There you can see the material for our result disclosure also available. You can ask questions via the chat, even in English. During the presentation, all participants will have their mics muted. Afterwards, we will start the Q&A session. To ask your questions, click the Q&A icon in the bottom part of your screen and write your question to be in line. When called, there will be a request for you to unmute your mic. You unmute your mic and ask the questions. We suggest that questions are done all at once. Before going on, we would like to clear that eventual declarations that are made during this teleconference by people about the business perspectives and financial projections are the premises of the administration of the company, just like the information available to Cogna now.
Future considerations are not a guarantee of performance, and it involves risks and uncertainties in the premises and future events. Therefore, depending on the circumstances that may or not happen, investors must understand the general conditions and other operational factors that can affect the future results of Cogna and can lead to results different materially from the ones expected in future conditions. I'd like now to pass on the floor to Mr. Roberto Valério, Cogna CEO, to start his presentation. Please, Mr. Valério, you may go on.
Good morning, everyone. I could see that her voice was not very nice. She was having problems in the transmissions. I will go on. If you believe there will be a problem if you can't hear well, we may stop and check for a solution. Anyways, good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating at the teleconference to discuss the first quarter of 2025 of Cogna Educação. We have here in this call Frederico Villa, our Financial Vice President, and Guilherme Melegari, the Director of Vasta. As usual, this call will take about one hour, about 40 minutes of presentation, followed by 20 minutes for the Q&A. I'd like to start my presentation in slide three with the message of the management because we are very happy with a good quarter with great results. This is the 16th followed quarter with EBITDA growing and increasing cash generation.
It's a good quarter. The revenue reached BRL 1.6 billion, 5.8% growth compared to 2024. This revenue was pushed by Kroton that had a strong growth, 18.8% compared to the trimesters. I would like to start by emphasizing that specific decreases in the revenue of Vasta and Saber are not a point of concern. We will discuss that during this call. The core of the business is quite good. It is like a temporal mismatch in the revenue. The growth in the revenue obviously allowed us to grow in double digits in recurring EBITDA, 12% compared to the quarters. It was not an absolute growth, but also an expansion of margin in 2.0 percentage points here with an important contribution of Kroton that despite having lower revenue had a good result in EBITDA that was quite positive. As I said, it was the 16th quarter with growth in EBITDA, good results.
We understand that the best and new information that we understand are the best ones in the quarter are the ones following the presentation that are basically the net profit and operational cash after CapEx and free cash, as we've said in the fourth quarter 2024. We have it quite clear that the fourth quarter was the beginning of a new scenario to the company. That is a scenario of continuous net profit in all quarters, considering the efficiency of the company and the size of our EBITDA, as well as the reduction of financial expenses that have leveraged our net profit. As a consequence, our profit was BRL 55 million, with a growth of more than BRL 100 million, reverting the losses in the first quarter of 2024. That would be BRL 8.5 million. Post-CapEx cash generation, it's very important, 19% reaching BRL 250 million.
The same indicator in the first quarter was BRL 210 million. We had 19% growth. I think this is very good information in the generation of free cash reaching BRL 150 million in this sense, which is 16x greater than the first quarter of 2024. The GCL of 2024 in the first quarter was BRL 9.5 million, and now we reached BRL 150 million. In fact, it is a new moment for the company where the net profit, GCO and GCL are the good positive indicators showing important growth. Obviously, with these results, especially in the cash, the net debt decreased this quarter. We reduced BRL 66 million. Please remember, it could be a little more if we have not had BRL 60 million in share buybacks. That is one of the ways that we see in our strategy to return capital to our shareholders.
We had BRL 66 million in the reduction of net debt in the quarter, even with the BRL 6 million of buybacks in the first quarter. Just to reinforce, we've had also BRL 25 million in buybacks in the fourth quarter. We account for BRL 85 million in buybacks. Just emphasizing here, the net debt, if we compare the net debt in the last 12 months, we reduced more than BRL 460 million of net debt with the results of the company. With that, the reduction in the leverage had to keep going, and we kept reducing the leverage. In the first quarter, we reached 1.3x the EBITDA compared to 1.8 in the first quarter 2024. Just remember that we made some payments now in May of BRL 120 million of dividends that was approved in the annual general meeting.
This is another way of returning money to the shareholders. Besides the buybacks, we also paid the dividends and look ahead in this perspective of generating net profits all trimesters, and we'll probably keep distributing dividends considering 2026 with the results of 2025. Now going to the next slide to talk a little bit about Kroton. We obviously keep the standard of the presentation, so you can see the first graph of intake with 1.5% growth in the volume of intake. Remember that we report that with the ProUni students that are important, they generate a cost. Obviously, they are part of our database of students, but they do not generate revenue. As you know, and we've been talking about it for almost five years, the important thing to us is the amount of revenue in the intake.
