Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Veolia conference call on full year 2022 results with Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO, and Claude Laruelle, CFO. I now hand over to Estelle Brachlianoff. Madame, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for this conference call to present Veolia's 2022 results. I'm accompanied by Claude Laruelle, our CFO. This conference will last one hour until 9:00 A.M., and we'll focus on the analysis of our 2022 results, followed at 9:30 A.M. by a broader presentation of our new group, one year after the acquisition of SUEZ. You can follow this capital market day live on our website. Back to the 2022 results, and I'm on page four. I am very pleased to present record results in a historic year for Veolia. First of all, our results have never been as high and are significantly above the targets set at the beginning of the year, despite the challenges of 2022, starting with the war in Ukraine, energy prices and the return of inflation.
We have once again been agile and responsive in adapting to the new geopolitical environment, as well as in seizing opportunities, particularly in energy with the resource plan. Another demonstration of the strength of our business model. It was also a historic year because we are celebrating the first anniversary of the acquisition of SUEZ and the merger of our teams. 40,000 employees joined us at the beginning of 2022 and are contributing fully to the group's performance. This merger has already been a success in human, financial and operational terms, which allows us to be well ahead of the synergy plan that we communicated to you. This is a historic year because with this merger, we have created the champion of ecological transformation.
Our customers value our new profile. We have won major contracts in decarbonation, depollution and resource regeneration in Europe, in the Middle East and in Australia, notably. We are on a very successful trajectory of profitable growth at full speed, which allow us to have ambitious objective for 2023 of 5%-7% growth in EBITDA and around EUR 1.3 billion net income, while confirming the EPS accretion of around 40% in 2024. Page five now. Our excellent results in 2022 demonstrate the strength and agility of our business model, even in a changing environment. We have often been questioned this year about our ability to cope with the volatility of the economy or the inflation.
We've had the opportunity to share our confidence in the group's profitable growth trajectory and to repeat that our business was 85% immune to industrial growth, and that inflation was neutral for us or even slightly positive, thanks to price indexation formulas and our pricing power. These realities are directly reflected in the figures we are publishing today. First of all, our revenue grew very strongly and reached EUR 42.9 billion, an increase of 14.1% as constant scope and exchange rates. This very strong growth reflects a good level of activity with volumes up by 2.4%, which remains strong throughout the year, and a price increase impact of 3.7%. This price increase accelerated during the year under the gradual effect of the indexation of our contract with a small lag effect.
In 2023, this effect will continue to strengthen to take into account the full impact of the cost increase in 2022. In addition to these two factors, there is of course the sharp rise in energy price for our heating and electricity production activities. This increase in energy is reflected in our tariffs, hence protecting our margins, but also offers a number of opportunities that we have been able to seize, in particular by increasing the production of cogenerated electricity. I would add that our revenue growth was maintained throughout the year, despite the sharp drops in recycled material price in the second half, which almost wiped out the increase in the first part of the year. Altogether, excluding energy price effect, our revenue has grown 6.5%. EBITDA now. EBITDA has also increased strongly, reaching almost EUR 6.2 billion.
Organic growth in EBITDA was 7.2%, above our guidance of 4%-6%, thanks to synergies generated more quickly than expected. After 6.5% increase in the first half, EBITDA growth accelerated in the second half. In addition to the sustained growth in revenue, synergies from the merger with SUEZ amounted to EUR 146 million compared with a target of EUR 100 million. After EUR 52 million in the first half, synergies achieved in the second half, EUR 94 million. Cost savings were also above our target at EUR 372 million against a target of EUR 350 million. Current EBIT benefited from the strong EBITDA growth to reach EUR 3,0 62 billion, with a remarkable increase of 16.3%.
At EUR 1,162 million, our current net income group share is also higher than our target of EUR 1.1 billion and is up 29.7%. These very good results allow us to propose a dividend of EUR 1.12 per share to the annual general meeting of shareholders, up 12%. Another source of great satisfaction is that we've already returned to the leverage ratio of 2.9x by the end of 2022, with a net financial debt of EUR 18.1 billion, thanks to the perfect execution of our antitrust divestitures, carried out at very good price and in less than 12 months. Alongside our financial indicators, you know that we've also we are also measuring 15 non-financial indicators, which are also very well oriented. Let me mention two of them.
