Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Wendel's Nine-Month 2022 Trading Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There'll be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your questions on the webcast. Olivier Allot, Director of Financial Communication and Data Intelligence, will read them. I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Jérôme Michiels, Wendel's Executive Vice President and CFO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q3 2022 trading update. Today, I will cover the main developments of our past quarter, as well as our net asset value and consolidated sales. I will provide an overview of the performance of our companies, as well as some remarks on the general environment, which remains highly volatile and bears a lot of uncertainties. I will be happy to take your questions at the end of the call. Let's now go into the details on slide 2 of the presentation. Q3 has been another strong quarter for our companies, with double-digit organic growth in line with previous quarters. Our net asset value has held up reasonably well, showing a 4.5% decrease to the end of June when adjusting for the EUR 3 dividend paid this year.
This is mostly the result of the decline in the equity markets, as we will see later in the presentation. 2022 has been an important year for us in terms of portfolio rotation and capital deployment, with outstanding returns and proceeds generated by the disposal of Cromology at the beginning of the year, and our investment in ACAMS for a total cash outlay of slightly EUR 300 million, perfectly in line with our strategy. We have also increased our commitments to our Wendel Lab strategy by EUR 51 million to about EUR 160 million in aggregate. Lastly, we are very excited by the arrival of Laurent Mignon, which I can now confirm for early December. Let's now focus on consolidated sales on slide 3. Q3 has been strong, just like the first half.
Consolidated sales have reached EUR 2.3 billion this quarter, which is 21% more than last year. We have had a strong level of organic growth at 12.1% and a higher contribution from foreign currencies at +6.6% compared to 4% in H1. This is due to the strengthening of the dollar and other currencies. Scope effects have represented 2.2% positive growth, thanks to the acquisitions completed by Bureau Veritas, Constantia, and the acquisition of ACAMS at Wendel's level. Over 9 months, organic growth stands at 10.9%. Now let's look at each company on slide 4. Let's start with Bureau Veritas, which posted a very strong quarter at +8.7% organically. Five businesses delivered strong growth.
Building and infrastructure at 11%, industry 10.6%, marine and offshore 9.7%, agrifood and commodities 9.6%, and certification 6.6%. Consumer products has been more difficult at +0.6% against a strong recovery in Q3 2021 and impacted by the COVID lockdowns in China. Based on this solid performance, the company has confirmed its outlook for 2022 of mid-single-digit organic growth, improvement in the adjusted operating margin, and sustained cash flow with a cash conversion above 90%. At Stahl, growth has largely been led by price and mix effects as volumes decline, notably due to slowdown in certain end markets, China lockdowns, and continued supply disruption in automotive.
Across all segments, price increases have been implemented since the beginning of the year to mitigate the strong impact of rising input costs. The company has taken and is ready to take additional measures to protect its margins where needed. Stahl's management continues to closely monitor the inflationary environment as well as the supply chain and the potential energy disruptions. Tarkett's revenue grew by 12% organically, including the sales price increases in the CIS region implemented at the beginning of the year. The total effect of the sales price increases implemented across all segments is 11.9% on average compared to the third quarter of 2021. As expected, the sports segment continues to show very strong growth for the third consecutive quarter at +30.5% organically.
The North America segment reported solid organic growth of 11.5% and a positive currency effect due to the appreciation of the dollar against the euro, +18%. While the EMEA segment suffered from an unfavorable currency effect of -1.3% and posted 2.7% of organic growth. Crisis Prevention Institute, or CPI, had a strong quarter as well, with a 13% organic growth. As the return to normal business conditions has made it easier for customers, particularly schools and hospitals, to prioritize and schedule training, allowing certifying structures to conduct internal trainings. Additionally, the success of new program launches, including specialty topics such as trauma, autism, and advanced physical skills, contributed positively. These programs collectively represent more than 20% of initial certifications for the first nine months of 2022.
