Jerónimo Martins, SGPS Stock

Good day, and welcome to the Jerónimo Martins First Half 2026 Results Conference Call. Today's conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ana Luisa Virginia, Chief Financial Officer of Jerónimo Martins Group. Please go ahead, madam.

Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining this call to present our first half results. As a reminder, in our corporate website, you can find the results release, a slide presentation and a fact sheet for the period. The first half of 2026 proved more demanding than we initially anticipated, particularly with regard to strong pressure on food prices and fuel-related costs. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty kept consumers cautious and focused on low prices and promotions in what food is concerned and competition did not ease in the sector.

Against this backdrop, all our banners delivered solid sales and EBITDA by protecting price competitiveness, strengthening their value propositions and executing efficiently. Volume-led growth, combined with careful margin mix and reinforced focus on efficiency drove group sales up by 5.1% or 4.5% at constant exchange rates to EUR 18.3 billion and EBITDA to increase 7.6%, reaching EUR 1.2 billion with margin at 6.8%, 16 basis points ahead of the same period last year.

Every business expanded EBITDA margin, contributing to this solid delivery. Excluding IFRS 16, the Group closed June with a net cash position of EUR 11 million after having paid EUR 409 million to its shareholders. Starting with the income statement. The Group delivered strong operational performance. Despite substantial basket deflation at Biedronka and also at Hebe, and low basket inflation in Ara, Pingo Doce and Recheio, sales grew 5.1%, driven by strong volumes in every banner. EBITDA grew 7.6% ahead of sales and margin rose 16 basis points to 6.8%, reflecting better mix, scale and strict cost control.

Higher financial costs mainly result from the execution of the expansion program and its impact on interest from capitalized leases. While in other profit and losses, we've included the EUR 40 million contribution out of the 2025 results to the Jerónimo Martins Foundation. This heading also incorporates write-offs resulting from remodel initiatives and provisions net of compensations received for legal proceedings. Cash flow before dividends was negative at EUR 332 million. Basket deflation at Biedronka impacted sales growth and trade payables and weighted on cash generation.

Despite the increased pressure, the balance sheet remains solid. The half year position reflects capital investment of EUR 412 million and the payment of EUR 409 million in dividends. Investments remained aligned with our strategic priorities. The H1 CapEx focused on expansion of our store network, store remodelings and logistics improvement. Throughout the period, the Group opened 124 stores and remodeled 115. On logistics, Ara opened a new distribution center in Medellín early in the year, and Biedronka inaugurated its 18th distribution center in Southeastern Poland in late June. This latter facility is expected to reduce annual travel by almost 1 million kilometers, further improving an already very efficient operation.

Focusing now on Group sales. Volume growth across all banners drove H1 sales, reflecting competitive pricing, adequate assortments and disciplined execution. Group like-for-like in the period was at 1.4%. Turning to sales performance by banner. I will start with Biedronka. The Polish food retail market remained extremely challenging with subdued demand, price-sensitive and promotions-driven consumers, intense competition between the players and a fast slowdown of food inflation, which turned negative in June. In this context, Biedronka consolidated its price leadership while continuing to watch and optimize assortment and to further enhance its value for money proposition to Polish consumers.

Sales grew 1.7% to EUR 12.6 billion or 1.9% in local currency, with like-for-like up 0.2% despite significant basket deflation. H1 volumes rose by around 5%, offsetting the impact of like-for-like from deflation and preserving our main banners market share. Deflation accelerated markedly in Q2, resulting in sales slightly below Q2 '25 and in a like-for-like of minus 1.6%, while like-for-like volumes grew by more than 4%.

Turning now to Hebe. Despite intense competition leading to greater basket deflation, Hebe fine-tuned its assortment and strengthened its value proposition across online and offline channels. Sales rose 5% to EUR 312 million or 5.3% in local currency with like-for-like up 2.4%. Portuguese consumers continue to look for savings with pricing and promotions driving most purchasing decisions. Pingo Doce remained highly competitive while strengthening its value proposition throughout a ready meals offer that combines convenience, quality and differentiation.

Total sales grew 5.3% to EUR 2.7 billion and like-for-like, excluding fuel, reached 3.7%, supported by strong volume growth in the context of low basket inflation. In the second quarter, sales increased 3.3%, with like-for-like excluding fuel at 1.9%, again reflecting solid underlying performance and the competitiveness of the offer. After a first quarter affected by severe storms in Portugal Central region, the HoReCa sector entered the summer season less dynamic than in the same period of 2025.

Despite a more challenging backdrop, Recheio continued to demonstrate resilience and competitiveness in both HoReCa and Traditional Retail segments. Sales increased 2.5%, EUR 673 million with like-for-like at 1.3%. In the second quarter, in a softer trading environment, sales grew 1.8% and like-for-like reached 0.3%. Finally, Ara. In Colombia, despite stronger demand and improved consumer confidence, market environment remained challenging with strong promotional intensity across the food retail sector.

Ara continued to strengthen its brand awareness and consumer traction through disciplined execution of its expansion program and a value proposition tailored to local needs. This approach boosted another period of strong sales growth. Sales increased 30.2% in euros and 21.1% in local currency, reaching EUR 2 billion. Like-for-like was 6.8%, driven primarily by volume growth as Ara operated with very low basket inflation. In the second quarter, sales increased 21% in local currency, while like-for-like accelerated to 7.5%. In euros, sales increased 36.9%.

Looking now at profitability and margins. Across the group, our businesses remain focused on protecting price competitiveness while continuously improving efficiency and effective cost management. Therefore, despite significant basket deflation at Biedronka and Hebe and low inflation across the remaining businesses, EBITDA reached EUR 1.2 billion, an increase of 7.6% ahead of sales growth. As referred, this performance was supported by rigorous management of every profitability driver, namely volume growth, sales mix and efficiency.

Zooming in at margins by banner, every business improved its EBITDA margin in the first half. At Biedronka, the margin increase translates the continuous efforts to optimize assortment and improve store layouts, leading to enhanced sales mix. Also contributing to this performance was a disciplined focus on cost control and efficiency gains. At Hebe, margin improved, supported by the work carried out on sales mix optimization, differentiation and strict cost management.

In Portugal, ongoing work on margin mix, operational discipline and efficiency measures leveraged margin progression at both Pingo Doce and Recheio. At Ara, EBITDA margin benefited from strong like-for-like performance, growing scale and assertive cost management. Overall, the Group margin increased from 6.6% to 6.8% in the first 6 months of 2026.

Let me conclude with a few final remarks. The context in the first half of 2026 proved harder than we expected. Nonetheless, this set of results proved the resilience of our businesses and the quality of execution across banners, especially in light of the significant deflationary pressures faced particularly by our Polish operations and the continued impact of higher labor, rental and fuel-related costs. This performance was only possible because our teams continue to execute with determination, focused on serving consumers, protecting price competitiveness and improving the offer. These actions drove strong volume growth in all our banners and reinforced consumer preference.

Across the group, better mix, operational discipline, efficiency gains and rigorous cost control leveraged profitability and enabled every banner to improve its EBITDA margin. These results reinforce our confidence in the competitive strength of our banners in the quality of their value propositions and in their ability to create sustainable long-term value.

Regarding the outlook, we remain vigilant about the operating environment. Based on the information currently available, we do not anticipate any material improvement in market conditions during the second half. Geopolitical uncertainty, limited visibility and pressure on consumer confidence should persist, and therefore, consumers are very likely to keep focused on low prices and promotions fueling market competition.

Our priorities, therefore, remain unchanged, protecting competitiveness, ensuring consumer preference and improving efficiency. The investment program for the year is capped at around EUR 1.2 billion, focused on growth, store modernization and logistics. Our teams will continue to closely monitor the context, keeping the flexibility to adjust our execution if deemed necessary.

Thank you for your attention. Operator, I am now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] And now we're going to take our first question. And it comes from the line of Will Woods from Bernstein.

When you look at Poland, when do you think food inflation will turn in the Polish market? Do you think food PPI could turn positive in Q3? And then second one is, when you look at the Polish margin expansion, you've obviously done a great job controlling the cost there. But can you give a little bit more detail on what you're exactly doing? You mentioned store processes, assortment mix and store layout. How has this fed into gross margin expansion?

So as we mentioned, so I think that we flagged this in the results release because as you probably remembered, I mentioned in the first quarter call that we were expecting somehow depending on the cycle of productions that the cost pressure would come in and turn probably into inflation in the second half of the year. At this point, and as we already left the second quarter, we don't see that happening at least in some of the main categories of our banners and particularly on Poland.

And that's why we are flagging that currently, we do not see in terms of the deflationary pressure, any change in the context. This is mainly the big difference versus what I referred in Q1. So for us, it's now very difficult to say. It's true that we will have some better comparables, particularly from September onwards, as we also mentioned. But what we are seeing is several sources of pressure on prices. We do not see, for instance, on the supply part, as I referred in some of our most important categories, we are -- our suppliers are also operating in deflation. And this has to do with several dynamics of the market.

I will give you the example of meat, which is a quite important category or even dairy or fruits and vegetables, for instance, in Portugal, where as you have good harvest or good production or you have some constraints in the demand, then this puts pressure because you have to put the product in the market. And this, of course, to have the consumers to buy more leads to further price decreases.

