Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the teleconference for the 4Q '23 of Cogna. I emphasize that if you want simultaneous translation, we have this tool available in the platform. To access it, just click the interpretation button in the globe icon in the bottom part of your screen and choose your language of preference, English or Portuguese. For those hearing the conference in English, there is the option of muting your original audio. Just click and mute Original Audio. We are telling you, informing you that this conference will be recorded and made available in the website of the company, www.cogna.com.br, where the complete material of our results are also available. During the presentation of the company, all participants will have their mic enabled. Then we'll start the Q&A session.
To ask a question, just click in the Q&A icon in the bottom part of your screen to be in the waiting line. When you are invited, there will be a request for you to open your mic, and you open your mic to ask the question. We suggest that the questions are all made at the same time. Before going on, we would like to tell you that event observations during this conference regarding the business perspective of Cogna, projections, operational and financial targets, are the premises of the company, as well as the current information available for Cogna. Future considerations are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and premises as they refer to future events. Therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or not happen.
Investors and analysts must understand the general conditions, the sector conditions, and operational factors as things to affect the future results of Cogna and may lead to results differing materially to those expressed in the future considerations. Now, I'd like to pass on the phone to Mr. Roberto Valério, CEO of Cogna, to start his presentation. Please, Mr. Roberto, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in the teleconference to discuss Cogna's results in the 4Q '23 and the complete year of 2023. We have in this call, Frederico Villa, our Financial Vice President, Guilherme Mélega, Director President of Vasta, and Rosa, our Director of Investors and Corporate Finances. As we always do, we'll have about an hour for this call. We'll explain the situation for about 40 minutes, and then 20 minutes for the Q&A.
I'd like to start the presentation by saying that we are quite pleased with the result of the year. This is the third following year, that in a consistent way and in a growing way, we can deliver more revenue, EBITDA, margin, EBITDA, GCO. In 2023, we already delivered almost BRL 900 million in GCO post CapEx. In 2020, we had a guidance that we would deliver BRL 1 billion in post CapEx in 2024. So in 2023, we got quite close to this goal that is pointed out to the end of the year.
So I would reinforce that the results came in a very positive way, both in the fourth quarter and during the year in the three business units, all of them grew in revenue, EBITDA, the margin, and generated more cash flow during the year, which shows the consistency and execution. Obviously, to one of the BU, competing different business and market, different market, and they all could have better performance, better results, improve the services and the satisfaction of the client. We emphasize that the message of the administration, all the products had better experience for the clients in B2B, B2C, and B2G , with increasing NPS and processes, which made us believe that what is ahead of us is also positive because the improvements are very consistent across the board.
To summarize each one of the verticals, Kroton, Kroton in 2022 reached more than BRL 3 billion in revenue, with a growth at almost 9% of revenue regarding 2022. I know one of the points that we'll have questioned has to do with the growth of the revenue in Kroton in the fourth quarter. I will talk more about it later, but I'll tell you that we had 2% in the fourth quarter, influenced by the anticipation of dependencies of the students due to the improvement of the re-enrollment process and the allocation of dependencies. So they chose earlier in the semester. Therefore, this revenue was all concentrated in the third quarter, which means that the 2% of revenue in the fourth quarter is not a point of concern because the average in the second semester was 4%.
For Kroton, we see a perspective in capture and re-enrollment, very positive for 2024, so I'll talk more about it later. But this is only a circumstance, this is not a point of concern. We'll keep the pace of growth of Kroton in 2024. Now, talking about the EBITDA, the recurrent one, we have BRL 1.1 billion, it's almost 30%, compared to 2022, which shows that we are gaining in efficiency with the growth of revenue. In the fourth quarter, the student base grew 6.4%. In the pace that we have with the capture and re-enrollment, we understand that the base will keep the same or even increase, so we have a positive perspective ahead of us. We also saw the growth of the average ticket in the presencial when we compare the second semester of 2023 and 2022.
So this is the result of a strategy that we've been discussing for more than 3 years, that is focusing on the presential students and focus on the courses with the greatest lifetime value, like law course, psychology course, just to give some examples. So we keep working and having everything properly. And then the custom measure that along with the student, and great part of the curricular matrix being digital, so custom measure and other pieces of growth in Kroton that keeps growing strongly. It grew more than 26% in the quarter, more than 25% in the year, with a growing EBITDA of 68% of EBITDA in the fourth quarter. So this is a business unit that is quite healthy, with high rates of growth in EBITDA and gain in profitability, which is also very important.
We understand this vertical will keep being a growth driver to us in the next years. We will talk about it more later. Regarding Vasta, Mélega will then get into details, but this was also a very beginning in 2024, with the growth of 16%. We reached more than 35% of the total cycle for 2024. The revenue for complementary solution is still growing. We know with that on products that we are enriching our portfolio, and more and more they are taking this product to offer in the regular curriculum and so on. So we keep growing with very high rate, more than 40% in the fourth quarter. The net revenue reached more than BRL 500 million, with a growth of almost 10% in the quarter.
That is the first quarter of the commercial cycle, because the fourth of the year is the first of the commercial cycle of Vasta. In the fourth quarter, we had eighteen percent more than the fourth quarter, and the recurrent EBITDA in the year reached more than BRL 416 million. We are quite satisfied with the Vasta growth. We'll talk more about it later, but also with good perspectives, not only in the migration of pools to premium teaching system, but also with complementary solution, with the new growth as B2G and Start Anglo, that has a lot of contract signed with a very positive perspective to 2025. Now, to finish Vasta, the fourth quarter had a recurrent of 42%, three points percent of before the previous year.
