the U.S. and in Mexico particularly. But you should be very comfortable, you know, expecting anything between 63 and 65%. So like in the first quarter, we do the loading for the summer season where Suerox plays a big role. In the third quarter, we do a big loading of the OTC brands preparing for the flu season. So in the third quarter, the gross margin is going to be much better. Whereas in the first quarter, because we load a lot of product for the summer season, the margins are a little bit smaller. That helps?

That was very clear. Thank you very much, Marco. Sure.

Thank you. Our next question will be from Antonio Hernandez from Actinver. Please turn on your microphone and proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. Congrats on your results. Just a quick follow-up on Alejandro's question regarding your overall performance. How much was competition a factor and in which categories was that a factor regarding that slowdown in sales? Thanks.

Yeah. It's a good question. So, you know, it really varies by category. So, for example, in Xerox, we grew market share. In some of the analgesics categories, we grew market share. In Coffin Cold, for example, we lost market share in the U.S., even though we prepare ourselves for a very strong season. We did a very strong loading of product in the last quarter, last year. We had good exhibitions in the point of sale. We had a good communication plan from a marketing point of view. we lost market share in the US in cough and cold. So I would say that in general, just rounding up numbers, I would say that 60 to 70% of the slowdown has to do with mostly macroeconomics and business environment in general. And then around 30 to 40% could be attributed to market share losses.

Okay, that's from a consolidated level, right?

Yes, as a whole, as a company, all markets, all categories.

Okay, perfect. Thanks for the call. Have a great day.

Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Our next question will be from Freulon Mendez with JP Morgan. Please turn on your microphone and proceed with your question.

Hello, thank you for taking my questions. You mentioned 10 projects. I would love to hear which are the ones that you're most excited about or that should yield the most significant impact to your results in the short term. And in that sense, could you give us a sense on the size of the investment that these growth projects will entail and if this should be entirely funded from free cash flow? That would be my two questions. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Thank you, Freuland. I mean, I'm excited about all the 10 projects. I mean, just to provide a little bit context on how we got or gravitated to selecting these 10 projects, we started with a very large list of more than 50 ideas. And we have worked on doing financials and understanding all the specifics on each of the ideas. And then over the past three months during the first quarter, we started deselecting the largest one and the more meaningful ideas for the company. And that's how we ended up with these 10 very, very strong projects. I am obviously very fond of Suerox as a brand. I think that, you know, there's a lot of potential there. Continue growing the traditional channel. I am very excited about... the whole new ideas that we have put in place for communicating more in digital and driving traction to grow sell out in digital. I'm very excited about that as well. I'm very excited about the alliances or strategic alliances with the top five customers. We already had meetings with FEMSA Pharmacia. We are very advanced in the process with Walmart in Mexico. So I'm very excited about that. I'm really excited about what we're doing in the Asepsia brand. You guys saw how we are growing market share and how we're growing sellout significantly behind the relaunch. So I'm very excited about that work. I'm very excited about the new brand that we are going to launch in the hair care category, the repositioning of Tio Nacho. So in general, I'm... Very excited about the 10 of them. Obviously, I have more passion for some, but in general, the 10 projects are very, very meaningful for the company. And the funding, as we have been sharing with the group, we've put together a very strong productivity program that will deliver in the range of 1.8 to 2 billion pesos. And that is more than the 24% average margin that we are committing. And that excess profit and cash is going to go directly to this top 10 project. So it's going to be funded from within.

Thank you, Marcos. If I can just try to understand which would be the one that yields impact in the shorter term, let's say, where should we start seeing these projects coming live in the shorter term?

That's a great question. We are already in the process of executing and deploying some of these projects. So, for example, Asepsia, hopefully you guys will see strong results in the very short term. You are seeing results in the short term, in fact. The traditional channel, you guys have seen how we have been expanding the market in this channel over the past years, but you will see the company rapidly expanding and accelerating that growth in the very short term. The digital capabilities that we are building, we have already put in place some of that with mixed results for now, but there's some good things that we are seeing in that sense. Alliances with top customers, we have started to work on this since the beginning of the year. So that's also for the short term. I think for more like in the long or mid term, you need to think about Cicatricure, which is a very complex initiative to relaunch the brand. It really has some important complexity that we need to figure out. The repositioning of Tio Nacho is more for the midterm. The launch of the new hair care brand is more for the midterm. Entering the supplement category That's more for the near term. The expansion of Noah Mill in Brazil, that should be happening very fast, as we have already agreed to do that. And we have, you know, pretty advanced work on that one. And that's it. So, you know, I don't know if that helps. It helps a lot. Thank you so much. Sure.

Thank you. And our next question will be from Luis Miranda with GBM. Please turn on your microphone and proceed with your question.

Yes, hello. Congratulations for the results. I would like to ask, is there any plan to increase and recover the market share in the U.S. market?

