Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank you all for joining the conference call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results.

Joining me on this call are Frederico Villa, our Chief Financial Officer; Guilherme Mélega, our Vice President of K-12 Education; and Jeferson Ortiz, our Vice President of Higher Education; and Rodrigo Cavalcanti as well. This call is different from the last call.

We have some introductions from the market, and we will do it a little bit different. It will last about 1 hour, composed of 20 minutes of presentation and 40 minutes for Q&A.

Therefore, you have more opportunities to ask questions, and then we can have a fireside chat. Be welcome.

I would like to begin highlighting that this quarter of 2026 was very positive results, with the two BUs really growing. Obviously, we're to highlight to the BU of basic education, which is growing along all its business lines, the B2B and B2G.

Reinforcing, and I always like to say that this quarter is a very good example that shows the quality of our strategy to act in a very diverse segment, not only with higher education, but also in basic education, and the diversification of the portfolio within all these different segments, and no doubt the quality of its execution since we began the turnaround of the company in 2021. I believe that the whole market recognized.

The consistency of all deliveries in some quarters, one BU performing a little bit better than the others. We have the seasonality of all the different businesses, but showing a very strong strength.

Last year, the higher education was very good. This quarter, and obviously the second quarter, the basic education performing really well.

The composition made the company to grow at a very high rate. Talking a little bit about the financial highlights.

Our net revenue grew almost 18%, pushed by the basic education, and the semester is even stronger. We grew almost 25% year-over-year.

The EBITDAs are growing 6.8% on the quarter and almost 14% in the semester. I like to highlight the semester because in the business of higher education, the semester brings a neutrality that may be not a big difference between semester, including the enrollment.

I also highlight the margin pressures in relation to the new regulatory framework. We would have pressure on the margins, and that wouldn't mean the reduction of growth in EBITDA and generation of cash because we replace EAD with a percentual margin with on-site and hybrid courses that have a higher percentual margin, but the growth is steady, and this is very clear.

Even though we are losing 3 points in the margin in the quarter and 2.7 in the semester, the EBITDA, both for the higher education and also Cogna as a whole, keeps growing in the semester almost 15%. In relation of the free cash flow, we are considering the free cash flow with almost 88% of growth.

We generated free cash flow of R$504 million. As a reference, last year, the whole entire year, we generated R$716 million.

In the first semester, we reached R$504 million, which is a very important growth. The net profit also 23% in the quarter and 35% in the semester.

Once again, this quarter was a quarter of reducing debts. We've reduced it R$21 million in debt.

I will explore this a little bit more in the specific slide that I will talk about capital allocation and what we are thinking and what we've been executing in a very constant fashion in terms of capital allocation. Moving to the next slide, the one that talks about the revenues.

I believe that this is very clear, the diversity of our business. I would like to highlight the growth of basic education.

You see that we are growing 50% in the quarter and 60% in the semester. For those who have the opportunity to read our report, you see that all lines are growing.

If we get basic education and segment it B2B and B2G, within B2B, the subscription grew 22% in the quarter and 18% in the semester. The non-subscription, in refers to textbooks, 33% in the semester and 17% in the semester.

As much as our language that we have Red Balloon and others that have important growth, growing 31% in the quarter and 20% in the semester, meaning that the lines of B2B growing in a very strong way, in a steady way. I know that B2G and the solutions for the government had an extraordinary growth in the semester, but I would like to highlight that was not only due to the B2G that we grew strongly the revenue in the basic education.

Our lines and our products B2B meeting the demand to schools, partners, and franchises and growing very steadily. Talking about basic education, one important highlight to the PNLD growing 450%.

It's important to highlight the three things. There is a displacement in the revenue from the PNLD that generally is in the fourth quarter and the first semester.

Everybody knows and had this information, there was a displacement on the revenue to the first and the second quarters. This is one of the reasons of the PNLD growing so much.

It's important to highlight as well that the program of mid education, it was bigger than the initial expectation, and then so that why we had more revenue, and the company achieved 8 points of market share. We moved from 22% in the last program to 30% in the textbooks.

The program was much bigger, and we achieved more market share. Also, there was a displacement for the second cycle, and that benefit the results for the second semester on PNLD, but a strong result even without the displacement.

