Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the earnings call to discuss the earnings for the third quarter of 2024. Today we have Mr. João Arruda, the Financial Director, Pedro Peterson, and Renata Santos from the IR team at Ambipar. We'd like to let you know that this event is going to be recorded, and the replay can be accessed on the Investor Relations website for the company, ir.ambipar.com. We'd like to let you know that all participants will only be watching the earnings call during the presentation, and then afterwards we'll begin the Q&A session where more information will be provided. Before we begin, we want to say that some of the information in this conference call can have projections or statements about future expectations.
Such information is subject to risks that are known and unknown, and uncertainties that can make certain expectations not concrete or substantially differ from what was expected. Now we'll pass on the word to Mr. Arruda as he begins the presentation. Please, Mr. Arruda, you may proceed.
Dear investors, welcome to our earnings call at Ambipar in the third quarter of 2024. We were very happy with the evolution of the company during this quarter. In line with what we announced ever since the beginning of the year, we've been focused on working internally on the efficiencies, integration, and generating the necessary cash and deleveraging. The third quarter represents results that reflect the exact strategy. Our Environmental Services platform delivered an all-time high revenue, growing EBITDA and deleveraging, as well as advances in our strategic plan.
We had recognition about this process with a shift in the outlook of the Fitch Ratings from neutral to positive, and also the certification of the Green Equity Seal, and in this quarter, we also performed the demobilization of our fleets, where we sold some heavy-duty equipment, and we also leased new equipment so that all participants can see the operational results of the company. We've adjusted the numbers excluding this effect, so throughout the presentation, when we referred to the adjusted revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and other metrics, we understand that this excludes this effect, so besides this, we also conclude the executive long-term plan for all of the operational executives, and we also use some treasury shares from past acquisitions, and I want to start off with the main highlights. We want to share the following results.
We were able to have a net revenue that was an all-time high of BRL 2.1 billion, which represents the growth of 79% versus the third quarter of 2023, and the growth of 33.2% in the accumulated nine months of 2024 versus the first nine months of 2023. The adjusted net revenue, excluding the sale of assets, also grew 25.4% versus the third quarter of 2023, and 18.1% in the accumulated nine months of the year versus the previous year, a number that was above the guidance for the year of 2024. In this quarter, we had a quarterly all-time high EBITDA of BRL 515.3 million, a growth of 37% versus the previous quarter, and growth of 27.8% in the first nine months of 2024 versus the first months of 2023.
Our operational cash flow accumulated in the year was BRL 992.8 million, and this already reflects the constant improvement in the searching process for efficiency improvements. The adjusted EBITDA margin in the first nine months of 2024 was 29.9%, an expansion of 50 basis points versus the first nine months of 2023. We also had the lowest CapEx in history with the percentage of the adjusted net revenue at a value of 8.96%. With the percentage of the net revenue in the third quarter of 2024, this number is even smaller, 6.26%. In this quarter, we reduced the gross debt, including the acquisitions of M&A, a total of BRL 485.4 million. As disclosed in the event disclosed, we also performed this to perform the anticipated payment of these in treasury as a reduction of our gross debt.
We were also able to reduce our leverage considering a debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 2.2 times in the second quarter of 2024 to 2.6 times in the third quarter of 2024. The leverage for covenant purposes reached 2.2 times upon the same metric, and moving on to the next slide, please. In this earnings call, we would also like to highlight the increase of the transparency and information as well to perform the analysis of our business alongside the IR team and managers of the business. We also considered the new corporate model, a new guide, and we also brought in other operational and financial information about Ambipar. As you can see on the Mandala on the right side, we restructured our internal restructuring process to be more aligned with our services that we offer to customers and their environmental needs that are considered to be most important.
Environment offers services that will decarbonize and make the operations of our customers more sustainable through circular economy and value repurposing. We provide solutions that can help our customers to become net zero. In the disclosure of the information from Environment, we also consolidated the circular economy areas and waste management areas under a single pillar, which is circular economy. The investors and analysts from now on will see volumes per type of waste of repurposing in line with our strategy to maximize the use of industrial waste and post-consumption. Besides this, we rebaptized this to consulting for compliance software and to provide more clarity in this value proposition. Responses are prevention and remediation vertical for environmental emergencies. So that's where we provide routine services and to be able to avoid accidents.
And at response, that's where we work with most emergencies that happen frequently in many different sectors and regions. In our new disclosure of information for response, we also disclosed financial data regionalized, and we brought in volume indicators, price, and efficiency indicators. And you can understand the profitability and productivity per region we operate in. With this new information disclosure, we hope to improve the results as well. So these are going to be updated quarterly besides being present in our release. Let's move on to the next slide. We reached a milestone of BRL 2.1 billion as revenue, and we grew 50% versus the second quarter of 2024 and 79.5% versus the third quarter of 2023. As we mentioned, we had a revenue that was BRL 639.5 million in the sale of equipment and fleets.