Then, of course, you have the consumer environment or the consumption environment and also the competition dynamics because every player, and it's not only in Poland, but it's particularly harsher in Poland is pushing for volumes to somehow compensate for the deflation that is happening in the market. So currently, I'm being totally blind with you and totally honest, we do not see at this point when the turning point will take place. So it's probably getting easier in the fourth quarter.

In the third quarter, I think it's going to be difficult from what we are seeing currently, as I said, in the dynamics, even in the first month of the third quarter. For Polish margins, yes, they did a great job. I think that, of course, as the company ended the year already in deflation, it's true that it did really a remarkable work on one hand in the offer and also the fact that it had worked on its layouts in terms of the stores to keep it more efficient to help the operations and our colleagues in the stores to be able to replenish and to do the -- all the executions in a more efficient way. And I think that pays off.

Of course, there may be a kind of a seasonal effect here. Easter is usually a season where you have a harder execution, and this also happens in Christmas and in some periods in summer. Q2 didn't have the whole period of Easter. So either in terms of the gross margin and also in terms of the cost pressure, it eased a little bit because it tends to be more competitive also during these peaks in terms of sales. And of course, what we saw also -- so better mix also some ease from the comps in Easter, both in costs and in margin.

And of course, also some processes that are now more linear for our operations, and I give you the example of the DR system that started, as you know, in the third quarter last year. That is now a big burden to our colleagues in the stores to have -- to take care of that -- of the return of the bottles. But it's already somehow in a cruise mode, which also helped, and it's more noticeable in quarters where, of course, the sales tend to be slightly more pressured as it happens in the second quarter. So I think really, it's -- as you mentioned, really, and I agree, it was really a great job from our colleagues in Poland.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies.

They're all about Poland, please. So first of all, could you comment on exit rates for Biedronka and current trading, whether there's been any shift in the consumer environment there? Second, if we take a sort of bit of a step back, it seems a very surprising, very impressive margin beat in Q2. Would you ordinarily be looking to reinvest a little bit more of that margin in the context? And can we see that as one of the limiting factors for half 2?

And finally, the volume picture in terms of how you're reporting remains incredibly positive. Could you just give us a sense of the breakdown of how much of this was market share? How much of this was mix? How much of this was the underlying Polish consumer?

Fred, I have to say it was very hard to hear you, but I will try to address your questions. If there is anything that I do not answer, please come back because it was really slightly harder to listen to you. So in terms of consumer environment, in fact, we are not seeing any major change in the consumer environment. I think at least in what food is concerned, from the numbers and even the official figures that we have access, the savings continue to increase. So I believe it's not really an issue regarding the available income of the Polish consumer. I think it tries to save whenever it is possible.

So in what food is concerned, at least, it remains quite cautious. And of course, as the rest of the dynamic allows to also decrease prices because part of this -- we have to say, part is, as I said, supplier driven and part is still a correction of some of the higher-priced commodities even from last year. So there is here a dynamic regarding commodities, regarding harvest, particularly on the fresh products and on the groceries and some other dynamics that are pushing also deflation from the supplier side, as I said.

And I think that if the consumer can buy at better prices, of course, it will not -- it is at least in some categories, slightly -- I wouldn't call it probably trading up, but it's willing to buy, and that is helped by some categories that are a little bit more value-added and contribute positively to the mix, and that happened. But overall, we are not seeing a change in the consumer environment in Poland. Of course, the competitive environment is also quite difficult. It didn't ease on the contrary, I have to say.

I think that more players are now also playing, of course, with the promotions. And so we are seeing all the players in the market trying to drive volumes also to try to compensate what they are seeing, which is apparently at least from some of our competitors' declarations, they have been saying that they are still operating in deflation, and we believe so from the numbers that we see. So if we are going to invest part of this margin in competitiveness, one thing is for sure, Biedronka will want to provide the best prices and the best opportunities to the consumer, the Polish consumer, and that's what it has been doing.

If I think all the levers that justify the margin increase in the second quarter will apply in the second half, probably not. But we will do everything to protect margin, not losing competitiveness. So if we have to invest a little bit of the margin, as you said, probably we will, if that compensate in terms of sales. Of course, it's a difficult balance. It implies really hard work from our teams, but it's -- I'm sure that it's what they will try to do. So be the most competitive. And if they will have to, of course, invest a little bit more of margin, they will do it.

On the volume and on the market share, from the information that we got on GfK until May, our market share was more or less stable. But from the numbers that we got in June, I think that it even increased slightly in the whole period. This is the information that I can provide you. And I think that really Biedronka was able not only to craft the promotions, but to give really good opportunities that justify the fact that even in June, it really delivered a very good performance in terms of volume growth.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Manjari Dhar from RBC.

I also had 2, if I may. I think you mentioned that not all the cost levers will apply in the second half. I just wondered if you could give some more color on sort of what might fall away, what's been done and where you still see some incremental benefits? And then my second question is, I just wondered if you could give us an update on how performance in Slovakia is going.

So what I mentioned, of course, is we are -- at this point, we are not -- or we do not have visibility on how or what will be the level of price pressure. So the information that we got is at least in some of the categories, this is not just a question of the competition and of the cautious consumer is really supplier driven. The part of the deflation, as I said, is the correction move. So we don't know how this will play. It can play on the positive side, but we are not still seeing these signs at this point.

In terms of the things that can put a little bit more of pressure, of course, the comparables are also different. We also had good volumes last year. So it really depends on the dynamic of the market and on how even our competitors will react. As I said, Biedronka will make sure that it will continue to be the price leader. It will continue to offer the Polish consumer good opportunities. And this is something that it's really the signature of the brand and what we have been doing. We think that the consumer will stay very cautious. At least we don't see even from the -- as we said, from the geopolitical point of view and on the fuel-related costs, et cetera.

So that part will definitely not improve in principle. At least we are not seeing that happening currently, which will add further pressure, for instance, on the transportation costs that we have seen already increase and will further increase as we have more volumes in the second half of the year. So in Q2, as I said, it was not particularly so hard in terms -- it was hard in terms of the execution of the volumes, but it's also in terms of the execution, you tend to -- it tends to be harder when you have the peak of sales and certain periods where even the competition tends to be harder.

So Christmas, the way that Christmas will play and even the summer may put some extra pressure on our operational costs and on the competition. So -- but at this point, as I said, it's difficult to say. What I can tell you is that we will protect and try to protect margins as it was done really in the first half which is -- it's more comparable than just the first or the second half versus last year. On Slovakia, so we are currently operating 17 stores.

As we mentioned, the licensing process is much -- it takes longer than in Poland. So -- but we expect to still open the level of stores that we have in our outlook. And of course, as we introduce scale, it also improves some of the KPIs and that includes, of course, not only the gross margin, the inventory losses, et cetera, and it helps dilute the costs that we also have in logistics and head office. So the aim is, of course, to progress and to progress on a positive way. It's still EBITDA dilutive, but it's normal at this stage of the business in the country.

Now we're going take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Luis Colaco from JB Capital.

Congrats for the good set of results. Two or 3 questions, if I may. The first one, if you could give us a breakdown of your sales growth in Poland, namely the like-for-like in terms of volume, basket deflation and Easter effect? My second question is regarding your working capital. I noticed some deterioration -- a slight deterioration in working capital, probably the cash conversion cycle. Just wanted to understand the rationale or the drivers behind this. And if this is something that we can try to relate with the gross margin expansion?

Third, of course, also related with the gross margin if you think that going forward, can we expect this gross margin expansion to be sustainable in the next quarters? And the fourth question, if I may, if you can give us some more color on the nonrecurrent cost breakdown?

I wish. Many thanks. I believe that the congratulations are really for our operating teams and all our banners. So in terms of the breakdown effects, I don't know if it's for the first half or for the second quarter.

For the second quarter if I may.

Okay. Okay. So in terms of the food -- or basket food deflation, we operated with around 6% deflation. And so in terms of volumes, it increased slightly more than 4% as we had a negative like-for-like of 1.6% in the quarter. The calendar effect, of course, this is a little bit tricky, but we estimate to be around 1% or so slightly negative around -- at least 1% or slightly more than that.

On the working capital. So part, of course, is due to -- if we look at the whole period, if we look at just the whole period, it is really the fact that we ended last year with a very good performance of Christmas and that, of course, we had to pay for the trade payables, at least for the first half. When we compare just the second quarter, one has to do, of course, with the dynamics of sales and the dynamics of the market with deflation, as we mentioned.

So if the level of growth in sales is lower, and particularly we had the Easter effect also, so part of the receivables of Easter were in the first quarter, not in the second quarter. And of course, operating particularly in Biedronka with a high deflation that affects, of course, the dynamic, of course, because in the quarter, the growth was slightly negative. And of course, even the trade payables, the level does not -- is not the same when we are in deflation also from the supply side part.

It's not -- we have a slightly more days of sales in terms of stock, but that is -- it has to do with the dynamic of the business. We have 1 DC more. We have more stores that opened at the end of the quarter. So this may be just a temporary situation. It did not happen any compensation or in terms of the trade payables because even the trade payables, I believe probably Claudia can give you that color later, but I believe it didn't deteriorate and so -- despite some of the pressures in terms of days of sales, so which means that there was no compensation in terms of gross margin.

The gross margin was really driven, which was your second question -- third question, was really driven by the mix. And of course, as I said, as also the part of the suppliers are operating in deflation in terms of percentage, this translates also in the prices or we don't -- we see also a cost deflation in what the cost of goods sold is concerned. And the rest, as I said, is mix. If this is sustainable, I think that part of it will be, but it will also depend again on the consumer demand and on the competition moves.

