XP Inc. Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call

Today, on behalf of the company, I would like to thank you all for your interest and welcome you to our First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's presentation will be led by our CEO, Thiago Maffra, and our CFO, Victor Mansur, who will both be available for the Q&A session right after the presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please use the raise hand feature on Zoom, and we will address them in the order we received. We also offer the option of simultaneous translation to Portuguese. If you'd like to activate it, please click the button below. Before we begin, please refer to our legal disclaimers on Page two, where we provide additional information regarding forward-looking statements. You can also find more information in the SEC filing section on our IR website. Now, I'll turn it over to Thiago Maffra. Good evening, Mafra.

Thank you, Andre. Good evening, everyone. I appreciate you all joining us today for our first quarter 2025 earnings call. Let's begin by reviewing the key highlights for the quarter. It is important to mention that we continue to execute our strategic initiatives, delivering strong results consistently. Starting with Client Assets plus AUM and AUA that we are now disclosing that achieved BRL1.8 trillion, posting a 13% growth year-over-year. We accounted for 18,100 advisers representing a 2% growth year-over-year, and the active client base posted 4.7 million, with a 2% growth year-over-year. In the quarter, gross revenues posted BRL4.6 billion with a 7% growth year-over-year. We delivered solid ABG growth of 16% year-over-year, reaching BRL1.3 billion. And once again, happy to announce that we achieved the all-time high quarterly net income in our history, posting BRL1.236 billion. It represents a 20% year-over-year growth. On profitability, we achieved 24.1% ROE during the quarter, with a 340 bps expansion versus first quarter '24. On the capital ratio, we marked a comfortable level at 19%. It represented an increase of 130 bps quarter-over-quarter. What's important here is our capacity to grow our business while keeping our capital discipline. Vitor will provide further details on this topic related to new regulations implemented during the quarter. Regarding diluted EPS, we posted a 24% growth year-over-year, which corresponds to a faster growth than net income. As we mentioned last quarter, we should take this dynamic into consideration since we are executing our share buyback program strategy. On this topic, I would like to reinforce that we have ended the previous program of BRL1 billion and have canceled the treasury shares. Today, we also announced a new share buyback program of another BRL1 billion. It's part of our capital distribution plan aligned with our guidance target of this ratio to operate the business between 16% and 19%. Now, let's see more details on the next slides. This quarter, we are sharing new information to provide a better understanding of our ecosystem. Basically, we added institutional client assets in total client assets and provided the complete view including assets under management from our asset management business and AUA from our fund administration business. Said that, our total client assets AUM and AUA comprehends almost BRL1.8 trillion, which represents a 13% growth year-over-year. On the right-hand side of the slide, we see how net new money evolves. This net new money is only related to client assets, not AUM or AUA. This quarter, we marked BRL24 billion in net new money, representing a 79% growth year-over-year. Even considering the public events we faced during this year, we were able to keep growing. As we said many times before, our target for retail net new money is around BRL20 billion per quarter. This quarter, we delivered on our commitment, and it posted a 54% growth year-over-year, corroborating our understanding that our two differentials set us apart from peers and will contribute to our continuous growth for the next years.

Thank you, Maffra. Good evening, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you to discuss the financial performance for the first quarter of 2025. Let's begin with the financial highlights for the quarter. Total gross revenues for the quarter reached BRL4.6 billion, representing a 7% increase year-over-year and a 4% decrease quarter-over-quarter. It's important to bear in mind the seasonality of the first quarter due to holidays and summer time. We must pay attention that Retail grew 10% year-over-year, Corporate & Insurance Services increased by 11% year-over-year, and Other posted a minus 24% year-over-year. Considering other revenue concepts, it's important to understand the predation and conglomerate restructuring effects. Just to recap, before the restructuring, the financial results generated from cash position investments from the issued debt used to be allocated in other revenue and the cost of corporate debt was allocated as interest expense on debt. Now, with the XP Bank on top of the local conglomerate, both concepts are allocated as the bank's net interest margin. If it wasn't for this effect, other revenue would have been flat year-over-year. Therefore, it's fair to calculate operational revenue growth excluding other. In this case, total growth was 9% year-over-year, indicating that our businesses are responding to our plan for the year and accelerating for the second half of 2025. The key drivers behind this growth for the year, while retail fixed income, retail new verticals, and other retail with our new ventures have been growing at a fast pace.

Hi, guys. Good evening, and congrats on the numbers. Two things here. First, on your ROE. Do you think you can continue to increase your ROE towards the 30% level, as we can see on your return on tangible equity? That's the question number one. And naturally, I think it's linked to the second question, which is regarding your payout. I think you mentioned in the last conference call that you could sustain more than 50% payout in the coming years, but you are generating a lot of capital, right, even though you are doing buybacks and growing the results, you generated more capital? So don't you think that 50% or close to that is conservative for the next couple of years? So these would be my two questions. Thanks.

