Earnings Call Transcript - STNE Q4 2024

Operator, Operator

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to StoneCo's Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. By now, everyone should have access to our earnings release. The company also posted a presentation to go along with its call. All material can be found online at investors.stone.co. Throughout this conference call, the company will be presenting non-IFRS financial information, including adjusted net income, adjusted net cash and adjusted basic EPS. These are important financial measures for the company, but are not financial measures as defined by IFRS. Reconciliations of the company's non-IFRS financial information to the IFRS financial information appears in today's press release. 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 actual 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. In hindsight, I would like to highlight that the full conference call will last until 7:15 pm BRT time, by which time the company will take no further questions. Analysts that are still in line after that time will have their questions addressed by the IR team. Joining the call today is Stone's CEO, Pedro Zinner; the CFO and IRO, Mateus Scherer; the Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lia Matos; and the Head of IR, Roberta Noronha. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Pedro Zinner. Please proceed.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Thank you, operator, and good evening. As detailed in our Annual Shareholder Letter, 2024 was a pivotal year of execution, marked by significant progress despite market challenges. We strengthened our position for sustainable growth, successfully executing our strategy, delivering exceptional client service and generating value for shareholders. Our key accomplishments reflect substantial progress across our three strategic priorities: MSMB market leadership; enhanced client engagement; and scalable platform growth. This is clearly demonstrated by the achievements against our 2024 targets for MSMB card TPV, deposits, MSMB take rate, credit portfolio, adjusted administrative expenses and adjusted net income. With the exception of MSMB card TPV, we exceeded expectations across all other key performance indicators, demonstrating successful strategy execution. In 2024, MSMB card TPV reached BRL403 billion, representing 15% year-over-year growth. While this fell slightly short of our BRL412 billion guidance due to the faster-than-expected adoption of PIX, total MSMB TPV exceeded expectations, reaching BRL454 billion, a 22% year-over-year increase. Looking ahead to 2025, we are confident in our ability to continue outpacing market growth and expanding our share of the MSMB payments market. Retail deposits closed 2024 at BRL8.7 billion, exceeding our BRL7 billion guidance. This success reflects the strong performance of our bundled payments and banking offerings and increasing client engagement with our banking solutions. While this is a significant milestone, we view it as the initial phase of our strategy to establish Stone accounts as the primary financial hub for our clients. As we enhance our value proposition with a comprehensive product ecosystem extending beyond payments, we project retail deposit growth to outpace TPV growth. In 2025, we will focus on key initiatives, including our investment products and workflow tools to further accelerate deposit growth. Our second priority, enhancing client engagement, yielded strong results beyond core monetization metrics like TPV and deposits. We achieved an MSMB take rate of 2.55% in 2024, exceeding our 2.49% guidance. This success reflects not only disciplined pricing and payments, but also the growing contribution from our banking and credit solutions. Our credit portfolio reached BRL1.2 billion in 2024, significantly exceeding our BRL800 million target while maintaining controlled risk and healthy profitability. Our non-performing loans over 90 days remained at a controlled 3.61%. These results highlight the success of our 2023 credit relaunch and represent a key step in our strategic evolution toward becoming our clients' primary financial provider. Our third priority, scalable platform growth, focuses on delivering continuously evolving value to clients' profitability. This is reflected in our net income of BRL2.2 billion, exceeding our BRL1.9 billion guidance despite macroeconomic headwinds and over BRL100 million in negative impacts from accounting methodology changes for membership fees. The strong performance resulted from successful monetization, ongoing efficiency improvements and the initial benefits of cost control initiatives as evidenced by adjusted administrative expenses of BRL994 million compared to our BRL1.125 billion guidance. I am extremely pleased with our strong performance in 2024 and the progress we made executing our strategy. We remain focused on empowering our clients by simplifying their financial lives and providing the solutions they need. Now, I'll hand it over to Lia, to discuss our fourth quarter 2024 results and provide further strategic updates. Lia?

