Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to CVC's fourth quarter 2018 results conference call. Today with us, we have Mr. Luiz Fernando Fogaça, Chief Executive Officer, and Leopoldo Saboya, Chief Financial Officer and Investors Relations Officer. Today's live webcast and earnings release may be accessed through CVC website at www.cvc.com.br/ir. We would like to inform you that this event is recorded and all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After CVC remarks, there will be a question and answer session. At that time, further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. We have simultaneous webcast that may access it through the company's website. The slide presentation may be downloaded from this website. Please feel free to flip through the slides during the conference call.
Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of CVC management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that conditions related to the macroeconomic scenario, industry, and other factors could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Luiz Fernando Fogaça, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Fogaça, you may begin your conference.
Good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased to begin our conference call to discuss fourth quarter results. Regarding today's agenda, we will cover the main events in the fourth quarter, then we will present the financial results, and lastly, we will begin the Q&A. Let's move to page four. In fourth quarter, bookings grew 34% versus 2017 and 15% on a pro forma basis. Excluding Argentina business unit, bookings growth was 17% as disclosed in the operational release. The online channel posted strong growth of 114% in the quarter, driven by the good performance of Submarino Viagens, CVC.com, and Livelo. In 2018, online channel grew 70%. CVC Corp grew 32% in net revenue compared to 2017 in the quarter, and 13% on a pro forma basis.
Take rate excluding operations in Argentina was practically stable, down 10 basis points, with 50 basis points decline in the leisure or boarding segment and an improvement of 160 basis points on corporate and online. Leopoldo will cover those effects in detail later. Adjusted earnings grew 17% on a pro forma basis with operational cash generation of BRL 92 million, almost BRL 70 million higher than fourth quarter 2017. This is the third consecutive quarter with cash generation. Return on investment capital grew 260 basis points, reaching 23%. In January, I concluded the transition with Falco, who assumed the role of chairman of the board. The board of director was renewed in the fourth quarter of 2018, reinforcing the company's digital and innovation skills. We have completed two acquisitions previously announced. Esferatur, which was approved with no restriction by the Antitrust Authority, CADE, in early February, and Ola Transatlántica.
Evaluation of the synergies of the new businesses, Esferatur, Ola, and Libra will be finished next month. In our digital journey, we launched the notify tool to inform the sales executives about best offers available on all CVC gateway airline connections on a real-time basis. We also launched Submarino Viagens app with the airline tickets offer, and we are in the final stage testing the new module of hotels for Submarino Viagens website. in November, CVC brand was once again ranked as one of the top 25 most valuable brands in Brazil, ranking as the 19th and presenting the second highest growth among all others, 21% compared to the previous year. Moving to slide five. We hosted in February the annual sales conventions for Rextur Advance, Experimento, Trend, and CVC business units, in which we presented the strategies and news for 2019.
We returned from the conventions with high levels of energy in all teams and ready to achieve 2019 goals. Moving to page six. in January, we held the first Google Blast campaign. A large-scale customized digital activation that takes place simultaneously on multiple platforms in a short time, resulting in almost 90% increase in the number of consumers who had interactions with one of our digital platforms before visiting a CVC store. CVC.com website had its biggest or largest days of visits, even comparing with the period of Black Friday during this campaign. We announced some news at the CVC sales convention this month, which will be available during 2019, such as digital table for consult destinations, consultant, hotel destinations, hotel rooms, tours, parks.
We also introduced the VR Goggles that will be available in some of our stores that will be helping the customer to have the experience of a destination, a hotel room, a cruise cabin, parks, et cetera. Moving to slide number seven. Last week, we finished the beta test of Submarino Android app for airline ticket, which is now available for download on Google Play, and we will be officially launch in March. In the second quarter, we will also launch Submarino app for iOS users. With the new app, we will have differentiated tariffs for airline tickets. We will notify promotional tariffs for the selected destinations, and we will also offer filters for preferences for individual consumers. We will have hotels in third quarter and dynamic packages in fourth quarter 2019 available for all consumers.
We are also in the final stages of the tests for the new experience research tool for hotels in the Submarino website that will give more additional information, map navigation, photos with improved conversion rates. We will have this available for 100% of the users in second quarter this year. Moving to slide number eight. We will cover some of our people and culture initiatives, which are also core for the company. Last December, we held CVC team building in which we cover the key events of 2018, and we also discussed the strategies for 2019. We are promoting several lectures on digitalization throughout the whole company, and we are maintaining the breakfast with employees to engage them in the strategy of the company and also receive their feedback.
We have just started the first MBA in company in partnership with Fundação Getulio Vargas, a very well-respected institution in Brazil with 50 employees of the company, and we are in the process of launching the second class. I will pass to our CFO, Leopoldo Saboya, who is going to talk about the financial results of the company.
Thank you, Fogaça, and good afternoon, everyone. On next slide 10, we will talk about the main financial indicators of CVC Corp that once again presented double-digit growth in all its KPIs, even if on a pro forma basis. It is important to mention that I will always refer to a pro forma basis comparisons, and if not, I will let you know. In Q4, net revenue grew 13.4%, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income increased by 9.2% and 17.5% respectively. The quarter-over-quarter growth in Q4 now on an accounting basis, reached for net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income 32.4%, 14.9%, and 14.1% respectively. For the year 2018, the growth was on a pro forma basis.
