Armac Locacao Logistica e Servicos SA

BOVESPA:ARML3

Q2-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the video conference of Armac to discuss the results regarding the second quarter of 2025.

[Operator Instructions] We would like to inform you that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's IR website, ri.armac.com.br, where the complete material of our earnings release is available.

[Operator Instructions] Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, projections, operational and financial goals constitute beliefs and assumptions of Armac's management as well as information currently available to the company.

Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions since they refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions industry conditions and other operating factors could affect the company's future results and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements.

Joining us today are Mr. Fernando Aragao, CEO of Armac; and Mr. Marcos Pinheiro, CFO and Investor Relations Officer of Armac.

Now I would like to give the floor to Mr. Fernando Aragao, Armac's CEO. You may proceed, sir.

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us. Well, in this introduction, I would like to provide the context on the results of the second quarter of 2025 since it's a public company. We have a history. From 2019, 2020, the company grew by 30x. It had BRL 70 million of revenues and in 2025, we have revenues of about BRL 2 million. Naturally, this quick growth was a result from the business model of the company, which is a premium where it operates, and we gained the trust of the customer at very competitive costs and differentiated service.

And since this growth happened in such a short time, it created many challenges in the management, which are just natural for the growth. In the past 1.5 years, we focused a lot on how to absorb all the growth that materialized in the past 5 years and how to prepare the company to resume growth.

But now with much more predictability, control and capacity to meet the needs of the customer regardless where the customer is and where they operate. This plan of absorbing the growth has 3 pillars. The first one is the company's management method. It's a model that we had in 2019, managing BRL 70 million.

This was not able to cope the organization in the size it is now. So from a company that was divided into departments and functional areas, we are now a company of dozens of small companies. So a dozen of business units and each unit has its own owner, budget and results and clients in order to meet all the market satisfied and this new management model and it's something that takes a while to be built, to mature and to be consolidated.

But it already shows good results in terms of customer satisfaction and good financial results. So autonomy is fundamental to make our business happen at the right speed, and this is what our client expects from us. So this was the first pillar in this transformation process.

And at the end of the second quarter, we can say that we have already completed this phase and we need to mature and improve it continuously. But without a doubt, it's a management model, which is able to control a company as big as ours.

The second pillar was a review of our contract portfolio. So we noticed that many of the contracts we had didn't offer the competitive advantages to have differentiated results or some of them were in situations when the return was not favorable.

So some of the situations was possible to change. We improved the relationship with the clients by increasing prices, reviewing the discounts. But there were other situations we had to make a decision to decommission those line of activities because they were very complex at the managerial front, and we phase them out. So this was part of this transformation plan.

The third pillar was a review of how we manage our fleet and how we manage the maintenance activities in the company. In 2019, the company had hundreds of equipment and BRL 70 million of revenue. We didn't have enough data. We were not mature enough to evaluate the data at that time.

So the management was done in an empirical manner from the knowledge that we had from the sector. And of course, our experience is very valid. But it needed a differentiation of the segment of the activities of the company. We needed more granularity of the analysis when we make decisions, so which assets should I increase in my fleet and which are the ones I should sell or decommission and what are the strategies to have the best and the lowest cost of maintenance in the industry.

That was the third pillar of the work that we did in this expansion and growth initiatives. And this is what our team did in the last 1.5 years. We came to the conclusion that we needed to have our own network of selling assets so that we can use the data and see where improvements can be found. And this network was also built in this 1.5 years, so that means that we worked very hard in the last 1.5 years, and I'm very proud of the results.

I'm very proud of everything that I've experienced in the family. So I've been with this company for 13 years in the family business and I'm very proud of all the changes that we promoted in the past few months. I'm very grateful as well.

The second half marks the end of this construction period when we absorbed all this growth. So it's strongly impacted by several inevitable adjustments in relation to the commissioning of contracts when we make adjustments to the teams, to the size of the company, there are many costs involved in all this transformation.

And the result of the work has not been reported yet. But we can see that the results are -- can be seen in the customer satisfaction. Without the customers, the company does not exist. And also, we saw the multiplication of our business. And we see that the trust is being reconquered by the owners of small businesses who are at the end of the business in the front line.