So we will want, as I mentioned, to be -- to continue to be the price leader in Poland to provide really the best opportunities and to give all the reasons for the consumer to continue to visit store and to prefer the Biedronka stores. So this may, of course, imply a different dynamic and a different progression. As I also mentioned, we have a soft comp with Easter effect. But -- so it's -- at this point, I cannot say, but I think that overall, as gross margin increased in all the banners, in fact, in all our banners and particularly due to the mix and to the -- as I said, to the market dynamic, I think this is a good performance. And in principle, part of it we'll be able to keep for the second half of the year.

On the nonrecurrence, so I -- now we are a little bit careful and even say so, this is not really just nonrecurrence. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, here, we have to book something that is even decided from the prior year results, which is the Jerónimo Martins Foundation contribution. It's a decision of the shareholders at the AGM, but it has to be booked through the P&L. And so it doesn't depend or it doesn't affect the performance of the different banners. So we are putting here in what we call the other costs and losses.

So these are either nonrecurrent or things that can introduce some volatility in the performance, but don't -- are not directly linked to the performance of the companies and hence being booked at this heading. So you have the EUR 40 million of the foundation, which, of course, will be a cash item. Then you have some write-offs due to the remodeling of stores that we prefer not to keep it in the invested capital because the stores were totally refurbished, and that's the way we think we should do. It's a noncash item.

And probably, I think it was around EUR 8 million or EUR 10 million. And then I believe this will be in our first half annual report details. But then the other is, of course, the litigation. So we do provisions, although we do not disclose exactly to which cases because it has to do with our own position, but I think it was around EUR 4 million. And then we have some indemnities and slight other donations that we may give on a discretionary basis, but it's basically that.

Okay. Can I just add an additional question on the gross margin. If I'm not mistaken, in the fourth quarter last year, you had a positive impact from a reversal of a provision related with inventories. Can we assume or should we assume that in the fourth quarter of this year, we will see a reversal, I mean, 30 basis points, around 30 basis points drop in gross margin, all else equal? Or we should think differently regarding the gross margin for the fourth quarter, bearing in mind the impact that you had in the fourth quarter of 2025?

Thank you, Luis. Absolutely right. Yes, there was this effect. I don't think it can be a direct because, of course, I think that not all will be equal. But it's true that, of course, we will have some effect from that, from the comps because, of course, we will not be expecting to be adjusting that, which was, as we mentioned, an accounting effect. Of course, this will all depend on how even the Christmas season will go.

It's true that, for instance, Biedronka operated already in deflation in December last year. So it may happen, of course, different. There are a lot of moving parts also that may be affecting the gross margin and that includes also the competition, et cetera, as I mentioned. But the rest, we should expect a little bit of pressure going to the comps because of this accounting adjustment, yes.

And now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Robert Joyce from BNP Paribas.

I'll do them one by one, if that's all right. Just trying to understand a bit more specifics on the numbers. I mean, as we're seeing it, are we expecting Biedronka like-for-like to be negative now in the second half of the year, probably the third quarter, I'm guessing. What do you think on that?

Robert, I will ask you if you could do -- everybody is doing the questions in batches. So if you don't mind, I would prefer not to be going back and forth with the questions. Can you put the whole batch of questions, and I will answer each one of them.

No problem. I guess, so just quite number specifics, I guess. First one would be, yes, should we be thinking of deflation -- sorry, negative like-for-likes at Biedronka in the second half? Second one would be just specifically trying to understand the margin dynamics and how you expect them to play out at Biedronka. Are we thinking margin expansion will be less than the first half? We take the first half number at 25 bps. Is it going to be around there in the second half? Or should we be thinking less than that?

And then the third and the fourth on just EPS, I guess, flat in the first half. Do we think that's a reasonable number for the second half? And then free cash flow again, what are we thinking there? Should we expect that kind of decline in the first half to continue in the full year year-over-year? Or should we expect to make some of that back in the second half?

Thank you, Rob. So like-for-like for Biedronka, of course, if the pressure on the prices will continue, and as I mentioned, even from the supply side, we are not seeing an inflection point on there, it will put pressure, of course, on the like-for-like. But again, this will depend on the dynamics, on the volumes that the company can also grow and the rest of the dynamics in the market. So this -- of course, the second half has a tricky situation because it has 2 seasons that are quite important. The first one, of course, is Christmas. And the second one is the summer period.

I remember that everybody was complaining of the weather last year, and that affected some of the categories, particularly in some of our peers. So these kind of dynamics may, of course, also help. So I think that we cannot assume it will be negative. We can assume only that it will have further pressure more than we anticipated. So we were -- I have to say, and I personally was expecting that what happened already or what had happened with the commodities, considering the fertilizers and the fuel prices, et cetera, would lead to faster inflation coming into the market, particularly in food. But as I said, we are not seeing that, and that will put pressure.

If it will be negative, I would not assume that is the base scenario. It is possible, but I think that the company will do everything in its power not to happen, but it will really depend on all the dynamics. On the margin, the 25 basis points EBITDA for Biedronka, as I said, I think that we had some effects here that really helped. They may not happen or they may be a little bit more challenging in the second half. But again, it will depend on how things progress. The most important thing will be, of course, sales, but -- and the gross margin.

And so the competitiveness of the market, the pressure on deflation will be important. We will have probably more fuel-related costs, the transports. At the moment, we are not seeing this at least in percentage of sales to affect the utilities, which is good. But it really will depend on the competitiveness of the market, how competitive and how much we have to invest from our side. The rest, I think it will really depend on the market. But at this point, again, our base case is not to drop the EBITDA margins versus the second half last year.

On EPS, a challenging one. Of course, this has to do or part of this is even translation. It's true that -- and sometimes we are a little bit criticized by the fact that we are financing our Colombian operations with Colombian pesos. It appreciated. So when we translate, it's not cash, but it tends to increase. But in terms of -- as we are expanding, we should expect to have more interest coming from the capitalization of the leases. So on that, it will not help. I would say it will not be different from the second. It will not help. It will not be different from the first half of the year.

On the nonrecurrence, it will depend on several things. So of course, in the second half, we will not have the foundation. It will depend on the rhythm of refurbishments and if we do some restructuring. And if from the litigations, we will need to make any other provision. So it's the main -- I think, will be the main addings where we may have some difference. But at this point, I cannot say if it will be the same as in terms of the progression on the net earnings.

On the free cash flow and on the working capital, I expect an improvement in principle. Of course, again, we have a very tough comp at year-end. So the fortress that we had on 31st December 2025 is very challenging because it was really a terrific Christmas period for our banners. The comparison will be important. But in principle, the cash -- the free cash flow in the second half should be positive, of course, and play a role in terms of the improvement.

[Operator Instructions]

We're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Matthew Clements from Barclays.

Three, if that's okay. Firstly, could you give some indication of how much of your deflation in the first half was passing on those lower costs from suppliers and how much was incremental investment on Biedronka's behalf? Secondly, if deflation is driven predominantly by lower supply costs, that is implicitly kind of neutral from a gross profit and operating leverage perspective for the retailers, I mean your margins have improved, and we've heard from another competitor recently who reported better operating profit year-on-year despite severely negative like-for-likes.

So my question is, why would this form of deflationary environment lead retailers, as you say, to go for volume to compensate deflation to protect leverage? And finally, 5% volume growth in a low-growth market is remarkable. Can you give a sense of the market share gains you've seen in the first half on both volume and value basis?

Matt, so as I mentioned, yes, and particularly in the main categories, and I gave the example of dairy and meat because this is really -- these sectors have a particular situation currently. For instance, particularly in pork meat, the supply didn't adjust the fact that China didn't want pork from Europe. And that, of course, means more available product in the market, and this pressures a lot the price downward. Of course, you're right, as part -- I cannot tell you exactly what is the part of the deflation that is supplier driven, competition driven and price investment to catch the volume and to have the consumers with us.

But I can tell you that, of course, a big part is -- and as you mentioned, this reflects also in the improvement in the gross margin. So part is mix, as I said, and part is because, as you mentioned, if my cost price is also in deflation, of course, my margin is not affected, but my cash margin is. So -- and that's what drives me to get the volumes to compensate in terms of cash margin. This completely compensates or not, what is the downward on that is that if to have more volumes, I have to transport more boxes, my people in the store have to replenish more often. So this implies usually a big pressure on costs.

And I think that the terrific job that was done really was somehow also anticipating a little bit this dynamic in the market. It really helped the layout change that Biedronka has been doing. It really helped the fact that some of the processes are now -- operational process are a little bit more, as I said in the beginning, in a cruise mode to really protect the cost base also because this is really pressured from the deflationary situation.

On the market share, as I mentioned, the information that we got from GfK is just until May. And according to GfK, we basically were flat. So we protected the market share. According to the market numbers for June, we think that we increased market share in June, particularly in the month of June, so it should have for the first half gone slightly up.

And that's on a value basis, is it?

Value basis, Matt. We don't have the volume.

Your volume share gains must be very impressive?

I would assume, yes. Yes. Yes.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Izabel Dobreva from Morgan Stanley.

