Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Vitru's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants are in listen only mode now. Later on, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available on Vitru's IR website. Now I'd like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Mr. Carlos Freitas, Vitru's CFO. Please, you may begin.
Thank you operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us again. It's a real pleasure to be here with you all for the release of our second quarter 2022 numbers. Here with me, I have Pedro Graça and William Matos, our co-CEOs, Maria Carolina Gonçalves, the head of our IR department, and Raquel Suzaki, Luis Felipe da Silva, and Helio Crespo Jr. from our investor relations team. A slide presentation will be part of today's webcast, which is available on our IR website at investors.vitru.com.br. I trust you all have this presentation in front of you. Before we begin, I'd like to make note that as detailed in slide two of the presentation, safe harbor is in effect for this call.
Now I invite you all to go to page four of this presentation, in which we have the main highlights for this quarter. Clearly, this quarter, the most important highlights were linked to the closing of the business combination with UniCesumar, which we closed on the 20th of May. We created with this the leading player and the largest player in the Brazilian digital education space. Both institutions were already growing a lot organically. Now with the two combined, we are now the number one player in Brazil in digital education for higher education space. We also updated our governance with the appointment of new members of our board of directors, including two people from the Matos family, the one that created and managed UniCesumar for 30 years.
The Professor Wilson Matos is now our Vice Chairman for the board and defining the new officer structure with the new co-CEO that I'm going to show you a bit later. We also had the issuance of the debentures for BRL 1.95 billion in May of this year to finance a part of the transaction. Of course, we kicked off the integration process that we have been preparing for in the last nine to 10 months since the signing of the deal in August of last year aiming at ensuring as smooth as possible process and to capture substantial synergies as we have already presented to you all in the past. In terms of financial materials, the summary for this quarter is page five.
Here, we have the indicators both on organic and consolidated basis. Here throughout the presentation, and in the release material as a whole, we're going to provide you information with only Vitru standalone before the combination and a consolidated basis as well, consolidated UniCesumar between May 20 and June 30. The 42 days of UniCesumar so that you can have as much information as transparent as possible so that you can make your appropriate analysis. Here, net revenue this quarter increased around 75%, compared to the second quarter of last year. The consolidated overall net revenue was up 85% this quarter. This is with 42 days of UniCesumar.
The organic growth was 33% for net revenue in digital education undergraduate for Uniasselvi, and 26% for Uniasselvi as a whole on organic basis. Strong growth in top line. The adjusted EBITDA increased more than 100%, 108%, this quarter with the margin reaching 38%. Margin on organic basis was 34% this quarter and a growth in EBITDA of 28% when taking UniCesumar out for Vitru before UniCesumar. In terms of adjusted cash flow from operations, a strong increase as well, 97.2%, sorry, this quarter, with a nice cash conversion of 83% as well. In terms of adjusted net income, it was high. It was up 168% with UniCesumar, reaching BRL 63.3 million.
Here, in cash flow and net income, we don't have the organic numbers because things start to be mixed between UniCesumar and Uniasselvi. Whenever we can, we're going to show you the organic and the overall numbers with and without UniCesumar. On page six, you have our C-level team, which includes executives who came from both UniCesumar and the former Vitru before the business combination. Since the signing of the deal, it was quite clear to us that we were going to combine two winning companies with similar and winning cultures, and that we all would benefit from this smooth integration process, bring together the two leading teams.
That's why, for example, we decided to, as I mentioned before, to have two co-CEOs co-leading the company, Pedro Graça, former CEO of Vitru, and William Matos, which was the former head of digital education at UniCesumar. The idea here is not to have a takeover of one culture over the other, is a way to blend and to put together these two winning entities. With that, we have a stronger and faster integration aiming at creating value for the students and for all stakeholders. Here is the team, the C-level team. We are basically with people from more or less half coming from the modern, half coming from former Vitru, still two positions to be filled, including the head of people and management.
We wanted to have a person from outside to lead the HR exactly to have this message that we're not using or forcing one culture over the other. The idea here is to have somebody from outside to lead the HR department of the company. For integration, I mean, before the closing, we had an in-depth analysis of opportunities in terms of cost and expense and synergies between signing and closing. Part of it was already captured and part will be captured throughout this year.
