Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Web Conference from Ser Educacional for the Discussion of the Results Referring to the Second Quarter of 2025. This web conference is being recorded, and you can watch it later at the website of the company. This presentation is going to be also available for download. All the participants are going to be only watching the web conference, and later we are going to have a Q&A session where all answers are going to be given. I would like to reinforce the information we've shared has based the forward-looking beliefs from Ser Educacional . and the information we have now, these declarations cannot suffer some risks taking into consideration macroeconomical scenarios. Depending on these scenarios, they may or may not occur.
Investors should take into consideration that our analysis takes into consideration macroeconomical scenarios and other factors may change the results from those shared here today. A part of this web conference is Mr. Jânyo Diniz, CEO, João de Aguiar, CFO, and Rodrigo Alves, Director of Investor Relations. I'd like to invite Jânyo Diniz now to give his final thoughts and considerations to this conference. The floor is yours.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our video conference for the second quarter of 2025. Let's go straight to slide four, where we present the highlights of the period. Overall, this quarter's results maintain the consistency of the good numbers from the first quarter, with the main difference being merely seasonal, and this is traditionally our best quarter of the year, and this time was no different.
We recorded solid growth in enrollment and in our onsite student base, with both indicators showing double-digit increases. This contributed to the expansion of our EBITDA and net margins in the quarter. Our strategy of increasing operating leverage and reducing financial leverage continues to prove effective, converting a considerable portion of the increased revenue directly into EBITDA and, consequently, into net income. Another important point is that the results for this semester already exceed or equal the total accumulated for the entire fiscal year of 2024. The accounting net profit for this semester is 26% higher than the adjusted net profit for 2024, and our post-CapEx cash generation practically reached the same amount accumulated last year. This robust performance allowed us to accelerate debt reduction. We reduced our debt by over BRL 100 million compared to the same period last year, including BRL 70 million in this half-year alone.
These positive results reinforce our commitment to our strategic focus on optimizing operations. With buildings well occupied by high-demand courses, we are ready to gradually replicate the operational model in new markets, especially where our brand already has recognition and established demand. Slide five: increased efficiency. We show the evolution of our operational and financial efficiency over the last few years. We have seen a significant increase of the number of students in hybrid learning per campus, even with the opening of five new campuses in the last two years. Furthermore, we highlight the significant reduction in our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio. This result is not only the result of the growth in adjusted EBITDA, but also the increase in cash generation, which allowed us to reduce nominal net debt.
On slide six, we highlight the significant growth in our medical school program base, which increased from 521 to 1,001 annual openings. The most recent approval occurred in March 2025 in Maracanaú, with the addition of 60 openings. This increase of 62% in places represents a significant increase in the number of new medical students we expect to enroll in the coming years as these new places mature. Now, let's move to slide eight, where we analyze the fundraising results for the first half of the year. As most of the fundraising takes place by the end of March, the second quarter figures are marginal, resulting in little difference between the accumulated results for the semester of 2025. Therefore, we can conclude that the recruitment process was successful, especially in hybrid education, which grew almost 15% this year.
This growth was partially offset by the digital graduation, where we chose to maintain the average ticket, something we will discuss later. As we can see on slide nine, the combination of successful enrollment season and a solid dropout control resulted in a positive performance of our blended learning student base this semester, which grew by approximately 13%. Furthermore, the total undergraduate student base increased by 8%. We have a big highlight: the growth of the medical student base, which registers a 27% increase driven by the accreditation of new courses, as mentioned previously. As a result of our strategy of increasing operational leverage and focusing on programs with higher average ticket prices and better student credit scores, such as healthcare and law, our student base is becoming increasingly concentrated in these programs. This is evidenced on slide 10.
We have seen a consistent growth in the student base for health courses, both in hybrid and digital learning, which gradually reduces our participation in courses with lower average ticket prices. This change has been occurring over the past few years, which is one of the main factors contributing to the positive result we are achieving this year. On slide 11, we present the evolution of our average ticket, which grew 30.7%, mainly due to the growth of the participation of hybrid education student base, which went from 49.2% - 52.9% of the total undergraduate student base, and the increase in average tickets of digital education students, which increased 2.9%. The average hybrid education ticket fell by 2% due to the 33% growth in the ProUni student base, and the scrutiny affects the average ticket growth by almost 1% on the same comparison basis.
