Well, good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I'd like to say sorry for the small delay. We had a technical problem related to our earnings call, but now we were able to establish this now. And that's why we're very honored to be having another earnings call at Ambipar as we cover the results we were able to achieve in the third quarter of 2023. Throughout this year, we had significant challenges, but due to joint efforts with our team and the robustness of our business model, we were able to overcome our adversities and reach really impressive results. We have Ricardo Garcia, he is our CFO and IR at Ambipar Environment, and Pedro Petersen, he's our CFO and IR Ambipar Response.
Before we go over the earnings and results for the third quarter, I want to get into details about our major event, which took place now at the end of October and beginning of November. We had a follow-on of Ambipar Participações. Here are some metrics that I think are important to cover because this was an important event for us. First of all, I want to say that from the total amount raised, we had BRL 709 million, net of all expenses, and the priority was focused on deleveraging Ambipar Participações, and we were able to achieve this objective. We issued above the base offering, 70% above this base offering, and especially the commitment from the controlling shareholder that was the anchor in this offering and was able to raise investments from other investors.
We had over 150 interactions during the entire roadshow process, which provided more visibility to Ambipar, and as people were revisiting our model and our business structure. We can move on to the next slide, please. And as a consequence of this follow-on, first of all, we would like to mention, and we were able to achieve this objective, we wanted to deleverage the company. So when we look at our earnings and our capital structure of the third quarter in 2023, and we consider this cash position, we finally reached a leverage of about 2.5x. This was our main objective, and here we want to, we wanted to achieve this, and we were able to improve our working capital structure.
That we could really address this problem with the covenants that we could face in the end of the year. This is solved for the short, mid, and long term. We still have a debt structure that has a pretty good duration, with almost 90% long term. So as the C-level management, we are going to be following this natural deleveraging process through our operations and focusing a lot on profitability in the company, which is something we're going to cover throughout the third quarter. We will be working with the necessary ease now in 2024. We can move on to the next slide, please.
Before we get into the exercise with the results of this period, we're going to highlight how much we were able to achieve when it comes to the net debt and cash position. Our main cash expenses were related to the payment of the debt, principal amounts of our debt, which added up to about BRL 600 million of principal amounts. Of course, the financial results with interest rates at a real high level led to a significant expense due to the debt services. This is where you can see this variation, the cash position, as you can see, the bridge on our release. The main variation was due to the interests that were provisioned for, and also the CapEx and operations. We continue with our accelerated growth process.
We delivered a lot of growth, especially now at Ambipar Response, and Pedro will get into more details about how the Ambipar Response numbers behaved. Also at Ambipar Environment, we had the advance of a big project. We had it with GIRI as well, that we're going to discuss, and we'll show you some photos of this project. So these are some of the main variations in the cash and the net debt position, and we were able to reach this level of 2.99x in the third quarter. But once again, the follow-on really made us more comfortable to address any kind of challenges or problems related to our covenants, and we continue to keep up with this accelerated growth plan for the next year, especially. We can move on.
Then last but not least, we want to show our, our cash and debt position, and so we ended the third quarter with about BRL 2.5 billion, as we were able to show you at the bridge. With the increment of this cash of BRL 709 million of net cash in the offering, we'll get back to the level of BRL 3.2 billion of cash, which gives us the comfort and important liquidity to keep us from any kind of obstacles that we'll see in the macroeconomic scenario. That, of course, guarantees greater certainty and security to our creditors and shareholders, and then we can really focus on synergies and profitability. With them, we can have, at midterm, the necessary liquidity to fulfill our obligations and naturally deleverage the company. We can move on.
So as we get into the results of our third quarter, we want to highlight the solid financial results we were able to conquer. We ended the period with significant growth in our revenues and EBITDA in regards to the same period. And that demonstrates our efficiency in the strategy and resilience, even in challenging scenarios, like the ones we've been experiencing in the macro global scenario. And it's also important to mention our ongoing commitment for operational excellence and investor research, development, and innovation. So we're gonna cover some of the main financial highlights. Our gross revenue for the first nine months in 2023 grew 33% in regards to the same period, reaching BRL 3.9 billion.
