Good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to El.En.'s Fiscal Year 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's call will be recorded, and therefore will be an opportunity for questions at the end of the conference. With me on the call, Andrea Cangioli, CEO, and Enrico Romagnoli, Chief Financial Officer and Investor Relations. Before we begin, just please note that there is a remark the management makes on the conference call about future expectations, plans, and prospects, and forward-looking statements. Certain statements in this call, including those addressing the company's beliefs, objectives, estimates, and expectations of possible future results or events are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve known or unknown risks, including general economic and business conditions and conditions in the industry the company operates, and may be affected should the assumption turn out to be inaccurate.
Consequently, no forward-looking statement can be guaranteed, and actual future results, performance, or achievements may vary materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation about the contents, nor to update the forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date hereof. If you need to ask questions, please book your question on the chat of Bianca Fersini Mastelloni. She will be pleased to introduce you according to the booking order. At this time, I want to give the floor to Andrea Cangioli. Please go ahead, Andrea.
Andrea, the microphone.
Thank you, Nicola, for your introduction. I hope everybody is listening well. Thank you, Bianca. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining this call we are holding after the release of the 2021 full year financials. Together with me on this call, Enrico Romagnoli, we'll share with you the details of our financial performance. The financial results of 2021 have been extraordinarily positive. Revenues were up 40% with a 19.4% average growth in the last two years, despite the impact of the pandemic. Profit from operations and net profit were up accordingly, both exceeding 30% average growth from 2019. If you want to summarize the revenue generation performance with a single metric, consolidated EBITDA was EUR 80 million in 2021.
We are at once pleased and proud of the remarkable achievements, and grateful to all the people of the El.En. Group that are providing their valuable effort that is making all this happen. We are, moreover, confident that with their knowledge, dedication, and capabilities, our people are the cornerstone of the construction we have been progressively and constantly enlarging over the years, and we continue to further elevate in the future. At this time, I'd like to give immediately the floor to Enrico Romagnoli and to the financial details. I'll be back later for a few general comments on our performance and our expectations. Thank you, Enrico.
Thank you, Andrea. Good morning to everybody. As already said by Andrea, the 2021 is a very brilliant year in terms of financials. In this slide, you can see that the most relevant figures of the 2021 with sales over EUR 571 million and an EBIT is equal to EUR 64.8 million. The double-digit growth for both segments, Industrial +45% and Medical +36% respect to the 2020, and with an annual average growth over 2019 of 13% for Medical and 28% for Industrial. Also, in terms of gross margin profitability, there is an improvement from the 2020 to the 2021.
In medical, there is an increase from 41%- 44.8%, and industrial from 26.6%- 27.9%. The full income statement shows the progression, the increase compared to 2020 and compared to 2019. The true measures of the solidity of the result achieved are to be found in the comparison with 2019, the last year before the pandemic. Despite the heavy impact of the crisis, the average growth from 2019 to 2021 was 19.4% in terms of revenue, 30.3% in terms of EBIT, and 32.2% in terms of net income.
In 2021, we saw also an improvement in terms of gross margin profitability in total value because the total amount of sales increased. Also in terms of relative value, thanks to the mix of product sales within the individual sector. The savings of purchases due to the efficiencies deriving from higher volumes and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, together with an increase in turnover in dollars to North America. Thanks also to the control of operating costs, in particular of sales and marketing, due to the drastic reduction in travel, trade fairs, and congress expenses, EBITDA reached EUR 81 million, with a 14% EBITDA margin compared to the EUR 40.8 million in 2020.
Net of amortization, depreciation, and provision, increasing both for the volume of investment in past years and for prudential provision allocated during the year, the EBIT was positive for EUR 64.8 million, up compared to the EUR 30.1 million in 2020, and with an EBIT margin of 11.4%, an increase compared to the 7.4% of last year. Pre-tax income was positive for approximately EUR 66.4 million, and with a tax rate of 26%, the net result was EUR 45.4 million compared to the EUR 20.3 million of last year. The impact on turnover increased from 5% - 8%.
