Cogna Educacao S.A.

Cogna Educacao S.A.

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 7, 2026

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. Welcome to the teleconference to disclose the results of the first quarter of 2026 of Cogna Educação.

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Before going on, we'd like to clear that eventual declarations made during this teleconference relative to the perspectives of business projections, operational and financial targets, are confident beliefs of the company administration, as information currently available for Cogna performance, and they involve risks and uncertainties, as we'll persist, as well as investors and analysts should understand the conditions of the sector or other operational factors can affect the future results of Cogna, leading to different results from the ones expressed in the future consideration. Now, I'd like to pass on the floor to Mr.

Roberto Valério, CEO of Cogna, that will start his presentation. Please, Mr.

Roberto, you may go on. Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for being in this teleconference to discuss the results of our first quarter 2026. We have here in this call with the CEO, our Financial Vice President Guilherme Mélega, our Vice President of Kroton, and Jefferson.

This call should last 1 hour, comprising 40 minutes of presentation and then 20 minutes of the Q&A. I'd like to start in slide 3, mentioning something very important to us that this April, we celebrated 60 years of a wonderful story that started with 5 teachers in 1966, 5 teachers and 35 students at Pitágoras course in Belo Horizonte.

The most important part is that 33 out of the 35 students were approved in our FAT. Our history of approval has always been very high, considering the early beginning of our history at Pitágoras.

Now, we have more than 25 million students in our educational institutions, and as they have both education systems, technical courses, graduation, post-graduation courses, technology platforms, franchising, and we are very proud of our history that is a great motivation for the next 60 years with this view that we understand that Cogna is the only company able to deal with that and foster people from 2 to 100 years old, as we have products for all ages. One fact that was very important and very very happy for us to celebrate this 60 years.

My second comment is regarding the capital of Vasta as we integrate in the operations of Saber in Cogna. We have both operations working together, reflecting in the development of a vertical that we present to you as the basic education.

Basic education is today Vasta and Saber all together, and higher education is the old Kroton. Today we have 2 verticals of basic education and higher education.

Regarding the integration of Vasta, I'd like to say that Vasta and Saber teams are already integrated with a single leadership, then with Guilherme Mélega as the leader, joining systems and processes, and part of it is already integrated, other part is being integrated. That you have a record, the RP of Somos is now SAP, that is the RP of Cogna.

In the middle of this year, in the second semester, will be integrated even from the point of view of systems and RP, and considering the B2G that is important and a question that you use it to ask about the opportunities with the two teams, considering that the overlap that we had between Somos and Saber would be the sales for government, and both teams are already integrated and restructured, much less in the synergy of costs, but much more in the restructured team, the opportunity for growth, as we see many opportunities for this segment. The last comment before the financial highlights is that we presented in this result our new division of graduation courses, following the regulation, therefore now presenting the on-site, hybrid, and distance learning modalities, and we'll talk more about it later in our presentation.

Now going to the results in page 4, we understand that this is one positive quarter with all businesses growing double digits in the revenue, in the EBITDA as well, and cash integration. The net revenue this quarter is grew 32%, and obviously it was pushed by the PNLD revenue that is located.

Now, even if we gather the revenue of our businesses and the consolidate of Cogna and PNLD, we would have a double-digit growth, a very high of about 14-15% of growth. Therefore, with all the business units growing strongly and obviously with the PNLD growing well, and in the fourth quarter we mentioned that there was a delay in the invoices of the government, and this revenue would be for the first quarter, and we now have a guidance that would be 160 million, and in the end we could have 300 million in the first quarter.

This increase is much more than our initial guidance and due to the gains in market share. We improved a lot the market share of the program, and remember that more participation and more share in the program as we purchase material, all purchase in the subsequent years.

An important highlight here, our overcoming PNLD, not only for displacement, but because we performed better from the point of view of choosing that from part of the teachers and professors. Talking about the EBITDA, it grew 32%, 120 million more than last year.

We had a loss in cash flow of 2.5% points. We'll go through this explanation with Mélega and Jeferson talking about it, but I think we have two big items that make the margin to decrease.

The first one is greater participation of PNLD that is proportional in the contribution of basic education and PNLD from the point of view of EBITDA to the total EBITDA of Cogna, with a participation in basic education in the same quarter of last year that was 33% of EBITDA. In this first quarter, it is more than 40%, to be more precise, 41%.

