Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our earnings call for the Third Quarter of 2025, Mater Dei. Today, with us, we have Mr. José Henrique Salvador, our CEO, and Rafael Cordeiro, our CFO and Investor Relations Director. This earnings call is being recorded and will be available on the company's Investor Relations website after completion. To activate the translation option, please select the globe icon on the bottom. The presentation will be available on the IR website for Mater Dei. Before we keep on, I would like to let you know that any possible statements about future events are subject to risks and uncertainties. That could make such expectations not become concrete or become different than expected. These expectations and forecasts represent opinions on the date, and the company is not obliged to perform them. After the presentation, we'll begin our Q&A session.
If you would like to submit a question, please raise your hand, and we'll open up your mic soon after. If you'd rather, you can send your question by chat, and we'd ask you to please notify us by your name. Now, I'll pass it on to José Henrique to begin the presentation. Thank you very much.
As we begin here our earnings call for today, I want to start with some thanks. Special thanks to the Mater Dei Network managers and leaders. We are the spokespeople of the results generated by each leader and each manager, and we're very proud of the performance that each manager has been able to deliver in each unit, in each division, and in each hub where Mater Dei is present.
I also want to thank the board for being an important partner in governance during this process, supporting the Mater Dei Network management and really thinking about the strategy and the future of the chain and network. And I also want to thank our physicians that are so important for the results we've been achieving, establishing symbiosis between the clinical team and management. And we really believe that there's only going to be a strong network if there is a clinical team that's strong in each of our units. And I want to thank each of our shareholders also for really trusting in our thesis and trusting in the Mater Dei Network, and as they have also been giving us time to discuss how to keep up with our main strategies.
Our third quarter in 2025 has been an important milestone in our journey for recovery and evolution in the results of our network, as this has been a quarter that really represents the consolidation and success of our different initiatives and strategies performed during this period. Here we're going to have some opportunities also to discuss each of these and try to share this with you in a clearer way so you can understand what's behind these result improvements and also show how we are really prepared to make this future a reality, as we see here at Mater Dei. The first highlight I want to bring is about our evolution in the revenue. Once again, we've reached an all-time high, and we've really been overcoming BRL 550 million, and we're actually reaching BRL 570 million in our net revenue, in our quarterly net revenue.
This is mainly due to the increase in the average ticket that reached per bed occupied BRL 2.67 million per quarter, and that represents a new all-time high. This average ticket is not only because of renegotiations with the payers, but it is also a growth that reestablishes our stance when it comes to a market that is more and more competitive, but that really makes our successful execution evident and our strategic stance as well on the network. With this deconstruction of the concept of growth of revenue anchored only to the opening of beds, hospital beds, this is a quarter that really reflects our strategy to improve the mix of procedures and increase the complexity of our chain with the growth of surgical and oncological production, as well as the execution of our approaches to increase revenues out of beds with diagnostic medicine and infusions.
We've been talking to you guys about how the company has really invested in oncology, attracting new physicians, and really focusing on complexity, and this has made the company really sustainably increase an average ticket, then of course we also have a strategy to strengthen our region and our positioning as well as one of the main, if not the main player in each region we're in, to have even more strength in negotiations with the payers, and there's also a clear view about how we would like to be the strongest player in each of our regions, and this helps also with the recovery of our tickets and also more direct, clear, and transparent negotiations with our payers, and last but not least, when it comes to the average ticket, there's also an important quicker ramp-up in younger units, especially Mater Dei Nova Lima and Mater Dei Salvador.
These two units, in a very clear manner, have been contributing to the average ticket growth because they can absorb the complexity as well as a good mix of the payers and also improving or expanding the volume of revenue out of the bed fees to help us with our growth, so the success in the growth of our average ticket is really connected to our strategy to attract new reference physician teams and really positioning these with the complexity they bring in and also helping us to expand the maturity of our units, and so we're going to really see this when we talk about revenue, productivity, and a big focus on the efficiency of our units and how to increase our average ticket, as well as, as a consequence, help dilute fixed costs and expenses.
Then the increase of revenue also brought in this important dilution, especially when it comes to the expenses in the network and the strategy of keeping up with the occupation rate and the level that is close to or above has really been an important milestone. And so this is the third quarter consecutively where we've been able to really implement this strategy. And when we incorporate this concept of the patients per day, we reach an occupation rate of 81.7%, and that's the second greatest in a quarter. As you can see, this is a requirement that in this year of 2025 we've been able to execute with a lot of efficiency and quarter- over- quarter. We've been demonstrating growth in the occupation in comparison with what we had in 2024.
