Good morning, and welcome to Ser Educacional's conference call to discuss the company's results for fourth quarter 2020. With me today are Jânyo Diniz, Chief Executive Officer, João Aguiar, Chief Financial Officer, and Rodrigo Alves, Investor Relations Officer. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded, and all participants will be in a listen-only mode. During the company's presentation, after the presentation, we will start the Q&A session for analysts and shareholders when further instructions will be provided. Should any assistant need assistance during the call, please press zero and then star then zero to reach the operator. The event is also being broadcast live via the internet at ir.sereducacional.com. You can also access the webcast audio and slides through the tablets and smartphones equipped with the iOS or Android systems.
The replay of this event will be available soon after its conclusion for a period of one week. Before proceeding, we would like to make it clear that forward-looking statements may be made during this conference call related to the business prospects of Ser Educacional, as well as its operating and financial forecasts and targets. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risk uncertainties, excuse me, 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 in the industry and other operating factors may also affect the future performance of Ser Educacional and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Jânyo Diniz, Chief Executive Officer, who will begin the presentation.
You may begin, sir.
Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for your participation in our conference call on the results of the fourth quarter of 2020. Please go to slide four where we present the highlights of the quarter, starting with the operating and financial results. I believe that we performed better than we expected this year compared to the beginning of the pandemic, ending the last quarter of the year with an increase in our student base and financial results adjusted by the non-recurring effects with a slight decrease compared to last year. These results was achieved reflecting the effort we made to adapt ourselves quickly to the setbacks created by the pandemic, prioritizing the safety of all those directly and indirectly involved with Ser Educacional and providing a lot of support to the communities in which we operate.
At the same time, we remained focused on protecting our team, student base, and results while creating new opportunities for generating shareholders value. By the way, this quarter received the GoShop termination payment that boosted our net income for the year with more than 20%, a quite important result in such a difficult year as 2020. Another important highlight was the sound operational cash generation that combined with the severance payment helped us to end the year in a very healthy position, even after the inclusion of the acquisitions of UNIFACIMED and UNIJUAZEIRO in our results.
From a strategic standpoint, 2020 was important because the pandemic accelerated our project aimed to transform Ser Educacional from a company that used to offer undergraduate course in the north and northeast regions of Brazil into a company that offers higher education and vocational course through strong brands and quality education that are recognized by the labor and marketed, more importantly, without barriers, regardless of the supply chains or platforms we may use to reach our students or teaching outreach that can be online, hybrid, or on campus. With this concept, we made important moves in our business model, and the key will be our new curricula that we developed last year, which was launched successfully with very good acceptance by students and teachers in 2021.
We launched our new line of digital course that, besides innovative, have been a great sales success and will certainly be a relevant product line as we will detail in this presentation. We made five acquisitions last year, increasing our base of medical seats and strengthening our presence in the northeast and the west regions of Brazil. To demonstrate this, slide five represents the increased number of medical seats in our company after the acquisition of UNIFACIMED, UNESC, and UNIFASB, which took us to increase the base medical seats of 321 to 573 per year. If we include their amount we have with UNESC, we will double our exposure to this market niche.
Another important aspect is the regions where these institutions operate, which are very strong in the agribusiness and are in a strong economic growth environment, which was the main reason, for instance, for having acquired UNIJUAZEIRO, located in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará. This year, we made our first acquisition med tech segment, Beduka, a startup that helps students choose their course or higher education and that allow us to an interesting reduction in the cost of leads. This is a segment that we are investing a lot of time in to bring new companies to our group and with this, better explore the segment of digital education in these markets that are interesting to us. We have a budget of up to BRL 100 million for this market segment, and we already have a very interesting pipeline of acquisitions.