Also, in the Q4, we had a strong growth in sales and in profit with the profitability in terms of EBIT over the average of the year as usual. Usually the yearly seasonality in the Q4 is the best quarter of the year in terms of sales and in terms of profitability. Balance sheet. The net financial position was positive for EUR 150.7 million, with an increase of EUR 51.5 million compared to the December 2020 and up of EUR 41 million compared to the September 2020, 2021. Excellent cash generation despite the substantial investment in fixed asset made for a total amount of EUR 23 million in the period.
We saw an improvement of the ratio, net working capital on sales that reduced from 27%- 25%, and a sharp increase of the ratio EBIT on net capital employed, thanks to the increase in EBIT and thanks to the cash generation in the year. In the cash flow during the year, the group generated cash from operating activities, while there was a cash absorption of EUR 33 million due to the increase in working capital, physiological in this phase of rapid growth. We have a positive cash flow for other current payables and receivables, mainly due to the increase in advances received from customers, a particularly relevant practice in China.
We had cash absorption due to the investment, as already said, for EUR 23 million, and the main single investment in the year was the new building of Cutlite Penta in Prato for EUR 5 million purchased with a leasing. El.En. and the subsidiaries paid dividends for EUR 9 million. There is also a capital increase of EUR 4 million due to the exercise of stock option assigned to the employee. Revenue by business in the medical sector was 54.5% of group revenues in 2021, with a total amount of EUR 311 million and with a CAGR of 13% over 2019. The aesthetic segment showed the best performance with a CAGR of 22% over 2019 and an amount of sales of EUR 198 million.
The three main families of laser system for hair removal, MeDioStar by Asclepion and Motus, again, by DEKA, were decisive for the rapid growth. We saw the recovery with respect to 2020 in the segment of therapy, +76% over 2020, and surgery, +18% over 2020, that has suffered the most from the effects of COVID and which returned to shine during the year, setting revenues above 2019 levels in therapy and with the prospect of a short-term recovery for surgery over the record levels of 2019. System for surgical application in the urological segment, removal of stones and treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia increased in the installed base over the year and generating future income thanks to the consumable.
For example, a single or multiple-use optical fiber produced by the group to be used in every single surgical procedures. Consumable and maintenance are accounted in the service segment. In the industrial sector, the growth of the industrial sector was 45.5% of group revenue in 2021, with a total amount of EUR 260 million and a CAGR of 8% over 2019. The disruptive growth of the laser cutting sector continued in the year with revenues of EUR 216 million obtained by both Chinese and Italian organization involved in the sheet metal cut-laser cutting business. We note that the sales performance of Cutlite Penta
Active in Italy and Europe in the laser cutting sector recorded an extraordinary growth of 68.8% with a decisive contribution of the group. The positive trend of the markets also involved the Brazilian branch of the group, able to double its turnover and providing a positive contribution on the group profitability. Within the industrial sector, the trend of the marking business was positive, and we remark the performance of Lasit, showing a turnover of EUR 18.1 million compared to the 14 of last year. Increase was also in the two other sector of laser sources and service. Finally, the breakdown by area. The growth is significant in all geographical area in which the group operates, and the performance in Europe stand out in the medical sector, +20%. While in the industrial sector, the best performance was achieved in Italy. Andrea, please go ahead in the presentation.
Thank you.
We hear a voice on the line. Please turn off your microphone.
Thank you, Rico. Now, please take this. I'll talk about the guidance later. As you notice, it's hard to find faults in our 2021 performance, which I deem excellent under all the financial and business metrics. Let me update you on how we are currently positioned and on the potential of our business. I'm going to go through an overview of our markets, our current positioning, the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, other circumstances that may affect our current performance, framing for you grounds and scope of the guidance you are seeing on the screen now.
