Good morning to everyone. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the video conference for disclosure of Vitru Brasil's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. For those who require simultaneous translation, this feature is available on the platform. Simply click on the interpretation button through the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the video conference in English, there's also the option to mute the original Portuguese audio by clicking Mute Original Audio. Please note that this video conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's investor relations website, investors.vitru.com.br, where the complete materials of our earnings release are also available. The presentation can also be downloaded through the chat icon. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphones muted. Afterwards, we will begin the question-and-answer session.
To ask questions, please click the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type your question to enter the queue. When your name is announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen and you should then enable your microphone to ask your question. We kindly ask that all questions be asked at once. We would also like to emphasize that the information contained in this presentation, and any statements that may be made during this video conference regarding Vitru Brasil's business outlook, projections, and operational and financial targets, constitute beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve risk, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operational factors may affect Vitru Brasil's future performance and may lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Today, we are joined by the company's executives, William Matos, Gabriel Lobo, and José Aroldo Alves Júnior. To begin, I will pass the floor to Mr. William Matos.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. I'm William Matos, I'm CEO of Vitru, and it's a great pleasure to speak about our performance of 2025. Today, it's a very important day to us, not only due to the figures, but also for what they represent. I'm here with our CFO, Gabriel Lobo, and also José Aroldo Alves Júnior. As you know, will take over the presidency of Vitru on April 29. Before we start, I'd like to tell you that 2025 was a very important year for all of us.
A special year when we were able to consolidate strategic partnerships, we invested in innovation. We were remarkable in several fronts, and most of all, we've made an impact on the lives of more than 950,000 students. I'd like to start by speaking about the key pillar of this growth, which is our total student base that has reached this figure of 915,000 students, 11% more compared to 2024. This consistent growth is showing that the market is recognizing the quality of our brands and is validating the strategy that we've been following to consolidate every day our leadership, always prioritizing the academic quality as our great competitive advantage.
About this captation dynamics, this is an important mark to us because for the first time we are going to detail the numbers with online and semi-presencial classes. On the fourth quarter 2025, our total number was increased in 7.6% with the semi-presencial students that grew 55% and are representing 55% of our total volume. All this operational advance was reflected in financial records that are a record in our company. Our EBITDA is now BRL 873 million with this margin of 38.7%, the greatest one we've ever had in our history. The point here that I'd like to highlight is our free cash generation that has grown 22% and now is BRL 700 million.
This is the indicator that is translating the real health and sustainability in our model, and this financial breadth is also impacting our net income that has accompanied our strong trajectory during the year. To wrap up, we reduced our net debt by BRL 294.8 million, bringing our numbers to 1.99x . This, with this robust and assertive capital health. To summarize, 2025 was a year of consistent growth with record profit and most of all, a financial management that was extremely solid. I'd like to go on with slide number five, giving continuity to this presentation when we delve deeper into specific results of online undergraduate. Our student base was expanded by 13.2% in 2025, reaching 842.1 thousand students.
To us, the growth only makes sense if it's accompanied by our retained students that is reflected in the consistent drop in our evasion levels. That is proving that our permanent fronts based on data intelligence, gamification, they are very efficient, and they have created this engaged base over 2025. We were able to structure the student's journey from end to end, from onboarding to reapplication. This evolution has increased the dynamics of our funnel, eliminating some of the frictions, resulting effectively in the real growth of an academic engagement and also financial engagement of our student. Today, we have a base that is not only bigger but much more solid, much more committed with the conclusion of courses.
Concerning the average ticket, we've noticed a fall of 3.6% compared to 2024, but it's also important to highlight here that this change is also part of a very conscious strategy of our company to provide accessible education and at the same time attracting this growing volume of students that are searching for engagement and the conclusion of their courses, and of course, without compromising the sustainability of our basis in general. Now with the next slide number seven, it's important to contextualize that we know that the fourth quarter has a smaller volume in this sector, but it was still a good indicator of our positive strategy. Even in this period that is always lower, our total new students were more than 7.6%.
