result for the second quarter of 2023. Myself, Maria Elsa Alba Bernhoeft, and besides us, Marcelo Boncher, our M&A Vice President and Superintendent of all corporate areas. I would like to begin by referring to the highlights this quarter. We reached a net revenue of BRL 2.6 million, a growth of 17% vis-a-vis the last quarter. Last year, I'm sorry. 9% of organic growth. Reaching a level which is not ideal, but on the path to having a two-digit growth. Adjusted EBITDA of BRL 308 million, with a robust growth compared to the second quarter 2022, 30%, and an 11.8% adjusted EBITDA margin. Adjusted net profit, BRL 149 million, with a growth of 22% vis-a-vis the second quarter 2022, and a margin somewhat higher than last year of 5.7%.
We have expanded our customer base. We now stand at 4,336,000. This number still does not include those companies that are being integrated, TLSV and Comseg, while they're still being integrated. We reached a Net Promoter Score of 70%, somewhat below our historical level because of the first round with the acquired companies. Our distribution of net revenue by line of solution continues to be quite diversified. In integrated facilities, 41%, and in facilities we include temporary labor, field marketing, and catering, indoor. Security as second with 28%. Maintenance and industrial services with 24%, and indoor logistics 7%. Our diversification, our fragmentation of customer base, for net revenue is quite positive. 4% for our largest client. With this largest client, we have most of our important contracts now.
As representativity of our base, this is reflected in this multiplicity of contracts. It's not a single contract that represents this share of 4%. We still have that strategy of fragmenting our revenues by quarters. As I mentioned, 17% increase in total net revenue compared to the second quarter 2022, a 9% increase in the organic net revenue. We have 7 companies representing BRL 313 million, and those that have come in this year with BRL 72 million for inorganic net revenue. We grew somewhat more in the quarter, 19% more compared to the year 2022. 9% increase in organic net revenue, and inorganic net revenue the 7 companies for 2022 and 2 companies in 2023. TLSV in 2023 will be incorporated as of the third quarter. EBITDA with a robust growth, as mentioned.
We had a growth compared to the second quarter 2022. We had a growth of 39% compared to the first half of 2022, and a margin which is quite higher, 1.6 percentage points higher than the first half of 2022. This, of course, is a reflection of the fact that in the first half of last year we had a concentration of M&As. This semester we only had Compart affecting our result, and consequently our margin. We have a 10-11 in terms of adjusted net profit. We had a 22% growth. A net margin somewhat higher, of 5.7%, or 0.2 percentage points higher than the second quarter of 2022. I'm now going to give the floor to Marcelo to comment about the M&As for 2022, 2023.
Well, good morning, everybody, here you see a summary of our M&A program of 2022 and what we have until 2023. We acquired 17 companies, BRL 1.4 billion in gross revenue. In 2023, we have 4 acquisitions, with almost BRL 600 million of combined revenues. As Marilia mentioned, Compart was integrated, we have included its results in the second quarter. TLSV was our acquisition in the Telephony network maintenance. It's a company we have been looking at for some time. There's a great deal of synergy with our operations. We concluded the integration program. Comseg is still at a process of approval with the Federal Police and CADE, in the coming month, we hope that both the Federal Police and CADE will approve this operation so that we can begin our integration.
We will have a significant gain of scale in the region of Kansas. This is their headquarters, and along with GPS, they are the lead scale. Another relevant piece of information is that last year, as you can see on the slide, our acquisitions concentrated in the first half of the year. The last closing were Vertical and Global in June and July, which means that last year, most of the revenues of those companies were captured throughout the year. In 2021, the concentration was in the second half of the year, where we fully captured the revenue of the companies acquired in the period of 2022.