Excluding this effect, we would have an adjusted revenue of BRL 1,482 million, growing 25.4% versus the second quarter of 2023 and 4.8%. In the accumulated nine months of 2024, we had a growth reaching a revenue of BRL 4.8 billion, and the adjusted revenue was of BRL 4.2 billion, and a growth year over year of 18.1% in line with the guidance of the company of 10% per the year. Moving on to the next slide and getting into Environment, we had an all-time high of BRL 1.1 billion and a growth of 104.7% above the second quarter of 2023 and 64.6 times higher than the second quarter of 2024. The adjusted net revenue, which also excludes the effect of the sale of assets, reached BRL 731 million. It's a growth of 17% versus the third quarter of the previous year.
In the first nine months of 2024, the adjusted net revenue of Environment was BRL 1.9 billion, a growth of 12.8% versus the first nine months in 2023. We want to highlight that in this quarter, we had the opening of recycling hubs for glass, new total waste management and capital goods sector, and also expansion in other Environment customers. We also announced a partnership with the National Association of Waste Collectors, ANCAT, which will allow us to capture even more waste in the post-consumption market. We're going to look at the revenues and operational KPIs of the circular economy. Moving on to the next slide now. In the new earnings release, we started reporting the tons of waste that are in our Ambipar platform. We have three main categories, as you can see in the graph on the left side.
So, the first process with waste and materials in industry, then repurposing waste and final disposal. So that already represents over half of our revenue in the circular economy unit. The more the company invests in technologies for waste transformation, the more we can differentiate this and grow our revenue and margin. So the waste that's repurposed receives the biggest average ticket per ton, which went up 15.9%, and the volume grew approximately 9%. So when you can see the guide on the model and results, you'll see most of the waste repurposing work we do in the company, including organic repurposing, recovery, and energy recovery processes, among others. Moving on to response, the net revenue reached BRL 1 billion and grew 57.8% versus the third quarter of 2023 and 33.6% versus the second quarter of 2024.
In the first nine months of 2024, we had a growth of 31.5% in the net revenue. When you look at the adjusted base, we reached the milestone of BRL 841 million, growing 32% versus the third quarter of 2023 and 14.2% versus the second quarter of 2024. In the same adjusted basis, the net revenue at response of the first nine months in 2024 reached a value of BRL 2.3 billion, a growth of 22.5% versus the first nine months of 2023, an excellent quarter based on all of the comparisons. We can highlight the performance in North America and Europe with margins that are higher and greater revenues as well. Brazil has incremented the diversification of revenue, performing bioengineering contracts, remediation of contaminated areas, environmental monitoring programs, as well as servicing port and route services, and also standby contracts for oil spills and cleaning tanks and ships.
From these results, we have the operational KPIs and financial KPIs at Response. This is a business division that's been quite people-intensive, as you need equipment that needs to be capable to perform complex services. We also monitor the health of the operation through the measure of the revenue per hour, and in our case, labor and availability. In the first nine months of 2024, considering the worked hours and available hours between 65% and 80%, depending on the region. In Latam, we also considered greater utilization with more outsourcing services. In North America, 65% of the labor, since we have lower hires than in Canada. Considering the hours per employee and the value sold per hour, we reached a revenue per employee.
At this moment, Europe makes more per employee due to more specialized services, while in Latin America, due to the outsourcing, we have a lower revenue per employee. In the new guide for modeling, investors will also be able to keep up with the base hours' work to value per hour, and it's going to be a lot more intuitive. So we'll be able to model the results. On the right side, you can see Response had only 6% of the results coming from major emergencies, demonstrating the recurring nature of the preventive services in our business. It's also worth mentioning that in the six last quarters, we had revenues from major emergencies in some of our regions, demonstrating that we are talking about new occurrences in the global level of this kind of service. On the next slide, please, we can analyze the EBITDA in this period.
The adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2024 was already BRL 433 million, which represents a growth of 15.2% versus the third quarter of 2023. In the nine months of 2024, the EBITDA grew 44.9% versus the first nine months in 2023, reaching a milestone of BRL 1.3 billion. In the adjusted basis, the EBITDA had a growth of 19.9%, reaching a level of BRL 1.2 billion. Besides this, we expanded the EBITDA margin in 50 basis points in the accumulated of the year, in line with the search for more efficiency and productivity gains. Moving on to Environment, we had an EBITDA growth of 41.3% in the quarter versus the third quarter of 2023 and 11.1% versus the second quarter of 2024. We had a growth of 19.1% versus the third quarter of 2023, and we're really satisfied with this growth annually.