The most important data here is the quality of the mix in our entries. The semi-presencial is responsible for 55% of new students reinforces the consistency of our commercial strategy, our supply, and our semi-presencial courses. I'd like to highlight very quickly all the work that is made in our sales department that has been evolving all over 2025. We gained two percentage points in top of mind, W e expanded our audience, our digital audience, W e've been optimizing our CAC also with the organic growth. I'm sure that at the end of the presentation, Aroldo will also approach how we're going to scale up this operation in 2026. Now to move on and detail the results, I'm going to give the floor to Gabriel.
Thank you, William. Good morning, everyone. Moving now to slide seven, we will detail our consolidated net revenue and performance by segment. In the fourth quarter, we delivered consolidated net revenue of BRL 558.1 million, representing growth of 5.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, we reached the significant mark of BRL 2.3 billion, up 5.5% compared to 2024. Combined across distance learning and hybrid undergraduate programs, we delivered annual growth of 6.2%, reaching revenue of BRL 1.6 billion. We achieved this progress even in a more competitive environment, as William just commented, with a solid growth in the student base and a more challenging environment for ticket increases.
The medicine segment reached net revenue of 3.4% with this net revenue of BRL 297 million in 2026. This performance was closely aligned with the growth in average tickets close to the inflation observed during the period. In the continuing education segment, we recorded BRL 141 million in 2025, modest growth of 1.8%. We had important changes in the business structure, and we maintain a constructive view for this segment going forward. Moving to slide eight, we present a breakdown of our gross profit and gross margin, key indicators in our operational efficiency agenda. Our gross margin remained at very healthy levels.
It is important to highlight that this year we operated in a scenario of revenues below the levels planned in our budget, which could have put pressure on our margins given the high level of fixed costs in our business. Even in this context, we were able to adapt and maintain our gross margin and at excellent levels. In the fourth quarter adjusted growth profit growth 13.3%, reaching BRL 388.9 million. Gross margin that had this expressive gain of 4.9 percentage points closing at almost 70% , 69.7% when we compare to the last margin that was 64.8% . We've had a solid delivery of adjusted gross profit growing 7%, totally BRL 1,581 million.
The adjusted gross margin closed the year at 70% with a gain of one percentage point versus 2024. We consider this level to be ideal and aim to maintain this level sustainably in 2026, understanding the challenge it means. Moving now to our operating expenses on slide nine, I would like to highlight how we have managed to maintain discipline in management spending. We delivered efficiency gains in sales and marketing expenses and in the allowance for doubtful accounts in the fourth quarter of 2025. Looking more closely at the analysis by expense category, I would first like to comment on the sales and marketing expense line, which totaled BRL 86.2 million in the fourth quarter. This represents a growth of only 1.4% compared to the same period of the previous years.
However, as a percentage of net revenue, this line decreased by 0.6 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2025 when compared to 2024. We had a more efficient management in the allocation of media investments for the year e ven with a 3.2% increase in absolute value, totaling BRL 353.8 million. The share of the net revenue fell from 16%- 15.7%, a reduction of 0.3 percentage points. This behavior reflects the greater efficiency of our online campaigns. Adjusted general and administrative expenses totaled BRL 44.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025. The increase was 55% versus 2024. That seems high, but it's important to put into context.
2024 was impacted by non-recurring restructuring items that reduced the base of that period. Excluding this effect, the company maintains strict expense discipline through right-sizing of corporate structures, hiring freezes that also impacted in the fourth quarter, and careful management of travel. In 2025 as a whole the expenses totaled BRL 143.7 million, an increase of 16.2% versus 2024, which also reflects this comparison dynamic. It's worth noting that this result is even more relevant in the increase of revenues because we've been investing in the different structures in 2025. We have other effects that were captured. For instance, amortization costs. We don't expect that this line will grow so much in 2026. It's going to be more controlled, so that's how we put our budgets.
Finally, as a positive highlight of the quarter, the allowance for doubtful accounts line totaled BRL 59.1 million in fourth quarter 2025, an improvement of 9.2% compared to the same quarter of the previous year. As a percentage of net revenue, it closed the quarter at 10.6%, a reduction of 1.7 percentage points year-over-year. On a consolidated basis for 2025, it closed at 10% of net revenue compared to 10.8% in 2024. With a gain of 80 basis points in line with the guideline we established at the beginning of the year. We had a range we commented about that was from 50 basis points to 100 basis points, so it was according to our soft guidance.