Our net revenue in the quarter versus the same period before reached BRL 1.2 billion, which is 20% compared to the same period before, and our all-time high EBITDA as well, of about BRL 366 million and a margin of 31.1% EBITDA. So we reduced our gross leverage, as you can see in the beginning, by BRL 400 million. We had this payment of a good part of the principal amounts, and that, of course, led to the reduction of our gross leverage. And then the operational ROIC continues to keep up with this level of about 30%. So we can move on.
Just some general illustrative image, as you can see, in our gross profit, the EBITDA and the net income of our operational companies, with the growth of about 33%, following up with this growth in our EBITDA. And the EBITDA margin, as I mentioned, also reaching 31.8%, and the growth of about 38% compared to the same period last year. So I'll pass the floor on to Pedro to give us some more details on how Ambipar Response's results behaved in the last quarter, which ended in September 2023.
Okay. Thank you, Thiago.
Now, as we get into more details about Ambipar Response's results and give you some more color here, starting off with revenue, we had a quarter with strong performance when it comes to revenue from the annual operation perspective, but also when you look at the comparison of a quarter-over-quarter. An important highlight is our organic revenue that continues to grow double digits despite a contrary currency effect. So the real gained value compared to other currencies, and that ended up impacting 3 or 4 points. Yes, of what you see as organic growth and what we disclose. So we grew 19% organically. With currency adjustments and constant currency, we would be-- we would actually be growing about 23%.
So the operational performance at Ambipar Response has been doing very well, and it's really in line with what we've been describing in the previous quarters. In the U.S., we were gaining some important positioning in the agricultural market. We've also been working with the natural gas industry, which has been very profitable and good for the company. And then about Canada, we also have taken advantage of the expertise we developed initially in the U.S., and we've been able to export the capacity to work with the agricultural market emergencies and regular services. We've also been working a lot on services for oil and gas industries, upstream and downstream. And moving on to Brazil, we continue to have performance in industrial services. It's been very interesting.
Our industrial response work has had results in the top line and also in the bottom line that are very good, with cleaning services and scheduled work, especially for the FPSO industry, which has been doing very well. But we also gained some space in the farming industry. And also in LatAm, an important highlight is Chile, where we're very relevant in the mining industry, which has led to different fruits. And also not only top line, but also in the revenue, despite the fact that the Chilean peso was not favorable to the numbers in reais. And in Europe, we have satisfactory profitability in the operation, and this service is a little slower than in other regions, but even though, we're quite satisfied with this performance. We can move on, please.
And so, as I mentioned, we've been prioritizing margins in both the in most of the markets, and we've been substituting the equipment in certain regions, which is partially explaining the positive performance in the margin here in the gross profit. And EBITDA, the activities have performed in line with what we had projected for the year. So we're satisfied with how Ambipar Response has performed and the comparison basis, but we are confident that the team will continue for the next periods. With that, I'll pass the floor on to Ricardo.
Okay, so moving on to the next slide, please. We can also give you an overview on how revenue has evolved in Ambipar E nvironment just as we'll be talking about margins and profitability.
But Ambipar Environment, still in this quarter, had an organic growth of about 2%. And we can see this with the operations in the company. And a higher period than 12 months in the same-store s ales concept. But of course, when you divide this by the subdivisions in the business units of repurposing and managing waste, and we had extremely good performance in the Latin American region, with services that are becoming even more sophisticated in these markets. Because we are exporting our expertise that was developed here in Brazil throughout the last few years. And this growth in Latin America is really important to highlight, because it took place in line with the local levels about 5%.
We also suffered with the reais, with the loss in value of the current currency, which also impacted the response operations. But I think we also need to highlight the circular economy market, which is really challenging, with prices of recyclable commodities really stable, really pressured, and this ended up, of course, reducing the volumes we've been processing in the circular economy division. But it's important to highlight that even with this market very much pressured, the average tickets have been kept stable during the last three quarters, and this, in some way, reflects in an opportunity to reestablish your stock and improve margins in this division, which can be seen on the next slide as well.