Lastly, I would like to reinforce that we can see that we have been operating at speed and velocity and efficiency, which is much higher in the margin. And this efficiency is going to bring back the growth, the sustainable growth that we had, not at the same rates that we had in the past because those rates are very high for a company of this size.

But we see that we are a very competitive company in the front end considering all the efficiency that we promoted. So basically, this is the message I would like to convey to you. So we have this optimism for the quarters to come considering that the absorption work that we did from 2019 to 2025 has come to a completion.

And I turn the floor to Marcos Pinheiro for him to discuss the results of the second quarter. Thank you.

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Thank you, Fernando. Good morning, everyone. I will start my presentation from the slide with the highlights of the quarter. We ended the second quarter of 2025 with BRL 481.8 million of gross revenue, an 8% expansion in relation to the previous period of last year.

Gross rental revenue amounted to BRL 409 million, a drop of 3% in relation to what we reported in 2024. If this is a drop resulting from an effect of BRL 23 million that came from contracts that were discontinued and discommissioned. Even so, the second quarter has positive effect in the actions that we adopted reflecting in higher productivity of our assets and reduction of the growth.

In relation to the first quarter of 2025, rental revenue had an expansion of 1.4%. Excluding the effect of nonrecurring effects, the EBITDA of rental for the quarter was 168%, and 11% growth in relation to the previous period or the major highlight is EBITDA margin that already partially captures the benefits of all the efforts of adjusting our contracts and also the adjustments of our structures. The margin was 45.6% in the quarter, an expansion of 3.7 percentage points in relation to what was reported in the previous quarter.

Relevant part of our business model are the asset sales that had a quarter and year of sales results, which were very positive. In the first 6 months of the year, we sold more than BRL 138 million, 3x as much as what we saw in the same period of last year. Those sales occur in our own network, and we are likely to end -- and come to the end of the year with 20 units across the country.

Sales occurred in adequate conditions, meaning 7% of gross margins. We ended the first half with a gross CapEx of BRL 300 million. When we look at the numbers together with the sales of assets that have already been materialized and also the BRL 235 million of assets, which are already allocated for sales, indicate that we are very well aligned with the objective of ending 2025 with a net CapEx close to 0.

Operational cash flow of Armac was BRL 460 million in the first 6 months of the year, an increase of more than 90% when compared to the first half of 2024. And looking specifically to cash generation core for the company and all considering the maintenance CapEx for the fleet, we are operating at present in a run rate of BRL 45 million in terms of monthly operational cash. [Technical Difficulty].

[Operator]

We kindly ask you to wait while we reconnect the session. Thank you.

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Thank you, Fernando. Good morning, everyone. I'll start my presentation from the slide with the highlights of the quarter. We ended the quarter with EUR 481 million of gross revenue, an 8% increase in relation to the same period of last year. Gross rental revenue had a drop of about 3% in relation to the revenue of 2024.

This drop was driven by an effect of about BRL 23 million in revenues that came from contracts that were decommissioned by us. Even so, the second quarter has positive effect in the -- from the actions that we adopted, reflecting higher productivity of our assets and reduction of the [indiscernible].

In relation to the first quarter of 2025, rental revenue had an expansion of 1.4%. Excluding the effect of nonrecurring events, EBITDA of rental for the quarter was BRL 168 million, a growth of 11% in relation to the previous quarter. The biggest highlight is EBIT margin that partially captures the benefit of the efforts of making adjustments to our contracts and also the adjustments of our structure.

Margin stood at 46% in the quarter, an expansion of 3.7 percentage points when compared to the previous quarter. A relevant part of the business activities in terms of asset sales, we had a sales results, which were very positive. In the first 6 months of the year, we sold more than BRL 138 million, 3x as much as what we sold in the same period of last year.

Those sales occur in our store networks, and we are likely to end the year with about 20 units across the country. We'd like to remind you that the sales had occurred in proper conditions. In other words, with gross margin of about 7%. We ended the first half of the year with a gross CapEx of BRL 300 million. These figures were observed together with the sale of assets that have already been made of BRL 138 million and BRL 235 million of assets that are already allocated to sales indicated that we are very well aligned with the purpose of ending the end of 2025 with net CapEx equal to 0.

