Those hearing in English, there is an option to mute the original audio by clicking in Mute Original Audio. We inform you that this teleconference is being recorded, and will be available in the RI website of the company, www.ri.cogna.com.br, where we have available the complete material of this result launch. You can download the presentation also in the chat icon, even in English. During the presentation of the company, all participants will be with their mics disabled. Then we'll start the Q&A session. To ask questions, click on the icon Q&A in the bottom part of your screen, and write your question to be in line for that. When we call you, there is a request to open the mics, and you will click to open the mic to make your questions. We suggest all questions are asked at once.
Before going on, we'd like to clear that event or declarations that will be done during this teleconference regarding the business perspectives of Cogna, projections, or operation and financial targets are the beliefs and premises of the company administration, as well as information available for Cogna. Future considerations is not an assurance of performance, and involve risks, uncertainties, and premises, as they refer to future events, therefore, they depend on circumstances that can happen or not. Investors and analysts must understand that general conditions, the sector, and other operational factors can affect the future results of Cogna, and can lead to results different materially from those expressed in future conditions. I would now pass on the floor to Mr. Roberto Valério, CEO of Cogna, to start his presentation. Please, Mr. Roberto, you may go on.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for being in this teleconference to discuss the results of Cogna in the second quarter of 2024. As usual, I have here with me Frederico Villa, our financial vice president, Guilherme Mélega, Director of Vasta, and Eduardo Honzák, our Director of Investor Corporate Finances and M&A. We'll take about 1 hour in this call, with 40 minutes presentation and 20 minutes for the Q&A. I'd like to start this call in the first slide, emphasizing some main messages. The first one is the growth in the recurring EBITDA and margin EBITDA in the quarter of Cogna, showing the ability the company has to go on efficiently, and so searching for efficiency in the project and changing structures, and with the synergy in the process, so that we have profitability.
I also emphasize the Cogna net revenue that grew in the second quarter, despite the seasonality of Saber. The second quarter is not a quarter for strong. That is a strong Saber. Another important highlight is the base of students in Kroton. The first semester, the base grew 15.8%, reaching more than 1.2 million students when we consider the graduation and post-graduation. So this growth will obviously help us keep growing revenues, especially in the second quarter, considering that we'll have more students, and it will help us in growing the revenue in the second semester. Vasta also presented a 32.5% increase in subscription revenue in the quarter. Remember, this is our strategy to, I mean, to increase the penetration and grow revenue and subscription, both for core solutions and premium, and the complementary ones.
I also emphasize that Vasta has reached 85.3% of the ACV 2024, and is working in the 2025 cycle with a positive perspective. Besides, we constantly are working in liability management operations. We have more in the second quarter, changing the old debts for cheaper ones, and obviously, the goal is to optimize the cost and reduce the debt cost. This is a strategy that we are carrying out for a while, and once again, we are having success on that. With that, the net revenue grew 4%, EBITDA 13%, and the leverage is stable. Fred will talk more about that, the net debt EBITDA. So we have a sequence of reduction in the net debt, specifically in this quarter, it was stable, among other things, due to the market swap debt.
Fred will explain that better, but this is something not cash and specific for the moment, so it give us a lot of trust that we'll keep reducing the leverage and look into the future, especially in the cash generation of the company. Now, going on to slide five of Kroton. I believe the first highlight came in the student intake. That was quite a strong 12.7% in new students. I emphasize Kroton Med growing 12.4%, and DL also, but presential also had an important involved. This is a modality that hasn't grown, isn't growing a lot, but this master grew, which is positive.
I think that a highlight to emphasize the support of the growth is the distribution network with our stores and distributors, all the commercial team, besides the marketing model that is quite focused in performance and digital media, with a volume also with acquisition costs quite balanced. I reinforce a point here, making a link to the dropout rate, that this growth is with quality, with volume, but with quality reflecting in the reduction of dropouts that we see in the second graph. When we see the aggregated reduction in dropout, Kroton as a whole improved 4.4 points percent. We left from 21.1 in the first semester 2021, to 16.7 in 2024.
Both the presential and DL, on-site and DL, increased, and the dropouts reduced, and this is the reflection of actions of many teams, among which the, capture team, bringing quality students and credit and financial quality. They are good payers. And also the fidelization team that followed the students here, searching for greater, academic engagement and reducing attrition in the experience of the students. And here is the reflection of the quality of the work that is being carried out. Obviously, when we talk about recruitment strong and dropout dropping, it reflects in the student base that grew 15.8% from 2023 to 2024, and I emphasize especially Kroton Med and, DL, that are the pillars of our strategy.
The presence on-site is the base of our work, and we focus in high LTV, like law school, veterinary, odontology, and not necessarily the more popular courses, because our strategy is focused in DL, that is a fixed course that is important. This is the 11th consecutive quarter of growth in the student base. We have some momentary peaks, but this is a consistent execution. As I said, when we consider graduation and post-graduation, we have more than 1.2 million students studying at Kroton. In slide six, I think the first highlight is the revenue growth of 4.9%. You know that seasonality in the revenue is stronger in the odd quarters. It was reinforced by the fact that we had a strategy, especially with the marketing graph, as I mentioned in the first quarter, that was more concentrated.