The PNLD is a line of products with a percentage margin that is lower, so as it participates more in the mix of EBITDA of Cogna, it pressures the margin of Cogna, and it is the second in the part of Kroton in higher education. In this first quarter, we have this pressure to reduce the margin, especially by the displacement of expenses in technology, but with more investment in marketing, and Jeferson will also discuss that, but basically we have this pressure in the margin of higher education, making the margin this quarter to decrease 2.5%.

Now, one of the big highlights, and Fred likes that a lot, is that we are looking less to the EBITDA and more to the free cash flow, and our focus is more in the free cash flow and the profits. We grew 49% comparing the years, it's more than 95 million compared to 2025 compared to that was 25 million, and the cash generation after CapEx growing 27%, 68 million more than the first quarter of '25, and finally the free cash flow with a 69% of growth, that is 103 million reais more than the first quarter '25.

Remember that in this quarter we also had the distribution of dividends of 119.5 million reais paid in February, and even though we reduced the net debt in 35 million reais because the cash generation was quite strong. From the point of view of leverage, it had grew in the fourth quarter due to the closing of cap of Vasta, but now it decreased again, 1.13 times of the EBITDA.

It is not critical to us, and it's been like this for a while, but this is an indicator that the market follows. These are the initial highlights.

Just to finish my part, we've had quite a positive quarter. Jeferson will talk a little bit about income and due to the change in the regulation, and I emphasize that the revenue grew almost 4%, despite a different mix more concentrated in on-site and hybrid than DL, but as we've been saying for the last 5 years, the volume is important, okay, but the most important to us is that the intake compared to the previous year grows, and it rose 4%.

When we talk about the base of reenrolment, we see a strong base with an increase in the average ticket, showing that we can repass even above inflation, and I think it is a little of the doubt of the market when the government, more than a year ago, had the new regulation. We were in doubt if we could repass the cost increase in the prices to the client, and the ticket shows that, yes, we can do that, but Jeferson will talk more about that.

Having that said, I'll pass on the floor to Guilherme Mélega so that he discusses the basic education. Thank you, Roberto.

I'll start in slide 6 talking about the new results that we consolidated Saber. We now open our revenue in the segment of subscription, that is the B2B, the B2G, that is the sales of solutions for states and municipalities, and PNLD, and the disclosure of the business of franchising that is of languages, that is Red Balloon.

Going to the left, the total net revenue of the quarter reached 950 million reais, of which 462 million of subscription, we grew 15.5% in the quarter, followed by the B2G. Again, the B2G is the sales of systems of teaching and recovery of learning, no PNLD, reaching 22% growth year-versus-year.

I emphasize the PNLD that decreased in the fourth quarter compared to the first one, and we performed 307.7 million. The growth is very big compared to the first quarter of '25 with only 6 million.

Now we'll show the impact of this displacement as well, and I also emphasize the growth of our language franchising that is growing 14.6%. Then we reached this growth in the quarter, and now disconsidering the effect of PNLD and looking only at the other business, we would grow 17%.

When we analyze the ACV, the graph on the right, we reach 1.8 billion reais, 8.8%, and as we've been seeing the last cycles, the core growth is a little below the complementary. The complementary increases its contributions in this total, and this 8.8% has a displacement to the third and fourth quarter, and we expect to reach two digits as we've been doing the last five commercial cycles.

Now going to slide number 7, I'll talk a little bit about our expenses, and I emphasize the total costs that obviously is impacted by the PNLD. As we grew more in the revenue, we have more due to this PNLD, which makes the total costs with the percentage of revenue grow 11%.

This is the effect of the PNLD, but when we look at the other costs of marketing, operational expenses, corporate expenses, we see a dilution of this revenue with less cost in all of them. I emphasize here as well, oh, by the way, I mentioned that marketing and sales, when we talk about B2B, the percentage of revenue is absolutely flat, we keep the same expense of CAC per revenue in the B2B.

When we look at operational revenues, even in absolute values, we have a reduction in 6, from 67 to 62 million, besides the benefit of the dilution with more revenue in PNLD, we have effective gains in the reduction of operational expenses. Now going to the EBITDA, we reach 276 million of EBITDA in the first quarter in basic education with a growth of 66.4%.

If you pay attention, the margin goes from 30 to 29%, which is the effect of the PNLD with a higher consideration in the first quarter and a lower margin, and the impact, even though, was not that big considering the evolution of other businesses and the growth of subscriptions and B2G. We are quite optimistic for this year, not only in the delivery of the rest of the ACV, but we finished the first match of the commercial cycle of '27, and we are in the front line compared to the previous years.