I'll spend a few words on our laser cutting business with special reference to our Chinese operations and on CapEx. As you know, the wider picture of El.En. shows that we're active on two very different markets, laser and energy-based systems for medical applications and laser systems to be used in manufacturing. We elected to pursue these two markets from the common starting point of our capabilities in laser technologies and adapted over the years our organization, our products, and our activities to certain market segments that we identified as most promising for the adoption of the technologies we are very good in developing. The strong demand we experienced in the last 18 months is confirming the ambition that we share with you to be able to follow a path of rapid growth.
Medical aesthetic laser applications are meeting a general and growing social needs of effective.. Effectively, non-invasively, and also cost effectively improving our appearance in the body, in the face, and resisting to the signs of aging. Our technological offer is at the same time meeting this expectation and through new, affordable, effective, and reliable procedures and system, is creating further opportunities in terms of new possible and desirable applications to fulfill the need to look better and younger. The market for aesthetics in general and for aesthetics devices in particular is therefore flourishing and expected to maintain its growth momentum over the coming years. Surgical laser applications are increasingly requested to replace traditional surgeries with minimally invasive procedures which deliver excellent results, with reduced discomfort and side effects for the patients and improve the ROI for the investor or maybe even better, reduce costs for the public national hospital systems.
This market is expected to grow rapidly, once again fueled by technological innovation. Considering the system sales part of our revenues only, medical aesthetics and surgery were respectively worth EUR 198 million and EUR 45 million, which were again respectively 39% and 9% of our total system sales. On the industrial application side, we are operating with the broader market, within the broader market for systems for manufacturing, which has not been considered very alluring, especially in the western countries, amid the localization of several manufacturing processes in the Far East, where, by the way, we decided to diversify our localization back in 2007.
The market for the largest of our application segments, sheet metal laser cutting, has been rapidly growing in the last years and is expected to enter a further growth phase based on the evolution of the technology that is at the same time allowing increased performances in terms of manufacturing processes speed and cost reduction. The combination of these two effects is increasing the number of potential buyers for our systems within the traditional users of laser cutting systems, accelerating the replacement of the installed base due to rapid technological obsolescence, and last but not least, allowing the technology to be used in new application areas that only downstream of the technological shift are now ready for adopting laser systems within their processes. These are the reasons underlying the expected growth of the size of this market.
Also, the laser marking market is in very good shape, taking advantage of the increased need for identifying parts and assemblies within the most advanced manufacturing systems. Laser markers are an effective, flexible, and environmentally friendly solution that is experiencing an increasing acceptance in the manufacturing world. Again, to put in direct relation this market, these growing markets, with our business, laser cutting systems were worth, in 2021, EUR 215 million of revenue, 43% of our total consolidated system sales. Marking systems were worth EUR 30 million, roughly 4% of all our group sales.
Based on the expected behavior of our end markets and of our competitive position on each of them, considering the wideness and the depth of our product range and the overall setup of our distribution networks, our operational forecast for 2022 calls for a further rapid development of the business in all our segments. This beginning of 2022 is adding another significant element, let's say, of comfort, to the current outlook, given by the unprecedented volume of orders backlog, which is taking the positive momentum of 2021 into 2022, not only in the expectation and in the perception of the market trend, but also with a solid base of orders to be delivered for sales in the very next months.
To complete the list of good news, it appears that in the Western countries, we are seeing the way out of the pandemic becoming wider and smoother, with all the benefits to our lives and lifestyle that such a return to normality is going to imply. We feel strong and confident. We don't have to share with you that there are two very powerful drivers of uncertainty that are casting or could cast a shadow on the very bright pictures we have been showing you. I'm talking of the supply chain issues and of the Russian-Ukrainian war. I'm packing under the broader concept of supply chain problems, several issues that have been hindering us in the last month and are prospectively going to continue to hinder our business and our operations.
