Anima Holding SA

BOVESPA:ANIM3

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our dual webinar that we're going to address the earnings results of the quarter and give you an update on the integration with Laureate.

Those who wants to hear us in English, you will find below a link for the interpretation. You just click here, and you can hear also the simultaneous translation with us in this room, okay. The presentation in English is also in the chat so you can find it there. [Operator Instructions]

And with this, after the welcoming note, I'd like to hand over to Marcelo.

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, Marina. Thank you, André. Thank you all very much joining us at this earnings results call. And I'd like to say good afternoon to all of you and greeting [Foreign Language], everyone, greeting all the educators of the Anima ecosystems, all our students, our shareholders, partners.

Last week, on the 6th of May, Anima completed its 18th birthday or anniversary. We are very honored by it. We were -- received a question. Are we -- ESG guide of the [indiscernible] magazine. And with this spectacular or pointing the spectacular moment of Anima, I'd like to greet all of you in this sense. Anima, from its very first day, we have believed in ESG, we invest, and we are firm trusting in society. We're the first signatory of the Global Compact of the UN. And this is actually confirming that we are on the right track.

With this, I would like to start our webinar of our first quarter 2021 earnings results. The first quarter results and also the first results of the planning of integration with the asset of Laureate Brazil. To start, as I said, this is a very important time for the company, which we are delivering great performance. We also have a very clear vision of the future, showing the maturity regarding the market. Also, very strong academic performance. Our academic soundness at the time of the pandemic, we have the hope that post-pandemic period, we will leave with certain confidence items, on the importance of quality education for our country, for the planet. Soundness of our image, evolution in our governance.

So if we move on to our results, quite robust results, as you can see, showing that our choices 4 years ago for hybrid education, we believed that students would, at some point, decide with their joystick how much they would you want to use of technology in terms of their learning with COVID. On a Friday, 13th of May 2020, we had the first protocol so that we could upload all our students with [Foreign Language] on Friday, 20,000 students. And then the state government of São Paulo shut down the schools, and we brought 145,000 students with quality education and with safety in their homes.

Since then, we've been like that, we're ready to return, ready to return now with rotation, and we had a growth of 11.3% of student base and average ticket. We managed to keep on our efforts of putting our schools in a positioning of ticket appropriate to its quality functioning. It grew 12.1%, BRL 977. Net income growing 22.8%, BRL 416 million, with adjusted EBITDA of BRL 146.5 million, growth of 23.8% of our EBITDA. And also adjusted net income growing 28.5% to BRL 56.3 million.

For our cash generation, we had quite significant, BRL 97.1 million free cash generation. The margin 35.2% and the adjusted net margin with a growth of 0.6% points. In other words, this shows us robust results within a scenario of grade, a worse situation during the pandemic. It shows us that we have been able to sort things out with great discipline and great dedication.

Moving on. Our proposal of quality education being confirmed. We had some results. So we have this strong index of Anima [ 0.3 ]. So no schools below this rate, and it's compared to the other private schools and public schools. Here, we have our positioning of highlight. This makes us very proud, and this is a very great opportunity that will certainly make a difference to the country. This is a rationale we've been investing on and giving increasing visibility. So the digital transformation journey, we may say that we have realized that our students were no longer comparing the services with other schools. But actually, with digital companies like Uber, Amazon and our eBay, and they work totally differently. So starting the journey, we have 25 -- so we have student centered-driven company and also data-driven company. So we are implementing it and always with our students in the core so it's the J2A, the Anima student turning, actually making them to have an experience that is always positively surprising.

It is also important to say that we have actually reached our digital transformation for -- with our Vice President, [indiscernible], with the digital transformation. So we see ticket management, and then we have this consumption likelihood model. So students that are more inclined to scholarships. So we have this [indiscernible]. So it's a system. It's like a customer service or ombudsman. We also are engaging our students. We have engagement practices. And also predictive dropout model, how can we actually prevent students from dropping out, and we also have automatic correction of essays. I give an example that in our [indiscernible], we're seeing that before the pandemic, we tested a system to have application examinations electronically. And then we simply migrated our entrance examination -- university entrance examinations on the platform. We had the first medical school with entrance examination pursued with a digital platform in Brazil. This is a great pathway or avenue. And we still have a long journey ahead, but also it is important to talk about.

I will hand over to Marina.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Thank you, Marcelo. Just like to remind you that this topic on digital transformation is so important that in June, we're going to hold a webinar. You're all going to being invited. It's going to be mid-June. We're just adjusting the date with all these integration date, with all the assets that have reached us. Everybody knows. Everybody will be invited for this exclusive presentation. We're going to spend an hour with our Digital Transformation Vice President, to talk about what this process is all about and that is gaining increasingly more relevance in our company.