Thanks to this, we had a growth of revenue and EBITDA that was so robust that we had 39% of growth in revenue if we compare 2021 to 2022, and 44% growth in EBITDA, once again, because throughout the year, we were able to capture the revenues from the M&A program. This year, due to other variables, especially because of the change in the macroeconomic scenario, making it more difficult to negotiate the companies and define the pricing, we will see that we will have a more relevant concentration in the second half of the year. PLSV and Comseg were signed in June, and the closing will only be in August and September. Acquisitions, of course, begin in September.
We will have a large concentration in the second half of the year as foreseen, and this will hamper our inorganic growth somewhat during the year, the growth of EBITDA. The trend is to recover that in 2024, where we will begin the year with all of these revenues being recognized in our balance. Let's go on to the next slide. Here we have a summary of our acquisitions since the IPO. 17 companies, combined, revenues of BRL 3.6 billion. The highlight is that we were able to grow significantly in maintenance and industrial services with 6 acquisitions. We have maintenance and industrial services from a sector that was relatively new for GPS. We began this with only 1 acquisition. We saw that there was a very good fit with our management model. We began to grow therefore based on this new vertical.
Since the IPO, we have had 6 acquisitions. This is our 3rd acquisition in the group, very close to security. We have a concentration in temporary labor. Once again, a new segment for us. We began this with the acquisition of Luandre, and we have had 3 more acquisitions since the IPO. Another relevant point I would like to underscore, we have delivered our growth goal with middle-sized companies. There's only 1 company with revenues lower than BRL 100 million, 12 with revenues between BRL 100 million-300 million, and 4 with revenues between BRL 300 million-500 million. These are the companies we acquire because they have a smaller scale, and of course, the project is important, and the EBITDA, of course, tends to be lower. These are the companies with a greater potential for synergy with us.
In the pipeline, we have a very heated-up pipeline for the second quarter to deliver the goal for the year. We will probably receive several questions about this. We have 13 companies at a more advanced stage of negotiation with BRL 3 billion of combined revenues. We are in the final stages, which is contract and price negotiations with this pipeline of BRL 3.5 billion, as you can see, and we're very well delivered to comply with our goal. Let's speak a bit about our cash generation. Once again, it was a positive result. Once again, because we did not have M&As, our operational cash was positive. We reached almost BRL 600 million in the quarter, 99% of the adjusted EBITDA, 22 percentage points above what we had last year.
Once again, due to the effect of M&As last year and ex M&A this quarter. BRL 280 million for interest and taxes. Now, the only different event this year is the payment of dividends that was BRL 700 and some million that we paid out in April. Besides this, we had the payment of interest and amortizations and purchase options for the acquired companies. Of course, the remaining installments of BRL 3 million and the program of shares option, BRL 31 million. The event I would like to highlight is the payment of dividends of BRL 175 million. It is worthwhile mentioning that we do have some events in cash, the dividends, the payment of P&L. As part of all of these events, we were able to have a very positive cash generation.
In investments, basically this refers to the rest of our applications and investments that we made amounting to BRL 60 million. We ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of BRL 928 million. Our leverage quite stable at 0.8 times adjusted EBITDA, a level consistent with the last quarters. We have a vision that this cash allows us the comfort to continue on with our investments needed for M&A for inorganic growth as well as organic growth and working capital with a very stable duration of 39 months. With this, we would like to end the presentation, and we will now go on to questions and answers. In the list, the first person to raise their hand was Renata Cabral from Citi. Renata, if you could unmute her audio, please. Good morning, Marita. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question.
My question refers to a request, somewhat more color in terms of your 2021 harvest. If this could happen with other M&A groups compared to the group of last year, for example, where you carry out an acquisition and some companies have contracts which in truth are not very acceptable, you do not proceed with the contracting. My question is, before acquiring the companies, do you have an idea that this could happen and you know that some groups will have this impact in the future? Thank you. Thank you for the question, Renata. In truth, this has always happened, and what is curious is that it is almost desirable because what is ideal, what we seek is to buy companies with a low standard of profitability.