We've also really focused on bringing our administrative team to the adequate sizing, and especially after the changes we had in the last few years. This helps us a lot with diluting our expenses upon the net revenue. A last point that's also been very relevant is our capacity for the reduction of our provisions for credit, and especially what was incorporated by the company in the last 360 days, really visualizing what are the revenues that will become results, whether these are economic or financial. These are also the quarterly results with a lot of clarity. The Mater Dei Network really evolves in these economic results, but there's also a cash conversion accompanying our economic results. As we grow our EBITDA in the next few years or months, you can be sure that cash conversion will also keep up with these numbers.
And then when we talk about the growth and the revenue dilution of our costs and expenses, we finally reach a result that, in our view, will not be different, right? So the sum of these factors helped us reach the highest quarterly EBITDA with BRL 126 million. We increased our margin by 1.1 percentage points in regards to the last quarter. And this number of 126 million in EBITDA is 39% greater than the third quarter of 2024. And just as important as the growth is also transforming this into cash generation. And once again, we reached the highest cash generation in a quarter, excluding the interest paid. And so with this reduction of the net debt, we reached a leverage of 1.8x at a level that's very healthy, demonstrating our balanced financial situation.
If we were to discount the buyback in shares that's really been remaining and happening in the company and the expenses related to the exchange transaction we presented in the last quarter, we would have a quarterly reduction of our net debt by BRL 59 million, which demonstrates our capacity to not only grow economically but also deleverage the company at this moment. If we compare with the third quarter of 2024, deducting or disconsidering the dividends, we would have a reduction of BRL 79 million. The leverage rate without these factors would leave the 1.8x-1.5x , demonstrating the robustness of our company as well with these results we've been reaching, which gives us the necessary comfort to really observe and project cash generation consistently for the next months and years, considering, of course, the same market conditions in the company.
And it also gives us opportunities that are relevant for the construction of our future. Now I want to go over some details from some of our hospitals and these that are important to highlight in this call. The first is about Salvador. Salvador had once again achieved an all-time high quarterly net revenue, 27% above the revenue in the third quarter of 2024, reaching an average margin, sorry, an EBITDA margin in the quarter of double digits, and a metric that really places us very close to our objectives related to 2025 for this unit. And that demonstrates the ramp-up of this thesis, right? When you compare with the third quarter of 2024, there was a growth of 59% in the amount of oncological patients and a growth of 24% in surgical notices or warnings. And Salvador is growing above the consolidated results.
We were able to continue to work strongly in the region with relationships and attracting medical teams. Some of these movements in the last months, actually, that gives us an even more relevant, and that's becoming even more preferential for the operators and patients. Salvador is going to be consolidated as a hospital for medical references in the region, and that's how we've been working. In Salvador, we have constant work evolving more and more in the quality of the operation. We've already had NPS indexes that are comparable to our most mature units, levels of excellence, as we mentioned, when we consider NPS. This hospital, as I mentioned, is already becoming consolidated as a reference in the region. One example is in Mater Dei Salvador.
We've been working on the first robotic surgery in the north and northeast regions, which is an important milestone, right? That provides evidence on the differentiation of this hospital, and I also want to mention Mater Dei Nova Lima. The unit in Nova Lima, once again, had very consistent results, and in some way, it was actually surprising, including what we would imagine for the ramp-up of this unit, a growth of 23% in the net revenue quarterly, besides an EBITDA margin that is above the margins of the consolidated results in the network, so this unit represents a lot of efficiencies among other neighboring cities, and with this, we can have also a need for administrative expenses that's a lot lower, and that also has had average tickets that are very good, especially considering the revenue beyond the beds and the level of complexity that this unit can provide.
We've also been able to incorporate through this unit new relationships with medical teams, providing conditions for these teams to actually be accommodated or included in the network strategy. And they can work with the teams that already exist. That brings in complexity. And they can also operate with medical entrepreneurship. And with this, you can have significant growth of surgical volumes and procedures, new teams, especially in the oncological front, bringing these results that were already presented. And so we've also been working to provide more and more complexity with patients that use CTI structures, demonstrating the resolution capacity of this unit. Just a few weeks ago, we also brought a new robotic system for the Nova Lima unit. And this system is really fundamental to attract some reference teams here. And well, I also wanted to talk about the units acquired by the network.
In these units, we had the biggest net revenue and the biggest quarterly EBITDA in our history, and when we compare with the second quarter of 2025, we had an increase of 16% of the oncological patients in 2025, and so our focus oncology also considers the units acquired in the network. In Uberlândia, for example, the partnership with Unimed has been stronger and stronger, and that also had the highest net revenue, and with this, we demonstrated a sustainable agreement for both parties could make both parties happy, and the claims rates have been controlled, and our revenue and results have also increased considering this agreement we had, and with this, we've had also the oncology sector supporting this, and that's already bringing lives, complexity, and an important revenue beyond beds to this unit.
