Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Vitru's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are listen-only mode now. Later on, we will conduct the 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 would like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Mr. Carlos Freitas, Vitru's CFO. You may begin.
Thank you, Bria, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us again. It's a pleasure to be here with you all for the release of the fourth quarter 2021 numbers, as well as the numbers for the full year of 2021. A slide presentation will be part of today's webcast, which is also available in our Investor Relations website at investors.vitru.com.br. I trust you all have the presentation in front of you. As usual, before we begin, I'd like to remind you that as detailed in slide two and three of this presentation, Safe Harbor is in effect for this call. Now I invite you to go to page five. Here on page five, we have the main highlights for last year and fourth quarter of last year.
The first one, which is not new, was the announcement of the combination with UniCesumar, which is, as you know, a leading institution here in Brazil with the highest quality indicators in the higher education sector in the country, besides a very sizable business in medicine. This transaction is, as you know, still being evaluated by the legislative authority in Brazil. I'm going to show again to you some numbers of UniCesumar in a few minutes. Second important remark, which is also not new, is the nursing course that we launched in August of last year.
Just after a couple of months, it quickly became our number one course in the intake of the second semester of last year, which is important not only for the expansion of the market as a whole, but also as a tool to sustain tickets and improve tickets over time. Third highlight is that we reached at end of last year, nearly 360,000 digital education students, mostly in our core business, which is undergraduation in digital education, in which we had an increase of 27% in the intake in the second semester of last year, and by the way, 32% increase in the first semester of last year, and a very important growth as well in the southeast region, where we grew around 45% year-on-year between December of 2021 and December of 2020. Going to page six.
Another important remark is the average ticket. I repeat myself just to say that we have a different business, and we have been able to sustain and improve tickets over time, given that we sell a different product than the market. Our average tickets in our core business, again, digital education and the graduation, increased by around 6% in the second semester of last year when compared to the second semester of 2020, and now it reached BRL 278 per month. This is I'd say a remarkable achievement. We have always said that we have a disciplined approach to ticket. We do not want to grow just for the sake of growing, but we want as well to sustain and improve the ticket. By the way, this was not only the effect of nursing.
Nursing is a premium course in which the average ticket is way higher than our normal traditional course. Without nursing, the increase in ticket would have been around 5%. The increase as a whole here in the ticket is in function of our continuous effort to sustain and to maintain a disciplined approach to ticket. Regarding the financial numbers, net revenue in our core business increased by 26% last year, and the consolidated net revenue increased by 22%. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 24% last year, with a slight increase in margins as well in adjusted EBITDA margin, now reaching almost 29%. Finally, regarding cash flow from operations, we had BRL 135 million last year, increasing from 2020 with a nice cash conversion ratio of around 83%.
Now on page seven, before we dig deeper into the numbers of the year, just a reminder of what we have been doing since the IPO. We said at the time that we are going to grow in four growth avenues, three organic and one inorganic. We have been doing so. We have been delivering what we promised. The first one was ramp up of current hubs, which now represents around 2/3 of expansion hubs in seven days, and more than 91% of our overall portfolio of hubs is still ramping up, which means important growth driver with limited execution risk. As I said, we grew to 265,000 students as a whole. We opened as well around 240 hubs last year, of which almost 100 hubs in the Southeast, and of which 50 hubs in the state of São Paulo.
We said a few times that we are still a bit shy. We were still a bit shy in the Southeast, and that is why the most important, I would say, organic region for us is the Southeast, and that where we have been focusing, and we are growing a lot there in the states in the Southeast. The third one will be course offering. I said already about nursing, and soon we will have psychology and law. Law will also come to this location. That will happen hopefully soon. Once it happens, it will be, again, changing movement for the whole industry. The fourth, inorganic about the transaction with UniCesumar that I mentioned a few times already, which is detailed now on page eight. Just as a reminder, UniCesumar is a company and institution with a size more or less similar to the one that we have.