We have as well several commercial initiatives that are meant, respecting the specifics, with each brand and several products, each of them with a given action plan, with an owner, with a list of deliverables, a set of prioritization and regular follow-ups. We are really on the integration mode, with our mindset focused on integration. That's the number one priority for everybody here at Vitru. On page seven, this is just as a reminder, the main levers of synergies that we are pursuing. This was shown to you in May when we closed the transaction. For example, in terms of OpEx, we have optimization of payroll costs, gain of scale as a whole in contracts, for example.
We have improved collection practice for Uniasselvi and retention practice as well for within UniCesumar that is going to be useful for Uniasselvi. For us, I mean, it was very clear that we have identified two, let's say, crystal clear opportunities regarding the exchange of best practices. When we talk about retention and customer experience and even a, let's say, collection process, UniCesumar does a better job. Uniasselvi has a better job. Unicesumar has a better job. The computer here is going crazy. As I was saying, when you talk about the collection process and user experience as a whole for Uniasselvi is a, is a, let's say, benchmark for Uniasselvi.
When you talk about pricing throughout the last years, I guess that Uniasselvi have done a quite nice job regarding every ticket and pricing, which is going to be very useful for UniCesumar going forward. We also have this type of cross knowledge going on throughout the company. Of course, a faster opening of new hubs, the cross-selling and new courses being opened within UniCesumar and within Uniasselvi. This is a major opportunity for us all. Now, on page eight, just a quick reminder of what we've delivered in the last two years. Now we are going to complete two years after our IPO in September next month.
Within these two years, I guess we have delivered on our plan in terms of ramp up of current hubs, opening up new hubs, the new courses that were offered, and of course, the inorganic growth. I'm going to go into details of each of these levers in the next pages. On page nine, you see the maturation curve, both for Uniasselvi and now for UniCesumar. I mean, this is the most important driver for organic growth, the maturation of the current hubs. We only have a maturation index of, on average, 43% of the potential of the hubs of both Uniasselvi and UniCesumar. You see here the curve is very, let's say, stable for Uniasselvi and UniCesumar.
In UniCesumar, the dark blue area here, which are the older hubs, they have a different profile than the case of Uniasselvi. Because of Uniasselvi, they are more or less stable over time. Because they are, let's say, in full capacity. In the case of UniCesumar, we have 36 hubs that are still maturing. They were opened at end of 2016, so they are not yet fully mature. That's why they are growing over time. The message here is that we have an important driver for the potential of expansion hubs, which is growth with limited execution risk. On page 10, the expansion of the digital education undergraduate students and the number of hubs per region, major growth with the deal with UniCesumar.
You see here throughout the country, we are growing 100% in some regions, 360% in the southeast, for example. When you see the number of hubs, we went from 800 hubs one year ago to now more than 2,000 hubs throughout Brazil, including more or less 1/3 of them in the southeast. As we have been always saying, the southeast is the next frontier for growth. We are going to open a lot of Uniasselvi hubs there with partners of UniCesumar that are there in cities in which you don't have both brands. On page 10, the new courses, this is not new to you. We have nursing already in operation for one year now in Uniasselvi.
Nursing starting now this year at UniCesumar. In the future, we'll have law and psychology, which also going to be very important to sustain tickets and to expand the overall market for digital education in the country. On page 12, the usual slide that we bring, showing the public information and public indicator to show that our technology and our customer experience, it's, I'd say, different. On the left part, we have our apps ranked as the two best apps, both by, on average, by Apple Store and Play Store. This rank provided and this grade given by our customers.
On the right part of the slide, the latest numbers for Reclame Aqui, in which both brands are the best grades, the best numbers within all listed players in Brazil. On page 13, the geographic footprint, as I always said, it's very complementary on the geographic perspective. We have now more than 700 cities with only one brand presence. Now we are already opening some hubs in some of these cities with the other brands. We are planning a lot of expansion. For next year, we are going to have more hubs open than usual, accelerating this growth throughout Brazil.