Then when we consider certification and hospital quality indicators, we know that from the nine units, considering those that are certified with quality and security and safety at international standards. We've been evolving in this. Santo Agostinho Mater Dei has been awarded in CONAHP, the National Conference for Private Hospitals. We were awarded in quality and compliance categories. We had the QGA seal. With that, you recognize the reliability. Our hospitals actually are demonstrating that actually these should be awarded with certificates with this important seal for compliance and quality. When we talk about NPS and the patient's experience in this quarter, for the first time, we've had the Mater Dei Network reaching the NPS above 75 and reaching the excellence zone. There are hospitals that are more mature that already operate with an NPS at a level of about 80.
We've also been working with hospitals that are younger, also that already have this level of quality perceived. And today, our whole network has this level of quality perceived by patients. And this has been a quarter of evolution in all aspects. And it also provides evidence of the direction we're following. And we are also sure we're in the right path to take the Mater Dei Network to better results. And so we've been asking ourselves, or people have asked us how long these results will keep up with or sustain themselves. And we're very optimistic, right? Especially for those that suffered major turnarounds and went through integration. And those young ones that clearly demonstrate that their value propositions are being well understood by the market and the internal value that could be unleashed to have the short-term clear levers to help build this future.
With this, I'll pass the phone to Rafael so he can go a little deeper on our financial results. And then we'll get into Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you, José Henrique, for the great intro. We'll keep up now with the slides from the presentation. And I'll just show you our results in a more consolidated view without getting into details on each unit. And then we'll have a list of Q&A as well where we can get into more details with any questions you may have. So we always try to search for an operation that's above 80% occupancy rate. And as José Henrique mentioned, the third quarter, we had 79.7%, then around 80%. And that's fundamental to keep up cost control. And that's due to the shift that we had in the nursing bill nationally.
And this number of 81.7% is way above the 77% a year ago. And then that already starts explaining a bit of the reason why we had these improvements. So we've been operating at five beds less than last year. But if we can see a connection there with our revenue and our average ticket, this will make a lot of sense. In the bottom part of the same slide, you can see that we are highlighting the amount of patients per day and the average ticket in Reais per patient per day, as well as the results of the average ticket that we have with patients of BRL 7,289 per patient, which is in line with those BRL 2,670 per bed per year, right? And if we consider a multiplication of these BRL 7,289 by 365 days, you'll find the BRL 2,670 per bed per year.
And so you can see this is the biggest number in the sequence. And with this, we have this robust number. This is about 5%. We have about over 4,000 patients in this quarter in the Mater Dei Network. And so with this, as a consequence for the revenue, this growth of 11% of the average ticket was fundamental to help us have a dilution of our costs. And then you also consider that part of this growth comes from the annual contractual renegotiations. It's not a renegotiation from the perspective where you have a value that is way above IPCA, but the discipline of this happening on the right dates and also having this operate in the company in line with what it was negotiated at is fundamental.
Last year, for example, we had a lot of adjustments or corrections in the first semester that were reflecting the second semester, right? This is important for the number. That grew; we grew about 4.4%, reflecting the increase of 2,550 million to 2,770 million. On the right side, you can see besides the average ticket, there's a reflection also in the increase of the volume. Then you have a significant increase of 16.3%, BRL 448 million that we had last year. If you consider the presentation last year, the number of BRL 448 million was almost flat for a while. Then we were able to reach BRL 546 million and now BRL 586 million.
So this growth is due to the strategy that we described with José Henrique, as well as the growth quarter- over- quarter, demonstrating a number that's a little bit shyer than a year back. But there's demonstration of growth and an expectation to always have contributed to the revenue in the company. Now we're going to get into our cost base. And it's the second quarter consecutively where we have costs below 70%. And this number is really important to help us reach our EBITDA. And we're going to highlight that up ahead. But it demonstrates the discipline, right? And so there's two lines that we worked on a lot in this period. And that's the personnel line. When compared to a year ago, it's about 1.1 percentage points better. And if we also compare medical services, we're 0.8 percentage points.
So these are two lines where productivity can really be understood in the solution. And the medical services, despite all the efforts to attract new physicians, we've been able to do this in a way where growth itself can pay for itself. And this has really been helping the margins. And so we had this reduction of 1.2 percentage points and 14.1 that we operated in the previous quarter and 15.9 a year ago, which dropped to 12.9. And so it's a significant improvement of three percentage points. Some points are very relevant. And of course, the reduction of personnel and expenses. We've already mentioned some work to reduce the administrative team required. And that's set off from the moment where we started there. And when we consider the significant increase in revenue, we don't need to have an increase of expenses at the same proportion.
