Sales of precast material this quarter also decreased as public and private works are still at historical low levels. The decrease in sales was 18.3% when compared to the third quarter of 2022 and 31.9% during the first nine months of the year when compared to the same period of last year. Gross margin was still negative mainly due to a low dilution of fixed costs as precast demand has installed for lack of private and public projects, as well as the effects of the flooding during the first quarter of the year. Net profit increased 4.1% this quarter when compared to the third quarter of last year, mainly due to the cost efficiencies as we mentioned before, as well as a slight decrease in expenses. During the first nine months of the year, net profit decreased 3.6% when compared to the same period of 2022, mainly due to the lower revenues partially offset by the imported cost structure mentioned before.
However, net margin for both the third quarter and the first nine months of the year increased 0.9 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points when compared to the third quarter and the first nine months of last year. In terms of debt, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 3.3 times, which is a level we respect to progressively decrease as we start paying the club deal and the EBITDA increases since we currently do not plan to incur an additional debt. To summarize this quarter results has started to show the benefit of focusing on cost management and preparing for an improving demand environment. We are confident that we will still continue delivering positive results during the rest of the year. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. We will now move to the question-and-answer section. [Operator Instructions] So we have a question from Eduardo Vazquez [ph], who is a private investor.
Unidentified Analyst: Excellent presentation. Three questions. Can you give us a dividend guidance for 2023? Number two, considering the extremely low stock price, are you evaluating a share buyback? And number three, are you considering to exclude or call back the investment share class stocks?
Humberto Nadal Del Carpio: Thank you, Eduardo, for your comments and to answer your three questions. In terms of dividend policy, that is something for the board to decide, but I may say that our intention has been over the last years to keep the same level of dividends. So, even though that’s a board decision, that should be in line with the past years. Number two, are we considering buyback? No. And the reason for it right now is that we have been concerned for many, many years about the liquidity of the stock. And if we were going to do a buyback that would only harm the low liquidity we already have. And number three, in terms of the investment shares, many years ago, we did a buyback. The company right now controls around 90% of the investment shares. And for the time being, we are not going to do any additional moves on that either.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll just wait another moment or two for any further questions to come in. We have another question. This is from Ernesto Sanchez from PRIMA.
Ernesto Sanchez: Given the finalization of the investment in the Kiln 4, how much CapEx do you expect onwards on a quarterly basis? Any specific reason for the decrease in personnel expenses and third-party services for Q3 2023? And finally, do you expect to maintain similar SG&A expenses or a normalization for the next quarters?
Humberto Nadal Del Carpio: Yes, sure. I mean, I think Manuel mentioned that after Kiln number 4, we have no extraordinary CapEx. So we’re going to go back to what we call the sustaining CapEx, which is around PEN100 million per year. In terms of [indiscernible], I mean, we’re always, for cost optimization and we’re also going to try to keep running a very, a very tight chip. And can you repeat the last part of the question, please?
Ernesto Sanchez: Yes, no problem. Do you expect to maintain similar SG&A expenses or a normalization for the next quarters?