I had a couple of questions. Firstly, starting with Biedronka. Could you give us a sense of what level of deflation you're planning for as we go towards the third quarter? I guess your results this morning imply deflation of just over 5% in 2Q. Do you think that's the sort of number we should have in mind for the third quarter and then perhaps assuming a small improvement from the fourth quarter? And then linked to this, how should we think about your relative price position versus the peer group? Would you say that it strengthened over the quarter?

And the reason I'm asking this is because typically, when there is a common source of deflation in the market from the supply chain, a lot of the peers will, of course, give that back to consumers. So I'm trying to understand whether your deflation is also symptomatic of price investments you made out of your own self-funded initiatives?

And then my final question is just on Slovakia. If there was an asset available for sale in the market, which was a way to gain a faster route to scale, would you be open to M&A in Slovakia? Or is your preference to build up the presence in the market organically?

So for Biedronka, of course, at this point, we don't know, of course, what will be the level of deflation we'll be operating. As I mentioned, it will really depend. What I can tell you is that we started the quarter, and that's why we are flagging that we are not seeing still an inflection point in prices overall, not from the PPI nor from some of the categories and the suppliers. Even in Portugal, we are having deflation, for instance, in fruits and vegetables because there were good harvest. So there is this kind of dynamic.

But -- so there is a part that may be temporary in terms of the deflation. I would assume probably that in the -- everything else constant because of the comparison, and we mentioned that on our release from September, we would, in principle, have a lower -- if still operating in deflation, we could expect a lower deflation versus Q3, but we don't know exactly if -- in fact, if we are going to be operating in deflation or not. As I said, this really depends on the dynamics of the market.

One thing, of course, or one driver of the deflation is it has to do, of course, with our price positioning. As I said, we want to keep being the leaders in terms of price. We think that the consumer will value this. Price is, of course, together with promotion, but promotions is price ultimately and is also accounted for, they are also accounted for in our price, our basket deflation and our basket inflation computation.

So I think that, as I said, part of the margin was -- gross margin was protected because it was also supplier driven, but we don't have it. We also did price investments. It's because of the consumer environment. And we did even price investments in some of the, let's say, more value-added categories because this contributed to the mix, although being in promotions or being -- the idea, of course, if you have a slightly more value-added products that you can help -- even if you decrease the price, it can help through the mix. So we did price investments.

And in terms of the price positioning, I wouldn't say that there is a big increase in the gaps, but the gaps were maintained. Biedronka made sure of that. And I think that is what justifies the increase in volume and the performance in terms of market share that, as I priorly mentioned, in terms of volumes must be a quite significant increase even in Q2.

For Slovakia, yes, there are some rumors in the market, of course. And Izabel, as it is our position always, we will not comment that. We didn't like when we were some years ago having to sell our own businesses, and we will not do that to our peers. We will not comment. There are these rumors. Of course, we will monitor it closely as we usually do, all the opportunities. And of course, we don't exclude, of course, to do M&A in the countries where we operate and particularly in one where we have just entered, but we wouldn't comment much more than that.

And now we're going to take our final question for today and it comes from the line of [indiscernible] from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Three questions from my side. Looking at your gross margin improvement of almost 40 basis points in the first half and almost 50 basis points in the second quarter. Could you give us an idea of how much came from better assortment mix? Is it, for example, 1/3 or more of the improvement?

Second question is specifically on the assortment mix, especially in Poland. Could you be more specific about which categories or products are gaining share and drive this positive mix contribution to gross margin?

And third question on the food PPI and when this food PPI returns, do the current assortment and the procurement changes that you made at Biedronka, would it make you structurally less exposed to margin pressure than in the last inflation cycle?

So on gross margins, as I mentioned, at the Group level, all our banners increased gross margins. So -- and I have to say that I would -- probably all of that would come from mix mainly. And of course, in some cases, the fact that also the suppliers want, particularly on, let's say, the more fresh goods categories also want to increase their volumes to get rid of their stock and their production and invested with us. But I would say that most of the increase came from the assortment mix and the way that we craft promotions to drive that change in mix.

The fact that in the second quarter is slightly ahead of the first one, it has to do usually with the fact that the peak period in terms of sales are a little bit more dynamic in terms of the -- having to do price investments. And as Easter calendar changed, I think it has also to do with this different dynamic. But it has -- most of it was better mix. On the categories in Poland, I tend to be -- so we have, of course, some categories where we have -- or we have been using in the different categories, products that, as I said, are a little bit more value-added or have better margins to contribute to the sales mix and the margin mix.

I would not detail much because usually, I don't think that our competitors do that. So I would prefer to refrain, but there are some categories in, of course, the different ones, more value-added yogurts with protein or more. So these kind of examples where you have some -- I wouldn't call it a premium product, but a product that is perceived as more value-added to the consumer. We, of course, craft and do our assortment review, taking into consideration these kind of trends in the market and things that the consumer may value and buy even if they are slightly more expensive than the basic products.

On the food PPI, I would say that in some categories, we will not see that change in the short term. As I said, in the meat categories, in fruits and vegetables due to the season that is -- and due to a particular situation in pork meat, I think that this will take a little bit more time to change. If it changes, of course, this will put pressure on prices. But then it will depend on the dynamic of the market. So in principle, of course, we will maintain, as I said, price competitiveness. If we'll pass that to the consumer, it will depend also on the competitive environment on competition.

And so it's not immediate that we can conclude that the positive PPI will drive deflation down, probably not immediate. We are very fast in decreasing the price to get the volumes, probably a little bit slower passing it to the consumer although, as I said, it's not an issue from the available income point of view. So I think that we'll have to be very smart in crafting again, the promotions, the way we put the products to make sure that we protect the margin.

In terms of procurement, I think that we have -- of course, we have our private label, and this is very stable for our suppliers. So I think that in principle, of course, there are other dynamics, but I wouldn't say that this will come a lot from a change in the procurement. I think that we will have -- if we want the suppliers with us, it has to be a win-win situation. Of course, Biedronka is in a very good position because it can provide the way, of course, to have the volumes sold to the Polish consumers. But I don't think that there will be a change in terms of procurement. And I don't know if there was any other questions. Did I answer all the questions?

Yes. Yes, you did.

Thank you.

Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Ana Luisa Virginia, for any closing remarks.

In the first 6 months of the year, our teams kept consumers at the heart of the strategy while maintaining a strong focus on the overall quality of value propositions and on profitability. This allowed for a solid and resilient delivery. As market conditions are not expected to improve and recognizing that price and promotions continue to be the main drivers of customers' purchasing decisions, we will stay focused on execution and on preserving price leadership, aiming to ensure profitable sales growth.

Thank you for your questions and for joining today's conference call. I wish you all a pleasant day and a smooth summer period. Many thanks.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Good day, and welcome to Jeronimo Martins' Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ana Luisa Virginia, Chief Financial Officer of Jeronimo Martins Group. Please go ahead, madam.

Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining this call. Before I take you through the Jeronimo Martins' 2025 full year results, I will give the floor to our Chairman and CEO, Mr. Pedro Santos. Mr. Pedro Santos, the floor is yours.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. After a very tough 2024, 2025 was again a very challenging year for our companies in the countries where we operate. We knew it would not be a walk on the park, and it wasn't. Quite on the contrary, we face pressure everywhere. Global geopolitical and trade tension, severe supply chain risks only aggravated by the very recent escalation in the Middle East has been weakening growth and negatively affecting consumers and also business confidence. Our solid sales performance in the year was achieved in the context of very price-sensitive consumers and of tough competition. Biedronka celebrated its third anniversary with a reinforcing commercial dynamic and price leadership. Despite the very intensive competitive environment driven by expand capacity of all players in a food market that lose volumes for the second year, once again, Biedronka gained market share. On top of the strong focus on sales, Biedronka adopt a heavy fist on costs and paid extra attention to productivity to compensate for raising costs, particularly wage related.

We are fully aware of how much the sustainability of our business rely on sales momentum to dilute fixed costs, particularly when labor expenses across the group are increasing above the pace of the sales growth. Our extreme focus on the top line is rooted in this awareness, and I see no room for relief on this matter. In 2025, the response of our companies in face of multiple source of pressure on cost was decided to protect profitability. On top of the volumes growth, cost discipline, productivity initiatives and efficiency gains were crucial for the increase in EBITDA margin for the first time since 2021. In 2025, we kept a fast pace of expansion. And with Biedronka interest in Slovakia, we added one more country to our portfolio. In Colombia, Ara continues to strongly invest in a price-driven total sales to surpass the EUR 3 billion market and significantly improve EBITDA.

In all countries where we operate, we made good progress in our sustainability agenda. We what regard the environment in 2025, for the first time, we were recognized by CDP with a AAA regarding all 3 of its programs, climate, forest and water. We are proud to be the first and only food retailer in the world so far to achieve this level of performance. Regarding the social dimension and on top of the company's own programs, I highlight the work of Biedronka Foundation to which EUR 20 million were channeled in 2025 and of the Jeronimo Martins Foundation that concluded its setting up process.

As we ended the year with a solid net cash position of EUR 866 million, we increased the donation to Biedronka Foundation by EUR 5 million to EUR 25 million in 2026, and the Board will propose to the stakeholders' meeting the payment from 2025 net earnings of EUR 40 million as the [indiscernible] to Jeronimo Martins Foundation. In line with our definition -- defined policy, we will also present to the shareholder meeting a dividend payment proposal. I personally believe that profitable and sustainable business growth goes hand-in-hand with satisfied stakeholders and less an equal society. And this is why as long as our business keeps delivering on their targets, we will maintain our contribution as responsible corporate citizens.

