Bom dia a todos e obrigado por.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in this teleconference to discuss Cogna results for the first quarter 2024. As usual, I have here Frederico Villa, our Financial Vice President, Guilherme Mélega, from Vasta, and Eduardo Gonzaga, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Funding. We'll have one hour in this call. We'll try to have the presentation in 30 minutes to leave 30 for the Q&A.
Bom, então bom dia a todos.
Well, good morning, everyone. Going on, I would like to start with the slide Number 3, the administration message. I think the main points of the quarter are the net revenue of Cogna that is growing double digits as the previous quarters, emphasizing all business units, Kroton, Vasta, and Saber, growing as well in double digits in a consistent way. The recurrent EBITDA of the company grows for the 12th quarter consecutively, with almost 10% growth, 9.5% compared to the first quarter 2023, reaching BRL 495 million. The operational cash flow after CapEx is positive in BRL 9.4 million. We are quite happy with this indicator. It shows our cash generation because we can operate the whole company and have all the CapEx investments as expected. You know our estimate here is something close to BRL 420 million in CapEx, investing in technology and infrastructure and content.
Also, we pay all the debt services, and we still have some cash, some positive cash in almost BRL 10 million. As the first quarter highlights, the portfolio, as we've been saying, the diversification of Cogna products is our strength. And most of all, the three business lines showing a lot of resilience: Kroton with a growth of 14.7%, growing in distance education and presentation, which is important because this is something that we didn't have for some time. Vasta also growing consistently. And especially the strength of our new growth that is sales to government with a first contracted B2G of BRL 69 million in this first quarter, besides Saber with a growth of more than 45% of net revenue being pushed both for the PNLD and educational solutions that we are selling, especially to city halls. In this context, especially in cash generation, our leverage has decreased some point.
It's 1.79 times the EBITDA. This is the sixth consecutive quarter, and we have continuous liability and management actions. Fred, the CFO, will talk more about what we did and what is about to come with some positive perspectives and many banks searching for us and possibilities to reduce the cost of debt and enlarge the deadline. Before going to the next slide, the cash generation after CapEx, despite the drop of 7.4%, we have BRL 50 million recurring to the PNLD that was to be received in January, and the federal government just paid the last days of the fourth quarter. If we consider that in the cash generation of the first quarter, we would have BRL 206 million in GCO, which would be 15% growth versus the first quarter 2023.
Despite the GCO being lower than the first quarter of 2023, it's not a point of concern to us because we know that was due to time, and we are pretty sure about our ability to deliver the 2024 guidance, both the EBITDA and the cash generation. With that, I will go to Slide 5 to talk a little bit about Kroton. The capture growth of 14.7%, which is 53 more students than the corresponding cycle last year, with emphasis to the growth in presential, 14.1%, and distance education, 14.2%. Both lines growing. We try to anticipate the enrollments in this quarter. We invested more in marketing. I'll explore more of that later on. We invested more in marketing because we understand that captures in the beginning of the year make the students' experience to be better.
Therefore, both from the point of view of non-payment and engagement, it increases our enrollment. I emphasize that in the general macroeconomic scenario, this fourth quarter was quite positive. We had January and February as months with a lot of demand. Looking to the other sectors, we see that retail and some sectors as car sales, especially the used ones that we follow here to fill the market, was also good. So I believe we have here efficiency in operation, but also a scenario that seems more positive for Kroton in the beginning of this year. The last highlight in capture is the revenue of Safra. That is an indication that we've had for many years. Obviously, volume is important, but most important is that the capture has more revenue in Safra.
This period, we have more than 30% of growth in the revenue year compared to the other year, with more capture and more enrollment, considering we're having less underpayment and more engagement. The total base of students growth strongly, 12%, especially in Kroton Med. That is one of our measurements. EAD, that is the other measure. So it's quite important to have this growth. You remember that we are saying that EAD has a lot of operational leverage, and Kroton Med, in fact, has a positive margin. So growing the base in this segment is positive. Now, talking about the ticket, we can send inflation to the veterans.
