StoneCo Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 14, 2024

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Finally, before we begin our formal remarks, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion may include forward looking statements. These forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore, you should not put undue reliance on them. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from the company's expectations. Please refer to the forward looking statements disclosure in the company's earnings press release. In addition, many of the risks regarding the business are disclosed in the company's Form 20 F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is available at www.sec.gov.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Roberta Noroya, Head of Investor Relations at StoneCo. Please proceed.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and good evening, everyone. Joining me today on the call is our CEO, Peter Singer our Chief Financial and Investor Relations Officer, Matteo Scheller and our Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Liam Matos. Today, we will present our Q2 2024 results and provide an updated outlook for our business. I will now pass it over to Pedro so he can share some highlights of our performance. Pedro?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Roberta, and good evening, everyone. After reviewing our Q2 results and our performance at midyear, I am pleased with our progress across our strategic priorities and believe we are on schedule to meet our 2024 goals. In payments, we continue to win in the MS and D market and take more market share. Our client base grew 30% year over year. TPV grew 25% and card TPV increased over 17%.

Speaker 2

We are also executing on our pricing and bundling strategies to enhance client engagement as we discussed during our Investor Day. As a result, our MSMB take rates also continued to expand, increasing 7 basis points year over year to reach 2.54%. We believe these strong results arrive from our competitive advantages in distribution, superior service and our growing ability to provide more comprehensive solutions to our clients. In banking, we are making similar progress. Our client pays grew 62% year over year and client deposits increased 65% as our team continues to cross sell effectively.

Speaker 2

We now have BRL2.7 million active banking clients and BRL6.5 billion in deposits, which are approaching our 2024 targets. We have also started to pilot interest bearing projects such as time deposits, which I believe is being well received by our clients and could be an exciting new area for us. In credit, we're also evolving well towards our goals even above set targets. Our total credit portfolio increased 32% quarter over quarter to reach BRL712,000,000. Within that, our working capital portfolio grew over 28%, reaching BRL682,000,000 this quarter with strong quality as shown with our NPL over 90 days still at 2.6%, very much in line with our expectations.

Speaker 2

I'm also excited with some new initiatives underway. Our specialized credit desk, which is focused on addressing the opportunity within our larger SMB client base, successfully completed its 1st disbursement this past quarter and we finalized the structuring of our Giro Fast Food product. This is a short term overdraft solution designed to address the immediate capital needs of our clients, which is set to launch in the 3rd quarter. In our software business, we are making progress on our cross sell initiatives, and we are improving the quality mix of our business towards more recurring revenues. Total software and vertical software revenue growth remained modest, but we are seeing underlying signs of improvement.

Speaker 2

For example, we are getting better cross sell traction in our gas station and retail verticals, and we generated stronger car TPV growth from our software clients in priority verticals than our overall MSMB car TPV growth rates. We still have a lot of work to do in our software business over the long term, as I have mentioned, but I'm seeing some encouraging trends from our efforts. We have also maintained our focus on efficiency gains and the streamlining of administrative expenses, which decreased by 13% year over year. In the quarter, we achieved a 180 basis point reduction in administrative expenses as a percentage of revenues when compared to the Q2 of 2023. As a result of these positive developments, our adjusted basic EPS demonstrated strong growth reaching BRL1.61.

Speaker 2

As I mentioned earlier, we remain committed to our business plan and the targets established during our Investor Day. In light of this commitment and considering short term market fluctuations, we allocated capital to repurchase an additional 9,670,000 shares totaling BRL 724,000,000 bringing us closer to completing the BRL 1,000,000,000 share repurchase program announced in November 2023. Additionally, as part of our liability management strategy, we allocated 295 $1,000,000 to the tender offer for our 20 28 bonds, achieving nearly 60% participation. In summary, I'm very satisfied with the trajectory of our results for the Q2 of 2024. And I have full confidence in our team's execution.

Speaker 2

Now I would like to pass the floor to Lir who will discuss our 2nd part of 2024 performance and strategic updates. Lia?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Pedro, and good evening, everyone. As Pedro mentioned, we were pleased to see the progress across our strategic priorities and initiatives in the Q2, which I think positions us well to meet our 2024 and long term goals. As you can see on Slide 4, our consolidated revenues grew 8% year over year, mainly as a result of consistent TPV growth and higher client monetization. It is also important to remember that in the Q1 of 2024, we changed our internal accounting methodology for membership fees revenues, deferring this revenue stream over the expected life of a merchant rather than recognizing it at the time of acquisition. This change reduced our reported revenue by around BRL50 1,000,000 in the second quarter.

Speaker 3

If we exclude this change, our total revenue growth would have been 10% in the quarter. Despite this effect, adjusted EBT increased 46% year over year. This was driven by the combination of our top line growth and the ongoing benefits of our financial and administrative expenses efficiencies. As a result, our adjusted net income increased 54% year over year and our adjusted basic EPS increased 57% year over year, reaching BRL1.61. Now let's dive further into our Financial Services segment performance on Slide 5 to 9.

Speaker 3

Starting with payments on Slide 5, our MSNB client base increased 30% year over year, reaching almost 3,900,000 active clients. We generated a net addition of 184,000 clients during the quarter. On a year over year basis, this growth was impacted by the fact that we have caught up to the growth levels in the Micro segment. And on a quarter over quarter basis, our net adds were impacted by the grow over effect of higher net adds in the Q1, which benefited from our sponsorship of a popular reality TV show in the period. As you will see in the pages that follow, besides optimizing our commercial strategy for growth and market share gains, we're also putting a lot of focus on improving our payments and banking bundle offerings to new client cohorts, both in TON and STOM.

Speaker 3

As you can see on Slide 6, this approach has resulted in more profitable TPV growth and market share gains in the MSMB segments. Before we dive deeper into our TPV performance in payments, I would like to point out that we have refined our disclosure of TPV due to the increasing relevance of fixed QR codes in the market and in our transactional volumes. From now on, whenever we talk about TPV, we will refer to transactions settled through cards and fixed dynamic QR codes. When we talk about card TPV, we will be referring to transactions settled with cards only. Now moving to volume intake rate results.

