Hello everyone and welcome to the Brunel International Trading Update for the 4th quarter and full year 2023. My name is Bruno and I'll be operating your call today. During the presentation you can register to ask a question by pressing * followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over the call to your host and CEO Jilko Andringa, please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon everybody. Q4 results and full year results. There's a double message as I said on the Dutch radio this morning. If you look at the glass half full or glass half empty you get different messages. Glass half full is we are growing in a market that is not always easy. There are some international global events that are happening and you see some cool off in one of our biggest markets in Germany. And if you take that into account and you then see high single digit growth and organically even double digit growth in the company, organically continue to add profitability, then we're very proud of the results. Glass half empty is we would love to be even a little bit further because the cool off in Q4 was not what we had foreseen earlier in 2023.
And that's why we have to step up as an organization, make sure that we align our cost levels very quickly to the new circumstances in offshore wind in the permanent placement market, for Taylor Hopkinson, but also, in Germany, of course. If you take that into account and then look at January and how we started the year with high single-digit growth in both revenue and GP and we see the first effects of our cost savings activities then we have a lot of confidence on the progression this year, on the results of this year and how we can follow our next level plan as we communicated it during the Capital Markets Day. With that I would like to hand it over to Peter de Laat, our CFO, for more insights on the financials.
Thank you, Jilko. I'll directly go to the summary of our financials. Here, here it is. So, like Jilko said, still very high revenue growth in Q4, in almost all regions, except for Asia, but that's more a mixed element. Also still, EBIT growth. In this presentation we are presenting underlying EBIT, so adjusted for the one-off cost that we incurred, in Q4 to right size our organization to our current activity level. Looking at the full year, very nice revenue growth of 18% and, also 10% EBIT growth organically. The difference between the reported 0% and the 10% organically is 50/50 split between the impact of exchange rates and the impact of working days. So overall, like Jilko said, more or less in line with our plans, but a slightly weaker quarter than we had hoped earlier in the year.
Moving on to the individual regions, starting with the DACH region. The key graph on this page is the development of the headcount, where you see that in Q4 the headcount was below the headcount from last year in Q4. The glass half full, glass half empty, the positive thing is that the headcount remains stable. So there's still a lot of underlying activity, and it's giving us comfort for next year. But the market is tougher than it was earlier this year, and we hope to see that recovering later this year. But that's also why we mainly right-sized our organization in DACH, because there's the biggest gap between actual EBIT and our ambition and forecast.
The change of the year where we always see a drop with projects ending at the end of a year was in line with previous years, so that means that the trend we've seen in Q4 will pretty much continue in Q1. The summary of the results, even despite the, what everybody knows, difficult market, in Germany we still managed to achieve 9% revenue growth and the same EBIT as we did in 2022 with EUR 24 million. Yeah, a very high contribution to our group results and a continued, yeah, strong performance of our team there. Moving on to the Netherlands. There you see also the headcount development flattening a little bit at the end of the year, which is the normal pattern where we had a stronger December in the previous years, but we're still ahead of last year.
Also in the Netherlands, the change of the year was pretty much in line with last year, so the trend in Q1 will continue. We have the biggest challenge in last year was of course the impact of wage inflation in the Netherlands, and especially our challenge to pass that on to our clients, especially government and banks and insurance companies, and that's putting a lot of pressure on our gross margin. But we see, yeah, continuous work is slowly recovering that margin, but it's going very slowly. So that's why we're very focused on improving the efficiency of our Dutch organization to make sure that we all, that we are heading for our 10% EBIT in a not so far future.
The summarized results for the Netherlands, they also achieved the same EBIT as in 2022, but it's pretty impressive considering all the impact on the margin, so they even were able to make up by that by just growing more. Based on what we see from our competitors in the Netherlands, it's very clear that our organization is at the moment outperforming the market and we're very proud of that and that's very promising for the future. Moving on to Australasia, that's really they really have again had a great year with a strong growth in our traditional markets, conventional energy and mining, and the growth is both in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea is also a strong contributor at the moment still with a lot of activity there.
There's so much opportunity still in that region that we also have asked a team of Advance Careers, those are recruitment agencies for ESG consultants, to join us and they have joined us at the first of January. It's a nice addition, a small team of five people, but it's a nice addition to our added service portfolio that we're delivering in Australasia. Moving on to the results of Australasia, there you see the true leverage that comes with our industry working with 90% revenue growth and 62% EBIT growth, and they're also nicely contributing again to our results and again we're very proud of what they are achieving in Australasia. Next for Middle East and India.