You mean GoFundMe Gold, right? Yes, correct. Yeah, what happened is that we significantly reduced the investment on TV under the assumption that Hispanic TV in the US was not helping our sales last year. And we did that pretty much across the board. And we replaced that investment with more digital and e-commerce stuff. But what we have realized is that for some brands like Tukol in the US, we need the Hispanic TV. So for the next season, we are working on... We have already started some very... preliminary conversations with Univision to see if we can start reinvesting back on Hispanics TV in the US. And I think that'll change the trend that we are seeing to call in the US right now.

Perfect.

Thank you very much. Sure. Thank you. One moment please while we hold for more questions.

Thank you.

Our next question will be from Alvaro Garcia with BTG Pactual.

Thanks for the follow-up. I was wondering if you could maybe talk about how you're thinking about the buyback here, Antonio. And one more for Marco. I was wondering if you could expand a bit. You mentioned, which makes a lot of sense, sort of... a more rational stocking process in Argentina on lower inflation. But I was wondering if you could maybe give a bit more color on what happened in Argentina this quarter and whether you expect that to continue for the rest of the year. Thank you.

Yeah. Let me start with Argentina and then I will turn it on to Tonio for the buybacks. So in Argentina, we are seeing a very strong recuperation of sales, a recovery of sales. Our sellout grew 11% in units in Argentina, which shows, and that was pretty much across all categories, I mean, with some exceptions, but in general, we're seeing a strong recovery versus last year in sellout and shares. So from that angle, from a sell-out and share point of view, I am very happy with what we are seeing there. On the other hand, in the past several years, customers used to keep inventories high, very high. And that obviously has to do with this practice of building up inventories during inflation. And because inflation is slowing down significantly in the country, what we have started seeing actually by the end of the last quarter, last year, is that customers started to be a lot more conscious on keeping inventories at lower levels. And that explains the difference between sell-in and sell-out that we are seeing in the country. But I'm not concerned about that. I mean, I'm very happy with what we're seeing in terms of sell-out and shares in Argentina so far. Great.

Thank you, Marco. Alvaro, regarding your question about the buybacks, the buybacks will continue, and the company will also continue canceling shares. Just as a reminder for everybody, not in this year's annual shareholders meeting, but in last year's, in 2024, shareholders approved that they would delegate to the board of directors the possibility to cancel up to 100 million shares. That is around 10% of our total shares in the future without having to go to an AGSM again. So that authorization is still in place and the board is now considering you know, when the next cancellation is going to be and how big that is going to be. But we will continue doing the buybacks because, again, that is a long-term strategy of cancelling up to 10% of market cap in the future. How big is that going to be? We need to wait for the board to make that decision. But eventually we'll have good news for everybody. As we all saw during the Q1 earnings release, EPS grew faster than net income. Net income grew 15%, EPS grew 17%, and we are also considering DPS, the dividend per share. So we know that canceling shares is important. As we've said in the past, not only our investors, but Marco, myself, Rodrigo, management, We are all investors as well. We like dividends and we like shareholder returns. So there's going to be some cancellation in the future. It didn't happen this quarter, but it will happen in the future.

Thank you. Please hold as we wait for more questions. Yes, thank you. Our next question from Luis Miranda with GBM. Please turn on your microphone and proceed.

Yes, thank you. I would like to ask, a few minutes ago you mentioned that the growth margin outlook, it would be between 63 and 66. Do I'm right? That's for the next quarter?

Yeah, I think that a range between 63 and 65 is reasonable. I mean, This is not exact maths, but that would be my take. Okay.

Adding to Marco's comment, I think that what's more important for everybody to know is that we said that we committed to deliver an average EVDA margin of 24%. We've always talked about EVDA and obviously getting down to EVDA, There's a gross margin component and there's SGNA and et cetera. But as Marco described earlier, there's going to be some quarters where isotonic beverages will represent a higher percentage of our product mix. And we know that has a lower gross margin. And there's going to be some quarters where, you know, cough and cold or OTC or other products may have a more important component would represent a high percentage of our sales. So gross margin would be higher. But in the end, what you should expect is an average, every day margin of around 24%.

Yeah, correct. Sorry, I don't want to... get fixated in like all the lines of the P&L because it's very complex to manage. I think I want to echo Tonya's comment. What we are really committing here is an average EVDA margin of 24%. Okay, then... Managing the P&L of the company, the other lines, we're going to do it the best we can. But in the end, our focus is to deliver this average margin of 24%. Gross margin can go up and down a little bit. And it's a little bit more unpredictable because there's many variables that affect the gross margin. So, for example, if we receive a lot of returns because we had a bad season of a flu season in the US or in Mexico that will affect the gross margin. If we have a poor summer season, hopefully not. With Xerox, we did a huge loading of Xerox for the season in Mexico and the US. And if we have a bad season, then we're going to be getting returns of Xerox and that's going to impact the gross margin. But that doesn't matter. I mean, at the end of the day, we are going to deliver an average of 24% EBITDA. I don't know if that clarifies.

Yes. Thank you very much. Sure.

Okay. Thank you very much. This concludes our first quarter results conference call. Thank you for your attention.