Now we'd like to talk about our operating performance. This is a new vision. I'd like to briefly show you this new vision. We start reporting our performance in terms of academic teaching and the performance in terms of lifelong learning. It's important to highlight that everything is lifelong learning. The way we manage the company is on the brands and the vertical items. And we thought this nomenclature will help the market to understand and have a closer vision of what our vision is of the company.

You see that Inspirali, which is our pillar of medicine that is gaining relevance. In our presentation, it's still a complementary vision. It is structuring itself, but it goes through all academic education.

Now let us talk about our figures. On the student base, if you look at the base with the acquisition, especially, the ones we made last year. You followed FASEH, UniFG and Unisul. And we managed to get a growth of 11.3% of our student base in a consolidated way. We have a novelty, which is distance learning of Unisul bringing major volume to our student base and strengthening us in the preparation of distance learning of Laureate. So the total, as I said, we grew 11.3%, showing the correct measure. And I will talk about numbers later on because it has been quite assertive in terms of our acquisitions, especially at a time in which we are going through a financial crisis.

Even on the crisis, we grow our base, and we reduce dropout. I was anxious to talk about our ticket. But actually, we reduced our dropout even in a crisis scenario. We have a differentiated quality proposal, and we are able to maintain our students active, keeping the resilience of our audience and our proposal.

Now to talk about our average ticket, we managed to see growth, both excluding acquisitions and including them, we know that our acquisitions have been quite assertive in this sense. We brought courses in the area of health care, medical school. And this makes a difference in the mix. And even excluding the acquisitions, we've managed and follow-on this trajectory that is very relevant, where we position our brands in the cluster of quality that is our thesis, IGC.

Now I'd like to hand over André who is going to talk a bit more about Inspirali.

[André Tavares, executive]

Good afternoon, Marina, Marcelo, everyone. Once again, it's a great pleasure to be here, an honor to be here at the earnings results webinar.

Inspirali, as you said, Marina, every quarter, we have been giving greater ability to our medical vertical and it's transversal when we think about education. And we have the results of Inspirali, which are very encouraging. This is a core part of our strategy of acquisitions and expansion through M&A.

In the first quarter, medical school accounts for a bit over 23% and the net revenue of this area of education and the combination of these brands have high reputation that 4 medical schools of Inspirali in the super privileged geographies. We're talking about Florianopolis, Belo Horizonte, Tubarão, Cubatão and so on and so forth. They make up this important base of Inspirali, and this will be -- will have exponential growth with Laureate. Well, we'll talk about it later.

So let's first talk about the first quarter, Inspirali. We get to this net revenue of almost BRL 100 million in the quarter with a growth income of BRL 74 million and operating result of almost BRL 65 million, showing the robustness of this proposal of ours in the medical vertical front. We actually can see the growth that has been highered. And speaking of Laureate, we have great potential. If we consider the growth since 2018 until now, we have a yearly growth of over 80%. So this is very strong growth. Even when we take acquisitions out, the growth is 33% annually. So with all the visions or from all viewpoints, we have very strong growth of Inspirali. Now we like and to show this assertive strategy of M&A.

With Laureate, the number of students reaches maturity to [ 16 ] to [ 136 ]. And in 2021, we get to close to 11,000. We doubled the 4,840 that we have now a number of vacancies has quite a similar behavior. Now to talk about consolidated financial performance. We had a growth of net revenue of almost 23%. We've reached BRL 416 million in net revenue in the first quarter with the composition mostly 95% in terms of actually comprising academic education. And part of the 95%, 23% are linked to Inspirali, as we've mentioned.

We've also had an evolution that has been greater than in revenue in our gross profit, especially due to the faculty efficiency gains that we have been experimenting since last year with the maturity of E2A, our hybrid educational model. And we had an even greater evolution of the operating result of 28.4%, reaching a margin of 46.2%, and operating result higher than BRL 192 million.

On the next slide, just to remind you, Marina has briefly talked about our vision. And we also made adjustments to better view the blocks that we break down. Our management strategy of the company, so academic. Education is broken down into 2 blocks or -- we have base. So we have Una, UniBH, São Judas and UniSociesc, And what happened last year integrates also the block that we called organic expansion, considering that the organic expansion block has reached a maturity level, very close to the units that we call base units, more mature ones. And in acquisition block, we have the acquisitions made in the past 2 years, AGES, UniCuritiba, FASEH, UniFG and Unisul. And we have the third block, which is lifelong learning that concentrates EBRADI, HSMu, the Lato sensu Graduate courses plus HSM. And in the next quarter, we're going to have Laureate impacting both sites or blocks.