On the right side of the slide, we show that UNIFACIMED, UNIJUAZEIRO, and Beduka were consolidated in our results for two months. UNESC in February of that year, and UNIFASB is scheduled for the second quarter. In the four following slides, from six to nine, details the Ubíqua, our new operational model that focuses on the concept of ubiquitous education, where students use an active methodology to access valuable education in a very dynamic environment in highly quality teaching. This happens because our content has been digitalized in a dynamic and using state-of-the-art structure, including games, video, PDFs, quizzes, gamification, virtual reality, augmented reality, and many other features that hold the attention of students, maintaining them focused to finish their course. The interesting part of our strategy is that it allows courses to be used in various ways, creating flexibility in creating courses.
With this, we are creating a broaden portfolio of courses, and that will create new avenues of growth, as well as adapting our company fast through the introduction of the hybrid curriculum. As we detail on slide 10, not only we introduced the concept of the 40% online workload for students enrolled in 2021.1, different to most of our market peers, the learning models allows the students to always have access to their teacher, regardless of the presential course that was chosen. With this, even students with more difficulty in learning online will have the opportunity to take their doubts away in their face-to-face meetings with their teachers, helping them to learn and adapting to the use of new technologies, reducing dropout, and increasing learning quality.
In addition, the teaching methodology focuses on the best teaching format, making students learn through competencies with the online or on-campus class tied to what best suits what the students need to learn. The concept of competency-based teaching is not new since 1948 when it was created by Robert White at Harvard. The real innovation comes from the combination of this company alongside cutting-edge technology and continuous improvement of the students' experience in this ubiquitous education concept we are creating here, Ubíqua. Ubíqua combines competency-based teaching with the concept of omnipresence in the state-of-the-art and even better, with scalability. On slide 11, we present the first of the practical results of this concept, the launch of the new line of digital courses.
In just over four months after the creation of these courses, we reached 6,000 students, and due to the pace of the students' intake season, this segment will have good results in 2021. Digital courses maximize the use of our flexible content and are offered through a new commercial and academic model that aims to meet what students are looking for, such as short-term, undergraduation, student qualification, content drive, nonstop academic coaching, among others. Digital courses are not only here to stay, but we believe it has become a new growth avenue within the distance learning segment. In the same concept on slide 12, we present the Singular Tech School, a technology school focused on the segment, and yet another avenue of growth in line with market trends.
With Singular, we have partnered with big names in the industry such as IBM, Google, and Avanade, and we are launching courses together with strong commitments to even hire these professionals after their graduation. We are very confident with the evolution of our project to transform Ser Educacional into a guide of expedient for Brazilian education, maximizing the use of our assets, distributing higher education professional courses through strong brands recognized by the market and moreover, borderless. These were my initial comments, and now I would like to give the floor to Aguiar to analyze the results for the quarter.
Thanks, Jânyo. Hello, everyone, and thanks again for your presence. Please go to slide 14, which has the evolution of the student base that continues to grow organically, driven mainly by distance learning and acquisitions. In this quarter, we had the inclusion of UNIFACIMED and UNIJUAZEIRO, which were integrated in November, as well as Beduka, which despite not having students, was integrated at the end of the year. This semester, we had an interesting factor, the reduction of students' dropout rates comparing to the first half of 2020, the most critical during the pandemic. In the table on the left, we have the evolution of students intake for the period, which as already presented in the preview of the third quarter, had a reduction in on-site new enrollments.
On the other hand, there was a significant growth in distance learning segment becoming the first semester of our history that distance learning new enrollments exceeded on campus. This segment had the extra impulse of digital courses that in the first months of activity, are growing strongly and above our estimates. Moving on to slide 15, we have the details of the student base and with important highlights. First, our on-campus student base in the health segment reached 55% of the total in this quarter versus 50% in 2019. If we add engineering, we have 66% of our on-campus student base linked to courses with a high need of practical classes.
This factor is important because it shows that the student base is not only in courses with a higher average ticket, but we also support hybrid courses. Second, our on-campus average was relatively stable in the fourth quarter 2020 due to the effect of the change seasonally we are going through since it greatly increases the out-of-pocket students base of the company, which now comprises 89% of our total base and 85% of the on-campus base. Third, the growth of distance learning student base is consolidating as of 2020. Note the graph that we have a compound average growth rate of 64% per year, and distance learning has become an important part of the company operations, representing 28% of the student base.