The mix of capture, especially in EAD, this cycle is more concentrated in EAD courses that we call the hybrid ones or premium ones that are the engineering and health courses with a higher average ticket, with more presential and physical labs. So the positive here is in this sense. Going to slide Number 6 to talk about the financial performance, our revenue grew 12.5%, especially pushed by Kroton Med and EAD, with a small drop in the presential of 4%. Remember that despite growing the basis of presential or keeping it stable after many years without growth, the students graduated. They have higher tickets than the newcomers. So that's why the revenue has this negative effect than the basis that was stable, growing 0.2. As I said, this revenue is not only accelerated by the amount of students but due to inflation as well.
It's quite strong, especially because we could anticipate enrollments for the first quarter, the new ones. From the point of view of gross profit, I emphasize an important gain in the gross margin. This is a question that we receive constantly about the space to gain in gross margin. We understand that because of the leverage of EAD. So we have a bigger part than the variable. So if it's a growing margin, we'll gain on that. You see that in our release with the opening of the primary margin per business line. You can see the gain, the margin in EAD and medicine. So from the point of view of efficiency, Kroton Med and digital learning have a lot of opportunities here. We believe it is in this perspective to the future. The effects will keep here in the next quarters.
I would like to emphasize a little about marketing because we were anticipating that we were speeding up the expenses, or at least anticipating the marketing expenses due to two reasons. First, because we wanted to anticipate, and we could have strong growth in capture in the first semester, but also because we are consolidating Anhanguera brand as a national brand, which is in Slide 7. Here we bring some information for you to see how this strategy is working. This first graph shows the evolution of the search share per brand, organic search, okay? So if your brand is better known with more awareness and more interest of the audience, then more people searching for the brand in Google. This graph shows that in 2021, there was 10% of organic search in our brand than 12.5% in 2022 and 14% in 2023.
We started in 2022 with the strategy of consolidating the Anhanguera brand. We are growing. We have the numbers identified with the peers. You have the numbers, some gain, market share. But the second one gains half of us. We grew 3.9%, almost 4%, and the second peer grew 1.9%. Just to highlight the current cycle, you can see in the next graph with the orange bars, the growth of search in Google per cycle. But especially in this cycle, 24.1, we are growing 31.5%, and the average is 15% of the competitors. The interest of the market by Anhanguera brand grew twice as the market average, which shows the investments we are doing on the brand make sense. The results are present here. It's not a sample search. This is concrete data on internet search.
With that, the last slide of Kroton, just to reinforce that we have gained in efficiency in all lines. So we are gaining in gross margin 17.5% and operational expenses 2.5%, PCLD also efficiency in 1.6%, corporate expenses 0.5%. But I would say it's stable. And knowing that we had this space for margin and efficiency gain, we knew we had space for more marketing. We used this space. We decreased a little the EBITDA margin this quarter. But I would like to make it clear that it is part of the strategy. And I even mentioned in many meetings here in the last call for the fourth quarter that this is our strategy to build the brand and also to bring new students. So we have important results in line, except marketing due to this strategy. With that, I finish Kroton.
So I would like to pass on the floor to Guilherme Mélega to talk about Vasta. Thank you, Roberto. Going on in Slide 10, talking about the net revenue of Vasta. Starting on the graph on the sale, I emphasize the growth of our net revenue in 14.4%, emphasizing B2G that we acknowledge BRL 69 million in the revenue in the first quarter. Talking about cycle, the growth of the cycle of revenue is 12%. Besides the contribution of B2G, we also acknowledge 9% of growth in ACV, emphasizing complementary solutions that grow a lot in the level of 21% in line with the transparency that we've always had.
We are reducing here our estimate of ACV bookings and growth for this year from 16%- 12% due to the first quarter of the complementary requests of the schools that we saw a softer market in general and less students in our partner schools. With that, we are informing the new estimate of growth in 12%. Now, in Slide 11, we have cost and expenses. In total, we have costs growing 7.4% in the quarter. Remember that the revenues grew 14%. Therefore, our costs are growing below our revenue gain, generating efficiency. I'll emphasize here the percentage on the right, our costs representing a drop of 7.0% due to the reduction of pressure for paper and graph costs here, and also a series of initiatives to reduce costs, mainly the logistic optimization in the return to glass.