So this reduction in personnel, along with our NPL, that was also at a really good quarter for us. And we actually had a reversal due to some work we've been working on during the cycle of our revenue, not only this year, but in previous years also where we were able to have some reversals. So not every quarter will we have a positive, negative NPL helping us with our results, but we hope it's going to be more under control. So I'm going to say that these two lines, personnel and NPL, were fundamental to help us with this dilution and reduction in absolute numbers of BRL 5 million in the size of our expenses. Now, moving on to the EBITDA, there's an adjusted EBITDA that's a lot more related to adjustments in the third quarter of 2024.
We do not have any adjustments in our EBITDA in 2025 to perform. We had a quarter that was free in EBITDA and BRL 126 million do not require any adjustments. With the units operating, we have no reasons to perform these adjustments or corrections. In the past, we had some related to the sale of assets, some big contingencies in the third quarter of last year, and the opening of the new Nova Lima unit. This growth of 39% and the growth of BRL 35 million in absolute numbers are numbers that are a fruit of the operation and recurring for the company's future. 22.2% margin is on the growth of 1.1 percentage points in regards compared to the previous quarter. Despite the seasonality in the third quarter, in more constant years should be better. We saw that there was an improvement in the operation of the company.
The third quarter was performing better. In regards to the same period last year, to eliminate the seasonality effect, we have growth of 360 basis points, 3.6 percentage points, which is a significant increase year- over- year. Moving on to the net income, we have an adjustment that we consider to be important to highlight for this quarter with the renegotiations of the debentures. There are two effects. You have the payment of the fee for the debenture holders, and we increased the terms and reduced the spread for the first issuance. That's the exchange process we mentioned. We also had an expense of the first issuance, which is deferred throughout the debentures. Since it was paid off, we also have the inflow of this with the expenses. That leads to an effect of BRL 11 million in the financial results.
When you consider this rate, 66%, when you consider the rate of 34% net of, you can see an effect of BRL 7-8 million, which makes us have our recurring net income of BRL 35 million. That's in line with BRL 25 million in the same period last year because the BRL 15 million that were adjusted last year were for the goodwill. That does not exist in the company anymore. The goodwill of the Portuguese hospital. So we had a recurring growth in the company. Even with a financial result that's more hindered by the high Selic rate of 15%, we had a growth of BRL 10 million or 40%, let's say, of the net income year- over- year in the third quarter against the third quarter and a growth of BRL 8 million against the previous quarter.
So with this adjustment, we would have reached BRL 6.1 million in the net income. Then where we're going to have a possibility to talk about this in the next slide with the working capital, we had an improvement of two days in the PMR and an improvement of all three days in the PMP and one day of lower stock. So the three main indicators of the working capital improved from the second to the third quarter. Now moving on to the cash flow and debt slide, you can see in the operational cash flow, there's a working capital without variations, even with the growth of the company. And so the work to control some of these flows and cycles was zero and a generation of BRL 134 million. And when you consider the others in this presentation, these are very constant and we would reach BRL 750 million, BRL 705 million reais.
And if we disconsider BRL 14 million of buyback of shares and BRL 11 million with a premium of exchange transactions, since these costs left the company's cash position, we ended with BRL 680 million. And so that can demonstrate in these quarters without these specific strategies. And we would have even more of a reduction in our net debt. And so we had a growth of 1.8x and our EBITDA of 12 months. We stopped having all the reconciliation till September 2024 and also the contingency of BRL 74 million. That was a one-off of social pension costs. So now we're going to look at the last quarter last year. And that was the worst for the company with nine months this year where we performed pretty well.
We had an increase, but the expectation that we'll have this reduction over time considering the cash generation that I mentioned to you. Now moving on to the net debt graph, we had an improvement, a significant improvement in the size of our debt. And I'm going to talk to you about the numbers disregarding the buyback and dividends. And we understand that that is how we demonstrate our capacity to generate cash and reduce our net debt. We would have improved BRL 84 million in our net debt from the end of the year all the way here in the first nine months. If we consider that up until a year ago where we were starting the cycle of the fourth quarter that was negative, as we mentioned, we would have improved BRL 68 million.
