Morning, everyone. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to this video conference to present CVC Corp's second quarter 2025 results. Today, we have simultaneous translation into English available. To access, just click on the globe icon at the lower part of your screen, look for "Interpretation" and choose your preferred language – Portuguese or English. After choosing the language, there is an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on "Mute Original Audio." We'd like to inform you this video conference is being recorded and will be available on the company's IR website – www.cvccorp.com.br/ir, where you can find complete information about our earnings. You can download the presentation; the link will be in the chat window here, also in English. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphones disabled. After the company's presentation, we'll begin a Q&A session.
To ask a question, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and send us your question to join the queue. When we call your name, you will see a prompt on your screen to activate your microphone. Please activate your microphone to ask a question. If you have more than one question, please ask all of them. We want to remind you that the information in this presentation and statements that may be made during the video conference in relation to business prospects, projections, operating and financial goals of CVC Corp represent beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Future considerations are not a guarantee of performance, they involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors may affect CVC Corp's future performance and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such looking-forward considerations. Today, with us, the company executives – Fabio Godinho, CEO of CVC Corp, and Filipe Gomes, CFO and Investor Relations Officer. I will now turn it over to Mr. Fabio Godinho.
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Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for your time in CVC Corp's second quarter 2025 earnings presentation. Today, August 13, is our dear Filipe Gomes' birthday, so happy birthday to our CFO, who will present robust earnings to our shareholders.
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That's at our company is delivering again. Now, let us talk about CVC financial and operating highlights of the second quarter of 2025. We will maintain the same presentation format. First, we talk about growth, profitability, and then CVC capital structure. This quarter was really important. We made a lot of progress in our balance sheet, P&L, and operating cash generation, which was a request we often got from the market. Now we delivered a robust operating cash generation number this quarter, with a higher EBITDA, higher top line, and a stronger balance sheet overall. The CVC Group shows traction, and sales diversification in our revenue streams. This is important and will further improve in the next quarters and years. Diversification in our revenue streams ensures stability and consistent earnings, quarter after quarter, as we saw in this second quarter.
Looking at growth, we opened 50 new stores in the second quarter, totaling Brazil and Argentina 1,565 stores, which means 100 more CVC Corp stores than we had in the second quarter of 2019. 100 stores more than we had right before the COVID-19 pandemic. 41 more stores in Brazil, showing a continued confidence in our business among current franchisees and also attracting new prospects interested in opening new stores. Thanks to our CVC sales model, a much lower CAPEX, lower OPEX, no longer dependent on having the customer walk in the store. They can also buy using their own device, using our Fidgetal sales model, really attractive for travelers, and only CVC can offer this sales model. We continue to see new store openings both in Brazil and Argentina.
It shows our franchisees are confident in CVC business and also in Almundo, but also in the country's economy is performing really well. In terms of growth, we're talking about a 15% corporate growth revenue, growing sales were BRL 537 million, higher than in Q2 2024. Brazil grew 10%. We are focusing on B2B, we restructured this business, as you know. Of course, CVC B2C, that's where we started the recovery, and we had growth in B2C last year with more stores, stronger top line, higher same-store sales, etc. We also conducted a deep restructuring in CVC finance, strategy, B2B operations, and also in our companies in Argentina. Now these efforts are bearing fruit, and our numbers are showing it. Brazil's growing 10%. Again, we are leaders in hotel distribution in Brazil via Trend and in air travel distribution via RexturAdvance.
Strong results also coming from Visual, in line with our plan for this first year of ramp-up. We gain market share, and also we become more international. We're moving away from our land and air distribution model in Brazil and Argentina to become a truly international distributor of tourist content. This is driving sales in our B2B units, especially in Brazil. Argentina continues to perform strongly, growing 37% year- over- year. This quarter, we're going back to the same sales level of Q2 2023, so we're now very close to the level of sales we had in the second quarter of 2023, now in this second quarter of 2025. 2023 was a very strong year in terms of profitability for our companies in Argentina. Net revenue growing 16%, Brazil up 16%, Argentina up 18%, mainly in B2B. Ola is doing really well in Argentina, gaining market share there in B2B.
We promoted a significant change in our strategy, operations. We have a whole new team there. Now we can see the benefits of these moves in B2B, in B2C, and also in our companies in Argentina. Obviously, this is giving us more than 30% growth in EBITDA, above R$90 million, exactly R$92.3 million EBITDA, with a healthy 27% margin, 3.1% higher than in Q2 2024. Last but not least, our capital structure, operating cash generation of R$130 million, that's R$40 million above the second quarter of 2024, leading to a reduction of R$118 million in the company leverage compared to the previous quarter. Now, looking at our four strategic pillars, we showed this slide in previous quarters. Look at the evolution as we improved the company's operating result.
