Good afternoon, everyone. Once again, I want to thank you all for being here. We're very proud to once again have an earnings call with Ambipar Participações for 2023, which was a challenging year, but that we were able to navigate through with the support of our shareholders and partners to really share the operational results. That was very satisfactory, a new phase in the company and the history. We also modified our relationship with the market and improved our communication processes. The main guidelines are focused on organic growth, increasing cash generation, deleveraging, focus on efficiency, and integration of our processes. Throughout the year, we grew 27% of our revenue, which also helped with our brand and capturing our synergies operationally. We also had some new contracts with customers. We've been exploring cross-selling, sharing the training between the companies acquired and the companies in our portfolio.
Our portfolio of customers is very robust, and we've been able to, throughout this year, explore this process a lot and grow organically. Throughout the year, I also mentioned that we focused on the increase of our cash generation, and we substantially reduced our acquisitions. We used our M&A structure to have accelerated growth, but we reduced our CapEx, demonstrating that our growth is also providing more growth that's less capital-intensive. In 2023, we reinforced our team. We have new executives, and two of them are here with me, actually, Fábio Castro and Pedro Petersen from our IR team, and they're going to be helping to conduct the presentation. So it's also important to highlight that in 2023, we've been reinforcing our governance. We've been accessing our capital market with some equity and debt transactions as we had the follow-on with Response. We had the follow-on of the holding.
We issued our green bond, and we started this compliance journey with the deployment of SOX. I'll pass the phone to Pedro now so that he can begin his presentations with the company's earnings. On the next slide, please. Well, now, as Thiago mentioned, throughout 2023, we grew our revenue by 27%. And this is basically including the best performance of our two business units at Ambipar. Starting off with Ambipar Response, we had a year of double-digit growth where the fourth quarter grew 19% compared to last year with a focus on our strong performance. That's very satisfactory, which are the two main business areas for Response. So throughout the year of 2023, we ended with margins above 25%, an important impact of the mix of our businesses and also our exposure in North America in the group.
We had room to keep up with this good performance and margins in the business. When we look at the other business division Environment, let's move on to the next slide. We had a growth of 7.5%. We can move on to the next slide, please, operator. This was also a year where we improved our profile of contracts. We grew in our circular economy and ESG consulting. We were a little more flat on management and repurposing. But that's just because of the contract renewal process we had throughout this year with a focus on profitability. This is reflected in the Environment margins, as you can see on the next slide, with growth in our margins throughout all of the quarters of 2023. We can move on to the next slide, please.
Now, as we move on to the next slide, we can see that there's an analysis of the different phases in the company. And this is an analysis we consider to be very healthy to understand how different operations have been performing over time in the group. So each color in this graph represents a set of companies or operations that existed at that moment that were part of the Ambipar group. So the companies that existed in 2019, they were already part of the group, and operations are a part of the group, making 575% of revenue at that time. And now they make $1,163,000,000. So now what we can see is that all of these different phases in the company, when you look at a midterm period, they've been growing. And this is an ongoing question about the organic growth of the company.
And we wanted to bring this analysis here. Generally, growth has been double digits. And this year, as you can see from 2022- 2023, that the operations on the management and repurposing of waste, which was the core in the company in the past, had a slight drop. But once again, we were renewing contracts, focusing more on profitability. And this is what we've seen. In 2024, we do hope to have another to resume growth, but once again, focus on profitability. Now, to finish off with the analysis here of our earnings, before we move on to Fábio, we had a net income that in this quarter was an all-time high. So the company, because of operational improvements and a tax structure that has already improved the financial results significantly, was able to deliver a net income that's higher than what was delivered in the past.
This is something that we would also like to build as something recurring in the next periods of the business. So with this, I'll pass the floor on to Fábio to have an analysis on our capital structure.