This improvement of this line reflects the effectiveness of initiatives implemented to strengthen credit and collection management and reduce friction throughout the student journey. Highlights include the expansion and diversification of payment methods, and we didn't put that much energy in the past. We included different elements, for instance, PIX scheduling and credit card installments for renegotiation, as well as improvements in the student and learning center experience, and also with this relationship with the different hubs. With enhancements to the negotiation portal and the application layout. At the same time, we strengthen communication and activation actions at the beginning of the journey with multi-channel journeys guiding platform access, supporting the first steps and engagement in initial courses. We are going to increase engagement with better financial health, and it also advances toward a more preventive design with digital processes for collection, renegotiation, and renegotiation.
The engagement strategy began to consider relationship milestones as part of the retention plan. Ultimately, what these numbers show is that we are managing to reduce delinquency with greater intelligence, stronger prevention, and a better student experience with which improves revenue quality and reinforces the sustainability of our growth. Now we have this adjusted EBITDA total BRL 202.4 million, increase of 20.7%. The margin reached 36.3%, representing an expansion of 4.6 percentage points. One of Vitru's key attributes, a lean and adaptable company with solid operating margins. Looking at the full year of 2025, adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 873.7 million, representing double-digit growth and consistent with our strategy.
We grew 10.1% compared to 2024, adjusted EBITDA margin of 38.7%, an increase of 1.6 percentage points, once again reinforcing everything we have detailed regarding internal opportunities. Moving to slide 11 represent the adjusted net income for the fourth quarter, which reached a BRL 117.4 million, a growth of 21.9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. Adjusted net margin expanded to 21%, representing an increase of 2.8 percentage points versus the fourth quarter of 2024. In 2025, adjusted net income totaled BRL 483.7 million, a growth of 61.2%, very expressive compared to 2024. Adjusted net margin for 2025 was 21.4%, an expansion of 7.4 percentage points compared to 2024.
A very strong number again. The company has been delivering this net profit growth. This strong performance and the consistent expansion of our margins are the direct results of continuous efforts we've dedicated to better management of all financial result lines and income tax. Our focus is not limited only to the immediate accounting impact, but also extends strategically to improving the future conversion of net income into effective cash generation. Net financial result was - BRL 90.3 million, a reduction of 42% compared to the amount reported in 2024. This positive performance mainly reflects better financial income from the company's investments, driven by improved cash management and higher cash volume. Additionally, we should highlight that in 2024, we had the absence of non-recurring effects recorded in the previous year, also contributed to the result.
In the income tax and social contribution line, it's worth reinforcing an important effect from the recognition of deferred tax that began in the fourth quarter 2024. We have already discussed extensively the nature of this project, which was successfully completed at the turn of the year in the first days of 2026. We've captured beginning from that point. We've seen in the first two months of 2026 a significant improvement in the company's cash position resulting from the efficiency captured in the income tax line following the incorporation of UniCesumar into Vitru. Now, a detailed overview of our cash management, one of the most important indicators.
The free cash flow reached BRL 571.3 million in 2025, an important increase of 22%, with this operational conversion improving significantly and reaching 54.7%. This is the result of intense work focused on the company's working capital with improvements in collection processes and frameworks, as well as efforts to extend supplier payment terms. We reduced the average collection period, the main line within the working capital by three days from 48 to 45 days. If we compare with the third quarter and eight days, if we compare with the same period of the previous year. That is contributing for us to generate more cash. It is important to highlight that this improvement does not include any receivables anticipation effects. Since we have not carried out any such transactions since June 2024.
That wasn't a good strategy to anticipate the credit card since we have this scenario. The shareholder cash flow, also a key metric in a high interest rate environment, also reached very strong levels, more than doubling compared to the previous year and reaching BRL 297.4 million. Moving to slide 13, which connects with the topic of cash generation. First, I'd like to highlight the evolution of non-recurring items, which we have been reducing throughout 2025, and in this line of non-recurring. We closed the year at a level 22% lower than 2024. Our focus remains on presenting increasingly cleaner results without adjustments, except for those which are strictly extraordinary items. I've commented about that in previous quarters, but we are going to bring important details about our corporate reorganization.