So when you have a strategy to anticipate the enrollment with more marketing in the first quarter, you bring more revenue to the first quarter. So the revenue was growing 15% in the first quarter and 5% in the second one. This is not a point of concern to us because, as we said, we moved, in fact, the enrollment, so we anticipated with more marketing efforts in the first quarter. So when we analyze the semester, we grew 8.2 the semester. This is the proper way of analyzing it. So for some questions we had of being losing the speed of growth, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the seasonality of the recruitment, especially of new students in the first quarter, 4.9 in the second quarter. It's quite positive.
As a third item of my comments, I emphasize the growth in DL, 12.7%, as growth in Kroton Med. As I said, that is the pillars of our strategy. Now, slide seven, I talk about the financial performance. The growth was 3.8% in the gross profit in the quarter, different from the other semester, quarter because of the return to classes, so the expenses are greater in the second quarter with the allocation of preceptors and, hours of studying, and that's why we have this difference. But according to the normality, this is expected. I would just like to emphasize the growth in the gross profit in DL, growing 12% in the quarter and 17% in the semester. And remember that DL has the benefit of a high operational leverage.
That is because the greatest part of the costs are fixed. As our mixed students are going to a greater concentration of DL, it benefits, obviously, the total gross profit that grew in the semester with a growth margin of 0.3%, as you see in the slide, just to explain a little bit of the effect. So this is an important message. So we are growing gross margin in the operation. Slide eight, costs and expenses. I think the first highlight is the effort of efficiency and economy. The nominal expense, considering costs and expenses reduced from BRL 663-BRL 632. With inflation and deflation and growth in the student base, it shows the capacity of gaining efficiency. We grew 0.4% in operation, that is the reduction of fixed costs.
The company is greater, the operation is greater. The second is PDA, that we've been talking for more than three years. We have more financial quality in the students, we have important criteria in the negotiation, and the PDA dropped once again, 0.8 PP as the net revenue, which led to a reduction of five more days in the payment, and the receivables. It's quite healthy in the correct direction. Operating expenses with the gaining due to many items, especially processes and systems. I would like to emphasize the reduction in marketing. So this is something that was questioned in the first quarter due to change in the strategy and the concentration of marketing. So I said the marketing expenses would reduce in the second quarter, and nominally it did. We are spending BRL 10 million less compared to second Q 2023.
Also, as a percentage of the net revenue, that dropped to 1.4 PP, reinforcing the consistency of the strategy that we say we'll do is what the numbers prove. And looking to the future, our strategy is to invest more in marketing in the odd quarters, like the first and the third one, with growth in the second and fourth, with reduction in marketing expense. Now, the slide nine, as a consequence of everything I said, we have in the quarter an important growth in EBITDA, 18.4%, with a gain in the margin EBITDA. That is quite important as a reduction of cost and growth in the revenue. In the semester, we grew almost 10% in the EBITDA, with a small gain in the margin EBITDA.
This is an operation that, to my understanding, is quite healthy, especially looking ahead with a greater base of students in the second semester. That is positive from the point of view of results. With that, I finish the explanation of Kroton, and pass on the floor to Guilherme Mélega to talk more about Vasta.
Thank you, Roberto. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to start in slide 11 with the net revenue of Vasta. Well, in the second quarter, we have a small semester. Seasonally speaking, we had BRL 294 million in revenue, 8.5% growth, considering the second quarter of 2023. I emphasize our subscription business with ACV, that grew 32.5%.
As I said, seasonally, we would have a shift between the first and the second quarter, so we are still in line with the guidance that we had of 12% in the year. Analyzing the cycle, the commercial cycle of Vasta that goes from Q4 2023 until now, 2Q 2024, we have BRL 1.309 billion in revenue, 11% growth, mainly due to our ACV, with 13.8% growth in subscriptions, reaching BRL 1.052 billion. And I emphasize the B2G, that is our new business, that has BRL 69 million recorded in our cycle so far, so far. In slide 12, costs and expenses, we see an overview of the cycle accumulated, reaching BRL 886 million in cost, 8% growth compared to the same period of the previous cycle.
Remember, our revenue grew 11%, and costs only 8.2%. When we look at the percentage points of the revenue, we'll see that the total costs in the CMV has less pressure in paper and printing, representing 3 percentage points than the previous cycle. Operational expenses keep the search for constant synergy, and the growth of the company is still helping a lot in reducing the fixed costs, so we can save 2.4 percentage points. In fact, we are investing in marketing and sales expenses, so we need to invest in the previous cycle and the one that we have in the contract. So we are investing 2024 to have a good year in 2025.