There is now evidence of a fairly strong inflation, which is a very strong inflation for gas and power supply. We will have cost increase based on this, both in the cost of goods sold and in the operating expenses, heating, air conditioning, driving, shipping, just to mention a few basic services with costs that are sharply increasing. The rapid growth of our business volumes allowed us in 2021 to overcome most material cost increase. Even though we are projecting more growth for 2022, we have evidence that in the near future, we won't be able to neutralize cost increase with increased volumes. We are planning and already started to transfer cost increases on our sales prices, but this is not necessarily effectively possible and appropriate in each and every trade agreement.
Moreover, cost is not necessarily the most important problem when it comes to material shortage. Given the very large diversification of materials and components included in our bills of materials, we have been exposed to shortage of several components, from the very well-known chips to capacitors, plastic molded parts, rare earth components which are vital for certain laser cavity. The last is quartz. We are missing quartz for our lamps. We struggle in sourcing and in timely sourcing, and the ability to timely and reliably receive certain order material has been, and still is, a limitation to our capacity to ramp up production volumes as we would desire. The war is hitting us and all the European people psychologically at first place in helplessly witnessing such an unreasonable shame taking place next door.
Business-wise, we face certain effects, no more sales in the area for a while, and a very uncomfortable sense of uncertainty on the possible outcome and consequences of the war. Both Ukrainian and Russian markets are very interesting markets for us, especially in the medical aesthetic piece of our offer. Our overall trade volume with the areas is not exceeding 2% of consolidated sales. We were expecting to sharply expand the sales volume in these areas in 2022. Anyway, we are not talking of a very significant impact on our overall sales. For the wider effects, as Italians and Europeans, we are already hurt by the energy bill and by the refugee flow.
We strongly hope that the war will come to a rapid end, clearly, saving the lives that are being sacrificed and removing the sense of uncertainty and uneasiness that for sure is not and will not help our markets. When we decided to disclose our 2022 guidance, we elected to share with you the growth path that the market situation we are actually experiencing is outlining, which is very positive. Also to share with you and make clear that the growth expectations are tied to the persistence of the general market, economic, and international relations we have today, since both the war and the supply chain issues could jointly or separately change the reference frame we are today working in.
Under this assumption, we delivered what I believe is the most aggressive initial guidance ever released by El.En., hinting for consolidated revenue growth above 10% and for an EBIT growth that the sales increase is expected to imply, but that due to the uncertainty on the material cost and availability side, we cannot more precisely specify. Such guidance is embedding a good growth projection for our sheet metal laser cutting business, which is performed by our Italian subsidiary, Cutlite Penta, and by our Chinese organizations, headed by our company based in Wenzhou, that has production facility based in Wuhan and Jilin too. The control structure for this business has been modified in the last years. First, by liquidating our minority Chinese partner and then concentrating under the Wenzhou company, all the other companies, including the Italian operation, creating a well-identified and separated division.
Actually, during the Chinese New Year break, Penta Wenzhou succeeded in the transformation of its status into a joint-stock company, a fairly complex procedure in China, which among others, included the re-auditing of the financials of the last three years in compliance with international accounting standards, taking into account the practice followed in China by companies listed on regulated markets. The transformation into a joint-stock company is a necessary condition in the path towards a possible IPO of the business unit, which once this further step is completed, is now one of the strategic options that can be implemented in pursuing our ambitious growth targets in the business. I wanted to show you, Enrico, could you please remove the slide. I wanted to show you a very short clip. Our 40 kW system, top of the range in China.
Here you see cutting 40-mm mild steel at 2.1 meters per minute. As I was saying before, for us, take us back five years ago, this is like flying a rocket. It's something which was simply unbelievable a few years ago, to cut with this speed, with this quality, mild steel of 4 cm of thickness. I understand this is not necessarily very alluring, but I wanted to give you a flavor of what the technology can do and how the expectations on this market are tied to a very rapid technological improvement that has completely changed the face of the business and the ability of our system to perform cutting procedures within the manufacturing world. A few words on CapEx.