Speaker 3

MSMB TPV increased 25% year over year as a result of a 17.4% year over year growth in MSMB card TPV and a 2.6 fold increase in PIK's QR code, which reached BRL 11,500,000,000 in the quarter. We achieved this strong growth while also increasing take rates by 7 basis points year over year, which reached 2.54% as a result of higher credit and banking revenues and higher prepaid volumes, partially offset by a lower duration from prepayment transactions. On Slide 7, let's shift to discuss our banking performance. Our banking active client base increased 62% year over year to 2,700,000 active clients as a result of growth in both TON and Stone payments client base with an increase in penetration of clients using banking and payments bundles. This growth in our client base also helped drive a 65% year over year increase in client deposits, which reached BRL 6,500,000,000 in the quarter.

Speaker 3

Despite the sequential 8.1% growth in deposits, ARPEC decreased to BRL 25.7 per month, mainly as a result of lower average CDI in the period. Moving to Slide 8, let me give some highlights on our credit performance. Our credit portfolio increased to BRL712 1,000,000, with the working capital portfolio alone increasing 28% sequentially to reach BRL682 1,000,000 in the quarter. The remainder of the portfolio is the result of the very initial results of our credit card products, both within Tone and Stone. Because such cohorts are very early vintages, we highlight on the page the credit quality metrics of our working capital loan product alone.

Speaker 3

NPLs increased slightly this quarter, with NPLs between 15 90 days reaching 2.9% and NPLs over 90 days reaching 2.6%. As highlighted before, because these cohorts are also relatively new, the ratio of past due loans should continue to increase as they mature. Provision expenses for working capital expected losses were BRL 17,000,000 in the period, decreasing significantly quarter over quarter. This reduction reflects the beginning of a conversion of provision levels to expected loss levels as the portfolio matures, with provisions now representing 18% of the working capital portfolio, down from 20% in previous quarters. Finally, to summarize the performance of our Financial Services segment, the Q2 was again marked by strong year over year TPV growth and the successful development of our banking and credit initiatives.

Speaker 3

These resulted in segment revenue of BRL2.8 billion and adjusted EBT of BRL608 million in the quarter, up 11% and 53%, respectively, year over year and an increase of 5.90 basis points in our adjusted EBT margin to reach 21.5%. Moving to Slide 10, let's talk about software performance and its strategic evolutions. Quarter over quarter, the car TPV of clients that use both financial services and software solutions increased 8%, primarily driven by the gas station and retail verticals, which have been our priority focus since last year. This result has been mostly driven by the cross selling efforts from our financial services specialist distribution team cross selling bundles to software clients. As Pedro mentioned, cross sell volumes outperformed growth of MSMB CAR TPG in the quarter by almost a factor of 2.

Speaker 3

We're happy with the execution of our cross sell initiatives so far in 2024, But I believe we still have a lot of room to grow, particularly as we gear up to enable our linked software channels to also sell software and financial services bundles. On Page 11, you can see the standalone performance of our vertical software business, where we're seeing some improvements in the quality of our revenues. Vertical software revenue grew 3% year over year due to an increase in recurring revenue growth, offset by a decrease in non recurring revenues in priority verticals. As a result, we believe the revenue quality of our priority verticals is improving with recurring revenue as a percentage of total revenues increasing by more than 4 50 basis points year over year. In Slide 12, we present the consolidated performance of software.

Speaker 3

As you can see, total software segment revenues reached BRL384 1,000,000, remaining flattish year over year, driven by the trends I just described in our vertical software business, offset by slower growth in the enterprise business. Adjusted EBITDA in the software segment decreased to BRL64 1,000,000 in the quarter, down 4% year over year and 3% quarter over quarter, impacted by a nonrecurring severance expense of BRL 3,200,000 and by our decision to focus on growing recurring versus nonrecurring revenues, which has a negative impact in the short term, but should be accretive for the business in the long run. We continue our efforts to implement the software strategy that we presented in our Investor Day. While we're happy with our evolution in cross selling initiatives in the gas station and retail verticals, we're still working on learning how to best enable our software distribution channels to sell financial services and software bundles via commercial incentives and systems integrations. We also continue to pursue efficiency initiatives and a more disciplined capital allocation approach within our software segments.

Speaker 3

Now I want to pass it over to Matthias to discuss in more detail some of our key financial metrics. Matheus?

Speaker 4

Thank you, Lia, and good evening, everyone. I would like to begin on Slide 13, where we discuss the quarter over quarter evolution of costs and expenses on an adjusted basis. Cost of services reached BRL 841,000,000, increasing by 23% year over year and 4% quarter over quarter. Sequentially, cost of services as a percentage of revenues decreased by 10 basis points, primarily due to a reduction in lower loss provisions, which were reduced to BRL 80,000,000 this quarter from BRL 45,000,000 in the Q1 of 2024. This reduction reflects the beginning of the process of aligning our provision levels with expected credit losses as the portfolio matures, with provisions now representing 18% of the working capital portfolio.

Speaker 4

This decrease was offset by higher provision for losses in the quarter on our acquiring and banking solutions. Administrative expenses decreased by 13% year over year, resulting in a 180 basis point reduction as a percentage of revenues compared to the Q2 of 2023. Sequentially, administrative expenses increased by 1.4% but declined by 20 basis points as a percentage of revenues. This was driven by lower expenses in the software segment due to efficiency gains as well as by the divestment of Impak in the Q1 of 2024, which eliminated expenses in the non allocated segments. Selling expenses increased 27% year over year and decreased 0.9% quarter over quarter, down 80 basis points sequentially as a percentage of revenues.

