Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We would like to welcome you to the conference call for earnings for Q4 2021 for Plano & Plano. We inform that this event is being recorded and all participants will be in the listen mode only during the company's presentation. Next, we will begin the Q&A session when further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please dial asterisk zero to reach the operator.
Today's event is available through a live webcast that may be accessed through the Plano & Plano investor relations website at ri.planoeplano.com.br/en in the banner Webcast. The following presentation is also available for download on the webcast platform. The following information is stated in BRL and BR GAAP and IFRS applicable to real estate developers in Brazil, except where stated otherwise.
Before proceeding, we would like to mention that any forward-looking statements made in today's conference call concerning the business perspectives of Plano & Plano, projections, and operational financial goals are based on assumptions of the company's board, as well as information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Plano & Plano and lead to results that may differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Today, we have the presence of Mr. Rodrigo Wohn, Mr. Rodrigo Luna, and Mr. João Hopp, respectively, CEO, Vice President, and CFO and Investor Relations Officer at Plano & Plano. Now, I will turn the conference over to Mr. Rodrigo Luna, Vice President, who will begin the presentation. Sir, you may proceed.
Good afternoon to all. Thank you very much for participating in the conference call of Plano & Plano. Let's begin with slide five. Today, we will present the financial results of 2021, another year with many records illustrating our journey with sustainable growth. In 2021, the company established new historical records in launches, reaching BRL 1.46 billion in VGV. The net sales also represented BRL 1.33 billion. Net revenue reached BRL 1.27 billion, and finally, net profit reached BRL 135 million. The net sales 100% Plano & Plano represented a growth of 52% in comparison with 2020, while net revenue had an increase of 41% in the same period.
The ROI of the company in the last 12 months was 49%, a return rate that is a record in the sector concerning when you look at companies in the stock market. In Q4 2021, the net sales of 1,618 units resulted in a total of BRL 304.5 million in VGV, 100% Plano & Plano, which represents a growth of 7.1% in comparison to the VGV of the same period in the previous years. In turn, in the same period, net revenue grew 8.4%, reaching BRL 298 million. This quarter was also marked by the effects, for example, which are the pressure on production cost, and the company worked hard to mitigate the price increases in the execution of the projects.
We restructured the payment flows for materials and services at job sites, productivity gains, new structure for marketing expenses and sale expenses, and price increase because of inflation in the costs. These are some of the actions of the company to overcome the current situation. Another highlight in 2021 was the progress of Plano & Plano in the middle-class market.
With a history of good results in this market in the past and aligned with the current demand of levels above Casa Verde e Amarela or popular housing, we saw excellent business opportunities, especially bearing in mind our region in the state of São Paulo, and especially in the city of São Paulo, where we have abundant demand and higher income levels. It is an important diversification which reinforces the sustainable growth that we are having and will have in the next few years.
In 2021, 10% of the VGV launched is already in this range level, middle class, more than in the popular housing, Casa Verde e Amarela. For 2022, 2023, we hope to increase more our participation in higher income levels. We would like to highlight that the company is going through a constant transformation and evolution as a company in the stock market. Thus, in line with our commitments, in 2021, we had our first ESG report.
In this period, Plano & Plano won the award Great Place to Work, the only construction company in the GPTW index of the stock market. Also, many actions were made in human resources with the implementation of a new performance evaluation system, processes for development and retention of talent, apart from the creation of the trainee program.
Apart from this, with this scenario of economic instability, we have analyzed our risk map, and we have reinforced our internal auditing department. The company was one of the 17 companies that was able to win the Reclame Aqui award in 2021. We had the third place, the best among the companies working with low-income clients, which requires a lot of expertise due to the great number of clients. All of this helps the company to understand the situation and to act to improve our parameters.
Our management continues to trust that we can expand our operations in a profitable and also with controlled risks. Another highlight is that in 2021, the company launched a program to buy back shares, and we maintain our conviction that we have a fair price for our shares. The shares bought back until now is 4,350,000 shares, which represents 2.13% of the company's shares.
I would like to highlight a relevant aspect of our operation and say that we are working in a diligent way to really control the costs of the company. The company, since its foundation, has in its DNA an obsession for implementing and following engineering processes. Celebrating this year our 25th anniversary. In each project, our construction costs are always followed in great detail. Each cost unit is analyzed carefully.
The construction costs are followed continuously, and the budgets are updated at the end of each month without exception. The budgets are not only updated with the costs incurred, but they include a forecast of new prices with inflationary projections for the materials and services that have not been purchased yet. We have also our own inflation index.