Moving on to slide 16, we have the summary of the quarter results, which, in line with Jânyo's comment, we managed to balance relatively well despite all the difficulties created by the coronavirus. We had a slight drop in results on a recurring basis in terms of revenue, adjusted EBITDA and profit. The gross margin improved by 2.5 percentage points, especially because of our real estate lease rationalization program, which included renegotiations, energy costs, and canceling lease contracts as well as payroll. This effect was offset by the higher market expenses because intake process of 2020.2 and 2020.1 overlapped in addition to this acceleration of distance learning sales. In terms of accounts and net profit, our fourth quarter was a record, reaching BRL 122 million compared to a loss of BRL 2 million in the fourth quarter 2019.
This profit was extemporaneous once the GoShop receipt of BRL 108 million was recognized in our results, being this result partially offset by non-recurring costs and expenses that we detail on slide 17, where we show the net effect of the GoShop receipt, which had a high tax burden since its net rate is not linked to higher education market and therefore is not subject to permanent tax benefits. These adding up financial and legal advisory expenses recorded a net non-recurring result of BRL 150 million in the period. An effect that was partially offset by approximately BRL 27 million of non-recurring costs and expenses related mainly to tax expenses, write-offs of return and profits during the quarter, resulting from our plan to readjust our base of leased profits to the needs of available space in each city we operate.
Moving on to slide 18, we have our analysis of the results by segment, and the highlight was the evolution of our distance learning, which today is representative both in our student base and in participation in the results, representing 11% of the quarter's result revenue and 9% in the accumulated of the year. On slide 19, we include an analysis of our net income segregating the effects of the IFRS 16. See how this accounting effect ends up reducing the profit by BRL 27 million in the year. Something that we believe is important to present because despite the changes, it's in accounting practice is relevant. It shows that it's an accounting effect without cash impact. On slide 20, we show the average term of account receivables.
In 2020, we made an adjustment in our accounting practice so that we, until the third quarter, we were writing off receivables over one year. But we used two years to calculate the bad debts due to the solid receivables recovery index in this period. To better align our practice, we started to write off these receivables after two years, what we believe that better represent our activities and is in line with market practices. It's worth mentioning that this movement changes the balance of accounts receivables with no impact on our income statement. As shown on the slide, the average term of accounts receivables increased in the annual comparison and reflects all the efforts we made to renegotiate with our students with some financial difficulties during the pandemic.
It's worth noting that we have already significantly increased bad debt provisioning during the year to reflect the reality of what we are experiencing. But the average terms still wait for FNDE and Caixa Econômica Federal to normalize their operations, something that has not happened this year as a side effect of the pandemic. On slide 21, we show our operating cash generation, which remains solid. This quarter was driven by the receipt of the GoShop. But even when we analyze our operating cash generation, excluding these effects and post CapEx, we had a slight decline in line to what happened to our adjusted EBITDA. On slide 22, we present our CapEx, which dropped down by 22% in the year, and then ended up helping to generate cash for the company in the year.
Also reflecting the trend to reduce investments in real estate, physical libraries, and on the other hand, investments in digital content and software licenses are increasing. Finally, on slide 23, we present our net cash position stable at BRL 28 million, with the main movements of the quarter being the increase in commitments to pay for acquisition of UNIFACIMED and UNIJUAZEIRO. In the cash outflow for the payment on closing of these transactions, offset by company's cash generation and cash flow from the termination received of the GoShop. These were my comments on the results, and I now hand the floor back to Jânyo for his considerations before the Q&A session.