In the first nine months of 2024, the Environment EBITDA grew 26.5% versus the first nine months of 2023, reaching a milestone of BRL 610 million. In the adjusted basis, the EBITDA had a growth of 19%, reaching BRL 668 million. Besides this, we expanded the EBITDA margins in Environment at 190 basis points in the accumulated results for the year versus the previous year, in line with the gains of greater waste repurposing and search for efficiencies. So the response EBITDA grew upon all metrics, and so the EBITDA reached a value of BRL 242.5 million versus 24.4% versus the second quarter of 2024. Now, the adjusted EBITDA reached a value of BRL 202 million, a growth of 10.7% versus the third quarter of 2023. In the accumulated nine months, the EBITDA in response grew 73.4% versus the previous year, reaching BRL 609.9 million.
In the adjusted base, the same accumulated EBITDA had a growth of 20.4%, reaching a value of BRL 570.2 million. In the annual comparison, Brazil and Europe stood out. In the quarterly comparison, Europe and North America had higher performance. In the next slide, we'll show you the EBITDA and the accumulated margin in the year per region. Brazil is the region that leads the contribution to the EBITDA with margins that are above 40%. In second place, you have North America, and that's contributed with BRL 123 million, with major potential for margin gains. And Europe is the third biggest region that contributes to the Response EBITDA, with healthy margins and a recurrence in revenue and industrial services. It's very significant. Finally, Latin America has the lowest contribution with the Response EBITDA due to lower representation in the revenue and also the outsourcing contracts.
With this, we would like to resume the discussions for the Ambipar Group, talking about cash flow topics and capital structure, so as we discussed throughout the year, we're focused on delivering more with less, using more of our assets. In the third quarter of 2024, we also delivered the lowest CapEx, reaching 6.3% of the net revenue and 9.4% of the adjusted EBITDA, excluding the sale of the assets from the revenue. The CapEx composition is the lowest expense from Environment and the biggest expense within Response, and the completion of some industrial projects in Environment allows us to reach this lowest level of CapEx at an absolute term, but also when you consider the percentage upon the revenue, so in Response, we had a quarter with new contracts, and that led to a CapEx that was higher than our historical average.
The CapEx as a percentage of the adjusted net revenue reached 9.3% versus 14.7% in the previous year. And so that demonstrates we're on the right path, delivering organic growth and managing our investments better. Next slide. A major achievement this quarter was the incorporation of executive shareholders in the base, so our operating shareholders migrated their stake, and they became shareholders of the Ambipar Group. And with this swap, we went from BRL 396 million to BRL 125 million as obligations, which is extremely important to reduce the gross leverage of the group. As we continue, we can move on to the next slide, please. Major operational cash flow and the strategic sale of assets allowed us to provide continuity to the reduction process of our gross debt and financial leverage.
We reduced our gross debt by BRL 214 million, and we also reduced our net debt by BRL 385 million. On the leverage metric based on the net debt to EBITDA ratio, for covenant purposes, we reduced this metric to 2.2, and if you measure this upon the adjusted EBITDA, to 2.62. Next slide, please. Besides having reduced the leverage in this quarter, we also saw the debt amortization profile that gives us the necessary comfort to continue in this journey for cash generation and a focus on extracting efficiencies. We also reached a cash position of BRL 4 billion in liquidity, which is enough to honor our commitments till 2028 and an average term above five years, so in this year, we will still use at least BRL 253 million in our debt to reduce our gross debt even more.
In regards to the gross debt profile, we have over 90% of our debt attached to CDI, and the bond that was issued in February was protected by a swap. So then you have liabilities and assets that are based on reais and not dollarized anymore. In this quarter, we had a growth of BRL 44.5 million, and so a growth of 27.9% versus the third quarter of 2023. It's also worth mentioning that in the first quarter and second quarter of this year, we did not have profits due to major non-recurring expenses. The improvement in profits is a very important point for the company, and we're really satisfied with this. But what's most relevant for the Ambipar Group is in the next slide, as we can move on and see that. This is the slide that's considered the most important for the presentation today.