Now on page 14, the growth was once again led by digital education undergrad segment, in which we reached 741,000 students in June of this year, being the number one player in the country, a growth of 140%, being around 19% organically, with Uniasselvi, and in total 811,000 students in both brands. When you see the intake and average tickets, you see different profiles here. Uniasselvi, we already disclosed the number, grew 29% in intake, the first semester of this year compared to the same period of last year. UniCesumar had a very strong growth, much stronger than in case of Uniasselvi.
On the other hand, in terms of tickets, Uniasselvi increased average tickets 13%. It's important to highlight that most of this increase in case of Uniasselvi is not linked to the mix effect. I mean, there is a mix effect that accounts for around two points of these 13 points. But most of the increase is a real apple-to-apple increase in average tickets in case of Uniasselvi. In case of Cesumar, there was a very strong growth in intake. As you know, the average tickets of seniors is usually higher than the average tickets of newcomers. That's why at the end, there was a decline of 2% in the average tickets of UniCesumar.
For this year, we shall still see a growth in the case of average ticket of Uniasselvi. We shall still see a likely slight decrease in the tickets of UniCesumar because of its growth, a very strong growth that UniCesumar had in the intake. Going forward, I mean, over the medium term, we are going to use the expertise of Uniasselvi in pricing and tickets to improve, over time, the average tickets of UniCesumar. On page 15, net revenue, gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA for the company. At 85% growth in net revenue, a 78% growth in gross profit and a 108% growth in adjusted EBITDA.
Now we're going to go into details in each of these ratios. On page 16 and 17, where the sources of growth in net revenue, it was boosted both by digital education undergraduate segment as a whole. You can see here on page 16, for example, that in the case of Vitru, there was a BRL 46 million increase in revenue in digital education undergraduates, a 33% increase, quarter-on-quarter. But also of course, the contribution of UniCesumar. UniCesumar as a whole accounted for almost a BRL 100 million in new revenues for only for Vitru in these 42 days of consolidation, mostly coming from digital education undergraduate.
Now, when you see the breakdown on page 18, on a quarterly and on a semi-annual basis, no big news here. Most of the revenue of Vitru was already coming from digital education. Here we provide a breakdown of the revenue of UniCesumar within the 42 days, which is more or less the breakdown that UniCesumar has on a yearly basis. It's more or less 6% coming from digital education undergraduate, around 22-23% coming from medical education, and 16% coming from other on-campus courses, most of it coming from health courses. In total around 3/4, 75% of the revenue of the on-campus business of UniCesumar comes from health, being medical or other health courses.
On page 19, here is the more details on the breakdown of the intake and student base as a whole. Here, on the first two pie charts is the intake over time of Uniasselvi, for example, and the two pies in the bottom part of the slide, the breakdown of the base as a whole as of June. Here, a couple of messages. The first one is that we are increasing slowly but steadily the weight of digital education health courses at Uniasselvi, for example, it was 24% of intake last year. Now it's 25%. It is 22% of the base. Over time, the base is going to increase. For UniCesumar, it's only 19%.
We already launched some new courses now in the second half of this year. Now in July, we launched at UniCesumar some health courses that were already available within Uniasselvi and that we didn't have in the portfolio of UniCesumar. Over time, we shall have a slightly bigger weight of health courses, not only at Uniasselvi but also at UniCesumar. Also it's important to show here, on the left, the overall growth in net revenue as a whole. 33% organically for Uniasselvi and overall 75 % with UniCesumar, this with 42 days of UniCesumar. That reinforces the resilience of and the differentiation and the scale that we have been able to achieve with both brands. Scale in this business is important.
Scale is important to generate cash flow, to invest in technology, to provide better services for our students and at the end to keep creating value for students, for the shareholders and all the stakeholders. On page 20, a snapshot on medical education, the medical business, which now is a bit more than 1,800 students, 248 seats, in medical education, one of the best medical colleges of Brazil. It's a high demand course, which accounted in 42 days with BRL 22 million, with every ticket of slightly more than BRL 10,000, a very resilient revenue stream, and still maturing over time.