Another important point to emphasize is the expense containment that we had administratively, keeping it flat in absolute values and resulting in a decrease in percentage of 1.5%. Therefore, we have an important space to invest in our growth and invest in 2025. So you see that the selling and marketing expenses had 3.2% in line with our strategy and ensuring a good start in our ACV in 2025. In Slide 12, the result of growing revenue and cost grew later, lower. So we had 28% of EBITDA and the year-end in the cycle, BRL 394 million, 22% growth in the same period last year. I emphasize here the margin growth that in the cycle grew from 35.6% to 38.9%, 3 percentage points in the margin growth. It's important to our business and to our profitability. In Slide 13, I would like to emphasize other aspects of our business.
We have a growth revenue that is quite important, that is started with bilingual school, that is our franchising of bilingual schools that we launched last year. So in this that we have, it's exactly one year since we launched our bilingual franchising. We have two operating units in São José and Ourinhos, our first unit that is a franchising. Overcoming our expectations with 190 students, the target was 120, which reinforces our confidence in our business model. We are here to launch Unidade Pasteur in São Paulo that will be launched in 2025 with a flagship of about 1,000 students here in São Paulo. I also emphasize the acceleration of contract signing. We have two contracts signed in 10 units of the federation, which is important to us. Most importantly, we have more than 230 ongoing negotiations.
So we reinforce our trust in Start that will soon be an important business line to our company, close to our core business and our competence to generate good academic results. Lastly, in Slide 14, I would like to emphasize the launch of Plural AI, that is the artificial intelligence in our platform serving to our servers. And we also launched that with an intelligent assistant to professors and educators. And we have this assistant in the created content of the platform that the teacher can have consultations and classes and exercises and homework and generate videos or audiovisual material for classrooms. So this is an artificial intelligence with the content that the teachers use, the same for the students, so that they can study and clear their doubts with generative artificial intelligence.
We believe it's a technological breakthrough that will create a big bond with our teachers and students, and it will be offered to all the network. With that, I pass on the floor to Fred to go on with the results of Saber. Thank you, Mélega. Thank you all to participate here. I'll start the presentation in Slide 16, talking about Saber. Just to remind you, the investors, that Saber is the business of the didactic books, Red Balloon, and other businesses. So I emphasize here the net revenue in the first quarter of 2024 with a growth in revenue of 47%, reaching in the Q1 revenue of BRL 193 million. This growth comes from the sales of the national program of didactic books with a growth of 55%, additionally an increase in the sales in our program Acerta Brasil with a growth of 37%.
Considering this growth in the revenue, we also had a growth here in our EBITDA. This growth was 40%, about 40%. We reached here a recurrent EBITDA of BRL 47.6 million. However, despite having a slight retraction in the margin of the company, this retraction of about 1.2% was due to the cost of paper and printing that were still related to the amount that we had in our stocks in 2023 and regarding the concentration of revenue in products of lower brands. However, our expectation is that this margin recovery is present in the next quarters in line with the margin in 2023. Just to finish the presentation of Saber and go into the final part of the presentation, talking about Cogna, that is the concentration of some of the three big business, I emphasize the financial result here in the graph in the sale.
Strong growth in the net revenue of 15.7%, reaching BRL 1.538 million. I emphasize, as mentioned before, a growth in our three business units. Just to remind you, Kroton growing 12.5% in net revenue, Saber 46% growth, and Vasta a growth of 14.4%, showing how strong our businesses are. And mentioning the recurring EBITDA and margin, we have here the 13th consecutive semester of EBITDA growth reaching 9.5%. And this recurring EBITDA reached BRL 496 million. The marketing strategy for Kroton and the price of the stocks, as I mentioned in the presentation of Saber, impacted our consolidated margin, decreasing 1.8 points percent. But as I mentioned before, our expectation is that in the next quarters, we would have a margin that would go back to what it is and what we had in 2023.
Now, in Slide 19, that is the operating cash generation, we had a slight reduction in the operational cash in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 2023. We mentioned before that we had an anticipation in the operational cash to the fourth Q of 2023 of about BRL 50 million. And somehow, it impacted the previous quarter. But also this one, if we didn't receive in anticipation in the fourth quarter of 2023, we would have BRL 50 million more. So we would reach BRL 260 million in total. So we had anticipating marketing to strengthen our chapter cycle to bring the best student base.