We can only truly help the others in a sustainable way from a strong and solid position. That means putting the best of our knowledge and capabilities at the service of business growth so that our business can then play an important social role they are expected to. As we move forward into the very uncertain and risky 2026, we will balance ambition and prudence and perform regular reality checks to make sure we are fast and effective in deciding and implementing whatever adjustments we might deem necessary.

And Luisa will now take through the full year results. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Chairman. As a reminder, in our corporate website, you can find the results release, a slide presentation and a media presentation for the year. The group's performance in 2025 translates our company's strong commitment to deliver against a very volatile geopolitical context marked by global commercial tensions. In a demanding operating landscape characterized by cautious consumer food spending and heightened competition within the food retail sector, our banners were able to manage the anticipated challenging combination of low basket inflation with cost inflation, particularly on labor.

Group sales grew 7.6% ahead of 2024 to reach EUR 36 billion as a result of consumers' acknowledgment of and preference for our strategic focus to guarantee price leadership, innovate in our assortment and improve shopping experience. Robust top line growth and disciplined cost management translated into EBITDA of EUR 2.5 billion, an increase of 11.1% year-on-year. Group EBITDA margin was 6.9%, 22 basis points up on 2024 despite persistent cost inflation and a highly competitive pricing environment. Building on this strong operational performance, cash flow reached EUR 537 million, further strengthening the group's balance sheet after the successful implementation of a comprehensive investment program. All in all, the persistent adaptability and responsiveness of our business models drove a pretax ROIC of 20.1%, broadly in line with prior year.

Despite all the challenges and hard work to deliver growth, we also made good progress on our sustainability agenda. Later this month, we will publish our annual report, which will provide detailed information on what the teams delivered on all fronts of our corporate responsibility agenda. For now, I would mention a couple of achievements. First, Jeronimo Martins became the first international food retailer to receive a AAA regarding rate -- AAA rating from CDP on its climate, forest and water programs. And second, despite strong expansion and consistent sales growth, we achieved an 18.4% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions since 2021, the baseline year for our science-based targets and climate transition plan commitments.

A final word here on the investment of more than EUR 360 million in employee recognition. Our people remain as it should at the center of our corporate responsibility agenda. Looking now at the P&L for the year, I would like to highlight the following. At the operational level, the performance was driven by a combined focus on sales and cost discipline. Robust sales and reinforced cost discipline and efficiency protected EBITDA despite significant wage inflation and intense competition. The execution of the investment program is reflected in the evolution of both depreciation and net financial costs as the latter also include the interest expense of capitalized leases.

The other profit and loss heading considers write-offs due to refurbishments, restructuring costs, provisions for legal contingencies and the EUR 40 million endowment attributed from the 2024 net earnings to the Jeronimo Martins Foundation. It also includes EUR 28 million, recognizing the extraordinary execution efforts of the operational teams who managed to deliver sales volume growth in highly demanding markets while improving operational productivity. Specifically on Q4, while EBITDA margin followed the pattern for the year, there are a couple of one-offs I want to pinpoint. The first relates to gross margin. The improvement in Q4 is primarily explained by a one-off adjustment on the provisions for inventory depreciation as our auditors concluded we were being too conservative on this computation. We also help -- it also helped the positive mix in Portugal and in Poland, mainly driven by successful Christmas campaigns in the case of Pingo Doce and Biedronka and by a proactive mix management at Hebe.

The second relates to OpEx over sales as several factors resulted in more pressure on costs in Q4. There were significant store and DC preopening costs in some companies. It is the case of Ara and Recheio and also some further labor costs due to heavy execution during Christmas season as well as to the implementation of several material projects, being an example, the deposit return system. Cash flow for the year before dividend payment was strong at EUR 537 million, reflecting the solid operational performance of the banners and the normalization of funds generated by working capital following the adjustments recorded in 2024. The group ended the quarter with a solid financial position, comprising net cash of EUR 866 million.

In 2025, the investment program totaled EUR 1.2 billion. The focus was on taking our banners even closer to consumers by opening new stores and at the same time, implementing the latest equipment and layout standards in existing stores, enabling us to improve the quality of the assortment and operational efficiency and enhance the shopping experience. All in all, we opened 448 stores. In this regard, I highlight Biedronka's entry into Slovakia with the opening of 15 stores and 1 distribution center in the year. Our remodeling program is of strategic relevance and in the year covered 281 stores across all businesses. Adding to the CapEx, there was an additional EUR 85 million of financial investments channeled mainly to salmon and cod aquaculture operations in Norway.

Looking now into the detail of the performance, I will start with sales. All companies performed well, registering positive volume increases and adding also with a positive contribution of the zloty exchange rate, EUR 2.5 billion to the group's total sales. Consolidated sales grew by 7.6%, 6.7% at constant exchange rates to reach EUR 36 billion, driven by a like-for-like of 2.5% and a solid contribution from expansion. In analyzing each banner's performance, I'll start with a quick overview of the context, beginning with Poland. Despite solid economic performance, lower interest rates and almost full employment, Polish consumers remain cautious and restrained in food consumption. The average food inflation for the year outpaced the 2024 figure, but it is important to keep in mind that food prices evolution began slowing from September and ended the year at 2.4% with year-on-year deflation in some categories.

In this context, Biedronka reaffirmed its price leadership and well-recognized promotional dynamic. In parallel, a lot of work was done to innovating the assortment and enhanced shopping experience. All in all, the banner delivered one more year of outperformance, having added nearly EUR 1.8 billion or EUR 1.4 billion at constant exchange rates to its top line and increased its market share. Total sales reached EUR 25.3 billion, 7.5% ahead of 2024 or 5.9% at constant exchange rates, including a like-for-like of 1.9%. Q4 like-for-like growth was solely volume-driven as country food inflation slowed and Biedronka experienced basket deflation from November onwards. Hebe faced an extremely competitive market and operated with basket deflation. Leveraging the exclusivity of its assortment, the company protected its position and grew sales by 7.4%, plus 5.7% at constant currency to EUR 626 million.

Moving on to Portugal. The economic performance was resilient and all the consumers remain focused on value and price, increased population, mostly migrants, supported growth in the food retail sector. Through an intense promotional dynamic and benefiting from reinforced differentiation enhanced by its all about food store concept, Pingo Doce grew sales by 5.5%, excluding fuel. Having increased volumes, clients and average purchase, the banner delivered a strong 4% like-for-like growth. Pingo Doce's range and quality of fresh products and ready meals now match the updated store layouts, providing a clear competitive edge in a market where all players are adding capacity.

Recheio also enlarged its client base and increased volumes, having reached EUR 1.4 billion in sales, 3% ahead of previous year. This solid performance was supported by both segments, HoReCa and traditional retail. Recheio's unique B2B value proposition that provides competitive pricing, tailored offers and reliable service to its different customers has just been enriched with a long-time desired new addition, a major greenfield store in the Lisbon area opened last February. In Colombia, 2025 remained a tough year for families. Inflation stayed high, pressuring consumption and reinforcing a very price-sensitive and promotions-driven environment. Nonetheless, we did see early signs of macro stabilization as the year progressed with improvements in consumer sentiment and demand.

Ara kept the intensity of its promotional agenda on top of everyday low prices. By reinforcing price competitiveness to be the first choice of consumers in the neighborhoods where it operates, our Colombian banner delivered a strong performance with sales growing by 13.3% or 17.4% in local currency to reach EUR 3.2 billion, nearly EUR 0.5 billion more than in 2024. Like-for-like growth was at 5.8%. Importantly, performance was mainly volume-driven as basket inflation remained consistently below country food inflation, reinforcing Ara's value proposition and price perception. This performance reflects strategic focus, rigorous execution and growing relevance for Colombian consumers.

Consolidated EBITDA amounted to EUR 2.5 billion, increasing 11.1% or 9.9% at constant exchange rates over 2024. All business contributed to this performance with robust sales growth combined with cost discipline. Group EBITDA margin stood at 6.9%, 2022 basis points up on 2024. At Biedronka, EBITDA grew 9.8%, up 8.1% in local currency, with the respective margin standing at 7.9% versus 7.7% in 2024. Solid sales growth, disciplined cost management and increased focus on productivity mitigated the pressure generated by price competitiveness and cost inflation, mainly wage related. Hebe in a highly promotional environment, worked hard to protect profitability by optimizing its sales mix and deepening cost management, driving EBITDA to grow 9.7% or 8% in local currency with the respective margin reaching 10.4% versus 10.2% in 2024.

At Pingo Doce, EBITDA grew 8.5%, with the respective margin increasing to 6% from 5.8% in 2024, driven by sales growth and systemic initiatives to increase productivity and offset cost pressure. Recheio delivered EBITDA growth of 4.6% with the margin standing at 5.2% versus 5.1% in 2024. In addition to a positive sales performance, growth was supported by Recheio's extremely competitive positioning in the HoReCa channel, enabling the banner to capitalize on stronger dynamics in this segment. Ara's EBITDA grew 37.6% up 42.7% in local currency with a corresponding margin rising to 4.1% from 3.4% in 2024. Besides sales growth, the strong margin performance reflects the consistent work started in 2024 to protect the company's gross margin and limit the impact on costs from inflation and labor reform.