At the end of 2025, we approved in the shareholders' meeting a corporate simplification through the incorporation of UniCesumar, which was executed in January 2026. We're going to have some important tax benefits over the coming years because of this operation. We had some simplification and positive effects. The first one concerning the amortization of goodwill and fair value adjustments. We have BRL 1.9 billion with a tax effect equivalent to 34% captured in the next seven to eight y ears. We will also benefit from the use of BRL 1.4 billion in tax loss carry-forwards, which had already begun to be recognized in results since fourth quarter 2024 and will contribute as cash. Also it's important to highlight the cash income taxes. We paid almost BRL 75 million.
When we observe the impact of that in the future, thinking about in 2026, we believe that we will substantially lower this number. Looking at the table on the right, we now also present the concept, that is very important that we are going to implement and bring to the market about the quarter closure. That is the concept of the net income adjusted by cash tax. This metric in practice seeks to reflect more clearly the generation of results from a financial perspective, considering that from 2026 onward, the use of these tax credits will reduce tax payments. In terms of adjustments, we are removing the effect of this, fiscal loss, then the adjusted net profit would have been in 2025, BRL 380.4 million.
A very important figure representing a growth of 135% compared to 2024. Now, finally, I'm going to give the floor to Aroldo. Moving to slide 14, we present the company's leverage. What we do here is focus on generating cash and reducing our leverage. We were able to deliver a very strong indicator with the net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio closed in the period below 2x It's now at 1.99x, a very important milestone within our deleveraging strategy. This represents a reduction of 0.658x . We reduced in almost 0.6, an expressive reduction, and we also reduced compared to the last quarter. It's a consistent reduction of leverage. That is our logic. Quarter after quarter, we must drop these numbers.
It's important to highlight the chart to the right, the bottom one. Our liability management strategy is according to the debenture issuance. We had the sixth debenture issuance, which is totally BRL 850 million. We allocated the prepayment of the fourth debenture issuance. Our objective with this transaction was clear, to extend the debt duration, removing any pressure over the next three years, while also slightly reducing the cost of debt. That wasn't the focus, but we were able to reduce the capital structure. We have this longer profile of debt, giving us greater flexibility and financial security since we might have this period of high interest rates. We don't know when the rates are going to drop. With that, I conclude my presentation, and I hand the floor to Aroldo so that he can close the session.
Thank you, Gabriel and William. Now I'd like to share with you our vision to 2026. As William has said, we are going to empower Vitru this year and in the next years, but we are going to talk about 2026. The first pillar is on the leadership of digital education and hybrid. We are leaders in Brazil with two very strong brands, with a national capillarity, as you know. But what is different for Vitru is our hybrid model that was incorporated since the beginning of the foundation of our two brands. This is also part of our way to operate and what we offer in day to day.
Providing some figures, 56% of our net revenues is coming from hybrid courses. The new law is favoring platforms as ours, of Vitru, that is scalable with technological aspects implemented. We are going to have a competitive advantage compared to medium players, and we're going to do that with the students' journey. Vitru is providing this quality education, generating academic experiences that will prepare the students to the job market. This is what Vitru and our brands are doing. We have this proprietary technology that is engaging the students, a strong faculty that is contributing for us achieving good results and good evaluations by the Ministry of Education, and this is reflected in our concern with employability and salary evolution of our students.
Among the different pillars in this interface with students, Vitru's has higher indicators as compared to our players. It's 13 percentage points above the average in the industry, bringing tangible results seen by the students. As the second pillar, we would like to highlight that our operational module is scalable and also enabled by technology, and in 2026, we are going to scale this up. The great difference is in our commercial intelligence. For the campaign in the first quarter, we changed the focus for the conversion of applications and engagement of students. We are now operating with this integrated ecosystem, completely integrated with this end-to-end control of KPIs. We have CRM and the tools and artificial intelligence agents such as Edu and Sophia that are guaranteeing the total agility in the students' journey.