These here are the numbers for the second quarter of 2021, which are the latest public information that we show to the market. In a couple weeks, we are going to release to you the numbers of UniCesumar for 2021 as a whole. But so far, what we have here are the numbers for the second quarter of last year. 40% of adjusted EBITDA margin is very nice business in medicine. They are the fifth best education institutions in medicine in Brazil. Medicine represents around 25% of the revenues of UniCesumar, and they have, as I said before, the best quality indicators when see the digital education business in Brazil. On page nine, it is important to highlight and to emphasize that we are going to maintain both brands because they detect different markets. Also there is an important commercial synergy to be exploited here.
Currently, there are around 600 cities in which you have only a hub of UniCesumar but not UNIASSELVI or vice versa. Here on the right, these are the numbers for the market share and the growth in the market as a whole, which do not yet reflect the new numbers that were released by the Ministry of Education a few weeks ago with the first numbers of 2020 census. Here you have only the numbers between 2016 and 2019. This is because we are still waiting for the microdata to be made available by the Ministry of Education. But according to the first numbers that were released, the combined market share of UNIASSELVI and UniCesumar reached 20%. It was 10.5% in 2016, growing over time, so we have been able to grow faster than the market and to gain market share with that.
We had 18.5% market share according to the census of the MEC in 2019, and now we have around 20% of the private digital education market. So we keep gaining market share in function of the differentiation aspects of both institutions, which is here on page 10. Just a quick reminder that we offer our typical hybrid academic model, while UniCesumar offers a hub-based 100% online model, and we have a different approach. That is why we have been able to grow faster than the market. Finally, on page 11, before we jump into the financials, this here is the validation by the clients, by the market. On the left, the grades that we have of our apps and the app of UNIASSELVI and the app of UniCesumar.
This is the weighted average between Play Store and Google Play Store and App Store with the apps for academic purpose of each player with the highest number of valuations of each player, in fact. You can see here that we have the highest rate in the industry, knowing that the MEC one is five, so we have 4.4, and UniCesumar has 4.7. So this confirms the tech-driven approach that we have to education. By the way, our app now represents around 60% of our enrollments. This is something we start to offer more or less six, eight months ago, and now it represents around 60% of our intaking cycle through our app. So it is a totally different experience for the newcomers. On the right, the reputation index with the Reclame Aqui, in which we have 7.6, UniCesumar 8.2.
These are, again, the highest numbers among the listed players in Brazil. Now, jumping to page 12. As I said before, nursing is being offered. We are sustaining tickets with nursing, and we will be able to do so even further with law and psychology once it is approved by the Ministry of Education, which we hope to take place soon. Now going to the numbers of last year on page 13. As I said, we have now around 260,000 students in digital location, 365,000 in total, including the 6,000 we have on campus courses. In the chart you have on the right, the evolution of digital education students in undergraduation. By the way, this has been purely on organic basis, as you all know. We grew 18% last year-on-year, which is an impressive achievement given the tough comp of 2020.
As a reminder, we had a 40% increase in intake in the second semester of 2020. The bar was already quite high here. Page 14. As I said, we had an increase in intake last year of 27% in second semester and 32% in the first semester of around 30% increase in intake last year. The pie charts show the breakdown of the intake in 2020 and 2021. Here there are a number of points to bear in mind. First one is the reduction in the black part here of the pie, which is vocational. Vocational means in Portuguese technology, which are shorter courses that have a duration of two year, two and half years. They were 36% of intake. Now they are 32% of intake. Most important is the increase in premium courses.
I mean, health-related courses and engineering, which has a higher ticket. The average ticket of engineering or health courses such as nursing and nutrition, biomedicine, et cetera, physical education, is a bit more than BRL 400 per month, which is more or less 50% higher than what we have in our average ticket. When you see here the intake of the premium courses, it was 23% of 2020. I mean, 4% in engineering and 19% in health courses. Now or last year, they grew to 32% of intake. But those courses, they still represent only around 20-something, 22%, 23% of the overall student base last year. They were 32% of intake, but still they are a bit more than 20% only of the whole base of last year.