Speaker 4

This decrease is primarily due to a reduction of approximately BRL 26,000,000 in marketing expenses related to the sponsorship of reality TV show, like Liam mentioned, partially offset by increased investments in sales teams. Looking ahead, we anticipate gradual dilution of selling expenses as these investments in sales teams mature. Financial expenses decreased 20% year over year and decreased 4.5% sequentially, leading to a 2 30 basis points reduction as a percentage of revenues. This decrease was a result of lower average CDI in the period, a reduction in our funding spreads and our decision to reinvest our cash generation towards the funding of our operation. These effects were partially offset by higher funding needs for our prepayment and credit operations as well as by a higher number of working days in the quarter.

Speaker 4

Lastly, other expenses increased 26% year over year and 80% sequentially or 140 basis points as a percentage of revenues. This variation was a result of more normalized levels of share based compensation expenses as the Q1 of 2024 included a nonrecurring positive impact of BRL 40,500,000 from the net effect of the cancellation and new grants of incentive plans. Excluding this effect, other expenses net would have been flattish as a percentage of revenues. Turning to Slide 14. Our adjusted net cash position was BRL 5,300,000,000 by the end of the quarter, reflecting an increase of almost BRL 1,000,000,000 year over year and BRL 117,000,000 for the quarter.

Speaker 4

We continued to deploy capital towards the expansion of our credit portfolio and executed on our share buyback program in the amount of BRL 237,000,000 this quarter. As Peter mentioned, I would like to highlight that in July, we allocated capital to repurchase an additional 9,600,000 shares, amounting to BRL 724,000,000, nearly completing the BRL 1,000,000,000 buyback repurchase program announced in November 2023. Additionally, we allocated BRL 295,000,000 in July to the tender offer for our 20 28 months, which will further optimize our funding spreads as we move forward. Finally, let's move to Slide 15 to discuss our guidance. We are very pleased with our performance in the first half of the year.

Speaker 4

The profitability achieved in the first half of twenty twenty four has positioned us favorably to meet our full year guidance despite several headwinds. This includes a BRL 120,000,000 reduction in revenues due to the changes in recognition of membership fee revenues and a challenging macroeconomic environment with a higher yield curve. In our banking and credit solutions, which are key drivers for our long term growth, we have exceeded initial expectations not only in volume but also in quality. This strong performance made put us on track to surpass our year end guidance in these areas. From my perspective, the most challenging area so far has been our MSMB current TPV.

Speaker 4

PIXCAR code penetration in the market and within our client base has been higher than we anticipated when setting our guidance in November of last year. This has affected our overall volumemix towards less CAR TPV and more peak scare cold TPV. Although this trend is positive for the business, it also means that hard TPV is growing a little tighter within our expected range. We ended the first half twenty twenty four with 18% growth, exactly in line with our guidance. Despite a more challenging comparable base in the second half of twenty twenty four, we remain laser focused on our efforts to meet this guidance.

Speaker 4

Overall, I believe our Q2 results are trending favorably and we are on track to achieve our long term goals. With that said, operator, can you please open the call up to questions?

Operator

Okay. At this time, we are going to open it up for questions and answers. If you have a question, please click on raise hand for audio questions. We do ask that when you pose your question Our first question comes from Mario Pierry with Bank of America. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 5

Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the results. Let me ask you a question about competition. Have you seen any changes in the competitive environment over the last 3 months, especially coming from maybe some of the incumbent banks and any changes at Cielo?

Speaker 5

Because we did notice, right, that you increased or you talked about making higher investments in your sales team. Can you so like I wanted to understand that a little bit better. Why are you investing in sales team? Do you think you had a disadvantage, you catching up or you're seeing a more competitive environment? And if you're seeing a competitive environment, if you can discuss like how you're seeing take rates trending?

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Hi, Mario. Pedro here. Thank you for the question. I'll jump start and then I'll pass over to Lia to make further comments.

Speaker 3

Well, I

Speaker 2

think on the pricing piece, I think the way we see it is it has become really a dynamic process within the company, meaning that we continuously evaluate the profitability of our cohorts and we adjust prices accordingly. So in terms of the new interest rate environment and competition, I think we'll gradually incorporate the new yield curve and changes in the competition environment in our decision making. And I think we evaluate the economics of passing through the shifts into our clients. Right. I think as a direction, I think we will continue to prioritize profitability and to price based on returns.

Speaker 2

Still on the competition piece, and I'm not going to address specifically on the seller piece, but I think the market has evolved a lot. And I think other players have been behaving in a similar way, right. Just another point I wanted to highlight is that more and more we have more levers to price the relationship with clients through the bundles as the core of our strategy between payments, banking, credit and software. So I think to some extent, this is a kind of a hedge against short term interest rate dynamics and in some ways on the competition side. I'll pass over to Lia to talk about selling.

Speaker 3

Hi, Mario. Lia here. So talking a little bit about dynamics around selling, I think there's 2 relevant dynamics to highlight. 1st is more of a short term discussion, which is we've already seen a reduction in selling expenses as a percentage of revenue, as Matheus mentioned, due to a $26,000,000 impact decrease, given that we sponsored Big Brother Brazil in the Q1. So that's more of a short term dynamics, and it's going to continue to sort of impact positively throughout the year.

Speaker 3

But longer term, regarding selling, we continue to invest and we talked about this especially scaling our specialist distribution as we continue to move up to onboard larger SMBs within the SMB segment. And as you know, there's a dynamics regarding our selling expenses in distribution, which is we front load, right, investments in sales. So there's a front load of OpEx and the results will come as we continue to onboard those clients. So we are going to see this impact for a few more quarters. But longer term, we do anticipate a gradual dilution in those selling expenses as the sales force matures and we're bringing more clients.

Speaker 4

And if I may add, Mario, Matias here. I think in summary, the investments that we're doing in terms of hiring the specialists is not a reaction on any sort in terms of reacting to the competitive environment in the short term. It's because we're basically seeing a huge opportunity to go up market within SMBs with very profitable type of clients, good unit economics. And our decision is much more of a bottom up decision and not a reaction to anything that any player is doing.