In the B2G, our line of solutions, specific solutions with the Secretariat of Education in the states and municipalities, we follow the growth, 45% of the growth in the quarter and 35% in the semester. It's a line of business that not too far away, less than R$41 million of revenue 4 years ago, and last year the revenue was R$400 million, and we still have a lot of opportunities to grow.

Speaking briefly about the higher education, it grew 6.3% in the quarter and more in the semester. Our business B2C, 6.3% and 8.5% in the semester.

Then there was a transitional moment in the change in the regulation with the change in the profile of more on-site than hybrid, but continuous growing in a consistent way. As I say, I like to look at the semester because it's more stable and a growth of 8.5% on revenue.

Moving to the next slide and talking about EBITDA and margin, it wouldn't be different. Strong growth in the basic education brings results on the EBITDA of the basic education growing 62.7% in the quarter and 60.5% in the semester, and we have an expansion in the margin.

We are achieving better margin. It's important to remind you that the PNLD has less mean growth than the B2B, it ends up pulling our margin a little bit downwards.

Even with a concentrated growth on PNLD, our margin grew and shows the quality of the basic education in terms of portfolio and also services offered to our clients. Higher education, the EBITDA grew a little bit less, but 1.8% in the quarter and 2.5% in the semester.

We are losing margin, as we've mentioned, due to the mix. However, we understand that this is a transitional moments, and it's natural that it occurs, and we are continually looking at a growth in terms of nominal and absolute, both in the revenue and EBITDA looking ahead.

When we move to the net profit, we grew 18% in the quarter and 23% in the semester. I think that the highlight here is due to the operational results, very financial discipline, and talking about the GCL, it's a highlight in the company, our capacity of making important investments that we've been investing in capex and making our investments both in expansion and also related to technology use.

Following this investments, we are still growing with the GCL. The leverage, we got to 1.63 in EBITDA, and I would like to highlight that it's the smallest leverage since 2017.

It did not fall more because we had other levers that we are going to explore, and then I can clarify some of your questions. Otherwise, the leverage would have fall even more.

Then on the chart, the yellow line, you see the mean cost of the debt. There was an increase of the mean cost.

Then in the second quarter, we have the incorporation of the EduBank that we have credit lines that are more expensive than the Cogna average. We understand that this mean cost, this is going to reflect in the numbers.

Moving to the last slide before the questions and answers and talking about allocation of capital. It's noticeable, and we've been talking for the past 3, 4 years that our priorities in terms of capital allocation are financial expenses, the reduction of financial expenses, and the reduction of debts.

In our case of basic education, reducing the withdrawn that has a risk above our mean average. The risk, it's R$36.7 million, and we have the responsibility to reduce our expenses in the line, and also the reduction of the net debt, 21.8%, fully aligned with everything that we've been saying, looking to reduce the debt not only through leverage, since we have this optimum leverage, but to reduce the financial expenses, which is quite heavy due to the interest rate in the market.

We did it, we are still giving good return to our shareholders. We pay R$28.5 million in dividends, adding to the R$120 million paid in February, and distributed R$148 million in dividends to our shareholders.

As we always say, strategic M&As, a part of our strategy. Last year, we had an acquisition of a medical school at a cost per seat very positive, around R$750 million, and we bought an edtech to strengthen our other business, Instituto Mauá and many other clients.

Now in this quarter, we have the acquisition, we were already investors on EduBank, we had 43% of the startup, and now we bought 47% for R$46 million. You see that this is a important and well-balanced capital allocation looking for the reduction of financial expenses.

We have small and important strategic acquisitions that are important to generate value. The same thing that we did when we created our B2G business.

It began small, and now it's quite important. The same thing for [Starti Anglo?]

, and now we have 70 contracts celebrated with schools already working. We move on with this vision of balancing capital allocation, but without giving up differentiation of the company.

Having said that, I would now want to pass on to Q&A, and as your request, we left more room for questions and clarify the questions that you may have.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to ask questions, and congratulation of the new format.

The first question is in relation to the vestibular in the second half of the year. How do you see the demand and the ticket in higher education?

Second question, please, if you could tell us about the commercial cycle 2027? Okay?