On page 21, the other two segments, the on-campus as a whole segment, which includes medical education, but here we have the highlight of the ex-medical on-campus numbers. So a decline in the organic numbers for Uniasselvi, which is, let's say normal and aligned to our vision that this is a segment that we expect to decline over time. But of course, with the acquisition of UniCesumar, this increased by 100%, given the strong health courses of UniCesumar. On the continuing education side, this is a business that on organic basis was more or less stable over time. A slight increase on a quarterly number with UniCesumar.
This was, as I said before, in the previous quarter, this was impacted by the reduction throughout last year in the average length of graduate courses. Most of the shift is over, but so we expect our records to grow going forward. In the first, I'd say six months of this year, we had the shift in the size in the length of the courses. This is a business that did not grow much in the first six months of this year. Now, when you see about EBITDA on page 22 and 23.
On 2022, as a quick snapshot, we had an increase of 28% on an organic basis and 108% on a full basis, with an organic gain of 0.6 points for Vitru without UniCesumar and a 4.2 points gain in margin with including UniCesumar during 42 days. We already told you in the past that for a number of reasons, UniCesumar has a higher EBITDA margin than the former Vitru. Last year, for example, Vitru had an EBITDA margin of around 29%, while last year UniCesumar had a margin of around 39%. 10 Points of difference for a number of reasons.
With the combination of both entities, our weighted average margin is a bit higher now, closer to 34 points. Sorry, 38 points in this quarter and 34 points in the semester. On page 24, cost of service first. On organic basis, we had more or less stable costs as a percentage of net revenue for Vitru before UniCesumar, even despite the resumption of classes meetings both at hubs and on-campus. With UniCesumar, we had slightly lower gross margin, basically because of the higher relevance of the on-campus segment for UniCesumar.
The on-campus segment had a lower growth margin, so the overall consolidated number is slightly lower, so cost of service increased a little bit, as a percentage of net revenue with UniCesumar. For G&A, we are more or less stable over time, around 7% of net revenue. With this deal with UniCesumar we are more or less maintaining our lean structure at around 7% of net revenue, which is quite low and one of the lowest numbers in the industry. Sorry. On page 25, selling expenses, PDA, we have lower CAPEX, lower PDA expenses as well.
On the left part of the slide, we have a slight organic increase for Uniasselvi and Vitru around 20%, but at lower CAPEX, basically because we've had a higher intake than this number. The customer acquisition cost for Uniasselvi was around 5.5% lower, the first intake of this year compared to the first intake of last year. In the case of UniCesumar, the marketing and selling expenses as a whole for UniCesumar are much lower as a percentage of revenue than in the case of Uniasselvi. That's because the hubs of UniCesumar are much more active in the sales process because they have a higher proportion, a higher percentage of the revenue share that we have.
In the case of Uniasselvi, this number on average today is around 23%-24% of the net revenue of the digital education undergrad segment. In the case of Uniasselvi, it's around 30%. UniCesumar has a higher revenue share. On the other hand, the hub owner, the partner, is more responsible than in the case of Uniasselvi for the intake process. On the PDA part here on the right part of the slide, we have a slightly lower organic PDA in the case of Uniasselvi, quite a small reduction, which I guess is a nice achievement because of the current market conditions.
In the case of UniCesumar, as I mentioned before, they have superior collection and retention procedures and processes and methodology as a whole. So they have quite low PDA expenses as a percentage of net revenue. And at the end, on a full consolidated basis, our this quarter, our PDA went down from 16.8% last year to around 16.2% on organic basis this quarter, only Uniasselvi and 12.5% of net revenue when you take into account UniCesumar. Last but not least, on page 26, we have solid growth in adjustment income and adjusted cash flow from operations following this business combination.
A growth of 169% in adjusted income this quarter, given the contribution of UniCesumar and a very nice cash flow generation from operations of 73%. BRL 73 million, sorry, this quarter, including the 42 days of UniCesumar. There was a strong increase on this quarter and in the semester with less than half of the quarter. UniCesumar is a big cash flow generator. This cash flow generation is important pillar as well in our overall financing strategy in our deleverage process over time. Now, that's it. Now I'd like to open for questions.