Lia Matos, Strategy and Marketing Officer

Thank you, Pedro, and good evening, everyone. Taking a closer look into our fourth quarter '24 results, we're pleased with our performance in the quarter. We were able to deliver solid results despite a less favorable macroeconomic environment towards the end of the year when yield curves trended upwards. In spite of this scenario, we decided not to increase prices for our clients in the quarter, given the important holiday season. As you can see on slide four, we posted strong bottom-line results. Our adjusted EBT grew 22% compared with the fourth quarter of '23, while adjusted net income grew 18% over the same period. Adjusted net margin was 18.4% in the quarter, 1 percentage point higher year-over-year. As a result of the execution of share buybacks throughout 2024, our adjusted basic EPS growth exceeded net income growth, increasing 26% compared to the fourth quarter of '23. These results, as seen on slide five, stem primarily from an 11% year-over-year increase in total revenues for the quarter, which resulted from active client base growth and higher monetization of clients among different client segments. In addition to that, we saw significant gains in efficiency while we continue to invest for future growth. As you can see on the right side of the slide, we are now introducing gross profit as a key measure of our performance. Gross profit is measured as our revenues deducted by cost of services and financial expenses. We believe this metric better represents the nature of our operation and our ability to monetize clients through multiple levers, such as payments, banking and credit. On the cost side, it considers the cost to fund our operation as well as the direct cost to serve our client base. Our gross profit in the quarter reached BRL1.7 billion, growing 13% year-over-year. This growth ahead of revenue growth reflects a lower level of provision for loan losses as well as a lower cost to fund our business. Note that on a quarter-over-quarter basis, we started to be impacted by the higher yield curve. While we had a hit in our financial expenses from higher rates in the fourth quarter, we understand the end of the year as a critical moment for our clients. And thus, we took the decision to not increase prices in the fourth quarter and wait for the beginning of the year instead. On slide six, we dig deeper in our Financial Services segment performance, starting with our payments business for MSMBs. Our MSMB payments active client base increased 19% year-over-year to 4.1 million clients. This represents an acceleration in our addition of clients to 157,000 from 108,000 in the previous quarter. Net adds performance in the quarter resulted from end of year campaigns, including Black Friday, while churn levels remained under control. While we welcome this acceleration and believe it reflects the strength of our value proposition as well as excellence in distribution, we note that our focus continues to be to guarantee healthy unit economics in every cohort through a dynamic pricing strategy, effective bundling and increased client engagement. I think it is important to remind everyone that net adds dynamics can vary quarter-over-quarter, slightly above or below the average over several quarters. Speaking of engagement, we saw yet again an increase in our heavy user metric this quarter from 34% in the previous quarter to 37% in the fourth quarter. We believe this is a result of both the effectiveness of our payments and banking bundle offers and the launching of new solutions that are accretive over time. MSMB TPV increased 21% year-over-year in the quarter, showing an acceleration compared to previous quarter growth of 20%, driven by card TPV growth of 13%, while PIX continued to grow at much higher rates as adoption continues to accelerate and visibly cannibalize debit volumes as well as cash. PIX continues to open new avenues of product development, such as recently implemented NFC capture, while monetization remains accretive to our ecosystem. In spite of the solid volume growth, we also saw encouraging trends in our take rates, which increased 11 basis points year-over-year, with a soft reduction sequentially due to typical fourth quarter seasonality. As I mentioned, going forward, we will focus more on total gross profit as a better metric to reflect our monetization strategy, achieved through multiple monetization drivers and trade-offs. We believe that take rates are more limited in showing the whole picture, given that we may decide on different balances between solutions given a specific macro environment. Also, as we intend to use our deposits in a more relevant way to fund our operation, which is accretive to us, this would impact take rate while it would be neutral to gross profits. We will, however, continue to disclose this metric in earnings materials and will adapt it to include fixed volumes in TPV when calculating take rates. Moving on to slide seven, we show our banking performance. We continue to see strong growth in our banking active client base, which increased 46% year-over-year to 3.1 million banking clients, outgrowing the increase in our payments client base. The combination of success in our bundle offers and continued engagement with our banking features led to a 42% increase in retail deposits or a strong 