Exclusive product sales continue to grow, now 21% in the second quarter, up almost 5% versus Q2 2024, increasing the concentration in preferred and recommended hotels. This is important. More volume in exclusive products means that we can ensure availability, price competitiveness, and a higher NPS. We are the only RA1000 company in the Brazilian tourist industry because of the high quality of services we provide, not only in our stores but also delivered by our tourist service providers. This is because of the trust we build in the relationship with them and our growing volume of sales of both air and land products, you know, hospitality. This is in Brazil and internationally, 70% concentration now in preferred and recommended hotels. Secondly, alternative payment methods. This is very important. This strategy grew 1%, not because we lack market acceptance. This was a decision we made internally. Why?
Because we are very cautious to approve installment sales to protect the company from a spike in payment delinquency rate. We decelerated direct CVC credit for installment sales. That is why we grew only 1%. We could have grown faster. There's a strong demand for installment sales. We decided to raise the bar in terms of credit scoring to protect the company from a possible spike in payment delinquency, which we can see, you know, in the whole retail industry. With 15% basic interest rate, we can expect a higher delinquency rate. We could see it coming. We did not really grow installment sales quarter over quarter. It was a decision made by the company, but consumers continue to show great interest in alternative payment forms.
Looking at new store openings, we continue to perform strongly with 50 new stores, and again, most of them in smaller towns throughout Brazil, where our Fidgetal sales model is highly attractive. Today average CapEx is below BRL 50,000, and OpEx is low too. Basically, you need two people to operate the store. You don't have to pay the rent, but in Mato Grosso, there is a store paying BRL 800 rent. CapEx and OpEx are really attractive. With that, we feel confident in CVC brand, our new store formats, our business model, which no longer relies on the customer having to walk in our store. This is the fourth pillar of our strategy: increase our Fidgetal sales model penetration rate. Today in CVC brick-and-mortar stores, 56% of sales come from our proprietary WhatsApp sales model, developed together with Meta, available only from CVC.
Only CVC can operate omnichannel in the tourist market. That's why we continue to open new stores. We always talk about being an asset-light company, so our assets are, you know, our brands, obviously. Our brands have a great credibility, a strong reputation. Above all, we have our team. For a number of years, CVC applied for the Great Place to Work stamp, but it was not approved. Now, this management is proud of the actions we've implemented. Based on our Fluir program to take care of our employees' mental health, physical health, emotional, and social health, it's a super complete program. No doubt, the best in the Brazilian tourist industry. We are happy to announce for the first time in CVC history, we have received this important stamp, Great Place to Work. Our people are CVC's most important asset.
The tourist market is largely based on relationships, so this stamp crowns our efforts and this management focus on the team. Again, we were awarded the ABF, Brazilian Franchising Association Excellence Prize, given to CVC and Experimento. Experimento brand is older than CVC. CVC is 53 years old, Experimento is 60. This important award gives us motivation to continue to roll out our Fidgetal sales model. Now being implemented in Experimento and in Q4, we will begin tests together with Meta in our Almundo stores. Argentina is performing well, 37% growth year- over- year in Q2 now without the Fidgetal sales model. They still rely solely on customers having to walk into their stores. We delivered 37% growth before the government allows tourist installment sales. Argentinian tourists are 90% international. In Brazil, international travel is only 30%. In Argentina, almost 90% is international travel.
Installment sales can be a solution to control USDs leaving the country, and the government doesn't want that now. Installment sales have already been allowed for real estate, electrical appliances, vehicles. We believe the tourist market, next year in the second half, will also be allowed to sell in installments. All our current travel sales, the 37% growth we delivered this quarter, all of it was paid cash. Can you imagine our growth when our customers are allowed to buy tourist packages using bank credit lines? It can become another big growth trigger, I think, in Argentina next year. Strategic partnerships, this is under Belen as our B2C Vice President. We will keep focus and accelerate. We are leaders in Brazil in travel credit partnerships with Santander, Livello.
This quarter, we signed with Bradesco Disney, an exclusive partnership between Bradesco and Disney, plus Beto Carrero, RCI, Prevalia, and we have a number of ongoing negotiations. This is long-term. The cost of changing partners is complex. This is almost like having recurring revenue because we receive new customers from different markets. These are high-quality leads with probably no overlap with CVC customers, and they have a captive audience. Their tourist demand is shared with us. These partners have a great potential to bring high-quality leads to CVC. We can have that not only in Brazil. We're leaders in Argentina. Practically all banks in Argentina, Galicia, Entre Ríos, Santa Fe, Amex, Macro, Patagonia Bank, all these banks have their own travel agencies. This is a traditional model. Also in the U.S., in the U.S., Chase is the largest travel service provider with the Chase Travel website.
