Good morning, everybody. Today, we're going to present the results for the fourth quarter of 2022 and for the full year 2022. We have here today Luis Martinez, our CEO, Marcelo, as we usually have, Marcelo Funchal, our Corporate VP for M&A, and Gustavo Otto, our COO. Today is the opportunity to speak about the fourth quarter and the full year 2022. I give the floor to Luis to give us a general overview of 2022.
Good morning. It is a pleasure to be with you, investors and analysts, for the company to report our main performance highlights for the year 2022, with a specific focus on the fourth quarter. I'm going to speak about the macro indicators of the company for 2022. Of course, it is very satisfying to mention some milestones that we achieved. Net revenues representing 9.2 million of gross revenue, a growth of 39% when compared to 2021, with 11% organic growth. Our EBITDA went beyond the symbolic mark of BRL 1 billion with a growth vis-à-vis 2021 of 45% and a margin of 10.9%.
Our adjusted net profit reached BRL 586 million, 32% higher than in 2021, with a 6.4% adjusted net margin. This is in line with what was expected, despite the fact that we lived through a very challenging year, especially at the beginning of the year, because of what was remaining from the pandemic, impacting the operation of our clients. Now we are prepared for a resumption and for levels of growth closer to what is expected.
We have almost 4,000 groups of clients, a growth of 700 or 800 groups of clients compared to last year. In the last survey carried out in December 2022, our Net Promoter Score stood at 74%. Regarding our solutions portfolio, we have slight variations because of organic growth and the M&A program. I highlight here how representative maintenance and industrial services are reaching 22%. The year before, they were at 18%. We continue with a pulverized net revenue by number of clients. We continue to grow with the clients, but we have no concentration that cause concern in market segments or clients. I will give the floor to my colleagues to continue on with the explanation regarding 2022. I'll give the floor to Gustavo Otto, who will speak about the net revenue.
Well, thank you, Luis. A good day to all of you. I hope you are well. It's a pleasure to be with you. The pleasure increases because we're very satisfied with our performance, especially the organic growth. This is one of my three areas of concentration in the program that I took on last year. This is the first year that I work nationwide regarding organic growth of our business. I refer to the regional teams, the commercial teams who have worked arduously to deliver the figures that we're going to share with you. You can see a growth of 29% in the total net revenue quarter-over-quarter. We have reached the level of BRL 1 billion annualized revenue in line with our expectation, with our track record in a range between 25% and 30%.
Somewhat before the IPO, when we were on the roadshow, it was 29%, which was our CAGR between 2015 and 2020, just before the IPO. Our organic growth has had an evolution quarter-over-quarter. I'm going to refer to all of these variables. I also forgot the contribution of our inorganic growth, BRL 678 million, made up of three companies that are on the screen and that belong to the last two harvests. Regarding the full year, we had a growth of 39%, two percentage points higher than last year when we compared 2021 with 2020.
2020 had been very difficult because of the pandemic. We now have a higher base, and we were able to grow two percentage points and a contribution of more than BRL 2 billion to our inorganic net revenue. We have a strong consolidation of inorganic revenues in the first half of this year. You can see through the proportion of the colors, the green and the blue in the last bar, this refers to the 2022 harvest that contributed significantly during the year, enabling us to have good growth for the year. An important point I would like to highlight is that, besides the growth of 11% inorganic net revenue compared to 2021, we worked much more in terms of qualifying the brand. It's important to highlight because this is for our EBITDA.
We had a significant increase of the three companies that we acquired, qualifying the brand, understand the risks. Of course, in this process of qualifying the brands, the margin, and the company, we see a lot of contracts. Of course, this figure could be higher if we were not extremely careful with the EBITDA. You are aware of our responsibility when it comes to the qualified growth of these companies. To speak more about organic growth, this is due to both internal and external variables. In external variables, a resumption of the economy, especially the resumption of clients to in-person work, which had an impact, especially in the second quarter of last year. Of course, this is very positive for us, for our verticals, for our team, and for our relationship. This has an impact on growth.
We had a significant increase in the number of bids that went to the market. The competition also increased significantly, and of course, the commercial activity was intensified. Some of the decisions that we had held back at the beginning of 2022 had an evolution throughout the year. Many decisions were made in the second half of the year, and they had an impact in the fourth quarter with the implementation of the new contracts. When we look at the measurements of the contracts, the last quarter of the year was very good. We had significant growth, and this scenario continues at the beginning of this year. Regarding the internal variables, I took on this program last year, and we have been undertaking several actions and initiatives regarding the qualification of the management of our growth agenda.