The international expansion strategy outside of the US, notably in English-speaking countries, gained momentum with a growth rate of over 20%. The continued mix shift toward digital solutions for both new CIs and renewals, which supplement required in-person training components of the programs, have continued with virtual learner materials, now accounting for 44% of total learner material sales. ACAMS, which Wendel acquired in March this year, also performs strongly, especially when one includes the very strong impact of the company's flagship Las Vegas conference, which was held in October 2022 this year, one month later than that of the prior year, which took place in September 2021, skewing the year-over-year comparison. Normalized for the timing of this event, pro forma organic growth stands at 13.7% for Q3 and 18.1% for the nine months.
The pro forma revenue growth was driven by post-COVID conference recovery and greater sales of certifications, memberships, and training, primarily a result of sales to larger enterprise customers. It is expected that revenue growth should ease and return to more normative levels for the remainder of 2022 and into 2023. Constantia has had another very strong quarter with +25.7% organic growth and +23.7% for the nine months. The performance has been strong across both markets, consumer and pharma, both posted above 20% organic growth. Sales are mostly driven by necessary price increases, enabling to compensate for the inflationary input cost pressures. Since the start of the year, despite raw material shortages, Constantia has experienced an echoing return to market share gains, thereby confirming the good momentum instilled by the new management team commercial initiatives.
Constantia is carefully managing the inflationary cost environment, as well as the availability of energy supply and raw materials. The company is focusing its efforts on preserving the profitability, working both on the pass-through of input costs as well as pursuing its cost control program. Constantia is also actively working on its supply base and energy supply sources in the context of a potential shortage of gas in Europe in the coming months. Let's now turn to the net asset value as of September 30, 2022 on slide 5, which stands at EUR 155.2 per share. Listed assets represent EUR 4.4 billion, while unlisted assets are slightly above EUR 2.9 billion in terms of total value.
The level of cash is at a high mark, close to EUR 1 billion, thanks to the proceeds of the sale of our headquarters and the receipt of the dividend from Bureau Veritas since the end of June. Dynamically, I find it interesting to look back at the past quarter and the first half on slide 6. You will remember that we had a significant impact coming from the drop in equity markets in the first half, resulting in a 12% decrease of our net asset value at the end of June, affecting both our listed and unlisted assets. Things have somewhat stabilized since then, except for IHS, which has seen its share price decrease by over 40% since the end of June.
When looking at the change in the listed assets value when adjusting for the dividend received from Bureau Veritas, most of the decrease actually comes from IHS. The other lines within our net asset value are pretty much unchanged, such that when we adjust for the dividend we paid this year, net asset value is actually 4.5% lower than the level as of the end of June. What you don't see in this slide is that the strengthening of the dollar has been contributing positively since the beginning of the year, representing about plus EUR 2.5 per share just for CPI and IHS. The last highlight I wanted to make on our situation is on our leverage and liquidity levels on slide seven. We have a strong balance sheet with the loan-to-value ratio standing at 6% only.
As I said, we currently have about EUR 1 billion of cash available, complemented by our fully undrawn EUR 750 million credit facility that we have just extended to July 2027, resulting in a total liquidity of about EUR 1.7 billion. As you know, we have been quite active on the liability management side earlier this year and in prior years, such that we have trimmed down the average coupon of our bond debt to 1.7% only. We have long maturities of 6.6 years on average and no repayment before April 2026. Before I hand it over to the room for questions, I would like to wrap up this trading update with the following comments. Our portfolio companies have performed strongly over the nine months.
This year, we have continued on the execution of our roadmap, further rotating our portfolio and deploying capital. We have also made some significant progress on our ESG roadmap, both at the level of Wendel and at the level of our portfolio companies. The world has changed in the last few months and has become even more uncertain than before. Our companies are constantly adapting to the ever-changing environment of raw material prices, wage inflation, disruptions, COVID lockdowns, energy shortages, et cetera. We are confident that the management teams of our portfolio companies are laser-focused on these issues as we go into 2023, as well as on accretive M&A and initiatives related to ESG. At Wendel level, we feel our strong balance sheet will enable us to seize opportunities at the right price as they arise.