Additionally, in the graph in '19 on the right, we have the operating cash generation after CapEx and debt service positive in BRL 9.4 million with a growth compared to the first Q last year of about BRL 56 million, which is quite positive to analyze that after the services and debts. In Slide 20, I showed the net profit and the margin. So the net profit is adjusted. So our adjusted net profit, I mean, the difference between the adjusted net profit and the adjusted net margin, we had only one adjustment, that is the amortization of our intangibles that is quite clear, and it's shown in page 21. We had here a decrease in the net profit of about BRL 67 million. This increase here, we had an increase in the operational results of the company of about BRL 12 million.
But we had some effects like the one-off, let's say, in the transaction that we had with the sale of about BRL 16 million. Our net profit, as I mentioned, last year, we had a net profit that was positive of BRL 54 million with a loss of 8.5. But this effect, as I mentioned, of BRL 16 million of one-off, just to remind you is that last year, we had a reversion of contingency of opening values that in the first quarter of 2023 was positive in about BRL 75 million. And we didn't have this effect in the Q1 of 2024. In Slide 21, talking about leverage and indebtedness, we see the positive trajectory of how the company is leveraging. So we have the leverage on the net debt of the company over the EBITDA of the last 12 months.
In the first quarter of 2023, we had a leverage of 2.1 times. In the first quarter of 2024, our leverage reached 1.79 times, a reduction of 0.30% in the leverage. This leverage is mainly due to the strong cash generation and the growth of our business, mainly in EBITDA. In April, I emphasized that in April 2024, the company carried out the full optional early redemption of about BRL 170 million to reduce the net and growth debt. This debt has a cost of CDI of 2.75%. The company is in this process of negotiating the liability management. In April 2024, we also start offering the public distribution of the issue of shares of about 1.8% with a capital cost lower than the prepaid debt. The goal of this operation is to loan the debt and additionally to reduce the fees.
In the last slide, Slide 22, it deals with the previous one because the company has a cash position in March 31st, 2024, of BRL 1.72 billion, a gross debt of BRL 4 billion. This net debt is shown at BRL 3.275 billion. The amortization schedule is in the other slide. The company has enough cash, and we are in a different process that today, our credit is better than the previous years. We aim to see this liability management process bringing the reduction of debts and loaning the cash in every quarter. Lastly, I would like to emphasize, just for information, that we adopted the IFRS 16 in 2019, and we recognized our leases.
We are given important information to the investors and analysts that in the first quarter of 2024, our amount of lease to be paid and rent to be paid is BRL 2.8 billion, of which BRL 1.6 billion in rental obligations and BRL 1.2 billion in renewals. That is the right of the company to have the renegotiations and to renew automatically the contracts. This information is important because, as I mentioned many times, our contracts are contracts that have nothing to do with IFRS 16. We had the term of the contract plus the renewal. So we give visibility here to show that the renewal is the right. I have no obligation. I have the right. And if I do that, I have 1 more billion in renewal. So BRL 1.2.
If I don't take this right, I don't need to pay for these BRL 2 billion in the long term. With that, I finish my brief presentation and pass on the floor to Roberto Valério. Thank you, Fred. I think that we started 2024 as we finished 2023, quite focused in our six pillars that we call the six strategic pillars. Obviously, growth is one of them. There is no revenue. There is no growth. So that's why I reinforced that the revenue growth in the three business units makes us confident that the business is healthy with the high potential for growth. I would like to reinforce the point that we are quite optimistic with the ability to deliver growth in the three business units. I mean, Kroton, Vasta, and Saber. Experience is another pillar.
And an example of that is the anticipated enrollment to give a better experience for our students and in a better re-enrollment. And we have a lot of initiatives with clients like in Vasta with all the process of attending schools and returning to schools, as Melega mentioned, and the students and teachers and the example that he gave throughout and in online education and the B2C initiatives in Kroton to improve the experience of our students that is growing and evolving with all the developments and trick of the systems. Efficiency, obviously, searching for efficiency and gaining performance and improving the margin is still our focus and the cash generation. The operating cash is positive, and it shows that we can generate efficiency.
We call that CapEx investment, thinking about the growth of the company in the long run as paying all the services of the debt and the leverage of the company. This is an important pillar and is part of the company forever, and we'll keep focusing on that. People and culture, I reinforce what I say, that we have this team spirit present and customer centricity. It's important. We need to deal well with the students and schools and government and all the development of talent and diversity. We have the GPTW CEO Award for many years, and this is the second year that we are GPTW, specifically in this niche of women. Innovation is part of what we are trying to do more and more.
