Almacenes Exito SA (EXTO) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Grupo Exito's Fourth Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. My name is Sylvia, and I'll be operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions)

I will now turn the call over to Maria Fernanda Moreno, Investor Relations Manager. Ms. Moreno, you may begin.

Thank you, Sylvia. Good morning to everyone and thank you for joining us today for Grupo Exito's fourth quarter call.

At this time, I'm pleased to present our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Carlos Mario Giraldo and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Ruy Souza.

Please now move to Slide #3 to see the agenda. We will cover Grupo Exito's financial and operating highlights, performance by country and consolidated financial results for the fourth quarter and full year operations in Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina. We will also review the outcome versus outlook in 2021, and we provide the outlook for 2022. The call will conclude with the Q&A session. Thank you for your attention.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Carlos Maria.

Thank you, Maria Fernanda and to you all for being here present for this call for the year results. I'm pleased to present historical good results in commercial activity, financial soundness and strategic consistency. I would describe the results in that way.

If we go to Slide #4, and we look at the financial and operational highlights. First, we are presenting a net income for the year, 2.1x the one we had in 2020. Number two, we're having a recurrent EBITDA margin of 9.1%, improving 99 basis points. For the year, our same-store sales increased at 7.8%. And for the fourth quarter, a high 16% increase in same-store sales and the omnichannel for the consolidated results maintained a 9.9 share of sales and in Colombia, 11.9%. That is a top level at LatAm region, especially for a company to which 70% of sales are coming from consumer goods.

Sales were boosted by our omnichannel strategy, our innovation in formats and initiatives, our traffic and customer traffic and confidence monetization and, of course, the very positive economic dynamics in Colombia in the second half of the year. EBITDA grew by 20.7% from a very strict expense control and, of course, from the commercial dynamics.

If we go to our capital investment, our CapEx in Colombian pesos was COP 550,000 million and in dollars, $138 million. We ended the year announcing the operation of 5 of the most important stores of [La Catorce] in Cali. And starting this year, we announced a sixth one, which creates a great strength in Valle del Cauca region and Cali City. And innovative formats now account for 1/3 of the share of the Colombian sales, something that we started 4 years ago with the WOW with the Fresh now with the Vecino Super Inter with the Cash and Carry now is 1/3 of the total sales of the company becoming clearly material.

If we go to Slide #5, we see our ESG, our environmental, social and governance strategy in 6 pillars. I leave it to you so that you can study them. I would go directly to Slide #6, where I speak about -- we speak about the advance in these 6 pillars. We believe that we speak about 3 circles. The first circle is the company and its groups of interest, stakeholders. The second one is the society community in which we work. And the third one is the planet, our environment, and we are working at the 3 levels.

The first pillar for us has been historically important for Exito is zero malnutrition. That is we contribute for a vision of zero malnutrition in 2034 Colombia, working with the government and with the NGOs. This year, we benefited directly more than 70,000 children with a nutritional complement. In my planet pillar, Carulla FreshMarket as the format of innovation became the first retail in Latin America to be carbon-neutral certified by ICONTEC in Colombia. And we made a recycling of new to 21,000 tons of carton and plastics. That is the main recycler in Colombia, and that is equivalent to the garage that country produces in 1 day, which is really very material.

In sustainable trade, 90% of our food, vegetable and meat and also of our textiles are bought in Colombia are purchased locally. And in our apparel, we work with 80 local workshops. In our governance and integrity pillar, Exito is within the 10 most sustainable food retailers in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. That is the global index and it's, of course, the only one in Colombia. And Exito was also recognized as a Company Committed with Integrity at 100% by the Anti-corruption Institute with the compliance of the ISO 37001 standards. In our people pillar, I would highlight that we contributed to make a rapid vaccination of our people by buying 16,000 vaccines to complement the program of the government. And in the healthy lifestyle, we completed now a portfolio of more than 7,000 healthy products, especially under our healthy brand Taeq.

If we go to Slide #7, in Colombian sales. We had a very strong quarter in Colombia with 15% same-store sales growth, a combination of a sound economy and internal commercial consistency. Yearly sales came to near to COP 12.3 billion, growing same-store sales 6.8%. If you look at our sales against the period before pandemia, in 2019, the growth is 11.4%. That means that as Colombia did that it ended its economy above the pre-pandemia, Exito is also clearly above pre-pandemia, even discounting the inflation that the country has had for 2 years. The quarter had a clear same-store sales market share gain, very positive economic dynamics in our country, innovation results for the country and the result of the consistency in our digital progression.

If we go to Slide #8, we speak about results by segment. Here, the highlight is to say that our growth was very balanced in the 3 segments, that is premium, mid-market with our hypermarkets and low-cost brands. If we look against 2019 Exito sales are growing 12.3% against pre-pandemia, Carulla sales are growing 14.8% and the low-cost is also growing at 5.3%. It's impressive to say that low-cost has gained a lot of acceleration in the last months and it is beginning a very good year in 2022, and we had a positive trend, for example, for Surtimayorista our Cash and Carry with like-for-like sales growing 24% for the full year.

Going to Slide #9. We have always highlighted what's happening with innovation, which is in the center of the strategy of differentiation of this company and working for customer experience and for our stores to be a destination for the full family, especially in the hypermarkets and the Carulla FreshMarket. If we go first to the Exito WOW, which is a very, very unique innovation proposition for hypermarkets, not only in LatAm, but in the world. Now Exito WOW hypermarkets represent new to 30% of the total banner sales with a 31% ROI, the top ROI in the company. And with sales of those stores with more than 24 months, growing 42%, which compares against 10% for the rest of the stores with the Exito banner. This clearly shows the high impact that innovation and experience is having on our customers.

It's always good to create value by adding experience and not only by discounting prices. Of course, we have a very strong price proposition in the portfolio of the basic basket products, but our strategy is to create value, both in food and in non-food. In Carulla FreshMarket premium, it is all about fresh and sustainable. And here, it now represents 45% of the total banner sales, a 10% ROI and sales of those stores with more than 24 months, growing 30% against 16% of the rest of the stores with the banner.

Going to Slide #10. We speak about our low-cost banners that is Surtimayorista, Super Inter, SurtiMAX and our Aliado strategy. It is gaining importance. The share is 15.6% of the total company sales, and we are giving visibility to 2 main initiatives, our Cash and Carry, as you have known in the last years and Vecino innovation format for Super Inter. In the Cash and Carry, Surtimayorista, our 36 stores, had a sales growth of near to 43% in the fourth quarter and like-for-like 24% for the full year. We have to underline the importance of Club del Comerciante that is a club for our professional customers, a loyalty program for professional customers and the launch of a special directed credit card from Tuya for this kind of professional customers. Super Inter Vecino now represents 47% of the total banner sales. It has had a very rapid renovation given the good results that the banner is having, and it is having 14% sales growth above the rest of Super Inter.

Going to Slide #11. We come back to our omnichannel strategy, which is material consistent, even in a year like 2021, where during most of the year, the complete store portfolio of the company and the country were opened with no restrictions. Omnichannel now represents $374 million in sales and 11.9% share, COP 1.5 billion in sales for Exito and 7.8 million dispatched given deliveries, given to our households directly or through the alliance that we have with Rappi. Sales in food omnichannelity account for 11%, which is a top level, not only in LatAm, but for many retailers in the world and our omnichannel total sales today are 2.4x what they were in 2019, which means that they are here to stay, and we expect them to continue having a participation of share in the company of double digit.

It's important to highlight the importance of our Click & Collect where we use the portfolio of our stores to make very efficient deliveries to our customers and very convenient, they account 23.5% of the total omnichannel sales and our marketplace GMV today is 25% of the total share being one of the big focuses that we have in the future given the importance that in the business to world in commercial standards, the marketplace is acquiring for not only pure players, but also omnichannel players like Exito.

In Slide #12, digital is growing and omnichannel is growing because it has initiatives which are out of the pack. I would say, first, our Turbo initiative in alliance, in a long-term alliance with Rappi with exclusive portfolio of Carulla. This is the only service in Colombia that offers deliveries in less than 10 minutes with an outstanding average of 8.7 minutes in deliveries. It now has 1 year. It now has 64 dark stores. It had sales in the first year of $16 million, and it is one of the high potential growth pillars that we have.

WhatsApp service with a chatbot, WhatsApp is very important in Colombia. It has penetration of 2/3 of the Colombian population, and we have made it massive and targeted to each store. And now it accounts for 22% of our omnichannel food sales, and it's available and connected to 320 stores of the organization with sales of around $70 million. And clearly, unique in Exito's Clickam. Clickam is a digital referral marketing model. It started with our own employees. It now sold $24 million where our employees can refer other customers and receive a commission for doing so. Now it is being extended in a digital world to other communities, and it has a high potential of growth.

In Slide #13, we speak about real estate. Real estate had an outstanding year. It continues to be a core contributor to profitable growth. It has fully recovered from the pandemia situation. Revenue was up 54%. But even if we discount a non-recurrent income, the recurrent rentals and administrative fees had a growth of 38%, and occupancy came close to normal at 93%.

In our Viva Malls, we have 2 key differentiators. The first one is Viva Online. It is the first shopping mall brand that offers online services to all the tenants to profit from the alliances that we have for these kind of deliveries. And the second one is the integration and the offer to our tenants of the ecosystem of Exito, that is working for with our credit card, working with Puntos Colombia and also being part of our ESG strategy, mainly in the recycling of materials in the shopping malls.

Going to Slide #14, we speak about monetization of our traffic and of our data. This is not new. It is something that has been consistent in Exito for many years and which is in the center of our business model. I would speak about 2 of the businesses that make this monetization. The first one because of its current importance and the second one because of its high potential.

The first one is the financial retail, our Tuya company in alliance with Bancolombia. Today, it has issued 2.8 million cards in stock. That is the first card in Colombia by a number of cards. It has launched Tuya Pay, which has more than 800,000 users, and it is the only credit -- the only, I would say, wireless digital wallet launched by a traditional retailer. And now it is looking at something which is a high potential, and it is banking as a service, given the entrance of fintechs, we have found a very interesting business in giving as a service banking to other businesses and other companies, for example, Alkosto, which is a competitor is managing the credit card of Alkosto. Viva Air, one of the main airlines in Colombia, Transmilenio, the main public service of transportation in Bogota only to mention 3 very interesting and big businesses.

In Puntos Colombia, Puntos Colombia has a huge potential as a certain currency for Colombia. Today, it has 5.5 million active customers, that is customers that use it currently. Customers of Bancolombia and Exito growing by 17% in 2021, and it is an ecosystem, which has now 134 other allied companies going from gasoline to other apparel stores, restaurants, fast food, telcos, et cetera. And this is very important because it becomes a system in which points are issued and redeemed within all the system, of course, being exit the #1 destination of redemption of this point.

I would now hand it to Ruy Souza to go on through the financial results of the company, and then I will come back with the conclusions.

Thank you, Carlos Mario. Good morning, everyone. Thank you again for being with us.

Let's move on to Slide 15, where we will review the financial performance in Colombia, where top line grew 16% during the Q4 and 7% during the year, which is the growth above inflation, leading the EBITDA margin for the year to be around 9.4%, 136 basis points higher than last year than 2020.

In Colombia, first, talking about the Q4, the performance was again boosted by the noble performance by the contribution of omnichannel and also by the contribution coming from the complementary businesses. All 3 together drove net revenues to grow 16%, gross margin to improve 32 basis points and also expenses to dilute 68 business -- sorry -- basis points. That led recurring EBITDA to grow for the Q4 23.2% and reached 11.2% of margin, 66 basis points above Q4 of 2020.

In terms of annual figures, talking about sales, we see a growth of 5.5% to COP 12.3 billion. Other revenues grew 38.7%, thanks to both Tuya profitability reactivation and also the real estate return revenues. The real estate recurring revenues, as we saw, grew 38% versus last year and is already above pre-pandemic levels.

In terms of net revenues, the growth for the year was 7%, and the total amount COP 13 billion for the accumulated period. In terms of gross margin, we see a positive evolution of 114 bps. It was boosted also by both of the segments. The Retail segment showed an improvement of 20 basis points and the growth of complementary businesses contributed for the other 90 basis points of gross margin evolution.

For the SG&A, the growth was 5.2%, below inflation and also below sales evolution. This led to an improvement in terms of rate of 31 basis points. So the Colombia perimeter as a whole for 2021 showed an EBITDA growing 25% versus 2020 and 21% versus 2019, reaching COP 1.2 billion, a 9.4% margin versus 8% last year and 8.6% on the 2019. The additional EBITDA in terms of cash is COP 245,000 million. It was reached through a positive contribution coming from retail of COP 27,000 million being 101 on the second semester, showing a good reactivation and aligned also with the economic dynamics and the other COP 219,000 million coming from the complementary businesses.

Moving on to the next Slide #16. Here, we will review the performance in Uruguay, where efficiency gains and the year-end consumption trends favored the high level of 10.2% EBITDA margin being double digit and the most profitable operation in the company. In the Q4, the operation in Uruguay presented a very positive performance with recurring EBITDA margin at 10.6%, 15 basis points above Q4 of 2020, thanks to the same-store sales in local currency growing 5.8%, boosted by a gradual recovery of the touristic season being above 2020, but still below 2019 and expenses growing below inflation with an improvement in terms of rates amounting 115 basis points.

For the value of figures, same-store sales in local currency grew 0.7% to COP 2.7 billion with positive performances in omnichannel activities, which grew 9.8% and Non-Food segment, which grew 5.4% and fresh market stores, growing 7.5 points above the non-converted stores.

The gross margin improvement for the year was 41 basis points. And we saw a negative evolution of 71 basis points in terms of rate for the expenses despite having a growth below inflation, of course, related to the slow economic activity mainly before the touristic season. The reverse inventory in terms of EBITDA showed a decrease of 2% versus 2020, but a growth of 14% versus 2019, reaching COP 272,000 million and being 10.2% in terms of margin compared to 10.3% in 2020 and 9.2% in 2019.

Moving on to Slide #17. For Argentina, we saw an EBITDA margin improvement of 156 basis points, thanks to better commercial dynamics, thanks to real estate reservation and also to productivity gains. As we can see, the EBITDA margin for the year in Argentina recovered to the 2019 levels, 3.4% versus 3.5, which is good news. In the Q4, the commercial activity reactivation with same-store sales in local currency growing above inflation and the real estate occupation levels being above 90%, drove the EBITDA margin to 7.7%. In terms of annual figures, the net revenues grew 39.4% to COP 1.2 billion, boosted by the FreshMarket stores evolution and also by the real estate reactivation. In terms of gross margin, the improvement was 148 bps, and it was benefited by the lower share of promotional events and also by the reactivation of the business of real estate. In expenses, the improvement was 10 bps. And in terms of EBITDA margin, the operation landed, as I was mentioning, at 3.4% versus 1.8% last year and 3.5% in 2019.

To review now our consolidated results. Let's move forward to Slide #18. The main highlight here is obviously the EBITDA margin evolution of 100 bps from a consistent customer-centric strategy focused as we saw on innovation, omnichannel and traffic monetization. In the consolidated perimeter during the Q4 sales grew almost 20%, with other revenues growing 43.5% and net revenues reaching COP 5.2 billion, 20.7% above Q4 of 2020. During the Q4 also gross margin improved 34 basis points and expenses in terms of rates improved 25 basis points and EBITDA reached 10.8%, improving 25 basis points from last year. Also in terms of net group share results, there was a very positive evolution of 74 basis points in terms of margin for the Q4.

In terms of annual figures, the sales growth was 6.4% to COP 16.1 billion. Other revenues grew 37% to COP 817,000 million, both leading net revenues to grow 7.5%, reaching almost COP 17 billion for the total year. The gross margin presented a positive evolution. And together with a stable expenses rate, both contributed to the recurring margin -- recurring EBITDA margin improvement of almost 100 basis points and so recurring EBITDA in cash, reaching COP 1.5 billion, almost 21% above last year. And when compared also to 2019, we see a growth in terms of EBITDA of 23% and an improvement in terms of margin of 70 basis points.

Finally, the net group share results doubled to COP 475,000 million and improved 134 basis points versus last year. And on the next slide, we can see how this evolution happened.

So moving on to Slide #19. The evolution from the COP 231,000 million to the COP 475,000 million this year is mainly explained by, first, the positive contribution from the operational results, which amounted COP 234,000 million. Second, the non-recurring expenses reduction of 52% versus 2020, but also 25% reduction versus 2019, something that we have been talking about during the last call. And third, the financial expenses reduction of COP 50,000 million, thanks both to debt conditions, renegotiations that we performed during the year and also thanks to lower level of indebtedness. And lastly, the negative impact that we see in terms of income tax, but obviously, related to the improvements that I have just mentioned.

Finally, on Slide #20. Regarding our cash and debt situation at holding level, I would like to mention the following. First, the net financial debt position improved by COP 224,000 million, coming from our cash position increase of COP 94 million and coming also from an indebtedness level reduction of 13%. The cash flow generation to shareholders grew 4x to almost COP 400,000 million, led by the EBITDA growth and also by a positive working capital variation, both allowing also the reactivation of investment versus previous levels.

Now I'll turn the call back to Mr. Carlos Mario Giraldo to go on with our main conclusions for the quarter. Thank you.

Thank you, Ruy. If we go to Slide #21, the conclusions which have been exposed during the presentation, Exito had solid margins and net income, strong gains from a consistent customer-centered strategy. And I would make emphasis in this. It is a customer-centered strategy, which is behind the results that the company has been showing in the last period.

At our LatAm level, regional level, what I would say is a strong recovery trend across the 3 countries, mainly during the second half of the year, which is remaining in the first part of the quarter of 2022 as we speak. A top line boosted by omnichannel innovation and traffic monetization, solid recurring EBITDA margin gains of 99 basis points and income growth of 2.1, cash flow generation to shareholders 4x what it was before at COP 397,000 million, CapEx at $138 million and clear advance achievements and commitments at the sixth ESG strategic pillars.

In Colombia, revenue boosted by innovation, which now represents 33% of total sales, omnichannel, which represents near to 12% of total sales and real estate growth and a strong EBITDA margin gains of 136 basis points. In Uruguay, it remains with a higher EBITDA margin of 10.2%, regardless of the difficult consumption situation in Uruguay mainly because of the difficult situation of the tourist season, which will change this year because tourist season is returning not too normal, but much better than in previous years. In Argentina, real estate contribution and operation efficiencies in our retail business led EBITDA margin to 3.4% with an improvement of 156 basis points and a stable cash position.

If we go to Slide #22, here we see the outlook we gave last year and the outcome against the outlook. I'm not going to go through the details. You can look at them, but they are all green, which means that, fortunately, the company could achieve in revenues, expansion, profitability in the 3 countries, the outlook that we announced before the year started.

If we go to 2022 outlook, what I would begin to say is that we are facing with optimism the year that we are seeing a strong beginning of the year from the 3 countries, and we hope it continues this way, but I can speak as of what we are seeing by the end of February. For the outlook, what I would say is top line growth benefited by innovation, omnichannel and complementary businesses. We believe in top line growth. We believe that we can at least maintain the recurring EBITDA margin levels at the consolidated level, and this is very important, considering as we are seeing worldwide, but especially in LatAm, the inflationary pressures on expenditure. So it comes from top line, from productivity from our complementary businesses, et cetera, the additional income that will permit us to maintain at least that EBITDA margin. Omnichannel to represent high single-digit share on consolidated sales.

Expansion in Colombia between 60 and 70 stores, including new meters of around 35,000 square meters, including hypermarkets, Exito, supermarkets, Carulla and some Cash and Carry stores. Sustainable cash flow generation to shareholders and ESG efforts to continue focusing in the 6 pillars of which I would highlight the child nutrition initiative in our Fundacion Exito and sustainability of our procurement chain.

This would be the presentation that we have for you today. I would open it to Q&A and then probably some end remarks.

(Operator Instructions) And the first question comes from Nicolas Larrain from JPMorgan.

I had 2 on this front, Carlos Mario, could you maybe give a bit more details in terms of off store expansion? Like how should we see growth, especially in Colombia, I'm thinking here per banner. And like how many openings you maybe see in upcoming years or quarters?

And also, going back a bit to your comment on the recurring EBITDA margin. I understand that in Colombia, maybe you guys will face some higher pressures on the expense side coming from increased labor cost, right? So how should we think about the recurring EBITDA margin for Colombia specifically into 2022, understanding that you guys expect to maintain the consolidated margin? How should we think about just Colombia?

So I'll take that, too. First, in store expansion. We believe that we are going to do at least 35,000 square meters that is, I would say, the most important expansion that we have done in the last 4 years. That is going to take part of the hypermarkets that we are going to operate from La Catorce, but it will also have an important expansion from the Surtimayorista and Surtimayorista, we will have between conversion and expansion between 8 and 10 stores. And the rest, we will be consistent in going through with conversions of more Exito stores into the WOW concept. You can see the ROI, it's very attractive ROI and the growth that the WOW is having. So that the new thing is that we are not doing only WOWs at a high economic bracket level, but we are taking stores of medium sized WOW teams, which we had some pilots in Bucaramanga with excellent results. And as a popular aspirational exit of hypermarkets, we had a metropolitan in Barranquilla also with excellent results. So we will continue in this route, and that gives us a very important potential for the future of at least 100 Exito stores that can be converted into WOW, including these 3 sectors.

In Carulla FreshMarket, we are now going also with a pilot of WOW Carulla midsized stores, and it has functioned very well. So we will continue doing so. And we will also do something which is important, and it is a kind of a Carulla FreshMarket, city market, which is for those Carulla, which are in places that do not permit it to go to fresh market and where we will do a premium proposition, but with half the CapEx that we are doing today in Carulla. And we will continue doing a lot more with our Vecino in Super Inter and taking them to a new generation.

It's important also to add that it's not only about store expansion. A 1/3 of our CapEx is going to technology. It's going to logistics. It's going to assure our efficiency in the last mile. It's going to support the Turbo project, which permits us to get to different neighborhoods without having stores there, that is a proximity digital alternative, which is very interesting. And the rest of the CapEx is also going to promote our market share where we have an alliance with the Octopia project of [Cityscoot] which is one of the main leaders in pure players in marketplaces in the world.

Going to your second question about expenses and the impact of inflation, yes, we're conscience about that. We're conscious that a 10% minimum salary increase is -- creates a pressure for everybody, especially for businesses where labor is important. We also have an impact on occupation costs on utilities only to speak about 3 of the main expenses. Our forecast is that through growth, through profitability, through complementary businesses, through innovation, and through omnichannel growth in which labor is very well controlled. We will be able to keep our margin levels in Colombia. That is the estimation that we have for the moment. And if things continue as they are today in the commercial side, that will be the most probable outcome.

Perfect, Carlos Mario. And if I may ask a quick follow-up, a bit on the competitive environment. I mean we have seen Justo & Bueno is struggling in a bit of a restructuring operation. La Catorce as you guys flag sold stores and is in a pretty bad shape as well. Could you comment a bit on how the competitive environment is post -- let's say, post-coronavirus, right? And if you see any more opportunities to acquire some stores similar to what you did with La Catorce?

