Qualitas Controladra Sab

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Good morning and welcome to Qualitas' fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings results webcast. The conference will begin now. It is my pleasure to turn the call over to Qualitas.

Good morning and thank you for joining Qualitas' fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. I'm Santiago Monroy, Qualitas IRO. Joining us today are CEO and Chairman of the Board, José Antonio Correa, and Deputy CEO and Vice Chairman, Bernardo Rizul. As a reminder, information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those discussed during today's call. Qualitas undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of your information, future events, or otherwise. Let's turn it over to José Antonio, our CEO, for his remarks.

Thank you, Santiago. Good morning, everyone. Great to be with you. And let me start by wishing you all, once again, the very best for this year. It is likely that when we look back in a few years, 2023, will stand out as a year of remarkable performance, with a top line of 28%, strong momentum of our operating subsidiaries, and a notable growth in profits. The results also led us to surpass the 5 million insured units this year, reflecting the trust placed by our policy funders and more than 22,000 agents. We have invested heavily to improve the service experience both in our offices and throughout the many technological tools we have developed for them. Our constant efforts have paid off, and I am proud that more than 70% of our processes have a satisfaction rate within our 90% objective range. There are three milestones of the year that I cannot miss to touch upon. Number one, Qualitas achieved an annual record high in terms of insured units, with a total of 5.3 million units across the five countries where we operate. This is an increase of 527,000 units throughout the year. New car sales performance in Mexico, up 24% versus 2022 and 3% above 2019, were important drivers of volume growth. Growth makes us face an ongoing challenge of effectively delivering excellence in service and fulfill our customers' expectations. Throughout the year, we have created over 600 new positions to maintain quality standards for all our clients. Most of them are to support our call center, claims officers, and operational team. The entire organization works with horizontal structure to be able to provide service to our 562 service offices, and all our agents, who are our top priority. We must make sure that Qualitas DNA truly prevails in new employees' generations. Thus, we have strengthened onboarding programs of what we internally call the Qualitization Process. Number two, we keep strengthening our organization, implementing a sound corporate governance and succession plan, has been a priority. And as such, our board has been paying special attention when selecting its members to their experience and expertise, including their knowledge of the different regions where Qualitas is present. Some of the initiatives taken were the appointment of Bernardo as Qualitas Controlador as Deputy CEO, a new board member addition with punctual oversight to our business strategy, reducing the average age of our members. and board training sessions have related to sustainability topics, new regulations, among others. We are still in the recruitment process to find the best candidate for CFO position. Also, we have appointed a new CIO, which will start in mid-February, and have made progress in our talent development programs by filling key positions such as innovation and special projects, prevention, office and agents, development, road assistance, among many others, which are fundamental to shape our organization and integrate people and technology to successfully execute on our customer-centric objectives. On this front, there is still work to be done and will remain as a priority for me and the leadership team during the year. And number three, Qualitas corporate development plan has made progress Executing in line with our three-pillar strategy that we have deployed a couple of years ago, by which we aim to further diversify our business to fuel sustainable growth in the mid-long term. While we strive to continue winning in our core business, Mexico Auto Insurance, we want to have a portfolio of businesses that share the responsibility of value creation. On that regard, I celebrate three main achievements. We celebrated the first anniversary of Qualitas Salud, which is our first entry in the non-related auto business. Health insurance segment could represent an important potential for Qualitas, where our value proposition, based on prevention and excellence in service, will seek to satisfy an unmet need for the 92% of Mexican population without private insurance through a compensatory product with capped risk. In line with the plan, This year has been all about learning and adjusting, which we have. Our decision to enter organically allows to better control growth and exposure, adjusting product to what proves to create value, and with expectation to make Qualitas Salud a relevant contributor to the holding company in the long run. Second, including a technology company focused on telematics, business intelligence, and IoT to the Qualitas family, And this aims to increase our efficiency in Mexico by leveraging data analysis to increase value proposition through new products and better risk assessment. And thirdly, we continue to make progress on our entry into Colombia. Being able to serve a 50 million people market will represent a big test. One, we look forward while recognizing it will require resources, attention, and quality as DNA. As such, we have agreed that Colombia will will be our last geographic market expansion in the following years. We are pleased with this year's performance and recognize that growth comes with new challenges to overcome. While we have made progress, we still face external factors pressuring our costs. Our industry is cyclical, and Qualitas has weathered through many storms, and we are certainly coming out stronger of this one and we are ready to face whatever comes next. We are thrilled to start the new year, which brings 360 days of opportunities to service excellence and protect our policyholders, who is creating value to all stakeholders. And with that, let's move to the financial details and take a deeper dive into the quarter and year end results. Bernardo, please.