GRI 1.1
We are an innovative company, focused on our retail customers, comprised of highly qualified and motivated employees to always do their best. This bold and resilient culture enables us to obtain positive results, even in a challenging year like it was in 2012 for Brazil, keeping us in the curve of customers and revenue growth, which it has already held for years. Over the past three years, Linx’s customer base grew at an average annual rate of 66%, and only in 2012 had an increase of 2,515 customers.
It is our role, as retail technology experts in Brazil, to remain ahead of the market. That is why we have one of the largest investments in research and development among the market players. We understand that traditional retail is changing. Today, the consumer is in charge, and our innovation strategy aims to provide tools to our customers to thrive in this new scenario.
This strategy proves to be effective as we are generating high returns, with a compound annual growth rate of 50% of net revenue over the last three years. Recurring revenue grew 36.7% in 2012 and our adjusted EBITDA, 14.4%.We have a business model focused on recurring revenue, which represents about 75% of our total revenue in 2012. By focusing on retail and its verticals, our efforts to develop solutions that meet our customers' needs are more assertive and adherents, generating high levels of renewals of customers.
We carried out 11 acquisitions between 2008 and 2012, and two more recently, in 2013, in line with our strategic plan. In 2012, Linx acquired and incorporated Compacta, incorporated Microvix and acquired the assets of Bitix, expanding its portfolio both in verticals as well as technology. At the same time, we sold a unit of our business, Linx Fast Fashion, and we discontinued another, Linx Prevenção de Perdas, to focus our offers exclusively on information technology. With these acquisitions, we went on to work with the challenge of integrating these companies into a single company. In this direction, in 2011, and 2012 we consolidated a new organizational structure and strengthened our Human Resources department.
We spent the last few years making our Company increasingly productive and well prepared for new acquisitions. We created the Board of Directors, which started to operate effectively in early 2012. This year was also very important to consolidate our operational issues in order to meet the growing need of Linx. Furthermore, in 2012, we strengthened the areas of Human Resources and Infrastructure by creating two executive boards.
In addition to standardizing our internal processes, ?with the acquisitions we have the fundamental work of incorporating the culture of the acquired companies to Linx. In parallel, we need to continue innovating and bringing solutions to our customers that generate higher productivity. An evidence that we are on the right path is the magnitude of our customers renewal rate, which is currently at 97% per quarter, demonstrating their high reliability and fidelity.
We are developers and service providers. But, before anything else, we are people working for the sole purpose of being the best company in providing ?retail management software solutions. The people who are part of Linx are largely responsible for its success.
We are ready to follow our acquisition strategy for the coming years, while maintaining a strict control of our internal processes, improving our governance and valuing our team. We are preparing ourselves for a promising future without losing sight of our corporate culture and our mission of to make retailers more profitable, competitive and sustainable through the use of technology.
Alberto Menache - CEO of Linx