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then one on your telephone. Once again, that's star one one to ask a question. One moment for our first question. Our first question comes from line of Vitor Tomita from Goldman Sachs.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking our questions. We have two questions from our side. The first one is if you could give us some initial color on how you are seeing competition and pricing trends in the current intake cycle so far. The second question from our side, if we may, would be if you see any room for further reduction in the length of continuing education programs over the long term, given that that seems to be a sort of a trend in global education. Thank you.
Hi, Vitor. Thanks for your question. Quite good questions. For the continuing education part, I mean, continuing education in our case, most of the business today is formed by graduate courses. In graduate courses we don't expect further reduction in the length of graduate courses as a whole. At the end, it is, I'd say on a pedagogical perspective, it's not likely that there will be further reduction in the overall length of courses for graduate courses, I mean, for regulated graduate course as we offer.
What will happen and that we are already working a lot on that, let's say there is some growth, not yet, nothing, say, outstanding to be shown, but we are slightly, steadily growing in technical courses, in other courses, as a preparation for the first job and the free courses, as we call it. This is also part of continuing education and that once we have more, let's say, scale in this business, we're going to show some numbers for that. Going forward, continuing education will be a kind of a blend of graduate courses with other courses as a whole for the market. So far it is in real life much more concentrated in graduate courses.
as I told you, we don't expect further reduction in the average length of these courses, now. The first question about competition, what we are seeing in the first months of this intake cycle is nothing very different from what we saw in the first half of this year. It is a competitive market. We are seeing that in the case of the intake of UniCesumar, we are growing the same levels as we've been growing the last years, a bit more than 20% in intake, and a bit more than that in case of UniCesumar. UniCesumar has been growing more than Uniasselvi.
On the other hand, as we saw in the first semester of this year, the tickets of UniCesumar because of this strong growth, they are more or less 2% , 3%, 5% lower than what we saw last year, as we saw in the first semester of this year. On the other hand, in the case of Uniasselvi we are still seeing the growth, and we have been seeing in the last say semesters. Nothing different from what we saw in the first half of this year. Over time, as I said, we are going to work more on the pricing and positioning of UniCesumar, aiming to improve tickets over time.
We don't expect this to be, I'd say to have major changes in the second semester of this year. In real life, most of the intake is a big chunk of intake is over, or most of it is being accomplished now in the case of UniCesumar. We shall see the same trends that we saw in the first semester of this year. It is a competitive market. It has always been. In this market we have been able to differentiate ourselves either in terms of faster growth and/or in terms of tickets.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Vitor.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Fred Mendes from Bank of America. Your question, please.
Good evening, everyone, and thanks for the call. I have two questions here. The first one is about the average ticket increase was very strong above inflation, 12%-12.5% year-over-year. If you can just give us an idea, if it's possible, about what is the impact from our premium course versus what is the impact of actual price increase here? This will be the first one. The second one, you know, it has been circulating, you know, news of a potential sale of the medicine business. Just wondering if that makes sense, it doesn't. Anyways, any color you can give here, if it makes sense or not, this would be great. Thank you.
Thank you, Fred Mendes, for your questions. I mean, the second question regarding the potential sale of the on-campus and/or medicine business. I mean, we issued a debenture for the deal with Cesumar. We now have a debt that we know that we can generate cash flows to serve the debt, but we are actively working in alternatives to accelerate the deleverage. We have three options. The first one is to go to the market to have a follow-on. Not an option today. It may be an option in a few months, but not today. We must have the market open. Second one is to have a private capital increase.
We have been approached by a number of players that wanted to sign a check and inject money and to participate in the growth of Futuro. The third one can be the sale of part of the business, namely, medicine, or with part of the on-campus as a whole, segment. Nothing substantial here, nothing firm here, but again, we have been approached by a number of players over time interested in our medical business.
So, so-
We
Sorry.
Sorry. We have been approved and this is a possibility that we can execute in the future. Nothing serious right now. This is nothing more than a rumor right now. Your first question was about the increase in tickets. We increased almost 13%, 12.8% increase in the tickets of Uniasselvi this semester. As I said, most of this effect is not due to mix effect of the premium courses.