All of this qualifying and work done always focused on the four pillars of our business model. You know this, our management system. We created several new screens for the follow-up. We developed graphs. We use market intelligence to better deal with the markets and the clients. Regarding the planning cycle, which is our second pillar, we created these follow-up agendas to be more assertive and have an increase in our hit rate. We standardized the standards among our teams, and we also created graphs to ensure that we could have greater productivity and assertiveness. The third pillar is meritocracy, with some of the commercial people coming in to further engage our teams, the cross-selling incentive that we have and that we have worked on considerably. The fourth pillar, macro structure, refers to the regional way of working and the loyalty and maintenance of clients in our portfolio.
All of this refers to the growth, creating a new base of clients with a very clear definition of the program that has helped very much new teams, new commercial directors, and also a better operation between the corporate and commercial parts working through a matrix, better supports, and all of this translates into the revenues that you can see. Well, thank you very much. Once again, it is a pleasure to deliver these results, and I will now give the floor to Marcelo to continue speaking about the year.
Well, good morning, everybody. In this slide, we present every quarter our acquisition program for the year, and this is what we acquired throughout last year up to Global. I think I fully explored what we had done. What are important are the last two companies to the right, the operation of ENGIE in Brazil in terms of maintenance and the operations of Compart. These are the two large acquisitions last year. We ended the year with these two acquisitions.
ENGIE is a maintenance company, a company that specializes in maintenance for energy efficiency and will add a great deal to our portfolio. Compart is a company that works with sales promoters in the retail sector. This is a new sector for us, and we began this with the acquisition of Allis two years ago. We now have this new growth avenue to be able to continue on with acquisitions. These nine acquisitions represent BRL 1.7 billion in terms of gross revenue. Our challenge was to reach BRL 1.750 billion. All of this is aligned with a goal for the year.
We are BRL 50 million away from our goal. An important data that I would like to underscore is that up to Global, all of the companies have been fully integrated into our system. The last integration was Global in February of this year, and the operations of ENGIE Brazil Maintenance and Compart are underway in terms of integration. We have an average term of 119 days for systems integration between the close and when the company begins to run in our systems. This is very important for us because the framework to capture synergies begins when the integration is completed. You have to have a great deal of agility in the integration program to be able to rapidly capture the synergies. We improve the margins, the EBITDA of the companies, and this allows for a faster and more accelerated payback.
In the next slide, we have a summary of what we have done in terms of M&As since the IPO. This represents 15 acquisitions. This is our performance in the acquisitions, BRL 3.1 billion in consolidated revenues, approximately, during the period. Something I would like to highlight is that we also maintained that concentration of acquiring medium-sized companies, as they offer a better scenario in acquisition. These companies have lower invoicing. As a result, they have lower profitability. They have an invoicing of BRL 100 million-BRL 400 million, and they represent a niche that offers the best potential to gain synergies and consequently the best potential for a rapid payback of the operation. Another important data is the concentration, as Luis mentioned, in the maintenance and industrial services segment with five acquisitions and temporary labor with three acquisitions.
These are relatively new segments for us. We began in these segments three years ago, we created that growth avenue for organic and inorganic growth. We have been using this path to also grow inorganically in terms of acquisitions. This reinforces the importance of the GPS team that is constantly seeking through M&As the creation of new growth avenues in new sectors. This was important in the past and is important for our very challenging goal for growth. That's all I wanted to comment. Very well. I will refer to Adjusted EBITDA. This is for the fourth quarter, a growth of 50% of Adjusted EBITDA vis-à-vis the fourth quarter 2021, with a margin of 11.9%, quite higher than the fourth quarter 2021, 1.7 percentage points higher.
For the year, a growth of 45% of Adjusted EBITDA compared to 2021, with a margin of 10.9% higher than 2021. Well, several things contributed to the improvement of the margin in 2022. The first is the increase of our operational margin with work geared towards balancing and sustaining the operational margins of our contracts. This has a positive impact on our bottom line. We also have that quick and efficient impact of the capture of synergies of the acquired companies. The acquired companies do have an impact on our margin when they come in immediately after the operation.