A number of banks have similar initiatives, and nearly all travel financial products in Argentina operate with Almundo white-label offerings. We'll keep focused on this model, and you can expect news in the future. Talking about news, revenue diversification has become a hot topic for us. We don't have to rely solely on Brazil B2C or on Brazil B2B or on Argentina. I think our competitive advantage comes from the CVC Corp group of companies. We want to make sure we will maintain consistent growth and profitability as we are delivering now, even in a challenging environment, especially in the credit card-dependent medium to high-ticket retail. I believe we're now at the peak of this challenge. From now on, we will possibly see a gradual improvement. Our view, Filipe's and my own, and we've been discussing about that, it's not a bright outlook, especially the interest rate.
Our B2B has been overperforming. Argentina has been overperforming with a net-net 15% growth EBITDA, EBITDA of 30%, and operating cash generation of BRL 130 million. With that, I'll hand it over to our dear Filipe, celebrating his birthday today, and I'll be back soon for the closing remarks.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Godinho, for your words. Now, let us talk about our financial performance. I'll show you a few more numbers of the second quarter 2025. This page shows Brazil. Brazil's confirmed bookings, net revenue, take rate, and a few highlights. In Q2 2025, confirmed bookings or sales, Brazil grew 10% in Q2 2024. We can also see the first half of 2025 growing 12.5% over the first half of 2024, reaching BRL 6.2 million. Our net revenue increased even above sales, up 16%.
The take rate, moving from 9.4% last year to 9.79% now. Revenue in Q2 was BRL 281 million. Our revenue grew 12.5%, reaching BRL 563 million. Our take rate remains stable, slight drop from 9.6%- 9.5%. Further down, some highlights. Godinho has already mentioned. Briefly, on global clients of RexturAdvance, our strategy is proving to be correct, bringing good results in our air consolidator unit, which remains the industry leader, actually in increasing this leadership. How about new store openings in Brazil? 41 new stores, as Godinho showed us, most of which away from capital cities, following our strategy. Take rate higher than last year. We have a higher margin, and we are pursuing higher margin, but it's also related to our product sales mix. You can find further information in our media release.
There was a maritime capacity reduction determined by ship owners, and we also have information about our take rate and the product sales mix. There is also information about our successful inventory distribution unit contributing for our growth. It's called Conectas, and it operates with Trend. Next slide on Argentina, strong growth in the second quarter. Top line up 37% in Q2 2025 over Q2 2024, reaching BRL 924 million. Returning to the levels of 2023. Looking at the first half, that is an impressive growth because we also had a growth in the first quarter. We are talking about 66% growth compared to 2024, nearing BRL 2 billion in confirmed bookings, which means an increase of BRL 800 million, more than in the first half of 2024 in Argentina. Net revenue up 18%, hitting BRL 60 million.
Take rate moving from 7.6% to 6.6%, explained by a change in our product sales mix. Almundo, our B2C brand in Argentina, is growing, and it has a higher rate. Our B2B unit, Ola, is growing even faster than Almundo, pushing our take rate down. The B2B rate is usually lower, and as B2B gains more relevance, the take rate trends down. This is a good problem to have. Looking at the first half of 2025, we hit BRL 141 million, up 27%, and the take rate we have already explained. Down to the highlights, Godinho very well explained. In Argentina, we are harvesting the benefits of our strategy months ago. When the market was weak, we reviewed our strategy to have more alignment in our processes of Brazil and Argentina. We focused on new store openings. Now the economy is picking up.
We are well positioned to serve this wave of good economic performance in Argentina. The EBITDA margin in Argentina hit 22% this quarter, which is good progress compared to historic levels, reaching BRL 13 million EBITDA in this Q2. We also opened nine new franchise stores, hitting 172 stores in this Q2, which shows confidence in the country's economy, but mainly in our brand, Almundo, our B2C brand in Argentina. We will continue to see more store openings there. The take rate we already mentioned is explained by our product sales mix. B2B has gained more relevance. Both are growing, but B2B grows faster than B2C. On the next page, our consolidated numbers. On the left, 100% consolidated. On the right, expenses in Brazil, excluding in Argentina. There is a foreign exchange effect, and we show this separately because we want to keep this historic timeline we've been tracking.