CapEx for the year 2021 was around EUR 21 million, out of which EUR 15 million were dedicated to the expansion of our production capacity by purchasing, building, expanding, and refurbishing our new plants. About EUR 2 million were spent in other refurbishing activities for our older plants. Finally, EUR 4 million were invested in the ordinary investment in toolings, vehicle softwares and other, and other smaller investments. Capacity expansion work is going to take place in several of our locations in 2022 as well. In Samarate, where Quanta System is operating, we will refurbish our second building. In Wuhan, where we are completing our new plants, and here in Calenzano, where certain areas of our plant will be expanded in the near future. Capital expenditure is expected, as of today, for 2022 in the neighborhood of EUR 15 million.
Of course, subject to adjustment if, like in the past, capacity expansion opportunities will show up in conjunction to the continued revenue growth that most of our businesses have experienced recently. A very final word to our commitment in pursuing the sustainability targets that our plan provides for, which by the way, constitute a part of the management, including myself, valuation metrics. We are allocating adequate resources to both disseminate the ESG culture within organization and also to improve the ratios we're granted by the relevant institutions. Thank you for your attention. I am at this point done with the presentation, and we are available for answering your questions.
Andrea, we have one question from François Robillard of Intermonte. Go on, Francois, please.
Hi, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. First one is on your sales growth target for 2022. What I understand is that you expect some continued strong growth across the medical side, and you also gave some positive messages on the industrial side. Although situation right now in China especially, and the messages from your competitors on laser cutting, metal laser cutting in China points to. They seem to point to more cautious expectations. Can you just walk us through a bit your expectation for each segment? Then just a quick follow-up on your EBIT target. I understand you don't want to give so many precise indications for now.
At the margin level as well, what can we expect a bit more precisely, something north of EUR 70 million above expectations for now? Just give us some more color on this. On the working capital, I saw that for the full year 2021, you had a positive contribution from other items, especially other liabilities. Can you just give us some more color on that? Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you for your question, François. We of course do not give many details, but when we are saying that we're expecting revenue growth north of 10%, this means that we are expecting this kind of growth in most of our segments. Of course, there are some segments which are more brilliant. We expect, for instance, a very good growth in the sales of aesthetic devices in the United States. We have experienced and still have a forecast of softer growth in Japan for medical devices.
We have a very strong expectation in Europe and the Middle East, and for the body shaping market, and very strong expectation for the consumable tied to the sale of urological system. Concerning the industrial market, China has been extremely brilliant in the first six months of 2021, and then the growth calmed down. We have very good and strong expectation based primarily on what I've been just showing you, on the fact that we are leading the market in the high power application segment, and we expect to be able to take advantage of the growth of this segment. I believe that in this specific segment, we could.
We identified a very interesting growth path. Now, the guidance and the model that we included in the guidance was drafted before yesterday. Now, we learned that the COVID is hitting again certain areas. Now, we receive also from our suppliers, just to make you aware on how things are tied, that due to the lockdowns in China, they will delay supplies of certain electronic parts which will subsequently imply delays in the deliveries for certain material to us. I mean, the overall frame of the Chinese situation is less positive than we were hoping.
Nevertheless, our sales plan that was studied and discussed with our sales force in China is still extremely positive in the ability of continuing to grow in this market segment. Working capital, your last question. Yes, we did very well, and maybe we did even better than expectation concerning the working capital. This is tied to the circumstance which, I mean, is not a circumstance that took place in a short period, but it's a persistent circumstance of having a very large amount of orders and of backlogs, and especially in the industrial laser system market, those orders come with a down payment which helped us increase the other debts.
