Earnings call transcript: Vasta Platform misses Q3 2025 forecasts

Vasta Platform Ltd. (VSTA) reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a revenue shortfall compared to forecasts. The company's revenue came in at $249.6 million, below the expected $280.71 million, marking an 11.08% miss. Despite the revenue miss, Vasta's stock experienced a slight uptick of 0.81% in after-hours trading, closing at $4.93, reflecting a mixed investor sentiment.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue fell short of expectations by 11.08%.
• Stock price increased by 0.81% in after-hours trading.
• Free cash flow improved significantly, up 117% from the previous year.
• Vasta launched new AI-driven educational tools and expanded its bilingual education franchise.

Company Performance

Vasta Platform demonstrated robust growth in several areas despite missing revenue expectations. The company achieved a 14% increase in net revenue for the 2025 sales cycle, reaching BRL 1.737 billion. Subscription revenue also grew by 14.3% to BRL 1.552 billion. This performance underscores Vasta's sustained double-digit growth for the fourth consecutive year, driven by its diversified product portfolio and expansion into new markets.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: BRL 1.737 billion, up 14% year-over-year
• Adjusted EBITDA: BRL 494 million, with a 28.4% margin
• Adjusted net profit: BRL 82 million, a 32% increase from 2024
• Free cash flow: BRL 316 million, up 117% from the previous cycle

Earnings vs. Forecast

Vasta's actual revenue of $249.6 million fell short of the forecasted $280.71 million, resulting in an 11.08% miss. This discrepancy highlights challenges in meeting market expectations despite strong internal performance metrics.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings report, Vasta's stock price rose by 0.81% in after-hours trading, closing at $4.93. This movement places the stock within its 52-week range, with a high of $5.488 and a low of $1.6, suggesting a cautiously optimistic investor outlook despite the revenue miss.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Vasta anticipates mid double-digit revenue growth in 2026 and plans to implement a 1-2% pricing increase. The company remains focused on innovation and personalized learning, with a commitment to generating free cash flow and reducing leverage.

Executive Commentary

CEO Guilherme Mélega expressed confidence in Vasta's growth strategy, stating, "We are confident in our ability to sustain growth, enhance profitability, and deliver value to all our shareholders." CFO Cesar Silva emphasized the company's strong cash flow generation and core business expansion as key drivers of long-term value.

Risks and Challenges

• Revenue shortfall could impact investor confidence and stock performance.
• Market competition in the education technology sector remains intense.
• Economic uncertainties and potential currency fluctuations may affect future earnings.
• Execution risk in expanding the bilingual education franchise and new product launches.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analyst Camille Asuncal from Morgan Stanley inquired about the 2026 ACV build-up. Management confirmed expectations for mid double-digit growth, highlighting continued expansion in learning systems and complementary products as significant contributors to future performance.

Full transcript - Vasta Platform Ltd (VSTA) Q3 2025:

Kathleen, Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. My name is Kathleen, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Vasta Platform Third Quarter 2025 financial results. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the star one again. Before we begin, I would like to read a forward-looking statement. During today's presentation, our executives will make forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or future financial or operating performance and involve.

Known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this presentation include but are not limited to statements related to our business and financial performance. Expectations for future periods: our expectations regarding our strategic product initiatives and the related benefit and our expectations regarding the market. Forward-looking statements are based on our management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to our management. These risks include those set forth in the press release that we are issuing today, as well as those more fully described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this presentation are based on the information available to us as of today.

You should not rely on them as predictions of the future events, and we disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. In addition, the management may reference non-IFRS financial measures on this call. The non-IFRS financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with IFRS. I would like to turn the call over to Cesar Silva, the CFO, and Guilherme Mélega, the CEO. Please go ahead.

Cesar Silva, CFO, Vasta Platform: Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us in this conference call to discuss Vasta Platform's third quarter 2025 results. I'm Cesar Silva, Vasta CFO, and today we have the presence of Guilherme Mélega, Vasta CEO, who will be joining on the call. Let me now hand over the floor to Guilherme Mélega, our CEO, to make his opening statement.

Guilherme Mélega, CEO, Vasta Platform: Thank you, Cesar. Thank you all for participating in our earnings release call. Let's move to slide number three, which summarizes the key highlights of the 2025 sales cycle. We are closing the final quarter of this commercial cycle, and we are pleased with the results achieved. Once again, we delivered consistent growth in revenue and profitability while maintaining strong operational discipline, cash flow performance, and advancing our strategy priorities. Starting with subscription revenue, we grew 14.3% compared to the previous cycle, supported by ACV bookings of BRL 1,552,000,000. Net revenue was up 13.6%. This performance reflects the resilience of our core business and the successful execution of our commercial strategy. We have demonstrated the ability to sustain double-digit growth in our core business for the fourth consecutive year.