So good afternoon. Just to reinforce here that the results of the controller, which were approximately BRL 80 million. And if you can move on to slide nine, as we talk about the capital structure and look at the company's debt structure. Next slide, please. Okay. So we can see a net debt of BRL 4,260,000 and an EBITDA annualized of BRL 1,600,000, which make our net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.6 times. And with a profile that's quite healthy as well in the amortization, with 86% in the long term. Next slide, please.
As we look at the cash flow activities and the flow here in the fourth quarter, we can see a reduction of almost BRL 300 million in the net debt. This graph shows us exactly what happened. So we have an EBITDA that helped reduce the net debt. You have the payment of debts and variations in the working capital that in this quarter had positive effects, financial results, CapEx. There's also a follow-on impact. Here you can see the bar before last, which is others. This is mainly the debts from companies we acquired during the quarter, especially. Moving on to the end of a net debt of BRL 4,260,000. Moving on to the next slide, please. You can see now a bit of the evolution in our cash flow. As Thiago mentioned, the company has really been focusing on cash generation and deleveraging.
We can see that within the year, the company has improved and reduced its consumption of cash by BRL 1 billion, which is due to the improvements in the operational results and also the reduction of the volumes of M&As. Next slide now. You can see what our schedule has been for our debt amortization process. On the next graph is pretty much how you guys can see this along with the release and the earnings release. And we issued our green bond of $650 million. And we've already prepaid some debt, so we're able to prepay the second issuance at Ambipar. The third issuance as well, Ambipar 12 and Ambipar 13. We had the first issuance of debentures for Emergência Participações and also Environmental ESG 11. We also paid off a commercial bond and a working capital facility we have with some banks.
So on the bottom part of the graph, you can see our schedule for pro forma amortization. And we were able to reprofile the debt significantly, increasing the duration of the debt. We can move on to the next slide. Now, as we talk about our CapEx, we were able to break this down in a simplified way so you can analyze it. The CapEx for Response and how it's been performing over the year. In the middle part, with Environment, and at the end, the consolidated numbers. The big highlight is that you can see the CapEx in the quarter was 14.6% of the revenue. The company informally was instructing investors there would be about 2%.
If we look at the removal of this circular economy part and the expansion of this, and that's the GIRI project we have in Chile, plus the expansion of the circular economy, especially in the Northeast, we end up with 12.2 or 12.3 in the year. This number is considerably lower compared to the year of 2022, which demonstrates that the company is allocating its capital structure better. On the next slide, we have opened our GIRI project this week. This is an innovative project, which brings in well, there's no project like this in Latin America. This positions the company in a very different place. Now, from now on, we'll start seeing the results of this. Now I want to get into the Q&A session as we are done with our presentation.
So we do have a question we've just got from Henrique. He's asking about what others is on the debt graph. I think everybody answered that. But it's especially the effect of the debt in the companies acquired. So yeah, Henrique, that's the answer. Eduardo also submitted the same question from GTI. Then Eduardo also asked about liability management that we performed throughout the first quarter. I think maybe I detailed this a little more during the slide on the debt. Eduardo, you asked about the spread, and we have the expectation to reduce the spread of the debt as we've been negotiating new debt with lower costs. So we do hope to have positive impacts in the financial results that can't be ahead. Also with the drop in the CDI that contributes a lot.
Then Gustavo from Bank of America, if we had maintenance and growth CapEx, and if we have any kind of target for the growth of the EBITDA and deleveraging for 2024. Well, we don't have a guidance, Gustavo. But what we do see is that the CapEx kind of normalized itself. And we understand that we would actually like to change the way we communicate all of this because we've normally talked about the percentage of the revenue so far, which kind of hides the growth a bit. So our idea is to separate what is the maintenance CapEx, as you've already seen that on the chart, you have the graph for maintenance and expansion. And maintenance is a percentage of the revenue. So if the company stops growing, then the CapEx you see in the company is around 5%-6%.