So it was very positive despite if you don't remember that in 2023, we suffered a lot of pressure, especially with increased costs of paper and stationery that pressured our courses. Now, talking about Cogna specifically, I emphasize a bit. I think the main highlight of the year and the quarter is the GCO post-CapEx growing 65%. I reinforce nine hundred million BRL. Remember, we started this journey in 2020 with 240 million BRL, and now we are reaching 900 million BRL. So during the period from 2021 to 2023, on average, the GCO was more than 50%, showing that, well, we can be confident that what comes in the future is quite positive and our guidance is quite possible for 2024.
I think the other good news is that the post-CapEx GCO and post-debt service reached BRL 148 million in the quarter, BRL 200 million in the year. So we can not only do everything we want to do and invest everything we want to invest. After all, we have more than BRL 400 million in CapEx, CapEx and paid the debt on the 200 million reais in cash. So it shows how strong we are as the leverage is decreasing and we are, leveraging the total, so it will become, better and better. Regarding the EBITDA results, I would like to reinforce that this is the tenth consecutive quarter of strong growth, and I reinforce consecutive because it shows consistency. We have one quarter that goes very well and the others as well.
So we can have that for 10 times, consecutively growing 4% in the fourth quarter, almost 16% in the year, the three units pushing this revenue and also helping in the EBITDA growth in 17% in the quarter and almost 19% in the year. So I think the reflection on that is the reduction on the leverage that we reached at less than 1.88 that we had in the third quarter. So we are now at 0.83 w ith a very good perspective to keep reducing the leverage, with the strategy that we have here that is good in liability management, based on the cash generation of the profit. Now, I'll invite you to keep talking about Kroton.
So in page five, the first information that we bring is the dropout. We have a slight increase, 2 % points in low presential, when almost 7% in high presentiality. We obviously have a growing base with better participation of new students. They have a greater dropout rate, so dropout is not a point of concern. We see the re-enrollment in a very well-developed manner. We can gain and improve our re-enrollment year after year, and in this semester, from 2023 to 2024, it's not different. I would say this is basically stability. Nothing to call our attention, and the student base is growing a lot, 6.4%.
And remember that during the year, we've had quarters that we reached 9%, and I reinforce the point that we have good perspective for the turning point for the first quarter of 2024, and we know that the student base will keep growing. Now, going to slide 6, we have the net revenue of the quarter that grew 1.7%. This is the 6th consecutive quarter growing the revenue. We showed how this growth curve would be, and I know that at first, the numbers can show that the revenue is decreasing in speed, but it's not. It was an anticipation in the selection of the dependencies of students that anticipated to the third quarter.
So I reinforce what I mentioned in the beginning, the revenue growth would be 4% if we normalize the third and fourth, fourth quarter, both in the tickets and the student base that are good in this cycle of renovation and capture. So we believe that the revenue, the net revenue of Kroton for 2024, will keep growing in single digits, but about as it was in 2022 and 2023. Here, we enforce this trend in the revenue from 2022 to 2023, as we have in the graph, almost 9%. But I would like to go to the next slide, slide 7. The first part shows the, to repeat the strategy that is based in, growth, growing cost of revenue.
We see that this growth is due to the cost that is basically fixed, especially if we operate in the 100% online courses or hybrid courses, just like us. The variable cost is less relevant for growing the revenue growth profitability. And now talking about one of the segments, the presential one, in high presentiality, we have two products in the presential courses and the ones that we call EAD Premium , like nursing, engineering, that are courses in the distance modality, but with almost 50% of presential classes. And in the presential, the average ticket grew 3%, which reinforces our ability to re-pass the prices, especially in the high presential course. So we use the drop in the average ticket in the high presentiality, but between products, there is no drop of ticket.
It's because we have more mix, we have more EAD Premium students. But in the segment, the volume grew 7.3%, and the revenue 1.3%, the high presentiality. In low presentiality, we grow the ticket in the semi or the 100% online, remembering that these are the courses with no lab, but with presential classes at least once a week. So here we are growing the ticket both in the semi and in the 100% online, with the volume growing 5%. The segment grew 7% in the quarter. Okay? Now going to page 8. I'd like to talk a little bit about the cost line, and I think the highlights here are that we keep investing in marketing due to some reasons. So here's the capture cycle. The first one in the year is quite important.
It is the one bringing the highest amount of students, so we invested more in the fourth quarter in marketing, and we will invest more in the first quarter as well, to try to speed up the enrollment, because it is very important, and it brings a lot of revenue to the whole year. It creates a relevant base. Also, the second point we are discussing for any quarter is that the consolidation programs of the national plan is a long-term project, it's not for one or two quarters, but at least two years.
So we are increasing the market expenses, but they are not constant, they are not forever, but for a period of 2024 or maybe even the first quarter of 2025, and we'll bring elements to you that are potentially here in the first quarter, showing how much we are gaining in awareness and how we are progressing the strength of the brand nationally. So it is investment that make a lot of sense and we will put the growth up front. And then the second item, controlling both items, personnel, operational expenses. If we account the two points, we gain 2 % points in margins, with those efficiency gain in scale, we can be quite efficient in these two lines and profitability.