Short-term, we continue to support our company's projects, including when it comes to M&A, and are actively considering investment opportunities at the Wendel Lab. Bear with us in these uncertain times. We will be providing an update on our unlisted assets at our Investor Day on December first. Before that, I will now pause and take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. You can also ask your questions on the webcast. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question via the telephone, star one and one. We will now take your first question. Please stand by. Your first question comes from the line of Joren Van Aken, Degroof Petercam. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I just have one small question. In your others line in the NAV, you report EUR 17 million, which includes the treasury shares, which are worth, let's say, a little bit more than EUR 70 million. What is the negative line in that one? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Within this line, we have provisions for the value of minority shareholders in some of our assets. This represents the liability that we have to shareholders, some outside and some internal shareholders as part of the incentive schemes of Wendel, which is netted against the value of our treasury shares.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. There are currently no further phone questions. I will hand back the call for webcast questions.
Thank you. We have a question from Alexandre Gerard. How do you see Stahl and Constantia's ability to withstand a recession given their exposure to consumer markets?
Thank you for your question. Well, I think, you know, Stahl is already seeing some decreasing volumes already. Given the exposure they have to the automotive market, they’re already seeing a slowdown. They are managing that through price increases and obviously they are very cautious in terms of their fixed costs. For the time being, they are protecting their margins, and they are sort of adapting to this situation. When it comes to Constantia, they’ve been doing extremely well over the first nine months, as you will have seen both in consumer and pharma. You know, volumes are not very dynamic in Constantia.
They are good, but I would not qualify them as being extremely good. I think this might get worse, you're right. These companies are very well prepared and have been, you know, addressing their cost base and managing their prices accordingly, such that, if you know, there is a much more important slowdown, they will be able to react quickly and adjust to the new environment. The management team of these companies are already working on that. It's, as you can imagine, currently the time of the year where budgets are being prepared.
There is a low level of visibility at this point in time, which contrasts with other years where, you know, typically at this point in time of the year, you would be able to estimate pretty well next year. This year is much more difficult because of all the uncertainties that I listed related to energy supply, COVID lockdowns, et cetera, disruptions in the supply chain. It's much more difficult, but these companies are preparing a more difficult environment, as I said, and have been very dynamic to increase their prices. We see some softening here and there on commodities. Maybe the pricing environment when it comes to raw material will become more benign.
I think it's still too early to tell because we are not really in winter time, so we'll see where the energy prices go and take it from there, I would say.
Thank you. We have some questions from Saima Hussain. Unlisted assets are more or less holding their own in Q3. Have you lowered valuation multiples for unlisted assets? I will continue.
Yeah.
the other question after that.
Well, the value of the unlisted assets in Q3 has not changed. There are very minor changes that relate to the evolution of the listed peers that we use to calculate the values of our unlisted assets. But this has been set off by the strengthening of the dollar, as I said, which has been actually quite significant over Q3, higher than for H1. All in all, there is very little change. It's only, as you can see, less than EUR 1 per share change, EUR 0.70 difference between H1 and Q3.
Even so, this is a trailing statement. Can you give us some guidance on margins as your portfolio companies manage to maintain their margin in the context of rising prices?
Well, we don't disclose margins by quarter, so I cannot comment on the evolution of the margins since the end of June. We do not either provide guidance on the level of margins for our companies. I'm sorry, but I can't answer these two questions.
Do you have any deals in your pipelines? Do you plan to continue the portfolio rotation?
Yes, we always have deals in the pipeline. Although the situations we are looking at currently are highly uncertain because LBO financing is closed, at least above a certain amount of debt where you know, private debt, private lenders cannot play. There is no financing available. The situations we're working on will potentially, I guess, slip to 2023 if ever LBO financing comes back. At this point in time, it's very difficult to tell whether these transactions will go through and close. Yes, we are always working on opportunities, even if they are protracted, we are in the market.
Thank you. A question from Laurence Aglio. The change of CEO, is it strategic or for personal reasons?
Well, we already commented on that extensively when André announced that he was going to leave the firm by the end of this year. I will not repeat what has been said. It's not related to strategy, but much more to personal reasons. André wants to go back to his prior life and have more time, which is why he will be leaving the firm as Laurent arrives early December.
Thank you. Another question from Saima Hussain. Also, will your strategy change with Laurent Mignon at the head of the group? Is the idea of the third-party management still rolled out?
Well, I can't answer this question. It's going to be for Laurent to decide what he wants to do as the head of the group in terms of strategy. This includes your question on third party management. Although it's fair to say that, you know, in the current environment, I see maybe less value in the asset management model than previously. When you look at peers, you know, it's not a strong case. It will be for Laurent to decide what he wants to do in terms of strategy.