So the investment in marketing and sales this year is greater, so we are investing for the year 2025, and the results so far for 2025 are quite promising. Slide 13, about the EBITDA. The quarter one reached BRL 22 million. Again, it's a small quarter, but in the cycle on the right, we see that we are reaching BRL 416 million in EBITDA in the cycle so far, which represents 17.4% growth. Additionally, we reached 31.8% EBITDA margin, with a gain of 1.7 point percent in growth and marketing, and we are having margin in our company. So I think it's good to invest in growth and gain on margin. So my final message is that we are quite optimistic with what we will have for 2025.
The B2G has a very heated pipeline, and we hope for new contracts in the third and fourth quarters, and August is an important month that will have Liceu Pasteur that is starting the flagship here in São Paulo. It's a centennial school, and the launch will be on August 27, when we'll also launch our campaign for 2025 enrollment. Now I pass on the floor to Fred Villa to keep on with the presentation.
Good morning, everyone. I'll start the presentation on slide 15, talking about Saber. I start the presentation with net revenue, both in the quarter and in the semester. Note that in the quarter, we had a reduction in the net revenue. This can be explained mainly for the sale of the SETS business unit. We sold this company. We finished the sales on May 24.
If we disconsider the effect of the revenue in June 2023 for a proper comparison with that, the net revenue would reduce 11.8%. This is a market with low margins and with a gradual reduction in size, and we wouldn't like to focus on the future, so that's why we sell. The positive news is that we see for the quarter is the something positive that we are sure about the leverage in growth for the second quarter. That is the result of improvement in educational solutions in the public market. It was better than expected for the quarter and semester, so we keep with the expectation for the second quarter. In the semester, we had a growth of 21.5% in revenue, explained mainly by the improvement in educational solutions in the public market.
We keep looking ahead and analyzing the seasonality between what happened in the first and second semester. Note in the comparison with the previous years, that the second semester in Saber, mainly due to the national program of books, is quite stronger than the second one. That's why we keep reinforcing our trust in reaching our goal. Now going to slide 16, talking about recurring EBITDA and EBITDA margin. In the quarter, we've had a reduction in performance, mainly in SETS business, and a temporal detachment to the national program of books that was pushed to the second semester. However, in the fair comparison of the quarter and semester, remember in 2023, we had an impact in our EBITDA in the reversion of suppliers. So if we had this effect, I would have the same basis to compare.
In the semester, as I mentioned before, in the revenue, we had a growth of 17.4% in our EBITDA in the semester, reaching BRL 37.5 million, which gives us confidence to reach the guidance. As we mentioned in the last Cogna day, we had a guidance in Saber from BRL 200 million-BRL 300 million. Now, to finish the presentation of Cogna, we now have the sum of the business explained by Roberto of Kroton and with Guilherme of Vasta, and what I explained before with the Saber. So our net revenue in the quarter, we had a growth of 4%, reaching BRL 1.441 billion. Just remember that we had the growth in all our business in the semester. So in the semester, we grew Kroton 8.3%, Vasta 12%, and Saber 21%.
So I think the way we are following to reach our guidance is okay, and we are strong in all business units. They all grow consistently in revenue in the semester. And in the quarter, we grew the revenue both in Kroton, that was 4.9%, and we grew the revenue in Vasta, growing 8.5%, as I explained before. Only in Saber the revenue decreased. Now going to the EBITDA and the margin, we will see in the slide 19, that we had a quarter with a double-digit growth in the quarter and in the semester. In the quarter, we reached a recurring EBITDA of BRL 482 billion, with a growth of 13.1%, with a margin of 33.4%.
In the semester, we reached a recurring EBITDA of BRL 971 million, with a growth of 11.2%, and the margin growing 32.8%. We had a gain in margin of 2.7 percentage points and 0.5 percentage point in the semester, demonstrating the company's ability to keep growing profitability. In slide 20, we'll talk about the adjusted net profit we've had here. A positive one, mainly due to the increase in the operational result and the reduction of non-recurring items that happened with this improvement in 2023 to 2024. We have here the quarter reaching BRL 50 million, about that, with a growth of 360%. In the semester, a slight decrease, and the adjusted net profit reaching BRL 101 million.
I'll mention in the next slide, but the profit was affected by our swaps mark-to-market with an effect of BRL 53 million. This is the non-cash effect, but it passed through the financial result, and here we had an impact on the net profit, and we didn't adjust the profit. Now, in slide 21, the operating cash generation. So we had a generation in the second quarter of BRL 97 billion. In the second quarter 2023, it was 171, about a reduction of 43%. What happened that I'd like to explain was that we had more payments of suppliers, so when I look at the cash flow, we see that we paid more suppliers, about BRL 84 million .
So there is an effect between the payment of the suppliers in the quarter, and we also had synergies in the internal teams. So those synergies of internal teams provided a better result in personal expense in the future, consequently, less payment of personnel in the future. However, I had the payment recorded in non-recurring items of BRL 12.9 million. In the second quarter, we believe and we understand the seasonality of the business. As I mentioned, in Saber, we have the seasonality, and it this is historical. Our second semester is quite stronger than the first one. And as Mélega mentioned, our second semester in Vasta is much better than our first semester. Additionally, I would like to say that as we increase in recruiting and we have less dropouts, we reinforce our trust in bottom as well.