Therefore, what is important to us is the amount of students that grow paying. So here we had a proxy and the volume of intake grew 6.5%, excluding ProUni, and considering only the ones generating revenue, the intake was quite positive in the presencial, almost 10% growth. This is our greatest growth since the beginning of the pandemic in this segment. We are quite happy with this result. Kroton Med grew also 12.5%, more concentrated in distance education, and we have medicine that are presented online because we have medicine in all institutions, but they are not only medicine courses. And the distance online courses grew 6.5% in volume. I'd like to emphasize the intake revenue that is the most important to us, P versus key. Obviously, it's important, but the most important is having constant growth in revenue, and it was 23%. We are quite satisfied with that.
It's very important because it drives the revenue over the year. The growth was above 6.5% in volume because the mix was more concentrated in high-presential courses. That is, the presential courses and the ones that have presential classes in the online courses. And the base of students keeps growth. It is the fifth quarter of growth in the students' base, 8.3%, with growth in all segments emphasizing Kroton Med that grew nine and online nine. In the last quarter, it grew a little, now 3.5%. From the point of view of average ticket, as I mentioned, the average ticket of Kroton Med dropped 10 percentage points due to the mix, the presential onsite 2 percentage points. Remember, our onsite strategy is high LPV courses like Law, Veterinary, and Odontology that are the most expensive ones, and online also grew.
This growth is related not only to more intake of courses, but also the ability of repairs, the inflation to the old students. This is something we do currently. In the next slide, we'll talk about the financial performance. As I said, the net revenue grew 18.8%. Obviously, it is pushed by the growth in the intake, as I mentioned before, 23%. The re-enrollment base grew 10%. We have 8.3% of growth in volume, as I mentioned in the previous slide, plus the increase in the ticket. As our re-enrollment rates are better, it is helping a lot in generating revenue. I think it's also important to emphasize, as we always do, to make it clear that this is the second quarter where the movement of discounting renegotiations that until the third quarter of 2024 were reducing the revenue. Now they are recorded in the PCLD.
When we compare both years, we have to take into consideration that these discounts are now in the PCLD and not in the revenue. As I always say, an increase in the revenue when we have a structured asset light, as we do with more fixed than variable courses, there is no other way than improving the gross profit and the margin. We had an expansion here of 1.5%, which is a reflex of the operational leverage of the online courses with more fixed costs. In the onsite, with a greater volume of intake of students, we could have a better amount of students per class, which generates a big primary margin. Kroton Med, as it is a business that grows in Kroton with great margins, contributes to this primary margin for it to grow.
In the next slide, we'll talk a little about the costs and expenses. It was quite positive in terms of gaining productivity. I would call your attention to the first point, that is what I mentioned before, that is the reduction of direct costs of 1.5%. We could also have efficient reduction in operational expenses, 1.6%. This is the result of improvement in processes, systems, and team vision, reduction expenses, and personnel because we are improving everything with AI to gain on efficiency. Marketing and sales expenses, we were able to save a little on these expenses. We can explore that a little more in the Q&A. On January and February, we had very good months from the point of view of growth.
October, November, December were not good months to grow the intake, but January and February were very good, and we could see we could grow volume and revenue. We grew 26% in the intake without investing that much in marketing. We reduced a little of the marketing expenses in the first quarter. Corporate expenses, despite we are gaining 19.9%, this is transient. In the second quarter, we'll have a little more expenses and corporate expenses. It is a transient gain. The last item that is PCLD overhaul, we have 3 percentage points compared to the same quarter last year, but due to the reclassification of the discounts that we're now reducing revenues and now impacting PCLD. In terms of dropouts and PCLD, we are stable. There is no significant move in the PCLD. With that, we gained a good positive margin of 4.7%.
We grew 35% in the EBITDA compared to the quarters in Kroton. With that, I finish Kroton and pass on to Guilherme Melegari to comment Vasta.
Thank you, Roberto. I'll go on to slide 9, mentioning the net revenue of Vasta. In this first quarter, we had a seasonal effect of the B2G. Last year, we had a concentration of acknowledgment of revenue of BRL 69 million to date. This year is BRL 5 million, but BRL 5 million of new contracts, and the contracts that comprise these BRL 69 million will have another seasonality over the year. I emphasize here ACV in the quarter with a growth of 12%, reaching BRL 400 million. When we analyze the cycle, that is always the best way of analyzing our business, we reach BRL 1,129 million in revenue, 11% growth. The highlight is ACV with acknowledgment of 17%.
When we dismount this 17%, 15% is what we call the core disciplines, core content, and 24% growth in complementary solutions. We keep following the line of our strategy of having the B2B strong and growing with the complementary teaching systems. Now going to the next slide, slide 10, we can see our expenses in the quarter in percentage terms due to the seasonality that I mentioned before. We had less revenue. The percentages are the one that makes less sense to analyze the business. I will emphasize some points here, and I emphasize the operational expenses, corporate expenses, that is, I'm sorry, operating expenses with a reduction of BRL 9 million compared to the same quarter last year. It is the result of a lot of efficiency that we are searching in our company.