Speaker 5

No, that's clear. Can you just give us like a sense of the size of, how many people are we talking about?

Speaker 3

We don't disclose the breakdown, Mario, but I think the way to see this is it's kind of proportional to the distribution of the of the TAM, right? You have, when we talk about what we call medium clients, so the larger SMBs, naturally from a density perspective, there are less of them, spread throughout the country, right? So we always kind of allocate sales teams in terms of the opportunity that we see locally in terms of the TAM. And, although there are less medium clients within a specific hub or within a specific region, these clients are are have very attractive economics, right? They have larger TPV.

Speaker 3

There's a lot of opportunity to, upsell credits. So, we kind of see this from the perspective of the addressable market. And if you think about the overall sales force, specialists are a smaller percentage of that, and pretty much in line with, the distribution of the addressable markets.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Thanks, Mario.

Operator

Our next question comes from Edouard du Rosman with BTG. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 6

Hi, everyone. Congrats on the numbers. I have two questions here. The first one is a follow-up to what I asked during the last conference call, and it's what about the software division, right? Why not consider divesting from at least part of it to given that the number of verticals likely to have synergies with Stone is not that large?

Speaker 6

So that's the first one. And the second one is kind of a follow-up as well on the competitive front. We saw a big surge on the number of acquirers in recent years. What do you think about this market in terms of consolidation? Do you see room for M and As in the sector?

Speaker 6

So that would be the second question. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Hi, Rosman. Pietro here. Thank you for the question. I think on the first one, I think we remain focused on executing the strategy we unveiled at our Investor Day. I think in softer, our efforts really concentrated on driving cross sell in our priority verticals and improving overall business efficiencies.

Speaker 2

And I think you can see that from the results that we presented. So while we are pleased with the progress we made so far, I think we do recognize that there is still work to be done on both fronts, right? And regarding the potential sale, I'd like to emphasize that we're not selling the asset. I think in some ways, there have been some rumors and what we said is that we continually evaluate all options to maximize value from our assets and really allocate capital within the company. But our focus at this point in time is really on executing the strategy we have laid out.

Speaker 2

And on the second question, could you please, I apologize, but can you please repeat?

Speaker 6

Yes. No, it's in terms of, let's say, consolidation, right? We saw like a big number of acquirers and payment companies coming to the market in recent years, you know, many of them naturally they don't have, probably the scale, right? We do have, the ones linked to the, to the big banks, you know, which are becoming kind of a cost center, you know, so how do you guys see, you know, the market evolving? Do you see room for consolidation?

Speaker 3

Hosman, let me highlight our view on the competitive environment regarding, number of players and then pass it over to Pedro to compete the answer. So if anything, I think we see less players entering the market over the last couple of years, right? I think this dynamics has been much more intense in the past. What we do see is different, players being relevant within each segment of the market. So, micro, there's a very clear competitive landscape.

Speaker 3

SMBs, it's differently it's different as you move up. Naturally, we compete more with incumbents. But I think the overall trends of 5 key players more or less playing out consistently in terms of market share evolution, I think that has kind of been consistent. And the group which Abex calls other does gain share as a group, but I don't think that there's been a lot of difference, in who those players are. Yeah.

Speaker 3

So I think from the competitive dynamics front, I don't think that we see a lot of change. If anything, we see less intense like new entrants and new players coming into the market more recently. Peter, do you want to complete on?

Speaker 2

No, I don't believe that there are many other points to highlight. Briefly, there are not really any big news regarding the competitive environment. I think it's been quite stable over the past couple of quarters and no big changes on this front.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Hosman. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Neha Agarwal with HSBC. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 7

Hi, congratulations on the results and thank you for taking my question. On the OpEx side, the delivery so far has been quite strong despite, some one off expenses. Is there upside to your guidance? Could you have better cost and that could drive your bottom line? Or are there any other costs or investments that you're looking to make that could weigh in on the second half of the year?

Speaker 7

And my second question is on the credit book. The originations I saw this quarter disbursements were slightly down quarter on quarter. Any particular dynamics there? The NPL ratio is increasing as expected, but are you comfortable with the risk? If you can share more color about the uptake of the working capital, is it directed more towards the SMBs?

Speaker 7

Any particular type of merchants who are more willing to take the loan or whom you are more willing to lend to? Any color on the credit book would be very helpful. Thanks for

Speaker 4

the question, Ira. Mateus here. I'll start by addressing the credit one and then we talk about OpEx. So regarding credits, in terms of quality, I think we're really happy with the performance of the portfolio. So no worries whatsoever.

Speaker 4

But in terms of growth, I think the message here is that when we think about the growth in disbursements, it's not going to be linear over time. What we're doing now is that basically we're making a series of experiments to test new criterias in the cohorts. And whenever the results from those tests are positives, we roll out new offerings, and then we unlock a bigger wave of disbursements that has been the behavior of the past quarters as well. And when we look at the guidance, we guided for a portfolio above 800,000,000 by the year end. We're already with 712,000,000 in the first half of the year.

Speaker 4

So actually, when we compare to our plan, even though the disbursement for this quarter was a little bit smaller than the previous one, we're actually above the initial plan. And that said, when we look ahead, I'd say in terms of the economics of the product, we're becoming increasingly comfortable over time. I think the challenge and the opportunity now is that there is a lot to be done in terms of improving the conversion of the approved pool, but also increasing the percentage of clients to which we extend our credit line as a result of those tests. Keep in mind that when we look at the product nowadays, it's still pretty much fully digital. So with very low participation from the distribution channels, which is key in terms of increasing conversion and penetration in the future.

Speaker 4

So that's pretty much the message around credits. On the OpEx side, I think you are correct. We had a good performance in the first half of the year, especially on the administrative expenses. When we look at administrative expenses, it's down 13% year on year when we look at the 2nd Q. We guided actually for a growth, right?