We are in the middle of Saber that is quite an important conference to our business, and we are quite optimistic with the interactions we are having. In the B2G, it reflects the benefits of working all together with Saber with a single team and the same objective quite clear to everyone, and the joint marketing reflecting in the growth of 22% of this business in the first quarter.

Now I pass on the floor to my colleague and friend Jefferson Ortiz to talk about higher education. Thank you, Mélega.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Roberto Valério, for the opportunity of making the presentation of the results of Kroton.

I'll start in slide 10 with the operational performance of Kroton. I'd like to emphasize the impact of the recurring changes with the new regulatory framework.

This new regulation established offers and in the online and on-site, it changes the bases of intake. Courses of Pedagogy, Nursing, and so on are in different categories compared to the previous year.

In the case of Nursing, the discontinuation of the offer on-site was 420 points, we are thrilled with the offers and the possibilities in 53 poles offered for on-site courses of Nursing, representing about 44% of the amount of the 120 poles for accreditation now. With this observation of the regulation, we see the first graph with the intake with a reduction of 14.2%, a reflex of this reduction of 32% in DL, and the presencial growing 14% and 4.6 in the hybrid.

Despite the challenges, we are growing the revenue of this intake period, as Roberto mentioned in the beginning, growing 3.5%, a great indication to us. We could keep the operational structure of the period.

The second graph shows that the student base had a reduction of 4.6%, result of a decrease of 18.2 in DL and growing 8.9 in on-site and 12.6 in hybrid. Going to the last graph on the right, the average ticket grows 19.4%, emphasizing here the growth in all modalities, a reflex of this change of this mix in our bases.

On-site and hybrid, we have a mix of courses of high LTV, and DL we changed the mix of courses in the bases, considering the migration and classification, for example, Pedagogy and other courses going to the hybrid. In slide 11, we have a double-digit growth in the net revenue, 10.9%, and here we see that the revenue is not reducing.

Instead, it's growing in all business modalities. I emphasize particularly the positive growth of the on-site of 15.2%, that is quite important to this regulatory change that we can see.

The gross profit reached 909 million with a 10.4% growth compared to the first quarter '25, also highlighting 17% growth on the on-site followed by 5% in hybrid and 8.5 DL. It is important to say that we expect more pressure in the margin of cost due to this pressure in the sector, especially in the hybrid courses that are also courses under maturation, but it's important to say that in the net EBITDA and cash generation, we are positive with the highest ticket.

Now going to slide 12, we see the analysis of costs and expenses with a growth of 2.1 percentage points that is the result of the time of some actions, as Roberto mentioned, mainly in technology, displaced from the first quarter to the second quarter '25, impacting negatively the comparison. Additionally, in the first quarter '26, we had expenses with marketing and sales with an increase that is due to being more careful regarding the potential impact of the number of enrollments.

Therefore, we invested more in marketing, being aware that we'll have benefits not only in the first quarter, but reinforcing the strength of our brands. Regarding the NOR, we had a growth due to the program Pague Fácil that instead of reducing the average ticket, we offered installments.

Therefore, we have this effect of more provisioning in the installments for the students who pay. Now the last slide, 13, we have a recurring EBITDA growing almost 4% with a pressure of 2.5, as explained before.

I thank you all for your attention. Now I pass on the floor to Fred to go on with his presentation.

Thank you, Jeferson. I'll start my presentation talking about Cogna, and please remember that I talk about Cogna that is the two big businesses that we have, the ones presented by Mélega and Jeferson.

I start the presentation in slide 15 with the financial performance. On the left, we have the net revenue, please note that we grew in the revenue in our two businesses, and we reached a net revenue in Cogna of 2,146 million, a 32% growth compared to the first quarter of '25, explained before, as explained before, by the growth in the PNLD in basic education.

Now going to the graph on the right, we have the recurring EBITDA with a strong growth of about 22%, reaching almost 680 million reais compared to the first quarter last year that we reached 556 million. In slide 17, next page, we mentioned before that one of our main indicators and how we measure the company is with the free cash flow and the net profit, and we analyze the revenue and EBITDA, but we now focus on the free cash flow with the and the EBITDA without the other indicators, showing that we grew in the operational cash flow.