In addition, we had the already known impact in the increase in student payment punctuality this quarter and a marginal effect of early enrollment and re-enrollment that moved part of the revenue to Q1. Those were my initial comments, and now I will hand over to João to talk about the financial results.
Thank you, Jânyo. Good morning, everyone. Let's now turn to slide 13, where we detail the evolution of net revenue this quarter. The second quarter, like the first, showed a robust growth of over 10%, especially when considering seasonal factors. This is our best quarter in terms of revenue recognition and overall results, which raised the comparison base for year-over-year growth. Other factors, such as increased punctuality and early re-enrollment, as mentioned by Jânyo, also impact this season.
In the first quarter, revenue increased by approximately 20%, influenced by the introduction of the CES Solidarity program, and still without the recognition of ProUni discounts, which recorded a 33% increase in the student base this year. On slide 14, we analyze the performance of EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, both showing solid growth of 70% and 25% respectively, along with significant margin expansion. This increase in EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins is a result of the operational re-leveraging that Jânyo mentioned. The increase in enrollment and successful re-enrollment this semester resulted in a high occupancy of buildings and classrooms, allowing us to keep the operation costs and expenses under control.
Among the lines that showed the most significant increase, we highlight the provision for doubtful accounts, PDD, which increased due to three main factors: greater provision for losses in digital education due to the increase in dropouts this semester, and consequence of the growth in re-enrollment last semester. Changes to our billing format reduced the volume of discounts printed in the financial result and increased the DTA, with no practical impact on net profit, and the increase in the provisioning of the FES and guaranteed fund. Year to year, we also record an increase in PDD due to the implementation of the CES Solidarity program, but since season three are not meaning re-enrollment in the second quarter, the impact of PDD was small, as we can see. We summarize the impact of the CES Solidarity program, both in the quarter and the year to date.
The tuition and installment program was successfully implemented, and as you can see, increased the revenue this quarter by BRL 3.8 million, totaling BRL 27 million to date. Currently, the program provision is at 38% of revenue that the present value adjustment AVP, which showed the wise decision for this start, with the increase of PMR to date being only two days. The program will continue its implementation in the third quarter, and it will be applied to a new eligible enrollment in hybrid education, excluding CES ProUni and medical courses. On slide 16, we present the evolution of our net income and adjusted net income. As can be seen, the improvement in net operational performance, coupled with financial deleveraging, which has been our main focus over the past two years, has allowed us to significantly increase profits for our shareholders.
This resulted in the accumulated net accounting profit for the year already exceeding the profit of the entire year of 2024. Our net margin for the quarter reached very healthy levels, reaching 13.8%, adjusting not only for non-recurring earnings. The margin reached 14.7%, a significant increase compared to the 9.2% and 8.7% we achieved last year. On slide 17, we highlight our operating cash generation, both pre and post-CapEx, which I consider the most significant results of the quarter. On our pre-CapEx operating cash flow, GOC grew 42.8% year- over- year, while post-CapEx increased an impressive 730%. The conversion of adjusted EBITDA into cash was also quite significant this quarter, with an increase of almost 80% points, reaching 21%. It's important to note that seasonally, this is the quarter in which we pay the most interest due to the large student base and revenue generation.
This is the period chosen to honor the majority of our financial commitments. Cash generation in 2025 could have been even higher had it not been for the slower FES payment flow this year compared to 2024, resulting in a difference of approximately BRL 14 million in cash generation. If payment flow had maintained last year, the results would have been more positive than those reported today. On slide 18, we present our average collection period, which has been decreasing for the fourth consecutive year. This reflects the improvement in harvest quality post-pandemic, combined with a more restrictive policy on granting agreements, in addition to the sale of the EduCredit portfolio to Pravaler. This information revealed throughout this year highlights the improvement in practically all of Ser Educacional 's operational and financial indicators as a whole.
On slide 19, we show the significant reduction in our debt and financial leverage, which fell from 1.93 times last year to 1.24 times. This reflects the combined effect of adjusted EBITDA growth, cash generation, and nominal reduction in gross and net debt. It should also be noted that in May, we paid BRL 19.7 million in dividends to our shareholders, something we had not done since 2021. We are approaching our strategic goal of operating with leverage below one time, which we consider healthy for a company with our profile, especially given the absence of tax shields in our sector. This means we have all the characteristics of a healthy company, generating cash, investing, and expanding, reducing debt while also paying dividends to our shareholders. Finally, on slide 20, we present our CapEx, which this quarter, as in the first, showed a significant reduction compared to last year.