28% sequential increase boosted by seasonality, reaching BRL8.7 billion by year-end. As expected, deposits have been growing well above TPV, reaching 6.8% of MSMB TPV in the quarter compared with 6% in the third quarter of '24 and 5.8% in the fourth quarter of '23. Within retail deposits, we have seen a 3.6-fold increase in time deposits, which reached BRL430 million, mostly related to our savings solution. Although still small, this solution has been a key driver of engagement, enabling our clients to save money for specific purposes, and therefore better organize their finances. An important aspect to note is that from the remaining BRL8.3 billion in deposits, we expect to convert a significant portion of it to time deposits by issuing certificates of deposits. This will allow us to utilize such amounts towards funding of our operation. As we pursue this strategy over the coming quarters, we expect to see a shift in our retail deposit mix from deposits from retail clients to on-platform time deposits. This shift will contribute to a better and more efficient capital structure and will significantly reduce the cost to fund our operation, reducing financial expenses. At the same time, we will no longer earn CDI on top of those deposits, which means we will experience a significant reduction in our floating revenues throughout the year as well. The effect will be an accretive outcome to our bottom line as we implement this strategy over time. On slide eight, I'm going to give some highlights of our credit performance. The fourth quarter showed a trend of continuity versus previous quarters with positive results both in growth and in quality. Our credit portfolio reached BRL1.2 billion, increasing 31% in the quarter. This portfolio is comprised of BRL1.1 billion of merchant solutions composed in its majority of working capital solutions to SMBs and BRL114 million of credit card offerings to our clients, mainly to micro clients. Despite the more challenging macroeconomic scenario, we still see credit as an important avenue of growth given the significant opportunity to support our clients through multiple credit offerings where we still have limited presence. Nevertheless, we remain aware of macro trends that may lead to an impact in future disbursements and performance. Credit quality remains healthy, with NPLs 50 to 90 days of 2.47% and NPLs over 90 days of 3.61%, with increases being expected as a natural consequence of portfolio maturation. Regarding provisions, as we have been communicating over the past quarters, we have been gradually reducing the amount of working capital provisions we hold compared with its respective portfolio balance. When we relaunched the solution, we decided to overprovision until we could have a clear view of multiple vintages performance and slowly converge those provisions to the actual expected loss levels. The ratio of accumulated loan loss provision expenses over the working capital portfolio reached 12% in the quarter compared with the 14% in the third quarter and 20% a year ago. Given the current macroeconomic scenario and a conservative approach from our side, we believe this is an appropriate level to stabilize in at the moment. As such, we will now transition away from tracking this ratio to follow more widely used credit metrics. Our coverage ratio currently stands at 331%, which is still at a high-level for comparable credit players in the markets. To summarize, on slide nine, as a result of the performance highlights I just described, our Financial Services segment grew revenues at 11% year-over-year to BRL3.2 billion, with an adjusted EBT growth of 16% reaching BRL700 million and a 90 basis points margin increase to 21.9% in the quarter. The solid results of the year within the Financial Services segment, driven by the successful execution of our strategic priorities around win, engage and scale led us to reach an ROE of 27% in 2024, 5 percentage points higher than in 2023. Finally, on slide 10, I will go through our Software segment performance. As you can see, our execution on cross-selling financial services to software clients has been yielding positive results. We have increased our CTPV overlap 20% year-over-year compared with a 13% growth of overall MSMB card TPV for the same period. Sequentially, we grew CTPV overlap two times higher than our MSMB card TPV growth, which gives us confidence to keep seeking the strategic avenue ahead. On a standalone basis, Software revenue grew 15% year-over-year in the quarter, mainly driven by a good performance in one of our portfolio companies, Reclame Aqui, and the non-recurring revenue of BRL8 million. Software adjusted EBITDA posted a strong 54% growth year-over-year, reaching an all-time high margin since the acquisition of Linx of 21.6%. This margin improvement was largely led by the combination of a strong revenue performance with our continued focus on gaining efficiencies in the operation. As Pedro mentioned, we're pleased with the 2024 results and remain committed and excited to bring more value to our clients throughout 2025, and to continue our journey towards reaching our long-term targets and creating value for our shareholders. Now, I want to pass it over to Mateus to give important updates on our Software segment and discuss in more detail our overall financial performance. Mateus?