Please remember that the generation of this operational cash is after CapEx, and we grew 27%, reaching 318 million reais with a growth of about 68 million reais. As I mentioned before, going from the operational cash to the free cash generation, that is the operational minus CapEx and minus the interest to operate, we had a growth of about almost 69%, reaching the first quarter a free cash of 252 million reais with a growth of about 102 million reais, showing here the resilience of our business, growing in revenue, in EBITDA, and in the free cash generation that get to the reduction of the net debt of the company.

Now in slide 17, as I mentioned the free cash flow, we have the next indicator of net income. We had 49% of growth, and remember that the net income last year was 95 million reais, and this net income comes and is the result of the growth of operational result that was about 25%.

In the first quarter, this net income had an impact, the expenses of a tax paid, the current one and deferred one, with an impact of about 45% in our net income. It was expense and a liability, but I'd like to remember you that we cannot assess our tax payment in only one quarter.

We need to analyze the whole year, and we had a greater impact in education and in basic education because the revenue, the EBITDA of basic education reached 275 million reais, and this growth generated 34% of payment and 34% of impact. Looking ahead, and this is not a guidance, we have tools to look at the year of '26, and our current tax shouldn't be different from the net profit and the tax payment, the current tax payment, as it was presented in 2025 and 2024.

Now in slide 18, the debt of the company in one quarter comparing now the first quarter of '26 and '25, we reduced our net debt in 52 million, considering that we started with 2.8 million, reaching 2.7 million, and the main impacts in the were in the generation of free cash and the return to the shareholder with the dividends that we pay. In February 13, we paid 119 million of shareholders' returns, and the other movements that reached 8 million reais.

Now in slide 19, indebtedness, we have one more quarter with the reduction in the leverage. As I mentioned many times, the leverage is not a problem to us.

Our covenants of debts are net debts divided by the EBITDA of the 12 months is 3.5 times, and the leverage reached at the first quarter '26 1.13 times comparing to the fourth quarter. The previous slide, we had a reduction that was 1.20 times, and comparing with the first quarter '25, we reduced it, that it was 1.28, and we reached 1.13.

That's completely normal. This is what we presented over the last 4 years, this reduction of leverage.

The average cost of debt in line with the first quarter of fourth quarter '25, the average cost is CDI plus 1.33. We now don't have for the next quarter big liability management will happen in the first quarter of '26, as our debt are located, and we cannot negotiate.

Now looking at the amortization schedule for the next years, you can see that in '26 we have no big amortization, as in '27, only in '28, but then from now until the beginning of '28, we have a lot of time to renegotiate liabilities, and we can deal with the banks, which you have a good cash, it's not a problem to us. I'll finish this brief presentation of Cogna with a summary of the big businesses, and now I'll pass on the floor to Roberto Valério.

Thank you, Fred. Now going to slide 20, talking about capital allocation and the priorities for this capital allocation, I reinforce that they are still the same priorities.

The first focus, the main focus keeps being the reduction in financial expenses, considering the high interest rates. Everything we can do to pay debt in advance, we are doing.

We are doing that in '25 and '26, as in the slide, many liability management actions. If we consider all the actions, we have 1.7 billion in negotiations, obviously with the reduction of the debt cost and enlonging the profile of amortization.

We are doing that quite efficiently, this is the primary focus. When we talk about financial expenses, then we have the return to the shareholders.

In '26, we've had about 300 million reais return in buyback with 120 million reais in April '25, and in February '26, almost 120 million in dividends, plus 60 million in repurchase of shares, 300 million reais in dividends and buyback, also with the time on the payment of new dividends with the approvals, and I even reinforce the information that on May 30, we'll pay 28.5 million reais based on the AGM of April. This is our second priority.

We don't have an M&A strategy to consume a lot of our cash. We are still focused on generating value with the assets we have.

We understand we have a broad portfolio, very rich, with strong brands and a potential to grow. Look, for example, that we are having sales for government and what we have with start Anglo leveraging the brands and the assets and editorial capacity of management that we have.

Our M&A view is very strategic. I can mention two cases considering the context with a Vasta tender offer.

It was very important to use the capital for that. We had an asset deal acquisition last year with a good price and a strategically important location to us, and we also had an acquisition of an OPM that was very small last year, but we understand that it is opening opportunities for us to operate with premium brands after graduation like Mackenzie, Instituto Mauá, ESPM, and we understand that despite not having a proper asset for the brands, we can generate value working in the segment with partnerships with third parties.

Just to mention the priorities of capital allocation. Now going to the last slide with a final remarks, the closing remarks.

