Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to CVC's first quarter 2018 results conference call. Today with us, we have Mr. Luiz Eduardo Falco, Chief Executive Officer, and Leopoldo Saboya, Chief Financial 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 that time, further instructions will be given. Should any participants need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the 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 the beliefs and assumptions of CVC management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risk 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 the macro economy 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, Grazielle. Good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased to begin our conference call to discuss the CVC Corp results of the first quarter 2018. Regarding today's agenda, as always, we will talk about the main events on the first 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 first quarter on CVC Corp. Please, slide number four. This quarter, CVC Corp bookings grew 12.7%, highlighting the double-digit growth as we presented in all quarters of 2017. The increase on the first quarter 2018 was driven by a good performance in the leisure segment, which grows more than 12%, on the corporate segment, which grows more than 10%, and also on the online segment with Submarino Viagens.
In the first quarter, all the channels showed double-digit growth, highlighting the online channel that grew above 25%. in January, we implemented the new organization structures, as we mentioned on the first quarters, aimed in capturing operational synergies and generates greater integrations between the business units. In March, as a material fact we published on March 26, the new CFO, Leopoldo Saboya, was appointed, and the new CEO, Luiz Fernando Fogaça, was approved to take place on the beginning of 2018. During March, CVC held in Dubai its first sales convention outside Brazil, and more than 1,500 people attended the event, including franchisees, employees, and suppliers. In Dubai, we presented the new marketing campaign, [Non-English content] which means, "Which kind of vacation do you want?
We have it. We present everything that CVC provides to the customers, including a wide variety of destinations and products with flexibility and personalized service, in addition to democratization of tourism in the country. Going to the business units highlights. CVC Leisure ended the first quarter growing more than 13.4% in bookings with the same-store sales growth of 11.4%. We opened nine new stores with 95 net opens in the last 12 months. RexturAdvance grew more than 16% on the first quarter 2018, totalizing BRL 728 million in booking. Submarino Viagens improved the product mix in the quarter and post the strong growth in bookings. Experimento Intercâmbio ended the first quarter with bookings growth more than 13% and two new stores with 15 net opens on the last 12 months.
On slide number five, we show some pictures of the event of Dubai, just for our investors to understand what's a sales convention and how is the power of this channel. This event also was used to make more training to all our workforce, and it was very well accepted. As is World Cup year, we held a lot of suppliers, and we have [inaudible] with us on this specific. On slide number six, we will present the new organization structure with the material one. The new organization structure, as mentioned before, is based on the concept that who do not work in sales work for sales. We now have six business units under CVC Corp umbrella and all support areas providing service to the business units.
On slide number seven, we will talk about the main financial indicators of CVC Corp that showed growth in its main metric. As you can see, CVC Corp bookings totalized BRL 3.1 billion on the first quarter, rose about 12.7% versus the first quarter 2017 pro forma. Net revenues reached BRL 385 million, representing an improvement of almost 9% when compared with first quarter 2017 pro forma. Adjusted EBITDA grew 13.5%, and adjusted net income grew 34.6% versus first quarter 2017 pro forma. Now for the results, I will pass to our new CFO, Leopoldo Saboya, who is going to talk about the financial results of the company. Leopoldo, please.
Thank you, Falco. First of all, I would like to say that I'm very honored to be part of CVC team. Second, to mention that all the comparisons that I'll make will be against Q1 2017 in a pro forma basis. If not, I'll let you know. Okay? Talking about bookings by segment on slide nine, we have here the split of our growth and results of our bookings by segment. In the leisure segment, we posted 12.6% growth. This increase was driven by the strong growth in cruises and international segments, especially the European circuits. On the corporate segment, bookings increased to 10.5% in Q1 due to the good performance of RexturAdvance that grew more than 16% in the quarter. The bookings of CVC Corp reached and totalized BRL 3.1 billion in Q1, representing a 12.7% growth.
It is important to highlight that the double-digit growth in the quarter was on top of a double-digit growth basis we saw in 2017. On slide 10, we will break down the booking by channel. The online channel recorded a rise of more than 27% in Q1. Submarino Viagens presented a strong growth in the period, as observed in the last two quarters. Worth mention that we are growing high 20s while achieving positive EBITDA. Also good performance in the exclusive stores that grew 14.2%, and independent agents grew 10.2%, also sustained bookings growth in the quarter. On the right-hand side of the slide, we have here the same-store sales performance, and we are posting an 11.4% growth, pretty solid. On slide 11, we have little more details on our net revenues.
