Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to CVC's second quarter 2018 results conference call. Today with us, we have Mr. Luiz Eduardo Falco, Chief Executive Officer, and Leopoldo Saboya, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations Officer. Today's live webcast and earnings release may be accessed through CVC's 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 this time, further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach an operator. We have simultaneous webcast that may be accessed 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 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 relate to macroeconomic scenario, industry, and other factors could also cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I will turn the conference over to Mr. Luiz Eduardo Falco, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Falco, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, Flora. Good afternoon, everybody. We are pleased to begin our conference call to discuss the CVC Corp results of the second quarter 2018. Regarding today's agenda, as always, we will talk about the main events on the second quarter, then we will present the financial results, and lastly, we will begin the Q&A.
To begin, I would like to talk about the highlights of the second quarter on CVC Corp. A quarter that showed great resilience and robust financial results despite of the market challenges like World Cup, truck strike, and heavy FX change. In slide number four, in this quarter, CVC Corporate bookings grew 5.7%. The online channel grew 36.4%, driven by a great performance of Submarino Viagens, and the resumption of cvc.com.br growth on this quarter.
It's important to highlight that the online channel has been presenting consistent growth on the last four quarters as showed on this slide. If you take June specifically, we can show that online is growing 48%. Regarding financial results on CVC Corp, despite of the challenges that we mentioned before, CVC posts a great resilience and robust financial results, growing 12.7% on the net revenue, 18.7% in adjusted EBITDA, and 63.1% on net profit when compared with pro forma basis second quarter 2017.
Some other initiatives that I would like to highlight, in a partnership with Submarino Viagens, Esfera and Livelo, we have been working together since June in a deal which customers can use Livelo points to purchase tourist products on all the CVC stores.
Livelo points can be used in conjunction with other means of paying, reinforcing CVC competitive differential. Sometimes Submarino Viagens also gives some Livelo points for their sales. There is also a building which now holds all our digital engineers and technology employees, which is already in operation, aggregating all the teams on the same space and accelerating digital deliveries for other channels, which we call CVC Digital.
We also launched a new network training platform aimed to improving the service standards. The digitalization growth brought the need for a new platform to bring fluidity between the information of different channels, reinforcing CVC Corp omni-channel position. Regarding market initiatives, Rede Globo in partnership with CVC, launched a national television project that will address the diversity of Brazil tourist potential such as beach, mountains, and parks, as well as festivals.
This project will run between now and June 2019. For the first time since the IPO in 2013, CVC shares joined the Bovespa Index, Ibovespa. On slide five, we will talk about the main financials indicators of CVC Corp that showed growth in the main metrics. As I mentioned before, CVC Corp posted robust financial results growing 12.7% in net revenue, 18.7% in adjusted EBITDA, and 63.1% in net profit when compared with the second quarter 2017.
In the first semester or the first half of 2018, we posted the following growth: 10.6% on the net revenue, 15.4% on adjusted EBITDA, and 41.4% on adjusted net income. Now I pass to our CFO, Leopoldo Saboya, who is going to talk about the financial results of the company. Leopoldo.
Thank you, Falco. Good afternoon, everyone. Moving immediately to slide number seven, please. I will talk about the bookings of the company. Before that, I would like just to mention that all the comparisons will be made on a pro forma basis. If not, I will remark. Bookings of CVC Corp reached BRL 3.1 billion in the Q2 2018, representing growth of 5.7%.
In July, after all the adversities mentioned by Falco, CVC Corp already posted double-digit growth back into the Q1 performance in average. As you can see in the second chart on the left-hand side, the online channel again posted strong growth driven by the good performance of Submarino Viagens and the presumption of cvc.com growth.
It is important to highlight that the online channel growth came with an improvement in the Submarino product mix from 8% to 22% in packages and hotels, as shown in the chart on your right, and a significant increase in the site conversion rate that grew 45% in this period. All these results with no cash burn, in fact, with an accretive in EBITDA and net income.
Next slide, an analysis on our revenues. The net revenues of boarding-based units like CVC, Experimento, Trend Viagens, and Visual Turismo totaled BRL 2,149 million in Q2, 10.9% higher. The percentage of net revenues over boardings, the so-called take rate, was stable in 14.8%. Net revenues of booking-based business units, RexturAdvance and Submarino Viagens, totaled BRL 67 million in Q2, 20% higher.
As I mentioned before, this variation was mainly due to mix improvements in Submarino Viagens, which started selling products with higher margins, as well the stability of the margin in RexturAdvance. Here I'm talking about the improvement in the take rate from 6.2% to 6.6% quarter-over-quarter. For the CVC Corp net revenues, we reached BRL 360 million in Q2, growing 12.7%, or BRL 35 million in additional revenues in absolute terms.
