Cogna Educacao S A S/Adr

Thank you for holding and welcome to Cognos Earnings Conference Call. We have here with us Mr. Valerio, CEO, Fred Villa, CFO, and Mario Guia, VASA's CEO. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and that all participants will be in listen-only mode during Cognos presentation. Next, we'll start our Q&A when further instructions will be provided. Should you require any assistance during the conference call, please ask for help by dialing star zero. This event is also being broadcast live on the internet and may be accessed at ir.cognite.com.br where you will also find the presentation. The slides will be controlled by you and the replay of this event will be available right after the end of the conference. We would like to inform you that this conference call is being simultaneously translated into English for the benefit of our foreign investors. We would like also to let you know that any forward-looking statements made during this conference call on Cognizant Financial targets, projections and business prospects are based on the beliefs of the company and currently available information. Future considerations are not performance guarantees. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect future results of the company and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now, I will turn the conference to Mr. Roberto Valerio, who will start the presentation. You may proceed, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us in today's conference call to discuss about the results delivered in Q2 2022 by Cogna. With me in this call, Federico Ville, our financial VP, Mario Guio, our VASTA CEO, Bruno Jardino, VASTA CFO, and Eduardo Honczak, our IRO and corporate CFO. I'd like to start today's call on slide three. where you can see our strategic reading of the results delivered this quarter. At Croton and Vasta vertical units, And then we will look at Cognos consolidated numbers. At Croton, this was another quarter improving our main financial and operating metrics. So Q2, now for five consecutive quarters, Croton has improved, reducing revenue year on year, but with a growing recurring EBITDA. So it translates into a higher margin. We've had an important growth in our base, graduation growing 12.5%. and post-grad growing 23%, showing the power of our capacity, you know, to attract new students and also to retain our current students. Croton, and I always like to highlight that, shows metrics that we hardly find all together, you know, And now we see these results, these simultaneous results at Croton. So a growing student base, a higher intake in the last trade cycle, and but also a reduction in the cost of customer acquisition, the CAC, so we are more efficient. We've reduced our delinquency rate, showing that new students as well as renewal students have a higher quality. As a consequence, we also see a lower student dropout. So this combination has helped us attain these results. It's something very hard to have all of these great results in so many different metrics. Also, in the last two quarters, we had a growth of EBITDA margin, despite all the effects on the economy. And that's really important, and it shows the strength of the work we did between 20 and 21, our constant search for efficiency. Also looking at Croton strategic pillars, Croton Med has met all of our expectations this quarter. Our revenue is growing strongly this quarter compared to last year, so showing that our capacity to grow organically is really robust. And from the viewpoint of customer experience, we are focused on improving customer experience. Our strategy is for us to have a contactless and a frictionless journey. Of course, our on-campus content is still our priority, and it shows that we have the best grade comparing companies of education that have a public education education companies. Now talking about VAST, our net revenue growth has come to 34.5% in the quarter. It means that we're moving towards achieving the ACV target of 1 billion. We will provide further details, but this is strongly supported by the growth of partner schools in our customer base, growth of more than 50%. And of course, an increased penetration of complimentary content in the customer base. In addition, I'd like to highlight the top quality of this revenue, more concentrated in subscription projects, which is our strategy as we have announced. And it means that we have been able to do this with very high quality. Vasta is also Advancing towards being a complete and end-to-end K-12 platform, we have this new investment in Eduk Bank to provide more services to our partner schools. In addition to the services we already have available on the platform for partner schools. As regards ESG, we have launched our first sustainability report of VASTA, showing our commitment to disclose the company's results. So this has been excellent work. Congratulations to our team. Talking about Cogna, I believe that my first highlight, and I will announce that in great joy, this is the fifth consecutive quarter that we show operating improvements in this competitive scenario and still facing the challenges post-COVID. We have been able to maintain consistent improvements. our EBITDA margin growth driven by Croton and Vasta. And we also had improvements in recurring OCG with cash conversion of over 38%. We know, of course, EBITDA and EBITDA margin is very important, but