The trend is that premium courses will represent a higher and higher share of our base, which will be an important driver to sustain even more our tickets. I'll go back to this a bit later. On page 15, the breakdown of our growth in our student base in digital education undergrads throughout the country. We grew 18% year-on-year for the whole country, including 10% in the south, which is our incumbent region, around 36% in the northwest, an important growth there, around 15% in the north and northeast, and as I said before, 45% in the southeast. On the right, you see the breakdown of the number of hubs per region. This is new information. Here you can see the evolution of the hub base throughout the country in the last four years.
For the first time, the southeast region represents the biggest region in terms of hubs. We had an increase of 61% in the number of hubs in the southeast, which now have 245 hubs out of the 939 that we have in the whole country. This is, again, an important growth driver for the future, which is here on page 16. We have intensified the presence in the southeast, which represents 40% of the whole market in the country. As I said, 61% growth in hubs, 45% growth in student base there. When you see the whole intake numbers, the southeast was 8% in 2019, then grew to 17% in 2020, then 19% in 2021 of the whole intake. We are increasing our footprint in the southeast.
On page 17, our famous chart with the evolution of the student base per cohort, knowing that a cohort is the number of hubs that were opened in a given year. We keep increasing and we keep maturing our hub base. As I said, this is an important driver with limited execution risk because the hub is there, the partner is there, the UNIASSELVI brand is there, and word of mouth is working in our favor. We keep increasing our maturation of hubs. Today, the theoretical maturation index of the overall portfolio of hubs is around 33%. It is important to highlight that this index takes into account all the expansion hubs. When we open several hubs at the same time, we have a dilution effect of this index, and in fact may even end up with a lower index.
For example, if we take only 2018 cohort, the maturation index of these hubs increased from 36% in December 2019 to 50% in December 2020, and now to 60% in December 2021. We will keep increasing the maturation of our hubs. On page 18, I see here some key financials. Net revenue, as I said, growing by around 22% on a consolidated basis. Gross profit increased 31% in the whole year, reaching a gross margin of around 62%, an increase of 4.5 points between 2020 and 2021. I am going to get back to this to show the reason. Adjusted EBITDA growing, as I said, 24%, reaching a margin of 28.9% in the year.
On page 19, you see here on the left that, for example, the digital education undergraduate net revenue grew, as I said, 26% in the year, driven by the expansion of student base, but also by the expansion of ticket. Here are the numbers. As I said, we have now in the second semester of last year, BRL 278, which is around 6% higher than one year before, which was around 4% higher than one year before. We keep increasing our average ticket because of the differentiation aspects of our product. Again, as I said, this increase of 6%, 1% of it is nursing. The other 5% is indeed the overall portfolio that we had already before. This mix effect is important. As I said, the average ticket of premium courses is around BRL 400 per month.
Because we have BRL 238 of our average ticket, it means that the average ticket of the traditional courses is around BRL 204- BRL 241 per month. As I said before, we expect the relative weight of premium courses to keep increasing over time, not only because of the higher penetration of our current courses such as nursing, but also, in the near future, psychology and law. Just as an example, if we had, for example, 50/50% of premium courses, which now as I said, represented more than 20%, and 50% of traditional courses, our average ticket would have reached BRL 320. I mean, BRL 400 for the premium and BRL 240 for the traditional, BRL 320 on average. There is still a lot of potential here to sustain tickets. This not counting with inflation and any other effect.
Just on a mixed effect, we still have a lot of space to increase tickets as we increase the relative weight of premium courses in our overall portfolio. On page 20, the contribution of the other segments. First, continuing education grew by 29% last year, which is explained by higher offerings and higher digital marketing that we increased last year. But on the other hand, on-campus, there was a decrease of 16% on year-on-year basis, which is aligned to our vision that this is a business that will, I would say, keep suffering a little bit more over time because we do believe that there is a continual trend of migration of interest from on-campus to digital.