So now, as we show you a bit of the evolution here with the gross margin, and so this is explained due to the costs that are a little more friendly. And we can reestablish, and with the maintenance of the average price also, this helps, because these were relatively good. If we exclude the decarbonization division in the second quarter, that was really explored by us at that moment. If we can move on to the next slide, that's where we can see the EBITDA margins as well, which brings in this perspective here when it comes to the gross profit. We have also the evolution in the gross margins.
As Thiago mentioned, we also want to mention the focus that the company has in really concentrating on profitability. This is notable with the market, the local market and international market. And you can see this reflected by the margins we present with very significant EBITDA, even in this challenging scenario when it comes to circular economy and total waste management, representing most of our revenues in Ambipar E nvironment, and performing really well, actually, because of the operations in the Latin American market, despite the reduction of the currency. So the next slide here, we have one of the main vectors for growth that we can see from next year onwards, which are rendered images from GIRI.
And this is the industrial w aste c enter that we are opening up in the beginning of 2024 in the metropolitan region of Santiago, which will take the environment operations to a whole new level. And we'll be able to share all of the scope of services we have in circular economy, and we'll really lever our business for management and repurposing, based due to the fact that we can offer a more integrated solution with an additional value, added value that's huge for our companies and customers. And this, of course, will be launched next year, and thus will have an important lever for the circular economy division, expanding our addressable market beyond the Brazilian borders. I'll pass the floor on to Thiago so that he can continue with our consolidated results.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Just about the organic growth here. As the company had this cycle of inorganic growth that finished up in the last year, we created this concept of the same-store sales, and here we brought in this different graph, where we show you the same-store sales concept in the last 12 months. Once we plug these companies into our platform, we can have a more long-term visibility, and we grow double digits. As you can see, this tends to have accelerated growth once we can plug these companies into our platform and use the entire ecosystem, really making this growth levered even after the acquisition.
As we mentioned here as well, we're super focused on profitability and deleveraging, and we are certain that this ecosystem that was created with this full portfolio of environmental services will really bring in a lot of fruit and important results for the near future. So here you have the EBITDA calculation, part of the CVM Resolution 156. We had no adjustments here. So the EBITDA is really just the pure net income plus taxes plus depreciation, and we reached this level of BRL 366 million when we consider the same period in the previous year. We can move on to the next one. And here we're moving on to CapEx.
We had a CapEx of about BRL 200 million in the third quarter of 2023, and it's slightly above what we had in the second quarter of 2023. We have two important points to highlight here. If you can move on the next one, we have a little more details, especially when it comes to expansion. In Ambipar Response, we invested in planes, in this division and here also with GIRI. So it's important to look at the accrued value and the services. When we talk about the expansion of maintenance services, we are in line with the levels we've always mentioned, which are approximately 12% of our net revenue.
When you consider the expansion CapEx, you have all of the circular economy aspects that we're expanding with here in Brazil, in the northeast region, and we can see that there's approximately 14 or a little more than 14% of the net revenue. All of this is in line with what we expected. We are being very conservative here in our CapEx approach, but of course, we're always looking at growth. So to be able to deliver the growth we committed to, we must perform investments, and we've been working on these, and we've been able to deliver them, especially with the necessary profitability. We can move on to the next slide. Here you can see our financial results, and we're waiting here to have some substantial gains, especially due to the interest rate curve, which has demonstrated to be on a downward trend.
We actually expected a bigger trend downwards, but the follow-on is here to address this as well. We want to improve our debt profile, our gross debt, as we've improved in the second and third quarters. And, we are gonna be capturing a lot here, improving the services at GIRI and the financial expenses, and we've been operating at a really interesting level. So that would bring some financial results, slightly above the second quarter of 2023. We can move on.
Then here you have the consolidated net income, and you see there's a trend of an increase in the profits due to everything we've done when it comes to the gross profit and operational margins, all-time high EBITDA in this quarter, and of course, working a lot towards the leverage that will help this net income have this upward trend. We can move on to the next one, please. Here you can see the sustainability and decarbonization with some awards we received over this quarter, especially for the capsules. We've already worked on this project, and I talked about this previously about these kind of capsules. We actually had a really interesting reforestation project in São Sebastião, on the coast in Brazil, near the beach.