The PCLD as well, that for three years we are reducing the percentage of the net expense, and in the fourth quarter, we could reduce to 2%. So I think these lines, except for marketing, because we have a strategy of growth and consolidating the brand, but aside from that, all the other lines are generating efficiency. In slide nine, we have a little bit more of what we have received. PCLD, as I said, is improving continuously. We are reducing the average indicator for receivables. We are reducing the average receivables. In the fourth quarter, it was 54, and now again, 44.
So it's quite healthy in the receivables, that reflects on all the effort we carry out, the quality of capturing the students, the new students, and all the methodology with a lot of criteria, renegotiating the enrollment, generating a lot in PCLD, but above all, in the cash flow, it is within the BRL 900 million of capital. And the last line graph, we're seeing that the PCLD overall is stable in 9.5%-9.6%. Slide ten now. The recurrent EBITDA, we have in the fourth quarter, our EBITDA grow with 1.1%. Obviously, the revenue grew a little less, which reflect in the EBITDA well.
But I think it is important to emphasize the year, because in fact, what reflect the stability over the quarters is that, and what the operation is giving, is the EBITDA growing almost 13%, 12.7. Even with a gain in margin of 1% in margin gain, with consistent results, that we are quite confident that this performance for 2024 will keep being positive. Because we have many lines, and we see it better in the gross margin and PCLD, and reduction of operational and corporate expenses, except for the marketing, as I mentioned, but we have a lot of efficiency ahead of us. Slide 11 now brings in a little bit more of the productivity cost in the campus. We keep increasing the average students per campus.
When we started our restructuring the fourth quarter of 2020, we had more than less than 1,500 students per campus. Now we are having almost 2,100 students per campus, which helps us reduce the costs, as we can see, the operational costs that I mentioned before. I think the highlight here is that we keep having the same amount of campus, 112. We didn't reduce anyone in the last quarter. But looking ahead, especially in the next 2 or 3 years, we have many rental contracts that are long-term contracts that are being finished, and we don't have definitions, but we are checking and analyzing many potential projects to have some changes, whether in renegotiation or changing the address, that can bring some economy to us. Now, in slide 12, we're talking about KrotonMed.
We are quite satisfied with the results of KrotonMed. It's a business unit that is bringing very positive results with revenue and EBITDA and margin growth. So you see that in the quarter or in the accumulated of the year, we grow more than 25%, the revenue in EBITDA, with also expressive growth, 69% in the quarter, 42 in the year. So they emphasize here, the highlight is that we have Ponta Porã College that is in process of authorization and has went through the whole process. We are now waiting just for the disclosure in the official newspapers so that we can start capturing students in the second semester, so we will have some extra gains to grow. And obviously, we will participate in Mais Médicos in the call for bid. We believe we can be quite competitive in this call.
I reinforce what we mentioned in other calls, that we have 4 requests of medicine colleges that are under analysis, and the 4 medical schools have been visited, and we had scored 5 in the visit. Therefore, they are prepared to operate. Obviously, there is the context of the votes in the Supreme Court and so on, and we understand that if, in fact, the final decision of the Supreme Court follows the vote of the reporter, we will have at least 4 more colleges to operate. We have 6 today. With Ponta Porã, we will be with 7, and with the 4 extra, we will be with 11, with good perspectives of growth. Despite the maturation, the unit that we have today for KrotonMed has very positive perspectives with what's coming ahead.
Now, I will pass on the floor to Guilherme Mélega to talk about the results of Vasta.
Thank you, Roberto. Starting with slide 14 in the net revenue, we finished the fourth quarter with a BRL 554 million net revenue of about 10% growth, a positive highlight in the acknowledgment of 16% of the 2024. The year revenue was BRL 1,486 million, that is 18% growth compared to 2022. In here, not only with the performance of growing SEV, but also with the contribution of B2B, with BRL 81 million acknowledged in 2023. Now, going to the details of the revenue, I will focus on the quarter, that is the opening of the commercial cycle 2024. So we acknowledge 16% growth in enrollment, reaching 515.
The emphasis here is 42% in complementary solutions. The demand of social, emotional, linguistic, or the computing part are quite strong. The scenario is quite promising, and we still have a penetration base within the schools with this system in a very good way, of about 10% of our schools adopt complementary solutions. So this is a growth pathway that is quite significant for us. Now, going to page 16, talking a little about costs and expenses. Here, focusing on the quarter, the fourth quarter, our total cost of CMV had a gain in productivity of 2.2 %, which show to us that the pressure of paper and printing houses is behind, so we have a fourth quarter with cost levels lower as this input. Another highlight is on the operational expenses and the administrative expenses that we have.
We have 3.2 points of productivity, and here it was a huge effort to unify the process, to deal with automation, improvement of processes, thinking about our client, and the benefits are here in the fourth quarter with the improvement of operational expenses. These two improvements find a greater investment in market expenses and sales, which is also expected for 2024 as well. We will progress on that with investment to our growth, despite having two new businesses that we are also investing in marketing, that is our business of fran-, franchising, charge and B2B. All that, we close the total cost and expenses in the quarter with a 2.8%. For our revenue in the fourth quarter increased 10% and the cost, 5.2%. The result of that is in slide 17, our EBITDA.
With the revenue growing and cost not at the same speed, our EBITDA margin in the fourth quarter went from 39.3% to 42.3%. So 3 % points of improvement in margin, as Roberto mentioned in the beginning, which made our year margin in EBITDA also better than 2022, overcoming our initial expectations. We finished with a margin growth of 27.3%, going to 28%. Another positive highlight was the EBITDA that we are delivering, the record one, reaching BRL 417 million, with a growth of 20.8%, result of the revenue and the new businesses on the control and the cost efficiency in a very significant way. Now, I'd like to talk about the academic results on page 18.