As we have in the presentation, the breakdown of intake at Uniasselvi, in the first half of last year, first half of this year, there was a slight increase in the overall health courses, for example, which have an average ticket of a bit more than BRL 400. We have an average ticket of around BRL 280, more than BRL 400 in health and around BRL 250 more or less for the non-premium courses. When we isolate the mix effect, the change in health course, for example, this number of 13% goes down to around 11%. 11.5%. It is not the most important driver.
The driver here was real pricing strategies on a SKU-by-SKU basis on an apples-to-apples comparison. We increased tickets for seniors in the beginning of this year. We increased tickets for newcomers. I mean, the intake, our average price for intake in the first semester of this year was also close to 10% higher than what we had in the first semester of last year. I mean, these numbers are a function of our strategy to maximize profitability and to leverage on our competitive advantage and our hybrid model of Uniasselvi, in which we provide a nice service for our customers.
Perfect, Carlos. Super clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Fred.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Yan Cesquim from BTG. Your question, please.
Good evening, Pedro, William, Carlos. Good evening, everyone. There are two questions on our side. The first one is regarding UniCesumar. Looking at UniCesumar's standalone numbers, we do see, like, a strong growth in intakes, but slightly more aggressive prices. Should we see this pricing strategy going forward in UniCesumar's operation, or should we see something more close to what we see in Uniasselvi with better pricing dynamics? The second one is if you could give us more color on the BRL 28 million non-recurring costs related to restructuring and M&A expenses. Are you investing in UniCesumar's infrastructure, hiring new teachers, or is this mostly related to M&A fees? That's it. Thank you.
Great, Yan. The restructuring and M&A costs for this quarter, I mean, it was a different quarter, around BRL 28 million-BRL 29 million of these costs. Most of it is related to the M&A. So, mainly the fee that we pay to our advisor in the acquisition. So, this represents, let's say 2/3 of this number. And the integration itself is about around BRL 6 million, more or less, in the quarter, so around BRL 2 million per month that we spent in this second quarter of this year.
For the intake of UniCesumar going forward, I mean, in the short term, in short term meaning this current quarter and this current semester, we shall expect the same trend for UniCesumar. A stronger growth than Uniasselvi at lower tickets. This is the trend that was already put in place before the combination. As a reminder, before the closing of transaction, we discussed opportunities for cost and expense synergies, but we could not discuss strategies for pricing, et cetera. We were very strict in our clean team transaction. We discussed opportunities for cost and expense synergies, but we could not discuss strategies for pricing, et cetera.
We were very strict in our clean team approach that we shall not discuss strategic issues before the closing. The strategy for the intake in the second semester was already given, basically. What we shall expect for the second semester is more or less what we saw in the first semester, strong growth in the case of UniCesumar at slightly lower tickets. Going forward, I mean, starting next year, we are going to work, basically. What we shall expect for the second semester is more or less what we saw in the first semester, strong growth in the case of UniCesumar at slightly lower tickets.
Going forward, I mean, starting next year, we are going to work to improve tickets as a whole within UniCesumar, trying to have something closer but not equal to what we have in the case of Uniasselvi. Because Uniasselvi we have been growing constantly over time intake between 20% and 30% each period, each intake, with a growth in every ticket closer to inflation, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, usually slightly lower than inflation. This is the approach of Uniasselvi in the last two years, more or less. Over time, we are going to work closely and to try to push up a little bit the tickets of UniCesumar.
It's not gonna be easy because it's a very competitive market. UniCesumar has a quite, I'd say, quite good product. The quality and of the different learning products of UniCesumar is quite unique. We're going to leverage on that.
All right, clear. Pretty clear. Thank you.
Thank you.
So yeah-
As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star one one. Our next question comes from the line of Mauricio Cepeda from Credit Suisse. Your question please.
Hi, everyone. Thank you. Thank you for the space here in the call. I have some questions. The first one is more operating about the retention versus the ticket. I saw that Uniasselvi had a good performance on tickets, as you were saying. But I saw also that the retention rate was a little bit worse than what you saw previously. The contrary for UniCesumar, right? The ticket did not perform well. I understand there was an impact from the newcomers, but retention rate was pretty good. I would ask exactly what may be happening in to create such differences in performances.