In '21, when we started the turnaround, we talked a lot about ambidexterity to evolve not only in the core and the teaching systems, but in graduation, which shows that we are doing that consistently with a consistent growth over this 5 years more than double digits, as well as operating with new business opportunities, and I mention here B2G, Start Anglo, and the platform of info-producers that is growing. It's not a thesis to us, it's the prove of the capacity of the company and our teams, and how we can use assets, brand, systems, processes, competencies to create new businesses.

We understand that it opens many opportunities for the future, which makes us very thrilled, regardless of what happens here or there in one or other segment. The strategy is of a diversified portfolio, and this quarter has shown that even with the regulatory changes in one business, the others are performing well, and a business like the PNLD is a so and mature, but we gained market share with 85% more revenue than we imagined, and so this ambidexterity is proven with a concrete execution.

A second important point is that we are still focused a lot in the student, the client, no matter if it's a basic education, a school, or a B2C student in a English school or graduation student. We are focusing a lot in improving the NPS and satisfaction and making the processes simpler and easier.

It is generating a lot of value to us, we focus about that. Talking a lot about culture, this work is very nice here with a main team.

I reinforce we have 60 partners that are people with the shares of the company that gather every month to talk about results and culture and how we can do better and carry out better our strategies, in the mid and long term will bring more capacity of delivery to be used and to change our assets, that is our thesis, to change assets in a platform, more of educational services. We don't see ourselves as a graduation company as we were in the past in 2017, '18, more like a publishing house.

We are a service company, we provide B2B, B2C, B2G services in many different segments, and it is this strategy that we want to keep up having, because it opens opportunities to many growth paths for us, always focusing on the value generation, and little by little, patiently, and with a lot of focus and ability to deliver and carry out, we are improving all indicators. The example is this quarter that from one side to the other of revenue, EBITDA, cash generation, free cash flow, leverage, and free debt, net debt, everything had positive results, reinforcing that we are not focusing on one or the other thing.

We have a broader view of our business, we know how to operate, so that with the net profit and the free cash flow, we can show our capacity of delivery with our team and assets to generate value to the shareholders, and remember that we are all shareholders of the company. Having that said, I finish the presentation, and we now open the floor for the Q&A session.

Thank you very much. We'll now start the Q&A session.

Please remember that to ask your question, you must click the Q&A session in the bottom part of your screen and write your question to enter the line. When announced, you may unmute your mic, and then after unmuting, please ask your question.

We ask you, please, to ask all questions at once. Going on with the first question, we have Lucca Marquezini from Itaú.

Lucca, please, the floor is yours. Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for the questions. We have two here.

The first one regarding Nursing, as we had a relevant impact in intake. How do you see that moves all five units of fast track of Nursing?

As our idea is to understand how the roadmap and operational of these units will begin, how it should eventually compensate or offset this impact in '26, I'd like to understand how you imagine to happen in these units and how it could help in the results. The second point regarding Kroton margins, if you can comment on the dynamics of the competition that you see for the intake in the first quarter, if there was some worsening in the competition, needs for discounts, if you can comment on that, it will help a lot.

Thank you. Hi, Lucca.

Thank you for your questions. We'll answer the first one, and then if they want to complement, they can.

Regarding Nursing, we asked 122 poles to be pre-approved for the on-site Nursing course, and today we have 53 out of the 122 approved. This 53 can intake students, although the semester, the cycle for this semester hasn't started yet.

Our expectation and what we have discussed with the Ministry of Education is that over the next weeks, all poles will have these authorizations. In other words, we expect to have the 120 poles operational in the second semester, and remember that they are already prepared.

We already had classrooms and labs, we would intake a lot of students, they had a big student base, we didn't have so much to do, it means that as soon as we have the authorization, it's much more of having the courses offered at the website and starting the communication, generating leads and conversions. You made the question regarding the roadmap of implementation.

It's immediate, we don't have any time that is relevant for that. Regarding the impact in '26, we understand that each one of these poles will have 100 spots authorized.

They are big poles with a lot of enrollments, and we understand that it's not in '26, but we understand that once stabilized, we can enroll 100 students during the year, which means that these 120 poles can generate an amount of students that is something like half of what we would have in Nursing intake in the fall. The question you may ask is, well, if it's half, you will lose revenue.

We understand that maybe a little, but we have the possibility of compared this revenue to the previous one, because the on-site tickets are higher than the DL. Our Nursing ticket on-site would be 399 average, and I'm sorry, this were the DL, and on-site goes about 800 reais, it's more than double.