Our strategy is focused in commercial focus and engaged students, strength of brand, data use in our partners and our hubs, and the results are speaking for themselves. Reduction in dropouts, and we are capturing with quality, and we are converting with assertiveness. Technology is enabling all of that. Intelligence, automation in all the operations. We have been innovating, and we have been awarded by expert media and renowned institutions. We have data with artificial intelligence, but also with this clear objective of growing sustainably. The third pillar, we talk about the strong cash generation. In this last year, 2020 to 2025, we've generated BRL 570 million in free cash, and we were able to do that without carrying heavy assets. It's lean, and it's efficient. It's scalable. Growth accompanied by profitability.
We've been elevating the free cash flow conversion compared to EBITDA with this model that is winning. With the corporate merge, we are going to have this additional benefit this year, as explained by Gabriel, reducing the cash reimbursement with tax payment. In 2026, the focus is to maintain cash generation robust , operating with discipline and efficiency. Even with a moderate revenue our cost structure and efficient model will guarantee that we will generate cash in a consistent, predictable way. These three pillars that we mentioned, they are not independent, but they reinforce each other and strengthen our educational ecosystem. We have this new landmark for Vitru because we have scale, the necessary infrastructure and technology, and we have the right people to operate in this new market.
In 2026, we are going to execute the strategy with disciplined focus and the conviction that Vitru will go on with this growing trajectory. I'd like to wrap up by thanking William, who conducted Vitru to this point. Thank you for dedication and deliverance, especially with the partnership in the last months. That's it. Thank you so much, and I wrap up now, and we are now going to start with our Q&A session.
Now we are going to start the Q&A session. In order to ask questions, you must click the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen and type your question to enter the queue. When your name is announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen. You should then enable your microphone to ask your question. We kindly ask that all questions be asked at once. Let's move to our first question. It comes from Samuel Alves, an analyst from BTG Pactual. We will now open your audio so that you can ask your question. Please go on.
Good morning, William, Gabriel, Aroldo. I have two questions. First, about capturing new students. You said you had a strong focus on engagement and conversion. If you could, talk about the conversion up to now in terms of volume and also captation revenues. The second question concerns the topic of ticket pressure stabilization. You mentioned in the release that the average ticket was suffering this pressure and that you expect that to be stable in 2026. The question is in reality asking you to elaborate that considering the hybrid effects in 2026. That's it. Thank you.
Hello, Samuel. Good morning. I'm going to share the answer with Gabriel and William. Thank you. I'm going to talk about new students. What are we saying up to now at the end of the cycle and the scenario today? We see the commercial capitation similar to what we have seen last year with the long-distance courses dropping, but less than some players have been talking about with this hybrid growing. Even with this strong comparison and the face-to-face with this strong pace of growth. I'm going to talk about the strategy that William has commented.
Our focus is, besides bringing students, we should retain them, and that was our focus in 2025, and it still is our focus, retaining students, something that we did in 2025, and we are strengthening this year. When we talk about impact on total revenue, we see these points with both retention and the capitation pace reflecting in this revenue growth.
Part of this strategy is also reflecting in PDD that is dropping, and we hope to improve the results in this sustainable way so that we can have this more precise capture that started last year, and we are going to reinforce this year. I hope I have answered your question. The commercial department in line with the last year with this dynamic of products that I've commented about. I'm going to give the floor to Gabriel now, who's going to talk about tickets.
Good morning, Samuel. Thank you for your question. I think that Aroldo's point was key. We are focusing not only in new students enrolling, but more than enrolling the students, we want to engage them, not only financially, but also academically. They should enter the company participating in the journey, and we know that the dropout rates, retention rates are very high. Each percentage point that we retain in terms of students is a lot of money that enter the company, and our focus is in capturing with quality, keeping the student within our journey.
Our focus is more and more not only in enrollments, but also in paid enrollments that are academically engaged. Concerning tickets, since the beginning of last year, we brought the issue of safra. It was an element that was part of 2025. That has a lagging still in 2026. It's a smaller lagging, but what are we doing? I'm going to share the ticket issue into two points. The student that is captured and entering the machine. At this level, we have this competitive issue because the market is greater than us.
