Americanas promises to generate cash only in 2025 – 11/16/2023 – Market

Americanas, which released its 2022 balance sheet this Thursday (16), with a loss of R$12.9 billion, also announced its business plan for the coming years. According to the company, its objective is to achieve, in 2025, a cash generation (Ebitda – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of more than R$ 1.5 billion (already discounting rents).

Last year, the retailer had a negative EBITDA of R$6.2 billion. A negative EBITDA means that the company is unable to generate enough value to cover costs through its main activity. In other words, in 2024, the retailer will have more expenses to be paid than revenue to meet its financial commitments.

After reviewing the financial statements for 2021, the first nine months of 2022 and the conclusion of the last quarter of last year, Americanas discovered that it has a negative net equity of R$26.7 billion and real net debt of R$26. 3 billion.

The company has not yet given details on how it expects to reach EBITDA of R$1.5 billion in two years.

The statement only says that the business plan, which is already underway, “promotes greater assertiveness in products for resale, as well as new pricing models and assortment modulation to expand sales in the physical channel and the company’s gross margin.”

The text also highlights as pillars of this “new Americanas” the “renovation of physical stores, optimization of occupancy costs and review of processes to offer excellence in the consumer journey.”

More details should be presented from 10 am this Thursday, in a conference call for the market in general led by the president of Americanas, Leonardo Coelho, and the financial and investor relations director, Camille Loyo Faria.

The retailer claims to have made “adjustments and improvements in areas such as marketing, technology and logistics structure based on the new context in which the digital platform operates, the renegotiation of contracts and changes in the organizational structure, with an improvement in operational expenses.”

“We believe that, with this plan, Americanas will be ready to renew its relevant role in Brazilian retail. It won’t be easy, it won’t be simple, but it will be done,” said Coelho, in the statement.

Creditor banks will have R$12 billion of debt converted into shares in the retailer

The company’s next step is to approve its judicial recovery plan with its largest creditors, the banks.

“After suffering results fraud practiced by the former board, the company has focused its efforts on business continuity, which will gain more momentum from the capital increase of R$ 12 billion that will be carried out by reference shareholders and capitalization of competitive debt by of creditors also in the amount of R$ 12 billion, as well as with the approval of the Judicial Recovery Plan by creditors”, says the statement.

The plan foresees prioritizing the payment of creditors who agree to receive up to R$12,000 upfront in a single installment, “in addition to special alternatives for Class 3 supplier creditors”, says the text, referring to unsecured creditors (creditors without real guarantee ).

Americanas expects the general meeting of creditors to be held later this year.

9,000 laid off, one store closed every 2.5 days and 16 evictions

The company’s operations throughout 2023 were severely impacted.

In the first seven months of the crisis, more than 9,000 employees were laid off. According to the most recent monthly monitoring report by the company’s judicial administrators, on November 5, the group had 33,342 employees. In mid-January, Americanas had 43,123 employees.

Between January 19, when its judicial recovery began, and November 5, Americanas closed 121 stores — which means closing the operations of one point of sale every 2.5 days, on average. Today, the retailer has 1,759 stores. In January, there were 1,880.

The company’s customer base fell 12.4% between January and September, to 42.3 million.

According to a monthly monitoring report by judicial administrators sent to the CVM at the beginning of October, Americanas has 16 eviction actions underway due to non-payment.