Having half of the students in on-site modality, but paying more than twice the average ticket, we have the possibility of recovering the revenue over time. To answer your question directly, the impact in '26 is that we'll be able to collect and have a good recovery in the second semester, but in the first semester, we don't have good revenue.

In fact, when we look at the intake revenue and we say that it grew 4% a year, it is considering that we lost almost 28,000 students of Nursing in DL. If we would have students and revenue, the collection time would have grown smarter.

In other words, we are quite optimistic and positive, we see that quite positively, the fact of operating this 120 poles in the second cycle. Regarding Kroton margin, we've seen in this first cycle of '26 more pressure for competition, and in practice, what we see is a number of candidates per spot that is lower.

I reinforce what I've mentioned before that our more traditional brands like Uniube, Unime, that are traditional and quite interesting brands in the market don't suffer this pressure, but on the countryside, we see more difficulties in enrollment, so much so that our business medical business there is different from other players. I think that's it.

Roberto. Thank you.

The next question comes from Lucas Nagano, Morgan Stanley. Lucas, please go on.

Hello, everyone. We also have two questions.

The first is about the intake in volume, because this is what we have information, and if you could give a number on how DL was, taking into consideration the end of Pedagogy that decreased 33%, and this trade-off for hybrid in Pedagogy helped the intake. We knew there was this loss in Nursing as well, but just for me to understand the trend of demand in comparable bases.

The second question is about Kroton margin and the components to the future, because it seems that the cost in PNLD are stronger, but I think the technology and marketing seems to be something more specific in seasonality in the first quarter, which would suggest a lower decrease in the margin for the next quarter. I'd like to know if it makes sense.

Lucas, the first one regarding the graduation, it's difficult to open the numbers, we don't generally do that, but directionally speaking, the reduction in the intake in DL is basically focused in Pedagogy and Nursing. If you consider the presencial and DL compared to what we have today, the impact comes basically from Pedagogy and Nursing.

Obviously, Pedagogy and licenciatura that now are on-site courses, they demand the formation of a group of students, which generate a conversion rate that is smaller. Directionally, we don't open, but yes, we've recovered, we have a lot of enrollments, a lot of students in Pedagogy, but not the same ratio of DL.

We had a net loss in Pedagogy students in the transition from DL to on-site. Regarding the margin, Fred, you can answer.

Hi, Lucas. Talking about the margin Kroton, considering the first quarter '26 and in the comparison looking to the future, our first quarter '26 had an impact of expenses of marketing costs and sales as well.

This was the impact that we analyzed, and we have a new dynamic after the regulatory milestone. We had a great investment in the first quarters, for the next quarters, we might have, not a guidance, but naturally will change, we'll have a reduction in this sense.

Our strategy to have costs in marketing is to bring students from courses with a higher added value. In fact, looking at our strategy, this strategy worked, because we are growing revenue of intake, and we are mainly growing in the courses with more value that are in the presencial one.

To the future, we should have a slight reduction of marketing expenses. In technology, as you questioned, we've had an impact in the first quarter that should be diluted over the year, and there shouldn't be a greater difference than the inflation or something different, like it happened in '25.

Just to emphasize a little more the answer, because I mentioned about DL, and I can talk about the hybrid. The DL base, we lost a lot because of Pedagogy that migrated, yes, and helped the growth of the hybrid one.

You might ask, well, but the hybrid didn't grow. You cannot forget that in our hybrid, we already had Nursing.

We grew, I guess, 4.5% in on-site, considering that you have zero of Nursing, and we are the biggest Nursing player in DL. We lost 27,000 students in Nursing in the hybrid, I guess it can explain better.

In other words, we could help in the hybrid, but they have the pressure of not having Nursing. As we will have in the second semester, the intake for hybrid will be greater in the second semester because of the new Nursing courses that we are offering.

Just to explain a little bit more, the migration of Pedagogy that happened, we do not offer that anymore, we don't have that in DL anymore. There was this migration, but the liquid was negative for us, it's not a positive liquid.

We lost much more than we gained, as Roberto mentioned, from 27 to 28,000 Nursing students that didn't have the courses. Now you can infer the number, and it's not for us to do that, but you can, if you want, infer the number and see that our hybrid, instead of growing 4.6, would grow much more and then more than two digits, okay?

Perfect. Quite clear.