We had an increase of euro a few tens of million, which is worth most of the light blue bar that you see positively contributing to the net financial position, which is made of these down payments by customer. Of course, that amount will stay at that value only if we maintain the same volume of down payments throughout the year, which is not likely to happen, especially in Italy, where many of these down payments were tied to the so-called 4.0 tax cut, and which are expected not to completely disappear, but to slowly lower during the year.
Andrea, we have a question from Marco Ribas. Go on, Marco, please.
Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. Looking at the recent past, despite a higher growth in turnover for the industrial sector, you have returned a growing general margin. The question is, if it depends on leverage, product mix, for example, to move to more powerful laser sources, or which is the meaning, because in the past, more industrial sales means less margin. If you think that it will be possible to move the major cost that you talked before into the prices, if you see problem, you expect problem or if you think that is easy to do. Thanks.
Thank you for the question. Excuse me, François, because this was part of your question, too, and I didn't answer, but now I can answer to both. Industrial. Of course, you have to take into account that we are working in a very competitive market, in which there is price competition, in which we are concentrating on certain specific segments of the market in order to avoid very strong price competition, which would hit our margins, and especially China would be a war that we probably wouldn't be able to win. As I was saying, the large number of orders allowed us to have less pressure on pricing.
In Industrial, we could with the further increase of volume that we are planning, both in China and in Italy, somehow defeat the cost inflation. I believe that in 2021, and also in 2022, the cost efficiencies that we are reaping in the production process in Industrial are helping in having this small but significant margin increase. Our ability in case of a cost increase to transfer the cost increase into the price to customer is always very difficult to know before because it depends on the exact market condition at the moment that you are called to do it.
Because, for instance, during this year, in 2021, we had customers that were coming to us, praying us to deliver at any condition, devices because their traditional suppliers were not able to provide them timely, deliveries. In this case, there's no discussion. If I want to get 10%, or I mean, if I get, if I want to get a price increase, I get it. In a different market situation with more competition and less pressure of the demand, it could become harder to revert our cost to our prices. This all comes to an end in understanding how these events, inflation, material shortage, war in Russia, will impact on the overall business situation.
If we will continue to have a positive business condition, we'll have no problem in replicating and also improving the performances of 2022. If the picture changes, and then it will be difficult to do each of the things that we are quite well succeeding to doing in this moment.
Thanks.
Andrea, we have-
Therefore, in this moment, what I can see today.
Andrea, we have one more question from Andrea Bonfà of Banca Akros.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, Andrea, just a second. Let me finish the answer of the-
Oh, sorry.
...t he only, I would say that given the current situation and given the current effects that we are experiencing today from these two issues, we are very optimistic because we have been able to overcome any problems and where problems occurred, I mean, they were minor problems compared to the largest growth and the largest improvement in results we have been able to grab. Of course, this is today. We hope that things do not change, and especially we are especially worried, concerned from the evolutions and the consequences of the war, which is very close to us and very close to Europe. Excuse me. [Non-English content]
Go on, Andrea.
Thank you, thank Andrea. If I may, I would like some, let's say, color on what was China's performance in the first couple of months. Just it was positive, considering that the comparison base was more difficult. Then you directly mentioned that you are in a competitive industry, but this year, the U.S. dollar should help, at least indirectly. And then at the Quanta, I saw that minorities went down in the H2. If you can comment on that. I think it might be partly related to China, but if you can remind us how that item works.
A brief update on the new machine that you are launching in 2022, and in which market I'm referring maybe in particular to the one for the acne treatment in the U.S., which is waiting FDA approval. I noticed that your D&A was strongly up in Q4, and if you can maybe disclose what was the level of bad debt, because I think that is included.
Andrea, I couldn't hear your last question. What has been strongly up?
It was the D&A. The depreciation and amortization were strongly up. I know that you're likely, you are including the bad debt, if there is anything worth mentioning in that particular item. Thank you.