Operational cash flow of Armac was BRL 460 million in the first 6 months of the year, an increase of more than 90% when compared to the first half of 2024. When we look specifically at the core cash generation and considering all the maintenance CapEx of our fleet, we are currently operating at the run rate of BRL 45 million of monthly operational cash generation.

In the next slide, I show a presentation update of our assets in relation to the age plotted around the accounting depreciation curve.

Moving on to Slide 5, you can see the evolution of our rental fleet that amounted to 11 -- more than 11,000 at the end of the period. We also see the evolution of our CapEx in the second half -- second quarter. The gross CapEx was BRL 171 million and BRL 104 million was allocated to fleet maintenance and also a portion for the improvement of equipment, a BRL 10 million for the expansion of our maintenance offices. We invested BRL 6 million in the expansion of contracts in the new rental contracts.

On Slide 6, we present the utilization rate and productivity. In the second half of 2025, our utilization rate on average was 74%, an increase of 2 percentage points in comparison to the first quarter of 2025, especially as a result of the reduction of the decrease of rainfall of the period and optimization of the portfolio by means of replacing assets with less -- with assets more aligned with the current demand and also the increase of assets available in our stores.

I would like to say that in spite of the improvement in the utilization rate, we were also impacted negatively by the machines that were decommissioned in the contracts, and they are still in the process of the preparation to be sold in the future. We continue presentation improvements in the average utilization rate, and we ended June at 74% and we like to resume to the level of 80% along the year.

In the second half, the productivity reached 55.9%, an increase of 2.5 percentage points in relation to the same period of the previous year. The increase of productivity is explained by higher prices that we adopted after the adjustments to the contract and also by the lower gross equipment for rentals.

On the next page, we talk about revenues. In the second half -- in second quarter, total revenue grew by 8% when compared to 2024. The mix of contract of spot operations was 25% of the total amount of rental.

On Slide #8, we show the evolution of adjusted rental EBITDA. The highlight is the expansion of margin that was observed in the quarter with an expansion of 3.7 percentage points in relation to the first period -- that reflects the gain in productivity and reduction of our asset base.

Now moving on to Slide 9. In the second quarter, we had a net loss of BRL 3.7 million. And the accounting loss had an impact of higher expenses and also nonrecurring expenses that were incurred in this period. While financial expenses are directly connected to the level of interest rates, the nonrecurring expenses had 2 specific origins.

First, expenses related to the decommissioning of the operations that had the cost lower than capital cost, about BRL 10 million in the period; and other BRL 50 million that we realized as accounting adjustments to bring to 0 the SPS responsible for the consortiums that we take part in. Excluding the effect of those nonrecurring events, net cash earnings income was BRL 36.5 million.

On the next slide, I show the evolution of the spread of Armac. In this period, the ROIC stood at 15.4% higher than the cost of our debt. And lastly, in relation to our net debt, we ended the quarter with BRL 1.800 billion of net debt which is a leverage of 2.65x.

I would like to thank you for your attention. I would like to invite you to start the Q&A session.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Let's move on to the first question. First question comes from Andre Ferreira sell-side analyst.

[Andre Ferreira, analyst]

Congratulations on the initiatives. I have 2 questions on my side. We can see that there has been an important improvement in the rental EBITDA margin. And could you already see EBITDA margin of June maybe better than the average of the quarter?

And my second question, with the change of attitude in terms of life of the assets, is there any change in the maintenance structure? And do you think you have lose the bargaining power of parts with the supplier?

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Andre I'm going to start answering your question, the first question. And then the second question will be answered by Fernando, okay? We did a lot of things effectively when we made the readaptation of the operations of the company. We are very happy with gaining margin that can already be seen in the result of the period.

Yes, at the end, the margin is higher than it was in the average of the quarter. So this is a movement that is likely to continue. And we are confident that we are going to be directing to a sustainable level of operation, which is above 50. So this is a journey we are going on. But it's -- we're much likely to reach healthy levels in the next months. I'm going to turn the call to Fernando to talk about the maintenance structure, okay?