This happened in the third quarter, and it was really disclosed on the media, and it's something that makes us very proud and gives us visibility and the opportunity to apply our sustainable solutions in the social front. So we would like to mention also, and we know that this was mainly in the second quarter, but this partnership with Ambipar Biofílica also gives us some more granularity. We had 6,000 hectares of area and 100 native species that are going to be preserved and reforested. And so with that, we have a strong pipeline, and that's going to be moving more towards the consulting service front, and we're really well positioned to capture similar projects throughout the next years. So we also want to have a compensation platform with Ambipar for individuals.
We had some partnerships with a big digital bank, where we grew 10 times our volumes compared to the same period in the previous period. We grew a lot on the compensation volume, and we see this as an important strategy in the group. Of course, the partnership with FIESP and some international events we participated in. We were speaking at Brazil Climate S ummit and the Climate Week in New York, and we also had a partnership with... as the first Brazilian company committed to the 2030 ambition. We also have a qualification of 150 professionals working with recycling, which is led by Ambipar Vira Ser, which is also a very important part of our operation from a social perspective.
If you still haven't seen it, we have our sustainability report in 2022, which was also on our website for investor relations. So I'm gonna stop around here as a final message. Before we begin the Q&A, we want to talk about the potential of our business. We finished that project with the Big Four with the addressable market for environment. We're gonna address this with the internal studies, where we're also revisiting all of the commercial structure to be able to bring this growth into the group. Through this study, we see that it's a potential, a market that's very huge in its potential. We still have very insignificant share, and we have a huge potential ahead of us.
So we want to work on this accelerated growth now, especially organically, with a focus on profitability. So I'm going to pass the floor on to the participants for the Q&A.
I'm going to start with the question from Pedro Henrique Oliveira. Thanks, Pedro, for the question. He asks: If the company intends to pay the debentures of the AMBP 13 and AMBP 12, given our robust working cash position? And also, how do we imagine the CapEx dynamic to be for the next quarters? Okay, regarding the payment of the debentures, we will still be studying the possibility of doing this. We don't have any debts that we will pay, prepay. The fact is that we will pay a few of them. We're looking still at the best cost benefits for some of those debenture payments.
Regarding the market update in terms of the tax efficiency, it is a work in progress, so we are working on and hope to finish this year, considering the implementation of 2024 of some of the fronts that are already being mapped out. So we are working on that with the internal team, considering the Big Four consultancy. And the CapEx versus net revenue dynamic, I also mentioned during the presentation our visibility in terms of the 12%, with the possibility of complementing this with the industrial CapEx. But we are being very diligent with the way we employ our cash flow, so we can have the expected returns for all, without in any way committing our growth or the company's results.
Leonardo also asks about Ambipar Environment, which delivered a high margin, so he also talks about the CapEx that we also just answered in Pedro's question. Jonathan is also asking about if the company could or talk a bit more about the dynamic of the numbers of Ambipar Environment over the last few quarters. Can we consider the contracting of numbers to be expected, and how does the company see the dynamics of the sector for the next 12 months? Well, the dynamic of the Ambipar Environment numbers follows what we have shared with you throughout the call. We're focused on profitability, so even if the company of the circular economy has been more challenging, we're managing our stocks and also purchasing and selling in a way that assures the profitability.
The Brazil Waste M anagement business is an area where we have been able to assure growth, still considering some of the decisions we made in terms of profitability, and so we had a scenario. We saw some drops, and we're now improving growth and bringing higher profitability for the company, which is really one of our strategies for generating cash and deleveraging. What can we expect for the sector? Exactly what we just mentioned, considering an optimistic perspective for growth. So the work that we're doing with the Big Four in terms of the commercial strategies to deal with the markets and sectors where we don't have a lot of penetration, we're quite optimistic that this will bring interesting results for the environment sector. I will now go to the next point. Just one minute. Next question. Carolini is asking about—
Well, she would like us to talk a bit more about what is the minimum level of cash, working cash for the company of BRL 1.2 billion, if the company intends to also or open any revise. So we also talked about this a bit. We have a policy for protecting our shareholders, so we also, we do keep a robust CapEx. Today, if we look at our history over the last four quarters, about 40% of our net debt, of our gross debt, which brings stability for shareholders and investors. So we will continue with this policy, but obviously, after the follow-on, we'll probably do the liability of some of the debts, and we're still considering which should be done. So yes, there will be additional revise for our debentures and any other debt that the company may have. Caio Cavalcanti is asking about the leverage.