OCG really shows the quality of the management work. With this operating cash generation, we've been able to keep a stable leverage we are having consistent drops in leverage. We're very distant from the covenant of three times. And looking ahead, we see positive operating cash generation. And so our leverage will continue to be reduced. On the ESG front, we are making progress On a number of fronts, we've launched our greenhouse gas inventory. We were the first education company to do that. And at Vasta, they have this program, Somos Afro. This is an inclusion program to include the black and mixed race population, which is extremely interesting, and only to give you a few numbers. This quarter, we conducted more than 220 social events projects, including 50,000 people who received these services, especially healthcare and education. We need talents and we are very happy because we have just received the Great Place to Work Award. It shows the work we have done on culture building and we will continue to do that. We've launched Hubble, which is Cognizant Innovation Hub. We call it a factory of startups. That is, we now have a team dedicated to supporting theses that are developed in the company with founders that may create products that today we do not have in our portfolio, but they may potentialize our growth in the future. With that, I'd like to move on to slide five to talk about Croton results. Our student base has grown more than 12% in total, led by low on-campus content programs, which is the previous premium and 100% online, so a growth of almost 14%. It doesn't mean that we're not growing in higher on-campus content programs, you know, with laboratories that's also growing about 9%, the high on-site attendance or high on-campus content. And this is precisely our strategy that is the focus of our company. And this growth was supported by different initiatives, commercial, marketing initiatives, but also the expansion of more than 1,000 hubs last year which has supported this growth in the first two quarters of 2022, and it will continue to help us grow in the future, in addition to our greater portfolio of online programs. So all of that has helped us reach this growth. Regarding undergraduate student dropout, the average is stable. Dropout of high on campus content or high on-site attendance is coming down because of many initiatives to gain efficiency in processes. But also let me remind you, this is only the second quarter. So we are showing you the dropout rate by the midpoint of this semester that is at the end of the first quarter. And we usually have a higher dropout rate at the end of the year. But anyway, this is an extraordinary number. And we hope to keep it in the third quarter, which is, of course, much more challenging. Now on slide six, let us talk about our net revenue. In the lower chart, you can see our net revenue evolution. So it's been a number of quarters that we announced that the revenue growth would be slower and then it will reach a point of inflection. So in the first quarter, We had minus 4.9 second quarter, minus 3.4. The point of inflection will be in 2023. I mean, this is what we announced, but looking at our performance now in the first quarter, we believe we will begin to see revenue growing already in the fourth quarter this year. So we are very happy with this. On slide seven, talking about average ticket, I think, This is a topic that always receives a number of questions from analysts. Now, when you look at first, at freshman year, we see a big supply. So we do not have a lot of control on the average ticket for freshmen. We are not engaged in a price war. We try to maintain our prices. When you compare 100% digital in the previous trade cycle to the current trade cycle, we can see that our tickets have remained stable. And of course, maybe we did not have as much volume as we could, but this was our strategy to maintain the average ticket. And now because we have more students on premium distance learning, we have this impact on the average ticket. So we believe that the best view of trade ticket, of average ticket is to work on the opportunity to leverage our operating results so we can gain more scale on digital products. Basically, the programs that have a higher digital content Every new student you have in the system, you have a lower cost per student. Because digital programs, they have a fixed cost and a variable cost for every new student is much lower than those programs when you have a higher on-campus content. So since you can maintain the same cost on digital programs, your margins tend to grow in time. That's why our strategy has always been, and if you look back, it's been five trade cycles that we've been talking not only about the volume, the number of students that have enrolled, but we also compare the revenue from one trade cycle to the previous one because we see that every trade cycle we have more operating leverage. So this is what you see on slide seven to help you understand this. So the average ticket looking at freshmen, this is a competitive market as I mentioned. So We, as I said, we keep stable prices, but this is a competitive market. There's not much we can do, but of course we can gain scale. So we're trying to increase the number of freshmen to have a higher revenue. And because the variable cost for digital products is very low, it means that in time we'll have a higher