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Andre, thank you very much for the question. On our radar, there's no change in the size or in the way we go about with maintenance of equipment. So we can understand better the life cycle of each asset. So we understand which are the models which itself after 5 years of use and which are the assets that will be kept with us until the equipment reaches 10 years of age.

So we are doing this ever more efficiently. It's granularity of data, and we have more data available nowadays. So maintenance is going to be the main driver, the main competitive edge of the company. Those pieces of equipment are maintained in the field. So the structure of mechanics that we have -- in other words, we go into the place of the customer to make the maintenance. So this is a differentiator that the company has.

So this structure is going to continue and this is going -- is continuing very strong. What happens is that some maintenance are going to be made before they are directed to sales, different from what we did before that we would just direct the equipment to rentals. So there are some categories where the maintenance method will change, but the maintenance will always be kept.

So we are using the maintenance structure in order to sell the assets because we -- if we don't have a maintenance structure such as ours, the asset will lose in terms of liquidity. So the buyer wants to purchase a piece of equipment that can be used the day after the -- it is bought.

So even with very new pieces of equipment, you have to sell to the equipment in such a way that the new buyer can use immediately. So nothing has changed. The bargaining power to purchase parts will continue as well. So what happened is that the maintenance will be carried out.

[Andre Ferreira, analyst]

Just a follow-up on the question in terms of data. Could you provide some examples of systems that were implemented that allowed you to use those data? And how much long before it started happening? And what's the frequency of a breakdown of machines? And how do you keep up with those indexes?

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

I'm not going to provide the specifics of the intelligence that we have been developing, and this is part of our asset of equity. So we implemented HANA SAP in the beginning of 2024. And before that, we had already been working for about 10 years with the simpler version of SAP.

But it allowed us to look at each piece of equipment we allocated with cost centers. And our revenues were analyzed by individual pieces of equipment. And now that we have a more robust structure, we made a capitalization of the database. So we made a connection with the information we already have, and we made the connection with the data that we have nowadays.

So we have a much more robust system. So it was a homework that we did in company, and we can see the returns that we have. So we have this information of all the equipment that we purchased. So we have the segmentations according to the application. It was a huge work of analysis that started with HANA SAP in 2024.

In terms of KPIs, in our maintenance area, if at any time we decide to go back to the market will include the information material, but this is not what's going to happen at the moment.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Fernanda Recchia, sell-side analyst with BTG.

[Unknown Analyst]

I have 2 questions on our side as well. First is relation to the sales of assets, you opened 11 stores up to now. So, how has the maturation curve of those stores that were open has been? And I can see the EBITDA margin is negative. Could you make some comments of what you expect -- when you expect this trend -- negative trend to reverse and when those stores are reached -- are going to reach the maturation level?

And the other one related to the consortium, could you provide more information about the rationale to just to 0 the share of your results? And looking into the future, how can we look at your strategy in relation to consortium? Do you still have appetite to go into this segment? And this is it.

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Fernanda, I'm going to start answering your questions, and then Fernando, you may add if you want.

The first question was in relation to the asset sales in the stores. We are in the process where we are going to expand our geographic presence in Brazil, and we are identifying where would be the regions that would be complied with our plans. So the plan is to have 20 stores in operation. We estimated that maturation time of those regions will range from 4 to 6 months.

Everything is very recent. We have information of stores that reached the maturity in 4 months, but most of the stores, depending on the customer portfolio in the region and the local entrepreneurs have shown results only after the 6 months of operation and only to provide more information about the results that we had in the beginning of the year.

So many stores were open. We are still on the ramp-up phase. But I would like everyone to visit our stores so that you can understand that we are using a very simple structure. It's a very clear, lean structure, easy to the business place. And this is something that needs to be promoted.

In the second quarter, we also used a lot of resources to promote those stores. We took part in activities such as Agrishow. We hired a celebrity to make commercials for us. So this is part of the new business that we're developing. So we believe that after 6 months, those stores will start delivering healthy EBITDA in the same margins as we sell the assets.

If you look at the older stores, we already had one. And we can see the profitability level of the structure of asset sales is very positive. The strategic role is to promote the capacity to modulate the company and to update the portfolio.