Regarding commercial and marketing expenses, we see an increment in those expenses, and it's something specific that we'll have in the first quarter and part of the second quarter. When analyzed by year, we expect to have the same percentage compared to last year's revenue. That is about 17%. It does not represent a relative increase in the year in terms of marketing and sales expenses. Now going to slide 11, our EBITDA. I'll focus on the EBITDA of the cycle because we have an increment of 5.8%. Vasta reached BRL 417 million in the cycle. It is also a significant increment here. When we normalize our margins with the seasonality that will come in the next quarters, we also expect to keep a similar margin to last year, a little above 30%.
When we analyze the beginning of the year, the first quarter, we are quite thrilled here with the good conversion of ACV in 2025. After batch and after fail, we have a good idea of how the B2B pipeline is, so we can trust this first moment in 2026. And B2G, that is another important growth avenue with less predictability, but very important. We reach a moment of a lot of maturity in the pipeline. We hope the next month, as we can acknowledge new contracts in quite a significant way. The perspectives here to our year in 2025 are quite good in the main business fronts. Now I pass on the floor to Fred to go on with the presentation.
Thank you, Melegari. Good morning, everyone. I'll start the presentation talking about Saber that is in slide 13.
Please remember, Saber contemplates the TLT business, governmental business, Red Balloon, and Boom. Note this first graph on the left, the revenue. We had in the first quarter a reduction in the revenue of about 31%. The main effects that happened were, first of all, the reduction of revenue in PNLD, which is not a point of concern. It is just a mismatch in the calendar. It is a time mismatch. There was no big effect in the comparison of the first, and we will not have this big effect in the second quarter. However, it is displaced to the third and fourth quarters. Two, just to remember, we sold our headquarters operations. In the first quarter last year, we had a revenue of BRL 21 million, and due to the sale, we have zero. This is the second effect.
When we talk about Red Balloon and English, it is neutral comparing both years. The positive news here is that one of the main, the two main growth pathways in Saber that are business with the government in the product Acerta Brasil and Voomp, we had a significant growth. Comparing the quarters, we could reach a revenue of BRL 8.6 million with a growth of 46.5%. If you look to the right in EBITDA, despite having a decrease in the revenue, we had a neutral growth in the EBITDA, a growth of 2% with a gain in the margin of about 36.5%. Our business in Saber is a business that we had the first quarter according to expectations, talking about PNLD.
In the first quarter, it was quite positive in terms of business with the government that we call here the product of ACERTA Brasil with this growth of about 46%. With that, I start the presentation of the last part talking about Cogna. Roberto and Guilherme mentioned the business in Kroton and Vasta, and I just mentioned Saber. Cogna is the three big businesses altogether, and the first quarter was quite positive. The net revenue reached BRL 1.628 billion with a growth of 5.8%. The consequence was explained before. The main effect of growth was the growth of 18.8% in the Kroton revenue. We grew 5.8% despite the last two businesses Saber and Somos decreased in the revenue.
Now going to the right, the recurring EBITDA, we had a recurring EBITDA of 12.2% growth, reaching BRL 556 million, with more than 2 percentage points in the margin growth. The big effect here, as in the revenue, was the effect in the growth of EBITDA in Kroton, reaching 35%. Now, talking about the operational cash generation, the company is quite focused in generating operational cash, but more than that, until last year, in the middle of last year, we had a shift. We are now analyzing the free cash generation. Please remember that the operational cash generation is after CapEx, and the free one is post-CapEx and debt service. With that, the operational cash generation reached BRL 250 million, with a growth of 19%. Last year, we had BRL 210 million, with a conversion in the generation of cash of 45%.
This growth in the generation of operational cash came from the three BUs. We had growth in Kroton, Vasta, and Saber. Now, analyzing the free cash generation, as I mentioned before, that is the operational after CapEx and debt services, we had a growth compared to the first quarter of 2024 of 16x , and our free cash generation was BRL 150 million. Now, going to slide 17, net profit. In the fourth quarter of 2024, we launched this new cycle of the company, a cycle of generation of net profit. We had the adjusted one in the first quarter last year, BRL 50 million. This year, BRL 155 million, with a growth of 206%. Now, analyzing the net profit adjusted, that is, the net profit with the amortization.
Analyzing the generation of net profit and our margin, net margin in the company, we had a net profit of BRL 95 million, with a growth in more than 1,000% compared year by year. Looking to the future, we can see that we should have this parenting in the next quarters. Now, going to the next slide that will talk about leverage and indebtedness of the company. By the end of the first quarter of 2025, our leverage reached the level of 1.28x , as we mentioned before. The leverage was, we are always aware of this index, but more than leverage, our main indicator is the net debt. Our net debt had a reduction in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2025. We had a reduction of 0.51x the EBITDA, or about BRL 463 million, a reduction of 14%.