These are numbers that demonstrate what we've been working on so that we can have some convergence and EBITDA into cash. In our view, the nine months of the company with the less the taxes paid, we had 88% conversion in our EBITDA. That's a pretty high number for any sector, but especially if you compare with other companies in our sector, because that demonstrates major discipline in reaching our accounting results and our cash conversion as well of our operations. Last but not least, we had a slide that's dedicated to debt and our liability management work was done by the company. We were able to have an extension of 3.9-5.6 years on average. Debt of the company, if you look at only the BRL 700 million, that was extended by four years.
We'll have to pay only by 2031 and 2032. We have 75% of our debt financially of our financial debt with over five years maturity. That gives us the necessary confidence in our strategy. Now this is all more clear in this graph. All of the measures we implement at the Mater Dei Network are really intending to have long-term results. We don't have any other measure that is not in line with the long-term interests, which is something that's very important for shareholders and also for our minority shareholders that really believe in us and have been investing through the stock. Last on the maturities, we've been reducing the expense by about 50 basis points of our debt in the first issuance. That also helped us improve even more of our total cost in the company with the company's debt.
We've been operating at CDI minus 0.73%. We've been having what we have this cost. This is really due to strategy we had of hedging our BNDES debt where we had an exchange of the IPCA for this CDI, considering CDI minus 4.5%, which makes our total cost of debt be CDI minus 0.78. With that, I'm wrapping up my presentation. I tried to be more consolidated this.
Now we'll open up to Q&A so that we can be more objective here with the questions you may have. Thank you.
Okay, guys, good afternoon. This is Gustavo Tiseo from Bank of America. I have two questions here.
If I could start off with one specific point you guys mentioned, which is the idea today where you need to have greater occupancy to keep up with the fixed costs that were higher in 2024. And then you guys reduced the SG&A as well a bit this year. Then you reached a point where the margins expanding a lot. You had a slight improvement also quarter- over- quarter. And from then on, how you reached this point where the big improvements have already happened and from now it should be more gradual or marginal, or do you still see more space? And so could you guys talk about the more mature hospitals and M&As, etc.? And then my second question is the dynamic of hospitals and managed care. The Nova Lima ramping up a lot.
If you could talk about the margins that are already pretty attractive. When you look at these three hospitals, both in Belo Horizonte, Betim-Contagem, and Nova Lima, is there some cannibalization impacting Nova Lima? Do you have a reduction of these other two hospitals? Those are the two questions. Thank you for the availability and congrats on the results.
Tiseo, thank you for your interest and for the questions presented. We can really see this opportunity of answering and bringing in some elements that are so important. My first point is about the evolution. Without promising the results in the next months, I think it's important to present the main elements. First, the stability in our performance and this better efficiency we've really been preaching in our company. This culture is really stabilized.
Each of our managers really understand with clarity the need of working with this level of occupation and also making fixed costs become variable, right? So understanding with clarity that we need to remanage people among areas to keep up this occupation higher and higher. And so with this capacity of working on our costs and reducing expenses, what we've been focusing on a lot is in growing our levels of debt, of revenue, sorry, and ramping up our units as well so that we can expand our performance. And to respond to this indirectly, we have very clear levers on our radar in each of our units so that we can grow revenue, whether this is in our more mature units or in our new units and those acquired. Each of them have a very clear plan of growth opportunities for revenue that will also generate improved results.
And in the more mature units, if we work on the interfaces and interactions with the clinical team. And that also helps us reinforce a strategy, which reflects a bit of your second question when it comes to cannibalization, right? We're really taking care of this in the Nova Lima unit. And so we can attract new teams that have the capacity to bring in new movements. And that can generate more oxygen also in our regional operation, really reinforcing Nova Lima without cannibalizing other units. And we knew that there was space for this to happen and that we needed to have this well executed. And this is how we've been advancing. And that's also why Nova Lima has been growing without hindering the results of these other units, right? So in Nova Lima, we brought this thesis ever since the beginning.
It's very complementary with a level of beds that's not that high, but with important capacity also to attract revenue out of the besides the beds and connect new teams to our units as well to reinforce our thesis of our strategic positioning in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte.
Excellent. Thank you. That's super clear.
Thank you, Tiseo. Our next question is from Vinicius Figueiredo at Itaú BBA.
Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to talk about something you guys maybe explored a little bit in the call already, but about the ticket growth. You mentioned some points such as the complexity and the risk and the adjustment of the mix of hospitals. I want to understand a little more on the contribution of each factor for this behavior, and you talked about surgeries a lot.
You talked about Nova Lima and Salvador getting shares as well, but just wanted to understand it a bit more and have a more refined estimate on that. But then if you could also talk about the volumes dynamic, because we understand this a bit on the occupancy rates. And what we've noticed looking at the other results in the hospital sector is really that it seems like we had a frequency dynamic that was a little more intense with longer winter, the business, a bigger amount of business days, and how this has maybe altered the results or if this was more like internal than external factors and also how this is impacted, right? Considering the really short term for the fourth quarter. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Vinicius. I'll start off and then Rafa can add on.