Thank you. We have no more question on the web, but I think there is a question by phone. Sharon?
Thank you. Your next phone question comes from the line of Arnaud Palliez from CIC Market Solutions. Arnaud, please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions, in fact. The first one is on the Wendel Lab. You have increased the amount of money committed to Wendel Lab, so I would like to have an update about the investments for Wendel Lab, what you can comment about the development of Wendel Lab. My second question is about ACAMS. I would like to know if the event in Russia, the fact that some Russian assets are frozen and so on, does it have an impact on their business regarding the nature of the business of ACAMS?
Thank you, Arnaud Palliez, for your two questions. The first one, Wendel Lab, yes, we committed an additional EUR 51 million this year to increase our total commitments to EUR 162 million. It's still the same strategy. It's solely commitments in fund. We have not yet invested directly in private companies, tech or, you know, tech companies. We have been looking at many companies, but we haven't yet found our way into these opportunities. The strategy is the same when it comes to funds. We are targeting top-tier asset managers, so highly recruited firms. We have a mix of firms across the Atlantic. Some are in Europe, some are in the US.
The pace at which these managers are investing is slowing down, as you can imagine. We've committed EUR 51 million, but capital calls have been much more quiet over Q3 than during the first half. We are working currently on direct investment opportunities as well within the Wendel Lab. I'm sure you will have seen some companies will need cash at some point, and will have to raise capital in an environment which has dramatically changed.
We believe this is going to create some opportunities for us to enter these businesses at a much more attractive valuation or maybe to provide, you know, bridge financing, such that nobody gets hurt in terms of value, as opposed to when a company raises capital and where they need to revise the valuation sometimes at a very low level. We are continuing our effort in there. We have a healthy level of deal flow, and we have a good pipeline.
Your question on ACAMS, we haven't identified any strong impact coming from the Russian sanctions, but indirectly, I'm sure there is, because this company is really one of the leaders when it comes to certifying training in compliance and financial crime and anti-money laundering. Given the inflation in sanctions that you know the EU has put out, I'm sure that customers of ACAMS that are you know U.S. banks, European banks, Asian banks and many different financial institutions need to retrain and recertify people and make sure that they are up to date when it comes to international sanctions. I'm not able to comment on the magnitude of this. It's certainly in there.
I'm not sure this is a massive impact. ACAMS is very diversified in terms of customers, in terms of geographies. As I said, we've had a strong impact from the conference in Las Vegas this year, which sort of dwarfs you know the rest, but the rest is still growing.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. I will now hand back to Olivier for further webcast questions.
Thank you. We have a question from Anne-Sophie von Klitzing . May we ask you when you will start with the buyback program now that the discount is at 50%, you only bought back for EUR 25 million this year.
Thank you for your question. You're correct. I confirm that we bought back EUR 25 million this year. Currently we over Q3, we have not bought back further shares. As I said, the world has changed very much in the past few months, you know, with interest rates now rising quite being raised quite aggressively on both sides of the Atlantic. We feel there is a lot of value in keeping our cash on the balance sheet.
The outlook is gloomier than before summer. You've seen, you know, all the big institutions starting with the IMF changing their economic outlook and being much more darker in terms of what is in store for next year. Financing is. We are not anymore in the world of free money. I mean, that's for sure. I mentioned the idea of financing which is currently not available, and I think the markets are still adjusting for that.
We feel the best use of our cash is to, you know, support our companies and make new investments much more than investing in Wendel shares, especially as we have this limit that you know well of EUR 50 to 60 million per annum. You know, it doesn't move the needle actually to spend another EUR 25 million when it comes to the discount, I'm afraid. We've tested that in the past, but I think having EUR 25 million more on the balance sheet does change the picture for us.
We are counting every euro there and keeping this war chest, as I said, for the times ahead, which will certainly produce some very interesting opportunities, but will also come with more challenges.
Thank you. We have no more question on the web, no more question by phone. Sharon, I think we can close the call.
Thank you very much, sir. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by and remain muted.
Thank you. Thank you.