The second question, let's say, about the adjustments to the EBITDA. You mentioned a little bit about the M&A. I see there is also some adjustments about stock options. I saw that particularly stock options were a little bit higher than the usual levels. My question would be from all these adjustments. I understand that M&A would be like BRL 2 million per quarter, as you say. From these other adjustments, if there would be any kind of recurrent expenses or anything that may reflect negatively in the following quarters. About the operating performance, I understood that the operating margin was better if we exclude these effects.
Is it exclusively because UniCesumar has a better margin or it has any relation to actions on synergies that may have been taken before or by the time of the consolidation? Thank you.
Let's start with the third question, Pedro, thanks for the question. Regarding, I mean, gross margin and margins as a whole. The business of UniCesumar has a higher overall EBITDA margin than the case of Uniasselvi. We do have some synergies in this 42 days. Most of the synergies that we are going to see in the second semester of this year. We do have some synergies here, but I'll guess that there will be more, let's say, positive surprises going forward. It was already, I guess, a part obtained in the second quarter of this year.
For the adjustments, I mean, we defined for the IPO, I mean, two years ago, how we're going to report adjusted EBITDA. For example, sale of stock options. In our stock option plan, it is a non-cash settlement plan. That's why we defined in the past that this was going to be excluded from the adjusted EBITDA release. The increase, the special increase for this quarter was basically because of the consolidation of UniCesumar. The way we calculate the expenses, we have a bigger company now. When we do the calculation with the Black-Scholes, et cetera, we have a higher, let's say, value for these options.
This value of these options, the difference, the increase in value over time is recognized in the P&L and adjusted when we release the adjusted EBITDA numbers. But those are the type of adjustment that we, as we defined two years ago, that we are maintaining this say definition. Regarding retention, there is an important difference here in the case of Uniasselvi compared to UniCesumar. You're right that the retention of UniCesumar increased this quarter and, for example, compared to what we had last year.
We included in our website a spreadsheet with some numbers, some even from historical numbers for UniCesumar, so that you can all have as much information as possible so that you can compare and understand the sources of the numbers. It is true that UniCesumar the overall retention increased, which is not the case in the case of Uniasselvi. One important driver here were the health courses. The health courses in which Uniasselvi is increasing. Health is very nice. You have a large addressable market. You have much higher tickets. The down part of health course in digital learning is that the dropout ratio is higher, especially in the first semester or first year.
In our health courses, we have two meetings per week, for example. We know that some newcomers in the first semester, they have difficulties to adapt to this model. That's why most of the dropout takes place in the first semester. That's true for all digital learning, and it's especially true in the case of health courses. Uniasselvi is increasing the weight of health courses in our overall base over time. Dropout is bigger in the first semester in this case. When you see about tickets, again, I guess that you're fully right that we should always analyze this with, let's say, a triangular perspective.
We have overall tickets, overall retention, and overall base, student base. Our student base is growing over time. We have a strong intake, a slightly higher dropout. At the end, a very solid ticket, and at the end, net revenue increasing more than 30% on our organic base. It is, I mean, we don't give discounts to in the renewal process of seniors. We don't. This is. We know that some peers do it. It is always a trade-off between maintaining the student or maintaining every ticket. That's a, let's say, unstable equilibrium.
It's not easy, but we usually prefer to maintain a healthy ticket, even at the expense of higher dropouts. And of course, in the first half of the year or first semester of the course, this is very dramatic. Uniasselvi is going to benefit from the overall user experience and retention process and overall handholding that is provided by UniCesumar to its students. This customer experience, this customer centricity, I guess is a quite nice benchmark for Uniasselvi. Uniasselvi going forward is going to benefit from this knowledge of UniCesumar.
Very clear. Thank you, Carlos.
Thanks, Cepeda.
Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. To hand the program back to Carlos Henrique Boquimpani de Freitas for any further remarks.
Thank you all for
In today's conference.
We're very honored and very proud that this is the first release of UniCesumar together with Vitru, a new company. Anyway, we are available for further questions. Thank you and good evening.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.