In slide 22, I'll talk about leverage and indebtedness. The leverage keeps constant compared to the second quarter 2023 and the first quarter, but note the improvement regarding the second quarter compared to the second quarter 2023. That was 1.98 x, and now we reached 1.79. I'd like to mention in our leverage that it was constant, mainly due to the effect, as I mentioned, of the market and our swap. The swap of the debts that we have in IPCA+, we changed it for CDI, and the impact of the MTM, that is the non-cash impact, that at the moment we have the debt, we want the CDI. So we had a synthetic swap, the debts that we have, IPCA+, we changed all of them to CDI+ as well.
What happened is that this time detachment to the market is recorded in our financial expenses in BRL 53 million. Additionally, as we had our liability management project, not considering the results in the short term, but future results, we changed the debt. That is what I will explain in the next slide. However, we had to make some anticipation in payment of interest. We anticipated BRL 103 million, as explained in our release. Slide 23, I'd like to bring a case study of our renegotiations of our liability. So in the negotiations that we had, we have all of them in slides, that in 2024 we had CDI+ 1.33 and compared to 2023, it was CDI+ 1.70, 2022 CDI+ 2.16, which shows an increase in our costs of capital.
The example that I bring to you, that we also have, the amortization of that, so we'll left BRL 1.846 billion at the cost of CDI+ 241, and then we had, the spread, the cost of 1.44- the difference for 1.44 to 1.33 is the debts that we have with BNDES, with a percentage of 60% of CDI bringing this cost of capital that is more adequate to the company. I'd like to show you that all this work and effort is considered along the period. It's not only in the first or second or third quarter, but it considers the whole year with the value present of the debt in tens of millions BRL.
Now, my last slide, I would like to show you the process of liability management. On June 30, 2024, the company has a cash of BRL 935 million with a net debt of BRL 3.033 billion. We had a reduction of net debt of 1.2% compared to the second quarter in the second quarter of 2024. And I'd like to reinforce the message of the agenda of. In this slide, the graph below. So in 2024, we needed the amortization schedule of BRL 1.455 billion that we reached, and we only have to have BRL 118 million of amortization with negotiation and enlarged our debt. So in 2025, we would have BRL 1.5 billion, and now it's BRL 900 million in 2025, with a displacement in the long term.
Looking to the year of 2027, I had this displacement. I would have BRL 300 million and now BRL 900 million. So the message is that we rebalanced our debt, increasing the time and having the real cost, where our generation of EBITDA and operational cash will bring to the company a constant process of leverage with a reduction of interest, with more cash and more real interest in the company. With that, I finish my brief presentation, and I pass on the floor to Roberto Valério.
Thank you, Fred. Now going to the last slide with the final messages and analyzing 2024, the second half of 2024, and also looking ahead the company's view. Remember that we have the six strategic pillars that we follow with a lot of discipline.
The first one, obviously, is growth, and what will support the growth of the company and the revenue is the growing of new students and the reduced dropout of Kroton that I mentioned a lot. The expansion of subscription business and B2G at Vasta, that Mélega also mentioned, and his trust regarding the growth of the subscriptions for 2025 as well. Besides the positive seasonality, as Fred mentioned, and then and PNLD in Saber in the second quarter 2024, especially the fourth one. From the point of view of experience, we are diligent in searching for constant improvement in the experience, not only of the students, but also the B2B clients, the schools, as government.
As we are growing more and more in this segment, we follow the NPS of all clients in all business lines, the NPS for undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, and schools that is good with all the processes, with the focus and the experience of the client. So we hope that the churn of students and schools is lower and lower over time, and it will push the results of the companies. But I would like to emphasize especially one premium that is quite important, that is the best education company in customer satisfaction by MESC. This is something done directly with client, with Google Tools. This is an open survey. It's a great census showing how strong what we are doing is, and we are quite happy with this acknowledgement. From the point of view of efficiency, we'll keep investing in innovation.
Innovation has not only to do only with innovation; it's also redesigning processes, organization, system conversation, digitalization of things we do manually, intensive use of AI. We have more than 50 projects of AI running in the company, bringing not only a cost economy, but also improvement in the experience to the client, with a fast response. And I understand all this investment, thinking of the financial efficiency and client satisfaction will keep generation, generating profitability. From the point of view of culture, collaboration, results, and focus on client, this is something important to us. This is something that we say every day. It's a guidance to our team, and we were acknowledged for the third following year as the Great Place to Work. It's not what we say, it's what the market says.
In innovation, we were quite happy that we were recognized on Monday as the most innovative company in the education sector, with the most important innovation award in Brazil, that is, Valor Inovação Brasil. Cogna is not only the best in the segment of education, but is among the 30 most innovative in the country, and we know that we are among them when we have all the segments of the company. It's not an easy challenge. We are quite happy to reach that. We reached more than 90% in the ranking from last year to this year, so it reinforces everything we are doing here.
