Good afternoon. This is the CAREL conference call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the CAREL's Q1 2022 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star then zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Francesco Nalini, CEO of CAREL. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our call for the presentation of Q1 2022 results. Thanks for being here. As usual, I'm starting from page two with the most important financial highlights. We're happy to report once again a very strong quarter. It's actually the fifth consecutive quarter where we report a double digit organic growth rate. We saw the confirmation of a consistent acceleration in demand in several key applications, both in HVAC and refrigeration. On top of this, we had the positive contribution from our recent M&A activity that performed even better than expectations. This led to a revenue growth of 32.1% compared to the same period of last year.
Excluding the positive contribution coming from the exchange rate and from the acquisitions of CFM and Enginia, amounting to approximately EUR 8 million, like-for-like growth is in any case above 20% at 21.7%. This was possible thanks to the ability of the group to mitigate the raw material shortage scenario, which unfortunately is still with us in full, also due to the COVID-related restrictions in China. Fortunately, in the region so far, this is causing some delays, but not any major disruptions to our supply chain. EBITDA margin in the period was 21.1%, in line with the full year 2021, and discounting the prudential full devaluation of all outstanding receivables to customers in Russia for approximately EUR 500 thousand.
We started in this period as expected to see some positive price effects amounting to a low to mid single digit. We also had operating leverage, and this, together with prices, helped to offset the higher raw material costs due to the shortage, while at the same time supporting increased investments in our strategic priority, which is growth, investments in digitalization, innovation and operational resiliency. In terms of operational resiliency, we also increased our safety stock by approximately EUR 9 million, focusing on the most critical components for continuity and on the overlap and duplication of sources. Moving now to page three, we can see some more figures on the results. Revenues at EUR 128.9 million are up 32.1% from the EUR 97.6 million of Q1 2021.
This includes EUR 2.4 million of positive contribution from foreign exchange, and without that growth is 29.6%, and also EUR 7.8 million from M&A, without which growth is 24.1%. This growth is particularly remarkable if we consider that the comparison, which is Q1 2021, had already reported a very high growth of approximately 24%. EBITDA at EUR 27.2 million is up 23.8% from the EUR 22 million of last year, or 21.1% on sales, in line with the full year, but down from the 22.5% of Q1 2021. Again, we started to see a positive price effect as expected of a low to mid single digit, and we had operating leverage, and this offset cost inflation.
At the same time, we are scaling up our investment for growth in areas like digitalization, innovation and operational resilience. Net profit at EUR 16.4 million is up 22.8% from the EUR 13.3 million of last year, thanks to the operating result. Tax rate is 20.5% in the period, in line with expectations. It's slightly higher compared to last year due to a slightly different geographic mix. CapEx at EUR 4.7 million are up from the EUR 2 million of last year, mainly due to the construction of the new plant in Croatia. On page four, we can see the revenue breakdowns. To the left, we see the breakdown by region. Almost all regions have an outstanding growth.
EMEA grew by 31.6%, net of foreign exchange, or approximately 22% organic, in spite of the still severe shortage situation. We continue to see strong demand from what we can call the secular applications, chiefly heat pumps, data centers, indoor air quality and efficiency of buildings, as well as food retail. In Asia Pacific, sales grew by 23.1%, net of the foreign exchange and basically in line with last year. That's remarkable if we consider that GDP growth in China in Q1 was half what it was in 2021. We still have a very positive demand, even if we do expect some normalization in the coming quarters, but at a good level of growth. Specifically in China, we continue with good performance in data centers, heat pumps, indoor air quality and food service.
While food retail is still a little bit subdued. In North America, sales grew by 29.8% net of foreign exchange, driven mainly by data centers, indoor air quality, and food service. In Latin America, sales grew by 7% net of foreign exchange. Here, we have a deceleration in growth compared to the previous quarter due to a couple of contingent situations. One is the shortage that, for logistic reasons, affected Latin America more than the other regions, and the other is a seasonal effect for food retail in Brazil, which is a relevant application for us in Latin America. The reason is basically that food retail typically peaks in Brazil later in the year, but last year, we had the peak in the Q1 due to the backlog generated during the pandemic. The two effects, in any case, are entirely contingent.
To the right, we can see the sales breakdown by market. HVAC grew by 30.2% net of foreign exchange, or approximately 24% organic. Again, we confirm the consistent acceleration of the secular applications, especially heat pumps, but also data centers and indoor quality. Refrigeration grew by 28% net of Forex, with a good performance both in food service and food retail, with food retail especially positive in EMEA. I'll leave it to Nicola to comment the items below the EBITDA on page five.
Thank you, Francesco. The slide number five details the result from the EBITDA to the net profit. The Q1 , 2022 result was impacted by higher D&A costs, mainly related to the M&A activities performed during last year, the consequence of purchase price allocation process. In the period under review, the financial charges were pretty in line with prior year figures, with reference both to financial charges and Forex gain and losses too. The tax rate of the period was 20.5%, with an increase compared to last year figures, mainly related to a different country mix. The group net profit, as at March 2022, was equal to EUR 60.4 million, compared to EUR 13.3 million of the same period of 2021. Slide number six shows the net financial position evolution of the Q1 2022.
Excluding IFRS 16 liabilities, the net financial position, as at March 2022, amounted to EUR 37.9 million. It was equal to EUR 30.2 million at the end of last year. The robust cash generation of the period was offset by strategic increase in net working capital. In fact, in the last quarter, the group decided to increase the stock level in order to serve the strong demand and to face the shortage in some components. It should be noted that the DSO at the end of the period was pretty in line with the last year level. The CapEx of the period were equal to EUR 4.7 million. They were EUR 2 million at the same period of last year. I leave Francesco to go on with the presentation.