Ambipar is a dynamic group that has been changing a lot ever since 2020 with an organic expansion and ever since mid-2023 with an internal focus on efficiencies and cash generation. With the quick changes, it's really important to take on a broader perspective, which is quarterly, to visualize the changes in course. Throughout the last nine months of 2024, we increased our operational cash generation measured by the EBITDA, deducted by the leases, variations in working capital, taxes, investments, and acquisitions minus BRL 1 million to BRL 574 million in 2024, which is what you can see in green on this chart. This increase is mainly due to discipline in our day-to-day activities. We grew the EBITDA by BRL 207 million, which also demonstrates the operational solidity of our business. We also improved the working capital dynamics in the company, building a substantial cash position in 2023.
We reduced our CapEx as well by BRL 130 million versus last year, and finally, we were able to keep discipline in our capital allocation and integration without performing M&As, with the exception of the transactions bonding from last year. So in total, it's an improvement of BRL 575 million in our cash generation in the first nine months of 2024, demonstrating that with a team that's aligned, discipline, execution, and the right KPIs and a good fundamental basis for our business, we can generate a lot of value to Ambipar shareholders. With this, I'll move on to the last slide here on the call before we head to the Q&A in the last quarter. We organized my first Ambipar earnings call for Ambipar, but I was here just for a few weeks.
Ever since I joined, I've continued to identify some strong points in our business and potentials we have here. As the first measure, I also dedicated my time to perform a profound diagnosis of the business. I visited the operations, had some integration with the team, performed financial analysis, and I prepared a value creation plan for shareholders. This plan was based on five pillars represented by the team, governance, integration, financial discipline, and the most important, of course, communication. And in the third quarter, we advanced significantly on this agenda. In the first pillar, we have been building really a strong, high-performance team. We implemented a long-term incentive program. We brought in new executives in the technology, communication, FP&A, accounts payable and receivable, people and management, supplies, and environmental consulting. And all of these people will really help the engines in Ambipar work in the most efficient way.
In governance, we also renewed our board with independent members that help and contribute daily to the achievement of better results. We've been honest in our perspectives and goals as executives. In integration, we completed the diagnosis on efficiency levers and the Connect project together with Visagio, focused on improvements and implementation of our CSC. We've already begun this with different measures initially in the shared service center, with major standardization and technology and systems and the centralization of our purchase process. In financial discipline, we deleveraged and made our business become lighter, or asset-light, and less capital-intensive, and we also performed the equalization of our covenants and our debts, and finally, with communication, we disclosed new materials. We were active in the investor community, and we really valued transparency, expanding, and sharing even more information.
We understand that this joint effort really contributed to an upgrade in the Fitch outlook and a reduction in our capital costs in the company. There's still a lot to do, but we're excited with what we have ahead of us. I want to thank all of the Ambipar employees because without them, it would be impossible to achieve all of this. Now we'll head to Q&A. We'll begin with our Q&A session now for investors and analysts. To submit a question in writing, please send it through the Q&A icon, letting us know about your name and company. Please wait while we collect the questions. Our first question comes from Mr. Arthur Santos, and he says, "Good morning. Congratulations on the results. What's the expectation for annual increments for leases after the sale of these assets?"
Good morning, Arthur.
This is João, the CFO, and thank you for your question. As you all know, we announced a partnership for the sale of the assets with John Deere, and this partnership intends to sell 2,100 equipments and assets, as well as some equipment with John Deere. Once we deploy this program for leasing, our cost should add on about BRL 27 million, as disclosed in the past. However, part of our lease cost will be substituted by this contract. So you should see an increment in this contract above, but there's a substitution in the total current cost of the company in this sense. Now, once again, if you would like to submit a question in writing, please send it through the Q&A icon, letting us know about your name and company. We'd ask you to please wait while we collect questions. Our next question is from Mr.
Vladimir Pinto, and he says, "Good morning, João and Ambipar team. Congratulations on the initiatives. We would like you to send. We hope we can achieve the results you long for. My question is about the integration of the companies. What do you expect when it comes to reducing expenses and optimizing tax scenarios for the companies and the group?" Good morning, Vladimir. This is Pedro, and we have opportunities that are huge in the group, as you all know. The company went through a growth journey that was well accelerated in the last few years, and then we transformed this focus inwards to the efficiency projects in mid-2023 and throughout 2024. So we're still in the beginning of these opportunity captures, and the opportunities are really big. We're going to provide more disclosure in a more granular way to analysts at the right moment.
But you can understand that this is connected to the guidance as we deliver throughout the year with incremental margins and growth through cross-selling and expenses. And all of this is going to be in the plan we're going to discuss at the right moment. So well, if you have any questions, just use the Q&A button on the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and question. Please wait while we collect questions. Our next question comes from Mr. André Ferreira from Bradesco BBI. He says, "In response, we saw an improvement that was significant in the EBITDA margin in North America when compared quarter over quarter. But even with the growth in the revenue, if we look at the results on the revenue side, there's been a growth in services, field services of 40%.