In 2025, we successfully navigated a highly demanding operating environment by remaining firmly focused on consumer needs while maintaining tight operational discipline. Leading price positions, continuous assortment innovation and enhanced store format allowed us to strengthen our value proposition and to keep consumer preference across all banners. This translated into solid sales growth, volume increases in every business area and continued market share gains. At the same time, we managed the business with a strong emphasis on efficiency and operational productivity, both in stores and distribution centers. This balance between commercial intensity and operational rigor enabled us to deliver robust returns with pretax ROIC reaching 20.1% and cash flow generation of EUR 537 million.

We also delivered consistently on our capital allocation priority. An ambitious CapEx program was executed as planned, supporting network expansion, refurbishments and logistics development, while our dividend policy was fully met. As a result, we closed the year with a strong balance sheet, a reinforced positive cash position and a solid platform to face a very uncertain operating context.

Looking ahead to 2026, our strategy remains unchanged. We will keep firmly focused on consumer needs and expectations across all markets. Our banners will continue to prioritize price competitiveness, supported by effective promotional campaigns and the ongoing development of their assortments in a context where consumers are expected to remain highly value-driven. The operating environment remains challenging. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty continues to weigh on the confidence of families and remaining economic agents and competitive intensity across our markets is very unlikely to ease. Against this backdrop, we will continue to enhance our market presence by executing our expansion plans with precision.

Our primary focus will be on Biedronka, where we anticipate opening more than 120 new net locations in Ara, which is expected to see the addition of over 200 stores. Furthermore, elevating the quality of our store network and strengthening our logistics capabilities, both critical pillars of our operational competitiveness will stay as top priorities. As a result, investment remains our key capital allocation. In 2026, we expect the CapEx program to reach around EUR 1.2 billion, supporting growth, productivity and long-term value creation while maintaining a prudent and balanced financial profile.

Thank you for your attention. Operator, I am now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions]

And we'll go to take our first question, and it comes from the line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies.

The first one, please, is -- could you confirm whether you've seen any impact so far on consumer behavior, either in current trading or just in sales trends from the Iran war? Helpful to contextualize the change in guidance. And then the second question is, so it still seems like you're operating in basket deflation. Given what we know now about how COGS inputs are trending and how the market is trending, what's your outlook for food inflation in Poland for the rest of this year?

So thank you, Fred. I don't think that we are really changing the guidance. Of course, what -- because, of course, it's true that when we published our trading statements for the year, there wasn't still an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, but nothing changed. So we keep really the confidence on our businesses and on their readiness. What we, of course, mentioned is a little bit more caution because we state that we are prepared to inflect or to adjust some of our decisions according to our plan, depending, of course, on the effects of this escalation on different value drivers for our businesses. So we know that, of course, energy prices will be key. We know that also other effects that will take into consideration and will probably affect, as we stated, consumer and the business' confidence to continue to invest may be something that we have to monitor.

Up till now, in all our markets, we really do not see a change in the behavior. So the consumer behavior was cautious and promotion driven and continues to be. But we don't see really a step back, let's say, following the Iran war at this stage. Of course, this doesn't mean that things will not get a little bit tougher. But for the moment, we do not see that on our current trading. What we see really, and we flagged this is that since the end of 2025, we are on all our businesses operating with very low inflation. And in the case of Biedronka, we flagged that we are operating in deflation.

So we decreased a significant number of prices at the end of 2025. And that's, of course, not only to keep competitiveness, but to meet really the expectations of the Polish families and to keep up with our consumers. If for the future, this path will change, of course, it will depend on the number of circumstances. If this conflict continues, we expect, of course, this to have effect on the production factors. on the PPI that was negative in Poland also at the end of last year. And so there may be a change. So our baseline, I can tell you, and I think that we mentioned that previously, our baseline is to operate with quite low inflation, but we expect not to operate with deflation. But for the moment, that is the circumstances now in the first quarter for Biedronka at least.

Now we take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Will Woods from Bernstein.

My first question is just on the gross margin. Obviously, you've been operating in a low inflation and deflationary environment for a while, but you're seeing gross margin expansion. Could you just give us some of the details on the building blocks of that gross margin expansion? And would you expect this to continue? And then the second question is just on Biedronka expansion. Obviously, you brought down the number of net new stores that you plan on opening. And what's the rationale for basically opening fewer Biedronka stores this year?

Will. So on the gross margin, I think that here, of course, you have several effects on the yearly gross margin, which is the one that you should take into consideration because, of course, as I mentioned, in Q4, we have a one-off effect affecting the gross margin, and that's why you see such a progression quarter-on-quarter. And as I mentioned, we had at the request of our auditors to slightly adjust our inventory depreciation policy, which they consider to be a little bit conservative, and that had an effect on gross margin. So -- but if you look at the progression on all the other quarters, and if we take out this effect, of course, we had, I think, a very resilient gross margin in all the businesses.

We have also the effect of the mix -- and we have, as we flagged throughout the year, particularly in the first 3 quarters as the fourth quarter is already a little bit more comparable, Ara really rebuilt the margin, the gross margin in 2024, and this is already reflected in a stronger gross margin. So I think that as for the improvement for the years to come or for this year, I think it's something that will depend, of course, on the market, particularly because as I mentioned, our priority is clear. We want to be and to keep to be very competitive in the market. And we are going to respond to whatever be the consumer behavior. So in this aspect, we will have to take this into consideration.

Also, of course, the situation across and depending because the gross margin is, of course, also part also -- or it has to do with the situation of the different categories. It may happen that depending, of course, on the deflation on this matter on the PPI or on the volumes in the production of our suppliers. This will depend and may affect the margin. But for now, we do not expect to have a strong expansion of the margin. So the one that you see in the fourth quarter is not to be repeated, at least as such. What may bring the margin a little bit up on the gross margin can only be the trade-up or a different mix from our sales.

On Biedronka expansion, so I don't think that there is -- in our guidance, it seems to be a slowdown in expansion. But in fact, we are mentioned the net openings, which doesn't mean that we are not open more stores because, in fact, we continue to replace some older stores in neighborhoods where it doesn't make sense either to operate with a certain store. And so -- in fact, we continue to see white spaces in Poland, and we see space to continue to open. And for -- it's true that we also expect some speed up in the refurbishments. So all in all, no change really on the opportunities that we still see in the Polish market in terms of expansion.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Luis Colaco from JB Capital.

I have a couple of questions, if I may. The first one is related with the gross margin expansion. As you said, the 37 basis point expansion in the fourth quarter was mainly driven by one-offs. Can you tell us without this one-off, if you would still would be able to have increased and expanded your gross margin in the fourth quarter? My second question is regarding the nonrecurrent items. It was roughly EUR 65 million in the fourth quarter. Apart from the bonus to the employees of EUR 28 million, can you provide us some more color on what is driving this EUR 65 million in the fourth quarter?

The third question would be on the expectations for wages in Poland for 2026. How much can we expect wages to go up in Poland in 2026? And the last question, if I may. Can you provide us some color on why the effective tax rate was a bit higher in the fourth quarter?

So on the gross margins, so it's true that the margin mix also played a role, but most of the increase in the fourth quarter was really the one-off adjustments that we did. So there is a slight increase also explained by mix, as I mentioned, but most of the increase is explained by the adjustments. On the nonrecurring items, I would highlight 2 that are quite important, of course. One is that we really reinforced our provisions for legal contingencies. And we also have the restructuring and write-offs weakening on the -- on this nonrecurrent items. So some of them, of course, are or are not considered in terms of tax. And this, together with a different mix in our results, makes the effective tax rate going a little bit higher, but there is no main difference that comes out of that.

For the expectation of the wages in Poland, as you know, the proxy is the minimum salary increase. But Poland has a very tight labor market, as you probably know and are aware. And so in terms of our wages, we already did adjustments in our salaries. And -- but we do not -- what we will do, of course, is to stay competitive to really make sure that we have the proper remuneration in place to also be a reference employer in Poland. So I don't think that it's true that the reference, as I say, the reference is lower, but that doesn't mean that we will not stay competitive and we'll have to do the adjustments in the salaries to be competitive and to, of course, have the respond to what we expect to continue to be the growth of our sales and of our operation.

Now we go and take our next question and the question comes from the line of Matthew Clements from Barclays.

Two questions, if I can. One would be you continue to describe the Polish consumer is cautious and restrained despite lower interest rates and low unemployment. What are you seeing in terms of volume and mix in early '26? And you're cautious on the outlook for the rest of the year, but as of the day before the Middle East conflict, what was your assumption that volumes and mix improved through the year? That's the first question. And the second one would be on energy costs. Can you remind us what energy costs are as a percent of sales and what your hedging policy is for the year ahead?

And the final one, actually, if I can squeeze one extra one in would be, can you just give some color around your discussions with suppliers in terms of timings and how input cost inflation might come through the transmission mechanism, how that might come through into inflation for the year ahead?

So thank you, Matthew. So in Poland, as I mentioned, I don't want to go a little further in our current trading. So we are flagging that we have deflation. Our base case was, of course, as I mentioned, to operate in low single-digit inflation and having most of the growth coming from volumes and mix. So of course, we expect and we are working to have growth on our top line. So volumes and mix are something that we expect to have for the year also and playing a role in the growth of the company. On energy costs, in the case -- and this is a little bit similar across all banners is around 1 percentage point or slightly less of 1 percentage point in sales. Of course, you then have the transport costs on the logistics that's also linked to fuel. But on the energy cost is slightly less than 1 percentage point.