Comparing the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first one in 2025, we had a reduction of leverage of 0.07x , or about BRL 66 million. During this quarter, the company did not have any new captures or amortizations. In the first quarter of 2025, our average cost of the debt is CDI 0.126, with a duration of 27 months. Now, the next slide, that is the position of cash and debtness. We have BRL 1 million, and we analyze it in March 21, 2025, with BRL 1,042,000, the net debt BRL 2,814,000, considering that our net debt here considers our swaps of about BRL 6 million and the payables. The company has an agenda of amortization of loans, that is the graph below, with an amortization of about BRL 500 million in August, the second quarter of 2025, and in 2026, about BRL 500 million of amortization as well.
The company keeps working in one more round of negotiation for partners. You can see in the next quarters, one more round of that with the goal of reducing the cost of debt and along in the time of debt. We have to mention that the reduction of net debt, as I mentioned, was BRL 66 million, but we had in the first quarter, considering our program of buyback, we bought back BRL 60 million. Our understanding is the best allocation of capital that we might have. If we had not done that, this buyback, our net debt would reduce even more close to BRL 130 million-BRL 140 million. The company is still quite thrilled with the cycle of profit and cash generation, operational and free ones, and leverage of the company, and analyzing the best way to give the capital back to the shareholders.
With that, I finish my presentation, and I pass the floor to Roberto Valério.
Thank you, Fred. Now, going to slide 20, as Fred said, we are starting 2025 quite thrilled with the results of the first quarter. The summer cycle in Kroton was quite positive, bringing a strong conviction that the year will be good in terms of revenue with aspects of better groups, even on site or online or hybrid, which helps us to have more intakes for the second semester. It is a positive perspective in Kroton, and the same way in Vasta and Saber. We take into account what Fred and Melegari mentioned regarding the seasonality of the revenues, as they mentioned, with the supply of Vasta that came with a different seasonality to clients in B2G, but quite strong in subscription, that is the core business.
It will stabilize all over the semester, and Saber also has all the PNLD agenda ahead with good perspectives of selling solutions to states and municipalities. We are quite thrilled about this growth in the revenue, considering that our structure is asset-light and the costs are basically fixed. It is a positive perspective also to EBITDA. Talking about experience, we are constantly evolving in AVA, AVA, that is the virtual environment of Kroton, which allows the students to have greater and greater engagement. I mean, good engagement, good experience, and the good quality of credit of the students are making good rates of re-enrollment, and we are looking and expecting that to the future. We still have a lot to do, especially in the virtual learning environment with the growth of the PTC program, that is the transformation program of our systems.
Not only new revenues with intakes, but also re-enrollments, we are quite positive. I would just like to emphasize one more award that we gained from the point of view of client experience. That was the award of Cliente SA in the gold category. Obviously, when other people talk about us, we like a lot because it is external acknowledgment. In terms of efficiency, we have positive perspectives in gaining efficiency in the future, based, obviously, on the gain of scale. Whenever our school-based growth and our student-based growth, we have gains in scale that are quite important, and even the process improvement that the company is focusing more and more in the culture of processes and optimization. Uso de inteligência artificial, isso aqui também traz perspectivas.
Of systems and optimization, it brings perspectives over time, and obviously, it's considered with many, many quarters, but we have opportunities ahead of us. I would like to emphasize here, efficiency. Both the operational that we'll keep delivering efficiency, and we'll see that in the post-CapEx GCO. The liability that Fred mentioned will keep happening with all the actions. We see a good and interesting search for that. We are quite thrilled about the context and proposals that we are receiving in terms of credits by the banks, seeing our ability to generate cash and offering new deadlines. Therefore, with the perspective of reducing the financial debts and enlarging the payment deadline, that is very important. It is operational and financial efficiency that will affect our free cash generation. In terms of people and culture, we are a company of people with 24,000 employees.
We have a lot of programs related to talents and culture of the company. We recently launched the Avance program, that is the program to manage the performance so that we can assess the performance of the teams in a more precise way. Besides a feedback campaign, and I think we understand that a culture of feedback obviously has to be clear and assertive to make the company faster, and we are doing that with our team. Besides leadership training, because in the end, they are the ones to dictate the culture of the company, and we want a strong company with the ability to grow. We are investing a lot of time on that because we understand in the long term, it's worth it.
From the point of view of innovation, we keep investing time, energy, and talent in some pillars, among which the corporate building like Voomp and Start Anglo and other initiatives. Besides open innovation, that is the relation with the many startups that are there always creating something, and we are quite focused on that. To finish the items of AI, Cogna Day, we had two presentations of the AI tool that we use in graduation, that is Edu, or in the basic education, that is Plu, from Plural. We keep evolving every quarter, every PA in the development of apps.