Our complementary solutions continue to expand at an accelerated pace, growing 25.3% year over year, reinforcing the strength of our ecosystem and the value we bring to schools with our complete product portfolio. In the B2G segment, during this quarter alone, we recorded revenues of BRL 17 million from several new customers and from the State of Pará contract, totaling BRL 67 million in the 2025 sales cycle. This demonstrates stability in this revenue stream compared to 2024. As a result, net revenue in the 2025 sales cycle reached BRL 1,737,000,000, a 14% increase compared to the same period in 2024. This growth was driven by the successful conversion of ECV bookings into revenue, along with the strong performance of our complementary solutions, as mentioned before. In profitability, adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 494,000,000, a 10% increase compared to 2024.

The margin was 28.4%, slightly below last year's 29.4%, mainly due to a different product mix and increased investments in marketing and growth initiatives. Despite these factors, we maintained healthy profitability levels, demonstrating our ability to balance expansion with operational efficiency. A major highlight of this cycle was free cash flow, which totaled BRL 316 million, 117% higher than last cycle. Our last 12 months' free cash flow to EBITDA conversion rate improved significantly to 64%, up 31.5 percentage points from 2024. This improvement was driven by efficiency measures and disciplined cash management, including early collections and automation in financial process. We also continue to make progress in the leverage, with net debt to last 12 months' EBITDA at 1.75 times, down from 2.32 times in Q3 2024. Beyond these financial metrics, we continue to make progress in strategic areas.

In the B2G segment, we advanced our diversification strategy, adding new municipalities to our portfolio. This reinforced our commitment to expand access to quality education through partnerships with public institutions. In bilingual education, our Start Angle franchise remains a key growth avenue. We now operate six units, which includes four schools implemented this year and have signed over 50 contracts, besides a robust pipeline with more than 300 prospects. This positions us well to capture demand from premium bilingual education in the coming cycles. It is worth mentioning we expect to launch eight new operational units for the upcoming year. Finally, as we look ahead to 2026, innovation remains the center of our strategy. Through RAU AI, we will introduce new tools focused on equity and personalized learning, including the Individualized Educational Plan, EEP, which will empower educators with tailored pedagogical recommendations and foster inclusive practice.

In summary, these results confirm the resilience of our business model and the successful execution of our strategy. We are confident in our ability to sustain growth, enhance profitability, and deliver value to all our shareholders. I will now turn back to Cesar Silva, who will walk us through the financial results.

Cesar Silva, CFO, Vasta Platform: Thank you, Mélega. Let's move on to slide number five. In this slide, we present the composition of Vasta's net revenue. On the left side, you can observe the organic growth for the third quarter in total net revenue, which increased by 13.4%, reaching BRL 250 million. Vasta's subscription revenue achieved in the third quarter of 2025 was BRL 212 million, a 3% increase compared to the same quarter of 2024. Non-subscription revenue increased 45% to BRL 21 million, supported by higher enrollment in the Start Angle flagship schools and Angle Prairie University course. Moving to the right side, you have the numbers of the net revenue for the 2025 sales cycle. We achieved an organic net revenue growth of 13.6% in the 2025 sales cycle, amounting to BRL 1.737 billion. The main factors for this performance were: first, the subscription revenue has increased 14.3%.

BRL 1.552 billion and continues to be the major contributor to our total revenue, representing 89.3% of the net of the revenue share, as detailed in slide number four of this presentation. Non-subscription revenue increased 16% to BRL 119 million. This growth is mainly driven by two effects: the new revenue from our flagship Start Angle ESL in São Paulo that did not exist in 2024, and the growth in the number of students in the Angle Prairie University course, which enrolled 21% more students than last cycle. Moving to slide number six, you can see that in this sales cycle, our adjusted EBITDA amounted to BRL 494 million, with a margin of 28.4%, an increase of 9.9% to BRL 449 million, which we will break down in the next slide. In this slide number seven, we can observe that the adjusted EBITDA margin achieved 28.4% in this.