But first, we're going to talk about our growth in the ticket and also try to share these factors a bit as you mentioned. We had this year a capacity for readjusting contracts at the adequate moment for each of these contracts. And so we've rigorously kept up with this along with the partnering operators. And last year, we had a bit more of a difficulty when it comes to the materials of certain specific contracts. But the main factor in these contracts was pretty much close to IPCA. So that was IPCA plus a little bit more, but close to IPCA, which is what we actually have been considering in our contracts with the operators, with the exception of some very specific negotiations with some contracts that were not balanced. And then we had to perform some modifications, but that was even more last year than now.
But what explains our ticket growth is our capacity to incorporate complexity and our capacity to grow our revenue beyond beds, right? So this is not a secret. We've really been implementing a strategy for growth in oncology that helps us and that also helps us with the complexity that we bring into the hospital. So we've been investing a lot on this and we consider this already a lot. We've seen our units really well positioned to become the biggest cost centers. So they already have a clinical team and the main surgeons. There's already a volume of patients using these units. And we've been capable of incorporating important figures in this to help us with the growth of our ticket and the strategy.
So when it comes to volume dynamics, we haven't had that much of a positive seasonality when we consider seasonal diseases or respiratory diseases, etc., which is different than what we've experienced in other moments where we had dengue, we had more prevalent seasonal diseases. We didn't really observe this kind of situation this year. But our dynamic is really geared towards these movements that are purposeful, that are pretty much intended by the Mater Dei Network. And so when we look at the third quarter, if we were to take a look at a few months there, we had holidays, we had some cities suffering a bit more of impact, and that led to some constant aspects when it comes to seasonality, which are related when compared to other third quarters of other specific years. I don't know if you want to add on anything.
First of all, Vinicius, thanks for participating in this call. You really have been very close to the company, right, but we always have an issue with business days in any quarter, and we know about this and we're preparing for this because we know the last quarter has less business days, so we will be here in March next year speaking with you about how the third quarter has maybe a little less every now, but we need to assess the company as a strategy when it comes to its production per day, and when we look at our production per day, we see our own strategy reflected on the numbers.
Last year, we spoke with you guys about how we had noticed that there was a surgical performance that was below our capacity, not because we're doing something that's super different in the market, but we are simply working on processes better internally and keeping up with indicators better. This internal focus we've been having with all of our units, the centralization of certain services and KPIs is really focused on our strategic planning. That's what has helped us reach these good results. Of course, we've been working on this very well. We had a market in the health sector that's better than last year. If we had been experiencing exact same things without having this operational shift in the company, we would be crying over the results, right? It's a real sequence of strategies, numbers, and focuses.
Specialties makes the hospitals there in Salvador growing as well in Nova Lima with an average ticket. That's quite interesting. And so there's different factors that work together in line with this to be able to present these numbers.
Well, thanks. That's perfect. Thank you, José. Thank you, Rafa.
Well, our next question comes from Maria Eduarda, BTG Pactual.
And you guys talked about Nova Lima with a margin above average. I wanted to understand this and really to know if this is a level that's mature. And if you could also talk about you talked about Uberlândia, etc. But if you could also talk about this and Goiânia and how the operation there has been as well, the first nine months and the perspectives. And of course, the plans are really specific. They vary from unit to unit and also the perspectives on these two units.
Well, thanks, Maria Eduarda.
Let's talk about Nova Lima and Salvador. Nova Lima is already operational when it comes to margins at a level that we consider could be close to what they could have when it comes to margins. If you look up ahead and consider that they have performance levels that are close to those of our mature units. But what we'll notice during 2026, especially in our view, is a consolidation of a project with the growth of this unit in absolute terms, with a unit that's going to contribute more and more to the growth of the absolute value in our EBITDA number. Salvador is a unit that still has a lot of room for growth. It's a big unit. It's a unit that has been, at every month that goes by, working on a capacity to absorb more physicians, having more complexity, and patients are more satisfied as well.
Our strategy has really been a champion strategy, right? Especially since there's this incorporation of new teams and the capacity that this unit has as well. Some movements a few months ago really reinforced that the year of 2026 could be the year, could be a real champion year. If it's reaching its EBITDA levels at levels of our more mature units, we really shift the needle in the overall network. With Goiânia, we keep up at this time, knowing that Goiânia is a market that is very challenging, but our unit has been really smoothly working. It's a unit that has levels of efficiency that are adequate. We've also been able to incorporate new medical teams, increasing the complexity of the hospital.