This occurred for two main reasons. First, the completion of some investments made to adapt properties to accommodate students, allowing the return of some real estate in line with our operational optimization plan. Additionally, considering I was on the first round of the credit medical programs this last year, this year we don't need to make these significant investments, and we postponed the start of some projects, which will result in the second half of the year. We highlight the expansion of the Boaviagem building in Recife, where we plan to expand parking, garage, and polyclinic, aiming to improve our services in the city. Those were my comments on the results. Now I will hand over the floor back to Jânyo for his final considerations.
Thank you, João. On slide 21, we present the sixth unit we are operating in 24 months, located in Patos, Paraíba.
Originally a super hub due to the high demand in the region, we decided to accredit the in-person courses in nursery, law, psychology, and dentistry. This expansion exemplifies our focus on promising cities located in micro-regions with good demand on recognition of our brands. This way, we can grow sustainably, offering courses in demand by the market in strategic locations and with low maintenance costs, since the unit is located in a shopping mall in the city. Furthermore, our brand is desired by the public and due to the strong acceptance in the job market and academic quality. On slide 23, I'd like to reinforce our strategic positioning to remain focused on optimizing our operations. Although the turnaround process was successfully completed, we want the company to remain firmly committed to efficiency, to generate cash, and achieve our financial leverage reduction goals next year.
In this sense, we continue to invest in healthcare programs, accredited new medical programs, and invest in our brands. Our goal is to become increasingly recognized in the market for offering positive experiences for our students with an increasingly integrated continuing education ecosystem, utilizing cutting-edge technology, and encouraging entrepreneurship for those students. Those were my opening comments. We are available for questions.
I'd like to start now our Q&A session for investors and analysts. If you want to ask anything, please raise your hand. If your question is answered, please lower your hand. Our first question comes from Lucas Nagano from Morgan Stanley. Lucas, your mic is open.
Thank you, Jânyo. Thank you, Rodrigo. Thank you for the space. Yeah, we have two questions.
First of all, for the enrollment those years, could you talk about how this is developing and to hear this transition for the new regulation, the new policies affecting the pricing? The second question is for medicine courses, and it has a huge growth on the first quarter with a mix of new courses, new schools, and is decelerated on the second quarter. I would like to ask, which are the factors? What is happening with the new students of ProUni? I would like to hear if this CES Solidarity and the punctuality discount is affecting medicine courses.
Thank you, Lucas, for your question. I'm going to ask the first question, and João Guia and my colleagues are going to ask. The capitation, the re-enrollment, is in line with what we expect next year? The onsite and hybrid education are walking by side, developing as we wanted, expected.
Remote studies have more pressure as we expected, mainly because this change on the law, and the competitors are also looking for new ways to enroll more students on price discounts. As we try to keep our average ticket, we see it as a good strategy, and we're keeping our pricing. Long-distance education has a more bigger pressure.
Thank you, Lucas, for your question. Basically, on the average ticket in medicine, it has a characteristic of the second quarter, which is based a little bit on what happened in the first quarter, which was basically three main points. First, the anticipation of re-enrollment that happened in the first quarter. We had this movement, this more bigger revenue on this average ticket. The second point was the increased punctuality payments and its discounts. They impact medicine as well because these discounts are average 10%. They impact our average ticket as well.
ProUni, ProUni, we had a growth on ProUni on the second quarter and have an anticipation of re-enrollment in the first quarter. Basically, all the students in ProUni just got in now on the revenue accounting. We have this growth on the second quarter. When we see this impact from looking back to the first quarter, and we equalize those results, we can see that we have a growth of 14%. It was something very seasonal because of the ProUni. There was the biggest impact here, and we have also the impact on the re-enrollment and the punctuality payments. Thank you. The best way to look at it is the two quarters with a 14% growth.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Livea Mizobata from JP Morgan. Livea, your microphone is open.
Good morning, Jânyo, João, and Rodrigo. Thanks for the opportunity to make a question.
My first question is, I would like to focus on medicine. I would like for you to paint to us how is the competitive landscape. We see our colleagues commenting on this relationship with a squeeze relationship for certain places. In certain places, if you see how is this relationship with your competitors looking at the second two quarters, second half of the year, and what is the gross margin you can see as the moving parts on this second quarter and second half of the year.