We are progressing even more with these tools, and we are quite thrilled with this roadmap of, in fact, having customized education in scale, not only graduation and in basic education, but taking this ability to other courses like free courses, technical courses, and even Red Balloon that we can use this ability in other products that we have here. ESG, a Cogna manteve o. From the point of view of ESG, we kept the ESG, and we also have one more acknowledgment as industry mover in the Sustainability Yearbook 2025. We started, just like every year, keeping the award for Educador Nota 10, that is the Oscar of educators here. We had an increase, a significant increase in the amount of people enrolled, and it is quite thrilling because this is an opportunity to show those who impact education in Brazil.
With that, we finish the presentation, and we start the Q&A session.
[Foreign language] So we'll start now the Q&A session. Remember that you have to ask your name in the Q&A session and wait for someone to invite you. When it happens, you have a request to open your mic and make questions. Please do all questions at once. Let's start with our first question. Luca Marquezino from Itaú. Luca, you may go on.
[Foreign language] Good morning, everyone. We have two questions here. First, regarding PMT, it was mentioned that there was a positive impact in revenue due to more participation in the PMT program.
If you could develop the reason for more participation in that, and do you think it is a trend that should last over the year and also impact the intake cycle for the second semester? [Foreign language] Regarding Kroton Med, you mentioned that only in medicine we would have an average ticket grow in 11%, that is much greater than the IPCA. Do you see any resistance in repassing the tickets, and is there any change in competition or maybe a change in the pricings in the places where you work, please? [Foreign language]
Luca, thank you for your question. I will start asking about PMT. Fred, if you want to complement, please.
I mentioned, Luca, that the months of October, November, and December were strict months from the point of view of growth of volume and intake, but January and February were very good, especially February and March. Why do we have more PMT? Remember that PMT is offered as of the second month, so if they enroll in December and January, they are paying the first installment. That's okay, no PMT. Starting February, they start using the benefit of PMT because they take the first month that theoretically is over, and they should pay, and they pay that along the course. The logic explanation is quite simple, as we had a greater concentration than what we have historically in February and March.
I mentioned that regarding the calendar of holidays, Carnival, the beginning of the school year, because the Carnival was late, school starts later, so they know they take their times for the enrollment. When we look at the mix of enrollment, it is much more concentrated in February, March, and April than historically. These are the months that we offer the PMT, so it is not a trend because I believe it is much more related to the calendar of the beginning of the school year and Carnival and so on. As Carnival goes back to the beginning of February, like the other years, the distribution would have a greater concentration in December and January. It is no specific action that we did. It is due to seasonality. Fred, do you want to say something?
[Foreign language] Roberto, I think it's only important to consider that this PMT effect happened in the first quarter. We don't have this effect in the second quarter. Analyzing it, we see a growth in the revenue, and remember that in Kroton, it grew 18.8% with the PMT effect in the second quarter. We won't have that. The growth won't be in 18%, but the revenue will keep growing without surpassing any guidance. It would be in two digits. The best way to analyze it is in the semester. That's what you have to keep clear. Your second question, Luca, about the average ticket of Kroton Med, we have two informations here.
Kroton Med, just remember, if you don't know all these details, Luca knows, but if you are hearing us and you don't know, to us, Kroton Med is a specific company with a specific corporate number. All the teaching [Foreign language] All the teaching institutions with medicine schools have these corporate numbers. It's not that it has only medicine. It has medicine and all the other courses, like Unic, for example, in Cuiabá. They have medicine and also law and offers of distance courses if students want to study online. If you analyze Kroton Med as a whole, we have 76% of medicine, but there is a part that is not medicine and is growing a lot, especially the courses that are online with the difference in the average ticket in the medicine course is very big.
As they have more students in online, they reduce the average ticket. In medicine, despite only medicine, has entry of new colleges. The new ones, when we launch the new ones, like the case of Ponta Porã and São Luís, the average tickets are a little lower, like BRL 8,500. That is a little lower than the average of Unique or Unidep that have BRL 11,000. To give you the final average, even with new courses, the average ticket of medicine is still growing. Just to reply to you, only medicine, despite having new courses, it is still growing. It keeps growing. Kroton Med as a whole is impacted by the mix of online education and our perspective regarding the average ticket.
As the new courses start creating their reputation in the city, as we did before with Mais Médicos 2, we still increase the average ticket. The perspective is that these schools like Ponta Porã and São Luís, every semester, every year, increase the average ticket for entry. I think that's it. Luca, I hope I could answer.
Yes, quite clear. Thank you.
[Foreign language] The next question is from Lucas Nagano, Nagano from Morgan Stanley. Please go on.
Good morning, Roberto. Fred, Melega, thank you for the space. We have three questions that are more specific. The first one is about the intake of ProUni. As I understood, it was a choice to optimize the work, and it won't impact the program nor the Texas page.