We have addressed some of these questions about the covenant. With this follow-on, we're quite confident we don't see any covenant troubles for the next year, considering that we already have the covenant at a safe level. I think we also have some questions about performance abroad. I think it would be interesting to talk about consulting and how we've been able to capture growth abroad.
Okay. Caio, hello. Good afternoon. As we mentioned, we are very confident and satisfied with the North America performance. Every region also has specific dynamics. In general, the logic is that we should rebrand what was created abroad, like with Ambipar, considering the portfolio of clients we have in other regions, to grow in the areas that we have purchased through acquisitions.
Use this, these services and specialized services that we have in the region, which was the case in the agricultural market in Texas, where we had a lot of strength in that sub-region, and expand that through the market. So that's what the company has been working on, and we have been successful along those lines. Now, about this, and that's why we're seeing double-digit growth in North America for organic operations. When we talk about consulting divisions, well, we see a year that could be better, but where the company is. It's according to the company's planning to understand that this is a volatile issue because it's exposed to the natural disaster market, where there are lots of quick changes.
But we are working with the rebranding and the commercial integration of Ambipar, so we can actually cross-sell the way we have promised with our field services as well as the consultings. So as we prepare emergency plans for municipalities and regions, so we can answer certain types of specific events like hurricanes or chemical fires, then we're able to actually sell our capacity of our team to work, to respond to emergencies, and then rebuild in areas where there needs to, for example, remove contaminating material or areas which are connected to the consultancy of the company as well, and those services. As I mentioned, it's a service that can be volatile. It's a consultancy. Well, consultancy is volatile. This year, among cycles, is a year which we consider performance has been below average, considering the total performance we could have.
But it's a project which we can reach where we can reach levels, high levels of work.
So a question from Vagner Xavier about follow-ons in 2024. Our base scenario is no, doesn't include any strategic strategy for a follow-on in 2024. Eric's also asking about M&A. That's out of the radar also. We're considering more, focusing on the organic growth of the company. What else? Douglas from Petros asking about the organic growth of Ambipar Environment in the second and third quarters, and first quarter 2023. What's the perspective for that?
Yes, I can answer this one. So actually, we have demonstrated some organic growth. This is a demand from the market to incorporate and bring this closer to reality's perspective.
So the company has made a series of acquisitions in the environment and response sectors over the last few years, and of course, when you take a shorter period, as a quarter, a shorter quarter, then there are some distortions in the number, given, you know, the Environment business. Which gives you a comparison, which is a bit with, you know, not what's normal because of the services that are extra or considering the routes and paths that we operate. So we chose to show these numbers when there is a better base for comparison, with distortions that are not necessarily related to one-time event, which we could just consider, because those are events and recurrent revenue of our company, but which may have had a strong base for comparison, given these non-normalized events.
So we have tried to, in this quarter, bring this information forward, especially in the second quarter of 2023, where we—which we commented on about. And in the third quarter of 2022, in terms of waste management, where we, at the time, just so you can have an idea, but in a very well documented in our release, extra re—services of 22% when we consider our recurrent revenue contracts, which ended up being closer to 12% of the contract level. So this is where we were able to see this reclassification, but if there is any type of question along those lines, we're obviously really available to answer your questions.
Okay, so Chuck here is asking about what's the EBITDA levels we need to reach in the next quarters in order to have potential M&As? Potential M&As, we have mentioned about those.
We may have a few other M&As, but they're not on our radar. We're going to focus on organic growth. And the net level of the company, we will reach the 2.5% if we consider the net debt of the last quarter that we're considering right now with the latest resources. So that's where we intend to be, considering the cash flow. I thought that the question about capture is already contemplated in these results. It's not, so we did an exercise also to incorporate this. So it's not contemplated, it's not included, but the liquidation has already happened in the last week. It already was considered in the company's cash flow and working capital. Let's see what else. There are lots of questions. What are we going to answer?