Moving on to the second question in relation to the consortium. The rationale that we have adopted behind the decision to 0 the SPEs in the consolidated numbers of the company is a matter of being conservative. I believe that our core is the operation of rentals and the results expected has an additional complexity to the company and there can be a necessary volatility of the exposure.

So the adjustments that we made was to equate to the equity of the SPEs. So I believe that if I needed to qualify this, it has to do with being conservative. I do not want to record revenues in excess and then reverse in a relevant level saying that it was an adjustment that we had to make.

And this is something that can happen recurringly. So I prefer to be aligned with the performance of each of those units. In relation to what to expect from us in relation to the consortiums, I believe that what we have disclosed in this period gives very clear signs of where we want to go. We look at the consortiums as an experience where we have an objective which is to deliver results.

If it's positive, it's good. If the results 0, it's according to the plan, but to share those results, and we can explore with exclusivity the equipment that have the best returns considering the client. So this recent example that we had of the 2 consortiums that we participate and we're still participating by the way, those operations of specific companies reached 0 results.

And Armac won contracts for rental operations, yes, for our spot business. And together, they accounted for more than BRL 50 million of EBITDA in the period. So this kind of association is very healthy. And of course, we have to look at each opportunity with a lot of care. I would not say that we are not going to take part in other initiatives of similar nature in the future.

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Fernanda, if I could add something in relation to the stores. Armac is a company that in the first growth cycle, it was very centralized in Sao Paulo. And this is a company that grew by doing online marketing, delivering machines across the area. And this had a very good scale. As I mentioned, BRL 70 million in revenues in 2019, BRL 2 billion this year.

Our distribution channel is the centralized channel in Sao Paulo. And for the company to continue growing with the BRL 2 billion of revenues that it has today, the next cycle will not be so centralized. We need to develop new channels. We have to be closer to our clients.

Our brand needs to be known at regional level to be almost a local team, local business operating locally. When we analyze this strategy of asset sales stores, I have a much longer view into the future. So in the first year of implementation, it will sell only assets because the margin is the result of the sales.

And today, it only has one purpose at this time. But the long-term plan is that those stores would be an environment for clients also to rent machines and to hire services for the plant. It's going to be an environment to have meetings with local representatives and all the partners that are responsible for the region. So the P&L is recorded as an activity to sell assets, but the long-term vision is much bigger than that. It's something that makes us very optimistic for the company to grow in the long term as it's going to become more regionalized because the company grew for 10 years in Sao Paulo, it never had local structures. And this is a structure that is starting with asset sales, but will become much bigger along the time.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. That's great. And only a follow-up -- small follow-up. Thinking about penetration of asset sales as a total of the revenues, what would be the optimum level? What can we expect in terms of new stores? Will there be a new wave of stores being opened in 2026?

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

We are not providing guidance of our plans because the market would follow, and this is what happened repetitively. So we have a long-term strategic plan that incorporates the idea of making the company more regional and expanding its rental capacity.

And in this movement, we have the idea of opening more stores. I'm not going to say how many because it's a business model that is about to start, it's still starting and it's still very small considering the size we're going to have.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Rog rio Ara jo, sell-side analyst, with Bank of America.

[Rogério Araújo, analyst]

Congratulations on the process of growth absorption that you've been implementing. My question is along those lines. And also thinking of modeling, what are the premises we can use going forward? And I would like to hear from you first.

You know the sustaining cap that you started disclosing in the last quarter was 5% of gross mobilized and this period was 2%. And when do you expect this line to normalize? And how were those expenses used? So what's the CapEx being used -- has been used and what's the level it's going to be in the future?

In relation of cost and expenses reallocation, for the asset sales that was 2.5% in the second quarter, what's the level for the future? Maybe BRL 10 million, if I'm not mistaken. What's the level that we can expect? And we can see that in asset sales, negative gross margin -- the EBITDA margin is negative and the gross margin is positive.

Is the intention to bring this close to 0 or the scale is going to bring this as a natural result or will there be the need for more depreciation so that the -- so that -- well, you expect COGS to drop and EBITDA rental would recover to which levels? So you -- Marcos said that you are aiming at 50%. So -- but I would like apples-to-apples. This semi cap line is going to be considered or not? So what about the cost of rentals that you have just disclosed?