The last highlight is at ESG, that we disclosed the first integrated report assured by an external audit, and this report obviously strengthens everything we are doing from the point of view of sustainability, transparency, governance, so we are quite happy with this delivery. I finish with a quote that Fred mentioned, that we reach in the first half of the year, aware that we will deliver the guidance of 2024 due to two factors: that is the relevant growth of Kroton that will push the growth of revenues and results in the second semester. Besides the seasonality that historically is quite positive in Vasta and Saber, especially in the fourth quarter, that will push our EBITDA and cash generation to finish the year. With that, I finish the presentation, and we open for questions. Thank you.
Now we start the Q&A session.
Please remember that to ask questions, you must click the icon Q&A in the bottom part of the screen and write your questions to be in line. When invited, you have a request to open your mic on your screen, and then you open your mic to make your questions. We ask please that the questions are made all at once. Now let's go on to the first question from Lucca Marquezini, Sell-side Analyst from Itaú. Lucca, the floor is yours. Sorry, we'll have the next question from Mr. Marcelo Santos, Sell-side Analyst from JPMorgan. Mr. Marcelo, please.
Good morning, everyone, Roberto, Fred, Mélega. Thank you for the opportunity of asking questions. I have two.
I'd like to know if you could give a little bit of the perspective of intake to the second half of the year in the many segments, and mention a little the competitive environment that you see, both in presential and DL. I mean, on-site and DL. Thank you.
Thank you, Marcelo. I'll take the first question here. We are still in the middle of the, we have a lot to do, but from the point of view of direction, I can tell you that the presential and the, on-site and DL modalities, especially the ones with labs and more, on-site work, we see a good growth. These are product lines that are going on, especially in DL. The digital census has a little bit more competitiveness.
Some discount and sales and price reduction offer, but we still have a lot to do in this sense. But as a highlight, I would say that the most positive of on-site and hybrid is okay, and more competition in DL.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Rafael Barros, Sell-side Analyst, XP. Rafael, we'll open your audio to make your questions. Please, you may go on.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for my question. I have two questions here. First, I'd like to understand, 'cause we saw that the average ticket in the three segments of Kroton was somehow forgotten, and then you mentioned that the biggest share of new students was one of the causes. I would like to understand, because the maturation of basis should improve this number for the next quarters. And how is the prices being repassed? And this is the first question.
The second one, if you can give an idea, an overview-
of how the company understands the recent discussions of a more strict regulation of DL, and how it should impact the company?
Rafael, thank you for your question. Well, regarding the average ticket, I think there are two effects that are very important to mention. The first one is, as our strategy is more focused in DL, therefore, with a mix of recruitment that is more focused in DL, as you saw in the graphs I presented. So it makes the average entry ticket higher than the dropout or I'm sorry, than the graduations, because the students in the bases have a more mixed on-site. The second effect is that naturally, the students that are graduating, that are leaving the bases, have had three, sometimes four inflation readjustments, 'cause sometimes we are repassing even more than inflation. So the students are graduated with a higher average ticket. So they enter with a lower ticket.
Due to inflation, they are more concentrated in DL, so it pressures the tickets a little bit more. This is the general explanation. Now, looking at the future, I think it will keep reducing as the on-site bases will also reduce the burden in our mix of total bases. The price repass that you asked, well, from the point of view of recruitment, we have a lot of competition. We cannot repass the prices in the recruitment, but we can do that in the re-enrollment. At the moment, the students celebrate their time there. We've been repassing even more than inflation, and it's nothing new. For some cycles we've been doing that. Regarding regulation, we've been following not only Cogna, but all the sector with all the associations that we participate with other players.
We can see that, and we've been quite close to the discussions with the Ministry of Education. There was a first meeting of the CNE parties and members of the associations that participated in this meeting with the Ministry of Education, and the feedback that we've had is that this first discussion was quite positive, with the ministry quite open to open us and even setting visits to know our DL operations in loco, which is quite positive, not only for us, but other players invite the ministry for that, and they've been doing that for many years. But in general, the ministry don't visit, but the fact of being there and visiting us, I think is quite positive. Obviously, it's too early to say what will go on.
As we know, the ministry wants to have a new regulation until the end of the year, but at this moment, I don't see any point of attention. I think the dialogue will be very positive. The effect that we've already had is this change in the mix of on-site and education courses. We adjust; it's not a big base of students, and besides, of the companies and especially us, we know how to operate with the hybrid courses in DL, so I don't see a relevant impact to our results. Okay? I think this is what I can tell you at this moment.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mauricio Cepeda, Sell-side Analyst of Credit Suisse. We'll open your audio so that you make your questions. Mauricio, please, the floor is yours.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for this space. I have two questions. The first is trying to understand the cash conversion. We see that the cash conversion was lower this quarter, and it generally is, in absolute terms, far from what you see as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA. The point is a little bit more of the factors involved in that than what we can wait for the future if it's a matter of turning capital. When I saw variations of the cash and use more and use less more, and the problem is, if EBITDA is adjusted by non-cash EBITDA, then if you have non-adjusted ones that are non-cash. So what is in that, and what should we expect for that in terms of cash conversion?