Hi, Marcelo. How are you?

Thank you for the questions. In relation to the vestibular, it's important to say that everybody knew that this cycle would be very challenging due to some specific factors, the same one because at the same date last year, we had an increase of the demand because the market knew that the rules would change.

A lot of people sped up and made their enrollments, and we observed that. We had a growth that was very fast, both in enrollment for the in-person and also the hybrid, with a growth in volume a single-digit very high, which made it very clear in a competitive base an important challenge.

This first important aspect to bring. The second one, we have this dynamic of the World Cup, and we observed that during the World Cup, the enrollment did not follow the same pattern.

Then at the end of the World Cup, they sped up, and we noticed that this was kind of clogged. Our classes began recently.

Our in-person began Monday this week, and the hybrid began last week. We know that the very first 3 weeks, there is a lot of new enrollments.

We've been seeing the seasonality of the enrollments a little bit different and a big challenge that we have in relation to the base comparing to last year. Having said that, including the vestibular is very challenging from the perspective of volume.

We are not growing generally speaking. Obviously, the dynamic among modalities between in-person and hybrid performed better than the EAD.

Along the modalities, we are following the same dynamic of the first cycle of collections. That's what I said.

EAD decreasing around 30% and on-site and hybrid growing. On the point of view of the tickets, we see some aggressiveness in the offering.

We've increased our prices through the month of June. Imagine that the market would pretty much do the same, and it didn't happen.

What is going on now in a slower fashion than what we anticipated before, and then we reduced the price more towards the end of the World Cup, and we sped up our enrollments. I know that I end up passing a lot of information, but I try to make the explanation a little bit simpler.

We knew that the scenario was going to be challenging due to the comparative basis. After this year and the basis are the same, after next year the percentual growth will become more clear.

As we are speeding up in the past few weeks, we understand that we still have a lot of things to move forward. Today, the reduction of enrollment year-over-year without creating any harm for the future revenue because the average tickets are higher, and this cycle of collection is smaller, affecting very little the students' base.

We are continuously growing, and looking at our forecast, we see a growth in the revenue in the third and fourth quarter. I ended up answering all the questions.

Now we can move on to somebody else.

Thank you, Roberto. Thank you, Marcelo.

Let me just give a little bit of flavor in our commercial cycle for 2027, reminding you that this commercial cycle for 2027 is composed by two segments based. One is the maintenance of the renew of our base schools, and the other one is the commercial harvest of new contracts, both coming from new schools and also contracts coming from the current schools.

In relation to the renewal, we've been having a very positive behavior in our base. We have to be ahead of the renewals that we had last year and pulling by the premium brands.

We have a renew cycle very robust until this very moment. When it comes to the commercial harvest of our contracts, we had a first quarter very heated up, different from other sectors in the economy that had the effect of the World Cup and so on.

We did not see the same. We saw a constant flow of new contracts significantly above the previous year, including new schools and also contracts of the farming, that of the base contracts.

Reminding you that the first semester historically speaking corresponds to 20% of the total. The trend of the first 20% is quite positive.

If it remains the same, we'll get a much better harvest than we had last year. The whole entire game is going to be played in the second semester, but we are very strong and very, very heated up.

Thank you very much for your question, Marcelo.

Thank you both for your answers.

Good morning, everyone. The first one is related to the average ticket.

I was doing a follow-up in relation to Roberto's answer. What called our attention, the second quarter is that you showed a growth of the average ticket in all modalities, different from what we had seen in the other companies.

Considering the second semester that you talked about the competition a little bit more challenging, and you had a reduction in price recently, I want to know if it makes sense that this average ticket in the second semester so to make it a little bit more clear. Second is the PNLD.

We know that is a stronger driver for growth in the revenue in the first semester, and understand if this level of the growth in the revenue for the second semester could be repeated in the second semester. I want you to comment on that.

I'll get the first question, and then the second we will pass to Mélega. A good part of the increase of the average ticket comes from the strategy of repassing the prices for the students' base.

It is important to say. We've done it historically for many years.

We can repass it above the inflation rate, so that helps us with the average ticket, including the base. In the specific case of the comment that I made in the terms of the competition, it doesn't have a trend to impact negatively the average ticket because we tried to increase and not reduce from the point where we were.