Was it being relevant in the past? So in the direct comparisons, would this margin resume completely or partially? And lastly, the useful life of the assets, you have touched upon this topic already, but we can understand what would be -- can we understand what would be an average of the useful life of the assets, 5 years, 10 years? So this is a very important point when we do the modeling as well.

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Rog rio, thank you very much for the questions. So let me start. I've wrote down 5. Let me see if I can answer all of them. First, in relation to the sustaining caps, you asked if this was considered CapEx and what's the level we want to reach?

So this was a CapEx previously, but we did not disclose it previously. We can also update the data table and we can provide it and place it on the IR website. And we can provide the breakdown of the CapEx since 2024. It's maybe easier after we implemented SAP. It's hard to say, but I would say that it's natural that the investment level required would amount to 3%.

The second question was in relation to the expenses of asset sales. It's important to say that last year, we did not have a dedicated structure to look at the asset sales in a structured way. Anyway, when we look at the release, was careful enough to make sure that the comparison was apples-to-apples.

Even though the table is not fully available in the IR website, the release shows the adjustments in the comparison basis using the historic base. When we show the evolution of the basis of rentals, they are comparable, yes, they are. We are going to make an update of the table. I don't know if we're going to be able to do it today, but by tomorrow, we'll do that.

Your third question was in relation to the EBITDA margin of asset sales. Fernando mentioned in his answer to a previous question, he described the strategic role of our stores in our long-term plan. Of course, one of the purposes is to renew our assets and our fleet and also to be close to the clients.

When we look at this function of demobilizing our assets, we understand the gross margins with which we operate today, they fluctuate between 5% and 9%. Let's say that the gross margin stood at 7% in the quarter, so those margins are according to our expectations.

When we compare our sales with the accounting depreciation curve that we also published in the release, and we made it updated in green bullets, if I'm not mistaken, we can see that dispersion of the points of sales around the curve that is not indicated that we need any sort of movement -- additional movement to make the margin be artificially reduced.

The way we understand in terms of depreciation is to consider the wear and tear of the equipment. So this is a result of our periodic review and we do it manually. And if we need to do it more often, we will do that without any problems. But there's no indication that it's necessary now. And we are not going to produce gross margin, which are artificially positive in the business of asset sales.

The next question was in relation to the rental margin. I have already mentioned previously that when we look at our modeling, our economic studies, we are confident that our company can operate at rental EBITDA margins above 50%. And this should be the minimum level expected from us, when we consider the level of interest rates with which we have to operate, at least in the previous periods.

So this business is going to fluctuate throughout time. I have no doubt about it. And for me, this is the border line for me and Fernando and for the Board. We have the responsibility for the company to have a business model that can generate value.

As I previously answered in the front line, this margin is at the upper level from what we observed in the consolidated half of the year, and we expect to challenge ourselves constantly so that this line can move up, but above 50% is a level that you should take into consideration. Yes, you should.

And the last question that I have here that I wrote down, correct me if I'm wrong, was in relation to the useful life of the assets and what to expect, considering what we have learned with the data-driven management that we have been adopting in the past few months.

That's a very good question. We gained a granularity of knowledge that allows us to use the information not only to define the depreciation curves, but also and more important than this to help us find the pricing level, very realistic to each client. And me as a manager of the company, I become very happy when I see a client that is operating in an aggressive operation and the price is adequate.

Also, when I make the pricing of a piece of equipment that works -- functions 100 hours a month. So the relevance of our new work model is more associated to decision-making on an everyday basis than the accounting practice or determining the use of life of the piece of equipment.

We follow all the rules and standards, and we review the equipment periodically. So I don't see anything different from our network course of business. I think I answered all the questions.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Filipe Nielsen, sell-side analyst of Citi.

[Filipe Ferreira Nielsen, analyst]

I have 2 questions on my side. One is relation to demand and looking at rentals. You are about to finish the restructuring initiative. The utilization rate is lower. So in this process of resumption of productivity, new contract prices and are also making decisions whether you're going to sell or rerent those assets.