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Thank you, Lia, and good evening, everyone. Before we dive into financials, on slide 11, I'd like to briefly update you on our Software division. During our Investor Day in November 2023, we outlined our software strategy focused on cross-selling financial services to four priority verticals and managing our other software assets for efficiency and cash generation. As previously discussed, while executing the cross-sell strategy, we achieved greater success leveraging our financial services distribution channels rather than relying on our software-specific sales force. This insight led us to conclude that owning the software asset isn't essential for executing our cross-selling strategy, although the strategy itself remains relevant. As a result of this shift in how we execute, a larger share of the economics from the cross-sell is now being recognized within our Financial Services segments rather than the softer cash-generating units. Additionally, recent standalone organic growth trends in the Software business prompt us to lower our growth expectations for the segments. These factors, along with a more challenging macroeconomic environment, led us to recognize a goodwill impairment charge of BRL3.6 billion for the software cash-generating units. This impairment is a non-cash accounting adjustment and has been excluded from our adjusted financial results. Regarding our ongoing assessment of strategic alternatives for the software assets, we have received and reviewed several proposals from interested parties. However, as of now, none have met our assessment of the intrinsic value of the assets. Thus, we will continue maximizing the value of the assets and executing our cross-selling strategy as we have done to date. Now let's turn to slide 12 and explore the quarter-over-quarter evolution of our costs and expenses on an adjusted basis. Cost of services increased 10% year-over-year and 2% sequentially, leading to a 130 basis points sequential reduction as a percentage of revenues. This improvement was primarily driven by operational efficiencies in customer support and logistics and lower provisions and losses, thanks to the reversal of a provision that did not materialize. These benefits were partially offset by higher loan loss provisions related to the growth of our credit products. Administrative expenses decreased 2% year-over-year and increased 6% quarter-over-quarter, resulting in a sequential reduction of 10 basis points as a percentage of revenues. This reduction reflects operational leverage achieved in the period. Selling expenses rose by 21% year-over-year and 9% sequentially, increasing 30 basis points as a percentage of revenues. The rise was primarily due to increased investments in our specialty sales team, partially offset by reduced marketing expenses. We continually assess growth opportunities and remain committed to investing where it's value accretive. Financial expenses increased 10% year-over-year and 14% sequentially, or 160 basis points as a percentage of revenue. The sequential increase was primarily driven by the higher yield curve in the quarter. We expect to ramp-up the usage of our deposits as funding for our operation throughout the year, which will enable us to further diversify our liability management while continuing to reduce our average funding spreads. Our other expenses line decreased by 24% year-over-year but remained relatively stable sequentially. As our revenues grew, other expenses as a percentage of revenue declined by 20 basis points. Our effective tax rate was 14.5% in the quarter, down notably from 20% in Q3. This reduction was driven primarily by gains from entities abroad, including the full effect from the partial repurchase of our bonds and the transfer of the remaining portion to a local entity, which allowed us to benefit from the tax incentives on associated interest expenses. Additionally, we benefited from tax incentives under Lei do Bem, which typically peak in the fourth quarter. Turning now to slide 13. Our adjusted net cash position was BRL4.7 billion at quarter-end, representing a sequential decrease of BRL0.2 billion. This decline primarily reflects our ongoing share repurchase activity. We have an active BRL2 billion buyback program, under which BRL608 million or 10.9 million shares were repurchased in the first quarter of 2024. For the full-year, our adjusted net cash decreased by just BRL0.3 billion despite BRL1.6 billion in total share repurchase during 2024, covering both our current and previous buyback programs. Excluding share repurchase activity and the capital we allocated in our credit product, we would have generated BRL1.9 billion in adjusted net cash for the year. Before I finalize, I would like to discuss two additional topics. The first on slide 14, concerns our approach to capital allocation. Throughout the past year, we conducted a comprehensive review of our capital structure, resulting in the creation of an appropriate model to assess our excess capital position based on three key pillars. The first pillar focuses on our capitalization ratio. Considering our business trajectory and rapid growth, we've decided to maintain a minimum common capital ratio at StoneCo equal to 20% of our risk-weighted assets, though this level could be reassessed over time. The second pillar addresses our credit ratings. Given the nature of our operations, maintaining credit rating metrics aligned with our banking peers is essential. Therefore, we have set specific KPIs to monitor regularly, ensuring we maintain at least our current global ratings, which are constrained by the sovereign rating. The third pillar revolves around our adjusted net cash position. We have historically emphasized net cash as a critical indicator of our business capitalization and have accordingly chosen to maintain a positive net cash balance. Based on these pillars, we estimate that as of December 31, we had an excess capital of over BRL3 billion. We expect to return this capital to shareholders over time when value-accretive growth opportunities are not immediately available. Notably, this amount is already net of the BRL1.6 billion distributed in 2024 through our share buyback programs and does not account for any potential capital release from strategic discussions regarding our software division. Finally, turning to slide 15, I'd like to discuss our guidance. At our Investor Day in November 2023, we provided detailed short and long-term guidance metrics, which helped investors clearly understand our strategic direction and enabled transparent tracking of our progress. In 2024, we delivered strong results across these metrics, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our 2027 targets. Now, given the ongoing evolution and increased maturity of our business, we've made certain adjustments to better align our metrics with recent industry dynamics and our increased focus on capital structure while maintaining our strategic priorities. For 2025, we have simplified our guidance to two key financial indicators that best reflect our business performance. The first indicator, adjusted gross profit, captures the consolidated execution of our strategy across our various products and services. The second, adjusted basic EPS, incorporates both our capacity to grow efficiently and benefits from the optimization of our capital structure. The simplified guidance approach enhances our flexibility while maintaining disciplined tracking of our core value drivers. As for our long-term outlook, our 2027 guidance maintains our original projections for retail deposits and credit portfolio. However, we've adjusted our MSMB CPTV metric to MSMB TPV to include PIX volumes, reflecting industry developments and the importance of PIX following its widespread adoption in the markets. Additionally, we've replaced our MSMB take rate guidance with gross profits. Gross profits, as previously explained, accounts for revenues minus cost of services and financial expenses, capturing the true economics of our business. It also accounts for lower floating revenue resulting from increased use of deposits as funding, which despite lowering the take rate remains accretive to our bottom line due to reduced fund costs. Lastly, we replaced our adjusted administrative expenses and adjusted net income guidance with adjusted basic EPS, as EPS effectively captures our overall bottom line performance while allowing greater flexibility in capital allocation decisions. For 2025, on slide 16, we expect adjusted gross profit above BRL7.05 billion and adjusted basic EPS above BRL8.6 per share, reflecting year-over-year growth of 14% and 18%, respectively. This EPS calculation assumes a share count of 279.5 million shares, taking into account the repurchase of 33.5 million shares since our Investor Day. Moving to slide 17, our updated guidance for 2027 projects MSMB TPV surpassing BRL670 billion, implying a 2024 to 2027 CAGR above 14%. Adjusted gross profit is expected to exceed BRL10.2 billion, translating to a CAGR of over 18%. Adjusted basic EPS is expected to exceed BRL15 per share, representing a CAGR of over 27%. Notably, despite aggressive share repurchase, our implicit adjusted net profit guidance remains at BRL4.3 billion, indicating an upgrade in our original implicit guidance for EPS. To wrap up, I would like to pass it over to Pedro for some final remarks.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Thank you, Mateus. Finally, on slide 18, I'd like to acknowledge our consistent track record of delivering strong results over recent years. Over the past two years, we have repeatedly exceeded market consensus and delivered on our commitments, reflecting disciplined execution and strategic clarity. Moving forward, our goal remains clear: maximizing long-term intrinsic business value growth measured on a per share basis rather than merely emphasizing overall company size or scale. As we conclude 2024 and enter 2025, we recognize potential macroeconomic challenges, but remain firmly committed to delivering sustainable long-term value creation. Our strategy remains focused on disciplined execution, prudent capital allocation and enhancing intrinsic business value per share. We deeply appreciate the trust, support, and partnership from our shareholders as we navigate this journey together. The road ahead is filled with opportunity, and we are more determined than ever to drive sustainable growth and lasting success. With that said, we are now ready to open the call to questions.