On the first chart on the left, net revenue for CVC Corp, as Godinho said, at the end of the day, our business units complement each other. One unit may be performing stronger now, but that helps the company as a whole to maintain strong numbers. Net revenue is up 16% in Q2 2025 over Q2 2024. Take rate is practically stable in the first half compared to the first half of 2024. Revenue is up 15%, hitting BRL 704 million. Take rate is a bit down. Also in Q1, due to a change in our product sales mix, Argentina gained more relevance in the business and a few other points mentioned. On the right side at the top, we're looking at expenses, G&A over revenue. This management has made a commitment to keep this number down, always looking for more efficiencies.
We can see a 4% increase from BRL 142 million- BRL 148 million. That's below the inflation rate. This is an important number for us. We see a clear drop from 58.7%- 52.8% expenses over net revenue. We are committed to pushing down this ratio of G&A over net revenue and are seeking to improve the efficiency all the time. Looking at the first half of 2025, the expense increase is even lower, 3.4%, well below inflation. The ratio is coming down from 56.7%- 52.1%. We also have a separate view of sales expenses. That is expenses over confirmed bookings or sales. There's a correlation here. In Q2 2025, this expense line grew from BRL 45 million- BRL 70 million. There are two important effects here. There's a timing factor. A number of our obligations for actions we implemented in Q1 were carried over to Q2.
In the first quarter, we spoke about this timing factor. In the second quarter of 2025, we had the CVC anniversary campaign. We made a significant investment to gain share, and we gained share, and that also helped. Looking at sales expenses over sales, we prefer to look at the first half of the year because of the timing factor. Here, the absolute growth number is 19%. Compared to sales, and again, these numbers are closely related, we do not really see any growth because it was 1.9% expenses over bookings moving up to 2% in the first half of 2025. It remained practically flat as we announced to the market, to all of you. Further down, a few highlights. Revenue is growing, as we said. We want to highlight the B2B performance in Brazil, but also Argentina. G&A expense is growing below inflation. The drop here is 5.9%.
This is G&A over net revenue and higher sales in Brazil, as we mentioned. On the next slide, a consolidated view so we can see our EBITDA and net income. On the first chart on the left, we're looking at the EBITDA in Brazil. Up almost 30% from 60.8 million BRL- 78.9 million BRL, with a wider margin moving up from 25.1%- 28%. Remember, because of seasonal effects, the second is our weakest quarter. Our business is subject to seasonality. Even with that, our EBITDA margin is nearing 30%. This is a relevant number for us. Looking at the first half of 2025, EBITDA soared 25%, nearing 160 million BRL in Brazil, an EBITDA margin of 28.1%. Next, the same information on Argentina – 40% EBITDA growth, hitting 13 million BRL, and EBITDA margin in Argentina reaching 22.3% compared to 18% in Q2 2024.
Looking at the first half of 2025, EBITDA margin is 27.5% growing, almost 30% reaching 38.9 million BRL. The next chart shows both together. This is CVC Corp in the second quarter. EBITDA closed at 92.3 million BRL compared to 70 million in Q2 last year, growing 31%. CVC Corp, the corporate margin in the second quarter was 27%. The first half of the year, our margin grew almost 26%, EBITDA hitting 200 million BRL in the first half of 2025, with a 28% margin. Further down, the company's adjusted net loss in the second quarter was 15.9 million BRL compared to a loss of 4.8 million BRL in Q2 2024. An increase of 11 million impacted by financial expenses, as the interest rate remains at 15%. Now, we expect this number to improve.
Looking at the first half of 2025, we had a positive adjusted net profit of BRL 8.1 million, profit compared to BRL 1 million loss in the first half of 2024. This is an improvement of BRL 9 million at the bottom line, even with the current interest rate higher than last year. I think we've already mentioned these highlights – CVC Corp, EBITDA growing 31% with a 3.1% margin increase, hitting 27% in the second quarter. We've already spoken about the bottom line. To conclude, this slide has very relevant information showing improvement in the company cash management. We can see our debt, you know, how this is important to us. On the first chart, we can see our operating cash generation moving from operating cash consumption of BRL 29 million in Q3 2023, then BRL 92 million in Q2 2024.
Look at it now – BRL 131 million in Q2 2025. Operating cash generation moved up nearly BRL 40 million. That's relevant to us, consistent to our growth in the last few quarters. On the right, the overall debt, which is the company's total debt, and also detailed disclosure of our credit card receivables. We see an interesting improvement looking at debt. We don't compare it to last year, but we can see the previous quarter. The company overall debt had a reduction of BRL 18 million. We had a significant payment of interest on debentures in April, May. We closed the second quarter with BRL 560 million overall debt and BRL 251 million in cash. This is the cash level we've planned to maintain in the company. Net debt moved up BRL 41 million, reaching BRL 400 million. Here you also have information about the company's receivables.