Looking at the 2 major blocks, we have academic education. We've had on our basis an evolution of the operating margin -- of the operating result. We moved from 45.3% to 47.5%. And this especially happens due to the efficiency gains of E2A's intense use of technology. Although we see some pressure on the net revenue resulting from the block being of universities that are more mature in competitive markets that have courses at the very mature level. Acquisitions are growing impressively. They've grown over 250%. Of course, there is this entry of Unisul, FASEH and UniFG. They were not in this number of the first quarter, but I think the great news here is that those operations have already reached and even exceeded considering that they have health care and medical schools. They have exceeded the base segment, getting to an operating margin of 51.2%. And we still see some room on the 2 blocks for our advances. And first block, the base, considering the gains of E2A and technology use and in acquisitions, especially considering E2A. Since the acquisitions and E2A, we implemented the acquisitions as we make acquisitions and as new students join our system. And then we have room on both blocks, and we've seen because of the mix, the acquisition block exceeding the base block, clearly showing the assertiveness of our M&A strategy.

On our next block, we talk about lifelong learning. We had a quarter that was a bit more pressured in the segment with an operating margin or revenue of minus 8%. And impacting our operating result very much due to what we understand has been the change in the decision or postponing the decision of certain students of actually moving into graduate studies or like HSM, you considering the length of the pandemic. Anyhow, lifelong learning is a long-term project. It's not 1 or another quarter that will make us change or not consider the growing importance that lifelong learning will have in the future of education, and it will certainly have in our company.

Net revenue is broken down more or less in this proportion. So almost half of it EBRADI, HSMu. And the other half, HSM and graduate studies. And this quarter, we've actually launched the offer of Nanodegrees, micro certifications or certificates that are part. This is one of the pillars of our lifelong learning, second-generation of HSMu programs and learning village in São Paulo as first innovation hub focused on education in Latin America.

On the next slide, we will talk about the general effect of adjusted EBITDA. It grows more than revenue, almost 24%. We get -- we have reached a margin of 35.2%. And as we've said, this reflects the various initiatives that we have on the base block as well as it shows the assertiveness of the acquisitions and the correct decisions of maintaining and accelerating investments in assets that ensure our growth.

On the next slide, we talk about our strong cash generation in this period, very close to EBITDA of BRL 144 million. It was an additional BRL 33 million vis-à-vis first quarter 2020. And even after CapEx, we had a cash generation of BRL 97 million, represented almost 2/3 of cash conversion regarding our EBITDA, more than enough to pay for our acquisitions. Our acquisition commitment that we made in the past that have fallen here in this first quarter, leaving us in a very robust cash position so that we can do the closing quite smoothly of Laureate, and that's a separate chapter.

I think we've addressed the main topics of the robust results of the first quarter. And I'd like to hand over back to Marcelo, so that he can talk about the new chapter that we start writing in the Anima ecosystem. So the arrival of Laureate with this transformational initiative that we have here, right, Marcelo?

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

This is it, André. Thank you. Many of you probably note that we have made the first acquisition in higher education in 2003 in May. And since then, we've grown half through acquisitions and half organically. And I, before being CEO of the company, I ran this area of M&A and expansion. And we always sustain that in our vision, the transaction of greatest value generation in the broad sense would be the merger of assets of Laureate to Brazil with Anima. And we managed to fulfill this dream. And we started since the 4th of January the planning of the integration supported by 2 consulting firms that are very renowned and knowledgeable, and we're working hard in the sense. And we've seen at Laureate many wonderful things, a fantastic team, complementary practice, complementary values. So we're actually very optimistic.

I'd like to greet Mr. Marcelo Cardoso, that is passing the baton with create honor to us, and I'd like to greet everyone from Laureate. And now from the Anima ecosystem. So to give you a bit more details, this is a movement that is more than strategic, more than transformational for Anima in Brazil to make up a great impact. Network that will actually make a difference. And why this? As I said, a combination of the best higher education private brands. In the main marketplaces, we're going to gain scale to be able to be more efficient with features and competencies and skills that are highly complementary. We set up a network of medical studies through Inspirali that is unique in Brazil, nobody will be able to have chain of medical schools in the main marketplaces and capital cities in Brazil. We have multiple opportunities of value creation to ensure future profitability and especially values and principles that are extremely complementary and very similar to those that we believe in.

To move on at this point on the next slide, we can see what I mean, covering over 75% of the national territory as the third player in terms of net revenue in Brazil and in terms of higher -- private, higher education. This is the network I'm very proud to have as this wonderful team with us. And we have the planning of the integration.

In terms of digital transformation, an important example in this major avenue, we see something that is complementary. So we have 25 [indiscernible]. We have the agile methodology. A long path in this sense, we have Laureate with a profile that is totally sound in terms of systems, infrastructure, information security, a senior team that complements our activity in digital transformation perfectly. This is an example to make it clear to all of you, ladies and gentlemen, and now I'd like to bring up this point and share it with you.