An example is the partnership for post-graduation with McKinsey, as we mentioned, and Start Anglo with the bilingual franchising and the B2G initiatives as the infoproduct platform, the Bookess . I'm sorry. That is a smaller operation, but it's growing every month in the GMV. And I'm pretty sure that in the future will be a very important initiative. And obviously, we couldn't forget the ESG as one of the pillars. Remember that we are the first company to be part of the ISE B3, the only company with a proactive CEO from the government that we understand is very important, especially to all the sales initiatives, to government and internal controls that we have here. So just to reinforce this point, we are still with the same strategy that we've had for the last three years. We are all here, especially those here in the Company.
We have 70 partners in the company who want not only to deliver the guidance for 2024 but also to generate value to the shareholders because we are the shareholders of the company, and we want the company to generate more value. Having that said, I'll open the floor for the Q&A session. Thank you very much. Now, we'll start the Q&A session. Remember that to ask your question, you must click the Q&A icon in the bottom part of the screen and write a question to be in line. When you are invited, there will be a request to activate your mic, and then you have to activate your mic to ask the question. We ask you, please, to make all the questions at once. The first question is from Lucca Marquezini from Itaú BBA. So Luca, we'll open your mic so that you ask your questions.
Lucca, you may go on. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the question regarding the expenses with marketing and sales. That we see a relevant increase in the quarter that you mentioned would be strategic. But looking to the future, the top is thinking about the movement of consolidating as a better brand. How much of this work was carried out and how much should be done? I mean, how many quarters to see a higher level and when you see not a normalization but a drop in this level? Please. Thank you. Hi, Lucca. Thank you for your question. We understand that there is still one more quarter. That is the second one with all the facts that we purchase and all the agenda of investments in the brand. So the second quarter, you'll see a little bit more marketing.
But starting in the second quarter, the marketing expenses will decrease. So it's nothing permanent. Obviously, building a brand and awareness is something that is never stopping. If we take the graph that I showed with the participation of search and the total search, we have 14% of all the search today. But obviously, if I can have 17%, 20%, 30% of search, it is a better awareness for the brand, and we'll search for that. It's important to make it clear, Lucas, as I said, that everything we do in marketing is quite well calculated. A great part of the investment we have, I would say, basically what we do is to invest in digital media that we can measure quite well. I reinforce the point that we are a world benchmark, even to Google.
Our case is presented in many of their events, not only here but also abroad. And even in the new book of Philip Kotler, we are there present as a case of efficiency in the digital marketing. So I reinforce that despite the volume of marketing and investment is higher from the point of view of techniques, it's good, and it's well thought and administered. So the CAC will have a small growth in the year, very small. But we have one of the CACs, one of them that is the acquisition with the lower cost on the market. So it is just to reinforce that it's not an expense that we don't know what we are doing. We know quite well what we are investing in, and we can regulate to gain on efficiency.
But to answer your question, more than one quarter for us to finish this first slide, as we say here in marketing, but in the second semester, we'll have much less expenses in marketing. This is the plan, and this is the budget. Okay. Thank you very much. Let's go to the next question from Jessica Melo , sell-side analyst. Jessica, we'll open our audio for you to ask your question. Jessica, you may go on. Bom dia, Roberto, Melega, Fred. Obrigada. Good morning, Roberto, Melega, Fred. And thank you for the space for questions. If you can go deeper on the competitive, because Roberto mentioned you are seeing a positive macroenvironment at the beginning of the year. But when we look at the growth of the ticket in the on-campus segment, we see a flat growth.
I would like to understand how it should be looking to the future, taking into consideration that you have a strategy to increase the mix of premium courses in this segment. I'd like to understand how you see this strategy. Thank you very much. Well, Jessica, thank you for your question. So I'll start with a structural explanation because I think it's important to say that the entering ticket is quite influenced by the competition dynamics of the market. So our strategy is to be competitive but obviously not to be the first mover for price reduction. As all peers, we have assessment in prices that is dynamic. We use robots to have that more efficiently. So maybe in one campus, the course is growing, and in the other unit, it's decreasing.