The second question is about the marketing that started having a reduction by the end of the cycle. But considering what you said, that you have to consider the percentage of revenue for 2025, do you believe there will be an increase for that or now a reduction? The third question is about the corporates. If you can quantify the displacement that happens. Thank you.
Lucas, thank you for your question. Let's separate the answers here. Fred, if you want to complement, ProUni, we obviously offer ProUni in all courses in all cycles of intake. ProUni does not bring revenue, but brings costs. Every semester we follow the amount of students we have. Obviously, we offer more than we need, not to have a risk of being below the minimum threshold of students.
When we have more students than needed, we take some strength from the processes. Remember that despite the students not paying, you have a funnel of conversion. We have the call center to convert the students. We can collect all the documentation when we need because it is closer to the limit. We put more strength in the commercial teams in the polls so that they take those students from ProUni. As we had a lot by the last cycles, we had less effort. There is no risk of not complying to the threshold of ProUni. This is a matter of putting or not energy on it due to the amount of students that we have. Remember that ProUni student does not have revenue, but costs. If we can minimize them, we do.
I reinforce that to us, the most important in the intake is the amount of students and the average ticket generating revenue. We have no problem in having a lower volume of students, but we do not want to lose the growth of revenue comparing both periods. First question. Do you want to complement? Yes, I would like to say that considering a little bit of legislation and the taxation, we comply with the legisl
ation in force. We cannot do anything different than that. Yeah, okay, you asked about the taxation. Regarding marketing, in the fourth quarter call, we said we would search for efficiency gain, reducing CAC with a series of strategies to reduce CAC. I said that as a perspective here in the budget, we were searching for keeping the marketing expenses with the percentage of net revenue.
After the first quarter, and specifically seeing that in the first quarter we have a lot of intakes and marketing, we understand that we can search for something with some efficiency a little below what we had in the marketing expenses with the % of the net revenue compared to last year. It's important to say, Lucas, that okay, the first cycle of intake is over, but we are still in May. We have a lot to happen. I think this perspective improved compared to the fourth quarter that we were searching for the stable %, and we can see that potentially we can gain a little margin in Kroton.
Differently from what Melga mentioned in Somos.
Yeah, because Roberto, we are having a concentration of commercial and marketing expenses coming from the launch of GTM, so we hope to have a concentration, a higher concentration in this first quarter and also in the second quarter with a similar level of expenses, similar to the first one, and we hope to normalize that in the third and fourth quarters, finishing the year with a percentage of expenses in marketing stable compared to last year of about 17%.
Okay, very nice, Melga. I think there was a question. Yeah, the last question was about the corporate expenses. I'll answer here. So corporate expenses, we mentioned some displacement. [Foreign language] . That is marginal, so it should be units and not dozens, but units of millions of reais. So it would be a decrease of 16%.
It should be lower, but it's not significant. The second quarter, right?
Yes, we would see in the second quarter.
Okay, thank you.
[Foreign language] T he next question is from Jessica Melan, sell-side analyst from JP Morgan. Please open your mic to make your questions. You may go on.
Good morning, Valéria, Fred, Melan. I have two questions, in fact. First, I would like to go deeper on this previous answer about the marketing because I understood there should be a reduction compared to the revenue in 2025, and then I understood it would be stable. I would like to clear if there will be a reduction again in efficiency or if it is the level of 17%. And the second question is regarding ordinance that was published today. How do you see it today? How do you see it? How does it impact?
Do you have any news in the sense? These are the two points.
[Foreign language] Okay, first question. Roberto mentioned marketing in Kroton and Melegari mentioned marketing in Vasta. We have the marketing in the company. Talking about Kroton, the revenue is growing a lot, so we see the space in the gain of margin here, the reduction of expenses in the margin compared to the revenue, so there is some space. Regarding Vasta, it is constant. It is because the first quarter of 2025 had a growth in the expenses of marketing. What we mentioned here is that over the year we will normalize that so that we have no growth in the marketing expenses in Vasta compared to the revenue. This is the first question.
The second one about the ordinance. About the ordinance on online education, we have no additional information other than what everybody already knows. Today, the Ministry of Education postponed once again the limit date, so the information is that it's closed. It should be done this May, despite postponing for more than 30 days, I guess. It won't take that long. At least this is what we hear. Not officially, but this is what we hear. The perspective. Clearly, the ministry is searching for an increase in the presence of classes in the online modality. They are creating the semi-presential modality. We truly support this increase in the courses. I like to say that when we launched the courses of health in 2016, our courses had more than 50% of presential classes.
MEC adjusted that in the regulation, saying that online courses should have no more than 30% of presential classes. We modified, but we believe there should be presential classes. All our polls to operate a healthcare course need presential lab classes, and the labs are even equipped with cameras in such a way that in our central we can follow the presential class. I would say that obviously I'm talking about something I don't know, that is the details of the content of this decree. The guidance of increasing on-site classes and practices are on-site in the lab and not digital in the computer. I think it tends to be beneficial to us. My perspective is that this increase will help us from the operational point of view because we have this structure set, and not all other players have that set.