Middle East and India had a stellar 2022 and with some projects ending in 2023 it was hard to reach the same level, but they still did an amazing performance continuing with a high conversion ratio, and continuing to win new projects. But unfortunately due to the mix in projects ending and new projects starting, we see the gross profit, the gross margin decreasing a bit, but the volume will make up for that, so they will continue to be a big contributor to our results. Earlier this year we announced that we had a delay in the start of a new project. I'm happy to confirm that that project has started by now and is slowly ramping up, so you will see the impact of that in the course of this year.
biggest contributors are Qatar with the huge LNG facilities there, but also at the moment our activities on construction yards in Dubai which is growing fast and very nice also benefiting from the cooperation with Taylor Hopkinson, also winning a lot of work on the yards for renewable energy. So the summarized results still 12% growth revenue, despite the big projects ending, EBIT slightly lower than in 2022, but still at a, for this market, very high EBIT percentage of 7.6%, ends with a nice contribution to the group's result of EUR 12 million. And Americas. The headcount development suggests differently, but we're still at a high growth trajectory there. And, what's the connection to the headcount development then?
We see a bit of change in the mix with a slightly lower headcount in Brazil and a higher headcount in America, at a higher day rate, so that's supporting the revenue growth but also the EBIT growth. Yeah, America's being the biggest engineering and energy market, there's still plenty of room to continue that growth. If you then look at their results, also an amazing EBIT growth on the back of 21% revenue growth, increasing their conversion and they're heading in the right direction for the EBIT percentage. All they need is to continue to grow and we're comfortable that that will happen and it's happening at the moment. Onto Asia. Asia is driven by a lot of your construction work we do in yards, in China, in Singapore, a little bit of Korea, and mining activities we have in Indonesia.
And we're very happy and very proud of positioning those countries where our compliant service delivery is really appreciated by our clients and helps us to win new work and new clients. So also there there's still plenty of opportunity to continue this growth path, even though Q4 suggests a slight slowdown, but that was in line with our expectations because we knew that there were only new projects coming online in the course of this year and actually we see that materializing at the moment. So as a result, overall 30% revenue growth and 27% EBIT growth, contributing EUR 12 million EBIT to the group's EBIT, a nice performance and a very strong gross margin, where they are able to get the right price for the services delivered in many complex countries.
Then the rest of the world, the rest of the world is a combination of all our other activities. The biggest one there is Taylor Hopkinson, in Glasgow and also our conventional energy activities in Europe and Belgium is included there. If you look at the headcount graph you see this deep decline we had in 2022, that's obviously the divestment of Russia we had, that's impacting the comparisons. And the second half of the year was a bit difficult, especially for Taylor Hopkinson with all the developments in the renewable market, especially for our perm placement business where that didn't grow as fast as we would have liked. But the contracting business in renewable is still very strong and we're winning a lot of new business there.
The perm placement obviously is a high margin contributor, so if you perform lower there you immediately see that in your margin and your EBIT. And like Tom Hopkinson said, during our Capital Markets Day we are expecting also the perm market to slowly recover in the course of this year. That brings us to the world, the results of the rest of the world. A 0, an EBIT of 0, that's more or less in line with our expectations, although we would have liked to do a little bit more, but this also includes the earnout related cost for Taylor Hopkinson and the acquisition related cost.
You've seen in our Q4 results that we had a benefit in the adjustment of our Earnout obligations because the Earnout obligation is tightly linked to their performance and with the lower performance our also our Earnout obligation is also lower, so we are a little bit protected there. The overall group results. 30% reported revenue growth and the same EBIT as 2022. Again, if you adjust for working days and exchange rate, that translates to a 10% EBIT growth, so that gives the run rate where we're actually still on that we expect for 2024 as well. That brings us to the outlook for this quarter. As mentioned we are in January we've seen a growth rate of high single digit in revenue.
We see some new activities around projects that will start in the course of this year, so supporting the continued high revenue growth with our activities to right size our organization and adjust our cost levels, that will result in continued EBIT growth throughout 2024. So still in line with our long-term plans. Unfortunately a slightly weaker Q4 than we would have hoped, but that's a bump in the road like we also said also said in the Capital Markets Day and we will have, we have recovered from that and you will see that in the course of this year. Then on to the balance sheet. As always we had a very strong cash flow in Q4 resulting in our net cash position of over EUR 30 million at the end of December 2023.
That enables us to continue to pay dividend in line with our policy, so our proposal is to pay EUR 0.55 dividend per share, the same as in 2022. Yeah, other than that the balance sheet remains strong with the high solvency and a very healthy cash position. Then some organizational changes. We are very sad that Just Spee had to decide to leave the Supervisory Board due to health reasons, which you probably, which he also did in other organizations where he was in a supervisory role or similar role. Just Spee has been a, an enormous contributor in the last couple of years and he will be missed, but fortunately he will still be with us for a couple of months.
The other part is, Tom Hopkinson, he has played a very strong part in the integration and growing the success story of renewable, joining forces of Taylor Hopkinson and his unique Brunel infrastructure and we're benefiting from all those, synergies. And now it's the time that he wants to move to a more promotional sponsor role, advisory role, and as a result we also decided to, settle his earnout and his to buy his shares earlier than, a year earlier than expected, so that will be finalized in this quarter this year. But good thing Tom will still have a very important role within our organization contributing, yeah, as much as he did in the last two years, so. And in the operational and sales leadership side he is replaced by internal candidates which is also fantastic.