So this is the first point of what I feel in the last cycles is that the competition for prices is more organized, is less aggressive. I think we've seen that in this first quarter. But what I think is that there was more demand on the market. We saw a lot of demand in January, February, a lot of conversions in enrollments and in the campus, especially in the on-site search. It's growing, and it shows that families have more money. They are choosing more on-site courses. And the first option, in general, is presential when they can pay, they choose for that. I would say that this growth in the presential would be due to this availability of money on the market and people searching more for the courses. But these courses are competitive, so it's more difficult to pass on ticket.
We can grow the amount, but the tickets are competitive. Then just for a direct response on the average ticket not growing so much in the presential, it's that we have a natural effect that the graduates, they leave the student base with a higher ticket than when they come. So when we say that our presential graduation base is stable or growing 0.2, it means that part of the students that are graduating, we are recomposing. But the ones leaving, the veterans, they have a ticket of four or five years of inflation. So their ticket is higher than the entry ticket. So sometimes it makes your understanding a little difficult. So our expectation is that we can repass the same way we are doing with the presential because of this dynamic.
I gave you a structural explanation for you to understand why tickets are not growing despite the volume is growing. I think if the demand in the presential keeps this way, over time, we can adjust the prices. Then the last point to emphasize, despite your question, is in the presential. In online education, it's important that the capture has more revenue. Obviously, the average ticket here is growing. It's good due to the mix. Online has more engineering and healthcare courses with higher tickets. The important point here is that the revenue grows because as the costs are basically fixed, revenue is a growing margin. I hope I could answer your question. Okay. It was quite clear. Thank you very much. The next question is from Rafael Barros. Rafael, we'll open the mic to you so that you ask your question.
Rafael, you may go on. Thank you for taking my question. Well, I have two questions here. The first is to understand a little about the digital ticket because you have a strong growth in the digital ticket. And I'd like to understand how much of this increase in the ticket is sustainable, if there is the risk of having abandoned this number, if there is some seasonality in the impact, and if it impacted positively the ticket. And the second question about Vasta, about the B2G, that it was the biggest responsible of the revenue growth. But we have some difficulties in understanding that. We would like to understand a little bit the seasonality of this account and the potential risk of increasing the PNLD that it can bring. Thank you. Rafael, obrigado pela pergunta. Eu vou pegar para você. Rafael, thank you for your question.
First, I'll answer the ticket, and Mélega will mention the B2G. Well, the online ticket in this cycle had a positive growth of more than 10%. I think it is much more related to this growth that we see in the interest for courses that are more presential. The mix of the online courses has a lot of participation of the more presential courses. So I would say that there is no difficulty in believing that the growth would be in double digits all the quarters. It's difficult to foresee the interest of presential courses or online courses that are more hybrid. How long it will happen during the year? As I said, the first quarter was very good. So I would say that yes. And I believe the tickets can keep growing. But in online courses at a level of 10%, it would be quite optimistic.
Now I pass on the floor to Mélega to talk about B2G. Thank you, Roberto. Rafael, let me talk about the B2G. As mentioned in the presentation, we started with the acknowledgment of BRL 69 million regarding Pará. We worked a lot in Pará in this first quarter. We supplied how Dazal was there, and we made the services of this contract available. That's why we acknowledged the revenue. There may be other requests in this contract in a lower scale over the next quarter. But what we expect, I mean, we are in a funnel with all the states. We hope that in the second, you can sign the contract and perform in the second semester.
So thinking about seasonality, I can give the expectation for this year, that is, this recognition in the first quarter and the expectation of having more relevant recognition of revenue B2G in the second semester. Remember that in Cogna Day, as we didn't have a better number, we would say 20% growth in our B2G business. So it takes the expectation of BRL 95 million for the year. And I would say BRL 100 million, and we recognize BRL 69 million. So you may expect another BRL 30 million happening in the second semester. Regarding the PDD, it is a business that we believe there is no risk in PDD because the hiring is only if we have that paid budget. So we don't hire if you don't have a dedicated budget. So once we hire, there is a dedicated budget for that.