Looking at the net debt leverage, the number remained stable at 0.9x . Looking at the next decimal place, we can see a slight improvement. Our portfolio, our current portfolio of receivables is much greater than it was in the last quarter, in Q1, with BRL 95 million more in credit card receivables in our portfolio, and also a lower amount of receivable backflow of BRL 64 million, which means we now have more credit card receivables, obviously thanks mainly to our operating cash generation. Adding up these two lines, net debt plus the balance of receivables, we can see a significant drop from the previous quarter of BRL 118.6 million, which has an effect on the overall debt over the last 12 months. In just one quarter, the number dropped from 2.7 times the EBITDA down to 2.3x .
Even I am impressed at this improvement in such a short time. This is it for today's presentation. We look forward to hearing your questions now. Thank you.
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We will now open the Q&A session. If you have a question, click on the Q&A icon in the lower bar of your screen and write your question to join the queue. When your name is called, you will see a prompt to activate your microphone. Please unmute and ask all your questions. The first question comes from Wellington Santana from Bank of America. You can please activate your microphone now, Wellington.
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Good morning, Fabio. Good morning, Filipe. Thank you for taking our questions. I have two questions on my side. First, about financial expense.
We could see a bigger impact of financial expense in your numbers, also because you had more receivables backed loans and a higher SELIC interest rate, the basic interest rate. How can we mitigate these effects in the future, looking at your capital structure? We know we are in a scenario of higher interest rates. My second question, as Fabio mentioned, this is a challenging scenario for consumer goods. What do you have to say about the competition in this scenario? Question would be about not only the recent Chapter 11 we had, but also the acquisition of this big ad we saw recently. Thank you.
I can begin. Sure. Hello, Wellington. Good morning. Thank you for your question. This is Godinho. I will begin answering your question about the business, and then Filipe can talk about our strategy to improve our capital structure.
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About the competitive environment,
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the first half of 2025, we had a very aggressive pricing action by Azul up until July. In the second half of the year, first we had the Chapter 11, so they are already
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working in their reorg. We grew sales in Azul Viagens, and we needed cash, but that move is over now. That is something that, the aggressive pricing action is no longer having such a big impact. Also, they have zero growth in terms of SK for the second half of the year in domestic travel. After
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that, with zero growth of SK for the second half, the inventory of leisure travel is over for them. We still have lots of seats available to sell with LATAM and Gol. LATAM is outperforming the competition. They're growing in Brazil. Gol is expected to grow 8%, and Azul will possibly grow zero.
The current scenario, especially in domestic travel, for us is better than what we had in the first half of the year. Obviously, we still have the effect of the maritime capacity reduction. Also, credit, with interest rates of 15% and an average ticket of BRL 4,000, BRL 5,000, BRL 6,000, which would be the price of a family travel. Obviously, the high interest rate will continue to have an impact in the future.
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About the acquisition of Despegar by Prosis, we view that as we don't
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believe they will stop the pricing action. They are providing promotions to grow sales in their conglomerate, including iFood and other. In direct sales on the travel website, on the direct competition and the few stores they have, and the travel website sales, we can see that the discounts are logical and well-controlled on their part.
The problem was with Azul Viagens, but now it no longer has such a big impact. They continue with their promotions, but now it's more like more rational promotions, a more fair competition.
Great.
Good morning, Wellington. How are you? Let me answer your first question about financial expense. Those of you who track the company know this is a relevant topic. All the time, we keep an eye on these numbers, looking for an opportunity to improve. In this quarter, we came to the peak of the financial cost, the basic interest rate at 15%. Now, we expect it will remain stable. This would be our most difficult quarter.
There is some interesting action we are taking in the company, trying to release working capital so we can reduce the overall debt and not need to have receivables backed loans because we really want to release our cash, improve our working capital to reduce our financial expense in the future. We've been able to implement, and this was something we wanted to do for a long time, and we've implemented that. We'll see the results in the next quarter. This is a new trading desk for receivables because we
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always had the receivables backed loans with the same acquirers. Now, with our receivables trading desk, we will be able to obtain a more advantageous cost. We have already seen a cost reduction in these receivables backed loans. That will help us too. In addition, we always keep an eye on the market to do something with debentures.
We work very closely with our creditors, and we keep the relationship with the banks. If we see a window of opportunity, we're always looking at improving our capital structure. As we have more working capital and a better rate for the receivables backed loan, I believe that we will improve our capital structure. These are some of the things we are doing, and our expectation is that in the future, we will begin to see a lower interest rate, at least lower than 15% as we have today.