On page 21, the net revenue was boosted by digital education segments, increased at 26% in digital education undergrad, 29% in graduation, I mean, continuing education, and a decrease of 15% in the net revenues of on-campus. The consolidated number is 22% for net revenue. When you see about costs on page 22, the cost of service declined from 34.7% to 30.5% of revenue. This was because of overall optimizations of personal cost. As we go further, we are able to more and more optimize the ratio between students per tutor. This is a function of growth. Also, of course, the natural gains of scale. As we go further, we can dilute more and more fixed cost. On the right, the G&A.
G&A now represents only 8% of our net revenues, which is way lower than competition, which shows our continual effort to maintain a lean and agile structure, which reflects in our culture. We've had a growth of around 8% only of G&A cost last year, G&A expenses last year. On page 23, on the left, selling expenses grew by 34%. This increase was a function mostly of the increased intake that we had last year. As I said, we had increase of around 30% last year. The selling expense increased 34%, which means that the CAC increased a little bit, increasing around 3% when you see the year-on-year comparison. I think it was a normal increase in the CAC around 3%. Also because the hubs were again closed last year. Just as a reminder, the hub is important piece in our overall selling machine.
Now as we resume operations at the hubs, we are now resuming our operations at the hubs. This will be also important to use the hubs in our selling machine further throughout this year. On the right, the PDA, which is called net impairment losses on financial assets, the famous PDA. It increased last year from 14.8% to 17.5% last year, and this is a certain force of the pandemic, and also because of the higher share of newcomers and new students in our student base. As you know, most of the PDA is concentrated in new students coming from the first semester, and also because, again, the hubs were closed. In our academic model, part of the experience is to meet your colleagues at hub.
When we lose this piece of the whole experience, it's part of the experience, we are not in our full potential of the overall experience. Now as we resume the physical encounters, the weekly meetings at the hubs, we expect the overall retention and PDA levels to go down this year. Now jumping to page 25, adjusted net income and cash flow. Business income declined 10% last year. The first reason was the high comparison base of 2020. In 2020, we recognized for the first time the full tax assets. This made a tip comp for 2020. Also we gained BRL 13 million just after our IPO, in FX gains, which is part of net income of 2020.
Besides that, last year, as you know, we had a huge increase in IPCA, in the inflation ratio of Brazil, which went from 4.5% in 2020 to 10%. Most of our debt is in IPCA. So we had a slight decrease of net earnings, net results. In cash flow, we had an increase of 7%, sorry, 11% last year. The first reason was the reason for this increase of only, I would say, 11%, was, as I said, the gain in FX of BRL 13 million. This is in IFRS. This is part of the operational cash flow. If it were not for this BRL 13 million gain in FX, our net income in 2020 would have been around BRL 110 million. So we would have had a growth of a bit more than 20% in cash flow from operations, which is aligned to our growth in EBITDA.
Again, a nice cash conversion ratio of 83%. That was it that I had for now, and now let's open for questions.
If you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, press the pound key. Our first question comes from Victor Balta with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Victor, your line is open.
Sorry. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. Two questions from our side. The first one would be on margins. Considering that the reopening of your hub is likely to increase some cost line in 2022, but also considering that your margins have been benefiting from operating leverage and efficiency initiatives, how much room do you see for further margin improvement this year? Our second question would be more specific on the technology angle. You mentioned that your mobile app has much better engagement than competitors' mobile apps. What would you say are the key differentiating factors or features of the [audio distortion] mobile app that differentiates it from competitors? Thank you.