Hi, Rosman. Thank you for the question. First, about the ROE. We said last quarter that we should see over 2025 the risk-weighted assets growing at a slower pace than net income. The consequence is slightly higher ROE over this year and next year. And as you say, the ROTE is higher than 30%. Over time, we should close this gap between both of them. Also, talking about capital returns, our BIS ratio improved quarter-over-quarter as we said, and this 50% payout number is conservative, and in this space, it should be higher, similarly to the last years.

Okay. Next question is from Pedro Leduc, Itau BBA. Leduc, you may proceed.

All right. Thank you so much for taking the questions. Two quick ones. First, on take rates, of course, they were down seasonally Q-on-Q, but you're also undergoing a change in the way remuneration goes, fixed variable commissions, etc. So if you can put that into context as well to help us also see how we should see the next quarters evolve on take rates? That's the first. And then the second on the SG&A side, great job there on the total figures. When we look at that because personal and variable was a big component there, if there's some seasonality here or is this really a tighter ship? Just to make sure that we see this line more sustained for these levels throughout the year. Thank you.

Hi, Leduc. Thank you for the question. Beginning with SG&A, then we move to take rate. First, we are a performance-based company and in the beginning of the year, some businesses are more seasonal as investment banking, and institutional broker-dealer performance in those businesses was weaker than in Q4. As they have a compensation structure that is more volatile, the compensation provisions are lower. But over the year, as those businesses improve, we may see this number getting a bit higher, similar to what happened in 2024, but we are committed to deliver some efficiency in terms of efficiency ratio and bonus ratio even though. Talking about take rates, they were slightly lower than Q4. Remembering that in Q4, we had some business lines as equities slightly higher than in the first quarter due to the average traded volume in B3 and also from primary offerings of public and listed funds. So we expect the average numbers for our take rates to follow the same annual pace as the last years and should average over the year, but not as high as Q4.

I can address the second part of your question regarding the different models you mentioned. We have observed significant growth in the fee-based model over the past years; it was nearly non-existent two years ago. Last year, it reached around BRL40 billion. This figure excludes what we refer to as Wealth Management and Consulting, which operates entirely on a flat fee basis. For the overall Assets Under Custody, excluding this segment, it was BRL40 billion out of almost BRL1 trillion last year. We anticipate this amount to increase to approximately BRL100 billion this year. When comparing the two models, we notice that the take rate decreases slightly. However, the share of wallet has increased significantly. In terms of revenue, it is close to zero. We have been heavily investing in fee-based and consulting models to consolidate costs outside of XP. We initiated the B2C channel around two to three months ago, and it is growing very quickly, starting from a zero base. You can expect the consulting and fee-based models to continue growing this year and in the years to come.

Great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Mario, for your question. Currently, we are maintaining the BRL20 billion level. While this figure remains unchanged and we believe it accurately reflects our situation for now, it will also apply for Q2. I cannot comment on Q3 or Q4 yet, but it serves as a good indication for the upcoming quarter. We have not seen an improvement in net new money so far. With interest rates at their peak, it may take some time for investors to transfer funds from bank CDs to our platforms. There hasn’t been any noticeable acceleration in this area yet. Regarding IFAs, the number has remained stable over recent quarters, particularly in the B2B channel. This is a result of our focus on improving the quality of IFA advisers, which has led to a slight reduction in the number of IFAs. However, we have seen growth in both the B2C channel and the consulting aspect. We anticipate a resurgence in the B2B channel as well, especially as we continue to expand there. Despite the challenges we face in increasing productivity in the B2B channel, we are implementing various tools and training to address this, and we are confident about capturing those opportunities in the future. However, we have not seen the results of these efforts yet. Approximately 40% of our gains have come from the B2B channel, and while we have not seen improvements there yet, we remain committed to that focus and expect to see benefits soon.

Okay. That's clear. And the strategy of the affluent wealth market?

Yeah. That's a good question. We have been investing a lot, especially in the private bank business here. We hired a new CEO for the Private Bank, Cesar, who had a lot of experience running the Citibank private banking in the U.S. for U.S. clients. He brought in a lot of new leaders for the business. We had, in the past years, zero or negative inflow in that business. Last year was a little bit slightly positive, and this year is going to be much better. So it's going, but it's a long process because when you talk about private bank business, it's about building a franchise. It's a long-term investment and long-term business. We are looking very carefully and investing a lot, but it will take some time to bring results from the private bank. However, we are confident.

Okay. So next question is from Olavo Arthuzo from UBS. Olavo, you may proceed.