profitability. This is our strategy. So the average ticket... of out-of-pocket students had a drop of 652 in the first quarter to 635 in the second quarter, but I'm sorry, in the first quarter, 21 compared to the first quarter, 22. But if you look at the revenue, it has grown 12.4%. The average ticket had a drop, but the volume is growing. So again, it means that our revenue on Low on-campus content has grown 8%. So and that is comparing apples to apples. So higher on-campus content, campus content. Comparing two trade cycles so that we have a fair comparison for the average ticket. So this is what is happening and this is result of our product mix. the final highlight here. If you look at the press release, you will see we have lost FIAS and PEP students because they're graduating. They had, historically, they had higher average tickets. And so you see this impact because of the mix adjustment. So it used to be, it was 12%, you know, the share of these students is now 7%. So if

We have the inflation of payroll and also operational costs, and we are working on it. Otherwise, the impact would be much greater, but we know that PDA and marketing have contributed. I think that an important thing to highlight here is the growth of our EBITDA margin, even when confronted with this scenario. Many times we get questions about our PDA and whether the PDA reduction is reflected in extraordinary expenses, but we wanted to show you year on year that we had 18% last year. It's now down to 13%. It was 13% on the first quarter, so the percentage of net income is lower and we understand that PDA as a proportion of net income is stable. That's why our payments are now more stable. So these are not related to anything but a more efficient operation. Now helping us with margins, we have been working on to reduce our acquisition costs and this is reflected in the contribution of marketing. Now, moving on to slide number nine, just a quick comment in relation to our accounts receivable. To the right, if you consider the out-of-pocket accounts receivable, it's been dropping even though the out-of-pocket is growing. Our PDA in that regard is decreasing because our students now have more ability payment ability and the average term of receivables has spiraled down. And we had a reduction of over 16 days where now it's for the average time of receivables. And going back to the left side of the slide, you can see that total account receivables is now stable at 5 million. With slight growth from PMT and PEPI, so this is only natural because of the maturing cycle of PP students. We know that we are not enrolling new PP students for several trade cycles. But of course, there is an evolution semester by semester because this is only natural. And I think that the highlight here is not, you know, accounts receivable is no longer a problem for us. We're feeling very comfortable about the results we have achieved. Now, closing slide 10, CrotonMed is a very important segment for our strategy. We have an organic growth plan with maturity at over 850% Today we have 556 medical seats, so there's still room to mature organically. But I think that we have to underscore the growth of revenue in the first half. And here we had growth of over 30% showing our strength to grow organically. We announced guidance for the market during our Cognite Day. And we have surpassed it both in EBITDA and revenue. 50% of the year is now spent. We have surpassed 50% of the guidance and 54% of EBITDA. We know that the second half of the year always has greater numbers of students enrolled. So we will exceed the guidance given. And we're feeling very confident about this vertical, which is one of our top growth opportunities. With this, I close Croton, and I'll hand it over to Mario Gil, Vasta's CEO, for his presentation. Thank you very much. I would like to start our presentation talking about the operational data. Now at the close of the semester, which is when we have the basis of schools and students, we close with over 1.2%. 1 million students using our core products and approximately 5,400 partner schools. And the use of complementary content represented an addition of 100,000 students to our base. We have now 400,000 students that use at least one complementary content solution, reaching 1,300 schools in those complementary solutions as well. Since the IPO, we have taken several initiatives to expand our sources of revenue, launching new products and solutions. And I would like to mention that we have now concluded the integration of the Eleva Learning System. And we are now put into operation our Fibonacci learning system, and signed a distribution agreement with McKinsey. As for our complementary solutions, well, they were expanded. Our portfolio is now more robust, and I would like to mention that we have moved into the B2B2C segment with the launch of PluralMilprof and PluralAdapter for private tutoring and teaching. very soon these lines will be more significant to our revenue. In digital services, we look at the schools and institutions that need to have their operations upgraded. So we have added several brands, such as CLM and Fidelis to our portfolio with the goal of meeting the demand of our partner schools. And especially in this quarter, we took a very significant step forward as we announce our minority investment that will be consolidated in our net worth results with the investment of Eduk