Speaker 4

So it's becoming market year that we're probably going to land with upside in that line. But more broadly, when we think about operational leverage looking ahead, I think the message here is twofold. So within the operation, when we look at selling expenses and cost to serve specifically, I think we should continue to see operational leverage in the next quarter. So there is still work to be done there. We're probably also going to see tax rates converging more towards the bottom of the range that we provided, the 20% to 25% range.

Speaker 4

I think the place where it's going to become more challenging in the second half is probably going to be financial expenses, simply given to the fact that interest rates are expected to increase in second half versus decreasing the first half. And we also did a sizable buyback, right, which is accretive when we look at EPS over time, but has a short term negative impact to the P and L. So those are pretty much the main movements that we see going ahead.

Speaker 7

Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Thiago Binsfeldch with Goldman Sachs. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 8

Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking questions. The first one is on peak. You mentioned that this has been an area of challenge. I wonder how you see the evolution of the peak agenda.

Speaker 8

We're following news of peak that today. We also see within the open banking agenda some initiatives with not direct payments. So how are you preparing for those changes? And do you think there can be a meaningful impact to PPV? And I can ask my second question

Speaker 3

after that. Thank you. Hi, Thiago. I believe that the it was, chopping a little bit. The whole question is around fixed dynamics, correct?

Speaker 8

Yeah, that's right, Lia.

Speaker 3

Perfect. So let me give an overview of, peaks dynamics in terms of the performance and then how we see the outlook regarding peaks. So I think the first message is we continue to see strong growth from increased penetration of peaks QR code, dynamic QR code, which is the peaks that we see as a payment method, right? That's been true both within our base and the markets based on, central bank figures. So that's been an evolution beyond our expectations at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 3

So fixed penetration is now higher than we initially expected. I think for us, this is net positive, right? As we said many times before, because number 1, we see peaks as being incremental to our overall volumes. So if you look at the overall, I think the way to illustrate this is the following. If you look at electronics penetration and how that has evolved as a percentage of household consumption over the past year, we see that penetration of credit has more or less remained stable, even slightly increasing year on year.

Speaker 3

While if you look at the sum of debit plus PIKs plus prepaid volumes, this has increased significantly, right? So from 25% around a year ago to around 33% today. So what this means to us is that, this volume is taking there is a slight cannibalization of debit, but overall it's taking volume from cash. So the reason why it's accretive for us is because we monetize this in line with net MDRs for debit, but it is accretive from the perspective of more engagement with our banking solutions and naturally more cash in and more overall deposits. So kind of that's kind of the big message around PIK's performance so far.

Speaker 3

When we look ahead, I think there's a roadmap, right, that we know, that the Central Bank has put out. There's an evolution around PIK's NFC. And I guess our take on this is the following. All of this evolution opens up opportunities for us to improve client experience, for us to evolve our product development roadmap around the fixed rails. So there are a lot of there's a lot that we have already developed on PIX rails and there's a lot that we will continue to do.

Speaker 3

We think that PIX NFC may accelerate the cannibalization of debit volumes as I just described, because it's going to greatly improve the user experience, right, around paying through peaks. But as I just said, I think this is accretive for us. And our mission here is to make sure that we stay ahead of the Central Bank's roadmap, kind of anticipating how we can turn this regulatory evolution into better products and better solutions to our clients. I think the same is true regarding open banking. Naturally, we expect that with more access to data and an ability to create better product experience, we can also gain from that by giving better experience and solutions to our clients.

Speaker 3

So I think that's the overall message.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Lia. That's helpful color. And if I may, a second question on software, just to follow-up. What do you think are the main KPIs we should follow if execution is going according to plan? I think in the past you may have provided some guidance on margins in that segment, if you could provide an update on that as well would be helpful.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Sure, Thiago. So, good question. So I think the 2 main metrics sort of to look out for, which are in line with the 2 pieces of the strategy that we communicated in the Investor Day is number 1, how we are evolving in cross selling financial services to linked clients. Evolving in cross selling financial services to Linx clients. So we disclosed the metric of TPV overlap.

Speaker 3

TPV is, of course, only one part of the story, right? Because as we, get better at cross selling financial services to software clients, we also want to advance on the banking and on the credit opportunity. But for now, sort of tracking this TPV overlap is an indicator of our traction regarding this part of the strategy. And I think the second, big message that we brought out is the opportunity to, increase efficiency within the software segments. And so monitoring margin evolution is an important aspect of this naturally.

Speaker 3

We did talk about margin behavior this quarter. There was an one off effect from restructuring costs. But in the long run, we continue to see still opportunity to improve margins within the software segment. So I think those are the that's kind of the main those 2 main things to track.

Speaker 8

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Thank you, John.

Operator

So sorry. Our next question comes from Caio Prato with UBS. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 9

Hey, everyone. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity for expressed questions. I have 2 on my side, please, mostly related to your cash. The first one is in terms of the tender offer of your bond.

Speaker 9

Should we expect the usage of own cash for this operation and also given your current cash generation? Or should we expect the issuance of a new bond with probably lower cost? And by the end of the day, when we think about your P and L in the 3rd Q and in the coming quarters, what type of impacts could we expect as we will probably see savings related to the interest rates and also a potential tax shield for the remainder of the bond that was not bought. If you could help us walk through the impacts would be good, please. And the second one, also looking at your cash generation, just would like to understand what could be the next steps here.

Speaker 9

Where could we see the usage of cash if it could go mortgage repayment or credit product? And if you plan to open a new buyback program as you almost completed Tier 1 announced last year in August? Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Kaj. Matias here. So first, let's talk about the tender of the bonds. In terms of impact to the P and L, the buyback of the bonds itself had a neutral impact in terms of financial expenses upfront. But when we look ahead, there is indeed a relevant savings going ahead because, first, we saw up a debt that was running at CDI plus 3%, which is the bond for other loans in our balance sheet that are going to be with much lower spreads.