Operator, Operator

Okay. At this time, we are going to open it up for questions and answers. Our first question comes from Eduardo Rosman with BTG.

Eduardo Rosman, Analyst

Hi. Hi, everyone. Congrats on the numbers. Two questions here. The first one on your banking solution, if you could share with us why do you think you are outperforming, right, performing really well and where do you see room for improvement? And the second question, it's on the capital structure, right? What's your view on dividends, right, given the very big excess capital and the ongoing share buyback program? Why not distribute dividends as well? Thanks.

Lia Matos, Strategy and Marketing Officer

Hi, Rosman, Lia here. Thank you for the question. I'm going to address the first one and then pass it to Pedro. The key message regarding banking is that we continue to see deposits grow faster than total payment volume. This growth in deposits is driven by clients increasingly engaging with our banking solutions. This engagement is primarily due to two factors. First, our success in integrating payments and banking over the past few years has improved significantly. Second, as we further develop our banking roadmap with new solutions, client engagement with our platform increases. Essentially, we have captured most of the value related to cash because we process a significant amount of client cash through total payment volume, which then translates into deposits in banking accounts. Additionally, as we continue to introduce more solutions, deposits remain in accounts for longer periods, resulting in a positive trend for deposits. In the fourth quarter, we experienced seasonal impacts on deposits due to the holiday season, which is expected. Some of that seasonal trend has been reversed in the first quarter, but the overall growth trend for deposits remains unchanged. We expect deposits to continue growing faster than total payment volume as we enhance our banking solutions. Our development focuses on addressing the evolving workflow needs of our clients. For example, we launched a simplified payroll solution that we are improving significantly this year and introduced various investment products for clients to save for different goals. We have a strong roadmap ahead, and we anticipate this trend to continue. Now, I'll pass it to Pedro for the next question.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Thank you, Lia. Thank you, Rosman, for the question. I think the first point that I think we have to recognize is that we evolved a lot in terms of providing transparency in terms of how we allocate capital within the company, right? You might recall that, that was part of our commitment in our last call to provide you some visibility in terms of our framework. And I think, in some ways, I think we evolved a lot. But just as a wrap I think over the past 12 months, we have already returned more than BRL2 billion in terms of share buybacks, right? So this really demonstrates both, I think, our commitment in terms of returning capital to shareholders and actually our ability to execute this distribution efficiently when we deem appropriate. However, having said that, I think at this time, we are not committing to specific targets in terms of how we're going to allocate capital in terms of distribution. I think it's going to be through dividends or buybacks. We do expect to provide you with some more visibility over the next quarters or so.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Yes. And if I may add, Pedro. Mateus here, Rosman. I think the main message is that we see this as a journey. So step one was basically defining the amount of excess capital that we have. I think we have a clear framework for that. Step two is defining how much, how fast and which instrument we're going to use to give this capital back to shareholders. But something to bear in mind is that we still have an active buyback program for which we have executed until the end of February around BRL1.1 billion. So we remain with BRL900 million available to be bought back under that program. So we still have some room under that program before we need to make a second decision in terms of the instruments that we're going to use. So it's under discussion.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