Thank you. The next question comes from Marcelo Santos, JPMorgan.

Marcelo, please, the floor is yours. Good morning, everyone.

The first question would be regarding Kroton, if you could comment on the adoption of Pague Fácil comparing the first quarter '26 to '25, if it was a component to help the ticket or not. The second would be K-12, if you can mention the elements which should consider to think about the year margin of '26 compared to '25, and what are the detractors and the pushers.

Thank you very much. Fred here.

The first question about higher education and Pague Fácil, just remember that Pague Fácil, we already offered that for the bases in the summer and winter cycles in '25. We offered that, it's the same product, we didn't change, and we offered for the whole base in intake, right?

Yes. You cannot compare to student base.

The intake base. There was no change of the product, there is no difference of products, and it was available and we offered to the whole base.

To answer your question, yes, it was important, we kept it here. In the middle of this war of prices in some centers, we kept that in our strategy not to reduce the intake price in Pague Fácil, is an installment, it's not a fund, just installment.

You can see that how we could increase that, we had a growth in the revenue, and as I always mentioned, the strategy is correct. We just need to analyze Pague Fácil in the net PDD, because looking at the PDD, I'm growing in Pague Fácil, but also the PDD of Pague Fácil because it's a percentage of what I'm offering.

We do the PDD taking into consideration that Pague Fácil's PDD has a drop out as the main fact. When the student drop out, I provision 100% of it, it puts us in the correct position in the commercial intake strategy, and the effect is already in the EBITDA.

This is how we show that, and we understand that it is correct. Anything else?

Just to add something to this point of PDD, comparing one quarter and the other with the hybrid and more on-site, it's natural that we have more Pague Fácil because the delta ticket of 2 or 3 months, that is what we work in installments, when it's on-site, it's higher. To reinforce Fred's point, it's nothing different from what we're doing or explaining to you.

Marcelo, let me just explain a little of the margins of basic education, because Vasta traditionally operated with 30% of EBITDA, a little higher, a little lower, and we understand this is the level of margin we want to operate in this business in this new configuration with Saber. Then I look back, if we consolidated the results of Saber and Somos, the level of margin and EBITDA would be a little below 30 due to the PNLD, when we're talking about a year,

Guilherme Mélega

[unclear]. Then

Eduardo Resende

I'm looking

Operator

back. What

Eduardo Resende

we want

Guilherme Mélega

looking forward

is to maintain our level of margin, seeking more productivity in B2B and in B2G, which grows quite a lot. I think it is possible for us to maintain the same level of 30%.

I make it clear that this is not a guidance, this is an intention of ours to seek. Mathematically, looking back, it would be 2-3 points of EBITDA margin less than the 30%.

Perfect, thank you. Thank you for all the answers.

The next question comes from Eduardo Rezende, UBS. Eduardo, please go on.

Good morning, everyone. Two questions from my side.

The first, I'd like to explore a little bit the dynamics of receivables in Saber. We saw that there was a relevant increase in accounts receivable.

I'd like to understand if this PNLD question is inside the schedule of payment of the program or if there's any delay here in the payment cycle. The second is I'd like to make a follow-up on Kroton margin.

I think, especially when we talk about gross margin, we saw a lower impact this quarter than what we saw in the fourth quarter of last year. I'd like to link a little bit with the regulatory framework, understand in what point you are here in the transition, in the turn of key to the new regulation, and how should we think about the gross margin of Kroton for the year?

These are from my side. Thank you.

Eduardo, thank you. I will get the receivables of Saber.

In your question, you gave the correct answer, because it is the PNLD. We acknowledged 300 million this quarter, but it's absolutely in the normal flow of business, and in this receivables, it becomes cash in the second quarter.

The regular business flow, and that's it. Good, Eduardo.

Now I will get the gross margin of Kroton. First comment is that the gross margin is better understood in the semester, much more than in the quarter, because comparing quarters, remember that a student can enroll, and as we allocate the hours for the professors and have the physical space rented, we do that for the year, for the semester.

Sometimes we have some displacements here and there, we hire a little bit before or after with one more professor or not, this is the first information my consider. The second, more directional, considering that we cannot give a guidance, is that, yes, it's natural that we see some pressure in the gross margins, considering the mix of on-site and hybrid, and they have a different gross margin than DL.

The margin of Kroton will face pressure over time, which doesn't mean that we won't work for new alternatives to mitigate that. The natural flow of the process with this mix would have a reduction on the margin, although you can see that so clear from one quarter to the other.