We've also worked on some negotiations or renegotiations this year of some price charts that are very important to give us more sustainability, and we become more consolidated as a general hospital, considering that Goiânia was a thesis of really buying a specialist hospital and then transforming the hospital in a general hospital and then have the capacity to perform brownfield investments in this unit. We consider that this path is really adequate, considering the improvements of operational improvements and also the growth of the revenue, and so we could really have the opportunity to build a future really for this unit in that market. Mater Dei Goiânia is really becoming one of the main hospitals in the region and establishing its presence as the main general hospital for that region, which is different than other strategies we see in the market.
Our next question. Thank you.
Good afternoon, everyone. This is Zahiki, Hafa, and all participants. I want to cover two points here. First of all, I think you guys really mentioned the revenues out of besides beds, and that's something that really called our attention, right? So about the oncology business, when we consider the main hospital peer oncology, they guys have the oncology performance is also really strong. There's another really big oncology player as well, and they've been operating at volumes that are maybe a little weaker than the past. So my question is more from a competitive perspective, right? If you're seeing an external environment that's more favorable to grow in oncology, especially in Belo Horizonte and maybe how much of this could be attributed to endogenous factors, right? So attracting physicians and the offering of services in markets that are important for you guys.
I think that's going to be very important. A second question is about margin perspectives looking up ahead. I wanted to hear your guys' opinion about what you guys are imagining for the next efficiencies here when it comes to receivables, right? If there was an improvement quarter- over- quarter, as Rafael highlighted. Also it seems that excluding payables, this would still be some room for improvements considering that the company has already been operating as this in a recent past, right? What would be the game plan to be able to execute this? That would be the two points. Thanks, guys.
Good afternoon. Thank you. About the oncology business here. Once again, it's no secret, and we've been mentioning that we have an important focus on this business.
We believe that oncology is a path that's worth investing considering the demographic aspects, actually, the number of new cancers that are going to arrive, the interaction with the aging of the population, and so we also believe that over these years, we created the right to effectively participate in this market, and I really believe in the thesis of the cancer centers because we understand that in the oncology business, there's really a business that's going to rely more and more on an oncological care line, and considering the diagnosis, treatment, and our units are super well positioned in this front, and so what we see is that the main physicians in regions where we are placed also see this with greater clarity, and so they see that Mater Dei Network is really an opportunity to associate themselves with us.
And they see that our long-term vision could be extended to them. And they want to be partners of movements like this where you have the capacity for investment, the capacity for retaining these physicians, and also the capacity for growing and accommodating different teams and different units working jointly. And this has really helped us to reinforce this oncological movement, right, in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte with the absorption of new teams, but also the good performance of the current market teams, right? So the numbers in Salvador are growing and they're very relevant. And we're going to continue to invest a lot in the strategy. We know that there are other players that are well positioned, and we believe that there's space for everyone. But we are really happy with the way, and especially with the physicians that have been working in this specialty.
And in regards to the efficiencies, we will pass this on to Rafael so he can also share his view.
Okay, thank you. Well, before we cover the cycle of the revenue, we have the opportunities when it comes to margins of having growth in units that help with the tickets and dilute expenses. And so Nova Lima and Salvador, they really help with the overall performance of the company, right? And the agreement there is really important for our growth in the region. So, as he mentions more and more that we have this perception. The health business, of course, it's important to have national scale with more purchasing power and critical volumes that can also help you have good credit in the market. But really knowing how to play the game in these units is fundamental, right?
And so, with this, we had more focus in the units and really perceiving more of what actually makes a difference. And then, I also want to mention a bit of the cycle of this revenue, right? So, working on the operators regionally and what's their process with the patients and the approvals and the authorizations, who's working on a shorter or longer cycle. These are all fundamental to help us adjust in this internal process. So, besides work to improve quality and understanding, we've also been advancing with some initiatives for artificial intelligence agents and parameterization. We already have a tool that brought in speed to help and put the contract into practice and translate and parameterize this in our systems.
And this could be not so relevant, but when you put this into the game, you add up slight improvements that make you gain maybe one, two, or three days. And we also had some corporate areas that when we consider this reduction in our portfolio, sometimes you would put everyone in the same activity together, and then you see you have to have a different focus. And that's where we can really notice you need to have people in tune. And also these are very few points here in the cycle of the revenue. And we have better credit in the market with our debt stopping efficiencies and lower costs. And we can also work on this extending our payment terms. This is not simple. It's not easy because you already have this. And so doing something kind of forced doesn't really work. So we've done this strategically.