As Marcelo said, we have the work of integrating them quickly into our structure, regionalizing the contracts, working with the clients. Balancing out the margin to guarantee a margin between 10% and 11%, which is what happened in 2022, enabling us to attain success, reaching BRL 1 billion in Adjusted EBITDA for the year. We remind you here that there is seasonality. The second half seems to be better than the first half of the year. In the first quarter, we have the impact of vacations and salary readjustments. Net income, with a growth of 36%, a margin of 8.5% higher than the fourth quarter 2021. For the entire year, a 32% growth with a 6.4% margin. When we compare the net income, we should highlight the increase in financial expenses because of the rise in the Selic.
This is a relevant aspect. It has moved away a bit from the growth of EBITDA, and it's due to the interest rate scenario that we faced in 2022, different from 2021. Our cash generation adding 74% of Adjusted EBITDA. As I mentioned, it was somewhat higher than the year 2021 because of the increase in Selic. In terms of funding, the effect is positive. We have the entrance of the emission of debentures, and we already had had an increase of the BRL 33 million because of the options program at the beginning of the year. As part of this financing, we used BRL 110 million to exercise the purchase of the shares of the acquired companies. You will see a negative impact of BRL 1,200.
The millions, BRL 800 million that we used for applications and the payment of the acquisitions that added up to BRL 300 million, BRL 297 million and the purchase of assets representing BRL 97 million. We end the year with a cash of BRL 890 million, therefore. Now, if we base ourselves on those BRL 890 and what we have in financial operations, our total cash goes to BRL 2.7 billion. When we look at our gross debt of BRL 3.6 billion and the results of net debt over EBITDA in a very stable way since the 4th quarter of 2021, we maintain a net debt EBITDA ratio of 0.9x to 1x.
We have been able to maintain this ratio quarter after quarter despite the acquisitions we carried out during the year and the investment of the acquisitions is already reflected in our cash and in our debt. The EBITDA of these acquisitions is still not full. It is pro rata reflected in the last 12 months. This indicator, of course, would be lower, but we don't carry out this pro forma adjustment. We have been able to maintain our leverage quite stable during the period. I now give the floor to Luis to speak about our return on capital.
Here we show you our return on invested capital, ROIC and ROE. We reached a ROIC of 19.7% in 2022, 0.5 percentage points below 2021, and a return on equity of 25% with a slight reduction vis-à-vis the year 2021. Of course, the year 2021 has an impact when we carry out this analysis because of the IPO and the resources used in the company the previous year. 19.7% of ROIC and the acquisitions and results have been quite satisfactory.
I draw your attention to what Marita said regarding our leverage. We were able to maintain the leverage below 1 x, having carried out investments last year and also referring to previous periods of BRL 400 million, an investment of BRL 100 million, almost BRL 500 million invested. Despite all of this, we were able to maintain our leverage at a very sound level, which is very important. In 2022, perhaps the only thing that was not good compared to 2021 was the level of our financial expenses due to the rise in the Selic.
This is very important. We do have to remain at a low level of leverage to continue making our investments, which is fundamental. Regarding the year 2023, we always say that the following year will be a challenging year. This is characteristic of Brazil. We have an economic agenda under negotiation, the tax reform, and of course, this has an impact on our clients, and we end up being affected by this dynamic. What GPS attempts to do is to be prepared for this scenario. We of course expect an improvement in the scenario, but this is a characteristic of the company. We want to maintain and motivate our team to service the client and to attain results. Secondly, we have the strategic discipline in our M&A program to seek out goals and carry out good businesses that will bring a return to GPS.
The acquisition carried out with maximum productivity, integration of system and people, because this is where we will capture value and have the possibility of capturing synergy, maintaining a low leverage for the company. With this, we would like to end the presentation, and we are at your entire disposal for questions. Very well. I'm going to see the order of people. We have Pedro Fontana who raised his hand first. Pedro, we're going to turn on your microphone.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations for the results. My question refers to salary readjustments, if the negotiations have begun, which will be the collective bargaining this year, and if you can transfer this to contracts. Secondly, about your M&A strategy. Last year you mentioned the scenario was somewhat more difficult because of the macro situation and the increase in interest rates. Has this improved? If there's a specific sector that requires attention.