Bank. Eduk Bank is very important for us because it ensures predictability and recurrence of revenue. And we believe that Eduk Bank, together with Fidelis, which is our ERP system, those will be very important tools to boost the efficiency of our schools together with their profitability. We know that there are around 70 billion in this market. And in our estimates, the partner schools of Vasta now have been acquired 17 billion reais. This is the tuition volume that Eduk Bank could provide if all schools were reached. through this partnership with Vasta. In the next slide, number 13, I would like to talk a little bit about our net revenue. We grew 35% approximately, reaching 190 million reais in the quarter. Year to date, from the fourth quarter last year to the second quarter this year, we grew to 960 million reais in net revenue. is significantly higher than the previous period. And here we have subscription products with 450 million in the cycle. And we have recognized a little over 85% of the ACV that has been converted into revenue. And we are feeling confident that all the rest of this ACV will be converted in the next semester. Now, moving on to slide 14. to discuss ACV conversion. As I said, more than 85% of the ACV has been captured and has been transformed into net revenue. And we have a different seasonal impact because McKenzie, for example, has more revenue in the second semester. So as such, we will have less concentration and with the growth of McKenzie in the following years. we will have a semester that will be a little heftier than the previous semesters in the previous cycle. So therefore, we have less concentration in subscription revenue when compared to previous cycles. Now, for the next semester, we expect that the additional 14.5% of ACV will be fully converted into revenue at the close of the cycle ending on the third quarter and from the fourth quarter quarter on, we will have the ACV for 2023. Now, looking at EBITDA in slide 15, in the cycle recurring, EBITDA grew 68%, totaling a little above 990 million, with margin growth of 7.4 percentage points. We credit this expansion to of margin from net revenue growth, but also to the efficiency gains in our financial discipline and also our integration with Eleva, exploring our synergies and improving our line of costs and expenses. And by the way, our cash generation reached 103 million reais in the second quarter, and we were able to reverse our cash generation losses in the comparison. And this substantial improvement in cash generation comes from the improvement in EBITDA and our receivables and a reduction in the PDA of schools that have now neared historical levels. And of course, the contribution of our working capital. So thank you very much for your attention. And now I'll hand it over to Fred Villa. Thank you very much, Gil. I will start my presentation on saber on slide 17. Speaking of the main financial highlights, here we know that saber benefits from the national textbook program, and red balloon also represents around 50% of our revenue. In the quarter, we had a reduction of revenue of around 19%, and in the semester, around 8%. Well, in spite of the growth that we reported in Red Balloon, we saw new schools being added, approximately eight of them, and there was also expansion in the student base. So revenue grew in Red Balloon, but there was a reduction in revenue obtained through the National Textbook Program. And this was by reason of the greater seasonality of the National Textbook Business Calendar. The reflection was felt in our recurring EBITDA end margin. There was a reduction in EBITDA in the semester, in the accumulated semester. EBITDA reached 29 million. in the first half and in the second, just 22, a reduction of 22.6% that is explained by the seasonality of the National Textbook Program, as I explained. Just to close the presentation on saber, we now move on to slide 19 to speak about Cogna. And here I start with the main financial indicators, net revenue and recurring EBITDA. Looking at the quarter and semester, I think that the key message here, last year we said that 2022 would be the inflection point for Cogna's revenue growth. So in spite of the fact that we are flat in revenue growth at 0.2% in the quarter, in the semester, we observed 3.3% growth reaching 2,332 million reais. So in this semester, the growth is explained by everything that Mário Valério and Mário Guias said. The evolution in Croton, well, there was a positive cycle and growth was very significant in Vasta, growing revenue at 34%. Now, moving from net revenue, where we have positive news in the semester, we look at recurring EBITDA and margin. In the second quarter, EBITDA grew 11.4%. and margin reached 30.7%. So in addition to revenue growth, we see the effect of our efficiencies in our business. In Croton, there was an improvement in delinquency rates that is reflected in PDA. And here in terms of corporate expenses, there was a reduction of around 9%. This, of course, boosts our efficiency And for the fifth consecutive quarter, we post growth in EBITDA. I think that the most important message is the one we see on slide 20. We have reinforced in recent conference calls the importance of our operating cash generation. So on the slide to the right, from the first semester of 2021 in this comparison, which is the best way of demonstrating this, because as you probably remember, there was a