And it's an evolution process.

Eduardo Rosman, Analyst

Great. Super clear. Thanks a lot and congrats again.

Lia Matos, Strategy and Marketing Officer

Thanks, Rosman.

Mario Pierry, Analyst

Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on the quarter. I have two questions. You mentioned that you did not raise prices in the fourth quarter but began repricing in the first quarter. Could you provide more details on the price increases? What level are we talking about, and does this apply to your entire client base? What has been the impact so far this quarter, as we are nearing the end of the first quarter? I am trying to understand the magnitude of these price increases and whether you plan to continue increasing prices throughout the year. My second question pertains to your guidance. I was surprised that you're providing basic EPS guidance rather than fully diluted EPS, as I believe most investors prefer the fully diluted basis. Could you clarify why you chose to guide basic instead of fully diluted and remind us of the difference in share count between the two? Thank you.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Hi, Mario, this is Pedro. Thanks for your question. I'll address the first part, and Mateus can chime in anytime. Since the significant upward movement in the yield curve at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024, we have actively implemented a major repricing initiative at the start of the first quarter of 2025. Lia mentioned some of this in her comments earlier; we didn't start this in the last part of last year. Over the past few months, we have successfully completed repricing across our eligible Stone client base and are now making progress with our Stone clients. We aim to finalize these adjustments in the coming months. Our repricing strategy has shown to be effective, and we are experiencing low churn on our repricing waves. Additionally, we’re pleased to see the industry shifting its focus towards profitability rather than solely on volume growth. This aligns with our previous statements regarding the competitive landscape and what we have been advocating for the past year.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

And Matt, if I may add, in terms of the extent of the repricing, in terms of the size of the adjustments, we basically calibrated the adjustments looking at the yield curve projections for the mid of the year, which were approximately 15%. And in terms of how many clients we repriced, we basically only excluded those clients we engaged with multiple solutions and that remain profitable despite the higher funding costs given by the rising interest rates. So it was an extensive repricing wave. And in terms of whether we're going to reassess and do more waves throughout the year, I think, by June, we will reassess the market conditions and then determine if additional repricing actions are needed or not. So this is the first question regarding pricing. The second question I think was around the decision to guide basic EPS instead of diluted. So first of all, I think it's a great question. It's something that we debated internally extensively. I think the decision that was made to guide basic EPS this year had two key reasons in mind. The first reason is that when you look at the accounting rules governing the diluted share counts, they can introduce a lot of volatility in the calculation. Just to give a few examples, depending on the share price levels, the performance share units from the turnaround plan may or may not be included in the diluted share count in a binary way. Or a second example, given that we had an IFRS accounting loss in the quarter as a result of the impairment, the diluted is equal to the basic share count in the quarter. And we thought that this year this created some complexity. The second reason is that as you well know, we do not adjust share-based compensation expenses at all. Everything flows through the P&L. So if we were to use the diluted share count in the denominator as well, we feel that this would result in some degree of double counting. So given these factors, we believe that basic EPS this year is the better metric. That was basically the decision.

Mario Pierry, Analyst

Okay. Let me ask then two follow-ups on this program that you said that you have, right, that the turnaround plan and the share count could either be zero or a number based on share price performance. Can you remind us of the size of how many shares are we talking about? And then on the repricing, when should we see the full benefit of this repricing that you did at the beginning of the quarter? Is this going to be already fully evident in second quarter results or is this more in the third quarter? And how do your prices compare to your peers today? Are you just catching up to the level of your peers? Or are you pricing above your peers? Thank you.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Yes, definitely. Regarding the size of the program, we provided extensive details in footnote 2024. By the end of the year, we had 5.9 million shares outstanding for that program, and you can find all the specifics in that footnote. As for the complete impact of the repricing on the P&L, most of it will be experienced in the second quarter. There will be some adjustments throughout the quarter, but they will be smaller in magnitude. How do you compare to your peers now?

