Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Prosegur Cash Q1 2022 Results Presentation Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Miguel Bandrés, Head of IR. Please go ahead, Miguel.
Thank you all. On behalf of the Prosegur team, I would like to welcome you all to our 2022 Q1 results review that will be led by our CFO, Javier Hergueta, and myself. The session should last around 25 minutes, and in it, we'll review the key events that have taken place in the period and that lie behind our performance to date. The last part of the call, we'll hold an open Q&A session in which we'll try to address all the queries you might have. If we can't respond to all points today, we'll answer those remaining on an individual basis. I would like to thank you all for your attendance and remind you that this presentation has been prerecorded, and you can find it via webcast on our corporate webpage at www.prosegurcash.com.
Now, before handing over to Javier, I would like to share some relevant news regarding the world of cash during the quarter. This points to the cost of cards , ranging from the importance of cash for household economies to the cost of cards for e-commerce, the growing dangers and losses caused by crypto scamming, or the ECB's stance on Spain's decision to limit cash payments to EUR 1,000 in certain cases. First, I would like to share some news published in Europa Press. This news highlights and portrays Ukraine as an example for the fact that cash just cannot disappear.
The reason for this being that cash is extremely important for safeguarding household economies and trust in the system. Recent events have shown how relevant this is for society, especially in uncertain circumstances or fatalities, as we have observed long queues of people waiting to withdraw cash in ATMs in the region.
In the second piece of news, published in Cinco Días El País, a main Spanish newspaper, we can read Amazon's statement, where it takes a clear stance against the cost of cards to offer the best prices to consumers. The company states that card payments are an obstacle to offering the best value to their customers. This points out the cost of cards to the system, as well as hints the importance of having an alternative to that mean of payment to secure an efficient economy. The third news, we can read in the bottom left-hand side of the page, refers to crypto scams. It notes that more and more scams take place each day for very significant amounts of money. They estimate losses have reached close to EUR 7 billion in 2021.
This fact should raise an eyebrow towards the danger of over-relying in these types of assets , both as value holders or as transaction currencies. These frauds have risen an estimate of over 80% over the previous year. In the fourth and last piece of news, we can read about the opinion of the European Central Bank towards the Spanish law that limits the amount to EUR 1,000 of cash payments that can be made when one of the parties involved act in the capacity of a business or a professional. The European Central Bank clearly states that this limitation is disproportionate and unproductive for the economy. This should make regulators reflect on the limits being imposed to cash payments in certain jurisdictions without any proof of direct benefit being associated. Now, I will share today's agenda.
First, Javier will review the key events that have taken place in the quarter. Following, I'll analyze our sales and transformation performance by region. Javier will proceed to share our key figures for the quarter. Last, to conclude, he will underline key messages of the quarter, and we'll open the floor to any Q&A. That being said, I'll hand over to Javier so he can share his view on these last three months' key highlights.
Thank you. As Miguel just said, I will now review for you the key highlights for the period. First, I would like to say that the year has started on a good footing, and in line with the recovery we have shared in the last quarters, we are seeing strong growth in euro terms, supported by good volume expansions. We see sales growing by 18.8% with organic growth of 18.3%, which I would like to stress as very remarkable. It's not only a strong growth as compared to one year ago, but the absolute figure for turnover is as well above last year's Q2 and Q3, which is very significant, taking into account the seasonal nature of our business. On the same note, we continue to see a strong transformation of our sales figure.
If we look at sales of new products, they have improved over last year's first quarter by 24.3%. If we net off the effect of divestments, that growth amounts to 57.1%, which speaks for itself for its strong performance. The increase in new products brings their overall penetration to 23.1% of sales. That is an increase of 100 basis points versus the previous quarter and over 480 basis points if we exclude divestments. This growth in penetration is noteworthy to have taken place when the overall sales pie grew by the mentioned 18.8% in a context of strong volume recovery in the traditional activity. Sales growth driven by volume is allowing us to substantially improve our margin levels.