We also consider this profile change and some adjustments to be able to work on our stocks. That also brings in some challenges, right, where we also think there's space to grow, to improve. We've improved all of them, and we believe there's a possibility to grow in the next quarters as well. This is also brought in by artificial intelligence solutions. This is very promising, right? We have a lot of repetitive activities and measures that depend on us more than any interface with operators. We've seen some examples and the consolidation of some initiatives we had in the past. Not only the cycle of the revenue, but also the production and the perspectives are also very positive.
Yeah, thank you.
Next question here, Ricardo Boiati from Safra. Hi, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for the opportunity.
Especially about the competitive environment, but maybe from a broader perspective, we've seen companies going through restructuring, and we've seen more proximity between the payers and the providers. We've also seen an environment that's really going through different changes. I want to understand really been impacting this or if this has been creating any kind of difficulty additionally in some specific points. This cycle is about capital allocation. You mentioned deleveraging in the balance sheet and how that's been delivered with a lot of consistency. The company is generating cash in a very important manner. When we think about this up ahead, what are the main opportunities for capital allocation? Is the company thinking about investing more greenfield, brownfield, maybe get back to performing acquisitions or having this capital return to shareholders?
We want to understand the strategic vision as well when it comes to capital allocation.
In regards to our competitive environment, Rafael has already mentioned this, but we really believe in, and we see this in the business of hospitals. It's a business where you do have national characteristics, but there's a regional relevance actually at the moment. We've been working on some different movements to really reinforce our positioning. The opening of the Nova Lima opening, and this was a relevant and strategic measure so we can even become more stronger. This has been also we've seen some restructuring and some companies going through possible difficulties. We also see proximity, but we're very optimistic in regards to the private hospital health market.
One thing that's very clear is how the entities that are well positioned in our sector have really been improving performance. Up until recently, there were some questions about which operators or payers would be more relevant. Some were going through challenges and actually burning cash monthly at real significant values. These are operators that were able to have a significant turnaround. Now they're shifting their focus areas, right? So their capacity for surviving, and then we're shifting to a focus that's more growth-oriented with regional products and how the market can grow, expanding the addressable market and our strategy of being close to all of these payers, providing them with a health service that is high quality, focusing on our core business and allowing them to sell plans with sustainable commercial agreements.
And this has been super valued by these operators in each of these regions, not only one or another, but some we've been talking to in these specific markets. And then when we consider capital allocation, yes, we have a positive perspective for capital generation in the next months. With the exception of some market conditions or specific conditions in some month, we've also continued with our buyback strategy. And so we don't think there's any better opportunity than buying back the actual stock from the Mater Dei Network, which are a lot lower than the company's intrinsic values. And with this cash generation program, we're also going to focus on strategies that are brownfield for strengthening each of our units. We really believe in each market we're in. And for next year, we have the opportunity to improve even more our units.
This is the most opportunistic possibility for us for capital allocation with a clinical team set up and also a deleveraging strategy of the company through this stronger cash generation and a breakdown with a bigger concentration of shares in the company or through a stronger cash position with opportunities that we can get into some movements, always considering the lessons learned in the M&As we had and the integration processes in the last few years.
Okay, that's very clear. José Henrique, thank you so much for the answers and just a quick follow-up here. Considering that the company has been working on buyback transactions and the free float is really limited, so this is a value that's really low, right, but is the family considering closing capital, or is it strategic to keep the company listed, and maybe it wouldn't make sense to go private again.
No, closing the company is not on our radar right now. We believe that keeping the company as a publicly held company reinforces our governance, positions us for some important movements, and liquidity is actually a way of we can handle this in opportunistic moments. And so there is no plan to privatize the company again and close capital.
Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.
Now we have a question here by chat from Rodrigo Soares.
Good afternoon and congrats on the evolution of the results. We would like to know if there's any plan to increase the company's liquidity by increasing the free float of the company.
Well, thanks, Rodrigo, for this. To have any kind of transaction, we also need to have the adequate market conditions. We believe it's not the right moment yet. And we still don't have any movement planned as such to promote greater liquidity.
But having said that, we really believe we in the company are going to consider the liquidity issues at the right moment. Now we're ending the Q&A. I'll pass the floor back to José for first round of remarks.
Thanks, guys, for your interest. It's a pleasure to present these levels of results. They really reinforce our capacity for execution. They reinforce the intrinsic value in the company. And slowly but surely, we'll be able to unleash all these values and really become closer to a relevant future in our company. As you already mentioned at the moment, with the interest of having the Mater Dei Network operating in the private market, but also consolidating the market as well. And so thanks, guys.