2023-11-10 11:00:33
By working ‘from the inside’, Ânima Educação managed to expand its cash generation, reducing its leverage at a time when the share is trading close to its historic low.
Net debt fell by R$234 million and closed the quarter at R$2.8 billion.
As a result, leverage fell from 3.9x in the second quarter to 3.4x, finally remaining below the covenant of 3.5x that the company has to meet at the end of the year. Ânima had told the market that it would only come into compliance with the covenant in the fourth quarter.
“We did our homework,” said CFO Átila Simões. “We generated a lot of cash, optimized working capital, brought more efficiency to our structures. We are constructive with the prospects for the fourth quarter and 2024.”
For example, the company managed to improve its adjusted EBITDA margin by 6.70 percentage points by cutting teaching, staff and corporate costs.
To help reduce debt, the company sold a performing credit portfolio worth around R$200 million.
CEO Marcelo Battistella Bueno told Brazil Journal that leverage could even fall with better funding in the summer, due to lower inflation and the Selic’s downward trend.
The company said that the average ticket grew in all segments – Ânima Core (+1.4%), Inspirali (+4.8%) and Digital Education (20.4%). Adjusted EBITDA for the last twelve months (including rental costs) went from R$777 million in the second quarter to R$824 million in the third – the seventh consecutive quarter of increase.
Net revenue was R$940 million, a growth of 3.9%, and gross profit was R$637 million, with a margin of 67.8% – 4.2 points above the third quarter of last year.
On the negative side, funding fell 8%, led by a drop of almost 16% in EAD – according to Ânima, the result of strategies to balance volume, tickets and consumption of working capital.
At Inspirali, the medical courses vertical, the average ticket increased, but the EBITDA margin fell to 51.3%, compared to 58.2% last year.
“In the second quarter of last year there was a reversal of PDD and there was no FG-FIES, so it appears that there was a drop. But our results are growing consistently at Inspirali,” said the CEO.
Geraldo Samor and Pedro Arbex
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