The absorption of these volumes is reflected in our P&L , our operating leverage, driven by all the cost and efficiency measures we've put in place these last two years. Margins have improved 0.5% versus last year's first quarter. Again, if we exclude the impact of capital gains from divestments last year, the underlying EBITDA has grown by 60.2%, and the EBITDA margin is up to 13.3%. A very robust margin improvement of 340 basis points from 9.1% a year ago. Now, turning to cash conversion, we continue to generate a strong cash flow of EUR 17 million despite the fact of having invested in the company's growth.
Regarding leverage levels, at the end of this quarter, our leverage ratio reached 2.4 times, which is within our internal comfort long-term threshold of 2.5 times. Lastly, I would like to underline our consistent commitment to sustainability by sharing with you that in 2022, we agreed to an emissions compensation plan on which we will share more details later. Now, before going on to analyze our performance, I would like to share with you some important developments regarding the macroeconomic environment in which we are conducting business. On the one side, I would like to highlight the rising inflation the world is going through. As you can see in the lower left-hand chart, inflation has been rising in all regions since 2020.
In particular, if we look at how inflation has performed in the first three months of this year, we can see it has been gradually picking up as a result, among others, of the effects of the Russian invasion on Ukraine, which is putting strong price pressure on many goods, such as commodities and energy. The last projections give us an inflation rate north of 7.4%, and will probably reach 10% for 2022. We do not know when this trend will reverse, but certainly it's an environment which is very positive for our business since cash is getting to move faster. As well, it is very important to note that commodities are becoming more and more relevant in the current environment.
This will be very positive for our Latin region, an area that is strong in commodities and which we believe will thrive in the next years to come. On the right-hand side charts, we can see the evolution of the main currencies in our portfolio. On the top chart, we see the evolution of the Brazilian real for the last 2 years , where we can observe how the real has been appreciating versus the euro, particularly in the last months. While in the lower chart, we can track the evolution of the Argentinian peso and observe that its depreciation has been slowing down over time. These two trends are important to highlight since for the last years, we have had heavy devaluation headwinds, which have been turning to neutral, if not positive, these last months.
Regarding Argentina, we also believe that the agreement signed between the IMF and the Argentine government will bring further stability to the country. In this next slide, we can see how both our sales and our margins have evolved in the first quarter of 2022. While having lost 0.8% of sales in local currency in the first quarter of 2021, in 2022, we have experienced a phenomenal increase of local revenue of 19.1%. It is important to underline that this local sales growth is fundamentally driven by a strong 18.3% organic growth, while M&A has contributed by an additional 0.9%. This is a consequence of how healthily our volumes are coming back. We have been experiencing these volume returns for the last three quarters as confidence in the economy and in cash has been restoring.
The sales figure for the quarter is above 2021's Q1, Q2, and Q3, despite the seasonality in our business, and the third best in the last 9 quarters, taking into account that Q1 is normally a slow sales quarter. Important as well to underline that volume recovery has shown consistency in all regions, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The first one, Latin America, has grown in local sales by 27% this first quarter of 2022 as compared to 2021, when it grew by 5.7%. Later, we will dive deep into our understanding of such growth. Europe has as well grown overall by 3.9%, more than offsetting the negative impact in sales that the divestment executed one year ago cost.
Lastly, Asia Pacific shows as well a healthy growth of 11.2%, which clearly represents a strong recovery of the COVID situation as the region returns to normal and borders open up. If we look at the graph on the bottom left-hand side of the page, we can see how EBITDA margins have evolved. On a reporting basis and in absolute terms, margins have increased versus those we reported one year ago, reaching EUR 55 million, up from EUR 54 million in 2021. More than that, I would like to underline the strength of the recovery of our underlying margins once we exclude the effect of last year's divestments. If we look at the improvement of EBITDA on an underlying basis, we can see a growth of 60.2%, which is very noteworthy.