It is called the ICPP, Correction Index for Plano & Plano, which includes the prices that we have paid in our projects, and this is compared with the official indices in order to improve our planning and control. This point will be explained once again during the presentation when we will comment the gross margin in the period.
As mentioned, in 2022, Plano & Plano will celebrate 25 years of existence. During all these years, many economic plans and crises, market fluctuations were present, showing always resilience and high reaction capacity. Even with the challenges, our results have brought growth and operational consistency. We have a challenging year. After two years of COVID-19 and the uncertainties of war, we are working to continue growing and recovering margins so that at the end of 2022, we may be able to have new historical records in the company.
Please, let's go to slide number six. Before going over the data for 2021, we would like to remind you the midterm results of Plano & Plano. We see that between 2017 and 2021, the launches grew 147%, from a VGV of BRL 500 million to BRL 1 billion and BRL 460 million. A compound growth rate of 30% a year. Net sales grew 282% in the same period, going from BRL 348 million to BRL 1 billion and BRL 300 million with a compound growth rate of 40%. Next slide. From 2017 to 2021, the net revenue grew 304%, going from BRL 314 million to BRL 1. 270 billion.
In the same period, the net profit grew 247%. In 2017, the profit was BRL 39 million and reached BRL 135 million in 2021, which represents an annual compound growth rate of 37%. We continue working to maintain a sustainable growth during the next few years, and we trust that we will continue in this trajectory with success. Now I would like to pass the floor to João Hopp, our CFO, who will talk about the operational and financial highlights.
Good afternoon. Let's go on to slide number nine. Net sales, 100% Plano, in 12 months 2021 were in excess of BRL 1.3 billion, the highest annual volume of sales in the history of the company. A comparison between 2020, 2021 shows a growth of 51.8%. In 2020, the sales had been BRL 875 million. In Q4 2021, sales represented BRL 304 million, superior to the same period in 2020, when we had BRL 287 million. Next slide.
The company launched in Q4 six projects and four new phases with BRL 565 million, representing an acceleration of 28.4% in relation to the BRL 440 million in Q3 2021. So year to date, launches BRL 1.46 billion in VGV, 19 phases of new projects, and nine phases of older project. So we had 2% above the BRL 1.43 billion that we reached in the 12 months of the previous year. The company's participation in the launches 2021 was 100%. Next slide. On December 31st, 2021, the VSO in the last 12 months was 39.2%. When comparing with the same period 2020, there was an increase of 6.5 percentage points in relation to the 31.7% in December 31st, 2020, showing a good sales performance and more growth in sales.
In comparison with September 30 of 2021, we see a drop due to the high VGV, BRL 361 million in December, close to the end of the year. We see the result in sales. The company had an increase in sales on launches when comparing the results of 2021 with the previous year, BRL 174 million in sales, and we see here 31%.
In 2021, we had BRL 1 billion, BRL 330 million in sales for BRL 1.46 million in launches, 90% higher than in the previous years. Now slide 13. The net revenue of the company reached BRL 298 million, 8.4% higher than the BRL 275 million of the previous year. The revenue has continued solid with the evolution of the projects and the sale of our inventory. Year- to- date, revenue grew 41.1%, going from BRL 901 million in 2020 to BRL 1.27 billion in 2021. Next slide, please.
The gross adjusted profit in the quarter reached BRL 93.7 million . Year- to- date, the gross adjusted profit was BRL 423 million , a growth of 21.3% in comparison with the BRL 349 million in 2020. The adjusted gross margin reached 31.4% in Q4 2021 and 33.3% in the year of 2021. The main factor for pressure on margin was the increase in price of raw materials, which all the construction companies had as a problem.
This is due to a rupture in the supply chain of these materials. The company is increasing its prices gradually. With the imbalance in the production chain and the pandemic, the high prices increases are not possible. We have to look at sales and increase prices gradually. Currently, the real estate sold before the price increases have been fixed.
Consequently, the prices went up more than we expected, and this we can see during the progress. The company minimizes the effect in new sales and also its inventory, as well as selling units of new launches. We hope to have reversed this trend and improve gross margins during 2022-2023. We would like to talk once again in detail the way the company follows its construction costs.
Our construction costs for each project are followed continuously in detail in all the items that are part of our budget. At the end of each month, we have the best possible vision of the budget for the company, and this is used to calculate the POC for each project. Every month we have an updated budget, and with the impacts, the up-to-date budget of the projects include all the costs.