Speaker 4

So to the first part of your question in terms of the balance sheet itself, we're basically swapping the bonds with other debt instruments. It's not going to be a bond issuance. And they run at a much lower spread. And like you mentioned, besides the savings in terms of having lower financial expenses on these new debt instruments, we now also have the tax shield on the financial expenses that were associated with the bonds, both because these new issuances are happening onshore and also because in the tender offer of the bonds, we included a provision to switch the debt holder of the bonds to a local entity. So when you add that together, you have a positive impact to the P and L moving ahead.

Speaker 4

The second part of the question, I think, was around what we're going to do in terms of the cash generation going forward, right?

Speaker 9

Right. And if you plan to open a new buyback program as well.

Speaker 4

Yes. So first, in terms of opening a new buyback plan, we still view buybacks as very attractive capital allocation, especially considering that we are, in our view, outperforming the expectations outlined in the initial plan in the Investor Day. But when we consider additional share buybacks, we need to also remain mindful that our business is growing very fast, and we have a lot of new avenues for future growth that may require additional capital. So in short, I think we haven't yet made a decision on whether we're going to announce a new buyback program on second half or not. But it's certainly something that we will evaluate and provide updates on the coming quarters.

Speaker 4

Now in terms of uses for the cash that we're generating, when we look at the capital structure for the company, we think we are in a very good and strong position. The company had a net cash position of around BRL5 billion prior to the buybacks. And even after repurchasing around BRL1 billion in this first half plus July, the company should still increase its adjusted net cash position simply given the fact that the cash flow generation from the business has been really strong. And in terms of what we're going to do with that cash generation, I think the message is pretty much the same. We continuously evaluate the best use of capital in order to maximize shareholder returns.

Speaker 4

We feel that if there is an opportunity to buy back shares given how discounted the company is versus our plan, we can do so. What we need to balance here again is the opportunity for the company to grow and to deploy capital in the business itself. When we look at our industry, I think it's a huge industry, and we want to ensure that we have the firepower to pursue the opportunities that we have, especially within credit. So that's pretty much the message here.

Speaker 9

Okay, Matias, this is clear. Thank you very much.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Georgios Curi with Morgan Stanley. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 10

I wanted to ask go back, I'm sorry, to the question about selling expenses. For the and I know you're looking at it on a quarter on quarter basis, but given the investments in people and how long they take to take results, I think it's just better to look at them on a year on year basis. But your marketing expenses are up 27% year on year and for a revenue growth of 8% year on year. So that's 3x revenues and relative to TPV is around 2x TPV. And so I went back and look at that relationship last year, and it's not necessarily getting any better.

Speaker 10

So I wanted to go back and ask to what extent maybe the business is getting more competitive and maybe it's not getting more competitive on prices, but it's just getting more competitive on the ability, on the productivity of the infrastructure that you need in order to generate revenue because there's just more and more companies looking for the same pool of clients. So if you can just give us a little bit more confidence on why we're going to see a reversal of this negative trend. And then my second question is on your banking ARPOC, which was down 13% quarter on quarter, even though your loan book has really exploded, right, it's up like many folds year on year, 35%, I think, quarter on quarter. And rates were lower on the float, meaningfully lower if you look at it on a year on year basis. But on a quarter on quarter basis, average rates were only like 5% lower.

Speaker 10

So can you just walk us through why your banking ARPC was down 13% quarter on quarter? Thanks.

Speaker 4

Yes, Jorge. So I'll start from the last question and then we'll talk about selling. In terms of the banking ARPAK, the revenues from credits are not included in the banking ARPAK. It's basically the transactional banking revenues plus loading. So the main driver that explains why banking ARPAK went down quarter on quarter is mainly CDI.

Speaker 4

So CDI actually went down 6.9% quarter on quarter, and that pretty much covers the gap. Now in terms of Currently,

Speaker 10

maybe for your quota, is there any reason why the credit revenues are not included in the banking matter pack?

Speaker 4

Yes. The way that we see the business, we look at credits on a standalone piece. And then when we talk about banking on our segmentation and reporting, we decided to only include the floating and transactional piece. So it's basically a decision on how we disclose the numbers.

Speaker 10

Got it. Thanks.

Speaker 3

And also, Jorge, just to complement Matteo's answer on this. Remember that we extend credit to only a small amount of clients where whereas we have a very high penetration of banking, right? So if we were to include credit revenues in our ARPACK, there would be a huge sort of average effect because you're diluting this small cohort of clients that has credit in a big banking base, right? So it doesn't make sense to us to include for that reason. So maybe, Matthew is on selling.

Speaker 4

Yes. So on selling, maybe I'll start with the dynamics that we expect as a percentage of revenues. And then, Lia can add on your piece about the relationship between selling and competition. So in terms of the selling expenses, the way we see it, given the nature of the business, there is a lag between upfront investments in sales teams and the resulting benefits, and the same is true for marketing. So every time that we either hire new sales team or do a marketing campaign, we get the OpEx upfront.

Speaker 4

And then it generates an increase in sales over time. And it takes time to build this new portfolio of clients and to dilute selling as a percentage of revenues, given the recurring nature of the business. So it's a different dynamic from a transactional business, where you really get the revenues at the same time that you spend the money. The way that we see, we did an increase in investments in the 1st Q due to Big Brother Brazil, and also because we're building out the specialist sales force. So it's true that when you look at the annual comparison for selling expenses, it increases.

Speaker 4

But I think the reason why we're really confident that we're going to see dilution in the coming quarters is because it's already happening. So when you look at the first Q, selling was 17.2% as a percentage of revenues. 2nd Q, it's down to 16.4%. And as we mature the investments in the sales personnel that we hired, we're looking at the productivity and the numbers that are coming from those investments. We're confident that we're going to produce the bigger client base, the bigger TPV, and then the dilution will follow.

Speaker 4

Jia, do you want to add on the relationship versus the competitive environment?