In terms of EBITDA margins, 9.9% of sales in 2021's first quarter has climbed by 340 basis points to 13.3% in this first quarter of 2022. This clearly shows the impact of all the cost reductions and efficiency measures taken in these last two years that have generated a strong operating leverage. Turning to the next page, I would like to share the current status of our transformation efforts. This is, as you know, a top priority for our company, and we can be very proud of the results this strategy is bearing. If we compare 2020 to 2021, we will see that our new products sales have grown by 24.3% and by almost EUR 20 million in absolute terms.
This 24.3% jump is a strong growth, while overall sales have grown by 18.8% on a reporting basis. If we account for that first quarter 2021 was still including our divested business, then the implicit new products growth has been of 57.1%, adding a total of EUR 35 million new sales to the company. If we look at it on a relative basis versus sales, the increase is very relevant. On a reported basis, our new products penetration has improved by 100 basis points, reaching 23.1% of sales. This is most remarkable if we take into account that total sales have grown by, as I said before, 18.8% versus 2021, meaning a solid performance as well of the traditional business.
Excluding the effect of divestments, the penetration of new products over total sales has grown by 480 basis points from 18.2% to 23.1%. This, I believe, is the main indicator of our commitment to transformation that is positioning our company in the best setting for the future. It is as well very important to note that all geographies, as we will later see, and key new product business lines have actively contributed to this growth. Next, I would like to point out the inorganic activity that we have conducted in this first quarter. First, if we look at Europe, in Germany, one of our key markets, we have acquired two companies, GSB and ITT, which are very important for our strategy in the country.
With them, we will be able to consolidate our leadership position and strengthen the geographical coverage with which best serve our customers. As well, we believe they will bring significant synergies to our German operations. Secondly, in Ecuador, we have closed the Facilito purchase, with which we are confident we will improve our Corban platform in the region. This will be an important milestone for the resilient advancement of our transformation growth strategy. With this, I ask Miguel to please highlight the main events by region.
Thank you, Javier. First, we review Latin America, our key region accounting for 68% of our total sales. When we compare this first quarter in 2022 to that one year ago, we see that our company has experienced phenomenal growth. Overall sales increased by a total of 26.4% , reaching EUR 277 million, a growth of EUR 58 million in this quarter. That increase is mainly made of an 18.9% organic growth that shows the consistent volume recovery we've seen in the last three quarters. As well, M&A activity has added 8.1% of further growth, and foreign exchange has had an almost neutral impact of -0.5%. Now, looking at how we are transforming in the region, Latam has been particularly remarkable.
New products have grown by EUR 30 million from EUR 45 million to EUR 75 million, an increase of almost 69% versus last year's first quarter. This strong growth has allowed us to increase our new product sales over total revenue by 680 basis points from 20.3% to 27.1%, despite the mentioned 26% growth in overall sales. Redpagos, which we acquired one year ago in Uruguay, has helped us keep on transforming our new products profile for the region, and we are very proud of its performance to date. Still, we are sure the best is still ahead as we keep on strengthening our portfolio with the aforementioned purchase of Facilito in Ecuador. Now we'll turn to Europe, a region that accounts for 25% of our sales.
Here, organic growth has as well been very strong, adding 18.6% to sales. It's important to note the trend of consistent volume recovery in the last quarters in the region. Omicron, which hit Europe at the end of November 2021, had a negative effect on both December 2021 and January 2022. However, from the end of January this year, we've seen a consistent recovery of volumes, with each month stronger than the preceding one. In Europe, inorganic had a negative impact of 14.8% due to the divestment we made one year ago in the region. Overall, our total sales have managed to grow by 4% with organic growth offsetting divestments and reaching EUR 103 million in the first quarter of 2022.
New product sales have decreased by 47% from EUR 27 million to EUR 14 million due to the mentioned divestment. However, if we isolate the divestment effect on a comparable basis, new products have grown by 28.5%, with a particularly strong performance of Cash Today that has increased by 37.2% over the last year. This growth takes new product penetration to 13.8% of total sales, which implies a 50 basis points improvement over last year, excluding the investments, especially positive considering the strong organic growth that fueled overall sales growth. Lastly, we will analyze the performance of our Asia Pacific region that represents 7% of total sales. This area has been the last one to reopen mobility.