Thank you, Godinho. Thank you, Filipe. Very clear.
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Our next question comes from Victor Rogatis from Itaú BBA. Can you please activate your microphone to ask your question, Victor?
[Foreign Language]
Good morning, Godinho, CVC team. Happy birthday, Filipe. Thank you for taking our questions. Actually, three questions.
First, thinking about B2C in Brazil, you had the maritime capacity reduction, and will that impact continue in the next quarters? Second question about working capital in Brazil. Looking at suppliers, we have a weaker number than expected. I'd like to hear from you what happened and what can we think about this suppliers' line for the second half of the year? The third question
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is about your Fidgetal sales model, which is gaining share in sales. Godinho, can you share with us what do you see in terms of global trends for sales conversion, either online and offline?
Yes, Victor. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. I will answer the first and the third questions, and then Filipe will answer the second question.
The impact of the maritime capacity reduction was relevant in the first half of the year, and it will be even more relevant in the second half of the year. Why? Because as we come closer to the summer in Brazil, the share of maritime travel that came up to 20% of our B2C sales last year, as we come closer to the summer, the share grows. Therefore, the negative impact will grow deeper. We have 30% less inventory, with three ships fewer operating in Brazil. For the next years, we are looking for other options, also bringing our own CVC ships
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so that we are not exposed to the risk of this capacity reduction. If you look at a market such as Rio de Janeiro, they were selling 1,000 cruise ships, but now, you no longer have the ships operating there. Of course, it had a big impact.
We will orient to other products. We have a whole from-to-table for the customers of cruise trip, at the stores, and also using WhatsApp. We have this to-front table providing other options for the same average ticket. There are people who like to travel on cruise. Now we have much less capacity, and the impact will certainly be felt even more in the second half of the year. Not only that, we had a few regions, for example, agriculture regions where agriculture was extremely important: Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás, Paraná. These regions are important for CVC Corp. Because of a lower U.S. dollar and a high interest rate, we have fewer people coming to our stores, and that's related to a macroeconomics of agriculture. Of course, we had the maritime capacity reduction, also the difficulty to have credit, especially for medium or high tickets.
If you have an interest rate at 15%, you will feel the impact. Also, a higher price of airfare in domestic flights, because airlines in the last two or three months are trying to impose price raise.
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In the low season, about April, they were not really successful in April, May. Now, in June, July, the average ticket, the price is up 10%. That helps B2B, of course,
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but it makes the average ticket for B2C higher, and B2C is sensitive to price. You also have that impact. Plus the geopolitics, the war in Israel, we had trips canceled, group trips canceled, groups that were going to Israel. There were days when Qatar Airlines and Emirates Airlines were not operating. Israel war had an impact, and also the geopolitical issue with the United States. About 35% of our experimental customers do student exchange with the United States.
Now, with the current situation, how can you send your son to the United States? Will he be able to enter the country or not? This volume came down to 5% in the last three weeks. We believe this will be only a temporary effect, but again, it also had an impact. We do see a light at the end of the tunnel. We are doing a lot of activation. We are working together with these promotions. August 8th,
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July 7th, we are now in a partnership for the August 8th activation. B2B is going to deliver again a double-digit growth. You know, the market, even with all of these adverse impacts, reduced maritime capacity, geopolitical issues, high interest rate, it was very important because now Azul Travel stopped the aggressive pricing action because now they have zero growth.
We believe that in August, we will grow double-digit, a low double-digit, but we will grow double-digit. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is how we view B2C for the second half of the year. About the international market, your question was very good about that. Last month, I spent 12 days in China. Amadeus, the largest tourist travel technology, is a company worth BRL 30 billion in the stock exchange in Spain. We are the number one Amadeus customer in Latin America. Amadeus had a whole agenda with the 12 largest customers in B2B and B2C, and we traveled to China with them. We met all of these companies. We now have this new company of delivery coming to Brazil really strong. I said we were 12 customers, right? This was the largest Asian tourist group, which is Trip.com.
They were also there in the meeting with Amadeus. I was surprised to see in Trip.com that they use exactly the same Fidgetal distribution model, similar to CVC Corp. They have three business units. One is transportation, where they sell train, bus, and airplane tickets, but it's basically for a short stay, a weekend trip. This is what they sell on their app, on their application, because Trip.com, they're the largest Asian tourist company, but they're not part of any super app. We also visited super apps, Alibaba.