Speaker 3

Sure. So, Javier, we've talked a few times about this, right? So I think in general terms, we kind of agree with you on the assessment of how the acquiring industry will evolve regarding growth, right? So big message is we're going to see less growth in the industry when we think about acquiring specifically over the next 5 years than we saw in the last 5 years. But I think we see competitive dynamics play out a little bit differently from what you mentioned.

Speaker 3

So I think a number of first important messages, as we emphasized in the Investor Day and since then, there's still a lot of room for us to grow in financial services beyond payments. And we've seen a clear trend around all players offering more complete solutions, right? So this is not something exclusive to Stone. I think the overall industry has moved away from pure play acquiring to more complete financial solutions offerings. And given that we still have a large opportunity to improve monetization beyond payments and penetrate more on banking and on credit, this is how we see, the investments in selling that we make, right?

Speaker 3

So this will drive better returns on our investments in selling in the long term. So that's how we see the equation. I think the second piece of the answer revolves around what we've already talked about as well, which is as we have observed in recent quarters, within acquiring what we believe is that the trend will continue to be one where players focus their growth within specific niches of the market, be those specific tiers of clients or specific regions. So for example, incumbents as a group gaining more share in the key account space, even though as a group incumbents are losing share. Also, you know, dynamics where we see regional pockets of growth and regional competitive dynamics playing out.

Speaker 3

So I think that the message is, yes, in an industry that grows less in the future, we have to be better and better at assessing where the pockets of growth are. But as we continue to evolve our operating model, and we talked about specialist Salesforce as one example of this, but it's not the only one, we continue to make sure that we can stay ahead and really understand where these pockets of growth are within our focus, which is serving MS and Bs and continue to grow and gain share within MS and Bs. So I think as a result of these two factors, future growth rates in acquiring will be lower overall, and this is already implied in our TPV TPV long term guidance that we gave in the Investor Day. Just remember, we talked about 13% CAGR in terms of acquiring TPV towards 2027. So this is built into a dynamics of what we understand the industry evolution to be.

Speaker 3

But our focus is a lot more on growth as a result of more monetization coming from the clients that we onboard to our ecosystem.

Speaker 10

Thanks for that detailed answer.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Jorge.

Operator

Our next question comes from Gustavo Schrodinger with Bradesco BBI. You can open your microphone.

Speaker 11

Hi, good afternoon and congrats on the numbers and thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions were answered, but I'd like to explore a little bit your guidance. It seems to me that it is a little bit conservative at this point because if you analyze the, for example, the TPV, it is running very healthy. And I'm assuming that there is a seasonality in the Q4, maybe that will be, I mean, easily above this 18% growth. Deposits is also growing very fast.

Speaker 11

Credit portfolio, take rate is above the 2.49 percent as you expected. Well, net income is running, also assuming the seasonality in the Q4 is running to be above this R1.9 billion dollars for the year. So why are you still keeping this R1.9 billion dollars as a minimum? Do you think that it is a conservative approach? Should we indeed expect something above BRL2 billion or BRL2.1 billion for the year?

Speaker 11

That would be reasonable. That's my question. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Hi, Gustavo. Pedro here. Thank you for the question. I think I'll try to provide the whole concept. And I think we emphasize in our Investor Day, I think we transition to a policy of providing annual guidance, right?

Speaker 2

So unless there is an extremely material change in the business or in the macro environment, I don't believe that we anticipate revisiting our guidance by mid year. So and also when we look at the numbers, I think the guidance, as you mentioned, the guidance provided for the year, they are kind of a set they set the floor for our key indicators. So for most of these, we are indeed seeing more positive trends. I think you're right. And we do expect to exceed our targets.

Speaker 2

But I think it's part of the game. So the only metric, as you mentioned, that may prove more challenging is really car TPV as we are really witnessing stronger growth in fixed transactions, which were not included in the TPV metric we provided for guidance. Despite being monetized in line with net MDRs for debit transactions. So peak QR code penetration in the market within our client base has been higher than we anticipated when we set our guidance in November last year. So this would affect our overall volume mix with less car TPV, specifically on debit and more on peak QR code.

Speaker 2

But in general terms, I think we're keeping the guidance as I mentioned before.

Speaker 11

Okay. Very clear. And just a follow-up here, very clear your point about the car TPV and the peaks potential impacts and about interest rates. So anything that you see here that could change or could impact our guidance as now we have a different environment or different expectations for rates? Anything that you could comment here would be great.

Speaker 11

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Gustavo, Matheus here. So when we think about interest rates, there are going to be a drag on second half. Again, first half, I think the expectation was that interest rates would decrease. When we look now, they are expected to increase on the second half. But we need to keep in mind that when we did the Investor Day and provided the guidance in November, the interest rate curve was not that low as well.

Speaker 4

So there is a negative headwind there, but it's not really material and not enough to change the guidance.

Speaker 11

Okay, very clear. Thank you very much.

Operator

Our next question comes from Yuri Fernandes with JPMorgan.

Speaker 8

Hey, guys. Thank you and congrats again. Quick one on Huguen and do Sul. I think this was a topic to discuss in the past quarter. You're giving grace periods like subscription free for some clients.

Speaker 8

Any impact to this quarter? Like what was the final number a year and how if you exclude the Eu Granite du Sault, how your earnings would have behaved? That's the first one. And a second one on, I think Lia already explored a lot the banking initiatives, but just on deposits, I know you are testing these remuneration for deposits, putting these on your the pilot test is on your release. If you can provide more color on timing, what you plan to do and the risks of cannibalization of your deposits free of yields nowadays.

Speaker 8

So just some color on the remuneration of deposit strategy here. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Hi, Pedro speaking. I'll kick off with the Rio Grande do Sul question. Well, I'm happy to say that the impact was smaller than we initially anticipated. And I think this is really thanks to the swift recovery of TPV in the affected region. So good news on that side.