It's also important to say that despite this pressure of percentage margin, the on-site courses have a greater nominal contribution. When we talk about the ticket of the students that we are enrolling now, it's much higher than what we did with DL.

It's a different dynamic with a different margins, but important nominal. Quite clear.

Just regarding the adequacy to the regulatory framework, the current cycle of intake is already in line with the new rules, although they will be gradually implemented during this transition period until May next year?

Jeferson Altenhofen Ortiz

Jefferson, can you take it?

I can talk about it. Particularly in '26, we are having this adaptation of the framework until we get to '27, we have a period of adaptation, despite the offers are already established the way it is classified.

Both in DL that you cannot have some courses like Pedagogy and licenciatura, or even Engineering, being established is offered for the hybrid. Then, during the year, you have all the need to incorporate all the required premises.

In '27, we'll have all the regulations completely implemented, and in the second semester, in Nursing, we'll have this offer classified as a on-site course with all the legislation being strictly

Eduardo Resende

followed. Guys,

Operator

thank you

Mirela Oliveira

very much for the answers.

The next question comes from Mirela Oliveira, Bank of America.

Mirela Oliveira

Mirela, please go on. Good morning, Valério, Fred.

Two questions from my side. The first is regarding the drawee risk expenses.

We followed in this quarter a slight increase in these expenses, and the company was in an effort to reduce this exposure. If you could comment a little, give a little more color for us about what was this effect in this quarter, if it was something punctual and what is the trend going forward.

The second is

Mirela Oliveira

regarding

the dropout rate, especially in hybrid courses, we saw a relevant increase in the dropout rate of total base. I'd like to know if you can comment a little on what you attribute this effect, if you believe there is some impact from installment programs in this metric or if it's more related to changes of products due to the new framework.

Those are the questions. Thank you.

Hi, Mirela. Fred.

I will answer the first question.

Jeferson Altenhofen Ortiz

We remember that the

best analysis to be made in relation to drawee risk is to always look at it with net revenue, and looking at it within net revenue, in the first quarter of 2025, it was 20.9%, and now, in the first quarter of 2026, it is 21.6%, that is, on average, it is 21%. When you look at the increase of drawee risk from 28 to 46 million, this is directly associated with the volume of the PNLD that happened.

We had an impact mainly on printers, in the payment of the printing companies, who are on drawee risk, but I should not have for the next quarters this impact, okay? Looking ahead, in relation to revenue, staying close to 20%.

The impact is punctual and mainly here on printers due to the first quarter of printing and delivery of the National Book Program. The second was about dropout.

I can take it here. Mirela, regarding dropout, this is another indicator that I always recommend looking at in the semester, even because the reenrolment period advances in relation to March, right?

We are still doing reenrolment in April, while in this quarter, not all reenrolment, and sometimes the comparison base changes as a function of the quantity of holidays, as a function of the payment, Carnival was different. It is not something that worries us, I think this is the first structurally important information for you.

The second, in relation to dropout, we have done an increasingly disciplined and granular work in looking at price readjustment and dropout. Trying to bring a simple explanation here, many times we can repass the prices at a ratio above inflation, and obviously when we repass above inflation, it pressures the dropout.

We are always doing the math to see the gain of the readjustment, we do not put it on the table regarding the amount of reenrolment. Historically, we've seen that it's better to speed up the price readjustment, therefore improving the tickets compared to the losses in the reenrolment.

Just for you to know that we all also do this math, and we have quite evolved predictive models, considering we've been doing that for almost 5 years. In other words, the dropout rate is not a problem to us in the first quarter, because it's not the last one, the final one.

We need to consider the semester, and we look that with a lot of granularity, and we are always doing a trade-off between the tickets and the dropout, aiming to have the best revenue and profitability. Quite clear.

Thank you very much. The Q&A session is over.

Now I pass on the floor to the final considerations of the company. With that, we finish the presentation.

I thank you once again for your dedication and the performance of all teams, more than 26,000 workers working nonstop. I reinforce that we are quite optimistic regarding the year, with a lot of opportunities, and challenges, yes, but many opportunities as well.

We are available to clear any doubts you might have. Thank you very much, and I'll see you in the next conference.

The teleconference of results of the first quarter 2026 of Cogna Educação is over. The Department of Relations with Investors is available to clear any other doubts you might have.

Thanks to all the participants. I wish you all a good afternoon.