Hypothetically, by acquiring a company that has a 2% EBITDA margin, we try to bolster this margin to 10%. We increase the margin twofold, then the acquisition price will cost. We have a payback very quickly from this operation, and we have several companies in our pipeline in the search for that type of company with lower margins and part of the margin recovery will take place in the back office. Most of these gains will occur with cuts in the structure, but there's also an important and relevant part of margin that happens when we sign the contracts. Ex-ante, we do not know how many contracts that company has. Well, they never measure the results, otherwise they would not be up for acquisitions.
It's difficult to know the volume of contracts that these companies have before closing the contract, and simply by losing the contract, we can enhance the margin. Of course, this is not our goal. Specifically in the 2021 harvest, we acquired 3 companies, Única and 2 more, companies with extremely low margins, excellent for us, exactly what we wanted. These companies had contracts that were in deficit. We were able to negotiate several of these contracts, but we lost out on others. Contracts with the banking sector that have lower margins. Of course, this hampered our organic growth when we compare 2023 to 2022. We have always been able to deliver a 2-digit growth despite the loss of contracts that happens in these acquired companies.
Because of these three companies, because of the problem with contracts, we had a difficulty in attaining our goal. We're at 9% instead of 10%. If we exclude these three companies from the analysis of organic growth. Organic growth would have reached 14%, you observe the impact of that harvest in our growth. If you look at the EBITDA margin, we were able to significantly increase it compared to last year. Historically, this 2021 harvest basically was an outlier. There was a loss of revenue. As a counterpart, we had gains in EBITDA, which is, of course, our main target. The way that we assess an M&A is not based on gaining revenues, but the upside that we get in margins. 2021 was an outlier, something outside of our norm. Simply to complement what Marcelo has just said. Thank you.
That was very clear and excellent to better understand your dynamic. Thank you, and have a good day. Next person is Luis Capistrano, if you could unmute his audio. Well, after this explanation of the 2021 harvest, I want an explanation. You speak about outliers, which means that 5% is greater or lower? Lower. The loss is lower. Lower. Thank you. The next question on the same topic, when we remove this effect, the organic growth of 14%, if we could work with that breakdown that you always present, what is the transfer of collective bargaining, which are the negotiations with new clients? You know, that basic division that you always present so that we can analyze trends. If we could understand what has happened with the levels of margin of the 2021 harvest in this period of two years.
We'll speak a bit about this breakdown, and then I will give the floor to Marcelo. The breakdown will end up being very similar. The churning is 1.8%, same-store sales representing 1.8% of the growth, and new clients representing one-third. Our breakdown of this organic growth, if we base ourself on 14%, continues on with a very basic assumption compared to what we do historically. A churn below 2%, same-store sales, once again 2%. Regarding the margin, of course, our goal is to enhance the margin. This is a continuous goal. I observe that we have a 2.8% margin in the second half of this year and 11.7% in the first half. We don't have the expectation of operating at that level of margin.
We will operate much closer to 11%, somewhat above our expectation, because we have very few M&As in the competition, where between harvests of M&A and our margin therefore will be somewhat hampered. In the second half of 2022, we were able to recover our margin, 11.9% in the second quarter, 11.5% in the third quarter. What will our second half of the year be? We hope to maintain these levels of margins because we are between M&A harvests, and there will be a proportional growth that will be lower than last year. In the second half of 2022, our margin was highly efficient. We have captured most of the synergies, and of course, the margins of the companies are up to the levels we expect, and the EBITDA margins will perhaps be somewhat above what we had expected. That's very clear, Marcelo.
Maria Elsa Alba Bernhoeft, thank you very much. Have a good day. We have one more person in line. Victor Mizusaki. Good morning and congratulations for your results. I have two questions, one referring to the contracts. In the acquisition, is there any adjustment because of the contracts? Speaking about future M&As, historically there is a concentration in the first half of the year. This year it will be in the second half of the year. Looking forward towards the next 12 months, can we consider, we're speaking about the first half of 2024. Can we expect a very strong action in terms of M&A so that you will have a top-line growth in 2024? Okay, Victor. With, we don't like to work with earn-out. We don't like this. Of course, if the situation is inevitable, we do it.