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking the question here. I have basically two questions. And my first one is very, very straightforward because you started to provide the breakdown of total assets. So very quick here. I was just wondering how much the fund service represents of the total assets that you guys disclosed for this quarter? And my second question is, regarding your growth strategy because after launching the banking initiative a couple of years ago of the checking accounts and then the credit cards, I think one of the main current ones is the consortium, I think that Maffra mentioned. And the numbers, if you take into consideration the whole industry for the consortium have been impressive so far in terms of profitability. So if you could just elaborate a little bit more on the consortium front, especially thinking about the main goals numbers like the penetration of the product, the ticket and I think your slide number 10 constructs within those BRL205 million this quarter, if I'm not wrong. So how much does the consortium represent in that number for the quarter? So net-net, any more detailed color on this would be very helpful, and thank you very much, guys.

Yeah. Thank you, Olavo. I didn't get your first question. So I will start with the second one, and then you repeat your first question. About consortium, it represents a very small revenue yet because the way we recognize the revenues basically the upfront fee goes to pay commissions. So we make zero when we sell a consortium. Then, we have an agreement with the administrators, and we receive a fee monthly because we have a revenue share with them. So it's more like a recurring revenue during the term of the consortium. We started building the portfolio last year, I would say, halfway through last year. For some of the months, we produced more than BRL1 billion per month, okay? So it's growing fast. And the way we work the product to be honest, before knowing the product, we didn't like the product because of everything you've heard. But once you start working with a consortium, as I would say, as structured credit, then it's a good approach. We don't sell consortium as investments for sure. However, as a structured credit, it can be very accretive to our clients. We have been doing a lot for private bank clients even for owners of big companies and so on because you have very cheap interest rates implied when you do the structured way of doing consortium. So that's why it's growing really fast. Again, this year is going to be above BRL100 million. It can go to double of that in revenues. So it's growing really fast. It's going to be a very important revenue stream for the new verticals in the next years. And if you can repeat your first question.

Yes, of course, definitely. It's related to the assets that you guys started to disclose this quarter, which you mentioned the BRL1.8 million. How much does fund services represent of the total assets that you disclosed for this quarter? Because I understand that the take rate of this type of assets provides a low yield. So just to understand the breakdown of that assets under custody that you have?

Yeah, for sure. The most important part of the strategy of having the fund administration business is to provide a full ecosystem for our customers, especially the institutional clients and private bank clients. Because that's part of the investments we have been making to grow on the private bank business. Why? Because imagine that you have an exclusive fund, discretionary fund here. XP has to rely on providers to give us the NAV and all the portfolio metrics and so on. Every day, we have problems with that regarding the SLA and with the accuracy of the information, and so on. So it's really hard to build a private bank business and institutional business without having fund administration. So that's the main reason why we built the business. As we mentioned, fund administration can go from 5 bps to 20, 30 bps for alternative funds, maybe 70 bps, but that's a low ROA. However, the most important part here is to provide a full service to our customers. And the number we opened on the slide, if you check there, the number was BRL248 billion in AUA; that's the fund administration part.

Hi. Thanks, Parize. Good evening, Maffra and Victor. Thanks for the call, taking my question. A follow-up question just on the inflows. As you mentioned on the slide, right, you distribute around 50% to 60% of midsize banks funding through XP. And just given some of the news flow with some of the midsized banks, I guess, Banco Master in particular, but just has that had any impact on your inflows? Or are you able to replace one bank with another bank's funding just to make sure that that's not having any impact on inflows for you for now? And then my second question, I guess, following up a little bit on revenues, particularly equity revenues. I guess what should be the most important driver? Is it just the equity market doing better? I mean, we have seen good performance this year. Is it B3 volumes picking up? Is it more just focused on volatility? Or is it the rates coming down, right? Just to get a sense of what should we be looking for in terms of what can boost those equity revenues at some point in the future? Thank you.

Yeah. If I understood your first question, your concern was about if Banco Master was relevant to our net new money, so it was not, okay? So not even in revenues, as we mentioned in the last call, it was less than 1% of the total revenues. So it was not relevant. We will see no impact on revenues or on net new money, so no impact.

Tito, talking about revenues, I think a conjunction of factors is necessary to see volumes picking up, which will probably happen. If the performance has improved over the years. Those aspects come hand-in-hand. The second aspect is prime offerings from listed funds such as REITs and real estate funds. That's also an important factor within our actual lines. You'll need to see the market improving a little bit, and those funds trading above issuing value. I think that is it.

Okay. Thank you for participating in our earnings call. We are in an hour now. I'm going to end the call. We will be available to answer further questions. Just look for us from the IR team. Thank you so much, and we keep in touch until the next quarter.