Thanks for your questions. The first one about margins. Because we are really focused on digital education, and different from most of the peers in the industry, we didn't have a, let's say, huge saving in 2021, 2020 because of hubs closed or on-campus units closed. We had some savings in utilities, for example, but it's not that material when you compare it to a typical on-campus operation. In on-campus, some peers had, what's normal, some savings. We had some savings as well, but it's not that material because most of our business is around digital education. Going forward, what we expect regarding margins, we should expect a decline in the cost of PDA going forward, as I said, because of the hubs have been opened, and then we've been able to offer the full experience for the newcomers.
This could be an important driver for growth in margins, but this will, of course, depend on the overall economic situation. We do expect some gain in margins for this year as we have had in 2021 and 2020 and 2019. But this is going to be, I'd say, not a big jump in margin, but a slight but continuous growth in margins before the conclusion of the deal with UniCesumar . Once we close the deal with UniCesumar , then our margins will grow a lot because they have an overall margin that is higher than what we have. We have around 30% more or less, and they have a PDA margin of around 40%. The second question, I had some problem to hear you, but if I got it correctly, you're asking about why our tech approach is different from competition.
I would say it's because of the way we operate. We have been focusing on digital learning and digital education for 15 years now. Different from some of the peers, we have this location as the core business of our institution for years now. This reflects in the culture, and this reflects in the way we see technology and the whole approach we have to technology and digital education as a whole. It is the app, for example, that I showed before, was already an intrinsic piece of the overall student experience. It was not a complement or something new. It was already, for some years, part of the whole student experience to have a nice app. Now last year, what we changed was to offer the enrollment through the app.
But the fact of having a nice app, for example, was already part of the overall strategic vision and orientation of UNIASSELVI for years now. So it is a function of focus and culture around technology.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Vinicius Figueiredo with Itaú BBA. Your line is open.
Good evening, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. First question is regarding the intake cycle of first half of 2022. If you could please share any first impressions from the cycle, it would be great. How should we expect the average price, mainly for freshmen, to behave? It will also be amazing. The second question, it would be regarding PDA. We have seen a surge in this figure during this quarter, right? Is there any non-recurring event that explains this increase or any seasonality specific to the fourth quarter? Should we expect this number to normalize in the next quarters? Thanks.
Thanks, Vinicius. For your first question about intake and tickets now for the current cycle. Yes, we are still in the middle of the intake cycle. What we have seen so far is, again, a strong performance in the cycle. So far, what we have when you compare the year-on-year numbers, the intake we had until beginning of March of last year and intake of beginning of March this year, we are going around mid-20s. Around mid-20s growth year on year so far in intake with an increase in tickets for the intake. When you see only the intake tickets that we had this year and last year, this is increasing. Increasing, again, not only because of nursing, but increasing because we have, I'd say, a very different approach to tickets as a whole. So far, so good.
We are growing the intake, and we are growing as well every ticket. Second question about PDA. Yes, you're right. We had an increase in PDA in the fourth quarter of last year. Basically because we update our PDA curve on a yearly basis at the end of the year. Last year, in December, we did it, and we had the effect of the pandemic. All of the invoices that were sent to students in 2020, for example, we usually have a write-off of invoices after 12 months. Our PDA curve increases over time, and after 12 months, if this invoice is not paid, we have a write-off. This write-off is what is used in the PDA curve.
So what we had was an increase in the losses of the invoices that were issued in 2020, and that were written off in 2021 because of pandemic, especially those that were issued in March, April, and May of 2020, just after the pandemic. So that's why we had this jump in PDA in the fourth quarter. But this is to correct the number for the whole year of 2021. So the number for the whole year is the right number for the overall PDA of last year. So going forward, we should expect a slight decrease of this number for 2022.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Okay. Vinicius.
Our next question comes Mauricio Cepeda with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks for the time. I have some questions. One relating to tickets, I think not only in the short term now for this intake cycle, but in terms of trends in the market. I understand that the education groups in Brazil have noticed that distance learning is a growth avenue. What are the possibilities of a price war in tickets going forward? How do you see that? Or if you see that the sector is a scale business, therefore it should consolidate in the hands of few, therefore it diminishes this kind of competition. My second question is about where growth is coming from now after the pandemic. If there was any reduction in the interest for these fully distributed courses or if the new courses would be, let's say, the ones that would drive growth. And a third question is about market share.