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Trip.com has their own app with multiple functionalities, as you see many in China. They sell this kind of air travel, and they have an accommodation unit where they sell hospitality from today to tomorrow, one, two, three-day stay at a hotel. This is the kind of product they sell online using their Trip.com app.
In the tourist market there, they don't really use desktop apps, but they sell these like commodity products. They have a third business unit similar to B2C, and they call it Vacation. They have transportation, accommodation, and vacation. This is the largest Asian tourist travel agency with 6,000 agencies franchised using this brand, C-Trip. Actually, they changed the name. It was C-Trip, and that's, you know, how the CVC group started. C-Trip is their CVC, let's say. They have 6,000 travel agencies owned by franchisees. For two days, we were visiting small travel agencies on the street and shopping malls in Shanghai. These were all stores existing for less than two years. Low CapEx, low OpEx, Fidgetal sales, only two or three employees to operate the store. New store openings there began after the COVID-19 pandemic.
One day in 2024, Trip.com, using this brand C-Trip, they're a giant group, they opened in just one day 200 POS. It's really funny because you go to China, look at technology and tourism, it's like going to the future. We went to the future, and what did we see? The Fidgetal sales model, very similar to our sales model. This was a surprise. Of course, we are now connecting with all of these 12 clients of Amadeus so that together we can do the distribution using our B2B platforms. Our B2B platforms, we can see that they will rely less on having to sell to Brazilian travel agencies, you know, so RexturAdvance and Trend. Now with this new business unit, Conectas, that we're adding hospitality and other land products, this is going to be a global tourist content distributor.
Very soon, we will have revenue streams that will be coming not from Brazil, both in air distribution and land distribution of products. We tend to go more international. This is what we see. About artificial intelligence, very little,
[Foreign Language]
only a few players using this in real life. There are some initiatives beginning, but still very small. We are in contact with that. We are working with an American AI company. We will see news up until year end, especially for the Fidgetal sales funnel
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in terms of receiving customer information, supporting the salesperson to convert more sales. These are some things we learned, we brought from China.
Hello, Victor.
[Foreign Language]
Thank you for your words. Now, let's answer the question about working capital and this supplier's line. This is more an accounting issue. With sales and consumption, we have to include that.
You see, we had an expressive increase, but when you look at these two lines together, and that's how we see the supplier's line, we had a big increase of almost four days. I believe this is just a temporary accounting effect. We did not see a change in the time to pay for our supplies. Now, what do we expect in the second half of the year? We still keep an eye on this, you know, strengthening our negotiations. As we sell more preferred and recommended hotels, and this will grow because that's part of our strategy, our stores will also sell these suppliers who are strategic suppliers for us. The idea is that you will see further improvement on this line. Also, with exclusive products, you know, where we are at a comfortable level and also more long-term products.
Now, for August 8, we sold exclusive products already for 2026, you know, based on our relationships. That's really helpful in this supplier's line because for the airfare, I'll have to pay that closer to the time of the trip. We're also negotiating with international suppliers so that we can grow this partnership to gain a few days more to pay for these supplies. We expect that in the second half of the year, this time will continue to grow. We have a good expectation that we'll have more time to pay our suppliers.
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That's great. Thank you. It's very clear.
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Our next question comes from Victor Fuziharu from Santander. Can you please activate your microphone and ask your question? Victor, you can continue. Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking our questions. We have two. The first one is about the growth in innovation and AI.
This agenda has many benefits, but are you going to increase investment in OpEx or CapEx for this rollout? The second question is about payments. You had a few relevant changes in third-party financing, which gained more relevance, and CVC credit, your own credit, you had a reduction. What do you expect for the future in these two lines?
Thank you, Victor, for the question. We keep a focus on technology. This is and will continue to be a key driver for CVC. Now that we have reorganized our debt, which of course is relevant, we need total focus to pay for the debt. Our leverage has to fall. The way it was, it was just impossible. Now we've organized our balance sheet, looking at assets, you know, and we are now generating cash. We have already restructured our strategy for B2B and B2C in Argentina.
We will be implementing the Fidgetal sales model. Now focus on technology growth. We even have covenants in our debt that will not allow for us to spend more than BRL 120 million CapEx. Of course, we will comply with that. I see in the next five years an increase in OpEx related to technology improvement. We are very close to CIT, so they have helped us make a transformation to have digital simplification of our systems because we still have, you know, legacy systems from companies. We will make a lot of progress now in the second half of the year, and especially in 2026. Also, we are investing together with them. We are investing to transform our CCO, our operating control center. We may receive funding to finance more technology.