Looking into the second half of the year, would you say that the company is more likely to sell more assets? And if you see this asset sales market favorable to make the adjustments of the base or do you see the healthy demand with good prices and you will be able to reallocate the assets at a lower price?

Just for me to understand how the balance operates considering the 2 variables. And also in terms of competition, you have major players going to the heavy duty equipment. So how is the competition behaving? Is there a market for everyone? And how has this market been evolving in terms of demand and competition?

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Filipe, I'm going to answer your questions. Well, we see a healthy demand in the end in all segments of operation, so all business units have been invited to take part in new businesses, and we have been growing with our existing clients. So the demand continues to be very healthy in the agribusiness, animal protein, mining, among other segments.

Infrastructure, there are many projects still to be executed: highways, sanitation. So in fact, in this sense, we are very lucky as a company because we are exposed to a lot of strong demand in Brazil, even in a scenario of high interest rates. So the demand is very healthy.

In relation to your question about if we are more likely to sell or rerent our fleet, I would say that our fleet is not uniform. We have hundreds of different models when we consider all sizes of equipment that we offer our clients.

So based on the data we can say, which are the models that we would like to continue renting and which one would be better to demobilize and free up the capital. So the answer is not so easy. So the thing is, what's the demand like? Because, in fact, we do not have any intensions of reducing the fleet. So does that mean that I'm not going to sell the machines because I'm going to rent them all? No, I'm going to sell those models that are better to be sold.

And I will invest in models that can generate more value. And this turnover of fleet will be continuous, constant and the company will always be selling something and buying others. So for this year, we expect a net CapEx of 0. So everything we sell, we are going to buy wherever we see a favorable demand and return. So these would be my answer in relation to the fleet and demand.

In relation to competition, what we have been observing is that after we went public, many companies came into the segment; bigger, smaller some with private capital, other public companies. the environment deteriorated, especially the contract with less entry barriers.

So after the IPO, we saw that there was an important capital into the segment, but most of the capital, we're not able to generate cash enough to continue meeting the obligations. So this is what happened to most entrants. Those which remain in the market, they are there because they were cautious, and they did not expand that much. So when we look at the distribution of channels of machines and equipment, we do not see a competition which is becoming fiercer.

And we see that the competition is more favorable to us considering the entrants that were very aggressive without having the confidence enough to remain in the market. So the competitive environment is favorable to the company with good rates of return for our company. I hope I answered your question.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Matheus Sant'Anna, sell-side analyst, with XP.

[Matheus Sant'Anna, analyst]

I have one question. I would like to focus on asset sales. We saw that in the past quarters, we saw a very strong ramp-up. This comes aligned with a higher number of decommissioned contract in order to make changes in the fleet mix, and this affects the utilization rate.

So I would like to understand those variables. What would be a normal level for sales in terms of revenues? And what do you see the target utilization rate? And what would be the time frame to reach at this expected level?

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

I'm going to start answering. We did not have a target of target sales. Every -- let's think of a company that is maximizing its value generation. Every asset has a curve of value generation, and there is a point where it's economically to free up that capital and reinvest in another asset that has attractive returns.

So this is something we are going to do continuously. There is some ramp-up elements of the contracts that we decommissioned. We understand that company of our size has to be able to sell more than 10% of its fleet for a year to be sustainable. We understood this when we looked at the data.

And the ramp-up was very quick. In fact, it's -- the ramp-up is usually easy after we make the decision of implementing the actions. So I do not have a guidance to provide you with in relation to what's the volume, which is going to be sold every year. So how -- what we're going to buy from the capital that we freed up and at the price.

If there is opportunity to sell all the fleet and if I can acquire the same price that I sold, I would do that. Of course, this is not an opportunity that will come up easily. But if an opportunity such as this appears, I will take it. So it's -- we are a company that is always in the market negotiating, understanding where the opportunity stands and whenever there's an opportunity to acquire at a price that would pay off the sale, we will do that.

So the volumes may fluctuate across the years, but we're always going to maximize the value generation of each asset. So we are going to leave at the right time, and we are going to come in at the right time considering the value. I hope I answered your question.

[Matheus Sant'Anna, analyst]

About utilization a little bit more information on the utilization rate.