Thank you. This is Gustavo who will answer the first question. Marcelo will answer the second question. Good morning, Pedro. Regarding the first part of the question, collective bargaining, the great majority will come to an agreement in the first quarter. We have a significant part that has already been defined. We will have an average of salary readjustment of IPCA plus one. On average, therefore, the readjustment will be 7% compared to last year, where it was 11%. It doesn't mean it will be easier to resolve.
We have 4,000 groups of clients, as you saw in the presentation, each in a different sector, each with difficulties and specificities, and of course, they pose difficulties in this type of contract. Because of the difficulties we're undergoing because of the government, we're working on transferring this. Most of the negotiations have been concluded in the first quarter. At maximum, they will be concluded in the second quarter. This is what we do every year, a tug-of-war that we're used to. We have a highly committed team with the results, and they also have very good training internally to do this.
Well, Pedro, good morning. Regarding the M&As and the possible scenario. Well, the scenario continues to be challenging. This increase in the interest rate throughout last year has had an impact on the negotiations. When we began to negotiate, the interest rate was 6%-7%. Presently, it is at 13%. Because of this, we tend to be more conservative in terms of our pricing. We have organized the M&A agenda for last year, and we have a carryover for this year.
While the scenario is very challenging, we do think that our goal is feasible to deliver our goal in terms of M&As this year. We have a pipeline with a great number of opportunities, and we like to have a large number of companies interacting with us in M&As. Most of them won't get to the final stages of this process, it's important to have multiple options to finally focus on those options that are of greater interest and that offer a more rapid return. We have several companies in our pipeline that I look at. We follow up on this with a team. We call this a qualified pipeline, and we work with the diligence that is at different stages. To give you more color, we have BRL 4 billion of invoicing in this pipeline representing approximately 20 companies that have been qualified.
This is the dynamic of the negotiation process for the entire year. When it comes to sectors, I can't forecast if it will be sector A, B, or C. We always base ourselves on opportunities. Our priority is to acquire companies with their invoicing pulverized in different companies, private companies of a medium size, that have a low revenue and a low EBITDA margin.
Typically, they operate with 12% of fixed costs vis-à-vis net revenue and between 2% or 3% of EBITDA margin. These are the companies that we like as part of the multiple companies in our pipelines. These are the companies that are the priority. We increase the margins through system integration, optimization of costs, the over-imposed structures, and simply to ensure the cost in some companies, we're able to increase this. A company with 2% fixed cost and 3% of EBITDA margin, when we go from 12% to 6%, we increase the EBITDA margin threefold. It doesn't matter which is the sector. This is the characteristic of the companies that we work with.
That was very clear. Thank you very much for your answers.
We're going to continue on with our list. Lucas Marchiori, I'm going to turn on your microphone.
Thank you. A good day to all of you, thank you for the call. Thank you to see all of you in the conversation. It enriches the content. I have two topics as well that I would like to discuss. I think Gustavo, in his explanation, spoke about the internal and external vectors that have an impact on organic growth. Thank you for the explanation. It was very helpful. I would like to better understand the qualification of the margin. The margin for the first quarter was a very positive surprise. If you could complement what this work is about, what have you done with the contracts? You spoke about the integration of some of the acquired companies and the expansion of margin, the marginal increment. This is my first question.
The second question, I'm going to go back to the topic of M&As, an important part of your company. I confess I have a doubt when I think about the evolution of an M&A project and the integration. Well, I imagine that the process should be getting ever easier because of the scale, but you also have the challenge of diversifying for your industrial power, and you have those 120 days of integration. If you could comment on the integration effort of different segments. The company becomes more efficient because of this integration, does this make things easier, more difficult in terms of your vectors? Thank you very much.
Good morning, Lucas. I'm going to answer part of your question. In fact, it is a very intense work to qualify margins during 2022, referring to a new program. We have our portfolio of the acquired companies, and we have a series of initiatives to qualify the margin. We underwent a highly complicated period of the pandemic. We suffered a great deal from absenteeism, the turnover, and of course, this means direct and indirect impacts on the operation. Simply the fact that the pandemic is over helps us to work with people in the operation.
Additionally to that, we have developed a program of controls of additional hours, medical reports, which is one of the most trying parts of our operational efficiency. This has helped the teams quite well when we have to substitute labor or work with planning. The GPS has helped our teams a great deal. In the part of systems, that new screen that we have in the portal for people management for additional hours and the medical reports brings us greater operational efficiency, which translates into a higher EBITDA. At the commercial level, we have been more demanding. We have enhanced our techniques, our systems. The team has become more qualified. This is one of the three areas of concentration in our present-day program. Of course, we have matured based on this. We have been able to implement contracts with greater efficiency.