We wanted to talk about what would be the main cause of these two points in the improvement of margins upon the sale and leaseback operations, and how much are you missing still to reflect this in the next quarters? Good morning, André. This is Pedro, and I'm going to take on the first question. Then João can add on with the second one. In regards to North America, we've invested and worked a lot in the region to increment our contracts and sales capacity and integration in the region. And so we hope, and of course, this is natural, that this should happen due to our expertise in response globally, that North America would have increments in the results.
So you can see in the last quarter and throughout the year, we had margins that were lower than what we expect for the region, and this is like the normalization of the efficiency in our operation. This quarter had improvements and increments in regards to field services we had already provided in the past that were recognized as results in this quarter, and that makes the numbers a little stronger. But if you take a look at the adjusted margin for this effect, we would already have about 13%. So this is an increment that's relevant, and there's still major potential to improve this over time implementing the response model. We'll pass this on to João for him to answer the second question. Hi, André. Good morning. Thanks for the question.
When it comes to the sale and lease of assets in the next quarters, we still have a component of debts to be amortized as the result of the sale of vehicles that are going to be transferred to John Deere, which is about BRL 130 million. We should amortize this as debt. The sales volume is practically booked in the third quarter, not very much for the next period because of the results that were already announced in this quarter. We should have an additional amortization of our debt in the next quarter related to the transfers of these assets, and the rest should be pretty marginal. We would like to remind you that to submit questions, you should select the Q&A button on the bottom part of your screen. Write your name, company, and question. Please wait while we collect your questions.
Our next question comes from Mr. Mark Grossman, and he says, "What's the growth perspective for the fourth quarter of 2024 and 2025?" Good morning, Mark, and thanks for the question. We don't provide quarterly guidance at Ambipar, so it's important to get a perspective of where we are and the potential the company still has to achieve in this quarter with an increment in the disclosure. You'll be able to notice this through the corporate presentation and the model guide where you can see the market share Ambipar is part of and how this market has been growing over time. So through this data, we can notice that we're growing alongside the market, and there's a lot of space to gain market share because generally, we still have single digits in the market share where we operate.
So if we look at the history, we can still see major capacities to replicate this positive growth the group has in both business divisions. I want to remind you all that to send your questions, you should just select your name, company, and question on the Q&A field located at the bottom part of your screen. Please wait while we collect questions. Our next question comes from André Ferreira from Bradesco BBI, and he said, "Ambipar reported a proportion of CapEx net revenue, 9% with a drop of versus the history. My question is, if we operate in this structure with more asset leases and considering the growth expected, what's the level you would expect to work with in a recurring manner in the next three years?" André, this is João, and thank you once again for the question.
As you were able to notice, we've reduced the intensity of our CapEx in regards to the net revenue. We reached 9% this quarter, and it's important to notice that this number still doesn't reflect the sales transaction and asset leases. And so it is expected that this number and CapEx intensity would even be lower in the future, as Pedro had already mentioned. We don't share guidances, of course, but the intensity of capital allocation and investments will be lower due to this transformation, considering a model that has less capital intensity and is more asset-light. This is our future expectation, and that's what we should see in the numbers in the next quarters. Once again, if you have any questions, please select your name, company, and question using the Q&A tool at the bottom part of your screen. Please wait while we collect more questions.
Our next question comes from Felipe Bertello, and he's saying, "Could you please explain the drop in margins and how we should see this in the next quarters? We would also like to know how this improves the dynamic for the average tickets in circular economy, considering the drop in the quarter." Thank you. Hi, good morning, Felipe. We understand that the response margin is a mix reflecting the mix where we have the revenue from response. So whenever we have more intensity in revenue in Brazil, you can expect higher margins, a little more intensity in the revenues, and there should be lower margins. There are a lot of opportunities to implement this as well, and if we consider the margins in the foreign market, everything is more constant.
The planning for the companies that will be incrementing this on the average ticket, we have in the industrial management of waste and post-consumption, we also treat these, and on average, these follow inflation indicators. So we cover this and according to the market conditions. We want to remind you that if you have questions, please type your name, company, and question in the bottom Q&A button located at the bottom part of your screen. Please wait while we collect more questions. The Q&A session is officially ended. We would like to pass the word on to João Arruda so that he can perform the final remarks in the company. We would like to thank everyone for their participation in the earnings call at Group Ambipar, and thank you all once again, all of the employees, for the excellent results and contributions in this quarter.
Thank you all and have a great day. The earnings call for Ambipar is officially ended. Thank you all for your participation and have a great day.