We are not able to dictate the rule, but we put a lot of the company's energy this year. We had internal incentives in our network for this better ticket. This is happening. Of course, it's hard to pass the price to the captured student. It's a dynamic that is not trivial. We have had ups and downs according to the products. Talking about the captured tickets, what is the key point for the ticket in 2026? This is considering the old students. We had to adjust prices. We had prices adjusted above inflation according to the market. This is going to happen, but we will try to offset this, the seasonal effects. When we observe the 2026 ticket, it's very similar to last year.
Of course, we know that the distance learning dynamic is more competitive with this Red Ocean. When we talk about hybrid, we've been navigating in terms of volume and price, and one of our brands has been having this big increment in terms of capture in hybrid. On the other hand, with the old students, we had to adjust prices above inflation, almost two times the inflation on average that would have this pressure in tickets because this is something that we were carrying from last years.
I'm trying to break the buckets to make that clear. The overall should give us this flat to positive ticket. That's what we expect, and we hope to navigate the year within the same lines. We are in the middle of the year, but the old student is going to lead the revenue share from now on. The revenue share for 2026 is greater for the old students than for the new students that are part of the machine.
Thank you, Gabriel. It was clear. Thank you.
Let's move to our second question from Vinicius Figueiredo from BBA. Vinicius, please ask your question.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Since we heard your message concerning capturing new students with the hybrid perspective and distance learning perspective, I wanted to understand how this translates into this profitability dynamic for the company. Of course, we are talking about a hybrid model that is contributing with the average ticket, but at the same time, it's carrying this gross margin that is under pressure. I would like to understand your perspective on that.
We've seen some other companies in the same industry talking about this personnel cost pressure at the end of 2025, beginning of 2026, preparing for more face-to-face courses, especially after the regulation. I wanted to understand your perspective concerning this topic. Besides, I'd like to have this brief update about nursing. We had the fast track by the ministry, but I believe that it came later on, so you had this impact on the nurse course in the short run. I wanted to understand your view on that, if you're able to compensate that in the second quarter, in the third quarter or over the year.
Thank you, Vinicius. I'm going to answer the first question about profitability and gross margin. You almost answered for us, but I believe your understanding is correct. The second question concerning the health fields that it's a new growth line for the company. Concerning profitability, considering the whole year, we don't see this great pressure on gross margin. We understand, and I even commented during the call that our expectation is to keep this flat gross margin, and we delivered 70% gross margin in 2025, a very robust gross margin.
We believe that we don't have much to grow here at this level. On the other hand, I believe that you brought that in your question. There's this mix issue that will bring some level of adjustment. First, because the hybrid course is where most of our share is. It's growing more. It has more ticket, but more costs because you have to deliver more face-to-face modules with this kind of product.
At global level, that shouldn't affect our margin in the year. When we talk about 2027, 2028, of course, we are going to have the new law with a different dynamic, and we won't comment on that now. Talking about this moment, we are going to have a flat year over year. Maybe when you have the picture of the first quarter, we have to remember the points from last year. In the first quarter last year, we delivered a margin that we didn't expect that it was a structure. It was over 75%. We believe that it should be over 70% when we observe our cost structure. However, when we observe nominally, we should have costs that are similar to the fourth quarter of 2025.
We should have the same cost structure with no cost increment. When we observe the margins, since we have these high comps from the first quarter, maybe the margin will drop in the first quarter. This is not concerning us. Observing the whole year, that is not a concern to us because we have this structural margin that is very similar to the closure of 2025. I'm going to give the floor now to Aroldo concerning the nursing course.
Thank you, Gabriel. Talking about the impact on face-to-face, we believe this is an important growth avenue for nursing and we have public data that we had more than 200 hubs able to be opened, and we analyzed the structure and markets of over 200 hubs, and we opted for opening 50. We didn't choose 80 because in our analysis we would maximize the net value of the company choosing 50, and that's what we chose for the Ministério da Educação registration. We are going to have the most efficient company in the market, and we had a granular analysis on the implemented structure in our hubs to capture as much as possible.
In our implemented structure, we had two of our biggest markets according to the spots made available by the legislation. We have four courses, depending on the brand and the place in these 50 campi that I've commented before. That's it. We prioritized the analysis, and we registered with the Ministry of Education . I believe I answered, and this is a very important front for us at Vitru.