Along with our suppliers, we have been able to buy better because of the growth of our maintenance system. This is a more intensive system in terms of procurement with higher tickets. With our scale and with the integration of the maintenance companies, we have attained know-how and better synergies. We have the operational teams and the field teams working with people associated to a better capacity of purchasing and selling and the implementation of the contracts. I think this responds to the qualification of the EBITDA that you were able to see in the results.
Hello, Lucas. Simply to add something here. I'm going to repeat what Marita says constantly, the issue of seasonality, and Gustavo is somewhat paranoid in terms of this, of costs and the structure and systems. Now, this is our agenda to seek out efficiency. In the last quarter, we have the best qualified margins. In the 1st quarter, historically, this is the worst quarter of the year. This is a quarter where we have additional volumes of services. We have the salary readjustments that we have to transfer to third parties.
Once again, highly seasonal for the business. We don't expect to deliver margins above 11% constantly during the year. The margin always stands at 10%-11% for the year. In the 1st semesters, the margins undergo more pressure. They are more qualified at the end of the year. We worked at the higher range of our expectations last year, but we believe the margins will fluctuate between 10% and 11% per year. Speaking about the company integration, last year, we changed our structure. This was very helpful.
The integration team has always had the full load of this work, as well as our M&A team. When we increase the volume, and the trend is to increase the volume, we try to separate the load. The M&A team works until the closing, and we have a team under the leadership of Samuel focused on the integration program. This has helped, as we were able to better qualify the processes. The fact that we acquire companies in different segments, maintenance and much more, brings complexity to the integration process. Despite the technical nature of services, when you work with a maintenance company, well, the services you render to companies are completely different from security or internal logistics. The operations are different.
When you look at the essence, the back-office system, the support of the systems that manage all of the administrative part, payrolls, benefits, accounting, the system for the management of results, the recruitment system, all of these are exactly the same systems. Therefore, these companies, when they come to see GPS, are simply plug and play. The same back-office systems are used in security and logistics, and it is precisely because of that it makes sense to develop new service verticals. Although technically, the services have a very specific nature, the back-office management, the administrative part where the problems occur are exactly the same. This does not add complexity in terms of integration. 90% of the integration of these companies is integration into the systems. Perhaps Gustavo faces more complexity, but regarding the system, it does not add complexity.
Lucas, to complement what was said, there is an important variable that refers to the synergy, not only administrative, but operational as well, for the companies integrated this year. As I mentioned previously, we have a concentration of revenues in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, we had all that time to work with administrative and operational synergies at corporate level and at regional level, and this was reflected in our EBITDA margin. The concentration in the first semester allows us to look at the fourth quarter and perceive most of the synergies that have been undertaken. This has an important part when answering your question.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much for your answers. Have a good day.
Thank you, Lucas.
I will now open up the microphone for Renata Cabral. Renata, you may proceed. Can you hear us, Renata? We cannot hear you. Renata, I'm going to go on to the next question, and you can send us a message to finally be able to ask your question. We cannot hear you very well. We will continue with Gabriel Rezende. Gabriel, you may proceed.
Thank you, Marita. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for taking my question. We have two questions at our end. I would like to further explore the growth of organic revenue, understand how much of this took place through cross-selling and the entrance of new clients. If you could give us more color in terms of how much cross-selling, the organic growth of new contracts and new clients helped to offset clients who decided to reduce their contracts because of the higher collective bargaining rate we had in 2022.
Secondly, we continue with a very challenging macro scenario. GPS has a strategy of being conservative in terms of its capital structure. Well, perhaps this doesn't hold true for the sector as a whole, which is the financial health of your competitors, therefore, if you have seen people facing bottlenecks, if some of the market competitors are dropping out of the market. Thank you.
Well, good morning, Gabriel. Regarding the growth through cross-selling, we have thoroughly trained our teams, as I mentioned. We have created the goals for the teams, and we have a part that refers to growth that they have to work on to be able to deliver their goals and attain all the points that are expected. We have been working considerably in that direction to increase the training of the operational teams.