Once again, I don't know all the details of the content, so I cannot tell you any more than that, but I think we are quite close to having a disclosure of this decree.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Samuel Alves, sell-side analyst on BTG Pactual. We'll open your mic so that you ask your question. Please go on.
[Foreign language] Good morning, Valéria, Fred, Melegari, and other directors. I have two points to ask here. We talked more about Kroton, bringing some questions from other segments. And one question about Saber. The quarter would improve the margin and the semester decrease. When do we have the change for the purchase that we have to deal more with the cost structure? And I would also like to understand what you understand of the year.
Do you have any space for the revenue to grow and maybe with a lower margin and EBITDA growing in Saber? This is the first question. The second one in Vasta, specifically in B2G, how are the efforts to replicate the B2G value for this year? What is the expectation of the company? How are you working in this front? Thank you.
[Foreign language] Melega, you start.
Okay, thank you, Samuel. Let me just give you an insight on the B2G. We are having a go-to-market in B2G focused on big networks, and the first contract we are operating is with the state of Pará. That is a reflex of this focus in big networks. The news we bring in this quarter is that we have municipalities adopting the same solution, so start having a more granular result in the B2G.
We acknowledge BRL 5 million with new contracts that are basically of some cities, but they follow the same trend of big contracts of recovery learning and focusing in Saeb and large-scale assessment. We are having a go-to-market focusing on big contracts. I would say this is the big effort of the company. Two years after our entry on the market, we have a very mature pipeline. We do not control the timing of the public entity decision, but we believe that when it is the year of Saeb, we will have good news considering the next quarter, the second one with new contracts. The contracts may be big, like in the case of state, and small, low, or medium in the case of municipalities.
We have more predictability in the quarters, and we also observe the supply of the B2G in the bigger contract in a more similar way to the private market. That is, the fourth quarter being supplied to the beginning of the next school year, and then with a supply in the middle of the year for the second semester. Sessionality starts to configure this way, additionally with the capillarity that we could also have in municipalities. It is a little bit of the B2G in Vasta.
[Foreign lanaguage] Okay, Melga, thank you. Regarding Saber, Samuel. Let's separate because we have parts in Saber. The PNLD, that did not have a lot of revenue in the first quarter, is in fact more concentrated in the second semester and even more in the fourth quarter. The PNLD will grow in revenue comparing both years.
is more concentrated in the second semester, specifically in the fourth quarter. The revenue will grow, but it is a year of purchase. We need communication efforts and efforts of distribution and visiting schools and teachers to show the material. The second semester will have an increase in the revenue, but also in costs, especially with expenses of marketing and sales. The perspective is to grow the revenue with a margin that loses a little strength in PNLD, specifically because we have the costs to present the product, but the income comes later on in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of 2026. That is the tradition, as it always happens in PNLD. The second more important line that is growing, that is Soluções, it is growing 46% this first quarter. The perspective, as it is to Vasta, as Melga mentioned, is quite positive.
We are dealing with a lot of states and municipalities, providing them with many of our products, especially in the reinforcement for learning. So we have a perspective of growing the revenue here as well. Despite the revenues not strong, I mean, it decreased in the first quarter, the trend is to grow in the year. I'm sure of that.
Thank you, good morning.
[Foreign language] The next question is from Rafael Elázio, sell-side analyst, XP. We'll open our mic so that you can ask your question. Please go on.
[Foreign language] Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking our questions. The first one is regarding the PMT and PAGFASIO.
You mentioned a lot about it regarding this effect, but I would like to understand how you distributed that regarding the different courses, if it's worth it, to highlight some specific courses or if it was spread in the basis. I'd like to understand more of the dynamics in this sense. The second, if you can give a little more information in how is the profile of students compared to the rest, if you can talk a little bit more about these two points, I think it can be very interesting.
[Foreign language] Okay, I'll answer this one, Rafael, because there is no difference. There is no concentration of PMT per course. How does the PMT work? We start offering starting in February when we have the first installment, with the due date expired.
We offer four online courses, presential courses, on-site courses, no matter if it's law, veterinary, engineering. They follow the seasonality and the enrollment curve. This was the first question. The second one. Oh, the PMT acquisition course, there is no difference because the PMT student is the one that pays. This is something important for you to understand. The PMT student pays for that. They have no specific funding. They do not have a different profile. They only have this characteristic of entering later. That is why we call it PAGFASIO. You pay easily. You pay the installment that you should have paid, that is the first one, as it is one month later. We will facilitate for you so you can get this first month and divide it along the course. That is simple.
[Foreign language] Okay, quite clear. Thank you. [Foreign language]
The next question is from Mirela Oliveira, sell-side analyst of Bank of America. We'll open your mic so that you can ask your question. Please go on.