We are happy to report that the region has posted overall growth of 12.2%, driving sales to EUR 30 million in the first quarter of 2022. These sales equal those of the last quarter in 2021, despite the seasonal nature of our business and are as well historic records for Q1s, reflecting the commercial efforts we've made in the last two years. Organic growth year-on-year of 11.2% accounted for almost all growth in the region, and foreign exchange has contributed with a positive 1% to the overall figure. New products have improved the performance by 14.3%, backed by the good behavior of our ATM networks. This increase in new products, faster than overall sales, brings the transformation penetration to 17.6% of sales, a positive 30 basis points improvement over last year.
With this, I finalize the review of our geographic performance, and will ask Javier to please continue with the financials.
Thank you, Miguel. Now, I'm going to share with you the evolution of the key lines in our P&L. First of all, I would like to note, as we've already seen, the strong improvement in sales that have grown from EUR 345 million by 18.8% to EUR 411 million. It is important to note that that growth has fundamentally been organic 18.3%. Inorganic accounted for a positive +0.9%, while foreign exchange accounted for a mere negative -0.3%. I would like to draw attention to the chart on the top right-hand side of the page, where we see that our Q1 2022 sales of EUR 411 million is almost at the level we reached in Q1 2020, just before COVID hit us.
We can see a clear V-shaped recovery, which confirms the positive trend we had announced for the last quarters. If we look down at the EBITDA margin, reported figure totals EUR 55 million in Q1 2022, up from EUR 54 million one year ago. As we have stated earlier, it is important to note that those EUR 54 million from a year ago included EUR 20 million capital gain from divestments. Without those, and on an underlying basis, EBITDA has climbed from EUR 34 million to EUR 55 million, which is a 60.2% increase. As we can see on the chart on the bottom right-hand side of the page, we observe a robust margin recovery in this last quarter.
Margins have gone up from 9.1% one year ago to 13.3% this quarter, which in relative terms is above our Q1 2020 12.7% pre-COVID levels. This shows two very important facts. On one side, the healthy recovery of volumes, and on the other side, the result of all the initiatives that have taken place in terms of efficiencies and restructuring as the Perform portion of our Perform & Transform strategy underlines. If we go below EBITDA, amortizations for the period reached EUR 5 million in line with those one year ago, which brings our EBIT level to EUR 49 million, equaling 2021's first quarter EBIT level, even with capital gains included.
Financial cost for the period reached EUR 60 million, mainly because of foreign exchange related accounting impacts, which have a non-cash effect and are neutral on shareholders equity. Lastly, we can see a tax impact of EUR 60 million in line with that of one year ago. The percentage rate is affected by the above-mentioned higher financial costs than last year's, but that still results in a tax rate of 47.4%, showing a trend towards more normalized tax rate versus the full year 2021. This all results in a net profit of EUR 18 million, a substantial underlying improvement versus last year if we consider the absence of capital gains and the non-cash extra financial costs. If we now look at our cash flow statement and departing from a EUR 79 million EBITDA, we reach a free cash flow of EUR 17 million.
These results, after the absence of payment delays to support business through the COVID crisis that were still present one year ago, with slightly higher income tax outflows than last year, when some countries recovered amounts paid in advance to tax authorities, having a tight control of our capital expenditure and having invested in the growth of the business via working capital, which optimization remains a clear focus for us. Below free cash flow, we can note that interest payments of EUR 9 million is in line with the EUR 10 million we paid one year ago.
If we look at M&A payments, we have a cash outflow of EUR 6 million in 2022 corresponding to payments made in the period, while in the dividend and treasury stock line, we can see the impact of both our dividend payment of EUR 7 million in the period as well as that of our treasury stock program approved in December 2021. Lastly, in others, we can see mainly the cut-off date impact of cash certification to customers in some countries. It's important to recognize that this impact nets off over the quarters and has a total year broadly neutral impact. In relative terms, the EUR 17 million free cash flow generation in Q1 2022 implies a conversion of 86% of EBITDA, up from 80% one year ago.