If I remember correctly, at least in the third quarter, other groups, notably Yduqs, were growing a little bit more year-on-year. If you feel that you were losing or gaining share in the distance learning market. Thank you.
Okay. Let's start with the final one. I cannot comment on the overall market, but what we see is that we have been able to gain market share over time. And we grew our intake this year, last year. Maybe we are, let's say, at this moment growing a bit less in market share than in the past, but we're still, I'm sure, gaining market share than competition because what is happening is that the market is concentrating around fewer names. As I said before about the gain of scale, et cetera. The listed players are the ones who are gaining share. Not only ourselves, but I'm sure Yduqs and other players. We, the listed players, because we have, let's say, more scale. We've been able to gain market share from the smaller players because it is a business of scale.
That's why I don't believe that we are losing market share when you compare to the whole market. The second question was that I do believe that the sector will tend to consolidate more, either organically as I said, more and more listed players gain share and other players lose share or inorganically. The transaction that we announced with [audio distortion] is one example. I am sure that there will be other transactions in the medium term. I still think that the sector is still too fragmented in Brazil, given the need to have scale to offer a high-quality product and at the same time to make money. This is a high technology business. It requires scale. I do believe that the sector will tend to consolidate around fewer names going forward. And the ticket, the trends in ticket are the first one that you made.
What we have been delivering over time is that now for a few years, is that we have been able to sustain tickets. We are increasing tickets over time, every ticket. Still not at the same level of inflation. We grew 6% now, inflation was 10%, but one year before we grew 4%, inflation was 4.5%, so more or less the same. We have been able to sustain tickets over time because of the differentiation aspects that we have. I do believe that there is a differentiation aspect here that is important to bear in mind, that we offer a hybrid model with a tutor and a class. We are the only player that is focused on this model, which is tough to implement, it's tougher to create and to operate, but we know how to do it.
We have been doing this and playing this game for the last 15 years. That's why we have been able to not only gain market share, but also to sustain tickets going forward. When we look forward, I don't believe that we are going to have a price war because it is a different scale. There will be fewer and fewer players. There was a price war in the beginning, in 2017, for example, beginning of the new reality, when several players jumped into the game. But I do see now that there is more and more a rational approach and disciplined approach to tickets, not only of ourselves, but for the whole industry. I do believe that we have reached a kind of, say, floor in tickets for the online, the 100% online courses, which is not our case.
Our case is we have been able to increase tickets, which is different from the competition because again, of the differentiation aspects that we offer a different product. Going forward, not only this will continue, but the relative weight of premium courses will increase. We have, again, 23% of the base in premium courses, but 32% of the intake, and it was 23% one year before. The trend is that this will reach 32% very soon and probably 60% in a couple of years. There will be important mix effect as well in tickets.
Perfect. You'd say that these new courses tend to be higher ticket in general, and these are the ones driving growth. It's a positive mix effect at the end.
Yeah. There are two things. The positive mix effects, but also the overall performance of the apple on apple comparison. As I said, we grew 6% the tickets. The biggest gain we had in health courses was nursing. But if you take nursing out of the equation, for example, we would have grown tickets by 5% instead of 6%. So when you compare the apples to apples, we are growing a little bit our tickets. And despite that, there is a mix effect that will increase over time. So going forward, our tickets will tend to increase as we have been seeing.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thanks, Cepeda.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star then one. You may proceed with any web questions.