2025 sales cycle, one percentage point lower than the same period of 2024. Our gross margin reached 62.8%, a decrease of 1.4 percentage points from 64.2% in the 2024 sales cycle, mainly due to a different product mix. It is worth mentioning complementary solutions have grown at a faster pace by higher payments to product owners of certain products. Provisions for doubtful accounts (PDA) achieved 3.1% in relation to the net revenue and have an improvement of 0.8 percentage points when compared to 2024. This indicator has been showing improvement during the year, despite the very challenging restrictive credit environment for non-premium, and we still foresee challenges in the credit scenario for the next month. As a percentage of net revenue, our commercial expenses increased by 0.8 percentage points, driven by higher expenses related to business expansion of the commercial cycle for 2026, and remained stable.

Near 19% of the revenue. Finally, adjusted G&A expenses improved by 0.3 percentage points, mainly driven by workforce optimization and budgetary discipline measures. Moving to slide number eight, we show the adjusted net profit. You can see on the right side of the slide in the sales cycle that the adjusted net profit reached BRL 82 million, and there has been an increase of 32% from adjusted net profit of BRL 62 million in 2024 because of the topics I had mentioned. Moving to slide number nine, we show the free cash flow evolution. In the sales cycle, our free cash flow reached BRL 316 million, an increase of 117% from 2024. The cash flow generation in this cycle has an outstanding performance and achieved the highest level of conversion in relation to the adjusted EBITDA in the last years, achieving 64%.

This is 31.5 percentage points better than the same indicator as last year. This improvement is explained by certain measures that the company has been implementing, which are already yielding positive results. We can mention some of these measures in our collection process. We developed an automatized process, like reminders and pass-through notifications. We implemented customer segmentation and managed to make faster renegotiation on overdue receivables. On the payment side, we implemented several initiatives to enhance discipline in payments, such as egross financial planning, centralizing premiums scheduling, and negotiating long-year payment terms with suppliers. Additionally, the first semester of 2025 benefited from early collections of the 2025 sales cycle, which are expected to normalize in the next quarter. It is worth mentioning that for the fiscal year, we expected to achieve a conversion rate of about 50% of the EBITDA. This will represent a prevalent.

Increase from 41.8% compared to the 2024 fiscal year. Moving to slide number 12, let's take a closer look at the net debt movement. The net debt position decreased by BRL 177 million in the 2025 sales cycle. This decrease was driven mainly by the free cash flow generated in 2025, which was partially offset by financial interest costs. Our net debt amounted to BRL 863 million at the end of the sales cycle, and we managed to reduce the leverage ratio of the net debt to last 12 months' adjusted EBITDA, which achieved 1.75 times, a decrease of 0.57 times of this indicator compared to the same quarter of 2024. We would like to reinforce our commitment to continuing to generate free cash flow and deleverage the company. Having said that, I finish our presentation and invite you all to the Q&A session.

Guilherme Mélega, CEO, Vasta Platform: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press the Star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask your question and listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, please press Star 1 to join the queue. Your first question comes from the line of Camille Asuncal of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good evening. Thanks for the space. We only have one question. Could you provide, please, some color on the ACV build-up for 2026?

If you could comment on your outlook for growth and the balance between volume and pricing?

Cesar Silva, CFO, Vasta Platform: Thank you, Camille, for your question. We just ended the quarter of the cycle of 2025, recording a 14.3% subscription revenue growth. That's definitely the trend that we expect to continue for 2026. I would say it's mid double-digit growth in terms of revenues. In terms of outlook of our performance, we are growing in learning systems, gaining market share in premium learning systems, and complementary products keep the pace growing with more than 20%. That's the trend that should be continued to 2026. In terms of pricing, for the last five cycles, we were able to price EPCA Plus, and we definitely are targeting the same level. I would say EPCA Plus between 1%-2% for the next cycle should be a good guess for what we are seeing right now.

Guilherme Mélega, CEO, Vasta Platform: Very clear. Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 to join the queue. We will compile the Q&A roster. Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1. There are no further questions. I will now turn the conference back over to Guilherme Mélega for closing remarks.

Cesar Silva, CFO, Vasta Platform: Thank you all for participating in our Q3 conference. The sales cycle of 2025 continues to reflect Vasta's solid execution and strategic focus. Our consistent revenue growth, strong cash flow generation, and expansion of core business reinforce our commitment to deliver long-term value. We are particularly proud of the progress made in our Start Angle bilingual school and the evolution in our Plurall platform and our disciplined approach to operational efficiency and financial management. Thank you all for continuing to trust and support. We look forward to seeing you in the earnings release call of the end of the 2025 fiscal year. Thank you all.

Guilherme Mélega, CEO, Vasta Platform: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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