Costs incurred are recognized by the values that we pay according to the reality of the prices for each material or services. Prices to be paid in the future are updated, and we also add inflation to have really a good idea of the prices we will pay. Here we have some important aspects of the costs to be incurred. First, as of May 2020, two years ago, we implemented a system to accompany costs at Plano & Plano. Since our profile is different from the normal inflation index, we call this ICPP, a construction index for Plano & Plano. The variance between inflation and our system is 0.2%. In other words, the ICPP had a variance of 2% above inflation, validating the use of INCC method for new prices and costs to be incurred.
In practice, when we buy raw materials or services, sometimes the price that we pay is the same as current. In other cases, we buy some months in advance. Sometimes the price is very close to our budget since we already include the INCC index, and possibly the value sometimes is above the one in our budget. In any of these hypotheses, the new cost is included in the budget at the end of the month.
Third, this way of calculating budgets and cost gives us a lot of security that many services and materials bought for delivery in the short term, in here we have prices that will not be readjusted in most cases. A practical example, a painting service lasts six months. When we buy the service, which includes labor and material, the price does not change anymore.
Finally, we have exceptions when our budget does not contemplate a certain cost that changes even after being bought. In this case, the new cost is updated automatically at the end of the month for all the projects which will have this cost in order to avoid problems between the budget and reality. Next slide, please. The growth of operational expenses in 2021 in comparison with 2020 was less than net revenue.
Sales expenses went to 11.8% in 2021, while administrative expenses went from 6.6% of the revenue in 2020 to 6.3% in year-to-date 2021. Operational expenses of Q4 2021 had values 5.2% higher than in the previous year, especially due to a greater concentration of some services and more expenses with new systems. The net profit reached 27.4% and BRL 135 million year-to-date 2021. Annual, here we see a growth of 2.2% in relation to the previous year.
The company delivered 10.6% net margin, although we had price increases. The company is gradually increasing the prices and also the prices for its units and inventory. The company presented an adjusted EBITDA of BRL 211 million, which represents a margin of 16.6%, a growth of 15.9% in relation to BRL 182 million in 2020. The gross debt, BRL 406 million, considering cash of BRL 292 million, we had this debt at the end of the year. In 2021, there was a new drop when we look at net debt and we see here from 37 in 2020 to this number in December 2021. We had an increase here, and also in the generation of profits. Excluding the payment of dividends and buying back shares, the company had a cash generation of BRL 20 million here in 2021. We would like to close here, and we are available for questions.
Thank you, Mr. João Hopp. Now we would like to begin the Q&A session. To ask a question, please dial asterisk one. If your question is answered, please leave the queue by dialing asterisk two. Our first question is from André Dibe , Itaú BBA.
Good afternoon. I would like to ask you a question about cost. Your perception, what are the trends in terms of prices? Are you being able to anticipate purchases? What are the materials that are under pressure in terms of cost? Thank you.
André, good afternoon. Rodrigo speaking. Well, answering your question, every day we have surprises. Today, I would say that the raw materials, those that are based on cement, concrete, and also materials with cement. They went up 15% last week. We had steel prices dropped a little, and we have had some agreements with fixed prices for two, three months for most of our materials. We also had some pressure in labor due to many launches and many projects that we have to deliver in 2022, 2023. This will put some pressure on the price of labor. The rest is more under control than last year, but following the plans and following the inflation index.
Thank you. It was clear.
The next question is from Pedro Lobato, Bradesco BBI.
Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. Concerning operations, you had price increases. Can we understand that these expenses will be the same in the future? Also concerning the purchase of plots of land, what is the scenario?
Thank you, Pedro. Here's João. You are asking about operating expenses. We are looking forward 2022, 2023. We want to continue growing in launches and sales. We hope during these two years to have additional gains in terms of economy of scale. You can expect savings in the next 24 months. The sales expenses and advertising expenses are recognized as we incur them, and we hope to have gains in scale, some percentage points in SG&A. The second question concerning the purchase of land, I would like to pass the floor to Rodrigo Luna.
Pedro, good afternoon. In terms of plots of land, we have seen a change in the behavior in the market. We see companies buying less plots of land due to economic reason, especially mid-size and small plots of land. In thesis, this helps us. This helps the larger companies, the well-structured companies, because small companies, small construction companies, are buying less plots of land.
