Over the past two years, Casas Bahia has worked to get its house in order. Among the measures taken, it adjusted its operations to focus on white goods assets, where it can extract more value, and corrected its capital structure , significantly reducing its financial leverage.

But analysts and investors point out that the retailer still lacks one thing: a return to profitability. And, given the state of the economy , a positive result will still take time, even though, from the company's perspective, what needed to be done has been done.

Casas Bahia closed another quarter in the red. In the first three months of the year, the company recorded a loss of R$ 1 billion, a 2.6-fold increase compared to the loss recorded in the same period last year, according to the balance sheet presented on Wednesday, May 13.

“Looking at market perception, based on what we're discussing, the view is that we've moved beyond the phase of 'so, will we be able to survive with this level of debt?', and are entering a phase of 'okay, it won't explode anymore, but does it have the capacity to generate value?'”, says Renato Franklin , CEO of Casas Bahia, to NeoFeed .

According to the company, the bottom line was negatively impacted at the beginning of the year by high interest rates — reflected in the increase in the average CDI rate from 12.94% in the first quarter of 2025 to 14.86% in the first quarter of 2026 — putting pressure on the financial result. Furthermore, according to the balance sheet, there was no establishment of deferred income tax assets due to the macroeconomic scenario.

Regarding the issue of financial expenses, Franklin says the company should start seeing a reduction in the spreads paid on the financing lines that support working capital, thanks to the adjustment made to the capital structure.

At the end of last year, the company managed to cut its net debt by 75%. In the first quarter, it reduced its net debt by R$ 2.7 billion year-on-year, to R$ 1.2 billion, ending the period with leverage of 0.5 times, below the 1.8 times of the same period last year.

At the same time, Casas Bahia reported generating R$ 852 million in free cash flow in the quarter, an increase of R$ 1.2 billion compared to the same period last year.

With this new capital structure, Franklin says the company began renegotiating debts , reducing the cost of installment credit from 150% of the CDI (Brazilian interbank deposit rate) to 125%. The same was done with factoring, which saw its cost reduced by 4.0 to 5.0 percentage points. Also regarding factoring, Casas Bahia issued a new long-term commercial note with the goal of reducing these lines of credit by R$ 1.4 billion.

The projection is that the company will save around R$ 600 million per year, since its debts were also converted and renegotiated.

The effects of this relief, however, are expected to take some time to be felt in the balance sheet. It is estimated that the replacement of more expensive debts with cheaper ones will appear in 14 months, given that installment payment contracts are, on average, for 14 months.

“Starting in mid-March, we began hiring new staff at lower costs, so we expect to see a gradual increase,” says Franklin. “These two lines of credit weigh heavily on our budget.”

Operation and credit

He also highlighted that the return to profitability will also depend on the execution of the operational side and the expansion of credit sales. But these two areas are suffering from the economic situation.

In the first quarter, Casas Bahia reported net revenue of R$7.4 billion, a 6.1% increase compared to the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA grew 4.7% to R$597 million.

Franklin highlighted that the digital channel grew 14.6% at the beginning of the year, to R$ 5 billion, with first-party inventory (1P) advancing 27.4%. On the other hand, GMV from physical stores decreased by 1.6%.

In the case of installment sales , Casas Bahia decided to adopt a more cautious stance amid worsening delinquency rates in regions such as the Northeast and Midwest. The portfolio ended the quarter at R$ 6.3 billion, a 3% increase compared to the first quarter of 2025.

The delinquency rate above 90 days was 8.8%, stable sequentially and with an increase of 0.3 percentage points on an annual basis. The loss rate on the active portfolio was 4.7%, stable compared to the same period in 2025.

According to Franklin, the company reduced production in physical stores because they attracted a larger audience with lower ratings , but managed to make progress in the digital realm.

“In physical stores, we depend on an improvement in the macroeconomic environment to be able to accelerate,” he says. “We are not going to accelerate our costs. We believe there is room to continue growing in the digital market, in the Southeast, where the rating is better, but in some regions the default rate is very high and we are not going to take that risk.”

Franklin expects the macroeconomic situation to start improving next year, and he believes the next government will need to implement fiscal adjustments, to whatever degree, to stimulate credit.

But he emphasizes that Casas Bahia doesn't depend on macroeconomics to deliver results, thanks to the adjustments made. "The good thing is that we've removed that pressure of having to grow at any cost. We've managed to do this gradually, incrementally, maintaining our commitment to consistency, to improving every quarter," he states.

Shares of Casas Bahia closed the day down 0.49%, at R$ 2.04. Year-to-date, the shares have fallen 34.2%, bringing the market value to R$ 2 billion.