Let's hope I took an appropriate note of all your questions in case just recall me. Chinese performance in the first two months are always scarcely relevant for the business because the first 15 days, they're waiting to go to the holidays. Then in February, it's the beginning of the holidays. The results that we had are in line with our expectation and in line with our budgets and compliant to the general guidance that we have provided to you. Concerning, now let me see.
Concerning the reduction of minorities in the second half, yes, this is due to the fact that the poor financial performance in the second half of the companies in which we have stronger minorities was weaker, and the companies in which we have stronger minorities are the Japanese company with us, which had a fairly weak performance, reducing its revenues in the second half of 2021. Also the Chinese, where in fact minorities are up around 8%, 5%, excuse me, but they are quite significant in volume. The financial results in the second half of the Chinese subsidiaries were not particularly good. Also due to the effects of the change in the estimations that we had to perform in the financials.
This is the reason why you see such a large amount of D&A in the quarter. This is the effect of the Chinese approach to evaluation of certain items like warranty and bad debt, which we had to adjust during the fourth quarter, according to the Chinese way to approach these two things. New systems. Actually, the most significant launch in terms of innovation content of 2022 for the moment is a new CO2 laser, which is combined to a 1470 nm additional wavelength, which to the typical ablation effect, which is tied with our CO2 laser systems, it adds a deep heating device.
The combination of these two effects is expected to give a good thrust to our sales in dermatology. We gained podium space at the Anti-Aging Congress in Monte Carlo we've held about one month from now. We had great expectation from the Mona Lisa Glide device and from the DUOGlide device. These are names. DUOGlide is the device which adds two wavelengths, one new wavelength to the traditional CO2 wavelength. Concerning the acne device, I don't have any real news to disclose today. The clinical studies are going ahead. The funding is there for the company. The company was able to raise a good amount of money which is funding the studies.
For those who might not recall, the development of the acne device has been, on a technological point of view, performed by our company, Quanta System. In terms of application and regulatory, we decided that the investment was very large and very risky, and therefore, we segregated the development of this part of the technology to a company called Accure, in which we are minority shareholder, since the company has been funded with a third party's capital. Once the FDA clearance procedure will be done, this company should be able to raise more money and to accelerate and to introduce the product on the market.
By this means, creating a very strong sales infrastructure with its own capital and creating a very strong flow of sales of devices from Quanta System to Accure. As I have always been telling to the investors, we are very close in getting the FDA clearance. We have obtained the CE mark, which is very important, but it's not enough for having a good commercial success for such a device. We haven't the clearance yet, and therefore, even though we are very confident based on the team that is working on this clearance, there's no assurance that this clearance will be actually obtained. I hope I answered all your questions, Andrea.
Andrea, we have one more question from François Robillard. Go on, François, please.
Yes. Hi. Just a follow-up, one on the Chinese potential Chinese IPO. If I recall correctly, you own about 85% of the local company. Just to get a bit more color on the rationale of such an operation, would it be a capital increase to get more funding, or would it be a partial exit from your local investment? In that case, what would the funds that you would receive from such an operation be put at use for? Just to get to know a bit more about the Chinese operations, I believe that for 2021, revenues were about EUR 140 million sales. What kind of profitability are we looking at in this market? Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question, which allows me to give you more detailed information to the extent I can give you. Since we do not have a definite IPO project, and the IPO is an opportunity which is outlined but is not a firm project yet, I do not have an answer to what will be the IPO. Generally speaking, my knowledge is that IPOs on the Chinese territory provide for the sales of around 25% of the capital, in terms of. Excuse me, not for the sales, for the issuing of new shares, which are worth 25% of the capital. This is the opportunity that the possible IPO would in case give to our business development or development of the business.
The profitability of the business is quite low and was quite low in 2021. I'm saying quite low if we compare to the profitability that we are able to achieve in the medical business. We are actually having better success in Italy in 2021 than in China due to the situation that, as I mentioned to you before, cooled down a little bit during the year, during the second half of the year.