If we look at cash flow in terms of yield, this reaches 9% for the last 12 months, which continues to reflect the underpricing in our stock price, making it very attractive. It is, therefore, only fair to underline how carefully we are managing cash flow to protect our company best into the future. In the following page, we can see the evolution of our total net debt, which includes deferred payments, IFRS 16 debt, treasury stock, and net financial position. The total net financial position has increased from EUR 521 million one year ago to EUR 569 million this year, bringing up the overall total net debt to EUR 724 million. This increase in net debt, which is in line with the historical seasonal behavior, is influenced by the financing of our growth.
With this total net debt and the EBITDA level, our leverage ratio reaches 2.4 times, which is within our internally set comfort level of 2.5 times and well below covenants limits. As well, I would like to underline that there are no material changes in our debt profile since we will be seeing no significant maturities before 2026. Overall, we can conclude that we have a strong balance sheet to best prepare us for the times to come. With this, I conclude the financials review and would like to pass to our final remarks. To finalize, I would like to stress that this first quarter, we believe, is a very important and positive step into what we think will be a good 2022 year after having managed through some troubled times over which we have made a more resilient and transformed company.
The key highlights I would underline are the following. First, the strong evolution of our business fueled by the positive comeback of volumes that have driven sales up by 18.8% to EUR 411 million in what is for the business a favorable inflationary environment. Foreign exchange impact has been broadly neutral in the period, and should these macro trends remain, that should stay the same or positive in the coming quarters. Second, our company is better prepared for the future. Our transformation strategy is accelerating and crystallizing. New product sales now represent 23.1% of total sales, having grown by 57.1% ex-divestments and adding EUR 35 million to our P&L.
This top-line growth, combined with the consistent restructuring efforts we have undertaken in these last two years, have propelled our underlying EBITDA margin by 340 basis points versus one year ago to 13.3%, which is above our Q1 2020 pre-COVID EBITDA margin. On the cash flow line, we can see that we have generated EUR 17 million free cash flow after having invested in growing our business. This has allowed us to contain our leverage at 2.4 times within our comfort range. Lastly, I would like to underline our continuous commitment to the environment, having acquired this quarter credits to offset our CO2 emissions, being a responsible company and loyal to our ESG strategy. Thank you all for your attention, and we will now be pleased to begin with the Q&A session.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. This will only take a few moments, and if you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, please press star one if you wish to ask a question. Your first question today comes from the line of Miguel González from JB Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the time. Three questions on my side. I'm sorry if I missed something during the presentation, but I had some issues with the headphones. My first question is on the organic growth of 18% delivered this quarter. I don't know if you could give us the split between volumes and prices. And also related to this, I would appreciate if you could maybe comment on the potential salary increase you might face, and also a few price increases and how this could affect margins in the coming quarter. Secondly, on the cash flow front, you registered all non-operating cash flow, EUR 42 million. I believe you said this is related to cash certifications to customers, and that this will become neutral at the year-end.
Could you please elaborate a little bit on this? I don't know if this is extraordinary from this year or this is something that usually happens in the industry. My last question is on the M&A carried out this quarter, the two companies in Germany and the one in Ecuador. Could you maybe introduce a little bit these companies? I believe you only mentioned that Facilito will increase Corban activity, another like 8% in organic growth. But anyway, I don't know, additional information you could, it could be useful, maybe annual sales, I don't know, to see the organic impact maybe in the coming quarters.
Related to the M&A payments of EUR 6 million in the quarter, I wonder if this relates to this acquisition or if it also relates to earn-outs from past acquisitions. Thank you.
Good morning, Miguel. Thank you for all the questions. Going one by one, on the first one on organic growth, the 18.3% posted in the quarter is made of volume recoveries being very solid, as we set out in the presentation, and also strong pricing discipline, so it's a combination of the two. That is the case across all regions, in all three. Regarding the inflationary impacts and salary increases, I mean, we are not really seeing any impacts other than just business as usual. Typically, as you know, we try to pass through the salary increases to our clients, and that's what we are doing, as we typically do at this time of the year.