Thank you for your question. Related to the medicine course, this is what we expected. Most of our places we have this field in the first quarter and the first half of the year. We feel as we said in the past, these small cities will have more pressure for the courses as it happens in the first quarter. What happened now?
We have some remaining student places we didn't have in the first half year need this pressure. As we see Maracanaú, which was approved in the middle of the half year, we fill those places quickly.
Livea, looking at the second question, I think that our company is doing really well in this trend on increasing our margin, as we were able to observe in the first quarter. A very positive point to build the model for our future is this period on enrolling students in the middle of the year, in our winter. We see in this period a small change on trends of the base of students on their re-enrollment or new students being enrolling. The generation of revenue looks for us as really well controlled.
Another very important point that this semester showed us and is important for us to repeat in the future is the success on the contention of the costs. We generate more revenue, having embraced our occupation of real estate buildings and classrooms. This is a very big trend. Looking at our process in winter, it's going really well. Promoting the next semesters and years in 2025 is a year where the new student places for medicine, they contribute little to our results because they are still first or second semesters. On these harvest years, the accumulation of those courses, those maturations of a medicine course being a very favorable market with a better ticket for us is not very relevant in the beginning because we grow 90% the number of student places.
When you put that in the maturation long term, this allows us to scale our margins on the margin of medicine being more robust compared to other courses.
Thank you very much for your answer.
Our next question comes from Lucca Marquezini from Itaú. Lucca, the floor is yours.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to ask. I would like to know about the rentability. Have there been good results in courses and there's more space for growth, or this is the level we're going to stay on those coursing lines? Looking at these other profitabilities and the generation of cash revenue, we see in Fortaleza on those courses, those results. We see the generation of cash. We see some renovation in medicine. Please, can you comment what is your strategy on acquisitions, on M&A, on medicine? This would help us have a good panorama.
Thank you, Lucca.
Thank you for your question. Looking at profitability, looking at what Rodrigo said, we have an operational plan that we started putting in place in 2022 and strongly in 2023, and we see the results in 2024 and 2025. We see, we do see these adjustments on our costs. The more operational efficiency that we brought and these profitable rates along the next years is not as strong. We still have some space to optimization of costs, but the number is not going to increase much on costs. We still have some space to improve our operational efficiency. When we look at the medicine course, these are the courses compared to other courses, we see the courses, we see the capacity to profitability is growing, and we see that we have this perspective to have more margins, more rentability as we see the reduction of our leverage.
We have less indebtedness. With our capital structure, we can see that we, on our goals, you can follow it, is that it's just our mantra, the reduction of our leverage, our indebtedness, and reduction this. This part of our strategy, we work on that. We work with less debt so we can be in place with our chronogram of payment of those debts in a natural way with our cash revenue. With our acquisitions and mergers, I don't know if the time to talk about it. We still see this process on those judicial processes. We still have some judicial processes being analyzed by the Minister of Education. We have, there's many things happening in the medicine course scenario. We should not think now on merging and acquisition with other institutions.
What we look now is to keep our growth, the way working organically, and reducing our debt, cash generation to have capital, and nothing to improve these assets and this equity.
Our next question comes from Renan Prata from Citi. Renan, your microphone is open.
Good morning, everybody. We have two questions. First, thinking about ProUni, I understand that we should frame this in the program, but I'd like to understand how to look at it forward. If there is a long time to, if we should wait more, we see some, can see some increase in ProUni. The second question is the medicine ticket. We talked a lot about your financial report, but excluding the average ticket, it's still walking sideways. Which are the factors, punctuality discount, or the mix itself? These are my questions.
The average ticket increased 90% compared to last year.
This is a very relevant increase. Some things I should add here on ProUni is that the formats of recognizing revenue. We explained on our report to have the anticipation of enrollment and re-enrollment. When I bring, I have the re-enrollment in the second quarter, I recognize this revenue the whole semester. With this anticipation, I had a better result in the first quarter, and the second quarter recognized less this revenue. The average ticket generated in medicine, when you look and you close the semester and see, do all the accounting, you have an increase in 14%, which is a very substantial increase. Looking at ProUni, this also has an effect in the same way. When you look at discounted ProUni in the second quarter, this affects this semester as a whole. We do the normalization. The average ticket has also a sideways behavior on the graph.