Some years ago, Daniel Castanho, [indiscernible], myself, founders of Anima, with the original shareholders, we carried out this project. And you've seen this. Along with HSM, we've seen what long-lasting companies have in common? Many of them have this charter, some may have -- drafted by the founders. We have drafted ours. Now during the integration, we've seen so many similarities between the Laureate principles and ours. And we've maintained our foundation charter, and we bought the ninth one, which is complementary. That actually being added to our charter. So we have 9 principles, with this principle that is in the best of Laureate. We deliver what we promise with freedom in the discussion and loyalty in the execution. So this will be expanded to Anima with the competencies that we are actually obtaining from Laureate.

Some years ago, we prepared ourselves to have this future vision of 2025. One of the changes was also starting to operate with the COO with operational -- or Chief Operational Officer, and I've invited Ricardo [indiscernible] to take part of all the integrations with us, so that he could lead with the as COO of the company. We made some acquisitions. Amongst them, we have an emblematic one with this model.

With great success, I'd like to invite Professor Ricardo [indiscernible] to share with you the work that has been done so far, how prepared we are and how optimistic we are for this phase that is being approved in terms of our operation. So Mr. [indiscernible], very welcome to our earnings results webinar.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Marcelo. Good afternoon, André, Marina. Good afternoon, everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here at this webinar. It's such an important time and I'm going to try to focus now on the next 3 slides on the strong planning process of this integration that we are actually making. I'd like to start by saying, as Marcelo said previously, that the history of our Anima may be told by several strategic major acquisitions that happened over its 16 or 18 years of existence. But on the other hand, it's important to acknowledge that this is the largest and most relevant of all those movements of integration that we have already made.

So what was -- what has been a basic assumption that we outlined our first. Although we had this experience, this was the time for us to update the inventory with the best practices in integration processes of ours. This was a starting point. There was a second starting point for us to seek some partnerships that would be fundamental and aligned, as Marcelo said previously, to support us in the construction of a methodology of work itself. And the third point, our decision that was in late December, at the turn of the year, we carried out quite intensely, which was, as we waited for the whole process of approval by Kaji, and all the regulations being complied with, all issues related to information that could not be disclosed, et cetera, with certain market secrecy. We had started -- we should have started immediately.

So this -- our experiences, our partnerships and the immediate work. That's how we based ourselves. And that's why we initially hired McKenzie, with its experience in various M&A processes so that they could help us to build a very clear governance of this process. And from this governance, very well-established one, and quite transparently, we could start immediately make our integration planning. This actually happened on Monday, 4th of January at 9:00 a.m. at a meeting led by Marcelo. And from the 4th of January, we're quite intensely working -- we started.

And I'd like to explain this slide that a fundamental point for us to discuss this governance. This governance was set up based on different systems that are integrated and communicated among themselves. So first, we created the planning integration office to run all the operations. All are planning in a dimension on the day-to-day. And we invited a person with vast experience in the operation, profound knowledge of the business, shop floor to lead this along with me so that we could actually start this day-to-day work. And for that we opened 2 work avenues within our planning office.

First, we created 10 functional fronts. Those 10 fronts correspond to the fundamental ones for the understanding of our processes and our businesses, and they are listed here. We have the bottom left, the academic student journey, Inspirali, digital education, digital transformation, supply, HR, finance and legal. And we started working in a very encouraging, simulating model. We had 2 VPs of each one of the organizations as sponsors of each one of those areas. And one person from each one of the organizations to think and start planning on a more solid basis every day, what would be the work plan for each one of those fronts. Always respecting information, secrecy and legal restrictions.

Only through this process, approximately 40 people were mobilized to make this diagnosis VPs or sponsors, and there are specific functional leaders working on those fronts allowed for great advance in terms of diagnosis of an action plan and actually ensuring our readiness to start the integration process.

On the other hand, the second avenue was paved in this integration office. It was fundamental because to address some crosscutting points, and they follow all those fronts, and they are fundamental for the advance and success of any successful integration.

First, we're always concerned from the beginning. We're working in the organization, especially on a management model that would go into the construction of an organizational design, that could be a clear objective that could be communicated in the first day of integration. A second front, we try to work a lot with all levers of value to capture all the possible value trying to precise it, not only identify those levers, starting a detailing of all these processes, all these possible moves. In addition to that, 2 questions that are very important. For us to be able to work in a more robust way, we focus very much on the chart.

We've created a group to work on people, culture and talent specifically, so that we could actually see the potential and the wealth of human resources to both institutions, the ones working in a deep way, we could actually retain talent and scale up the teams based on the best people in the most appropriate positions.

And the fourth front, which was communications. And the mantra was created for it -- for that even. We cannot think about successful integration if we do not communicate, communicate and communicate. That was our mantra. So with those 2 moves, those 2 avenues, we mobilized only, at first, about 80 people taking part in this process in the office. And then we moved to the second instance to ensure the planning of integration. The second instance was precisely the Executive Committee that planned the integration led by Marcelo, our CEO, with a protagonist participation of Marcelo. Cardoso, CEO from Laureate, and at the same time, made up by VPS and directors from both institutions with the ability of having a macro view and working in coordinating the planning with the oversight of the office of integration planning.