In terms of other costs, you know that labor is really the main cost component affected by inflation for us, but some others are less relevant and are also included within that pass-through policy on our side. We are not seeing any relevant side effects like shortages or anything like that, so labor is very stable. On the other hand, in terms of other operating materials, we are not seeing any impact so far in terms of potential shortages. Nevertheless, we have increased our stocks just for prudent management purposes just in case, but nothing abnormal on that front. Second question on the other slide in the cash flow. I think we've mentioned that in the past, in some of the quarters.
Mainly it's due to the temporary cutoff effect that we see on the cash balance certifications to our clients. That is business as usual and that varies on a daily basis. It's seasonal in nature, and so every quarter it varies, and it also depends on some calendar effects, like when Easter takes place or not. It's broadly neutral on a full year basis. That's what we would be expecting for the full year as it has happened in the last years. Nothing new on that front. I think your third question was related to M&A. There just to give you a heads-up on the acquisitions we've accomplished during the first quarter.
Overall, they account for around EUR 30 million in sales contribution and roughly around EUR 20 million accumulated enterprise value. Part of the EUR 6 million outflows you see there is related to these acquisitions. Part is coming from former acquisitions earn-outs. A significant portion of the investment in these three deals is also included as deferred payments in our notebook.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Miguel. Javier. I have three questions. Two are quite straightforward. The first one is on the taxes that you have factored in the cash flow statement, which are significantly higher than the one in the P&L. I would like to know if there is some payment in taxes in advance, and this should be normalized in the future, taking into account also that the tax rate in the P&L continues to be very high. The second one is you could give us the breakdown on FX, on financials, and what's the level excluding FX that you expect for financial for the full year. The third one is mainly a reflection taking into account the good performance that we have seen in the European division.
Assuming that even in January and probably in February as well, Omicron has had a negative impact on that businesses. Could we understand that for the future, taking into account the repricing of the current labor cost, plus probably a better environment in terms of lockdowns or COVID situation, the growth could be higher than these levels that you have shown in Q1? Thank you.
Good morning, Paco. Thank you for taking the time and for your questions. On the first one, on the taxes, you see a difference between P&L and cash flow, which amounts to around EUR 4 million. We have like EUR 16 million in the P&L, EUR 20 million in the cash flow. There's always a time gap between the accrual in the P&L and the cash outflow. That's business as usual. Nothing really distorting in that front. In terms of the tax rate, if you compare that with the tax rate in first quarter of 2021, you should take into consideration that last year we had the divestments impact, which was quite efficient from a tax perspective.
If you exclude that from the comparison base, we are better than we were last year. For the year as a whole, I would say that you should see a difference between the P&L and the cash flow, which should be in line with historical average behaviors. That's what we expect for the year as a whole. In terms of the FX on our financial expenses, if we exclude the FX, we are seeing a reduction in the pure financial cost. That is right now in the region of EUR 5 million in the first quarter. All the rest is coming from the FX.
On the FX side, what we have is a pure accounting impact coming from the cash repatriation from the affiliates, basically because all the repatriation is made in the form of intercompany positions, which are reflecting the FX evolution. That has a non-cash effect, and in any case, in the consolidation exercise is neutralized at shareholders' equity. It's non-cash, non-equity impact. Thirdly, on the performance in Europe, I think we are seeing a first quarter in Europe, which is the best first quarter organic growth we've seen ever. That also, part of it has to do with the comparison base, but also with the very strong evolution of the business, and that's accelerating on a monthly basis, as you were pointing out.