When we took on the management, you know, this control center where we control all operations, we issue tickets, we reconcile our air distribution. We used to have more than 1,000 employees and the lowest NPS of all tourist companies based on our A, Heklamiyaki data. Our Vice President Pinheiro, and like everyone here in this new management, well, not so new, we've been in the company for two years. He has deep knowledge about the business. Today, our operations control center has 800 employees, and we have the highest grade, and we are the only RA1000 company in the Brazilian tourist industry. We have a lot of automation to do, you know, process automation. We have to work more with AI. Now the operations control center is ready to receive these improvements because the organization is clearly defined.
We will now be ready for the next wave of evolution, which we will be working with Stefanini and CEA. To answer your question, no, we are not overshoot the CapEx threshold, but in terms of OpEx, we will certainly increase investment in technology. We will obtain funding from other sources. As we've always said, one of the drivers that we relentlessly pursue in this management is to reduce SG&A over net revenue. The ratio was 90% when we took the management. It's now 52%, and we want to come down to 45%. Although we will make more investments in technology, I will have to find the source of this funding so that we can continue to save and improve this number.
Hello, Victor. About payment methods and our trading desk, you know, about third-party financing or our own financing. This is something we wanted from the beginning.
Let me take a step back. When we took the management of the company two years ago, we did not even have a trading desk. We did not have credit lines with the banks at that time. Because we know our customers and because we know how important it is for us to grow sales, we began to provide our own financing. That's what we could do. We had conversations with the financial players so that we could again have credit. Now we already have a few partners, more recently Santander, that came in really strong. We saw a growth in bank financing. No longer do we have to finance using our own CVC balance sheet. Now we can work with banks. Today, 30%- 35% of our sales is financed by third parties, no longer by CVC. I believe that in the marketplace, we can still grow.
Of course, we have Santander and CVC, but we will have at least two more players working with us and for an even cheaper credit as we have a lower payment delinquency. The idea is for us to continue to have more third-party financing. Looking at the second quarter, we even had marked credit card sales. That is also because of our cautious stance. Because of a higher delinquency on the market, we have raised the bar. Some families go back to using credit card for payments. The change is not very big, but we also have news when we look at this evolution, which is cash payments using PIX and other alternative payment methods, whereby we receive the money immediately. That is 26% of our B2C sales.
That's it. Very clear. Thank you, Godinho and Filipe.
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The Q&A session is now closed.
At this time, we'll hand it over to Mr. Fabio Godinho for his final considerations.
[Foreign Language]
Again, thank you all for your time. Thank you all for joining us to talk about our evolution. This management has been working at CVC for the last two years. In this last quarter, we could see the strength of the diversification of revenue streams. You see our three business units. When B2C is facing a challenge, and here, we grew 10% in B2C. In the second quarter last year, we grew 16%. The maritime capacity reduction, geopolitical issues, the aggressive pricing action of Azul, but we also had a higher take rate. The take rate in the second quarter of last year was 12%. It's now 13.8%. The take rate in B2C. This is the number for this second quarter. The overall take rate for the company fell, but that was because of dilution.
In B2C and in Argentina, we had a growth that was lower than the growth in B2B. We could see how important it is for us to have different sources of revenue. Even in this challenging scenario, we delivered 30% EBITDA growth, BRL 130 million cash generation, and the debt was reduced by BRL 120 million. This is our mantra. This is our number one goal. However, there are many things happening. There are lots of improvements in our stores, in technology, in B2B, in B2C that's already going live. For example, there's something that will revolutionize our operations in CVC Corp, which is the flex commission. You see, the salesperson always had, you know, at the store or in the website, and there was no flexibility in terms of price. The price was 1,000. That was the price. The salesperson could not lower the price to convert sales.
It was very bureaucratic. He had to take a screen print and then send it to someone so that it would be approved. Today, all product screens of CVC Corp, air products, flexible packages, exclusive products, hospitality or hotel only, we have the flex commission. The travel agent can share the commission. The salesperson can even increase the commission to 12%, let's say, for a certain product or 16%. The salesperson can bring the commission down to 8% to convert the sale right then and there. We did that with Disney tickets and sales grew 500% when we implemented this flex commission. This was rolled out for all our stores' footprint only last week for air products. This will be a revolution for salespeople to have this flexibility at the end.
Together with the digital sales model that already accounts for 56% of our sales, plus AI we will have in the second half of the year to improve the digital sales model. These are very relevant changes. The website has improved. The app has improved. All of this to increase sales. There are lots of things happening in B2B, in B2C. Number one, the strength of our group of companies. This is our power to give us resilience in our results in the future. Thank you all very much, and see you in the next quarter.