At the same time, drawing attention to possible misalignments of certain areas and strengthening the planning process so that we could integrate our day-to-day with the vision of planning in this greater damage. We've also created a Board Committee made up by Board members with founding partners with several other guests and the permanent participation of representatives from the integration office. So that at those meetings that were every 2 weeks, you could have a macro high-level evaluation of the project. And at the same time, we could follow whether strategic guidelines of this -- of the company and if everything was aligned in the planning. Hence, a large number of professionals working in the office during the day. And the Executive Committee weekly and biweekly within the Board committee. That was exactly the base for us to ask what the results were.

And I'd like to move on to the next slide, please. And then you can clearly see that from this organization and its governance with a pace imposed and with the priority given to everyone, we've fully attained the goals as I'm going to show you on the next slide. So thinking about the 3 first goals, I'd like to draw your attention for us to ensure our readiness state for what was set up. So from all this work and all the planning, we've managed to set up an action plan for the very first day when everyone would know what would be the fundamental basis of their action. And we're focused from day 1 to day 60 with this backdrop and this compass for the action of each one of the managers.

Secondly, we've managed to design from the discussions of the model. What we had proposed ourselves an organizational design. That was very clear, that could be communicated from the very first day in a smooth, clear and perfectly understandable way to the whole company to all managers and associates. And at the same time, we've managed to move forward quantifying all the value potential to be captured with the levers that had been discussed previously and detailing of the initiatives that were fit for each one of them. So we managed to get readiness, the vision of capturing value, and at the same time, the design of the organization that was very easy to be built and communicated. So more than those 3 fundamental goals, the results of our office actually went beyond.

I'd like to draw your attention to 2 fundamental points. With that concern of our having the best people in the spaces and appropriate positions, we had a company to assist us in the assessment of all the main leaders of Anima and Laureate. Actually almost 100 assessments were made, 98 to be precise. We involved main managers and senior managers, both organizations, so that we could have greater clarity of the profile of each one of them. In addition, we've identified key talents. And this, along with the mapping of the organizational culture, this has been very important. We've also tried to understand the culture of both organizations, how they converge directly, where we could have certain points to precisely draw attention to have some sort of attention points, so that we can adjust the cultural fit of the managers. So the performance where they could be and they're cultural. Just to give you an idea of dimensions process, in addition to the 98 assessments, we had some more or deeper interviews with major senior managers focus groups. We had focus groups talking to over 100 leaders, and we worked with a survey of over -- with over 10,000 answers so that we could have clarity regarding all this value and the cultural dimension.

This helped us a lot to conduct work. Once we had designed how we would escalate the team and how we could set up as a cultural strategy. What was the fundamental point here? From that, we started to move forward in communications, from the work of the office in all its dimensions, we managed to make the map planning of the disembarking, as we called it. With all the items, all the communication strategies, with all the plans to dialogue with all the stakeholders, internal, external to be ready from the very first day. So we managed to make the adjustment from between communication, culture and talent management within the organizational design.

More than that, for us to have that readiness, we worked and mapped over 350 deliverables. And out of those deliverables, some questions to be tackled. 130 of them were identified as deliverables to be worked on in the first 5 days. The very first days so that we could open various workfront in an articulated way. Therefore, what did I want to share with you? So we managed to do great work. We attained the objectives, ensuring the readiness for this, and even more so, I would say. This reinforced all the movement that we already had within Anima. This approach us -- even more, we work in a more integrated way in this project. And actually, we managed to actually build this planning in a way that we consider very consistent. That would be the basis to, as Marcelo said, for us to move forward in one of the main operations in the history of Brazilian higher education, making a differentiated institution able to be the most relevant of those that operate in higher education in Brazil.

In this sense, it's responsible optimism. The only thing that Marcelo always joked about, let's work inspired but also sweating. Okay. Let's be optimistic in a responsible way in this work. This was basically what conducted us in this first stage for us to start the process. Thank you very much.

[André Tavares, executive]

Very good Ricardo, very good. For us, who have participated with you in this integration planning office, know how much there was sweating and inspiration. Much more than inspiration or sweating, how much is work actually made us to be totally prepared so that on day 1 of integration to have very detailed planning and very much agreed on in terms of all the stakeholders. Thank you very much. Thank you for the wonderful conduction of it.

From this work that Ricardo designed with great mastery, we're going to talk a bit how this work expanded our perception in terms of value creation from this combination. The first topic we wanted to draw your attention to is that the current management of Laureate has done beautiful work in the past 12 months and had very strong performance, reinforcing even more the quality of the operations and the assertiveness of this strategic move.

In the first quarter 2021, Laureate managed to capture almost -- or have almost 60,000 new students from on-campus medical and distance learning, almost half. So Laureate has had very good performance, quite robust in the first quarter. And as Marcelo said, it brings a significant number of distant learning students to our combined operations.