And then we are also trying to consider a rationale so that for each kind of bit of CapEx we invest, how much additional revenue it generates so that possibly we can tell you guys that if we invest $100 million of growth CapEx, how much that would generate as additional revenue. So this is something we're still working on here to be able to share with you. So another question here from Caio on the increase of maintenance CapEx. Caio, this is natural. Since the company has been growing, the CapEx has been growing. And when you look at the proportion in regards to the revenue, it's stable. 2024, we do hope to have maintenance in these indicators to grow this CapEx. Bruce is also asking about the expectations for reduction in debt.
Well, Bruce, looking at our forecasts and what we're seeing is that from 2025, this will probably start taking place. We have been investing in this for growth. And actually, when we look at the indicator for leverage and when we compare with companies in the sector, they normally operate with an indicator that's higher than what we've been operating with. And none of them delivered the level of growth we delivered. So we think that this indicator and this level of growth is pretty healthy. So another question here from Lorenzo. So the difference between the net income and the release from the controller and consolidated results, well, that's basically the difference we have between the profits of minority shareholders, which are the companies where we have other partners. Then Andrea also asked us about the expectation for GIRI.
GIRI has the capacity to manage 60 billion tons of waste per year. The expectations we have is that we'll reach this by in three years from now. And what we see there is a level of margins that should operate about $20 million. It's full dollars with a margin above what we currently have at Environment, all right? And the capacity to replicate this asset in other regions. So we can see that we can expand GIRI to other regions in Latin America. So we already have customers that are asking us to move on to other cities and countries because we don't have this in other countries in Latin America. So yeah, it was a real milestone for the company. We had the opening this week, which demonstrates this is actually our thesis for investments.
We have different levels of services here, but it was really a big project, very revolutionary, not only to the company, but also for all of Latin America. GIRI really kept us very optimistic about what it can bring to the Ambipar group. We have another question also asking to talk about the main levers for growth in 2024 when it comes to the gross revenue. When we see there's a real promising market in Brazil as we expanded our portfolio throughout 2023. We had the opportunity to continue to explore the integrated approach. When we talk about cement companies, petrochemical companies, we have the capacity to provide minimum services and cleaning supplies regularly and other emergency Response services, Environmental consulting services. We're confirming this entire portfolio of services. This has been transformed.
We're going to continue to explore this with our commercial pipeline, which has been growing a lot. The U.S. is another area that also really stands out with Response. Also with coastal states and other Ro-Ro activities with navigation and transportation of petrochemical substances where tank cleaning is necessary and sandblasting also necessary. There are many opportunities. You can see these two geographies really standing out with Brazil and the U.S. really leveraging these results. Then from Environment, you can see the vision with the circular economy that's at a really interesting phase. Throughout 2023, we increased our verticalization and we increased our collection points and partnerships with cooperatives and industrial collection points, which when you look at the volume and quality of the material captured.
And then also from an industrial perspective, we've also been taking this more and more to the end products. And we can see this process also when it comes to management and repurposing as the company has important contracts that are being disputed in other industries like steel, fertilizers, etc. So this is different than this year in 2023 where we had some adjustments. And that's where we really see the growth and repurposing. And we can see that in 2024, we see this grow again. So while taking advantage of this once again, you talked about Pedro and Henrique. And I wanted to just take advantage of this complementary aspect here. I don't know if everyone saw, but there was an accident on the Baltimore Bridge. We've been operating in this emergency also in the oil spill at Trinidad and Tobago.
North America is going through a moment where we've been accelerating our operations in the U.S. We're excited with what the operations in Texas and the northwest have been delivering. We've been working with the biggest port in Florida as well. And this is a whole set of customers that's been growing. We've been growing with agricultural national contracts as well. And we really have the perspective of increasing our bases in states like Louisiana and in other areas where we're already present. And this is going to be contributing positively to the revenue. So in Canada, it's a little slower because of the phase out of some downstream projects with oil and gas where we worked with different pipeline strategies. And this is an industry that's at a slower pace in the beginning of this year.