When there is the purchase order or the service order, if we consider the private market, that would be this request for purchase. And then we keep this budget in the government. So this is a business that after performed, we don't have PDD. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Roberto and Mélega. Now the next question from Lucas Chaves. Lucas will open your audio so that you can ask your question. Lucas, you may go on. Good morning, Mélega, Valério and everyone from the space. I have two questions. So the first one is about the marketing. I think it was quite clear, the budget for the year. But I'm thinking about the trends. Do you think that the sector is a little bit more aggressive in market, and it would imply a level of expenses that is structurally higher for the next years?
And the second is about the Kroton Med ticket and if you could implement because it grew 4%. So how was the process in this increase? I mean, how is it in medicine if there was an impact for the Mais Médicos or FIES? Well, Lucas, thank you for your questions. I'll take two ones. Estruturalmente, I guess, no. The marketing expenses shouldn't be greater than it is in our long-term model. It is not this way. So we don't see as a percentage of the net growth such a growth above what we have, especially due to these opportunities of efficiency that come from investment that is more and more digital. I understand competitors are also working in this movement for the digital world. So the gains in efficiency are much greater than the competition that allows us to spend more in markets.
So this is my understanding. I can talk about my view. Just for you to know, in our model, we don't foresee having more expenses in marketing. The average ticket in Kroton Med is important because Kroton Med are our premium units. We have the ability to repass the inflation in an important way. It's not only inflation, but we can also give more than inflation. That's why they have a better ticket performance. There's also the mix of presential courses with higher LTV. I think this is the dynamics of Kroton Med with the ability of being even above the inflation for some years. I don't see why not keeping this ability over the next years. Okay, Valério. Quite clear. Thank you very much. Now let's go to the next question from Leandro from Citi.
Leandro, we'll open your mic so that you ask your question. Leandro, you may go on. Bom dia. São duas também. A primeira aqui. Thank you. Good morning. The first question has to do with marketing. So what if we think about the Kroton margin for the year and the expectation of deceleration of marketing for the second semester? Can we imagine stronger margins? How would be the first quarter if you can talk a little bit about it? I think it would be interesting. This is the first question. And the second, I'd like to know about the. So it seemed that there was a slight increase. So if you can discuss a little about the strategy for the program, how it's working, and how it's used, it would be good to understand that. Thank you. So Leandro, I'll answer the first one about the Kroton.
Fred will comment the second one. Levando em conta os efeitos de margin, taking into account the impact of the marketing in the first quarter, it's a positive stable margin. I can give you a specific number, but it's not negative. Our expectation is to gain in the margin, not just efficiency. Any operation like this comes over time. But as we have the primary margin, if we gain efficiency and PCLD and operational expenses, everything is also sufficient to compensate the expenses with marketing. And our expectation is to gain in margin in 2024 compared to 2023. Now I pass on the floor to Fred. Okay. Thank you for the question talking about PMT. As I mentioned before, we still have the program of late enrollment. But in the past, this difference was only paid after the student graduated.
This program is a program that now the student will pay during the course. So what happened in the first quarter is that we have, in fact, an increase in the late enrollment students entering in this program later with an increase in our receivables. But the average is diluted because the student pays over time. So our PDD reflects this effect. We have a PDD that is about 70%-75% of the total program. So to us, it's nothing strange. It's natural to our business. Okay. Thank you. Vamos à nossa próxima pergunta. É da Mirela. Now the next question from Mirela Oliveira from Bank of America. Mirela, we'll open your mic so that you can ask your question. Mirela, you may go on, please. Bom dia, pessoal. Obrigada pelo espaço para a pergunta. Good morning, everyone. Thank you.
In fact, I would like a follow-up on marketing because in 2023, in the fourth quarter, we see an anticipation in this expense helping in the first semester with new students. And I would like to understand if this strategy will follow this year and how it deals with this dilution that we'll see in the second semester if we wait for some impact for the next cycle for 2025, considering there will be less expenses in the second semester. And the second question regarding guidance, considering the pressure for market, so what clients would have some space to deliver the top guidance? Is it possible? And if you can comment a little on what would be necessary to reach this BRL 2.4 billion. Thank you. Mirela, obrigado pelas perguntas. Mirela, thank you for the questions regarding marketing. No, we don't see any greater expense in marketing.