They closed the first quarter 2021. Now we can say we have closed or ended first quarter 2021, BRL 406 million net revenue and adjusted EBITDA on our IFRS basis of BRL 144 million, margin of 35.5%, quite similar margin to Anima. And the lock and box mechanism -- the locked box mechanism, all these factors led the mechanism of locked box plus. And the debts of the assets that are being divested, FMU and the other assets that are object of [ since ] led to major reduction in the net revenue that we are absorbing on Laureate Brazil. You remember that in March 2020, we announced that Laureate had a net debt of BRL 630 million, and now it's being reduced to BRL 400 million. So from BRL 623 million to BRL 401 million. More than 2/3 of it is due to cash generation of the operations in the past 12 months, which once again reinforces not only the quality of the management as well as the ascertained strategic movement that we made with this acquisition.

So if we look at the combined company, having a snapshot of it with the results of the past 12 months, we see that we are creating a company with over 330,000 students, almost 260,000 on-campus and 75 on distance learning. Almost 1,800 yearly medical school seats or vacancies and gross revenue of BRL 3 billion. When you look at Anima's LTM, in the case of Unisul, so we only have the first quarter of Unisul. And they have this contracted growth that is important here, as we mentioned last year, Unisul is consolidated to our financial statements. This only started happening in 2021. Considering our LTM with 31st of March, we have a company with net revenue of BRL 3 billion with EBITDA, and also LTM higher to BRL 900 million. Considering the accounting rules of IFRS, especially 16, and EBITDA that is almost BRL 670 million LTM. If we put rent values, IFRS net from rentals, we are creating a very robust company, not only from the academic quality standpoint, but also substantially from the financial economic standpoint.

On the next slide, we address the updating of synergies. And I connect this update with the work that Ricardo talked about, greater part of the updating of these synergies of our identifying additional values in the levers of value creation are due to the integration planning office is very detailed. Ricardo talked a lot about it. And I think you've realized the level of detail of information and the level of opportunities that were sought. Of course, with all the care that we took not to touch on any topic that would be sensitive, this is precisely why the implementation of our model of revenue management. You can see that we -- our company has been growing in the past 2 years. And our average ticket, even despite the whole scenario we have around us, this is due to our revenue model. Let's implement it to Laureate here as well. So it's not here as well as the distance learning strategy is not here because these 2 chapters, we have very confidential information, and we could not actually bring down in a granular way to the numbers as we had in the other value levers. This is what makes us confident to move forward with these numbers that we had expected to have initially in the due diligence and BRL 350 million of additional EBITDA in year 5 deflated, and get today to a number resulting from the integration planning office and mapping opportunities that some BRL 350 million.

So we're talking about deflated amounts, and we're talking about incremental EBITDA in 5 -- annual incremental EBITDA in 5 years' time. And lastly, we talk about the deleveraging initiatives that are quite advanced. We talk -- we started in the past, when we signed the contract with Laureate, we said that deleveraging initiatives were broken down into 4 major fronts maturing the existing operations, and I believe that the results we've shown make it clear how this maturing is generating or maturation is generating value to company. Significant synergies from operational efficiency and scale gain of BRL 350 million and other divestiture of FMU, for example, an agreement with the educational service with the assets of FBB and FMG and other alternatives that are actually listed in these 2 small charts on the side, plus the option.

So I just remind you that the 2 charts, the acquisition value of FMU by [ Faro ] of BRL 500 million, that is not in this calculation because FMEU will actually be transferred to [indiscernible] on the same-day of closing. We closed with Laureate, and the closing will be performed with [indiscernible] to -- of FMU. In addition to the BRL 500 million of FMU that will be paid by [indiscernible], we have BRL 780 million of deleveraging initiatives, BRL 205 million of sale-leaseback and sales of some properties, almost BRL 400 million in disinvestments for divestitures and other BRL 180 million related to the option 1 of educational option asset. And then we see it at the level of maturation, where BRL 350 million in maturation, BRL 250 million are final closing phase. Final drafting of MoU and SPA almost completed agreements and BRL 180 million accomplished regarding the option of [indiscernible] as it's being announced and communicated by both companies, both by Anima NIC exercised option 1 regarding the UniFG [indiscernible] in the metropolitan region of [indiscernible] and FPP, the Paraiba school, but as said not exercise its option #2 has matured, which was related to the 2 assets in [indiscernible] and IBM are Enbridge [indiscernible] do not exercise option 2. And that is why it is not here in this deleveraging account. So we have types of initiatives and face in terms of maturity of each one of those initiatives of deleveraging that we are addressing with great priority or absolute priority.

I can hand over to Marcelo for the closing remarks. Once again, I'd like to reinstate that this movement, substantially transformational, that excites us fills us with expectations, which is the integration of Laureate Brazil.