On total revenue, on which Enrico can be more precise in China, I believe that we can expect, excuse me, EBIT margin in the near future ranging from 5%-8%, depending upon the volume of sale actually reachable, since the profitability of the business is very strongly dependent on the leverage effect. As you know, we run five factories. We have a very large amount of fixed costs. Therefore, the ability to increase revenue and therefore to have a leverage effect is strongly impacting on the bottom line.
For this reason, and due to the fact that, the second half of the year was not very positive for China, we had a lower than the usual EBIT in 2021, while in the same division, which includes also the Italian activity, we benefited from the excellent results of the Italian facility, which exceeded EUR 80 million in revenue in year 2021, and was closer in its profitability to the standards of profitability of the rest of the group.
The total sales, Andrea, of Chinese consolidated is EUR 143 million.
While the consolidated of the cutting business, including systems and service?
Let me see.
EUR 200 million and change.
Yeah. Let me see. Just a second. EUR 222 million. EUR 223 million.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Andrea, we have a follow-up from Andrea Bonfà. Go on, Andrea, please.
Hi. Thank you again, Andrea. Now, again, back on the, let's say, acne, the machine for acne and for FDA approval. Is there in your guidance any sales from this potential approval, or is everything on top of it? This is first question. If you can comment on the U.S. dollar, if that is beneficial-
Sure.
...at this level for you.
Yes, I forgot. The number for acne sales in the 2022 budget is zero.
Okay.
The dollar, actually, you're right. I forgot to mention this. We are now at around 1.10 exchange rate with the U.S. dollar. This is, needless to say, a great help for us compared to this average foreign exchange rate of last year, and also to the current foreign exchange at the end of the year. Therefore, again, should the foreign exchange keep in this area longer, we would have a great advantage in terms of margins, since a good part of the sales growth in 2022, especially in the aesthetics market, comes from sales which are expressed in U.S. dollars.
Again, if the U.S. dollar stays where it is now, we could have very positive surprises, let's say, even if it's not a surprise. We could model a nice shape of our profitability. Of course, it's one of the things which are somehow a consequence of the war. We have seen how the U.S. dollar strengthened in the days immediately following the war.
And, uh-
I remember, for everybody and for you, that not only we make more money in the trade agreements in which we are setting the prices in U.S. dollars, but also we gain competitive advantage against most of our competitors that are competing in U.S. dollars. I mean, we get more competitive worldwide. The strong U.S. dollar helps our competitive position worldwide always.
If I may, on China, if I remember correctly, your core business is related to metal, sheet metal cutting, but with the higher, let's say, powers that you are able to deliver, you can move also to round bars. I mean, which means essentially construction. Okay, we all know that construction in China is kind of, let's say, suffering right now, but is that correct, assume that all sales in that sector would be additional to your business, which before was kind of zero?
It is. You have seen the clip that I've been showing. This is sheet metal. It's four centimeters thick, but it's sheet metal anyhow. Of course, you don't use this sheet metal as the backbone of a smartphone, because I mean. You're right. The construction market is said to be quite slow in China due to several reasons, but we are entering this market as an additional market. We count on it, and we count on a replacement of the existing devices.
What happens is that if the assumption we have, if the work that we are performing actually is validated, it means that a construction player that needs to cut metal like the one you have seen before will be forced and will have great advantages in buying a laser system, because he will have cost advantage and flexibility advantage in all his production facilities. Therefore, the innovation is something which of course is helped by a positive cycle, but it could become something mandatory if as we hope the advantages of adopting a laser system will be so material for that kind of application.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Andrea, we have not any other question in our list. I want to ask to the floor if there are some other questions. If there are no more question, we finish this conference. If you have some question to investigate, please do not hesitate to contact Enrico Romagnoli. He will be happy to answer your question. Thank you for attending this conference, and we hope to have you all again next time. Good afternoon to everybody.
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Thank you, Andrea.
Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.
Bye-bye. Bye.
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Thank you.