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Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the VASTA Platform Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Bruno Giardino, CFO.
Bruno Giardino
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me in this conference call to discuss Vasta Platform's second quarter 2021 results. With me on the call today, we have Mario Guio, Vasta CEO, and Guilherme Melega, Vasta COO. During today's presentation, our executives will make forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or future financial or operating performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this presentation include but are not limited to statements related to our business and financial performance, expectations for future periods, or expectations regarding our strategic product initiatives and their related benefit, and our expectations regarding the market. Forward-looking statements are based on our management's beliefs and assumptions, and on information currently available to our management. These risks include those set forth in the press release that issued yesterday, as well as those more few described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this presentation are based on the information available to us as the date hereof. You should not rely on them as predictions of the future events and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. In addition, management may reference known IFRS financial measures on this call. The known IFRS financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with the IFRS. Let me now give the call over to Gil to make his opening statements.
Vasta Platform 's
Thank you, Bruno. Thank you all for participating in our earnest release. I would like to start on slide number three with some highlights of the quarter. Net revenue expanded 17% in the second quarter, backed by the growth in the ACV and also in the non-subscription In the 2021 commercial year to date, subscription revenue X-PAR increased by 18%, while PAR, our hybrid subscription product, was down 15%. As we previously commented, the textbook chain was heated due to the higher reuse of textbooks affecting both PAR and our non-subscription businesses. Even with all the challenges that the second wave of the COVID caused to the business, we expected to record a high single-digit organic growth in the subscription revenue this year and a double-digit organic growth excluding PAR. Complementary solutions have been the highlight of the cycle with 51% growth to date, which evidences the high potential of this segment offers. Adjusted FVA was negative in 17 million reais in the second quarter due to the unfavorable revenue seasonality of the second quarter, also hit by the higher provision for doubtful accounts and by the enhancement in our corporate structure following the IPO. We note that the second quarter is typically a not representative one in the composition of our operating results. Finally, we posted a net loss of 24 million reais in the quarter, but an adjusted net profit of 125 million reais in the cycle, 31% up. That said, I pass the floor to our CFO, Bruno Jardino, who will detail our financial results.
Bruno Giardino
Thank you, Guil. As we did last quarter, we will start in the slide number four, analyzing the performance of our revenue in the cycle. from fourth quarter 2020 to the second quarter 2021. Our net revenue declined 13% year over year, as you can see in the left. However, when we break this information into subscription and non-subscription, we notice that our subscription revenue increased 10% year over year, representing 84% of total revenue. Going further into this breakdown, we split subscription revenue into traditional learning systems and complementary solutions, in the upper right side of this slide. We call X-PAR, subscription X-PAR. Excluding PAR, subscription revenue grew 18%, slightly below the 23% growth in the SEV we reported in the fourth quarter 2020. This gap has to do with the lower enrollment registered at partners of schools when compared to schools' expectations at the ACV formation. In the chart below, in the same slide, you see that bar declined 15% in the period, as the lower number of students is complemented by the higher reuse of textbooks, a phenomena that we observed in the past during recessionary times. Finally, in the bottom of the chart, non-subscription revenue tumbled 58% reflecting not only the weakness in textbook sales, but also our commercial efforts to bring non-subscription clients to our subscription products. Therefore, as you can see in this slide, the pandemic effect has hit our business lines in different ways, with the growth in subscription products preserved, particularly in the export lines, while non-subscription revenue has suffered the most. In the slide five, We detailed the net revenue performance in the quarter. Net revenue grew 17% driven by traditional learning systems and also by non-subscription products. The volumes of complementary products and PAR were not meaningful as these products are typically delivered in the first two quarters of the cycle. The same happened with non-subscription products. Moving to slide six, let's comment on our financial performance. The second quarter is usually a weak quarter due to the reduced level of revenue. And this quarter particularly was further hit by higher provisions for