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, Andre. Thank you, Ricardo. All the integration planning office. And thank you for leading the Board, the Directors and all the board members.

To conclude. I think it's important to reinstate that this is the fourth acquisition that is transformational we make in our 18 years of life, so this is part of our DNA. We will create from now on the largest quality education group with a portfolio of brands that have the penetration that is unique in Brazil in terms of higher education. With a highlight to health care to medicine present in the main capital cities and regions in Brazil, a chain of medical schools that perhaps no other group is able to deliver in Brazil.

As Ricardo said, we are increasingly encouraging and enhancing our governance, resulting to execution with excellence, with innovation, generating an impact to society. With this, we are advancing and setting up a combined company that has the capacity to quickly deleverage and move to other levels and other aspects.

With this, I thank you, and I hand over back to Marina, so that we can move on to the Q&A session.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Right, Marcelo. Thank you, Ricardo, André. Thank you all who have helped us here. We have some questions on the Q&A. I'm going to actually ask them.

The first question or set of questions is from Samuel Alves from BTG Banco.

Thank you, Samuel, for always honoring us with their presence. He congratulates us for the conclusion of the transaction with Laureate and he has 2 questions. First, he asks whether we consider a possible spin-off of Inspirali as a way to support the deleveraging or deleverage strategy? He asks us to add a bit more color as to how we imagine the ramp-up of the distance learning with Laureate.

I'd like to add the question from Marcio Osako from Santander. Thank you for being with us. He also asks us to comment on how we intend to explore the distance learning of Laureate if we have any schedule or time frame for capturing synergies? If it would make to think -- it would make sense to think about an M&A for distance learning to speed up this expansion process?

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, Samuel, Marina, Marcio Osako. First of all, we have this fiduciary, right, to analyze any movement that generates value. With our stakeholders, the carve-out of medicine is being analyzed and has to be analyzed. And I believe, and I'm sure that this network has great potential. Any math that you make, you see that is unblocking a value that is quite relevant. Of course, the deleveraging is a result of this strategy. The strategy is just strengthening -- to strengthen the lifelong learning and avenue, and we believe it makes all sense. And it's part of the evolution of the company. And our duty -- our fiduciary duty to look at all the initiatives that make sense. So it is, in fact, if it is a spin-off or carve-out.

In terms of distance learning, actually, we're looking at Laureate's distance learning with great admiration. We're going to learn a lot. We are starting to disembark there, where I had the first meeting today with a wonderful team, very well conducted work there. I, in fact, believe we have a major avenue to place Anima also in use of technology with quality, with the value proposal that is adherent to what we believe in. From what we've seen, they have a proposal of multi-brand pool or a hub or go digital proposal, and we believe it's going to generate value, and we have a clear agenda of learning a lot from them. And actually, boost what has been done up to now with great scale in our operations.

With regards to M&As, distance learning, we're going to look into them. We have the duty to look into the opportunities that generate value to us. I don't think it's an avenue that would bring great opportunities, but we are always keeping those initiatives on our radar. And seeing, checking whether they make sense to our strategy.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Thank you, Marcelo.

[André Tavares, executive]

Marina, I just think Marcio Osako asked a question.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

I was going to get there. Sorry.

[André Tavares, executive]

Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Marcio Osako asked a question on the speed of capturing synergies?

[André Tavares, executive]

Thank you, Marcio, for the question. And I'd say as a consequence of this work that Ricardo mentioned of the integration planning office, we are very confident in a faster capture of the value. I'd say that greater part of these synergies are consecrated in this first 2 years. So certainly, in the 3 first years, a part that is almost very relevant of synergies. So between the first and second years, I'd say that in the first 2 years, we would have most part of what we've mentioned in terms of the numbers.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Thank you, André. We have a question from Marcelo Santos. I would like to know about the perspective for the second semester entrance examination. We believe that with the reopening, there will be a strong recovery and intake or will the economic situation that is complicated delay the process?

[André Tavares, executive]

Thank you for the question, Marcelo Santos. Having had the opportunity of sharing and having with us and our team discussed at post -- during the pandemic or post-pandemic, we would have great opportunity for differentiation. We -- until then, we had price attention. And we've seen situations that were totally different. So it's schools that were able to migrate with quality, having students safe at home like us, schools that managed to provide value propositions, that provided great dissatisfaction with price, discount and the payment of tuition fees and groups that are still closed. So we look how -- interestingly the same industry with totally different situations and strategies. We continued with the proposal of continuity of our quality services. We've been encouraging transfers and we've seen a market that now not everybody is active, and this is an opportunity for us to move forward and strengthen our subset.

We should not celebrate. We have been able to return any time where we were able to return on rotation of the carnival. And now we are returning according to the regulations of each region, but we are prepared. If the economy grows again, we do hope it actually is recovered. Otherwise, we'll keep on working on separating things.