But we have a lot of opportunities to direct our assets and personnel to other industries and customers throughout the year. So this has been the work we've been doing to integrate and explore and train our team to be capable of working in different industries in the regions where it is and really share capacities to be able to sell to customers at a national, international level. So we see the U.S. as the main area for growth. One question here from Gisele and Fabiano. If you could give more details on the margins for Response and what happened to have this slight drop and the expectations for 2024 as well. So, well, the Response margins had a one-off effect in the last quarter in regards to the BRL 48 million of earnouts that were written off.
But this is something that we consider as part of the business because of the way we perform the transactions. So in the past, we had two transactions at Canada. So we started some assumptions for growth. And the targets were achieved, obviously. Of course, we would like to always achieve them, but it does demonstrate how we have good alignment and how we perform the acquisitions. So the next payment did not occur. But excluding this effect, we have margin that's a little better during the fourth quarter, about 20%. So it's not recurring for the business. But as I mentioned, at the end of the year, it was a little slower in Canada. And this, of course, impacted the margins and then a bigger mix as well with the consulting services that have restricted margins compared to the rest of the group.
So, considering what we delivered throughout the year in 2023 is really what we search for at this moment. Well, then another question here from Arthur on the margins. We have some questions also about possible appetite for new acquisitions. We understand the M&As are part of our strategy where we focused a bit more. As Thiago mentioned, we reduced our volumes and the expectations that from now on, this will be a little more strategic. We're focused more on organic growth. Arthur asked about synergies a bit. I think it's worth mentioning that Witt O'Brien's, the company we acquired in the end of 2022, really brought into the group an additional revenue of over $20 million for services received. If they hadn't been in the group, they would have to outsource.
Then they were able to transfer these to the companies in the group. We can see this level of synergies that's very recurring in our business. We hope to explore this a bit more during our investor day. Then a question here from Fernando on the income tax rates and if there's any expectation to reduce this effective rate. Also with minority participation. Yeah, we do have something in this direction. We've been working with some aspects. We've been using M&A as a tool. But now, as I mentioned, from 2023 and 2024, we're going to capture the organization in our businesses. Of course, this includes the fiscal and tax aspects as well. Then you have the minority shareholders, as Fábio mentioned. As we can see, one of the biggest factors with this stake is Response.
So when you look at Ambipar, there's about 50% of the total capital at Response. And the other 30% are already at analysis. So then, of course, we have some different models and strategic partners in our M&A structure that are also part of this group of minority shareholders. As far as I can see here, we apparently oh, there's another question here from Sol. She's asking about the volume of acquisitions to be paid. So they increased this due to the acquisitions performed. And if you take a look at this, we have details of each acquisition performed within the quarter explaining what we do. And there's a whole session on this in the release. So I think that was reduced substantially. Yeah, it's kind of what we mentioned.
So we had this reduction in the amount paid and payable by over 60% in line with what we were discussing, focusing more on organic growth. I think now we've covered all of the questions. We've been able to answer all the questions. If anyone has any other question and you would like to submit it, please let us know. But by what I see, we've already covered all of them. So if we didn't answer any of the questions, please let us know. We have the investor relations department available to further communicate about any other outstanding questions. Oh, we have a question here from Caio on cash generation. Well, Caio, we do expect an improvement in the cash consumption throughout 2024, although we do have an expectation for an improvement in the results. And we do consider that this helps us throughout 2024.
Since we do not have any other questions, I'll pass the floor to Thiago for some closing remarks. Great. Thanks, Fábio. Thank you, Pedro. We would like to thank you all for your presence. As Fábio mentioned, our IR team is available for any other questions you may have. We reinforced our team. We've been going through this new phase in the company, so we're available to clarify any additional questions you may have. Obviously, I want to reinforce our satisfaction with the results in the fourth quarter. Of course, in 2024, as I mentioned, we're very optimistic to deliver more results, deleverage, and mitigate our capital structure with the issuance of the green bond. As you'll see, this was in the first quarter of 2024. We already had the payoff of some debts, which increased the duration of our liabilities.
And now we're very focused on the results for the first quarter of 2024. So thank you all so much and have a great afternoon. Thank you.