And the second question is regarding the SES, you classified that as recurring, but I understand it's a reversion of provision. Then how does it deal with the cash if you were collecting that somehow judicially or not, if there will be some cash effect, what can we expect from that? Thank you.
Hi, Cepeda. Fred here. I'll answer both your questions. The first question about the cash conversion, well, in fact, we've had a cash conversion that was lower in the second quarter. In DL, analyzing the working capital, I could pay more suppliers, as I explained before, BRL 84 million. So if you analyze suppliers plus working capital and considering everything, I have a reduction on the results.
So I had to pay BRL 84 million, but our understanding here is that this is temporary, and we keep using the risk due mainly to the detachment between the revenue. So we use that to buy paper, to buy cash paper, and in the graph in the printing house in Saber and Somos. So I have that naturally because my revenue and my cash come from the cycle of the second semester. Additionally, you asked about the additional effect with the non-recurring events. So we had operational efficiency in the personnel, and it was about BRL 13 million-BRL14 million . So it is not in my EBITDA, but it is in my cash. So we are talking about BRL 13 million-BRL 14 million . So these were the two big effects that we've had.
Talking about your first question about the S system, this is processes that we've had since 2021, and these processes, we've had questions about collecting the money, about all the S taxes, and in the S system we provisioned, and it has always gone through our EBITDA in previous years. However, we had a preliminary, and we didn't pay for that. So in our EBITDA, we've had BRL 34 million. In our release, we showed that, and BRL 6 million is from the period. It's not from the previous period, so 29 would be from the previous period, and this is an effect, a non-cash effect. This is an effect of competence. Looking ahead, it was discussed in the Supreme Court, and from now on, companies are obliged to provision and collect the S system.
I'd like to mention something important to our businesses, that if we remove the effect of the Sistema S from previous periods, we would see that it has always been in our EBITDA, so it's passing through the EBITDA the same way. It's not projected. I wouldn't have an S system in the second semester or in the year of 2025 or 2026, but it penalized my EBITDA in the previous years. But I would like to mention something important to you here, that is, if I look at the EBITDA of Kroton and the greatest effect of S was in Kroton. So we've seen a growth in the quarter of 18%. If I exclude the effect of BRL 29 million, I now have a growth in the quarter of 11.1%. The same if I did the same for the semester.
I keep having growth and expansion in my business. My EBITDA is growing more than my revenue, and this effect in Cogna is also true. So making the same math, if I grew my EBITDA in the quarter, 13.1% in Cogna, if I exclude. And then anyone has their analysis, and ours is that I can-- I can't penalize one year and not be benefited in the other one, so my recurring EBITDA in Cogna would grow 6.3%.
Thank you, Fred. Just to emphasize your point about cash generation, because I mentioned that we are quite aware about the cash generation in the second quarter. His explanation is perfect. This time, affecting the working capital due to the account of reducing suppliers naturally balances throughout the semester, reaching the levels that we historically have.
That's why Fred is mentioning that, just to emphasize.
Okay, thank you, Roberto.
Thank you, Cepeda.
Our next question is from Yan Cesquim, Sell-side Analyst of BTG Pactual. We'll open your mic so that you make your questions. Yan, please, the floor is yours.
Good morning, Valério, Fred, Mélega Muzak, everyone. I'd like to make two questions here. The first is a follow-up on Rafael about the DL regulation. I understand that the sector as a whole is trying to understand how this discussion will progress with the ministry, but we already have some preliminary decisions until the new regulation is in fact published until the end of the year, among which we'll have the limitations to open new posts and courses, and we'll be there until March 25.
I'd like to know if you see any impact in this limitation in the short term, thinking about the recruiting for the second semester of 2024 and the first one in 2025, if you see something in this sense. I'd like to ask a question about B2G and try to understand how you can deliver the B2G for the rest of the year, if you believe it will—what can be incorporated in new contracts for this year? Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Yan, for your question. I'll get the first one, and Mélega, the second one. Regarding regulation, you mentioned three points that are wonderful for us to give examples, because there is some problems in opening new polos and courses and spots for 2025. This is not a concern to me regarding 2025. Our distribution network is quite big.
We have more than 3,000 polls. We are where we believe we should be. It doesn't affect our plan, especially because this is temporary, I believe. At some point, we'll be back, but we didn't have ambitious plans for this period. So that related to polls. So about courses, our portfolio is quite broad. Additional courses to be launched are niched courses, adding marginally in the recruitment. So I understand your portfolio is quite complex, it doesn't affect. And in terms of openings, and the media discusses that a lot, we have a lot of openings in all courses, so there will be no limitation of enrollment due to the small amount of openings. There's no concern about it. So to answer directly your question, I don't see any risk in affecting our recruitment for 2025. Mélega?
Thank you, Yan.