So it's important to remember that the second semester, the cycle, from the point of view of amount of students, it's lower. We generally say that from the total of students, 60% come in this first semester or in the second. So the expense is naturally lower. The amount of students is lower. We always take into account that they use CapEx as a reference. And we know that in the second semester, we will spend less in marketing because, naturally, considering the efficiency in CapEx, the nominal volume will be lower. So we are quite well. We know that this is the experience that we've had other years. I hope I could answer the marketing and regarding the guidance. I'll pass on the floor to Fred and then accompaniment. Okay, Mirela, thank you for your question.
The question is if with the increase of expenses with marketing, so what are the lines that we look ahead? We may have this compensation. The growth of revenue, you see a strong growth in revenue. The nominals are still in line with some improvement. Looking to the future, we might have some positive effect in PCLD and corporate expenses as a whole. Regarding courses in our business, if we look to the future, we may have a positive effect to compensate a little of the marketing effects. But what I would like to tell you about marketing is this effect that Robert mentioned. We've mentioned some times that it's the effect of displacement and anticipation. The relation of the marketing courses with the revenue is not changing, remembering that our CAC is better than EBITDA. This is a little bit of the update.
But this is something that we see as a displacement. So just to complement Mirela, yes, we still trust a lot of guidance, both for EBITDA and CAC. And it's important to say that what drives the result in this trust is the loss of revenue growth. With the revenue growth in this way, the decrease is natural in the fixed costs. So the first quarter, we grew 15.7% of revenue with a lot of fixed costs that will be diluted over time we invested more in the first quarter marketing. And we won't do that in the second. I feel as well that there are many opportunities in the B2G that we expect to perform in the second semester.
I think there are many things happening that we are discussing with the marketing that makes us trust that the result of the first quarter is quite well, especially in the top line. We are completely aware that we will give the guidance of EBITDA and CAC. Quite clear. Thank you very much. Vamos à nossa próxima pergunta. The next question from Caio. Caio, podemos habilitar o seu áudio para que você possa realizar a sua pergunta. Caio, pode prosseguir, por favor. Oi, pessoal. Obrigado por pegar a minha pergunta. Com relação ao marketing também, acho que foi bem-sucedida essa estratégia de antecipação do marketing. Vocês conseguiram matricular muitos alunos. E a ideia, me parece, que era trazer aluno pouco de maior qualidade, talvez aluno que seja mais resiliente, que fique mais dentro da base.
Então, eu queria entender, em termos de evasão, se vocês já observam se esse aluno realmente é aluno melhor. Existem alguns indícios de que levam a crer que a evasão não deveria piorar ao longo do tempo, dado que a gente sabe que a evasão é muito alta.
Would it be worse over time as we know the dropouts are very high the first month that the student is in the basis? So anything you can share with us about the profile of the students and if you see that this is a student that you, in fact, know. So thank you very much if you can share that. Okay, Caio. Thank you for your question. We are convinced not due to perception, but also by numbers. Generally, when we analyze the dropouts and re-enrollments, we see the students almost with the daily entry.
So I would say that the first step in October and the first and second and third of January, and if we compare who enrolled January or beginning of February with more enrollments than in April, we will see, for example, less non-payment and participation in tested exams and in the virtual environment of learning, much higher. So we know in practice that, yeah, they do have better quality. I think we are improving the rates of re-enrollments. That's why our student base is growing. We grew 12%. So it's nothing new. We know the effects of the anticipated enrollment. And we know it has a positive effect as we are improving the enrollment. Without the strategy of anticipation, we understand that it can even be better for our enrollment rate. So just for you to understand, we have the enrollment rate 2% better than the corresponding cycle last year.
So we know that our base today is 2.0% healthier than last year in the same period due to the same series of actions and effects that we have. But obviously, having the best students, we know that the students in January and February, they made decisions. They made everything at the proper time. This is not the last time decision. So we can really share it to bring some value. Okay. Thank you very much. The Q&A session is over. So now I'd like to pass on the floor to the final considerations of the company. Well, I would like to thank once again all the Cogna team, almost 25,000 employees working daily to our students and clients. Thank you very much. Congratulations. The result belongs to us. And I would like to reinforce that the team is here to clear the doubts of the analysts or investors.
Thank you very much. And have a nice day. The result regarding the results of the first quarter of Cogna is now over. The Department of Relations with Investors is available to answer any other questions or doubts. Thank you all. And have a nice afternoon.