mismatch with the anticipation of receivables in the first semester of 2021. So in the semester, we have reached 291 million with growth of 47%. And in the comparison from the first half, 21 to 22, our operating cash generation from zero in 2020 reached 291 million reais. And the focus, of course, for the coming semesters will show that the improvement in the quality of our students will lead to very positive delinquency rates at the level of today. And now, moving on and finishing Cognizant, Presentation in slide 21, we take a look at leverage. And our leverage ratio is under control. As you can see on the upper part of the slide, our net debt over-adjusted EBITDA is shown as an evolution. And in the last five quarters, while we went from a leverage of 2.13% We are now down to 209. And remember that we had an interbank interest rate at the time of around 3% at that time. And now we are over 13%. So our focus on operating cash generation has paid off. And we have been able to maintain our leverage flat. Looking at the debt composition, our company finishes the first semester with 3.7 billion reais in cash and cash equivalents with a reduction of 3.1 million reais in net debt. And to the right, we see a chart showing that in the month of August, we will have an amortization of approximately and the company reinforces the message that with the current cash and operating cash generation that we have seen in the last quarters, we will be able to amortize our debt in the short and medium term. We emphasize now that at the end of the second quarter, some initiatives and Considering the increase in interest rate, we have bought back some of our debt below par. And we also had issuance of approximately 500 million reais with an average lower cost than the last debt raise in 2021 and with the lengthening of our debt profile. So the message here is that leverage and debt are both under control in the company. With this, I close in slide 21 this brief presentation, and I'll turn it over to Mr. Valeri for his final remarks. Thank you very much, Fred. Moving on to slide 22, I think that the first point I would like to highlight is that Croton had good retention and enrollment results. So we believe that the inflection point for revenue will be anticipated and we can expect growth of revenue still this year with the resumption of growth in Croton. And both the growth team and the customer experience teams in Croton have worked very hard to make it So we're feeling very excited about it. And secondly, something I have said is that the reduction of delinquency rates is the fruit of our labors in the student base, both in enrollments and re-enrollments. We were able to cleanse our base and this will take us to a new PDA over net revenue ratio. This is another important factor. So together with revenue growth, we have a new perspective for PDA. All of this shows that we have solid operating and EBITDA margins and looking at recurring EBITDA margins, the outlook is positive. So cautiously positive because of the current situation in Brazil. but I think that the tough times for Croton are in the past and we continue to make advances to deliver everything that our teams can. In Vasta, I think what Gil has mentioned show our strength in Vasta, our competence and our ability to deliver. In 2021, Vasta was affected by the pandemic, but this is now in the past. Growth is feeling is coming on very strongly, both in learning systems and also on this focus on subscription. All of the restructuring conducted by GEO is also driving growth of margin in a perennial way. It's not something that's only short term. And the diversification through several initiatives also shows our commitment to continue to offer new solutions to our schools. So this is just the early days of a new cycle of ideas, and we're feeling very optimistic about VASTA in the near future. And adding up the two organizations, well, this would represent around 90% of the company's results. So because of this, we're feeling very excited about the future. In Cogna, in 2021, we had to pursue our profitability or this resumption of profitability. And then during Cogna Day, we said that we needed to improve our profitability and at the same time make improvements in revenue growth. Vasta is delivering this. Cogna is about to deliver this. And all of this shows that our strategy is coming to fruition. With the increase of our interest rates in Brazil, we have to take some countermeasures. But Fred did a great job. He has mentioned two aspects in the buyback for the quarter, and there are other initiatives underway. Everything with the purpose of reducing the debt service. And the final message in terms of leverage is that we are at a healthy level under control. Our cash generation is more than enough to pay off everything that we need to amortize in our debt and to continue growing. So just before I conclude, I would like to reinforce that the IR team will be happy to answer any of your questions. We'll be opening now for the Q&A, but both the presentation and all of the information have been posted to our website, So if there is anything that we are unable to answer to you here during the conference call, you can go and look up that information. Ladies and gentlemen, we will start our Q&A. To ask a question, please press star one. And to remove your question from the line, star two. Please hold as we collect the questions.