Besides that, I don't see a big change on the behavior. The behavior on the onsite ticket with the anticipation of revenue, with the possibility of payment increase, generating this discount of 10% on the average ticket, which has a big, very reasonable impact on revenue. You have the cash, a smaller cash generation, and a bigger number of students. These two movements are normal and very reasonable on our landscape. Adding to what my colleague said, ProUni has a seasonality depending on the kind of ProUni, on what the government really gives to us as funding. Looking at this data, we work in a more conservative way on the offering of student places. Even with less tax efficiency, we still see some positive results being conservative. Along with a longer time, we see this equalizing.
We see eventually an increase in the growth of revenue for the students that are in this model. We see this increase that is balanced on the tax work. This impacts our average ticket and our net average revenue. With the efficiency on tax, we can generate these numbers that impact positively in our average ticket. This is it, tax efficiency.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Mirela Oliveira from Bank of America. Mirela, your microphone is open.
Good morning, Jânyo, colleagues. Thank you for. I'd like to ask about cash generation. We see here this equity increase. In your opinion, what can improve looking at the equity production in two years and how you see comment on how the PDD impacts on those numbers?
Mirela, I was not able to understand your question.
From what I understood, I need to clarify here on PDD and discount, do we change our billing way, our invoicing? We have more students negotiating in the term of the PDD. Those defaulting students who had some income on this other format of billing, our default students with a more volume of agreements with the punctuality of payments generating this increase of PDD. On top of that, PDD also had an increase of the loss of students on distance students. Our system cuts the students that are not visiting the platform to study or do not pay. We lose those students. The platform doesn't account the revenue. I didn't understand the rest. It was hard to understand your question. Complementing what my colleague said, if you could repeat your question, we started forcing much more the agreement with the students that are in default. Finish his semester eventually.
It's better to do this invoicing. From one year to two years, we treat in a different way those students, the students that are more than a year in our system. We use some specific tools to force the students to pay. We are talking about credit institutions and give also tools for those students to pay. Reinforce on one side the payment of the students. You give tools for the students to pay through credit institutions. They come and we have this increase in revenue. With the payment tools, the credit tools, we see this very healthy movement on the decrease of default. We are able to operate in different ways with those students, bring them back to our fields. Having them pay and visiting the university, being part of this education and impacting our revenue. I would like to ask for you to repeat your question now.
Thank you. I have a problem with the connection here. First question was related to generation of capital. We see here a revenue increase pushed forward by the medicine courses. When we look at the other businesses, hybrid education and digital education, we see difficulties in enrolling new students, how the profitability can be impacted, thinking short and long, medium term.
I don't know if we don't see the second half of the year as more difficult. What we are doing here on the second semester is work with a bigger average ticket. We are well-filled in our real estate and have opportunities to convert what the market has and having a heated market. We prefer to increase the ticket related to our real estate occupation. The cash revenue production, we see a combined effect.
There is a benefit of the medicine courses, but on the other side, the levels of default on-site students, on the new students, the early students, we see a very little default compared to the last six, seven years. It was never as good as that. We have the other facts. We created CES Solidarity. We have long online students, bigger base. We have [crosstalk] , our policy for supporting those students. This impacts our PDD. Though our onsite students, they are the biggest source of the increase of EBITDA in cash. This year, FES had a volume of payment BRL 14 million, smaller than last year. If we would have the normalization of this payment flow and avoiding default, the cash generation would be even better. We're having this organic and solid generation of cash coming from the onsite students.
Thank you very much.
Mirela, I would like to complement this answer. All the work we do on operational efficiency, as we were able to see, and the impact of that on our margin is in the medicine courses, improved on field, occupying real estate. This impact matters, and this happens in medicine courses. We don't have 100% of this improvement. We're not converting this in revenue, but with time, we have organic growth on this efficiency and generate this synergy between operation and real estate occupation. This is happening. To the end of the maturation, we stabilize that. Combination of these other factors that we talked about is going to have a visibility of cash generation revenue for the future, medium and long term for medicine courses.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to remember, if you want to make any questions, please raise your hand.
We'd like to conclude our Q&A sessions, and now I would like to invite Mr. Jânyo to make his final remarks.
I'd like to thank everybody for taking part in this reunion. I would like to go in. This is a very positive year. We are able to see that our operational changes had a huge impact. We believe that these results are going to be optimized, and we keep our relationship to investments open for more questions.
I'd like to conclude this video conference of Ser Educacional. Thank you very much for all of those who were with us, and have a good day.