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Oh, sorry, I forgot that one. I think that the message, and I think Pedro touched upon this, the whole industry is repricing and passing through the increasing interest rates. So we feel that with the movements that we did in terms of pricing, basically everyone now has very similar prices across the industry. So it's basically a dynamic of catching up to the increase in interest rates and not an increasing spreads per se.

Mario Pierry, Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs.

Tito Labarta, Analyst

Hi, good evening. Thank you for the call and for allowing me to ask my questions. I have two inquiries. First, regarding the EPS guidance you provided, it's based on the share buybacks you've executed. However, as Mateus mentioned, there is still about BRL900 million that could be utilized for additional buybacks. Does this suggest that, while the guidance is above BRL8.6, the EPS could be higher with more buybacks? To clarify, since you've repurchased about 6% of the shares, does that imply a net income growth of around 11%, with the remaining growth attributed to the share buybacks, if my calculations are accurate? My second question concerns the sale of the Software business. I understand you haven't received any offers that reflect your intrinsic value. Are there still potential offers on the table? Is there a possibility that it could still be sold, or is that no longer an option? Thank you.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Thanks for the questions, Tito. I'll take the first one and then pass it over to Pedro for the second one. So in terms of the EPS guidance, I think you are spot on. So when you look at the implicit guidance for net income in 2025, it's BRL2.4 billion. So this reflects an adjusted net income growth of approximately 9% while the EPS guidance exceeds 18%, right? The difference here is primarily driven by the share buybacks executed since 2023. And apart from this, it basically reflects the operational expectations and does not factor in any additional share buybacks, whether from existing or new programs. That said, as we move forward, again, if market conditions are favorable, we will continue repurchasing shares under the current program, which could represent an additional upside to the guidance. So I think you are right in your point.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Hi. Regarding the software asset, I wanted to emphasize what I made clear in the letter to the shareholders. We have been following a disciplined approach in our decisions about our software assets. Despite changes in interest rates and receiving many offers over the past quarter, none of the offers met our established intrinsic value for the asset. Going forward, we will adhere to the strategy defined on Investor Day. We will continue cross-selling financial services to our software clients and focus on maximizing the value of the asset on a standalone basis. A key difference from the past is that we have implemented all necessary synergies to manage this asset effectively and have established the right governance to ensure that owning the asset does not distract from the company's cost strategy.

Tito Labarta, Analyst

Okay, great. Just a follow-up question: is there still a possibility of this being sold, or do you think that all offers have been explored and it’s unlikely to be sold at this point?

Pedro Zinner, CEO

I think at this point, what we'll do is really focus on the execution and maximizing the value for the asset.

Renato Meloni, Analyst

Hi everyone. Thank you for the call and for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up on the deposit side. Do you have a long-term ratio for how deposits might stabilize as a percent of TPV? I think that would be helpful. My second question is regarding credit. What is your risk appetite this year, especially considering the potential credit cycle we might encounter in Brazil? Additionally, with the initiatives you have in place and the changes in private payroll lending in Brazil, how do you view this opportunity? Are you planning to explore it? Thank you.

Lia Matos, Strategy and Marketing Officer

Hi, Renato. Lia here. Let me start with your question about deposits. The calculations become straightforward when you refer to our long-term guidance for deposits in relation to TPV. As mentioned at the beginning of the call, we expect deposits to grow at a rate that surpasses TPV growth. This expectation is factored into our long-term guidance when comparing deposit growth to TPV growth. Despite our discussions on engagement and user metrics, as well as advancements in our banking roadmap, we believe that the ratio of deposits to TPV is the most effective indicator of how we're engaging our clients with our banking solutions. This can be derived from our long-term guidance on deposits and TPV. Now, regarding credit, I’ll hand it over to Pedro.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

I'll start off, and Mateus can provide additional insights as we proceed. At the end of last year, we proactively adjusted our credit models to align with the evolving and increasingly challenging macroeconomic environment. This adjustment resulted in a moderate increase in provisioning levels, which have now stabilized at around 12% of our portfolio. Additionally, we are continuously adjusting the pricing of new disbursements to better align with the changing macroeconomic and market conditions. In terms of growth, we are closely monitoring our cohort performances and daily amortizations, which is a unique feature of our product. We believe there is still opportunity to grow the portfolio in 2025, given the low penetration of our credit products among our client base and the scaling of new offerings such as credit cards and our overdraft solution. Mateus, do you have anything to add?