He grew the company with a group of entrepreneurs who are with him already for some over 10 years, and some of those key people now took over and lead Taylor Hopkinson in the Brunel group. So, very good to see that move and the continued collaboration with Tom. Then, finally, the development of our net fees or our gross profit by vertical, and there you continue to see the strong growth in our global key verticals. Actually, conventional energy is at the lowest level of the growth and is outpaced by growth in mining, renewable energy, and also life sciences. This is, yeah, a brief summary of our Q4 and full year results, and I now want to hand it back to the operator to address any questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question star followed by two and please do also remember to unmute your microphone when it's your turn to speak. Okay, we do have our first question, it comes from Konrad Zomer from ABN AMRO. Konrad, your line's now open. Hi, good morning, Jilko and Peter, it's Konrad. Few questions. Firstly, the restructuring charges, EUR 4.5 million, can you maybe share with us, the breakdown of those costs? And my second question, on the 20% stake that Tom still owns in Taylor Hopkinson, what's the financial implication of bringing that, deal forward by one year in terms of earnout, in terms of price, how does that work? And then, my third question is on the, developments in Germany.
Most of your peers highlighted the high sickness levels. You did mention it but not to a great extent. It seems that that market is actually deteriorating quite rapidly and although your results in Germany were, I think, the main reason why the overall results in Q4 might be disappointing, but I think your underlying performance is actually quite good. So what's your view on the current state of the German market for you and what have you specifically done to right size your organization there? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Conrad. Let me start with the restructuring charges. The EUR 4.5 million or EUR 4.8 million actually, largest part so 75% relates to Germany obviously with the conditions there and the rest relates to the rest of the world, but the main part is in Germany.
And it is twofold. The largest part is obviously reducing our internal headcount to match the activity level, but we also abandoned some offices and moved to, or combined offices or moved to a shared office. So that's on the restructuring. Then the 20% shares in Taylor Hopkinson, so you might know or remember that we at the moment own 72%, so Tom owns 20% and the rest of his management owns 8%, and you're right we own, at the moment we are settling the acquisition of the 20% from Tom. I don't want to share all the highlights but in our annual report we have included also in 2022 that our expected obligation material purchase of the remaining 28% is EUR 60 million.
The main impact on settling it a year earlier is, there's also a timing benefit for Tom so there's a slight discount compared to, if he would have settled in 2025. Then Germany, I like how you phrased your question. We were expecting more from our organization in Germany but at the moment, also seeing what our competitors do and what's happening in the market we are still pretty proud on their performance. It's hard work, but they still managed to achieve a very strong result. And that's also why we're happy to see that the deterioration you mentioned we're not seeing in our business. Yes, our headcount at the moment is below where we were last year, but that gap is not increasing, so the trend is continuing and it's still at a very healthy level. Sickness levels.
The sickness levels that you called out and that you also see with other players in our industry that were high in Q4 actually is true, was also high with us so productivity was lower than expected. But this is part of our business model where we are responsible for all our employees also when they are not working on the bench, or when they're sick and yeah that should be included also in the way we price our business. The good news is in the beginning of the year the sickness rates in Germany have gone down significantly, so that helps us a little bit in the margins also in 2024. Okay, okay, that's all very clear. Just one quick follow-up. By bringing forward that deal with Tom by a year, that also means that we won't get any more earnouts in 2024, is that correct?
Not entirely because, well, Tom owns 20% approximately of the remaining 28%, so there's still 8% left, that's the first part. The way the earnout is structured is let's call it a zero-sum game. So any discount we apply for what we buy from Tom will flow to the rest of the team, because they have a bigger responsibility to drive the results. Right, okay, because the original earnout plan ends at the end of 2024? Yeah, that's correct, so 2024 will be the last year. So it's that business. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I'll leave the floor to others first, thank you. Thank you, Konrad. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad. That's star one on your telephone keypad.
Okay, we currently have no further questions registered, so I would like to hand the call back to our CEO, Jilko, for closing remarks. Over to you. Thank you very much. Yeah, as we started with, glass half full, glass empty. For 2024 the glass is half full. If you look at the industries we're in, as we presented during the Capital Markets Day, the capital investments committed in the industries that we have a very, very good capability for are growing and growing. And we see that in our pipeline and we see that in the wins we have also in the beginning of this year. We had a nice flow of new client wins. We're focusing with the whole organization on activities at the client to bring in the best projects. Once you have the best projects in you're also very attractive for top talent.
That model works and that model is continuing to work and with that and with the start of the year, we have a very good feel. Again, as I said earlier on, the plan that we presented in November, Brunel to the Next Level, is still our plan. Once in a while you have a bump on the road, but the underlying dynamics are all in line to reach those goals. And, yeah, with that we built on our team and we brought new talent to the leadership level that help us execute this plan and we have a high confidence that we can continue to do that in the quarters and years to come. Thank you for your attention and we definitely will see you again next quarter and for many of you probably earlier. All right, have a nice day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining.