Allos closes agreement to purchase a stake in RioSul shopping mall and announces billion-dollar plan

Just like the flow of the 58 shopping malls under its management, Allos, a giant in the sector resulting from the merger between Aliansce Sonae and BRMalls, is having a very busy night this Thursday, May 9th.

After the close of trading on B3, the company packaged the release of results for the first quarter of 2024 with a package of three announcements: an acquisition, a new divestment program – accompanied by a first sale – and a new share buyback program .

The group signed a binding document for the purchase of up to 15% of Shopping RioSul, in Rio de Janeiro. The amounts involved in the agreement will not be revealed until the negotiation, which is not yet expected to be concluded, is completed.

This is the first acquisition of a stake made by the company since March 2021. At the time, before the merger, Aliansce Sonae acquired 21% of Shopping Leblon, also in the south zone of Rio, for R$275 million.

Already on the divestment front, a front in which the company has been very active since the approval of the merger, at the beginning of 2023, Allos announced the sale of its 50% stake in Top Shopping, in Nova Iguaçu (RJ). The transaction, whose buyer was not revealed, was closed for R$111.5 million.

“We are exchanging a shopping mall where the average income is lower and the economic outlook is a little worse for a market-leading mall, in a region with a better outlook, and which reinforces our commercial ecosystem”, says Daniella Guanabara, CFO of Allos , to the NeoFeed.

To reinforce the rationale and importance of this investment, the executive highlights that the new venture about to reinforce this portfolio would be Allos’ third largest shopping mall in sales and the fourth largest in gross profit.

“We will divest more than invest”, says the CFO, when asked whether Allos will return to purchasing. “With the merger, some assets remained small for the portfolio. But they are important assets in their regions and fit well into the portfolios of other agents, such as investment funds.”

As part of what has already been accomplished in this agenda, between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, Allos carried out total and partial divestments of ten projects.

In keeping with this bias, the group also announced today a new divestment plan with the objective of generating up to R$1 billion in resources. The executive highlighted, however, that there is no deadline for meeting this goal.

“It will depend on market conditions and whether we find the correct valuation”, says Guanabara. “But as we still see demand, the share price is attractive and a good capital allocation, we will use part of these resources in the new share buyback program we are announcing.”

The new program was approved by the Board of Directors and involves the acquisition of up to 3.9% of the capital. “The program is important to reinforce that the company continues to believe that the shares are discounted”, says the CFO.

Balance

In the balance sheet for the first quarter, the main point highlighted by the executive was FFO (Funds from Operations), which grew 36.5%, on an annual basis, to R$289.7 million. FFO per share increased 41% on the same comparison basis.

Net revenue expanded by 8.7%, to R$622.4 million. The executive attributed part of this performance to revenues generated in parking lots, which increased 21%, and, particularly, to helloo, the group’s media arm that serves the portfolio’s shopping malls and 100 other third-party ventures.

In other data, the occupancy rate of 96.3% remained stable in relation to the fourth quarter of 2023 and came just below the level of 97% recorded a year ago. Net default was 3.6%, compared to 4.7% in the same period last year.

Adjusted EBITDA increased 9.7%, to R$453.3 million, while the adjusted EBITDA margin increased from 72.1% to 72.8%. Net profit, in turn, was R$91 million, while total sales in the group’s shopping malls grew 8.3%, to R$9 billion.

Allos shares closed this Thursday’s trading session at R$20.59, a drop of 2.51%. During the year, the shares registered a devaluation of 22.4% and the group is valued at R$ 11.2 billion.