The new costs are showing that we have to buy land with less commitment with VGV. Although we still have many opportunities to buy land in São Paulo, a very large market, since we're offering less money for purchase, our negotiation takes longer. We bought the plots of land we had to buy in 2021. We even bought a little more than we needed, and we're launching every year. We are increasing our launches and we continue with BRL 10 billion in plots of land. We have a healthy inventory of plots of land.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Elvis Credendio, BTG Pactual.
Good afternoon, Luna, João. I have two questions. The first on subsidies and also higher income levels. What can you tell us about the effect of this on the company's margins, working with higher income individuals? Do you intend to continue this way? Also the drop in interest rates last year. How do you see this change now in group three? We've seen an increase this year in interest rates. What is the trade-off? Thank you.
Hi, Elvis. Thank you for your question. Beginning here with popular housing, Casa Verde e Amarela, the new curve has greater benefits for income until BRL 3,000, BRL 3,400 per family. It's not easy to sell to these families. This will not help our operation here in São Paulo. It helps, but it's not very significant. Our growth strategy and price and ticket that we have adopted is higher than these wage brackets that we're benefiting. We're closer to group two and three, and above the levels of the popular housing. Until some time ago, with lower interest rates to sell to individuals, we see today that it's different.
Today, in group three, generates less income than the SBPE due to the increase in interest rates. Today in group three, it is better for us. Of course, the increase in interest rates also affects a little the increase, the levels with higher income levels for middle class. But it is still feasible and also working with middle class citizens.
Thank you.
The next question is from webcast, Andre Fontana. Could you comment on the evolution of the sale prices during 2021 and also your plans for 2022? Do you see the gross margin going back to the levels of 2020?
Andre, thank you for the question. I will talk about the price increase per square meter. When we look at the average ticket and mix, the price per square meter from January 2021, considering the first months of 2022, in the last 13 months, our sale price per square meter grew 8%. This year, we do not have an official guidance, but on a monthly basis, we will increase prices a little over inflation forecasts, and we hope thus to recover prices. We believe during 2022, prices will grow up, also during 2023, to reach the gross margins we had two years ago. 8.05% price increase per square meter in the last 13 months, and gross margin, we see increases this year, and this should continue in the next 18- 20 months until the end of 2023.
The next question from the web is from Rafael Rehder, Safra. Good afternoon. Could you give us more details about the price increases of the units, sale price increases of the units?
Thank you. In the previous question, we talked about the increase. We had the price increase I mentioned per square meter, and the trend this year is to increase prices every month, a little over inflation.
The next is from Rafael Rehder, Safra. Could you give us more details about the space division? What is the average ticket of the units and the launches in 2022?
Hello, Rafael. Average ticket is BRL 290,000 above the popular housing levels. We have 43% of the units in the first phase. As I said, in 2021, we reached 10 launches for middle-class units, and our expectation is to increase in this level, and between 2022, 2023, to get to 30%, 35% of our portfolio in middle-class units.
We have a question from Bruno Mendonça from KB Investimentos.
Good afternoon. Due to the higher costs, will the company accelerate the sales for higher income levels? What is the participation of the higher income levels in this year?
Hello, Bruno. Good afternoon. As we said shortly, our objective is to get to 30% of our portfolio for lower middle class above the popular housing levels. In 2021, it was 10% of the launches.
The next question comes from Renato Prudente concerning the launches for Q1 2022. Will they be distributed during the quarter or once again concentrated at the end of the quarter? Can we expect an increase in sales in the next quarter with the units launched in December?
Renato, good afternoon. Thank you for the question. The launches, we do not give a guidance by month. Here, we have an internal wish to grow at a double-digit level this year with the launches. We should launch a little more than last year. The change in seasonality we consider by quarter. In the last two years, we had a great concentration, more than BRL 1 billion in the second semester. This year, we intend to have a better distribution during the four quarters. The trend is to have less seasonality in relation to the two previous years. In terms of sales, we can't anticipate, but sales are going well, and at the end of the quarter, we will give you a report.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, reminding you to ask questions, please dial asterisk 1. We'd like to conclude the Q&A session. Now, I would like to pass the floor to Mr. Rodrigo Luna, vice president, for his final comments.
Thank you very much for participating. 2021 was a very good year. You saw that we delivered historical results, records. We work in a resilient, sustainable way. We are committed with the long term, and now we have the war and also higher inflation. But our history shows our capacity to adapt and react in a market that is very strong, which is the market in the state of São Paulo. We trust that in spite of the difficulties, we will have another good year. Thank you. And with