Oh, here we have a question from Elo, who asks us about the returns from Ambipar Response. Substantially different. Ambipar Response returns are higher considering our position, and how will we be talking about CapEx amongst them? Well, we have always commented on this. It's a business with a different nature. In fact, Ambipar Environment has a return on employed capital, which is a bit smaller than Ambipar Response. Ambipar Response is asset light, but with higher capital costs. So we will not measure our efforts to apply in both in a way in which we can capture or extract the returns that both have differently, but which both potentially have. Ambipar Response in the short and midterm, considering that contracts go from 24 to 36 months, some reaching 34, and Ambipar Environment with more robust bigger contracts, Ambipar Response with more bigger clients, usually five years or more.
So the nature of the businesses are different. Ambipar Environment gives us lower returns, but it does have this upper hand characteristic of having more, let's say, more long-term clients and contracts. And in the Ambipar Response business, we have recurrent revenue. Especially if we continue having risk, we continue having potential revenue and a potential amount of clients, which assures that our efforts are potential. But in fact, we have, and we have been allocating capital to each of these businesses, knowing each one's profile for returns and potential and growth. Mauricio is asking about how things are doing in the Ambipar Response de-SPAC in terms of synergy. Synergy in this case is of people, so we finished the merge. Pedro actually came from that business, right, Pedro?
He came to work, himself and Rafael came to work with us, but the sponsors from SPAC are also here supporting us intensely in terms of the company's day-to-day. So we have seen a lot of synergy in this field and front in terms of the HPX people.
Let me see if I have any other questions here. I don't know if you would like to talk about leadership here. An interesting consequence of us having Ambipar Response in the United States is that we have, we need to answer to the needs of the American market. So Ambipar Response is today a company which is under the oversight of SEC, and we are migrating the company to be able to keep it compliant with the SOX rules, which are the, which are basically the highest level of global governance.
So this stage, which started in March, has some consequences for Ambipar Response in the Group, which are positive on the midterm, so we can capture them at that time.
Great. Let me see if I will take anything else in terms of the questions. Actually, we started the call a bit late, so I have to apologize for that delay, and we are sort of coming to the limit of our time here for the call. But I do have a question from Jonathan about the recent follow-on, if the company understands that there could have been a better communication in terms of the offer of the supply. We understand, Jonathan, that our perspective is that we followed all of the necessary communication standards that needed to be followed.
We were very assertive in terms of the timing, given the fact that the controlling shareholder, in terms of his commitment with this supply and calling the other shareholders to follow him and bringing new investors to the base. We also brought higher potential to our shares, and as we mentioned, the interaction was very interesting with investors. Some that knew us well, some were further off, let's say, or more distant, and some that were closer. So we do think that there was a quite a good communication. We were happy with the process as a whole, and this cash flow will be very important for our strategy, especially for the year of 2024.
Just to complement that question, Tiago, it's important that I highlight that the way we announced the follow-on and the way we chose to go about it through a primary issuance of the notes and the CVM Resolutions 160 and 106, it's the most democratic way of generating access to a follow-on, in terms of the fact that it gives all shareholders the necessary conditions to work. So amongst the other ways that we have to primary capture, there are others that would have allowed for the shareholders to participate in this way. But we chose this option because it brings an equality of conditions to all shareholders, following our principle of a high-level governance of the company.
Thank you for that. Well, guys, we are really reaching the limit of this call.
I want to thank you for the interaction and the questions. I understand that if I've, by any chance, ignored one of the questions or haven't been able to get to them, or if you want a more detailed answer, please contact myself, Pedro, Ricardo, and Renato. We are all available, and the entire investor relations team is available to answer your questions about results. Once again, I want to thank you for coming. I want to apologize for the small delay, and we are available and optimistic about this last quarter and the year 2024, where we'll see a lot of opportunities for Ambipar, and we are quite focused on growing and generating profitability for shareholders. Thank you so much.