On the discussions with suppliers, of course, and we have our business partners, and we have to align with them also on the context. But this -- so I think that we want to have a win-win situation with them. And of course, we will take into consideration the situation of the market and simultaneously also the impact that may come. We still have to see because we -- at this point, we don't see still, as I said, a direct impact and many changes in our dynamics, commercial dynamics, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to take into consideration the pressure on production factors that may arise from further commercial tensions or from the -- some disruptions that may come at the level of the -- or following the escalation of the tensions, particularly in the Middle East. But it's something that at this point, no big tensions.

We need our suppliers and we need to be with them. And the negotiations will be, of course, to have win-win situations also for the consumers, don't fight. So as always, it will be fair, but tough negotiations, but also -- and having them also wanting to increase volumes because as I stated, at least in Poland, the PPI was in deflation. This means that they also want to drive volumes and Biedronka is making sure that this happens.

[Operator Instructions]

And now we're going to take another question. And it comes from the line of Rob Joyce from BNP Paribas.

So first one -- 2 quick ones. Just to confirm the provision reversal -- inventory provision reversal in Q4, that's a one-off, and we won't see that repeat. Effectively, it won't impact the margin in '26. Second one, could you just give us an update on the market share evolution in the fourth quarter and maybe even early '26, if you have it? And then the final one, just in terms of the Polish market, you mentioned the negative PPI there a couple of times, but the CPI remains around 2.5%. Just wondering, do you think is the market capturing a bit more gross margin? And at this point, does this reflect any change in the competitive dynamics? Or is there something we're just missing there on that gap between CPI and PPI?

Rob, so as I stated, I confirm that it's only a situation that affected in terms of the reversal on the provision, it's a situation that affected, as I mentioned, the fourth quarter. And as I stated, so we continue to be very competitive, and that reflects in our gross margin, although we also improved part of the mix. So for the year, I think that the progression is to be taken into consideration. What I'm saying is only on the fourth quarter, most of the increase that happened, so the 37 basis points was explained by this reversal. So I confirm that. It's a one-off. It has to do with accounting policies. On the market share for Biedronka, so we increased market share for the year. I would mention for the year because I think that, that comprises or at least has total comparability with no effects or at least effects that are diluted from a calendar point of view.

So according to the same basis that we have, we have increased our market share by 20 basis points. On the -- so I mentioned the PPI, and it's true that the CPI is around 2.4%. Now it's not the situation of Biedronka, we have -- and it's not a situation of the PPI because you have different factors that you have to take into consideration. I think, of course, I'm not totally into the way that the CPI is fully computed. But what I really think that happens is, first of all, the CPI has into consideration all the different taxes that apply, including the excise taxes that have been changing in Poland and that in our net sales, we do not have them affecting sales. So there is a couple of factors on one hand. And secondly, of course, we have a different mix probably from the mix considered by the statistical office. And we are, in my opinion, a little bit more exposed to categories where deflation has been higher. And namely at the end of the year, for instance, on dairy, that was quite significant.

And secondly, again, I've already mentioned that, I'm not so sure if the statistical office considers the whole promotional efforts, namely part of promotions that, of course, the price for 1 unit is 1, but if you take 2, it's much lower. So I don't know how that really goes into the computation. And I think that it's part of what explains the difference. This being said, I can tell you that Biedronka maintains a strong competitiveness and -- but nevertheless, was able even incorporating some one-off was able to be very resilient in its gross margin. And that, in my opinion, has to do also with the opportunities that it provides to its suppliers that if they want to increase volumes to improve their cash situation, of course, is with Biedronka that they have to be.

Just to round up, do you think your price gaps have expanded versus the competition with the deflation in your basket? Or do you think it's broadly in line with what the market is doing?

I think that we have defended the price positioning of Biedronka. So I don't see -- I don't think that has enlarged a lot, particularly from the remaining discounters, but we continue to be the most competitive.

[Operator Instructions]

Dear speakers, there are no further questions for today. And I would now like to hand the conference over to Ana Luisa Virginia for any closing remarks.

We delivered well in 2025, good sales, good margins and good returns. Adding to this, and more importantly, we have consumers with us. To protect all these in 2026 implies maintaining flexibility and responsiveness as we execute our plans, closely monitoring changes in an unpredictable context, particularly in the first half of 2026 to make timely adjustments if needed. Thank you for your questions and for attending this conference call. I wish you all a nice day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.

Good day, and welcome to the Jerónimo Martins First 9 Months 2025 Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Ana Luisa Virginia , Chief Financial Officer of Jerónimo Martins Group. Please go ahead, madam.

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining this call dedicated to our first 9 months results. As usual, in our corporate website, you can find the results release, a slide presentation and a fact sheet for the period.

The first 9 months of 2025 continue to be defined by the ongoing global geopolitical uncertainty that is also shaping consumer sentiment and fostering a more cautious value-driven approach among shoppers. Against this challenging context, price remains at the heart of our strategy across all banners. Every team worked hard to uphold our promise of price leadership and to create an attractive quality assortment, securing customer preference and driving sales growth.

The reinforced commitment to cost discipline, operational efficiency and productivity paid off and ensure that EBITDA margins remained robust despite the tough combination of low basket inflation with high cost inflation in extremely competitive backdrops. Meanwhile, our ambitious CapEx program is being executed as planned, reaching EUR 816 million in the period with the opening of 274 new stores and the renovation of 170 locations.

The balance sheet kept its robustness, closing September with a net cash position, excluding capitalized leases of EUR 467 million. All in all, our 9 months results are solid and show that our banners' business models are agile and prepared to adjust and respond to the current circumstances.

Looking now at the P&L, I'm going to focus on the 9 months figures and flag a couple of things. On sales, our banners delivered well overall, driving the group's top line to grow by 7.1% or 6.6% at constant exchange rates to EUR 26.5 billion. EBITDA reached EUR 1.8 billion, 10.9% up on the same period of the previous year or a 9.9% growth at constant exchange rates. EBITDA margin was 23 basis points up versus the 9 months of 2024, reaching 6.8%.

This performance is the result of good sales delivery combined with cost management and productivity measures, which more than compensated for price investment and cost inflation. The execution of the investment program is reflected in the evolution of both depreciation and net financial costs as the later also includes the interest expense of capitalized leases.

The other profit and losses heading incorporates indemnities, write-offs and provisions as well as the allocation of EUR 40 million from the 2024 results to the Jerónimo Martins Foundation.

Cash flow for the period, excluding the dividends paid in May, was at EUR 128 million. The 2 most important things to highlight here are the improved funds from operations following the solid sales and EBITDA delivery and enhanced working capital flows, which reflect the different growth dynamics compared with the same period of prior year and stricter stock management.

As already mentioned, by the end of these first 9 months, thanks to the good sales performance and despite the execution of our ambitious CapEx plan, the balance sheet remains solid, including a positive cash position of EUR 467 million.

Looking now into the detail of the performance, I will start with the top line. Group sales grew by 7.1%, 6.6% at constant exchange rates to EUR 26.5 billion, including a like-for-like of 2.4% and a solid contribution from expansion. All banners did well with Biedronka in particular, adding EUR 1 billion of sales at constant exchange rate in the 9-month period.

In Poland, the market context continued to be highly competitive and consumer behavior remained cautious, focusing on low prices and promotional offers. Throughout its 30 years history in the country and in a meaningful way also this year, Biedronka has kept Polish families' needs and expectations at the heart of its offering. The banner maintained its price leadership and continue to offer the best savings opportunities while working to constantly evolve its assortment and improve its store network, having opened 111 new stores and remodeled 110 in the 9 months.

Sales grew by 7.4% to EUR 18.8 billion, or 5.8% in local currency, with like-for-like at 1.8% despite the challenging comps. The like-for-like growth and the expansion of the store network resulted once again in market share gains.

HeBe operated in a context that became increasingly price competitive, which combined with muted consumer demand strongly pressured like-for-like growth. Sales increased by 6.9% or 5.3% in local currency to reach EUR 451 million. Over the period, HeBe opened 13 stores in Poland, net -- 10 net additions and 2 in the Czech Republic. The banner is focused on reinforcing its offer differentiation and competitiveness while protecting its price positioning in the current context.

In Portugal, consumers remain promotion oriented. Pingo Doce kept its intense commercial strategy, guaranteeing its leading price positioning. This dynamic, together with the contribution from the All About Food stores drove solid like-for-like growth. The banner opened 5 stores and steadily advanced in its remodeling program, having renovated 38 stores throughout the 9 months. The renewed store concept enhances the differentiation and uniqueness of the assortment, particularly in perishables and ready-to-eat meals. Sales grew by 5.4% to EUR 3.9 billion and like-for-like, excluding fuel, was up 4.1%.

Recheio enlarged its client base and benefited from the competitiveness of the offer designed for the HoReCa channel, which combines price with quality of the assortment and a special emphasis on fresh and on the service provided to clients, particularly the Amanhecer partners. Against the difficult comparison with the same period in the prior years, our wholesale banner grew sales by 2.6% to reach EUR 1 billion with like-for-like at 2.4%.

In Colombia, despite some improvement in consumer demand, Ara continued to face a difficult backdrop and maintained an intense commercial dynamic, offering the best saving opportunities for the Colombian families. With like-for-like growth at a solid 5.6% and a strong contribution from store network expansion, sales in local currency increased by 16.9%. In euros, sales reached EUR 2.3 billion, 9.6% up on the 9 months of 2024.