adoptive accounts that I will comment on on the next slide. Also, the yearly comparison is affected by the heavier corporate structure following the IPO and by the savings captured in the second quarter last year with the provisional measure 935. amounting to nearly 5 million reais, 5.3 million reais. In the cycle, adjusted EBITDA is down 25%, on the back of the 13% lower revenue and the effects previously mentioned. On the right, as a consequence of negative operating results, we had an adjusted net loss of 25 million reais, but we reported an adjusted net profit of 124 million reais in the cycle, 29% higher year over year. next slide seven i'll give more details on the provisions since the beginning of the pandemic our approach has been to support our school partners by extending payment terms instead of granting discounts additionally the textbook distribution channel has suffered with a sudden decrease in textbook sales causing some of our clients of some of our clients to fall back in payments As we extend payment terms, the aging of our accounts receivable led us to recognize higher provisions for credit losses. We estimate that the effects related to the current situation hit our second quarter by 8.6 million reais and 15 million in the cycle, as you can see in the chart. With a normalization of school activities ahead of us, we expect a normalization in the payment cycle of our clients in 2022, when provisions could potentially come back to historical levels, which is 1% of net revenue. The acceleration in the migration to the digital platforms should also help, as we reduce our exposure to the book distribution channels. Lastly, in the right, I would like to highlight the conservativeness of our provision standards, as even with the aging of the portfolio, we maintained days of receivables stable versus last year, at 119 days. To wrap up the financial session, I would like to share details about VATAP's first market issuance debt on slide nine. We raised 500 million reais in non-convertible debentures with a three-year term with a remuneration rate of CDI plus 2.3% per year. Following this transaction, our average debt maturity stands at 29 months and our cash position remains quite strong for new M&A and expansion activities. That said, I now pass the floor back to our COO, Guilherme Meledo.
Vasta Platform 's
Guilherme Meledo Thank you, Bruno. Moving on to slide nine, I will comment about our 2022 sales cycle, which has been progressing well as we see increased activity at schools. This is the mandala that represents our platform. and gets richer every month with new launches, partnerships, and M&As. On the following slides, I will comment about our focus on digital, our new learning system, Fibonacci, new add-ons on Plural Store, launch of Plural Adapter, and new profits, and digital student acquisition platform. In the slide 10, I detail our strategy to the B2B core. In this cycle, we have intensified our efforts to stimulate sales of digital products, as well as to migrate par clients to par platform solutions, which has textbooks and all other Mandala services and products embedded on it. These products offer more revenue resiliency, higher average tickets, and higher margins, benefiting not only the company, but also our authors. Still on B2B Core, on slide 11, we are proud to announce a new brand to our learning system portfolio, Fibonacci Learning System. This is a premium product designed in partnership with the top-ranked Collegio Fibonacci, top 10 in Brazil's high school test, Enem, for 10 years. and top one ranked in NA's FA test in 2011 and 2019. We have already started sales of Fibonacci Learning System with the third year of high school for 2022, and gradually we'll progress to earlier years. Moving to slide 12, let's switch to the complementary solutions. Our plural store, A marketplace with ad techs from all over the world is going live for this sales cycle. The portfolio offers solutions in eight different areas. Contents recently added were Redação Nota Mil, our SA review services, and O Caminho, focusing on sports, which have the largest addressable market among all complementary fields. Next, on slide 13, Let's comment on Plural Meu Profi and Plural Adapta, both service solutions available on Plural platform. Plural Meu Profi means Plural My Teacher, and it is an online platform for private tutoring where students can reach our network teachers for private classes, booking and paying online. Plural Adapta is a self-study adapted platform for academic enhancement. Both are full digital services, B2B2C model, billing families directly, reserving rebates for department schools, and opening new markets for VASA. Finally, on slide 14, our digital service platform focuses on student acquisition takes shape. With the acquisition of Cell and EMI, and the launch of Somos Integra. Somos Integra is a lead generator for our partner schools. The service connects kindergarten families to partner schools, provider of broader services of K-12. EMI is a digital marketing company focused in student enrollment. It is our newest acquisition announced today. Cell, a company specialized in portal management and digital content provider for K-12 schools. With the student acquisition to establish it, VASTA will directly contribute to partner schools commercial front. Turning back to Gil. Thank you, Guilherme. Moving on to the slide 15, in late July, we