And so we had Marcelo in the beginning of the processes -- the process of him taking or actually attracting students.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

We have a question from Eduardo Lopez from Santa Fé. So 2 questions from ESG. First of all, he'd like to congratulate us on the award with [indiscernible] magazine. He knows we do great work at the institution, in addition to having inclusion, diversity measures within the company and adopting environment sustainability measures. What are the company's focuses for the near future on the topic of ESG? And how does Anima intend to implement those practices also in Laureate? The second question would be whether we are familiar with the carbon disclosure project and whether we intend to answer the questionnaire in the forthcoming years?

[André Tavares, executive]

I'd like to answer to this one, if you don't mind, Marcelo. Eduardo, thank you very much for your question. This is a very interesting topic and very dear to all of us. When we work in a company with a purpose like Anima, we look at these global ESG initiatives and celebrate because for us, it's always been part of our DNA. We have some initiatives fronts that we are choosing more in the short term. We will be able -- probably in the next quarter, share with the market, and we actually creating a follow-up dashboard in which we're going to take the market to understand that.

I would ask you to bear with us, to be a bit patient because shortly, we're going to share with the whole market the way we see our role, the Chairman of our Institute, Rogério says something that is very interesting. Anima is for social [indiscernible] as for the environmental. We -- with this number of students that we have, we have gigantic possibility of making a positive impact to society. And those that have a mission to transform the country was born to have a positive impact.

On Laureate, quite interesting question of yours because Laureate is a B system company. There are only 2 education companies in the world that are B companies. And Laureate is a B company and the brands of Laureate are B companies. So we're integrating them with our brands, System B brands. So with our -- in this process of selecting priorities. Now, Eduardo, we've inspired ourselves, and we're looking at thinking about an assessment of a B company, remembering that it's something that lasts 2 years, it's long. But we have to remember that we have good conditions of taking part of this process and standing out. We are also familiar with the protocol that you mentioned with the CDP. And as outcome of these choices of ours, we're looking into where we want to move towards. And whether it makes sense for us to be signatory and bring us a visibility seal as part of our DNA. We have not yet made this decision, but shortly, we're going to have a lot of information to share on this topic. And actually, IR is a department that is IR plus ESG report. So we're starting to structure an ESG report that is more formal within IR.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

The next question is from Wilson [indiscernible]. So he asks whether we have any M&A initiative in the segment of K-12.

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Segment? Well, thank you for your question. Anima is specializing in the ecosystem of post-high school. So students would go on to lifelong learning, thinking about the deleveraging initiatives. We have some initiatives in this sense, quite different from what you've asked.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Thank you, Marcelo. Lucca Brendim from Bradesco. Lucca, thank you. Considering the recently announced acquisition of Faculdade [indiscernible] campuses, is there still room for new acquisitions in the short term?

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, Lucca. What is short term? Well, for over 10 years, I ran our M&A expansion department, this is very dynamic. We're always keeping everything on the radar. We have banks like the one you work for to support us in this process, we're always paying attention. So we're have been growing 0.5% or 50% through M&A. So we have this area led by Carlos [indiscernible] and who's a very nice person and very competent. So we're always paying attention to that.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Thank you, Marcelo. We have a last question from Leandro Bastos from Citi. Thank you, Leandro.

Congratulations on the deal. Are you able to comment on how much of these divestments in real estate should generate in rental expenses in the operation?

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, Leandro, for your question. I believe in those fronts, we managed to get very good agreements. We had structured processes, various competitors have put themselves available to take part. And I'd say that we've been able to get quite interesting. [indiscernible] BRL 200 million, should account for about BRL 15 million rental yearly. It's more or less that order of grander.

[Marina Gelman, executive]

We have a last-minute question since we have a few more minutes because as we said 1.5 hours. It's a big one. Do we have a perspective of expanding to Latin America for Anima in the forthcoming years?

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, [indiscernible]. Thank you for your question. We have a lot of work ahead and discipline and great opportunities in Brazil. But education is a global discussion, much greater, and the challenges are not so different in Brazil and LATAM. We have a lot of work to do here, a lot of deliverables to perform and we're focused on the short term. Let me take the previous question and add it to the short-term. Right, Marina?

[Marina Gelman, executive]

Well, benefit from the time line. With this, we close the Q&A session. Once again, I'd like to thank the IR team, Laura, the interpreter, who's been here with you. Thank you, Ricardo [indiscernible], Daniel [indiscernible] from Ricardo's team, who's also been supporting us, [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] from our IT team. André. Marcelo, if you just want to say goodbye. Thank you very much.

[Marcelo Bueno, executive]

Thank you, everyone, all of you. Stay safe and see you next time. We are available for any direct clarification. Thank you very much, keep safe and have a nice weekend. Good afternoon. Thank you very, very much. Bye-bye.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]