Thanks, Nicola. Now moving to page seven. To summarize, on the demand side, the scenario remains very positive both for HVAC and for refrigeration. We confirm the acceleration of what we call the secular applications, that is heat pumps, data centers, indoor quality, and food retail. Thanks to our broad range of solutions and our resilience, we managed to mitigate the effects of the raw materials shortage, and we reported for the fifth consecutive quarter a double digit organic growth rate, by the way, over an already very strong Q1 of 2021. As you know, in the last 18 months, we have taken significant initiatives to further increase our operational resilience. We did the pivoting and duplication of 1/5 of all the microprocessors embedded in our product, of course, the most critical ones.
We increased the time horizon of our supply orders and entered into specific agreements with vendors. Increased our safety stock of components critical for continuity and for the duplication and overlap of sources. Furthermore, the new plant in Croatia will increase our production flexibility. Needless to say, there are still important challenges. The electronic component shortage is unfortunately still with us. The current lockdown situation in Shanghai and the possible extension to Beijing could create further disruptions in the supply chain. However, fortunately, so far in China, we had some delays, but not any significant disruptions. Likewise, so far we didn't see any supply chain disruptions related to the conflict in Ukraine. To conclude, the very positive demand scenario and the resilience shown by the group over time will be fundamental to cope with those challenges.
Thanks to this, we expect to report also in Q2 a significant growth, even if with a lower magnitude than in Q1, due to temporary supply chain bottlenecks. We expect to report a low to mid double digit growth in revenues on a like-for-like, quarter-on-quarter basis. For the full year, we remain confident of good demand trends in the most important applications. However, due to the many uncertainties on the macro side as well as on the supply chain side, we prefer to wait a little bit before providing a precise guidance. Thank you very much for your attention. We're now happy to answer to your questions.
Excuse me. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The Q1 is from Will Turner of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Sorry, afternoon, actually. A couple of questions from me. The first one is on the trade receivables buildup. Is there any particular region or customer that's the reason for such a large increase in trade receivables in the quarter? William, this is Nicola. No. The growth in terms of accounts receivable is only for the increased volumes. There are no relevant issue with customers. If we are going to analyze just the overdue, it is decreased compared to the previous quarters. It is just effect of the volumes because even March was a very strong month in terms of sales. Okay. That's interesting.
In terms of the order development or at least the growth in the quarter, it came in quite a bit stronger than what I was expecting. Do you think in the quarter you've experienced any kind of pre-buying? Obviously there's been a lot of for a while now, but I feel like in the Q1 there's been a lot of companies commenting on that that may have been pre-buying as customers try to get a hold of equipment given the longer lead times that there are across many industries. Well, yes, probably will. There is this phenomenon. It's very difficult to quantify, but it's probably there.
I mean, the supply chain is definitely trying to stock up as much as possible, which translates into orders more than actual revenues so far, actual shipments, because there are not enough materials to actually stock up the supply chain downstream. It's more in terms of orders. Having said that, we believe that the strong underlying trends that we have in some of our applications are pretty structural. It's not easy to really read the end demand. There is definitely some let's say some trends like the one you mentioned in terms of trying to restock the supply chain downstream. At the same time, we are very confident that there is structural trends underlying. Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question is from Emanuele Negri of Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for taking my question. I have four questions, and I'm going to do this in series. The first one is about the working capital. What kind of working capital do you expect to have on sales for the end of the year, so in terms of incidence of working capital on sales? The second one is about profitability. Do you confirm your margin guidance of around 19%, 20% for the end of the year? It's something you talked about during the presentation, but I'd like you to elaborate a bit more on potential impact of lockdown in China on the business if this lockdown is going to be more severe than what you're observing today. Just confirm about the Q2 sales guidance you gave.
Is this at constant perimeter? I think it is, but I want just to be sure about this.
Thank you for the question. I'm Nicola. Answer to the first question. In terms of working capital, even in the last call that we had, we were giving a guidance of around 16% on the sales, with reference to the year end period of the working capital on the sales. Now we think that we can confirm this guidance. It should be something around 16%, 17% on the year end level. Okay. Concerning profitability, we confirm our target of a profitability between 19% and 20%. Again, our priority is growth and not increasing profitability. For this reason, I mean, we definitely intend to continue investing. We've resumed strong investments in like digitalization and innovation.
We're starting to see a significant price effect now. We are not passing through all the cost increases to customers because we have long-term relationships with customers, so that's our commercial strategy. That combined with the operating leverage is offsetting the cost inflation. We definitely prioritize investments for growth. Yes. We in general for the mid-cycle confirm our profitability target of 19% to 20%. The lockdown in China is very difficult to say because the situation is very uncertain. So far we did have some delays due to the fact that for example some vendors had delays due to the lockdowns. The fact that the Shanghai port is closed, so we're using the Beijing one.
For these reasons, we did have some delays, but no stockouts or no major disruptions. It seems that the situation in Shanghai is going to slowly gradually improve at this moment. We are optimistic. Having said that, it's very difficult to say. Maybe as a comparison, we can recall that in March 2020 or February 2020, when the Chinese plant was shut down entirely for the COVID, we managed to absorb almost entirely the shutdown of the plant by moving production elsewhere. The situation seems to be gradually improving in Shanghai, and we are located near Shanghai. It seems we're optimistic at this point, but it's uncertain, of course.
Concerning the Q2 , yes, it's a like for like, so it's the same perimeter. Is it, Nicola, with fixed exchange rate guidance on the Q2 ? Yes. It's fixed exchange rate and like for like.
Thank you.
Gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Okay. Thank you very much for your attention and for your questions, and looking forward to speaking with you for the presentation of the half year results. Thank you very much.