Net revenue +11.5%, adjusted EBITDA 13.2%, adjusted net income 28.7%, showing this incredible operational leverage starting in double digits in net revenue and finishing in almost 30% growth in the net income. On next slide, I will talk about the bookings dynamics in the quarter. Before that, it is important to emphasize that I am not considering the business units in Argentina for easing our comparison for the well-known Brazilian businesses. I will just make a comment in the end how its performance is going over there. In highlighting the bookings by channel, as already mentioned by Fogaça at the beginning of this presentation, is the online channel, which posted significant growth in the quarter, triple digits in fact, reaching 114.5% in the quarter, driven again by the good performance of both Submarino Viagens and CVC.com in the quarter.
In the year, the online channel achieved a strong growth of 70% this year, much beyond what the market grew. It is important once again to point out that this growth on the online channel came with an improvement in the product mix of Submarino Viagens and continued improvement in the conversion rate in the website, reinforcing once again our speech to grow in the top line with generation of EBITDA and net income that happened throughout the year. The Argentina business units, due to the country's economic turmoil, showed a decrease of approximately 20% in the quarter in reals. The business units, although declining period performed better than the Argentinian tourism market, which in the same period fell by around 40% in reals as well. On the slide 12, we will see the net revenue performance and the take rate variations among quarters and year.
The net revenue based on boardings, CVC, Experimento, Trend, and Visual, reached BRL 340 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 6.4% over the same period last year. The percentage of net revenue over boardings, our take rate, was 14.1% in Q4 2018 against 14.5% in Q4 2017 on a pro forma basis. This 50 basis points approximately dropped is split in 30 basis points in CVC business unit and 20 basis points in the recent acquisitions due to some adjustments that we did in the Q4 that is related to the year based on cutoff effects and some adjustments on costs that was necessary to be done after the acquisition of those businesses. At CVC, that explains the 30 basis points of this drop, among other effects, we had also the mix effects towards more international trips and sequences that has intrinsically lower take rates.
But in the end, we grew our revenues significantly, showing an increase in our cash margin. The net revenue based on bookings in that sense, reached BRL 94 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 67% comparing to Q4 last year figures. Those units I am talking now about, Rextur Advance and Submarino Viagens. The take rate was 7.6% in the quarter, mainly reflecting the greater weight of the online that works with a higher take rate than the airline consolidator business. But important to mention that in that consolidator business, we worked pretty much in a flat take rate compared to last year and throughout 2018 quarters. With that, the CVC Corp net revenue, excluding the Argentinian business units, totaled BRL 434 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 16.5%.
In the year, the growth was 12.1%, reaching BRL 1.5 billion in net revenues, a record for the company. As a result, CVC Corp take rate was 11.9% in Q4, representing a slight drop of 10 basis points compared to Q4 2017 due to the combination of the factors that I have just mentioned. On slide 13, I will talk about the operating expenses. In this quarter, the recurring operating expenses grew 15.7%. For the year, this increase was 8.4%. In this very quarter, this higher increase was due to two main factors. One was the increase in marketing expenses in the online business division. That grew more than 100%, but the marketing expenses grew less than the top line. Important information, first of all.
The second part of this acceleration of expenses in this quarter was due to provisions for scheduled contingencies and an increase in allowance for doubtful accounts, the so-called PDD in Brazil. This is in accordance with the increase of the participation of our internal credit desk that grew the participation from 5% to 9% in the end of the year. That is the level that we are comfortable in working with and that we envision for the foreseeable future. It is important to highlight that the delinquency rate remained pretty much stable and under control. Non-recurring items related to the ILP, CEO and CFO plan grew 41.2% in Q4, basically due to the appreciation of CVC share prices and consequently, the taxes on its growth. Mainly due to the capital synergies, general and administrative expenses in Q4 decreased by 3.4%.
Important to mention that in the whole year, this drop was 6%, showing the efficiency being captured as planned. On slide 14, I will talk about the EBITDA. In the case, the CVC Corp adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 196.5 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 9.2% versus last year. In accounting basis, the growth was 14.9%. in 2018, we reached 21.6% compared to last year in an accounting basis and 13.2% in a pro forma basis with a 70 basis points expansion in EBITDA margin. Slide 15 now, finishing the P&L with the net income. CVC Corp net income adjusted for the new criteria adopted from non-recurring items, as explained in the second quarter of 2017, totaled BRL 98.5 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 17.5% versus last year pro forma basis. Adjusted net income for the year totaled BRL 319 million, representing an increase of almost 29%.