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Matheus, in terms of utilization, we have different business units. As I said, they are machine distribution channels. Business units that sign long-term contracts can sustain the utilization of 80% or 90% when they are efficient because contracts are predetermined. A business unit that offers the right machine at the right time to the right client with the flexibility of getting it in return, those channels need inventory because you need to have the piece of equipment, the time the client needs you have to have it available right away.

And this is the model that many other companies use. And this inventory available creates a lot of value because the client would pay for the ready availability of each piece of equipment. So when we talk about utilization rate, it will depend on which units are going to grow bigger in the years to come and to grow the business unit that make a simple rental, you need inventory, you need a stock at -- and the rate may be even lower than the company has now and to increase the number of business units, the occupation rate may be higher.

As the mix evolves along the year, so many variables will play at toll. I cannot be accurate to provide you the numbers now.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Pedro Tineo, sell-side analyst, with Itau.

[Unknown Analyst]

I would like to clarify a point. We have seen some delays in some infrastructure operations. We saw that in the first half of the year and there are some infrastructure initiatives that are delayed, and how does it impact your rentals for 2025 and 2026? And how do you see the competition as well? So these are the questions on our side.

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

Pedro, yes, in fact, high interest rates, capital structure of many companies are being pushed down. And you see that there are many delays in the expansion of many projects, many events. And this is when the capacity of the company comes into play. We are present in different regions of Brazil, with different business units that are exposed to different factors and different demands. So there are the demands of mining, agribusiness, forest activities.

So there is a factor of infrastructure, as you mentioned, of course, we have agro industry is very strong in many segments. So we have been observing that there is demand for us to have a journey of growth, even with some infrastructure projects that will suffer some delays.

In terms of infrastructure, there's a lot of things to be done in Brazil, it's not only highways and railways. Energy, for example, there was a strong wave of solar and wind energy. And now there is a very strong need to invest in transmission and contracted investments already. Major investments with a lot of demand that still happens with sanitation.

There is a contracted need that is feasible economically in different parts of Brazil. So when you look at all the sectors, considering the infrastructure that we have, we can see that in net terms, the positive -- the result is positive. And there are some whose works are happening to offset that.

So there will be enough works in order to observe our fleet. I mentioned something in relation to competition in the previous question. Environment improved as some companies stopped investing and some competitors have -- no longer have access to credit. And those companies, we are not so disciplined and facing a hard time in the market. And so we have a very favorable competitive environment in terms of competition.

[Operator]

Our next question and last question comes in writing by Lucas [indiscernible], investor. His question is: How do you see the program of share buyback of the company?

[Marcos Pinheiro, executive]

Lucas, thank you very much for the question. The share buyback program proved to be a very good opportunity for reallocation of capital with the company. I'm not going to say if the market price is right or wrong, the market is suffering, and I'm humble enough to admit that. But considering that we have the numbers and our management model has evolved, and we have shown highly consistency in the execution of our plans and cash generation and also commercial development with long-term perspectives.

It seems to be just natural that for us and for all our shareholders, the Board and controlling shareholders, the share buyback program is a very good way to reallocate our resources. So answering your question, it's a very attractive investment. This is the way we see it.

[Operator]

Thank you very much, Mr. Marcos, Fernando. The Q&A session has come to an end. And now we would like to turn the floor back to the company for its final remarks.

[Fernando Aragao, executive]

First of all, thank you very much to shareholders who are with us, some of them who have been with us since 2020, some of them started at the IPO and continue with us. Thank you very much for the trust you placed on us during this process of adjustments for the growth.

I would like to express the confidence that we have as managers on our side. We are ending this year as a different company in terms of capacity maturity, capacity and the learnings have been very valuable, and they are rooted in every one that remain here. So we see bright years ahead of us for this company, which is very special. If it were not so special, it wouldn't have grown that much. There are many special people here. And after this phase of absorption that has just finished, we are very enthusiastic with the future. Thank you very much. Everyone, have a great day.

[Operator]

This concludes Armac's first -- second quarter earnings conference call. The Investor Relations department is available to answer any other questions you may have. Thank you, all participants, and have a nice day.