Excellent. Thank you so much, everyone. Have a good day.
The next question is by Mirela Oliveira, analyst from Bank of America. Mirela, please go on.
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes, Mirela. Go on. Good morning.
Good morning. Thank you. It's a follow-up from the previous question concerning gross margin when we consider the mix. What are the opportunities you see when we observe the expenses to improve the mix and maybe resulting in this EBITDA margin? And if you could comment about collection and renegotiation actions that are helping in delinquency, if you see spaces for this line to reduce in 2026.
Thank you for your question, Mirela. I'm going to try and answer both. Talking about gross margin, I think I briefly answered about the mix in Vinicius' questions, but I'm going to focus on the second part, that is opportunities concerning expenses. We've captured in 2025 the great opportunities in our general machinery of Vitru within three big lines. The first one was cost, and we captured a good part of the opportunities that we had, during 2025 with this change of academic model, rationalizing our educational structure.
Into the future, we don't understand that we are going to have a lot to be done. Of course, we could analyze and streamline a little bit, but we don't see a big increment in 2026. When we talk about delinquency, well, being very honest, I think we should have a critical look concerning opportunities, but our delinquency is not so high considering the costs and so on. We are going to rationalize expenditure, preventing avoidable costs, and we should prioritize other lines and not simply cutting G&A expenses.
When we observe the ads, we understand that we have opportunities. Cutting marketing, it's an easy cut, but a dumb cut. It's not intelligent. It's not sharp when we think about the company structurally. I think that the marketing and team has been doing an incredible work because they are optimizing the machine, rationalizing the use of this money, allocating properly in what is generating value. What we did at marketing level in 2025 and 2026, because one of our brands, we had a first movement to adjust algorithms and capturing, fully in 2026. Here lies the money. Aroldo answered about capturing, and we are at the levels that we challenge ourselves, and we are doing that with less money. The effective CAC, the effective CAC, is dropping quarter after quarter. This is the fruit of our internal team.
Reminding you that we have several other opportunities at the platform level, at CRM level, with technological evolution. At the end of the day, we are going to have a more efficient machinery in terms of capturing students. We have opportunities at [S&M]. At 2026, we are going to see some capture in terms of revenues. We haven't put that in the budget. We are maintaining the same levels in 2025, that from 2025, 2026. We see that we are streamlining all of that because they are better allocating the money, bringing more results with less money invested. Concerning the delinquency and PDD, we had a great capture in 2025. We delivered the guidelines in terms of PDD drop. There are still opportunities when we observe the collection machinery.
We took the low-hanging fruits from what we had in the machinery, and now what we need to do is have a more structure. Changing the structure means observing the collection rules in depth, changing some alternatives. When we observe third-party assistance, how we can break up the aiding in a smart way. Are there opportunities? Yes, there are. We are putting that. Are we putting that in the figures for the year? No. We are considering this PDD with some small gain year-over-year, but we have some captures, some opportunities to capture into the future and in the Vitru machine as a whole. I'm going to give the floor to William and Aroldo if they wanna add to that.
I think that's all, Gabriel. Thank you, everyone.
The Q&A session is now over. Now I'd like to give the floor to the final remarks by Mr. William Matos.
Thank you, Gabriel. Thank you, Aroldo, for the Q&A session that was so clear and effective concerning our company. I confess that closing this video conference concerning Vitru Brasil's last quarter is filling me with pride and confidence because it was the best way to wrap up the cycle as the educational CEO, showing solid results and giving back in terms of performance all the trust that was deposited in me over the years. I would like to thank each other, each one of you for the partnership, each employee, each partner, each collaborator and students. You made me inspired to be wise in conducting this company.
Altogether, we move on with the purpose of this big company transforming education and making our part to make Brazil a country that is better and better with greater opportunities. Secondly, I am still confident in the future that we will have, not only due to the results we've been having, these are signs that we've been sowing in the right way, but also to this professional by my side, Aroldo Alves, who is taking over the operations, bringing his large experience, with this commitment with education. Once more, I'd like to thank you for your presence. Have a nice day.