There was an average point for the on-site and EAD. Our intention is that given our new regulatory framework, we try to pull the price up, assuming that additional cost, the market would do the same movement.

In fact, it did, not in the same dimension and all the portfolio that we've had. We had to make adjustments to down because of the process, I thank you.

It's not that we are reducing the average ticket vis-a-vis with the previous movements, we try to make it go up, and then we had to make adjustments. I think that the explanation is clearer now.

Thank you, Lucca. I'll give a little bit more flavor to that.

In the first semester, we recognize R$431 million of PNLD, which basically the PNLD for the basic and the previous cycle, the PNLD that historically it is recognized in thinking the previous year as the basis. We have to look at this year, and we recognize R$431 million in the first semester.

This number, when compared to the first semester of 2025, correspond of 1,400% growth, and this is not typical and reflects with most of the problem with basic education, meaning that this is concentrated in the first semester. We had already did a lot in what is still missing for the second semester in the PNLD, some repurchases that are done from one fund and the program of the Fund 2.

The repurchase of Fund 2 and the program of the Fund 1, which is the program that is being announced now. If we have the same procedure that we had with the other segment, we will have a small percentage in the second semester.

Just to give an idea of the values, what in terms of a repurchase that has already been informed by the PNLD, we would have something around R$56 million of revenue in the second semester because this has already orders placed to us. In relation to the Fund 1, it's a much smaller program, basically half, and that depends on the amount the government will buy in 2026 and then how much this is going to be turned for 2027.

Keeping the same ratio, we should have a recognition of a Fund 2 of something around R$20 million if it's the same percentage of the previous year, depending on our market share, which is unknown. These are the grandeurs that you can expect for the PNLD for the second semester.

Very clear. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Good morning.

The last call, you talked about 120 polos in operational margins appear for the second semester, if I'm not mistaken, it was close to our base 30 million students, according to the regulatory framework. My question is how many polos of this 120 are already authorized?

What is your expectation to recover part of this volume? My second question, we had some months for the integration.

I would like to understand, you begin seeing the benefits and be it in the cross-selling or cost reduction of others, and specifically on the B2G, do we have any evidence in terms of the average ticket in relation to the contracts? Thank you.

Maria Eduarda, thank you very much for your question. Jeferson will answer related to the polos with nursing, and Mélega will get the second question.

Thank you, Maria Eduarda. Thank you very much for your question.

In the perspective of our polos, we had 120, and we received the authorization for 113, all of them structure to operate. They began operating the cycle of fundraising in a very positive way according to the regulatory demands.

This is important for the higher education. When we look at the cycle of fundraising, the dynamic, we've already talked about it, and it's quite important to understand most of all the operations.

The cycle has a different dynamism, but all polo have enrollment, and we have one cycle that even though it's short, basically it's very favorable when we look ahead with the number of enrollment. We have a very positive growth with the interaction since the beginning of the operation, and the expectation is even more favorable for 2027.

Thank you, Maria Eduarda. Let me talk a little bit about integration.

Yes, we are already talking about a lot of synergies, and I will talk about the most relevant, the most important one, the commercial synergy that we are acting together with an integrated team. The B2G market is now one, and we integrated the portfolio.

We had complementarity of products, and we could segment better those products. The result you'll see by means of the sales, and year to date, we have 30% more sales on the B2G.

This is very clear, a synergy of a joint actuation. We are quite optimistic with this business line.

The main synergy and one of the main motivators of the integration was that we could act with much more robust in the public area, which is this important market that we are acting. Continue considering the synergies that we had already captured.

As we no longer have the same expenses in terms of councils and governance and auditing, and so now we have an important reduction of costs and synergy that we've captured. When you look at our operational expenses, we've been working absorbing inflation, both on the side of the expenses as much as on the side of the revenue.

The synergies are here on the first semester. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next question comes from the analyst sell-side of the Citi.

Thank you very much for this space and open for questions. I have two questions on our side.

The first one, I would like you to talk about the adequacy. I would like to get this capex ahead considering for the end of 2026 and 2027.