After the Omicron, we are seeing each month better than the previous one. We would be expecting that trend to continue going forward and to consolidate the recovery throughout the year. We are definitely in a much better situation now than we were one year ago, and we expect that to continue for the coming quarters.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Enrique Yáguez from Bestinver Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Miguel and Javier, and thank you very much for the presentation. I have three questions. The first one is regarding the ATM strategy. It's been a while since you signed the joint venture with Euronet. I don't know how comfortable do you think about closing any deals anytime soon with Euronet? Secondly, in terms of CapEx, it's been some reduction despite, you know, the recovery expected this year and the recovery shown by this quarter results. It's just a temporary impact. What are your expectations in terms of CapEx? Finally, I know that you've been asked about the acquisition made this quarter, Facilito and the German, but I couldn't listen if you disclose which kind of annual revenue do you expect for these acquisitions. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Enrique Yáguez. On the first question around the ATMs, we are highly committed to our strategy there. In terms of the joint venture with Euronet for Latin America, we are very confident that some of those projects will start contributing by the latter part of the year. There are several projects in the pipeline which we are expecting to crystallize throughout 2022. It's not only that. I mean, we have our Australian business improving as well. We're close to 1,000 ATMs there. We are also starting to deploy some of the first ATMs in Spain out of the 100 ATMs we've been awarded recently. There are several fronts in our ATM business that are starting to contribute on a strong basis.
Secondly, about the CapEx reduction, I'll say that CapEx has been very contained for the last couple of years since COVID started. That is the case because we've been investing heavily in our asset base in the past, and therefore our asset base is in very good shape, and we can keep that contained for as much as needed. At the same time, we are prioritizing the client CapEx, all that related to additional business and growth. There's some shift in the mix, so there's an increasing presence of client CapEx within the total mix. Nevertheless, for the year as a whole, I mean, taking into consideration that there's some seasonality in our CapEx, I mean, you should be expecting total CapEx to be probably a bit ahead of what it was last year.
In terms of the M&A, as we mentioned before, you should expect a contribution in terms of sales of around EUR 30 million overall from the three deals that we accomplished. They are starting to be consolidated as of March. We should start seeing the fruits of that in the coming quarters.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Álvaro Lorente from Alantra . Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be, in the current cost context of inflation, could you remind us in which country, countries your cash and transit fees include an ad valorem fee, whether this extends from Latin to Europe? My second question would be, on the performance of new products. You have provided the increase in terms of percentage of sales excluding the divestments, but you have not provided that excluding the acquisitions that you've made during the quarter that have also contributed positively. Organically, how much would the new businesses have grown, and what the increase in the weight of sales would be on a like-for-like basis?
Thirdly, just on the cash outflow on the others line, I know that you have this kind of seasonality on the certification with clients, but still the amount seems significantly bigger than in other quarters or in other first quarters in other years. I don't know if there's any specific to this, maybe the high growth on the quarter, or if you could provide some additional detail. Lastly, a follow-up on the question from Paco. You indicate that in March you're seeing faster growth as the Omicron wave wears off. Do you expect this to translate into sequential quarter-on-quarter improvement in sales, meaning that Q2 sales should be higher than Q1?
Does that mean that the growth should accelerate? This is just a clarification due to the fact that the comparison base in Q1 is much, much easier than what you will have going into Q2. Thank you so much.
Hello, Álvaro. Several questions in a row, so I will try to address all of them one by one. In terms of the inflation and the pricing mechanics, you know, we don't disclose the pricing mechanics on a per country basis. But we are being benefited by the ad valorem mechanism. That is a reality. In terms of the new products, I mean, if we take the reference on the +57% that we mentioned in the presentation, excluding the divestments, the contribution from organic and inorganic is very much balanced. I mean, you can say that half of it is coming from organic growth, so that gives you a flavor of how strongly the new products are behaving from an organic point of view.
In terms of the others line in the cash flow, there are some calendar impacts which are making the impact that you see in the first quarter 2022 be higher than what we may have seen in other quarters. That is the case because, if you recall, as of first quarter last year, for instance, December 2020, it was peak of COVID impact taking place, while end of first quarter on the cutoff date, March 31, it was Easter week. The delta in the first quarter last year was lower, while in this year we have December 2021 just reopened with a high increase in activity, and we have no Easter in the cutoff date in first quarter.