So our B2B is focused on the premium tier, and what makes it being premium is the academic result of the students. So here we selected Anglo, that is our main brand, and best system of the country. So the results also go through other brands that we have. But I'll focus on Anglo. On the left, we have the approval that we do with more than 6,000 national approvals, and despite the ranking of first, second, and third, that is quite frequently communicated in Brazil. Of the first one, I would like to emphasize the amount of students, hundreds of students, that we have in the main courses of engineering, medicine, and law. So Anglo student has access not only to the best universities, but to the career they chose.
In USP and Unicamp, that is the core of our result. I will emphasize that USP and Unicamp are the two main universities in Latin America in the main rankings, and Anglo is an absolute leader in these two universities since 1978, when Fuvest was created, and in 1918, when the Unicamp SATs was created. To take the best courses here would get medicine, that Anglo had more than one-third of the spot in Unicamp and 45% in USP. So the academic result is wonderful in the most demanded courses of the country. The medicine courses like Fuvest and Paulista and UNESP, they are still growing in results with 74 students at Paulista (UNIFESP) and 61 students in UNESP. We emphasize that, because this is the core of our business.
Reputation is really important in our business, which makes the partnership with our schools being better and better, so we deliver a good result to students, a good business to the school, and the result of that is a good result to our shareholders. Now, going to Start Anglo on page 19, I would like to emphasize that we launched our network of bilingual franchise focusing high performance based on Anglo brand, and we have three units in operation, one in São José do Rio Preto, with more than 300 students. That is our initial flagship. The second franchise unit. The second unit, first franchise, is in Alphaville, as of this year, overcoming our expectations. We expected 120 students. We have more than 173 in Alphaville.
As we communicated, Lycée Pasteur, that is quite a traditional institution, that is more than 100 years old in São Paulo, that will launch the Start Anglo folks next year, and this school has the potential of having more than 1,000 students. I also emphasize the perspective of franchising of Start Anglo, that we have 15 contracts signed, 64 under negotiation, and we are quite happy with the launch of this growth that is quite close to our core business. So we believe that we'll have a low risk in execution with high value to be created. Lastly, I emphasize our satisfaction with the results in 2023, with the revenue growing 80, 80%, EBITDA 20%, cash flow 112%, the margin above 30%, and two important growth that are a reality, that is Anglo Start and B2G.
With that, I pass on the floor to Fred to talk about Saber.
Thank you, Mélega. Good morning, everyone. I'll start my presentation on Saber. Reminding you that Saber comprises our business of the national, didactic book, Red Balloon, and other business. I will start in slide 21, talking about the financial highlights, the financial indicators of net revenue and EBITDA. The net revenue of Saber grew to BRL 808 million, grew in the year 58%, and in the third quarter, a growth of 59.4%. And what were the main, the main indicators of growth? We grew in the national program of didactic books, 62% in other services. That is selling our program, Acerta Brasil, that we provide didactic material to the kids, and we grew 102%.
Now, considering EBITDA, our recurrent EBITDA grew in the quarter 65%, and in the year, we grew 75%, reaching an EBITDA of BRL 175.2 million. I emphasize that we disclosed in our financial relations and the release, the sales of the business of printed books, and these sales have a result of a result reversed in the non-recurrent value of the company, which is positive. Now, talking about Cogna, and Roberto mentioned Kroton, Mélega mentioned Vasta. Now just an overview of Cogna with the financial indicators for the net revenue and the recurrent EBITDA. In the first graph, we have the quarter and accumulated, with a growth in net revenue in the fourth quarter of 12.6%, and in the year, a growth that reached almost 16%.
We reached the net revenue of BRL 5.9 billion. That was motivated by the growth in revenue in all our business units, both, whether Kroton, Vasta, or Saber, as I mentioned before. In the recurrent EBITDA and margin EBITDA, we had a growth of 17.1% in recurrent EBITDA in the fourth quarter, as Roberto mentioned before. It's the 10th, 11th consecutive quarter of growth, and in the accumulated, we reached BRL 1.736 billion, with a growth of almost 19%, with a margin expansion of 0.7 % points. Now, going to slide 24 and talking about the operational cash generation of the company. Remember that last year, we concluded the generation of operational cash with BRL 540 million.
We had the growth in the year of 65.4%, reaching a generation of BRL 894 million. In the quarter, we had a cash generation of BRL 241 million, with a growth of 282%. Now remember that our operational cash generation, after CapEx and after debt services in the fourth quarter, was BRL 148 million, and in the year, we reached the cash flow of BRL 200 million. Now, going to slide 25, talking about the net profit, which was damaged here, analyzing the fourth quarter and the year. We have a loss in the quarter. Our net loss adjusted of BRL 289 million, and the net profit from public, from public net profit of BRL 483 million.
Just to remember that in the fourth quarter, we had the loss on the fiscal taxes of the previous years, and the company adjusted that due to social organization-societal organization, because we are now participating in Mais Médicos, and participating in this program, we won't incorporate it temporarily. So that's why we have the statement of income tax that doesn't have effect in the capital company. Now going to the leverage and bond. The main messages of the company is nothing different from what's happening in the other quarters or in the graph of the presentation. I showed the fourth quarter of 2022, with a leverage of 2.1, net debt was 2.0.