Thank you, Nicolas. About acquisitions, you know that you only announced an acquisition, and that day you do it. So here I would have no comment. What I would say is that the competitive scenario is different in food and in non-food. Let's go to food. In food, what I would say is that we have a strong expansion coming from the 2 remaining discounters, Danone and Jeronimo Martins, which are doing a good job. And we are addressing that with our private brands with our price position in the main products of the basket for Colombians, which I can comment that while inflation in Colombia by the end of the year was near to 17% of inflation, internal inflation to our customers who are 10% out of productivity and out of the purchasing capacity of the organization. We will continue also promoting our unbeatable portfolio of products which assure the lowest price in the market.

Within other strategies in our Cash and Carry, which clearly is proximity, Surtimayorista very well received alternative. Second, I would say we have still a strong traditional competitors like Olympica, Alkosto and Cencosud and what we will continue doing here is promoting customer experience, promoting innovation and promoting omnichannelity. So this would be for food -- and for food what I can add is that nobody has the Turbo initiative that Exito has and that what's impressive is that once a customer proves and takes home the Turbo alternatives, at least 2/3 of the customers repeat their purchase, because it's embeddable in service conditions.

Going to non-food. In the non-food environment, we believe that we are doing a great job in textiles, in apparel, gaining market share. And the main challenge is in the electro business, where we have strong competitors like Alkosto, like Mercado Libre, like Amazon coming from other countries. But we feel that we have a great proposition, which combines the best of the off and on alternatives, and we have the highest capillarity of the country for the main core non-business. I would say, in the apparel, for example, that growth continues to be very strong. We are now clearly above pre-pandemia levels. We are selling more than COP 1 billion in apparel. Our main brands, private brands like Bronzini, like Arkitect and People now account for more than half the sales of total apparel. They are within the most important textile apparel brands in Colombia, including all the pure players in textiles like Zara or other brands like Punto Blanco or Leonisa, et cetera. And now we came to produce near to 50 million units of apparel, which means one for each Colombia. That means that each Colombian in average has one closing piece from Exito. So this would be the competitive environment. And we also believe that in the online business, we are clearly the leader in food, and we are at the level of the best players in non-food.

And we have a few web questions from [Juan Jimenez]. In the buyback, have you seen any opinion by the majority holders? Is their intention to participate? And after the buyback, is delisting the company an option?

What I can say about the share buyback, I think it's great news for the shareholders of Exito -- to all the shareholders of Exito. Of course, it's a free decision for all shareholders being the controlling shareholders or the rest of the shareholders of the company. It's an open operation. It has -- the proposition has been approved by the Board of Directors by unanimity and will be taken to the General Meeting of Shareholders. And it has some characteristics I would like to say.

First, it is done in the exact same terms for our shareholders, a payment share and price. Second, the price will be a reflection of the value of Exito, and it will be done by an independent valuation, which will be defined by the Board of Directors who will do it. Third, it is going to be an important material buyback of near to COP 320,000 million, that is around $82 million, and we believe it creates value because it is reflecting the strength of the cash position of the dividend position and of the operational position of the company today. And it comes on top of a very strong dividend distribution, which this year is proposing dividends to grow 37% against the last year dividends.

Do we have a second question?

Okay. Do you speak about delisting? I cannot speak about that. On my knowledge, there are no current plans for delisting of the share of the company. And let me say something. The buyback has no impact on delisting because it's done proportionally. It's done in the same percentage to all shareholders, so it does not have an impact on delisting.

We have a question coming from [Joaquin Lake], right? Do I read it? He's asking about our CapEx level outlook for 2022. So what I can say, we are forecasting 60 to 70 stores in the Colombian perimeter, around 5 stores as last year in the Uruguayan perimeter, which would be roughly 25% additional projects with similar average investment per store as we have been having throughout last 2, 3 years.

(Operator Instructions)

So if there are no more questions, I will go to final remarks. In a short way, what I would say results speak for themselves. We are seeing a balance between the short-term and the long-term consistency. We are having a customer center strategy in a consistent way, which pays back and a strong cash generation and a very solid net result, which enables an attractive return to shareholders, which is going to come in a combination of dividends growing 37% and a stock buyout, a proposition, which accounts to near $82 million.

I would thank you very much for your participation and hope to see you back with our Q1 results when they are published.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.