After the vai-não-vai in recent years, the soap opera of Kalunga’s IPO will gain new chapters this year. Since the turn of the scenario between the end of 2020, when the company filed the request with the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), and the wave of trade closures in early 2021, which culminated in the suspension of the IPO last March, the resumption of from this agenda came to depend on a general market recovery. “But the conversations didn’t stop,” said Hoslei Pimenta, the company’s director of operations since 2004.
The executive reiterates that, internally, this horizon is linked around the network to the revenue levels recorded before the pandemic, which he believes should happen in 2022. For him, “the plan [do IPO] can be resumed by the end of this year to take place in 2023.” Kalunga intends to take its shares to the stock exchange to improve its capital structure and leverage investments in the expansion plan. Before, will need to face a hard year, which may require the downsizing of the network, today with 222 stores in the country. “We are rethinking about keeping or not some stores”, said Pimenta.
Thus, the company will not make investments in the network in 2022, although it has four openings planned for this year, the result of contracts already signed with suppliers and which could not be postponed. So, to hold on to the margins, sacrifices may be necessary. At points in shopping malls, in upper-class regions and in the centers of large cities, sales fell by 35%. In São Paulo, the stores on Avenida Paulista and on Faria Lima, corporate centers in the capital, are empty. “The movement in peripheral neighborhoods has grown.” They are the ones that support the prospect of recovery from levels this year and that require 220 hires to meet the demand back to school, already 13% above 2021.
“The plan [do IPO] can be resumed by the end of this year so that it happens in 2023” Hoslei Pimenta, director of operations at Kalunga.
Invoicing of R$ 2.7 billion in 2019 was the management reference to define Pimenta’s goals for this year. The volume represents a 15% growth over 2021. Even with the challenges of the economy, the director of the operation is confident of the return of face-to-face classes and the strengthening of e-commerce, which doubled during the pandemic, to ensure recovery. Kalunga has 13% of the school and office supplies segment, and relies on the resilience of this share to get back on its feet with the sector. For 2023, the plan is finally to return to growth, at a rate of 14% per year.
REMARKS But the path to going public includes other obstacles, such as the market’s reservations about the company’s governance. Controlled by partners Paulo and José Roberto Garcia, sons of the founder, Damião Garcia, Kalunga had a net debt of BRL 740 million in 2020. The brothers, who themselves owed around BRL 480 million to the company, sold their supply of stationery and office products, Spiral, for R$ 106 million to Kalunga itself. The move would have been the way found to reduce leverage, since the retailer also had a debt (of R$ 134 million) with Spiral. The funds obtained by the Garcias from the transaction would, at the time, be used to pay part of the debt, and the rest would be paid off through the sale of their shares – in 2021, the IPO process sought to raise more than R$ 1 billion at B3. This would represent the family’s departure from network control.
The whole imbroglio raised questions among investors. The company claims to have, since then, improved its corporate governance structure and internal controls, in addition to having created a board of directors, an audit committee, a compliance area and adapted its bylaws to the Novo Mercado. It is the minimum if you want to adapt to the capital market.
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