And now we reduced it and we've at 1.83 times, nothing different from the recurrence of the consideration of the company towards the growth of revenue and the growth of EBITDA, generating here a leverage that we can reach. And it's important to mention to you that we reduced the net debt in about BRL 30 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to the third quarter. And the company has enough cash flow and cash generation, so we don't need to have new capitals in 2024. It doesn't mean that we can't have new capitals, but aiming at liability management, we understand that our credit today is cheaper.
During the year of 2024, we may have new capitals, but to pre-pay some more expensive debt, so we would have cheaper debts to take longer on that. Now, considering slide 27, the company has a cash position in December 31, 2023 of BRL 1,704 million, but gross debt of BRL 5.072 million, and a net debt of BRL 3.278 million. Showing here in the other graph, our amortization schedule, but as I mentioned before, we have an availability in the cash and cash equivalent of BRL 1.794 billion. In 2024, we have amortization of 1.475 amortization, so our cash generation in 2024 is more than enough for us to pay our debt with no new capitals.
In 2023, the company concluded many capitals, and as I mentioned before, they always aim to reduce the, the debt cost and at the same time, enlarge period. With that, I finish the presentation of Cogna, by showing a strong generation and strong growth of revenue, strong growth of EBITDA. I finish here with the growth and cash, operational cash generation reaching BRL 894 million, reducing the net debt. In the future, we believe that with our improvement of our credit, we can have the same capitals to reduce even more our debt cost and, have a greater period for that. With that, I finish the presentation and passing the floor to Roberto Valério.
Now, going to slide 28, talking about ESG.
We are quite happy with the accomplishment of 2023 and more than talking about ESG, and there are many related to ESG. I would like to emphasize the three main informations here. The first one is the acknowledgment that better than saying what we do, is showing the acknowledgment that we have from many entities that assess and assess many companies-
That rated us very well. I would like to emphasize our ESG B3, and we are the only educational companies being in this index, and we participate in this index, and we improved our production with many progressions of many indicators of the company. We are also leaders in four ESG rankings, and it's the second following year that we are part of the Sustainability Year of ESG, the only company in Latin America to be part of the yearbook, and we are in the second global position in the sector. One important point is that besides that, the CDP will have the position, then we are now B, graded B, the CDP that goes from B minus to A.
So we are progressing in an important way here, and we are very proud of having the Proética seal of CGU that shows the quality of our work, especially taking into account that we have many products that are sold to government, and they are the B2B channel. So having the seal of the Controladoria-Geral da União with this acknowledgment is something that pleases us a lot. And then I would like to emphasize in 2021, that we launched the fourteenth Cogna commitments for a better world with a series of initiatives that we have, goals every year. We'd like to emphasize that we reached 131% of the targets for 2023.
We didn't get to the end, but we had 43% of the targets before the deadline that is 25, and we included one new target, that is to reduce in 50% the total, the total emissions of the greenhouse gas until 2034, according to scopes one, two, and three. The third point I would like to emphasize is that we are quite proud to be the company with the Instituto Somos, to be the company to manage and keep working on the premium that is known as the best award of the basic education in Brazil. That is, Educador Nota 10, is an award coming from Fundação Victor Civita. That is now our responsibility with the Instituto Somos to keep this legacy and this important story to the Brazilian education. Now, in my final word, I think we have a lot of poly points here.
We have six strategic pillars here. The growth, we understand that we are quite well positioned regarding the business unit, and we operate with what we call the lifelong learning. We have products from 2 to 100 years. We have our own product, and more and more, we have 3 key products, called products that are developed in partnership with other organizations and that we can offer. So we now have the opportunity to explore this during the year, and in terms of experience, we have the client experience and the B2C, B2B, and B2G. We have improvements in the UX of everything, and we can be better both in the graduation courses and also especially, and important to the rest, I mean, everything that is Somos and everything that Vasta is doing with the school.
So we have the best return to school in basic education, with growing NPSs and better grades, and earning a lot of awards with experiences of equities, assessing the client experience. In isolated ways, though, it's not only numbers of the company, so we have the numbers of external agents that are also very positive. From the point of view of efficiency, we are creating processes, evolving with the systems, investing in digital innovation. I mentioned here that AI is a priority to us. We are applying AI, not only in the core, in the product, but in all processes and in the administration. We understand it will keep bringing efficiency to us. From the point of view of people and culture, we have three important pillars here to everyone.
That is the mood, the feeling of being the owner and the team, and the customer centricity of focusing on the student or the client, which is very important to us. We have a solid group of 70 partners that are executives with the shares of the company, and we were awarded many times during the year. We evolved in the Glassdoor's scores and engagement of collaborators. We have growth assessments. So the culture pillar is quite important. And innovation, we have a growth mindset that we repeat every day in the organization that is according to Cogna the way we expose for employees, but is in a concrete way, focused on open innovation in contact with the startups and the innovation ecosystem.
Besides the corporate building initiatives that we have here, with a good potential for growth, just like the case of Comp, our platform for producers, that is still a collaboration, but is growing, and we believe will bring a lot of results in the future. And in ESG, I mentioned earlier, we fulfill the commitment to all of the h aving that said, I finish the initial presentation of Cogna, and I reinforce that we are quite happy with the result, especially with the growth of cash generation for 2024. We are quite close to the target, and 2024 looks to be a very good year. So now we are open for questions, and thank you. Now, let's start the Q&A session.