Most of our growth historically our growth takes place within our present-day portfolio. Historically, we have 70% to 75% of growth as part of our portfolio. This, of course, through upselling and cross-selling. With the consolidation movement, new clients are added to the portfolio. This is but one of the strategies, and we make the most of this. What we have done broadly here is with the new clients that come from new businesses, we contribute with the more mature services of GPS in terms of services. Operationally, we have greater control of this, and we are able to reduce the risk and margins become more qualified. We have undertaken this considerably with Global Service, Luandre, Allis, and Comau. We will continue to do this going forward. Most of our growth comes from the client portfolio and we'll continue to do this.
The portfolio will increase as the new integrated companies bring in new clients into our base. To mention what Gustavo Otto said, in September, 75% of our organic growth comes from our client base itself. This is natural. The clients know us. They know how we respond to their questions, how we resolve day-to-day problems, and the responsibility we have, the solutions we offer. This is natural as we encompass a larger group of clients, and we use the sales tool for this. The organic growth becomes more qualified as you deliver good services. The client tends to give us greater opportunities compared to giving them to competitors that do not have this knowledge. This is very logical for our business. Regarding the high interest rate, the high interest rate is negative for everybody.
We look at our client base, because of the high interest rate, they think more about surviving and not growing, and the number of opportunities they face are lower. High interest rates are very negative for the country, for the economy, for our clients, and they impact the opportunities for growth. On the other hand, they do aid and abet in the competition process. When the interest rate margin is higher, competitors tend to be more responsible when pricing and seeking their margins, when they're pricing their proposals and establishing prices. This opens up opportunities for us to be more competitive. Not that we are not competitive. We do like to have sound margins. This pressure on costs does lead to a more qualified competition. What you mentioned, Gabriel, the small and medium-sized companies are not very leveraged. They're in the process of growth.
They require working capital, and many of them suffer a great deal in this process. We see that the number of companies going into judicial recovery is increasing. It's very difficult to recover a company in judicial recovery because you don't have a good asset base. You lose the client confidence in terms of their ability to survive. It's very difficult to survive a process of judicial recovery.
What we observe is that our competition, especially small and medium-sized companies, are faced with an enormous threat when there is an increase in financial costs. The third point, the interest rate truly does have an impact on our M&A program. We have to work on repricing. It also brings about opportunities of those entrepreneurs that consider the interest rate as a threat to their survival and are incentivized to look at companies like ours that are in the process of acquisition. This brings about new opportunities that we can analyze in our pipeline.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Luis, and everybody else.
Thank you, Gabriel.
Let's continue on here with João Riso.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Well, thank you for taking my question. We have only one question. When we look at 2022 vis-à-vis 2021, you had an increase in contract managers. You went from 360 to almost 500 this year. It's similar to the increase of net revenue you had year-over-year. I would like to understand if going forward, the number of contract managers will grow in accordance with revenues, or will each manager absorb more contracts and lead to an improvement in revenue in the future? Thank you.
Good morning, João. Very well. Let's begin. What happened in 2022 is more than expected, more than natural, and it is a trend going forward. When we speak about contract managers, they're the most important people in our macro structure. They're the entrepreneurs that are sitting face to face with clients, creating long-term relationships, fulfilling their expectations, creating a day-to-day relationship, seeking cross-selling. They are what sustain our management model. When we carry out integrations, we do not alter the operational structure because of a issue of risk. Companies don't have the same standard of quality of information that we have in the company.
Most of the information is in the mind of people, especially the operational managers that work with the clients because of risk management. Therefore, initially, we do not do away with a contract manager. Secondly, once the companies adapt to our management model and deliver results and comply with our expectations, our organic growth begins to gain synergy. This is when we are able to qualify margins. We gain synergies not because of the contract, but because we have given them the opportunity to adapt, to grow a portfolio of BRL 2.5 million when they come to the company, can take on another BRL 500,000, BRL 1 million, BRL 1.5 million of achievements going forward. Our organic growth is sustained with our capacity to be able to quickly implement the new contracts.
The main players of this agenda for the implementation of new contracts are the contract managers. I tend to say, and I say this to my team, that we have an idle capacity of 5%-10% with contract managers. It's important to have that leeway to continue on with our growth agenda. Synergies are in several places, as we mentioned, at the administrative sphere, the corporate teams, regionally and the invoicing, the personnel department, human resources, the legal department. We do have some duplicity that allows us to make the most of these synergies. Contract managers, we maintain that strategy. The operational leverage, as Gustavo mentioned, take place from the administrative costs, the back office. Of course, part of our costs are associated to benefits, suppliers, and equipment.
