Afya Limited (NASDAQ:AFYA) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Marcelo Santos: Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I also have two. I think the first question ties a bit to the previous one, you said that you should have the lowest point of margin in the B2B in 2022. Could you broaden a bit the discussion on margins? Could you please discuss a bit, what are the building blocks of margins in 2023? What are the detractors and the supports of margin that we should see in the year? That’s the first question. The second question is, if you could comment a bit on tuition for the — the first half of 2023 intake cycle, given that you probably already set your prices, so what could we expect in terms of tuitions? Thank you.

Luis Andre Blanco: Hi, Marcelo. It’s Luis speaking. Regarding margins for 2023, we didn’t release the guidance for 2023, right now. We’re going to release in the beginning of the year within the 2022 results. So we can’t comment more on 2023 when guidance margins over there. Regarding the tuition fees as we usually do, we put the new pricings for new students foreign exchange students during September and October. Regarding the — our core business, regarding the demand in students. Most of the units had apply readjustments of 7.5% for existing and for new students. So we can expect an increase of 7.5%. Some units we had a little bit behind that, some units we have a little bit more than that, more on the new students. But 7.5, its vertical see, there for 2023 price increase.

Virgilio Gibbon: Marcelo just adding on the first question about the margins. It’s our three different segments on the undergrad segment. We will still maturing our operation, UNIGRANRIO (ph) is our last big acquisition, we exclude the you need that’s there still pending the closing expected it to beginning of January. But considering that scope, we will see some gross margin opportunity and leveraging our operation as UNIGRANRIO still have some opportunities in terms of margin. We just implemented — pushed all the transaction activities larger services rolling out system. So we have some efficient that we can have flow in UNIGRANRIO and the maturation for other campuses. But the undergrad operations very mature, so the opportunity in terms of overall margin, it’s lower.

Moving to the other segments, we can see that our graduate the continuing Med Education will grow very fast year-over-year. So the composition will see much more revenues coming from the graduate programs, then we have 2022, but we still with lower margins than the undergrad. So the mix will be better on the graduate brands that will grow faster, but with lower mine. So in terms of average can have a negative impact coming from there. The same dynamic we are seeing on the digital, because digital as when you take a look, just for the segment it will be much better in terms of margin and gross margin. But by the bottom line is still have a lower margin momentum compare to the core undergraduate business. So having said that, when we put everything we still have the margin close where we operate.

But we didn’t release any guidance where it will be our range during 2023, okay.

Marcelo Santos: Perfect. Thank you very much. Very clear.

Ana Raquel Torres: Next question comes from Vitor Tomita from Goldman Sachs. Vitor, go ahead, please.

Vitor Tomita: Hello. Good evening, all and thanks for taking our questions. Two questions from our side. The first one is that there seems to have been a slight decline in non-medical health care students in addition to the reduction in non-healthcare students. Could you give us some more color on that. And on whether the decline is related to macroeconomic or competitive headwinds. And the second question on our side, would be about the B2B access features that you’re launching. Do you have any initial sense on how physicians are receiving their changes from their end in their daily usage of digital solutions in their usage experience now that there are B2B access features interacting with them? Thank you.

Luis Andre Blanco: Thank you, Tomita. Luis speaking here. Regarding the drop that we have on non-medical health, it’s regarding the closing of one business learning for us in that we have implemented in one unit that we close this course during the second semester. It’s a course that had a small revenue and a very small margin contribution. So we decided to close — to finish it on the — here on the end of the first semester, and roughly, it’s something about 3,000 students that we have on these distance learning course in health. Regarding the second question, regarding the B2B features, we see that we can provide the connection between the physician and the pharmaceutical industry. This is being very well received by our physicians.

And we can — and because of that, that’s being very well accepted. We can move with the expansions in the number of contracts and the number of pharmaceutical companies that we have under our portfolio. As Virgilio mentioned, we have this land and expand strategy when we provide our service for a specific line of product within a pharmaceutical company. And then we expand, we have been different lineup of products inside off the same pharmaceutical companies. We’ve been doing that and providing this kind of service and the physicians are good with these kind of connections that we are providing.

Vitor Tomita: Very clear. Thank you.

Ana Raquel Torres: Our next question come from Mauricio Cepeda from Credit Suisse. Mauricio, go ahead, please.

Mauricio Cepeda: Hello, Virgilio, Blanco. Thanks for the time. I have two questions from our side. The first one is about the recent acquisition of UNIT. I understand that the closing is — as you said, is forecasted for next year. But anyhow, how do you plan to make the capital structure to absorb such acquisitions. So are you planning on more debt? What is the capital that you are planning to cope with this acquisition? And the second question is about the prep courses, Medcel, if you are some way trying to remodel it or even trying to rethink about the tickets. Any kind of product redesign that you’re thinking now that we are approaching the intake for the rest of the year? Thank you.