Please remember that to ask a question, you must click the Q&A button in the bottom part of the screen and write the question to be online for that. When you are invited, you have a request to open your mic, and then you open your mic to ask the questions. We ask you, please, to make all the questions at once. Now, let's go to the first question from Vinícius Figueiredo , from Itaú BBA. Vinícius , let's open your audio for you to ask your question. Please, go on.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for giving me the time to ask the question. I would like to talk a little about the perspective of 2024, because Roberto mentioned about the expectations of platform net revenue growing in five digits in 2024, but then they failed and it was.
We had a problem on the internet, so we didn't understand what you mentioned. So if we can only clear this point, what would be the justification for this five digits? And making use of this, this point, if you can talk a little bit about what you saw in this capture cycle, and if you can mention a little about the expectations of growth in volume, then ticket, whether in high or low potential, it would be wonderful.
Thank you. Perfect. Okay, perfect. Thank you, Vinícius , for the question. Regarding the revenue growth, there are some aspects to bring a lot of confidence to us regarding the first quarter, and obviously, the whole year of 2024. We have a capture cycle that is quite positive.
We are growing with a higher rate than what we grew after both in the middle of the year and in the second semester of 2023. Regarding the first semester of 2023, obviously, I can't give the specific numbers, but the capture is growing, so it's grown above what we grew last year. And it grows in high potentiality and in low one. We see the persistence of growing a little more. I think we have a series of factors related to that. I would say that maybe healthy actions that we are taking at home. But I also see a better trend of the student to spend more money, and you follow other sectors, and we see, for example, in retail, it's quite positive in all February, and more people with more income buying more.
I think it is also reflected in the capture, to us, especially in the high potential courses that are courses with a higher average ticket. So this is the first point to make a first point that the revenue will grow by high digits. This is what I wanted to say, because the capture is growing, and as I said, we have a better NPS level than the quality of the previous periods, and new students that are better in terms of, better in terms of, processes. We see better re-enrollment rates that are not only better but more advanced compared to the previous year. So, so how do we measure that? We check both students and the re-enrollment.
We follow the flow to see if the business is re-enrolling more or faster, and in our case, they are enrolling more and faster, which brings safety to us in the capture and in the re-enrollment. And the third effect that has nothing to do with the revenue, but as we see that nothing planned despite controlling the PDD numbers, nothing plans is the beginning of the loss of students in the greater term, and we see that it's quite positive. Everything is controlled, so I don't see perspectives for our revenue not to grow in the first quarter during the year. So we are confident of that. And our your second question about the capture, I answered. We are growing the high and the low ones. Thank you, Roberto.
I'm sorry, Vinícius , I just forgot to mention that we didn't finish this capture cycle. Obviously, we are in the end with 30 days, but just a disclaimer that that this cycle is not over yet, and we'll show that in the first quarter report.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you, Vinícius . The next question comes from Marcelo Santos, from JPMorgan. Hello. Welcome on audio, so that you ask a question. Please, you may go on.
Thank you. Good morning, Marcelo, Juan, Roberto Valério, Fred, Mélega. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. The first question is, if you can comment a little on how you see the competition environment, I mean, you mentioned that the capture y ou talk a lot about capture, but if you can talk about the ticket.
The second question, I don't know if you can share, but according to your legal advisors, what is the greatest probability of the vote in ADC 81 in the Supreme Court? I know this is the, something that nobody knows, but what is your best understanding on that, if you can share?
Marcelo, thank you for your question. Well, the first about the competition environment, I think that we've been talking about it, and as far as I can understand the competitors, the peers, they are also talking about it. And I see a competition environment from the point of view of price in a very stable way as it was in the previous cycles. I think that the competition for price and sales, something that was more aggressive in the two or three previous cycles, is not the same.
I think it's still the same, so I don't see prices dropping aggressively. Obviously, all of us in the segment, we can deal with inflation, hopefully to the reference base. But if your question is if there is a concern regarding competitive prices to drive the prices below, we don't see that. And the second question about medicine and the discussion in the Supreme, well, it aside, we have 11 votes, but what we hear from our advisors is that in general, when we analyze the history, most of the decisions follow the first vote of the- folks know, and so obviously there are other elements, nobody knows exactly that, but we understand that the management is both, that is the one to have our 4 colleges operating, that it allow us to go on with that is the vote that we believe.
But based on that, on what I said, due to the history of decisions.
Okay, perfect. Quite clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Marcelo, for your question. Our next question comes from Lucas Nagano from Morgan Stanley. Lucas, we'll open your audio so that you can ask your question, please. You may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the space. I have two questions. The first one is regarding the profit margin for 2024, because you mentioned the revenue. We would like to understand what are the levels of for the margin. I mean, it, PDD and the gross margin , they progressed a lot, but now they are stable. So we would like to know if there is a space for level the investment in market. And I think you mentioned something, but we'll keep it as high level of 2024.
But will it expand or, or keep stable? And the second question is regarding the tax impact in the fourth quarter, because as I could understand, if there is both lower taxes , you can retake the incorporation process, but it may generate some operational efficiencies. So did you quantify this value? Can you talk a little bit more about it? Thank you.
Lucas, hello, thank you for your question regarding the gross margins. I would say that the gross margin is a line that we have confidence, especially with the fact that we always describe here, that great part of the costs are fixed, the costs are fixed in the model of online costs and hybrid costs. So we understand that as the revenue grows with the support that I have, that it will keep speeding up in the first and second quarters.