[Foreign lanugage] Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the space for questions. I have two here. The first is regarding PEP. Last year, you had a relevant contribution in the cash generation due to the efforts to recover the receivables. What can you say about the expectations in this sense for 2025? If you can talk a little about what you understand that is the driver for this improvement. A second one, now going to Kroton, could you mention how is the occupation of the company and how far we are from the ideal levels of occupation?
If you could talk a little about it so that we can understand what should be the normalized margin of Kroton from now on. Thank you.
Hello, Mirela, Fred speaking. I'll talk about the first question. Remember that PEPI is a program that is decreasing, reducing year by year. So in 2025, it has a significant reduction compared to 2024. And PEPI only moves with a small revenue by the receivables and with the payables. And the value that we have here is what we understand is the value to be received. The dynamics regarding the previous year has absolutely no change because we have a big effort here to charge and bring the cash to the company. No difference. Regarding the second question, oh, about the occupation and expenses, I think I can start that. Mirela, regarding the CAMPI occupation, we are about 60% occupied.
When we take the average of the 113 CAMPI, we have here a big opportunity of reduction of costs as the contracts are over and we renegotiate both the costs of rent and physical spaces that we use. We even produce the material for Cogna Day. We have a slide that maybe we can share with you so that you understand better because with rentals, we have BRL 400 million-BRL 430 million paid in rentals a year. We have an important window of a contract that will be over from 2027 to 2029 with about BRL 330 million. Out of this BRL 430 million, we will have BRL 250 million that will be open for renegotiation. We believe we can capture a great part of it, trying to make this occupation get closer to 85%-90%. That is what we understand is ideal.
We cannot do all at once because the contracts are atypical and we should pay the whole contract to renegotiate it. So we have to wait for them to expire. As they expire, we renegotiate. We already do that. That's why our costs, our expenses in rentals are constant over the last four years. It's not increasing because whenever one contract is over, we renegotiate. We keep this line stable despite the revenue of Kroton is growing strongly, as we could see here, 18.8%. That's why I tend to say that most of our costs are fixed. So that's it. Yes, there is a perspective in gaining profitability over the years, more concentrated starting on 2027. The space for gain is growing this 6% to 85-90% from now to 2029, 2030.
Oh, and another point that Fred mentioned here, another point that helps us when we reduce rentals and physical spaces, we also reduce utilities and facilities because we have less cleaning, security to pay. It also brings other benefits that help in the margin of Kroton.
[Foregin language] Okay, perfect, quite clear. Thank you very much.
The next question is from [Andrea Barrosales], sell-side analyst from CNS. You may open your audio to ask your question. Please go on.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the space. I have two questions here. The first one is in the cycle of intake with this strong cycle in Kroton. How do you monitor dropouts in the future? Specifically, it is a movement that I believe is more sectorial with more presence in the online courses. If you can mention, comment on this point, it will help us.
My second question is about the flow of buybacks. How do you see that in the next quarters in this analysis of deleverage? Because you have space in the balance and in the program as well. If you can say something on that, it will help us. Thank you.
Andre, thank you for your question regarding dropouts. It's not a point of concern to us. I'll develop that. First, we only consider the person as a student, as a new intake, if they sign the contract with us, if they pay the installment, and if they have virtual activities in the virtual environment. I mean, if they are engaged and in fact studying. It reduces a lot the risk of dropouts because they are not possibly there or because there is a seller forcing an enrollment. We've done that for many years.
That's why I'm safe enough to say that we are not concerned about dropouts. This is the first point. The second point is the fact of them being more concentrated in online education at some point, which was not the case in this cycle because they are even more concentrated in presential and the online with the presenciality, which brings a lower dropout rate in the future. Along with what I mentioned, that we are investing a lot in the experience of the environment and the virtual environment of learning and the app and all the follow-up that we have in dropouts, it is stable. There is no element that I can analyze from the ones that impact dropouts that I see a worse perspective to the future. Therefore, an expectation of increase in dropouts.
Our dropout that is represented by the re-enrollment rate is consistent over the last four years. I believe there is no reason not to continue having this small improvement that is zero point something that we gain every semester, but we are always gaining. I think that's it. The buyback, yeah, the cycle of buybacks. Just to remember, we have a tripod on how to relocate capital in the company if I leverage or deliver to the company and how to give money back to the shareholders buying dividends. As I mentioned, sometimes we do not have M&As here. We are always having small conversations with the small M&As. It may happen, but it does not change a lot the leverage of the company given the interest rates. Last Wednesday, we had another increase reaching 14.75. We monitor effectively what is the best way.
I mean, if we keep delivering in the company or if I give back with buybacks or dividends. As we launched in the fourth quarter, the generation of net profit in the first quarter, we had a generation of BRL 95 million. And we understand here that we keep following this cycle and analyzing that probably I'll have a part of the leverage of the company and returning the capital to the shareholder with the buyback or dividends that probably will happen over the year of 2025.
Quite clear.