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

No, just a quick complement, I think the message here that we're trying to convey is that we're being really cautious regarding the macro environment. We have established several controls and monitoring for the amortization and the health of the portfolio. However, it's important to remember that the base is still quite small. When considering the penetration of the product in the base, we are in the early stages. We resumed the offering of the product only a couple of quarters ago. Unlike other players, I believe there is still potential for growth while we maintain this cautious approach for the portfolio as a whole. That's the essence of the message. And I think Lia may want to address the last point on payroll?

Lia Matos, Strategy and Marketing Officer

Yes. I think just quickly on the discussion around regulation around payroll loans. Naturally, we are monitoring it closely. I think for us, it is beginning stages, right, as we think about how we can deploy this as an opportunity. Naturally, within our ecosystem as we launch our payroll solution to SMBs that becomes a natural extension. But it's very early to say anything more specific than that.

Renato Meloni, Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Yuri Fernandes, Analyst

Hey, everyone, and congratulations on the quarter. I have a question regarding the capital position. I'm trying to create a simpler framework to analyze this. For banks, we typically look at loan growth as a measure of risk-weighted asset (RWA) growth. In your case, I believe the total payment volume (TPV) might be the most relevant indicator. When we analyze RWA by credit and market, it appears that payments remain the primary component, and your TPV excluding PIX seems to be growing at a low-teens percentage. Regarding your return on equity (ROE), its calculation really depends on how we adjust it. If we consider a tangible ROE by excluding all intangibles, we see that Stone is achieving tangible ROEs of 30% to 35%. That's quite impressive. My question is whether this reasoning holds up: if your RWA is growing around 12% to 13% while you're delivering those 35% tangible ROEs, does it make sense to conclude that your excess capital generation is around 60% to 70%? If that’s accurate, could this serve as a good indicator of your potential for payouts or stock buybacks? I'm trying to confirm this figure because, while the 20% core capital is helpful, your capital situation has numerous variables due to the operational risk phase-out. Given the complexity in calculating our capital for payments, I’m attempting to establish a simple framework akin to what we do for banks, focusing on RWA growth versus ROE potential. When I perform this analysis, I arrive at these numbers, and I want to ensure I’m not overlooking anything. Thank you.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Hey, Yuri. Thanks for the question. Mateus Here. So I think it's a great question and great rationale there. What I would say is the following. We have to divide here short versus longer term. So when you look short term, I think you've answered part of the question, which is we still have a lot of regulation changes in terms of how we calculate the RWAs, right? We have the phasing, the new regulations and so forth. So shorter term, I think this rule of thumb does not necessarily work. Longer term, I think you're going to be pretty close to the final answer of the model. But the second point that is important to make is that maybe differently than more mature peers. We need to keep in mind that there are other pillars in the framework. So it's not only around regulatory capital. We also have the ratings, the credit rating components and the adjusted net cash. Adjusted net cash in the end of the day, I think it's the easiest of the three pillars because we report the number, and the figure by the end of the year was BRL4.7 billion. So clearly, it was not the constraint. Credit ratings, you have to go through a little bit more math to get to the number. But if you look at the credit rating agencies, we use Moody's and S&P. They disclose the criteria for financial companies. So you can pretty easily map the metrics that they use for our current global ratings and then work the math out in terms of how much capital we have in excess for that pillar. I think putting together, nowadays, the more restrictive constraint is indeed the regulatory capital. But I just want to be mindful as well that as you project forward, on a given year, maybe the credit rating can also play a role.

Yuri Fernandes, Analyst

No, thank you very much, Mateus. If I may, just a quick second question regarding the buybacks. What should we expect concerning the shares? Are you planning to cancel those shares, or will you be using them for stock-based compensation? What is the outcome for those treasury shares? Thank you.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Yes. So we're still finishing the valuation, but the most likely scenario is that most of the shares are going to be canceled. And we're going to use some of them to issue share-based compensation. So it's both.

Yuri Fernandes, Analyst

Okay. No. Thank you very much and congrats again.

Mateus Scherer, CFO and IRO

Thanks, Yuri.

Operator, Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn over to Pedro Zinner, CEO at StoneCo for final considerations.

Pedro Zinner, CEO

Well, thank you. Thank you all very much for participating in the call. I think the company presented strong results in 2024, and we are really looking forward for 2025 in the coming years. Thank you very much.

Operator, Operator

This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect now and have a nice evening.