Because of our skill of negotiation with suppliers, we are able to offer the benefit to the companies that have been acquired, allowing them greater profitability. Our management system offering tools and capacity so that the contract manager can focus on the relationship with the client, deliver efficient operational systems, and the compliance of the budgetary goals. All of this obtains better results. Now, the operational leverage regarding the contract manager exists as they develop, as they enhance the relationship with the client, and they seek organic growth with that specific client. The integration is what Gustavo mentioned. We preserve the operational capacity that already exists in the acquired company, the commercial capacity. We ensure that these teams can be integrated into our management model, and going forward, they will become ever more productive, more productive before they were acquired by GPS. That's very clear.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, João.
Let's try Renata again. We have three minutes before closing.
Good morning. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Very good. Some quick questions. Thank you for taking my questions. The first is a follow-up on M&As. You spoke at length about the trade-off that the increase of interest rates. Eventually, some opportunities come about because of this. You have already announced two acquisitions in 2023. My question refers to the concentration of M&As. Which is your view on this? Last year, because of the change of interest rates, the M&As were concentrated in the first half of the year. We imagine that in the second half of 2023, you will know if there will be a drop in the interest rate or not.
Perhaps opportunities will come about because of the high interest rates in the fourth quarter. Can we expect a higher number of companies in the second half of the year, or not necessarily? The second question refers to the new government and the labor reform. We have already spoken about that. We know your vision on the change in the outsourcing law. Well, perhaps the union contribution will come back. It won't be a deterrent for you, but perhaps the unions will become stronger and demand more benefits for employees, marginally making labor more expensive. What do you think about this? Thank you.
Thank you for the question, Renata. In fact, last year we had a concentration of M&As in the first half of the year because of what was held back in 2021. Our revenue grew 39% for the year. That expectation is to grow 30% a year. We grew 39% because of that concentration of consolidation of revenues in the first half of the year. This year, we will have a concentration in the second half of the year.
Since the second half of last year, we're working with councilmen to renegotiate that assumption of the renegotiation. They're speaking about their main equity. They don't want to know about interest rates. This is something that demands time. Our expectation is that we will have a higher concentration of M&As in the second half of 2023. Regarding the Labor Reform, we have discussed this, but it is not a reason of concern for us. A strong union is not a problem for us.
We do work with several unions at GPS. Unions have never lost their strength in our opinion. They're offsetting the union contribution with other types of contribution. Unions have not lost their strength. For us, this is not good for Brazil, but for GPS, the more complex a labor environment, the better for GPS. GPS is better able to get organized in this environment, better than the competitors. It's a motivation for clients to outsource to eliminate the problem. On the other hand, our competitors have more systems and a greater capacity to invest in systems to organize that chaotic scenario of the labor environment in Brazil. The more complex the environment for GPS, the better in terms of competition. We have more room to set ourselves away from our competitors because of that chaotic environment that exists in Brazil.
Quite honestly, the labor reform does not constitute a problem for us now. The outsourcing represents a step back. I think this would be terrible for GPS. The outsourcing of the Temer government is still very recent. We're still capturing some of the benefits that arose from this. Companies are beginning to outsource ever more. In the past, they only outsourced activities that they themselves carried out. A setback in the outsourcing law would be a problem for us, but there's a remote possibility that this will happen. Regarding the union contribution, if it comes back, we will, of course, be forced to pay higher contributions than in the past. It's what Marcelo mentioned, the unions have always been strong. The unions of employees, and there are several of them spread around the country.
This union structure for employees and employers has been set up for quite some time. The negotiations are mature as well as the relationships. We have a very mature relationship. We participate in the unions for many years, in the employers union, carrying out a follow-up, that vision of the labor reform will not hamper our work. I would simply like to add that we have more than 400 unions, we don't have any union working with those categories that were extremely active.
For example, the banking union. We have fragmented unions that are very active, they're not that articulated to compare what happened in some categories where the union funding gave them even greater strength. We have a great deal of fragmentation, pulverization that helps us so that the negotiation can take place regionally and in a calmer way. Very well. We have gone somewhat beyond our time. We're ending our call. We would like to thank everybody, and we're here at your entire disposal should you have any doubt. Thank you and have a good day.
Thank you all for your attention. Thank you and have a good day.