Thank you, Aguiar. Please go to slide 25, where we present some of the short and medium-term results generation levers. We have the consolidation of the four educational institutions that we will add revenue to the company. And we almost double our base of medical seats in relatively low occupation of around 55%. The maturation of our new medicine will be important, not only in terms of additional revenues, but also because of the operating margins that these institutions will experience through the integration process and gaining synergies. Distance learning, which until 2019 was not representative in our results, is growing rapidly and gaining strength, going from 5% of EBITDA in 2019 to 12% in 2020, with strong growth in 2021. On large, as it represented 20% of EBITDA in the fourth quarter.
The third aspect is Ubíqua, which in addition to the educational advantages and the generation of new growth avenues, will be relevant in the hybridization of the base, and with it, the reduction of the on-campus teaching costs from the current levels that are close to 20% to close to 40% from last year to mature it quickly in the next two years. To finish our today presentations, let's go to slide 26, where I show a summary of our main strategic growth drivers. We are transforming Ser Educacional from a company based on a campus undergraduate programs into hybrid company that offers higher educations and vocational course online, on campus or hybrid, with quality content through strong regional brands, with leading technology, combined with state-of-the-art technology and cutting-edge teaching concepts.
We turned our units in digital campus through the transformation of occupied space from its locations to the concept of its infrastructure. Fully aiming at an increasingly differentiation experience to the student, as well as network of distance learning centers that is experiencing high growth rates. With this, we will generate medium to long-term results with innovative initiatives already incorporated into our digital education ecosystems, such as GoKursos and Beduka and Singular Tech School. The other relevant pillar will be to move forward with our health platform, which includes increasing our base of medical seats, creating differentiation in the market, in patient care in our clinics. Finally supporting this strategy, we tend to continue with acquisitions in the key segments of our business, and I believe that these are generating very interesting results this year.
These were my comments, and we are available to help answer questions in the question and answer sessions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session for investors and analysts. If you have a question, please press star then one on your telephone. If your question is answered during the session, you may remove it from the line by pressing star then two. The questions will be answered in the order they are received. We ask that you use your handset when asking the questions in order to maintain excellent sound quality. Please stand by while we collect your questions. Once again, to ask a question, it's star then one. Please stand by once again while we collect your questions. As there are no audio questions, I would like to turn the call over to Rodrigo to answer any webcast questions. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, everyone. This is Rodrigo speaking. We have a question from Julia from Santander. It's related to having some color about the intake process for 2021. Hi, Julia. Thank you for the question. We are still with the process rolling. As you probably follow, the process as a whole delayed a little bit given that the ENEM schedule was postponed from late 2020 to early this year. A significant portion of the PROUNI students and FIES students are still about to enroll. Classes also are starting a little bit later this year and will end later in this semester, probably invading the month of July.
What we see so far is that the demand is still fluctuating given that on a weekly basis you have different stages and changes of the pandemic in one hand. On the other hand, we see a general change in the comparison of how the COVID is behaving this year as compared to last year. Just to remind everyone, last year, the pandemic started for us in mid-March, and in this year you have the full pandemic coming in. But on the other hand, things are not as closed and as shut down as it was a year ago. Having that said, we believe that the process will finalize and will be important over the next 30 to 40 days when we expect the firmer process to finally conclude. Then we will disclose full information about it.
What we can say so far is that, as expected, the process is competitive, both in terms of pricing, and also different offers and different products coming to the market, what we believe that is healthy. We understand, on the other hand, that distance learning or what we call the digital courses, they live in a different atmosphere, with significant growth coming from the last year, process changes we made, product launches we made. It is likely to follow for the next quarters, in the same pace. This is where we are today. We hope that the process finishes as expected. We still believe that the good chance that the combination of the vaccines and the reopening of the cities over the next couple of weeks and months, everything normalizes and help us to finish the year as planned.
Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. This concludes our question and answer session for investors and analysts. I would like to pass the call over to Mr. Jânyo Diniz for any final considerations. Mr. Jânyo, you may proceed.
Thank you all for participating in our call, and our investor relation department is fully available to help you with any further questions you may have.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.