welcome Estela Vieira to the board of directors as an independent member and chairwoman of the audit committee. Feeling the vacancy left by Francisco Fernandez, due to his passing. Now our board of directors is complete again, bringing together seasonal executives with complementary skills. The composition of our board of directors and audit committee is shown in this slide. I would like to highlight that according to our high standards of corporate governance, the audit committee is formed by the same three independent directors and that all transactions involving Related parties must be only approved by the audit committee. Talking about governance, I would like to take the opportunity to show how strong is our commitment with ESG. I invite you to move to slide 16. On the environmental side, VASTA is certified by the SSC and requires that all its suppliers are certified as well. We also buy energy from the renewable sources, and 100% of the waste generated in our distribution center is correctly treated. On the social side, maybe the most important area of impact for us, we highlight the activities of Somos Institute, which supports six preparatory courses for low-income students, and Somos Futuro, which has granted high school scholarships and full supports to more than 500 low-income students in 98 cities in our country. And more than 6,000 hours of mentoring were offered to this group of students by Somos employees, volunteers for this approach. And finally, on the governance side, VASTA has three independent members in the board an audit committee only formed by independent members. Also, as we have two women in the board, we earned the women on board certification. Diversity also goes down in the organization. Forty-nine percent of the leadership position in VASTAS are occupied by women. Moving on to the next slide, as we progress to the end of our presentation, I would like to comment on the M&A. In addition to the organic growth, Vasta announced today the acquisition of EMI, our fifth acquisition since the IPO, and as told by Guilherme, a key piece to the formation of our digital services farm. The acquisition of a level learning system, the most relevant one so far, is being analyzed by the Brazilian antitrust body, and we expect to have the approval until the end of this year. Our M&A pipeline remains rich, and we are engaged in several other transactions, which are at different stages. Now I'll call Bruno to our closing remarks.
Bruno Giardino
Thank you, Gil. And our last slide today is also a new announcement. We will launch early next week our first share buyback program, through which we plan to acquire up to 1 million shares in up to six months, a relatively short period of time. Having said that, I finish our presentation and now open the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star, then the number one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. First question, we have Andre Coelho from Scotiabank. Your line is open.
Andrea
Thank you very much for taking the question. I can read in the Cogna press release, it says, with approximately 50% of the 2022 business cycle completed, we are very optimistic about the organic growth for ACB 2022. That's what the Cogna press release says about VASTA. So I was wondering if you can give us a little bit of color about what very optimistic means, if you are expecting double-digit growth for ACD in 2022, or just if you can give us any color on what you're seeing for the next school cycle. Thank you.
Vasta Platform 's
Hi, Andrea. This is Guilherme. Thank you for your question. And, yes, let me give you some color about our campaign. We are definitely optimistic. about the campaign we are keeping the same trend that we have been keeping in the latest years where we target double digit growth for a cv and we are seeing a similar trend but with better mix we are targeting on digital products and we also are pursuing a change in paper-based products to the power platform or learning systems, which give us better resiliency in our revenues and better margins. So we see the same trend of growth in ACV in a market that is getting heated when we talk with our school partners. They are actually more optimistic about their enrollments, and on top of that, we are pursuing a better mix.
Andrea
Okay, thank you very much.
Vasta Platform 's
Andres, this is Gil. If I may just complete what Malaga said, let's remember that the ACV is comprised not only by the new contracts, but also the renewal contracts with our partner schools, right? So we are also seeing an excellent churn, I mean a lower churn, So the two factors are pointing to a good ACV building. That's why we are so optimistic. So far, we are so optimistic with this commercial cycle.
Andrea
Thank you very much.
Operator
Again, if you have a question at this time, please press the star and then the number one key on your touchstone telephone. I am showing no further questions at this time, presenters. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mr. Mario Guillo, CEO.
Vasta Platform 's
Thank you all for participating in our earnings release. We hope you all stay safe and see you in our next call. Bye-bye.
Operator
Thank you very much, presenters, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our conference for today. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.
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