When we have an earn-out, we capture it, and we transfer part of the margin to the seller. If there's no limit in margin, we transfer all of our synergy. If there is an earn-out, therefore, we do limit the margin in these three specific cases. The Houded, the Allis, there was no earn-out. Precisely because we cannot transfer all of our efficiency gains to the seller. Now, in terms of the M&As, there is no historic standard of concentration in the first half or second half of the year. This will depend on our pipeline, and there are variables that will define this concentration. There is no necessary concentration in the first or second half of the year. What will happen next year as the concentration this year will be in the second half when we look at the accounts.
This year, the positive impact on revenue and the result of acquisitions will be minor, 3 months only, and the coming year, we will have the impact of consolidation for 12 months. The trend is that we will recover this growth gap the coming year. My base of comparison this year is 2022, which is very difficult because 2022 had very high revenues. We consolidated most of the revenues in 2022. 2023 will have a better base of comparison, better from the viewpoint of growth. We will have little positive impact of the M&As in the revenues in 2024. We will have the relevant impact of M&As. We will consolidate them in the second half this year and a very low base of comparison. All of this tends to fluctuate. It's natural.
We have to base ourselves on averages, and based on this, we will deliver average growth of 30%-35% of EBITDA. As I mentioned, 2022 was very good. The revenues grew 39% of revenue and 42% of EBITDA, more than we expected because of the concentration of M&As in the first half of the year. As we have a larger volume of integrations in the semester, the trend is to have a temporary reduction in margin. We're integrating companies and integrating margins of 2%-3%. We work with a weighted average, and the margin tends to drop until we ascertain the management and until we prepare the company to fit into our standards. The worst part will always be the margin. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's continue here with a question we have in the chat.
Thank you for your congratulations. There's a large pipeline of M&As now, and which is the most probable position of follow-on payment of debts. Pedro, thank you for the question. I think that presently we have a cash position that is quite comfortable. Since the IPO, we tend to say we have always funded our acquisition program for middle-sized companies with our own cash generation. GPS historically never used outside capital to fund these acquisitions. Notwithstanding this, we have maintained healthy leverage levels. In Gávea was our only exception. Our expectation is that for these acquisitions, for middle-sized companies, the payback will be very fast, and as we're very selective, we will have a rapid return on capital.
We have a healthy balance today, BRL 2 billion in cash, with an indebtedness level that is very healthy that we have maintained through the years despite this intense schedule for acquisitions. We expect to be able to pay for these acquisitions with our own cash. If we acquire a larger company, which is an option, this is a more complex process. The variables involved will be more complex, and negotiation tends to be slower. The payback, of course, is not the same. There's more skill to reduce fixed costs. If we make these acquisitions of larger companies, we may have to do a follow-on or a payback of shares. Only if we acquire a company that invoices BRL 2 billion or BRL 1 billion per year. Very well. Pedro, he's thanking us for the answer. Lucas from Santander, if you could please unmute his audio.
Good morning, Marcelo and Marita. Thank you for taking my question. That relates to the increase or what will happen with unemployment the coming year. Does this concern you? Simply so that we can understand this dynamic. Regarding this has not been a pushback or an element of restriction to our growth. The offer of labor could have a bottleneck in a region where there's less supply of labor or where we can perhaps acquire some expertise. In truth, we're able to monitor this in GPS, and what we see is very positive. We do not have a bottleneck when it comes to employment.