So the first question from Pedro Lima. In fact, two questions. First one: What are you expecting for 2022 intake cycle? Do you believe that it should still present another round of strong growth as in recent years? Double digits in intake maybe? Yes. As I said, so far, we are growing at around mid-20s growth year-on-year. When you see the same period of time of this year compared to the first intake of last year with eight increased tickets. The intake cycle is still far from finished, but yet we have double digit growth for the overall intake cycle as we finished. Second question: You guys have been posting better ticket dynamics than the rest of the industry. Do you think that it's possible to maintain this growth in 2022? How do you see competition on the market? Yeah, that's what I was explaining to Cepeda.
We do believe that we're going to be able to sustain tickets going forward. For the whole industry as a whole, I do believe that there will be fewer players, there will be more concentration, and I don't believe in price war in this industry. So I do believe that we have reached a kind of a floor prices here. From Lucas Nagano about CADE and [audio distortion] in Brazil, the expected closing date and any possible remedies. We don't expect any, let's say, relevant remedy in CADE. We don't have a huge overlap with UniCesumar. We do have some overlap in some cities, but that would represent a very minor stake or share of our student base. We don't expect any relevant remedy, if at all. Regarding date, we are confident that we'll be able to have closing in a couple of months.
Let's see how CADE evolves. But things are evolving okay, are going fine as expected. We do believe that we could have closing in a couple of months. Commercial synergies with UniCesumar. Could you give some color on how to explore synergies in order to obtain revenue? Yes, there will be I'd say a number of growth-add synergies there. The first one will be the faster expansion of hubs. As I showed before, today you have around 600 cities in which you have only one of the two brands. So once we have closed the deal, we'll be able to accelerate the growth and the offering of both brands in these cities. The second one will be the increase in the portfolio of courses. Today, UNIASSELVI offers around 150 undergrad courses, while UniCesumar offer less than 100 courses in undergraduation.
With a few changes, we can improve and enhance, increase the portfolio of course of UniCesumar. The third one will be, as well, cross-selling opportunities between under graduation and graduation with both brands. So there are a lot of synergies, commercial synergies to explore. Today, we don't have any numbers because we cannot have, say, commercial discussions between the two companies because of the antitrust rules. But we'll be able to have some rough numbers or some big picture numbers to announce to you when we have the closing. One last question from Pedro Lima here as well. Timeline for integration with UniCesumar. So integration will take time. We are already preparing the integration. So we hired Bain consulting to help us in the preparation of the integration, but this is going very well.
We have a detailed plan for integration because we do believe that we will be able to have a very smooth transition. Both companies have a very nice culture, a culture oriented towards the customer or the students, and the willingness to cooperate and to operate in an integrated manner. The full integration with all the areas and all departments will take a couple of years, especially when you see, for example, the integration of the content production and some changes we are going to do there to have synergies over time. But I am going to give you more details about this integration timetable and numbers when we announce the closing. And one last question from Kyle Moscattini, to give more color on the PDA expenses. How the PDA for nursing compares to the current portfolio of revenues, and level PDA should expect in next couple of years.
PDA of nursing is still quite soon to know because we offered the first intake was less than six months ago, around six months ago in August, September of last year. So still do not have a big clarity on that. But when you see the overall PDA expenses for this year, as I said, we do expect a slight decrease this year because on one hand, we are still in the middle of economic crisis, but on the other hand, we are going to, and we are opening the hubs. So the full experience will be able to be offered to the students. And the most important driver of PDA is the engagement of newcomers. I would say that today that the PDA ratio of newcomers is way higher than PDA of seniors.
If we are able to, again, to open the hub, as we are opening now, we are going to be able to offer the full package, the full academic experience. And people will meet colleagues and meet the tutors. It is how we design the product and the service with the weekly meetings at the hubs. So once it is resumed, this will be for sure, this will have an impact in retention rates and of course, in PDA. So I guess those who were present in the webcast, is there any other question live?
Again, please press star one to ask a question. There are no further questions. Mr. Freitas, please continue with any closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for being here. It was a pleasure. It was our first full year as a listed company. We are very proud of what we have been able to achieve and to deliver to you, and we keep available for any further questions. Thank you very much. Good night.
This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.