Just a little bit more about B2G. Just remember that we work in the B2B—B2G with customized solutions, focusing a lot on big public companies. We launched that last year, and one contract got mature quite fast. We are quite satisfied with the performance. It's in the state of Pará. And at the same moment, we started with many prospections, and we have a very strong pipeline in many of these networks, and we've been discussing for more than a year. So our expectation is that we mature new contracts in the second semester. We are quite optimistic about the B2G, and I believe the cycle of conversion of the contract, we are learning now, and we have quite a heated pipeline. So just to explain, you can explain—expect new, revenues in the second semester in the B2G.
Thank you, Valério and Mélega.
Our next question is from Leandro Bastos, Sell-side Analyst, Citi. We'll open your mic so that you can ask your questions. Leandro, please, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Good morning. Two questions that I'd like to ask. First, about marketing, because of the seasonality, and I know what the problems you face, especially considering the first semester with the pressure and distance. So I would like to understand if the idea for the second semester would be the same, if you can comment on that. This is the first question. Then the second one is talking about recruitment, and I understand the message. If you see a better scenario, if you see more competition in 100% online or hybrid. So what is the relevance of this volume that you see on the online market and the pressure as a whole?
If this competition is still wins, lighter volumes for online, or it's a matter of price and competition. That's it. Thank you.
Well, Leandro, thank you for your question. Now I'll answer. Regarding marketing, I reinforce the point that in the second quarter, we reduced it notably, and we'll have the seasonality with a greater concentration in the first and the third quarters. Our plan would be to invest more in marketing the year it was in our budget. We would bring in this, visibility to the market. Our preference is to invest in marketing with the percentage of the, net revenue, and our understanding is that it will be stable. What we'll expand in marketing is stable with the percentage of the net revenue comparing 2023 and 2024.
Obviously, there is some seasonality, but this is our view, especially because marketing, as I've said before, is not only kept recruiting, but the creating the brand and consolidating the image perception. So there is some investment in this sense. Regarding DL, I think I can't give a lot of information from the competition point of view, but I think the main point in DL is a greater competition, especially because it is a market with more demand, more distribution, and is present in more points of sale. So when we see a reduction in prices, it obviously makes the ability of growth of any player reduced. But I think this is what I can tell you now. It's more competitive from the point of view of prices.
We have a lot of the cycle ahead when classes start, enrollment speed up, and we started the classes this week, so it's still early to give more information regarding the volume in DL.
Thank you. Have a nice day.
The next question is from Marcio Osako , Sell-side Analyst, Bradesco. Please, open your audio so that you can ask your question. Marcio, please, you may go on.
Good morning, everyone. I'd like to ask two questions. The first about medicine. If you can tell us, how was the relation in candidates and opportunities for this year and last year? And if you can say, please, a little bit about how you see the perspective to the future with the increase in the positions, with the judicial decisions, and with the basic rates of [Foreign language] .
So how do you see this balance and the sustainability of the payments in medicine courses, and if you are using, and if there is a space for financing medicine courses? So this is specifically about medicine. And the second question is for you to talk a little bit about the leverage that you have in the second semester for the division of Kroton. I think you partially responded that, 'cause marketing will improve regard compared to the first quarter semester, I'm sorry, but do you have anything else with the guidance? These are the two questions. Thank you.
Thank you for your questions, Marcio. Let's see. Medicine. We've seen a small drop in the relation in terms of candidates.
I think when we analyze the average, there is a small drop because some units have more competition than others, but we are not a big player in this sense. So maybe my experience, my view in Kroton Med is more limited than b ecause we have less units than the competition. As our medicine units, some, at least half of them, are quite traditional in that in making their presence with the strength of the brand in the city and the state, so we don't see a relevant impact of candidates. Some are even growing the relations, but on average, I can tell you that there is a small reduction. Looking to the future, I believe that the medicine courses will be divided in two tiers.
One, with the reputation course, with good locations, the ones that will repass, the prices with a healthy relation, and the others, without those conditions, will suffer more. I believe our schools are in areas with a lot of attraction of students and with traditional brands and, or are in cities with, repressed demands in regions of Brazil that make it quite big. But this is a characteristic, and I can extrapolate that to the market, and I reinforce my view here once again, that our position is lower than other players. So this is a little bit of our experience. Regarding Kroton guidance, the growth and the delivery of results of EBITDA and Kroton generation, cash generation in Kroton, come from this greater base of students and the improvement of, re-enrollment and improvement in underpayment, and even with the charges in more efficient systems.
I think all that will keep pushing Kroton and bringing this concentration to the second semester. We are— We trust that a lot, and we see that in the results. Even when I mention the courses and expenses, we see a lot of gain and efficiency in our line. It's not a specific one.
Thank you, Valério. Can you talk a little bit about the financing, funding in medicine? Do you think there is a space for more possibilities or private funding, if necessary?
Well, I'm sorry about the I forgot this part. Yes, we use FIES, especially as a mechanism to fund the students. We are using a lot some partnerships with private institutions. We are small, with just a few penetration in private funding in medicine. Given space for us to potentially explore a little bit more, we are analyzing that.