The net revenues of booking-based business units, CVC, Experimento Intercâmbio, Trend and Visual, totaled BRL 322 million in the quarter, representing growth of 7.7%. The take rate was 14.4% in Q1, decreasing 15 basis points in the period due to a greater mix in international travels that faces structural lower margins, as you may know. Net revenues of booking-based business units like RexturAdvance and Submarino Viagens totaled BRL 63 million in Q1, representing growth of 15.2%. The take rate of those segments was 6.5% in Q1, reducing 30 basis points against last year. Reasons why. On RexturAdvance, it was due to a greater mix in the international segment, same thing as in CVC, and also by lower incentives paid by airlines, particularly in this quarter, in the corporate segment.
In Submarino Viagens on the other hand, take rate enhanced in line with the increase in travel packages and hotel sales in our OTA platform, which have a higher take rate, partially offsetting the reduction in the corporate segment. With that, CVC Corp net revenues totaled BRL 385 million in Q1, 8.9% above last year figures. On the next slide, we are giving more details on our operational expenses. First and foremost, the G&A expenses in Q1 decreased 4.5% as a result of synergies captured. The recurring operational expenses grew 4.6% in the first quarter, mainly due to the increase in marketing expenses that, in line with bookings, grew of more than 12% with the event held in Dubai. Moving to the next slide, summarizing our EBITDA performance. It's pretty remarkable to mention that our EBITDA margin reached 52.2%, which is at 210 basis points above last year.
Bear in mind that we are reaching this performance with still minor synergies from recent acquisitions, Trend and Visual, although in line with the synergy plan. The EBITDA adjusted was BRL 201 million in the quarter, representing a growth of 13.5% against last year pro forma basis. Now with the bottom line of our balance sheet, our net income, we total BRL 92.2 million in the quarter, 34.6% above last year. Q1 earnings growth was driven basically by the EBITDA growth, 13.5% improvement, as the reduction of 20% in financial expense. It's not in this chart though, but it is in our releases, that our adjusted EPS, that was BRL 0.63.
That is BRL 0.13 above last year figure, assessing how our creation for shareholders has been our M&A execution and organic growth in this period. Now moving to our cash flow balance sheet and ending with our net debt performance.
Let's move to slide 15, that is our cash flow. First of all, it's important to mention that we did some adjustments here to compare apples to apples in the chart on our left-hand side. In Q1, CVC Corp had an operating cash consumption net of investments of BRL 314 million. But we need to do two adjustments to compare in the same way. First of all, we need to exclude the effect of Trend and Visual acquisitions, whose balance sheet was not in 2017. This is all the working capital that belongs to those businesses. And the extraordinary effect of the judicial deposit. Then we can compare apples to apples. The cash consumption in Q1 2018 should have been BRL 188 million versus BRL 261 million in Q1 2017.
Bear in mind that we are talking about the quarter that is typically heavier in terms of cash consumption in a year where typically we generate more cash towards the ending of the year. Let's move now to next slide, 16, that we give more details on the working capital and ROIC of the companies. Here again, we need to make the same exclusion of Trend and Visual backwards in 2017. When we excluded those companies, the working capital has improved to BRL 10 million, and even considering the effects mentioned before, like the judicial deposit, the working capital improved to three days in the quarter. Because the business of Trend and Visual, they have a shorter cycle of cash conversion. On the right, the ROIC of 25.2% LTM ended March 31st. It is a result, though, of seasonally heavier quarter on supplier payments.
But comparing to Q1 last year, the ROIC grew by 60 basis points. Moving to slide 17. The net debt reached BRL 1.4 billion on March 31st, against BRL 1.1 billion on same period last year. It represents 2.16 times net debt to EBITDA, against 1.88 x last year in this figure. Excluding the receivables, Q1 leverage was 1.71x . The net financial expenses, basically the cost to serve the debt, fell by 51% in Q1 2018. Due to the drop of the CDI rate, debt amortization related to acquisitions, reduction of company's debt costs, and higher revenue from prepayments to tourism services suppliers. The rise in expenses, on the other hand, related to bank slips, was due to the rise in the company's bookings and the greater mix of this payment type, which increased from 26.2% in Q1 last year to 36.8% participation in Q1 2018.
Having said that, we now turn to 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 touchtone phone at this or any time. If at any point your question is answered, you may remove yourself from the Q&A by pressing the pound key. Questions will be taken in the order that are received. We do ask that when you pose your question, that you pick up your handset to provide optimal sound quality. Please hold while we poll for questions. Remembering, if you have a question, please press star one. As there are no questions, I will turn over to Mr. Luiz Falco for final considerations. Mr. Falco, you may give your final considerations now.
Okay. We may. Thank you very much all for our shareholders and all the people which are on board on this conference call. We are very proud of our results. We think Brazil is a very difficult environment, but CVC has proved its resilience and keep going. Very predictable on the quarters, on the last five quarters. And tell our investors that we are proud also with the confidence that you have with us. And see you on the next conference call. In the meantime, if you have any doubts, please do not hesitate to make contact with our investor relation team. We are here to serve you. Thank you. Have a good afternoon for all of you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's CVC's first quarter 2018 results conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time.