That creates that the delta is higher than it was last year. In terms of the evolution in Europe, I would say that the answer is yes, we expect that sequential improvement to keep going ahead in absolute figures. Of course, in percentile terms, we'll see, but the comparison base, I mean, becomes harder in the following quarters than it was in Q1. If we recall that in euro figures, we should expect this improvement trend to keep going ahead in the coming quarters.
Okay. That's perfectly clear. Thanks.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, you can press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from a line of Isabel Carballo from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
My question has been already answered. Thank you. Thank you.
The next question comes from a line of Manuel from Mirabaud. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. My first question is whether you can give us a little more detail regarding the pricing volume trends in the quarter. Javier, you mentioned before that it has been a balance between both of them, but I was wondering whether you can give us a sense whether this is a 50/50 split or 2/3, 1/3 in favor of volume or the other way around.
Hi, Manuel. In relation to your question, it's quite balanced as we said. I think roughly we can say that it is a 60/40 combination, if you want, in the quarter. I would say that probably, I mean, higher impact from volumes in those regions that were more affected by COVID in the first quarter last year. Overall, very solid volume recovery and very strong pricing discipline.
My second question, I'm sorry to come back again with the other issue lying on your cash flow. You were mentioning some seasonality. I have to go back to the evolution of that line on the last three years, and the average cash outflow of the other line from the cash flow has been roughly EUR 20 million on the period 2019-2021. This 40-something almost double that magnitude. I don't know, it's something related with the extra effort in growth or what might be the difference in terms of seasonality of this quarter versus the seasonality of the average of the last three quarters.
Yeah. As we said, that is very seasonal in nature. If you look at, for instance, last year, I think the operating line in the cash flow ended up being like -EUR 6 million, which is an accumulated figure for the whole year. It started being -EUR 11 million, but as we mentioned, there's a calendar impact, well, on the comparison basis versus last year. This tends to be quite neutral on a full year basis, this kind of impact from the certifications. That's basically the case because the peak volumes are happening at Christmas time in December, and therefore, when we get back to that point in time of the year, it more or less neutralizes.
It's just whatever has increased or decreased the volume at that peak of the season. When we compare to that cut-off date in December, I mean, there's always lower volume end of Q1, end of Q2, whatever it is, and that creates that comparison base. It tends to, I say it again, neutralize on a full year basis. The difference from what you see versus last year is, as we said, it's mainly a calendar impact. That's the bulk of it.
Yeah. That's why I haven't. I have tried to make an effort to go back to more years to see whether it has been something extremely rare last year versus this year. Even if you go back to three-year basis, the number remains too high.
You should take into consideration, if you look two years back, that there was a COVID crisis there. Because of that, I mean, even at the Christmas season, the volumes were lower than they were at Christmas season pre-COVID. That is also affecting the comparability and the calculations you may be doing now.
Okay. My final question is on how we should track the evolution of the business, regarding what you announced in the context of your Capital Markets Day. I believe that the spirit on that presentation was returning to pre-COVID levels at some point in 2023. Look like you are a little bit better than those expectations. Is that perception correct, or you are stick to the indications you gave us on your Capital Markets Day?
Yeah. I would say that as you've seen the presentation in terms of sales, the trend is of a solid and sustained recovery. We also recall on the Capital Markets Day, we mentioned that the target for 2023 was an EBITDA margin of 14%-16%. We feel that we are recovering fast to that target. We are quite happy with how the business is evolving.
Should things remain the same with nothing abnormal, I would say that also taking into consideration the typical seasonality in our results where second half of the year is typically stronger, I would say that we should expect to keep improving and we're firmly convinced that the market consensus for the full year is achievable, and we are well on our way to fulfill the targets in the Capital Markets Day.
Oh, great. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions in the queue, that will conclude today's Q&A session. I would now like to turn the call back to Mr. Javier Hergueta for any additional or closing remarks.
Well, I would just like to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Should you have any further queries, you know that our Investor Relations department remains available for all of you, and hope to see you again in our Q2 results presentation. Thank you very much, and goodbye.
That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.