Speaker 2

But overall, we really experienced a negative impact of approximately BRL150 1,000,000 on our TPV in ballpark numbers around BRL10 1,000,000 on our overall results. And just a quick note that this impact was not only due to the TPV reduction, but also because of the series of actions that we really took to support our clients during this critical time when they most needed us. And I'll pass it over to Matias.

Speaker 4

Yes. In terms of the remuneration of deposits, we're still testing. I think we started to disclose on the balance sheet the amounts that we have with time deposit with merchants. We're going to see that's really immaterial yet. And we're basically still testing to ensure that we don't cannibalize the economics of the current banking offering.

Speaker 4

So in terms of timing, I think that during the next quarters, we will gradually extend the pilots to a larger base. But it should only start to make a difference in the balance sheet and in the results next year. I think we shouldn't expect anything big for 2024 on that front.

Speaker 8

Super clear, Matheus. Thank you also, Pedro.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Renato Meloni with Autonomous Research.

Speaker 12

Hi, everyone. Thanks here for the questions. So my first one is related to the credit portfolio. Given the large success that you had so far and look at the guidance, I think it would be interesting to explore a bit what went well and what was ahead of your expectation here. And also if you could maybe provide some KPI or some way to look at the growth for the upcoming years up to the 2027 guidance that you provided?

Speaker 12

My second question is somewhat related to this, but it's about financial expenses. You've been able to keep them relatively low by using a lot of your own cash generation. But then going back to your comments on the large growth opportunities that you have and the potential cash usage of that. Do you see financial expenses growing further? And then if that's the case, if it's there a timeline do you expect for that to happen?

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Renato. So first on the financial expenses piece, I think like I said, even after the share buyback of BRL 1,000,000,000, when you look at the adjusted net cash generation for the company, I think we're still going to be in a position where we continue to generate cash. And naturally, unless we have an additional decision to allocate capital elsewhere, we're going to keep reinvesting and it's going to continue to be a positive effect on our financial expenses. That said, when we look especially for the dynamics of the second half of this year, I think the big factor that is going to change is really the effect of interest rates. When we look at the first half, interest rates decreased substantially and that naturally helps financial expenses.

Speaker 4

2nd half, I think the expectation now is that it's probably going to increase. So I think that's the main dynamic there, interest rates. In terms of the other dynamics, reinvest in cash generation and also spreads, I think they are trending really well. Now, in terms of the credits, I'll kick start talking a little bit about what went right versus what went wrong, and then pass it over to Liet to talk about the future. So like I mentioned in the beginning, I think when you look at the economics of the credit product, we're really becoming increasingly confident with the profitability of the product.

Speaker 4

I think that's an area where we were really cautious at the beginning, given the results that we had in the 1st wave. So I would say that when you look at the core offering that we have of credit within SMBs, it's really trending well, and we're becoming more and more comfortable. That's why when you look at the provisions as well, it has started to come down, right, from the 20% levels to 18%, and over time, it's going to continue to converge towards our models. I think we've mentioned this a few times, but when you look at the portfolio, the 700,000,000 portfolio, the vast majority of that portfolio is really on what we call this core offering around SMBs. But of course, embedded in this number, we're running a series of tests.

Speaker 4

So we're running tests on micro, tests on different profiles within SMBs, different kinds of credit ratings. And this is a continuous effort where we really test and learn a lot. There are many mistakes that we did, many things that we got right. But I would say that net net, the main message here is that we're really optimistic around the economics of the product. In terms of challenges and opportunities moving ahead, I think in terms of distribution, it's really a place where we have a lot to improve and there's a huge opportunity.

Speaker 4

Because like I said, when we look at the offering nowadays, it's still pretty much fully digital. So very low participation from distribution channels and this is probably going to be key to increase conversion and penetration in the future and therefore grow the portfolio.

Speaker 3

I don't

Speaker 4

know if you want to add, Lia.

Speaker 3

No. I think perhaps, Nana, to just add a little bit on our perspectives on the longer term guidance, right, regarding the credit portfolio. Naturally, when we consider this long term guidance, it's not restricted to what Matheus is calling the core offer, which is working capital loans for SMBs. So there's an extensive roadmap around other credit solutions. We talked about some products that we have started to pilot, so credit cards for both TON and STON, the GINA FASIO product within SMBs, which is kind of an overdraft solution.

Speaker 3

So the message is there's a big opportunity. We have work to do in terms of building more relevant capabilities that will enable us to expand the product offering, so the types of credit solutions that we offer our clients. But we're confident with the guidance this year and the long term guidance as well.

Speaker 12

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Anat.

Operator

Our next question comes from Gabriel Gousseau with Citi.

Speaker 13

Hey, guys. Good evening. One quick question about peer to merchant fixed pricing. You guys seeing any pressure so far? Do you envision seeing pressure in the rates that you're charging?

Speaker 13

You're saying something similar to debit levels we hear from competition too. But if you do understand the economics on that probably much better than the debit with less cost associated to that, so anything to share on that front? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Hi, Gabriel here. So in terms of pricing fixed P2M, basically, we price it in line with debit net MDRs. It naturally depends on the client tier. So prices will be lower for bigger merchants, higher for smaller merchants, but essentially, I think that's the message. It's naturally a win win, right, for us and for our clients because they pay less.

Speaker 3

We gain the same and it's accretive to our banking engagements. I think that's the message. So there's a value add around offering PIXQ dynamic QR codes, right? Because it greatly facilitates our client's ability to reconcile this as a payment method. If they were to use sort of a P2P type PIX transfer, that would be a challenge.

Speaker 3

And that's very relevant within SMBs. So there's a clear value add around this offer and we don't see, you know, any pressure on pricing. And that's kind of the dynamics.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

There are no questions at this time. This concludes the question and answer session. Questions that were not answered will be addressed later by the StoneCo team. I will now turn over to Pedro Zener, CEO at StoneCo for final considerations.

Speaker 2

Well, I just want to thank you all for participating in the call and hope to see you again in the next quarter. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes StoneCo presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
StoneCo Q2 2024
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