It brings more revenue with the costs incremented that are very low, so we can gain on margin, and this is an effect that I see that will be long-lasting. I wouldn't say that it's forever, but long-lasting, because if we keep the revenue with this growth, we'll gain gross margin. This is the first point. The second point, I think we still have space for PDD, despite it being quite positive, and 44 days for receivables is quite a healthy number, but we still have space for the segment to be improved. And we are quite cautious in the capture and the business rules involvement. We improve little by little, but mainly the corporate and operational expenses. As the revenue grows and we have other businesses contributing to the operational and corporate costs, we can dilute the cost.
I would say that the only point of attention to pressure a little our margin can be more concentrated in one quarter than another, that are the marketing expenses that are concentrated in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first one of 2024, that we want to speed up the capital, and we want to go on in the consolidation of own brand. So we need to remember that this is a business decision. We are investing more in marketing, because we believe that we can have a long-term growth, and we can strengthen our brand in the long term, bringing value. That is different from having a cost, that is a cost simply to operate. No, this is a cost to grow.
So aside from this marketing course, we'll keep doing what we've been doing over the last three years, being consistent, gain on efficiency with AI applications and automation that we can have to gain on efficiency. So it's a little every day, a little all forever, and we'll do that. And now I pass on the floor to Fred, for him to talk about the tech part.
Well, this is Fred here. Thank you for your question. The question about the tax income, income tax, and we did this adjustment in the tax due to the fiscal losses of previous years, because we would have compensated that with the incorporations to be done in 2024, with the GSN corporate numbers incorporated, that we could compensate the taxes with the profits that we've been paying the taxes for.
So in some of the corporate numbers, we participated with the program Mais Médicos, and as we are participating, we can't have this incorporations . In the future, how do I understand that? Well, in the future, after the participation in Mais Médicos, then we have some time effect according to the rules, but in the future, I could recreate, recover this tax with the company incorporation. So the response is positive, but not for 2024. In 2024, as we are participating in Mais Médicos, we can't do that.
Okay, thank you, Fred and Valério, for the answers.
Thank you, Lucas, for your question.
Our next question comes from Rafael Barros, from Ativa. Rafael, we'll open your audio so that you ask your question. Please, you may proceed.
Go od day, pessoal. You guys, you guys hear me well?
Good morning, good afternoon, everyone.
So I'd like to ask two brief questions here. The first one about Kroton. I'd like you to tell us, give us an idea about the capacity use the Kroton is running. So we would like to understand the level of vacancy that we have. And the second question that has to do with that, is that you mentioned briefly about potential negotiations of loans and so on. And I'd like to understand, how you think we should start seeing the effect of these negotiations and potential reduction in the payment of rentals and the numbers of the company, if it is something that we will only see next year, or maybe we can see something this year. So that's it. Thank you.
Rafael, Fred here with the first question about the Kroton capacity.
Today, we are analyzing vacancy, so we are having about 40%-50%. A gente vê aqui que tem- So we see here that we have some progress, which makes us happy, that is the capture of high potential, that as Roberto mentioned, in this cycle, that is positive. And if we repeat that in the next cycles, we will be able to gain some operational leverage in our business. The second question about the rental is that it's an important topic to us, because given this, the vacancy, as I mentioned before, we are in the process- in the continuous process of renegotiating our rent. And you'll naturally see in the next two years, in 2024 and 2025, the effect that will be lower, like benefit of about the units of million or one unit of tens of millions BRL.
In 2026, we are seeing benefit of tens of millions BRL with the renegotiation of the contracts, which shows the effect for cash, because for cash, it will be lower in 2024 and 2025, but we captured a little of this benefit in 2023, but the strongest one will appear in 2026.
Okay, thank you. Thank you, Rafael, for your question. The next question comes from Leandro Bastos, from Citi. Leandro, we will open your mic so that you can ask the question. Go on.
Hello, everyone. Thank you. I have two questions as well. The first about the B2G of Vasta. Because there was no contribution, you mentioned some initiatives and so on, and I would like to know your perspective for the year. And the second question is regarding the guidance and cash generation, that we discussed here. So one being, taking this new opening of cash generation after the service, if you can share a little about the liability management that you have in the company, how much this one be should revert a fter this debt of the year.
Hello, Leandro, it's Guilherme here. Start talking about the B2G from Vasta. So the B2G in Vasta in the fourth quarter had no acknowledgment as we expected, but as of the first quarter of 2024, we'll have acknowledgments of B2G. The contract that we had last year was renewed and will be performed in the first quarter. In the Cogna Day, we mentioned that we expected a growth of about 20%, and we are still waiting for this growth, but now we are much more certain because the contract was renewed, so we consider this growth with established baseline. The perspectives are quite positive. I can tell you that we have many heated network.
I would say that more than half of the state in our country have this platform ongoing, and we hope to have news soon about the B2G, but this is a big measure for Vasta growth. Now, passing on the floor to Fred.
Hi, Leandro, thank you for your question. Now, talking a little about that, the numbers are here to show the scenario. We have the cash generation, operational cash generation, that was good. Our payment of interest was BRL 695 million, so a reduction of -BRL 200 million. It's important to show that this number is the financial result of the company in the year of 2023, minus the interest that was in the operational cash. Now, looking forward and analyzing 2024, what happened is that we have more cash generation.