Second question is related to the Riva of tariffs. What's the strategy in terms of when it comes to the Riva of tariff?

Because last year, we had an acceleration and upcycle of those products. I want to understand a little bit your perception in the product offering when it comes to the Riva of tariffs.

Hello, Renan. Your first question relates to capex.

As we've mentioned before, we are having more investment in capex. As we've said before, had an impact in the maturation of our courses in the medical field and other capex that we are doing, we already have some return.

In this quarter, we had a capex of R$450 million, the growth versus in the second semester of 2025, R$50 million as I've mentioned. When I look at last year, 2026 in relation to 2025, I had already talked about that wouldn't have a growth in capex in infrastructure and technology that would be around last year of R$500 million and now a little bit above R$600 million.

For the next year, looking at the net following years, we should be keeping this capex close to the 2026, different from what 2025 was. However, this is not a reason for changing of regulatory framework, because in the regulatory framework, the effect of nursing in the polos, but the polos that make a lot of investments in the polos.

These are all related to our medical courses and some capex that we are making that we do have return for our shareholders, giving the example that what we are doing, investing in a medical field and some of our campi that are not that big, but we understand that these investments can increase the average ticket of collection in our units of medical schools. Second question is the Riva of tariff.

We working with the same of the previous cycle. Comparatively speaking is in line, no increment.

Reminding you that this is a parcel of the installments of payment. The student that is joining now in August should have paid the July.

We make installments throughout the entire courses. We are doing the same thing of installments that we did last year.

We are not projecting any huge impact of receivables in relation to the step-by-step. Clear.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Good morning.

The first question is relation to the capital allocation that Roberto talked a little bit about. I want to understand about dividends, giving this strong generation of cash flow, and structurally is stronger, and the level of leverage that you have now.

I would like to know from you, when are we going to see there's a policy of dividends a little bit higher, an increase on the payout giving this composition of low leverage and stronger cash flow? The second question is related to the PNLD, the revenue for next year giving this competitive base that it's quite difficult that we are going to have.

What should we expect for the revenue in terms of the PNLD for 2027? Can we grow the revenue in face of all the repurchases?

What do we expect? Thank you.

Hello, Caio. This is Fred.

I would like to get the first question about leverage and what would be the capital allocation here. The discussion about dividends is the discussion that we've been having, and many questions are coming from our shareholders.

We do have an ongoing discussion, but our understanding that the best allocation for our capital is continue to reduce our financial expenses. We are in the optimum leverage.

We do not need to reduce our leverage. The optimum leverage is allow us a better benefit in the line of income tax.

However, we are reducing so the drawn risk. In terms of a leverage, it doesn't consider that our leverage and net debt over the EBITDA of financial debts according to our clauses.

However, we have one line, which is the payment for the suppliers in 360 days, and this line supplies basically our business of Somos and Saber, a line of paper and printing. We have the books and booklets.

However, our understanding that the best allocation of our capital is to reduce the financial expenses due to the high cost of the Selic tax. However, we are here having this discussion, and in a second moment, we could increase and have a better dividend policy and increase our payout.

Second question related to the PNLD, I will pass it to Guilherme.

Let me give a little bit of a flavor here. The PNLD program is the biggest program of PNLD in high school.

That's the one that we have more students and more recent. The program that we are now going in and Fundamental 1 with the size of the program, historically it's half of the PNLD program.

The purchase cycles is yet to come. It's smaller than what we have just lived in the high school.

Your question is related to 2027 and what's missing. We have many variables that, in fact, we do not control.

The first one is how much of this new program is going to be bought in 2027? Last year, there was a small percentage, around 15%, 18% that was bought in the same year.

The rest moved on to 2027. For the time being, it's the best current number that I have to tell you for the year in terms of the PNLD for Fund 1.

We do not know the market share of this PNLD. Assuming that the market share will explode, we will be around 25% in the program.

It's a program that is half of the previous one, we would have around 25%. What is recognized this year, if it's the same as last year, would be around 15%.

However, for next year, we have one expected repurchase in the high school, much higher. We've performed well with 30% of the market share.

Historical percentages of repurchase are around 30%. I'm giving historical references, not guidances, as Fred mentioned.