This performance reflects our Colombian company's strong focus on growth that fueled its top line through intense promotional dynamics on one hand and the delivery on its expansion ambition on the other. This expansion included the opening of 135 stores over the period, of which 70 resulted from the integration of stores previously operated by Colsubsidio.

Consolidated EBITDA grew by 10.9% or 9.9% at constant exchange rates to reach EUR 1.8 billion. This solid performance was driven by increased sales and effective cost and productivity management. All companies managed extremely well the challenging combination of price investment and cost inflation, particularly in wages. Never losing sight of our growth ambition and working efficiently and productively, all banners delivered good margin performance despite the muted consumer context, particularly in Poland.

Group EBITDA margin was at 6.8%, up from the 6.6% registered in the 9 months of 2024. At Biedronka, EBITDA margin performance was driven by an assertive combination of sales growth, cost control and efficiency gains. At HeBe, while like-for-like was impacted by the market context, the focus on tightening cost discipline and working to shield product mix allowed for EBITDA margin protection.

In Portugal, an effective promotional strategy drove sales growth, which together with reinforced productivity measures also preserved EBITDA margin. In Colombia, Ara's good performance benefited both from sales growth and the work initiated in 2024 to protect gross margin and mitigate the impact of inflation on costs.

Wrapping up, amidst a backdrop of global geopolitical uncertainty, consumer behavior remains somehow restrained and predominantly price focused, contributing to intense competitiveness in food retail. During this period, we also continued to face cost inflation, particularly in wages. Despite these challenging conditions, we achieved solid sales growth. On top of the positive contribution of like-for-like, a recognition of our unwavering commitment to offer leading prices, the strategic expansion of our store network also played a decisive role. The combination of robust sales, cost discipline and operational efficiency translated into strong EBITDA delivery.

With the Christmas and New Year season approaching, we will stay focused on offering the best saving opportunities and ensuring an agile responsiveness to the needs and wants of our customers so that they keep choosing our stores every time.

Thank you for your attention. Operator, I am now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] And your first question today comes from the line of William Woods from Bernstein.

When we look shorter term, why do you think you can't pass on basket inflation in a normalized way just yet? And I suppose, have you seen any improvement in that basket inflation over the last few months? And also, when you look at your market share gains, are you able to give us any idea in Poland, how much market share you've been gaining either over the last year or 2 or something like that?

And then when you look longer term in Poland, in particular, how confident are you that you can see margin recovery in that midterm view? Is there any reason why you don't think you could get back to 8.5%, 9% like you were achieving a couple of years ago?

So on basket inflation, of course, we are not alone in the market. The Polish market continues to be very, very competitive. And this -- it's true that this comes a long way but we know that considering the context and the fact that we are and we keep operating in a low basket inflation versus a still high cost inflation. This means that all players are more pressured, and this tends to intensify really the competition in the market. So I think that's what Biedronka intends to do is to keep its price leadership, as we said. This is really relevant in the current context. So currently, what we have to work for really is to make sure that we are and we continue to be the leaders in price.

This being said, of course, it's a different situation, as I've been saying this year, it's a completely different situation to work even with low inflation than to work in deflation, which was the case last year. And of course, this really drives the performance, not only on the margins but particularly and also on the balance sheet, considering our business model, the way that it is crafted.

So I think that we are not so keen in passing the whole inflation. The idea here is to really become or continue to be the most competitive to maintain the preference of consumers to make sure that through sales, we are able to dilute the costs and of course, to protect our profitability because growth is also important, as I said, for the return on invested capital as a whole.

On market share gains, according to JFK, so it's the base and the source that we have, we continue to gain market share. Up to August, we gained 0.2 percentage points of market share. And I believe that in September, we even gained a little bit more than that but the numbers are not still out. So I think this -- and I have to say, it's an incredible performance by Biedronka's team, considering that we are growing on top of growth. And it's true that EUR 1 billion is not the same percentage when you are delivering EUR 25 billion in sales than when you were delivering billion EUR 20 million but it's really a terrific performance by our Polish banner.

On the margin recovery, of course, this, as I said, I think that we are -- we know that we are becoming more leveraged from the P&L point of view when we work with lower margins. But the fact is that we had to prepare to work with high cost inflation and of course, still being in a collection move considering the low inflation of 2022 and 2023. So what -- if it's possible, this will really depend on the whole market. And what we are seeing, as I flagged, is still a consumer that is cautious, a consumer that doesn't see reasons to trade up in food.

And of course, it's possible, but I don't think at this point will be our main priority. The main priority is really to protect profitability considering the whole business model and the -- as I said, the return on invested capital more than just the EBITDA margin or EBIT margin.

And the next question comes from the line of Jose Rito from CaixaBank.

Sorry if I didn't get if you comment anything related with weather. We had some other players calling attention to the weather impact in Q3. Can you quantify how much was this impact for Jerónimo in Poland, please? That will be the first question.

And then the second question I have is related to this OpEx evolution. OpEx as percentage of sales has been evolving well. What has been the main contributors to this? So what has been the cost lines that have been evolving below sales?

Thank you, Jose. So on the weather, we do not quantify, of course, the impact as we also don't quantify when the weather is good. So it's a circumstances that affects all players. And of course, we have to deal with that. It's true that affects some categories that usually are margin driven. But this being said, we don't isolate the effect in our performance. It's something that we have to deal with.

On OpEx, so this has 2 main reasons, of course. One was all the measures in terms of cost control that were taken. And this a little bit in anticipation of what we were seeing in the market. So as you know, and having as a proxy, the minimum wage increase that has happened in our main markets, which was basically a very high single digits and knowing that it would be almost impossible to grow at that pace, all the banners started to implement a series of different initiatives to increase productivity and to make sure that regardless of the sales growth, they would somehow protect the profitability without losing, as I said, the competitiveness and losing the consumers' preference.

And of course, the fact that we performed, in my opinion, well at the top line also helped to dilute and this was across, in fact, all banners, even in HeBe that had a more difficult context and is still operating with a high deflation, in fact, even -- he took some measures but that were already being prepared because of the context that we knew we would face this year.

Okay. Understood. So on the weather and I understand your answer on -- there is always positives and negatives. But can you at least say if now what we are seeing is more neutral relative to the weather in October? That will be the first.

And the second one as a follow-up on the efficiency gains and be remind how much was the minimum wage increase this year. So the minimum wages next year will be much lower than this year if the efficiencies are there. So I would say that if top line momentum remains, so operating leverage could be even more in 2026, right?

Okay, Jose. So still on the weather. So what I know is that it continues to be challenging but it's now the season of bad weather. So I think that we should not depend very much on the weather to assess our full year results, to be honest.

On the -- still on the OpEx. So it's true that the announcement, at least in Poland, because in Portugal, it's a little bit higher than that. And probably in Colombia, where there will be elections, we will see also an increase in salaries that is higher than the 3%. But this being said, we have to notice that it's not just a question of the increase in the minimum wage. We are facing very tight labor markets. We know that the immigration is also a question to see how we will deal with some constraints or some restraints in the different countries. So I think that we face still a very challenging backdrop in terms of wage increases or not. So if it's going to be 3%, this will also depend on the market dynamic and on making sure that we have the proper teams in place to continue to deliver our value propositions to our customers.

The rest, of course, growing -- even growing in Poland at 3%, which would be -- and usually, you do that relation with the increase in costs. The question is that this will depend a lot as we are -- first of all, we have a very challenging base to grow from. And on the other hand, this will also depend on the consumer background and on how things evolved. And we continue to see a lot of volatility and still a lot of, let's say, muted consumer demand all across.

So I wouldn't say that, yes, we are facing a more or less challenging context because the minimum wage increase or just because the minimum wage increase is lower this year than it was last year. In fact, we are growing from a much higher base than it used to be.

[Operator Instructions] We will now take the next question and your next question today comes from the line of António Seladas from A|S Independent Research.

Just a quick question in terms of working capital. It seems that figures are now stabilizing. So should we expect a more normal pattern from now on in terms of working capital? Or do you think that pressure that we saw in the recent quarters will continue?

Thank you, António. So on working capital, of course, as I mentioned, we are highly leveraged from the operational point of view. It is the nature of our business model. And of course, when we have growth and particularly when there is no deflation, the working capital goes or works in favor of us as a tailwind. And so I think that the correction move that there was in the market last year was penalized the working capital. At this point, what we are seeing, of course, is a different situation. So as I said, the growth dynamic is different and the working capital is better in this sense.

This being said, I have to say that there was also a very significant work, particularly by the teams in Portugal and in Poland at the stock levels to make sure that overall, our profitability model works also on the working capital. So I think that's we can consider stabilized but it will depend again on the level of growth to continue to have the working capital being positive. And at this point, I wouldn't see that there wouldn't be working for us in the last quarter of the year.

[Operator Instructions] There are currently no further questions. I will hand the call back to Anna Luisa. Please go ahead.

These 9 months results translate our banner's commitment and hard work to deliver against a very volatile geopolitical context whose impacts on the economic agents, including consumers are still far from being totally visible. Entering now the last quarter of the year and the crucial Christmas and New Year's period, we remain focused in responding to our customers' needs while continuing the key investment projects that are still to be concluded before the year-end.

Thank you for your questions and for attending this conference call. I wish you all a nice day.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.