Now, when we enter more specialized activities, we may face the challenge of not having sufficient technical people, but in those businesses that for us are business as usual, we have not had a restriction to growth due to labor. Quite the contrary, we ended up finding wonderful opportunities, 144,000 people employed. I think this is one of the main employers in Brazil, and for us it means business as usual. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. We now have a question in the chat from Bruno. Good morning. The scenario of lower interest rates in 2024, does this impact the sale of businesses for potential M&A? Obviously, it will have an impact. These macroeconomic issues, of course, don't arrive at great speed, and this relief and cash flow will take some time to arrive.
Everybody is under a great deal of pressure. I think the results will take some time in coming and in the harvest of M&As that we have now. One of the reasons is the worsening of the economic scenario because of what happened in 2021 and the beginning of 2022, and we had to readjust our prices and negotiations with the sellers. Sellers take some time in feeling the impact of this, and we have this readjustment in our assumptions of value. In the midterm, this will have an impact, but it will take some time to materialize, of course. With the reduction in the basic interest rates, people will have a relief in cash, and then, of course, we will have to change our revaluation. We will have to balance it out.
We continue here with the next person on the list, Lucas Martelli from BTG, if you could unmute his audio, please. Thank you very much. Simply a doubt in the discussion of the upsides of the acquisition contract and thinking about the 2022 harvest. When we grow in the segment of maintenance and industrial services, I believe that you reduce in direct costs, you reduce SG&A. Well, perhaps this is not such a large issue for you. Is there space for a commercial review in these industrial clients that are already more under pressure and have worse economics? Now, the economics of growing maintenance and industrial services perhaps is more difficult, similar, and which is the upside that you get from a review of SG&A compared to other segments? This will give us some light in terms of how you grow in this specific segment.
Thank you, Lucas, for the question. We have not observed a relevant difference in terms of synergy. In truth, GPS has developed an ecosystem to appreciate services. There are two main characteristics here, the intensity of labor. We have learned how to manage this, benefits, labor laws. We manage this system with a great deal of efficiency. On the other part, the entrepreneurial contract. I think the maintenance does have these two characteristics. Maintenance as well as cleaning and other areas tend to have a great deal of employees, and there is an enormous need to have a back office. Like the companies of security and cleaning, 11% of net revenues, I see no difference. The characteristics are the same.
The intensity of labor, the complexity to manage the back office is the same. This has been our experience, and working with them is very similar to working with cleaning and security companies. There are no differences. In these companies, most of the synergies come from the structural overlays and the complexity of the back office. In the contractual negotiation, our contractual gain of margin occurs in two currents. In the first vertical, which is more relevant when we make our team responsible, our contract manager for the results. We have precise, objective results, and this begins a dynamic of follow-up to attain the result. When the company begins to have results, when they are pressured, when they are remunerated and recognized for the contract, everything will begin to work.
This is a vertical where we do gain a great deal of operational margin, and what we also do is renegotiate contracts. If we see that we have a problematic contract, we will sit down and renegotiate. If we're not able to balance out the contract, we do have to renegotiate again. If this is not possible, we will end up losing that contract. I cannot say if our capacity to negotiate contracts is greater or lesser in terms of maintenance. I think the difficulty of negotiating a contract has more to do with the size of the client. A client with several supply policies makes it very difficult to renegotiate the contract. This is related to the type of client. Industrial clients tend to be larger, they have more compliance and supply policies, and it is somewhat more difficult to renegotiate contracts.
We're very concentrated in the industrial segment, maintenance, cleaning and others. 70% of our revenues comes from this. Okay, that was very clear, Marcelo. Thank you for the answer. Simply to clarify, we have an anonymous question in our chat. We need to have identification for the questions, simply so that we can proceed here. In the case that this person is interested in posing the question again, perhaps the name wasn't identified by Zoom. Are there any further questions? While we're awaiting for this anonymous question. Well, thank you very much. We're at your disposal. Once again, you have my WhatsApp, you can communicate with us at any time. We would like to thank you for your time. Have a very good day and a good weekend. Once again, thank you very much.