In the first half, we grew 10.6% to BRL 701 million, or BRL 67 million higher than the same period last year. The take rate over CVC Corp bookings was 11.7% in Q2, higher by 10 basis points due to a greater mix of products in Submarino, as I said before, the stability of the margin in RexturAdvance, and also due to the top-line captured synergies in Trend Viagens and Visual Turismo already in this number.
We can move now to slide number nine, talking about operational expenses. Recurring operating expenses grew 9% in Q2, mainly to increase in marketing expenses along with our growth and expenses related to M&A activities. In the first half, on the other hand, the same comparison, the same group of expenses increased 6.8%.
Important to mention that the G&A expenses increased 2.8% in the quarter, lower than inflation in the period, basically due to the synergies on the expenses being captured in the new business units that we just acquired. In first half 2018, general and administrative expenses fell by 1%. Now moving to slide number 10, the EBITDA performance. As a result of the overall operational performance, CVC Corp adjusted EBITDA was BRL 118 million in the second quarter and BRL 319 million in the first half of the year, representing growth of 18.7% and 15.4%, respectively.
EBITDA margin increased 190 basis points in both periods, reaching 37.3% in the second quarter and 45.5% in the first half of 2018. Moving to our charts of indebtedness and financial expenses. We can see that in June, we reached BRL 1.28 billion of net debt, including acquisition payables, representing 1.86 x EBITDA leverage.
When we add the factor of receivables, the net debt was BRL 1.38 billion versus slightly above BRL 1 billion last year. Worth mentioning that the company de-leveraged fast from 2.16% in last quarter to 2.01 x EBITDA in this quarter, taking the concept of full liabilities in that figure. During the quarter, the company raised BRL 300 million in bilateral bank debt. The average cost of funding was around 107% of CDI rate variation and supports the company's working capital needs.
With that strategy, we've reduced the revolving use receivables discounted, keeping it as a buffer for cash flow short-term mismatches. Net financial expenses fell 5.6% in the quarter due to the drop in CDI rate, reduction of the cost of the company's debt. Finally, the rise in expenses related to payment through bank slips was a reflex of the increase in the company's bookings, 5.7% in the period, and the greater mix of this payment type, which came from 25% in June last year to 32%, approximately, in June 2018.
On the next slide, the performance or the bottom line of the company was pretty remarkable with a 63.1% growth over last year, reaching BRL 35.2 million in net income. First half, 41.4% growth, reaching BRL 127 million in year to date. I'm sorry. Now moving to the cash flow analysis.
In Q2, CVC Corp generated BRL 110 million in operating cash, net of investments, and given the result presented in the previous quarter, operating cash consumption was BRL 204 million in the first half of the year. This consumption is BRL 110 million higher than first half last year. Very important to carefully analyze these results, and for that, I will make some adjustments or comment on things that are one-off movement in this quarter to fully analyze the changes.
First of all, the effect of the consolidation of the Trend Viagens and Visual Turismo balance sheet, the same analysis we did last quarter is on that figure. It's not a perfect comparison to Q1 last year. Another thing is that we still had a minor portion of advances to suppliers that was booked in June, but it was fully consumed in early July.
Lastly, the effects related to the share buyback program that is in place this year and was not last year. When we eliminate all those mentioned effects, the cash consumption in the year to date would be closer to BRL 80 million, or BRL 14 million better than last year figure, which was BRL 93 million. Finally, some comments on working capital and returns.
Some comments on the main changes. The line of suppliers and advances to suppliers line reflects basically the higher balance of advances to suppliers that I, as I just mentioned, was consumed by beginning of last month. The prepaid expenses line was positively impacted by the cruises segment, which will only be accounted when the respective payments are made. The other net line was mainly impacted by the share buyback program.
With that, our return on invested capital reached 26.2% in the last 12 months, ended in June 30, 2018, an improvement of 100 basis points compared to March 31, 2018. That's all for now. I thank everyone for participating on our conference call, and now I turn to the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please press star one on your touch phone at this or any time. If at any point your question is answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing 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 headset to provide an optimum sound quality. Please hold the wire. We poll for questions. If you have a question, please press star one. I will turn over to Mr. Luiz Falco for final considerations. Mr. Falco, you may give your final considerations now.
Okay. Once more, thank you very much for everybody for your time. Company is proud to go to another quarter. It was a very complicated quarter for the adverse things one-off that happened. Despite of that, I think the resilience of the company once more proved that the company is going in a good shape. Thank you very much. If you have any remarks and doubts, please contact our industry-related people, which are here to serve you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes today's CVC second quarter 2018 results conference call. You may disconnect now.