We don't know how much it's going to be for the high school, but the historical repurchase is 30% in a program that we had around R$500 million in revenue. These are the big numbers to tell you related to PNLD with a lot of uncertainties due to all the changes from the government.

I understand. Just one quick follow-up.

Why don't you issue debts? Because your cost of debts around 1.6 paid and paid this cost that is much higher.

Thank you, Caio. Naturally, it's what we are doing already.

We are in the midst of a discussion about that, increase our bank debt with a very low capital cost and reduce the other one. This is what you, investors and analysts, will observe for the next months.

That's precisely that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I also have two questions.

The first is nursing and the polos. From those 113 polos, what is the perspective of occupation of the vacancies in the middle of the year?

This would be interesting for the first semester. When you said, Valério, that is growing, considering this upside of nursing and the polos.

The second question is related to the margin for basic education. Thinking under the perspective for the next 2 months, what's going to happen to the PNLD?

What is the perspective of margin in volumes of PNLD? Maybe the revenue is strong, and maybe it would be a little bit more favorable for the margin.

Thank you.

Hello, Lucas. Thank you for the questions.

I'll get the first one for nursing, and Mélega will take the second. In relation to the nursing, we are quite optimistic with the polos.

We had more than 400 polos in EAD, the ministry authorized only 113 that we talked about. The expectation is that, as the minister promised year after year, they increase the polos as we had this opportunity.

Specifically talking about the 113, they are already active, and they are enrolling students. The main challenge is to enroll 100 in the mid-year cycle.

It's quite difficult. I can tell you that we won't be able to occupy 100 of the openings because this is a shorter cycle of less enrollments.

We've received the authorization and we began operating in 45 to 50 days ago. There is a repressed demand, but it's a demand that comes throughout the year, but we are quite optimistic with nursing when we look ahead.

The cycle, the main challenge when we enroll as many students as possible, but due to this shorter cycle.

Hello, Lucas. According to our margins of basic education, we observed that in the first semester and the second quarter is that, in fact, and I believe that the gross revenue, we are 10 pp below when we compare to 2025, and this is clearly the burden of the PNLD that we had in the high school, this concentration of high school that we had in the first semester of 2026.

This effect of the PNLD that lowers in 10 pp, and I said that the PNLD is going to be smaller in the second semester with a concentration in the B2B and B2G. Reminding you that the fourth quarter is the big one for the supplier because it's the back-to-school, and we're going to have an effect on the margins and also in the B2G.

Our expectation is that it will continue to grow, and this is going to be compensated the margin that was below in the first semester. Historically speaking that we did not have a concentration in the B2G, the margin was 30% on the EBITDA, and if we look at incorporating Saber, this margin should, due to the PNLD, it should be a little bit bigger, but on the other hand, we have B2B growing and B2G growing as well, that will give another weight to this margin.

It's not an absurd to think about when we look ahead so around 30%.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you very much for the follow-up.

My question would be to Mélega. Mélega, we are in election year, everybody knows.

I want to understand how do you see the risks in the contracts like B2G with a change in the government? It would be interesting to know how many the contracts are for the states or municipalities, any consideration you may provide.

Marcelo, thank you very much for the question. Let me give a little bit of a context.

Telling you that we are also learning in this segment. This is the very first governmental change that we are going to face, but we have a very diversified portfolio in B2G.

We have hundreds of municipalities and some states. We have the state of Pará and Paraná, São Paulo, and Bahia with products and solutions with different contract types.

We do have big clients in the states and lots of clients in the municipalities, and the elections won't have a relevant impact, reminding you that all the contracts B2G are annual. We do not have pluriannual contracts in B2G.

We have renew of contracts that are good performing. What we expect is that the election does not cause any friction on the rhythm of our business growth, and we don't see that.

We see states keeping their contracts and new entries, and also municipalities that the capillarity is very big are continuously growing and representing the biggest base of our contracts, they are already in force.

All right. Thank you very much.

I don't have access to the audio.

Thank you all very much for those who participated in the pool of results, one more quarter that we understand that we are keeping moving and growing. I would like to thank everyone, more than 25,000 collaborators that are building a much better company and meeting the demands of our clients.

Thank you all. Have a great day, and until next time.