I have a revenue growth and EBITDA growth, so I have more operational cash generation. Additionally, the financial result in EBITDA with this operational cash will naturally reduce my net debt. And additionally, I have a reduction in the interest rate. So like, if I consider the average interest in 2023 and compare to 2024, it will be different. So generally thinking, Selic in 2023, it ended the year greater than 11, and the expectation today is having a Selic of finishing this year close to 9 or 10. So with that, I naturally deleveraged the company, so the cost of debt is about CDI plus 2. The average duration of the debt is 25 months, because we believe that with our improvement in credit, we'll be able to reduce the capital cost, and I can take longer with the debt.
The scenario today cannot give this visibility to us, but my credit, the partnerships and the total debt we have is much better than our cost. So we are quite comfortable in this sense, with the scenario of reducing and grow the revenue and EBITDA, and at the same time reducing the expenses, the financial expenses. And as I mentioned before, naturally, follow with slow but reduction in the rent amount that is also in our cash.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Leandro, for your question. The next question is from Samuel Alves, from BTG Pactual. Samuel, we will open your audio for your question. Please, you may go on.
Hello, Valério, Fred, Mélega. Good morning, everyone. I have two questions here.
The first one about the PNLD for 2024, we should, should we expect one more type of purchase for the PNLD or only refocus, if you could clear that? In other words, we are trying to understand if the company expect a greater or lower revenue than 2023 in this segment. And the second, the second question is about the EBITDA guidance, because which on the last slide of the presentation, that you mentioned, a midpoint for the guidance of BRL 2 billion for 2024. So the question is, if the range from BRL 2.1 billion to BRL 2.4 billion is still valid, as you mentioned on the earning day, or if you believe that the updated guidance at this moment would target the lower band of this band? Thank you very much.
Hi, Samuel, Fred here. Let's the first question about Saber and how the EBITDA would be.
So it's important to us just to remember that we had earnings day, and we also have the guidance for 2024 with EBITDA of Saber. So this is the guidance that was in the lower margin of BRL 200 million, and it went up to BRL 230 million. So we ensure that within this interval, it is what we'll deliver and to deliver that in Saber, which relates to our guidance here, that we also have with EBITDA in this interval from BRL 2.1 to BRL 2.4. And I'll pass on to Roberto to talk a little bit more about it.
So PNLD is answered. We had more of that in the earnings day. And regarding the EBITDA, I think we still see a range from BRL 2.1 to BRL 2.4.
We gave this range because obviously there are many projects ongoing, and I think here the 2.4 is possible. It's quite challenging, more than 2.1, but analyzing our history of growth, we believe that it is possible to be reached. So we had a good guidance to be more conservative for you. Not that we don't believe in that. We believe it's possible to deliver more than 2.1.
Thank you, Valério, Fred. Thank you, Samuel, for your question. The next question comes from Mirela Oliveira, from Bank of America. Mirela, we will open your audio so that you can ask your question. Please, you may go on.
Good morning, Roberto, Fred, Mélega, everyone. I have two questions. The first regarding the receivables. So in 2023, we saw improvement in the strategy of the company, bringing a better student to face. So do you believe the new level of the receivable are sustainable in the long term? And secondly, a follow-up regarding the law, and if you can tell us something that would happen if they are not approved, if there is an investment that was made and can be reverted?
Hello, Mirela, Fred. Well, for the first question, now, I do recognize in the revenue, we have a growth of about 50%. And our receivable, comparing the quarters, has a growth of about 4%. In fact, we see that it's clear in terms of numbers that we grow the revenue, but the receivables grow less. It reflect in the reduction of PCLD or maintenance of PCLD and the greater operational cash generation. We believe that with our strategy of bringing the students who is the students who don't have financial problems, the strategy is sustainable, and it was sustainable during the year 2023. At the end of 2022, we already have the direction.
In 2023, during the whole year, we have the same direction, and there is no how to be different because the strategy to capture student is the same, so it couldn't be anything different from that. Regarding the second question, now, I'll pass on the floor to Roberto Valério.
Thank you, Fred. Mirela, regarding the investment in the medical school, we have an intelligent project, and first, the first information is important. The four MMAs that we had, they were requested in units in the country, that we already have operate, and in cities where we have an operational campus, and units that we trust a lot regarding the growth rates.
So they are not units that we look and say, "Well, at some point, we may change something," or, "Somehow we have to close it because we have little effect of the growth." So this is the first point of security to us. And the four medicine courses being authorized in four units that are quite comfortable, and that we have perspectives of being there for many years. So the physical space, just it's not being used for medicine, we can use to mature the other courses. And remember that the preparatory courses, as a model, they don't grow so much, but the units with a high rates of growth and with the main courses with growth in the number of group, so we can use the space and equipment that was acquired, which authorized the course.
They can be used in the maturation of our medicine courses that are still on their maturation, like, oh, Natal, Porto Velho, that is now coming in the second semester. So obviously, the use is not 100%, but we have a lot of energy and opportunity of use. We don't need the write-off of this kind of investment that we made.
Okay, perfect. Quite clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Mirela, for your question. Now I'll finish the Q&A session. We now pass on the floor to the final considerations of the company.
Well, thank you all for the participation in this call. I reinforce our commitment to the group and consistency and evolution. I would like to thank the whole Cogna team.
We have a team of employees that help us every day to take quality education to the whole country, and that is making our country better. Obviously, we are available to anyone, down to night and half. We are all here. Thank you all. Have a nice day.
For the teleconference on the result of the fourth quarter of Cogna Educação, the Department of Relations with Investors is here to answer any further doubts. Thank you, and have a nice afternoon.