Now on the last three slides, I will discuss cash flow, working capital, and the indebtedness of the company. Regarding cash flow, in the fourth quarter, the company generated a net cash income, which is basically the accounting net income plus the non-cash items of BRL 153 million, a result BRL 35 million higher than figures reported in Q4 2017. In the year, the adjusted net cash income was BRL 583 million, representing an increase of more than BRL 160 million against 2017. The cash generation net of CapEx, another point that we've been discussing with you, had a result above Q4 figures and generated BRL 51 million. This result was BRL 48 million higher than the cash generation in Q4 2017, especially due to the improvement in the working capital, which the change in working capital was BRL 30 million below last quarter figures.
Talking now about the working capital and the return on invested capital. Just to back again to the very points that we mentioned last quarter, that are pretty much the same for the quarter and for the full year, that the company pretty much invested in working capital during this year as a counter-cyclical measure due to the more challenging year that we faced in order to keep up with the double-digit growth that we reached and the very sound growth in net income as well. As we mentioned in the third quarter conference call, the reasons why we invested was as following.
First of all, a natural reflect of the bookings growth itself, the effect from the adequacy of collections and payments processes from the recent acquired companies, and the centralized negotiations with some airline companies that in one hand impacted the working capital, but in the other hand, those businesses units, they were beneficiated by the one single condition that we now have for the group. And some other short-term and one-off effects that we had, like judicial deposits related to the stock option plan, for instance, and the important reduction in the share of payments in cash against installments. This share changed due to the tough conditions of the consumer that we faced. All that together explain why we had to invest more in working capital, but this is in our system. That's the good news.
That we can now back to our cash as the market backs to more normal situation. The ROIC, due to, among other things, the improvement in working capital, improved by 2.6 percentage points, reaching 23.2% in short-term. We also would like to present a new methodology for calculating the ROIC that we consider to be more accurate. In this new methodology, we adjusted the EBIT or the NOPAT with one, the revenue from anticipation to suppliers, which is operational in a sense. Two, the bank lease expenses that is in fact, an operational expense as well. And number three, the effective cash tax income rate, to reflect the tax shield due to the goodwill tax amortization. With that, our new methodology ROIC was 23% in this quarter, and we will disclose this way from now on.
Finally, on slide 18, we show that our leverage is lightly below the Q3 figures, 2.01 x net debt to EBITDA ratio. It was pretty much stable throughout the year, and even with the inclusion of the Ola Transatlántica 's debt acquisition, we could maintain it in this 2x area. With that, I would like to thank everyone for participating in this conference call, and we are now available for the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please press star one on your touch-tone phone at this or any time. If at any point your question is answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Questions will be taken in the order they are received. We do ask that when you pose your question, that you pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Olívia Petronilho from JP Morgan would like to make a question.
Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. I would like to focus a little bit on the recent acquisitions. I know you guys are still working on assessing the potential synergies, but if you could go through a little bit of what is already reflected in the results we have seen and what we should expect in terms of basically SG&A gains for the next quarter or two. Thank you.
Hi again, Olívia. Thank you for your question. In terms of mapping synergies, we are almost there, just making some last analysis. We have the plan, but no synergies has been captured already, and not even in the results we presented, and they will take some more months to start being felt in our figures. We are pretty optimistic on those synergies, both in Argentina, due to our conditions that we have here in Brazil, our capacity to offer, for instance, Brazilian hotels, for instance, in better conditions for them. Also for the Esferatur, the same way we did with Rextur Advance, not to mention some other optimizations in that company. We tend to start to see gains more towards second half this year in all the recent acquisitions.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Remembering, if you have a question, please press star one. Mr. Ruben Couto from Santander would like to make a question.
Hi, everyone. Very quick question on your recent investments in digital capabilities to the stores. Can you give us an update on how the rollout of all the tools that you are trying to give to the salespeople at the stores, how they're behaving, how they are influencing in a positive way, same-store sales growth to the stores that have already managed to run the tools for some time? Just to get a sense if we can expect some same-store sales acceleration from the digital transformation already in 2019, or it would be something that would be seen more clearly over the next couple of years. Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Ruben. To be very frank to you, those kinds of enhancements that the digitalization will bring to the offline channel will be more mid to long-term gain. We don't expect a change in the middle in the short term for 2019. These very specific enhancements for all these applications of digital won't change the needle for our same-store sales. That's something that we are creating, paving the way for the mid to long-term recycling, more movement in stores, moving forward. Of course, as long as they are available in the bulk of our stores, not to mention in all of them, we may see some changes by year-end, but it will all depend on the speed of our implementation and our changes of those new features in our stores. As you know, we are always very conservative.
We tend to work with no changes in 2019, but working for better results in the coming years. Thank you.
Yeah.
Remembering, if you have a question, please press star one. I'll turn over to Mr. Luiz Fernando Fogaça for final considerations. Mr. Fogaça, you may give your final consideration now.
In fact, it's Leopoldo speaking. The final considerations for all of you, it's very simple. I simply would like to thank you for having our conference call for results. We are very pleased to present those figures. It was a very important year for all of us, not only in terms of results, but in terms of achievement in new acquisitions and all this growth in the digital areas, in the online channel. We start with a very good mood for 2019 and going forward. Thank you very much and see you next call. Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes today's CVC's fourth quarter 2018 results conference call. You may disconnect.