Okay.
Thank you, Roberto.
The next question is from Mirela Oliveira, Sell-side Analyst, Bank of America . We'll open your question so that we'll open your audio to ask your questions. Mirela, please, the floor is yours.
Good afternoon. I'd like to know about the ticket repass with this better movement. Do you see some margin to repass more the prices for those new students so that will be old students in the next semester for us to understand the trend of speeding up or reducing the speed of revenue for the rest of the year? And the second question is regarding the margin in the second semester. What do you see as the main challenges? You mentioned the main upsides in the previous question, but I would like to understand the lines of attention. Thank you.
Mirela, thank you for your questions.
I'll answer the first, and Fred answers the second one. So regarding repassing the prices, I don't see space to increase the prices for new students. I see space to repass some points above the inflation to the old students, especially because as our base is more concentrated in DL and the average ticket is lower. The nominal growth and the payment is lower, so when we look at a course, a student that is entering with BRL 200 , it's different from a on-site course that starts with BRL 900-BRL 1,000 . Even if we repass two or three points above inflation to an average ticket that is lower, we can repass nominally more, so in terms of value of the payment, we can repass more. So I think the student can pay that.
The student who decides to study and is engaged, if they have a good experience, it won't be some money more that will make them cancel. As the market is competitive, obviously, the consumers choose for the best price, but when they are in the bases and they are satisfied with the experience and the product, we can repass above the inflation, and I truly believe we'll keep doing that. And I think Fred will answer the second question.
Yes, talking about the expense cost, as Roberto mentioned about opportunities, I'll a nd you asked about the challenges. Well, note that it's important to mention here that we are not growing the expenses in Kroton. We didn't even grow the inflation. So when I look at the first semester, we have a gain in efficiency, but we don't gain inflation.
So our courses, mainly the payroll of professors and all the expenses related to the business, they have the inflation repass, so it shows our efficiency, what we had in the first semester, and we see as an opportunity to the second semester. Here, we have internal processes that are reflecting in our non-recurrent as a whole in personnel efficiency. So we have in the corporate here and in the area supporting Kroton, a reduction in teams. We don't believe we are forgetting quality, but we'll also recruit for the second semester. And as an opportunity or challenge, we have the PCLD, 'cause we are talking about that, and it reflects in dropout. We don't have a problem in this sense today, mainly due to recruiting students that are students who pay.
They are in our bases, so we don't see a problem. We follow that month after month, and we keep trusting that if you analyze from 2020 to 2024, our underpayment, that, with the metrics that I like to use, has some amount close to 10%-11%, some quarters a little less, considering the odd and even quarters. So we have here challenges, but challenges are also opportunities. Our expectation is in the second semester, that we convert what we had in the first semester.
Okay, thank you very much.
Our next question is from Lucca Marquezini, Sell-side Analyst, Itaú. We'll open your audio for question. Lucca, please, the floor is yours.
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can.
Okay, thank you, and sorry for the technical issue. We would like to know about dropout.
We would have dropout, especially in DL, if you could comment on the drivers for that, if we can consider this new level as a more sustainable one from now on. If you could explore that a little bit more, it would help us. Thank you.
Hi, Lucca. Thank you for your question. I guess so. You can consider an improvement in dropout over time. I think dropout is always. The improvement in dropout is the effect of a set of actions that is carried out over time. It's not one quarter that will structurally make it drop, decrease. But here, the main drivers is that we've been talking about that, for some years. I mean, having a lot of students in credit, schools.
We want the students to be aware that they read the contract, that they paid, that they know how much they will pay. It's not that we are analyzing the student's credit, but there is a lot of barriers in the conversion that make us acknowledge, as a student and as a revenue, the ones that we know that are in fact engaged. This is the first aspect, and the commercial team is doing that quite well. It's not one period that will make this improvement.
And the second important factor is all the improvement of the experience, the student's experience with the onboarding and how the experience, the digital experience of the student is, the experience with the professors, the process, if the payment is on date, if they can choose the disciplines. And we are dedicating a lot to analyzing each process, each detail, to see what are the aspects we can improve in the students' experience, removing some friction that might be there, or anticipating to things students might request due to the progression of the year. And it has increased the academic engagement and more participation to the classes, and more constant and daily entries in the virtual environment, and less problems financially speaking. So all that has pushed our dropout in a positive way, therefore improving it, and it's not something specific, it's a trend.
Maybe the team can talk to you in more details later on, for you to understand, if it is your intention.
Perfect, Valério, thank you very much.
The Q&A session is over. We would like now to pass on the floor to the final considerations of the company.
Well, thank you for following this call for the results of the third quarter. As usual, I thank the Cogna team, our 24,000 workers that are helping us all the time to improve and search for more efficiency to our shareholders. Our RI team is available to any follow-up you might need. Thank you. Have a nice day.
The teleconference on the results regarding the second quarter of 2024 of Cogna Educação is over. The Department of Relations with Investors is available to answer the other questions you might have. Thank you very much to the participants. Have a nice day!