In 2022, thanks to Veolia, 14 million tons of CO₂ of our clients' emissions were eliminated, thanks to our services. We saved 320 million cu m of water yearly, thanks to the improved efficiency of our water distribution network since 2019, which means an equivalent of 6 million inhabitants city saved every year. Page six, a few words on the 4th quarter, which was particularly good. While our revenue continued to grow at a rate comparable to that of the first nine months, EBITDA growth accelerated to 13.1% in the 4th quarter alone, and 9.8% excluding the positive one-off related to the 2021 comparison base. This very good quarter is explained in particular by the record amount of synergies, as well as the very good performance of our energy activities.
Page seven, you will find details of the excellent figures for the whole of last year, which I have already commented on. We benefited from the full operating leverage effect with organic growth in revenue of 6.5%, excluding the effect of energy price, EBITDA up by 7.2%, current EBIT up sharply by 16.3%, and current net income up by 29.7%. In our 2022 figures, they are very good. That's also thanks to the perfect implementation of our merger with SUEZ, prepared well in advance in 2021, as well as the perfect execution of the disposal program. All those efforts have paid off in our very, very good, 2022 figures, and they have enabled us to deliver an integration process which is undoubtedly exemplary. I'm on page eight.
Thanks to this merger, Veolia has taken on a new dimension. Not only by becoming the world champion, but also by strengthening our presence in many countries. We are in the top three in almost all geographies we operate, including, for example, regulated water and hazardous waste services in the United States. Our antitrust divestitures were completed in less than 12 months and at a record price, a sign of the quality of the assets that make up our business portfolio, which are often infrastructure related. We received in total, in all these divestitures more than EUR 3 billion. I will take just one example, the sale of SUEZ U.K. waste business, which was sold for 16.9x the 2021 EBITDA, even though we remain the number one waste company in the U.K.
From an HR perspective, all the company's employees have very quickly learned to work together with the same ambition to make Veolia the undisputed world leader in ecological solution for cities and industries. Our annual commitment survey, voice of resources, translate this into a single figure. 89% of the 114,000 employees who responded to the survey said they were fully committed to helping Veolia achieve its objective, with no difference between new and old Veolia employees, which is a record rate. Another example, 75,000 employees subscribed to the employee shareholding plan offered to them at the end of 2022, demonstrating their confidence in the company's future. For the first time, the group's employee have become the group's largest shareholder with 6.5% of the capital.
At the operational level, the pooling of our activities has been completed from day one, and we are well ahead in the implementation of cost synergies. EUR 146 million have been achieved in less than a year, which is nearly 30% of the total target of accumulated EUR 500 million, whereas our initial objective was around EUR 100 million in the first year. The first year of this merger has therefore been a complete success. Veolia is on track and well on its way to meeting the challenges of ecological transformation by helping our clients to decarbonize, depollute or regenerate resource. On page nine and 10, I would like to illustrate our ability to adapt to the current economic and geopolitical environment, which was clearly reflected in our excellent result for 2022. On page nine, some figures on inflation.
As you know, 70% of our revenues are automatically indexed according to formulas that follow the evolution of our costs and thus protect our results, sometimes with a slight delay due to the anniversary dates. These are typically municipal activities in water, waste or district heating and some of our treasury contracts, such as hospitals, for example. Whether in municipal water with 3.8%+ in France, in the United States with 9% in regulated water, in Chile with double-digit increases, or in the United Kingdom in PFIs with 7.3%+, indexation acquired, coupled with our productivity efforts, have enabled us to absorb the increases in operating costs.
For the remaining 30% of our revenue, the pricing discipline we've implemented at Veolia for the past several years is a strength that has enabled us to pass on significant price increases in 2022, which cover our cost increases. In hazardous waste, double-digit price increases have been passed in Europe and in the U.S. Industrial and commercial waste, the increase range from 3%-14% increase depending on the geography with no loss of clients. Trends in early 2023 remain well oriented with for example, 6%-8% in hazardous waste in the U.S. or 6.7%+ in the chemical products or WTS. On page 10, you will find some details of our energy activities, which represent approximately EUR 10 billion in revenue. As you know, Veolia's business is that of decarbonated or decarbonizing local energy.
We are neither involved in B2C nor in centralized energy production. In the context of very sharp price increases and supply difficulties in Europe, Veolia is not only protected but also ideally positioned to develop its energy efficiency activities and the production of local renewable energy from waste or wastewater. As a reminder, 60% of our energy revenue is generated in district heating and 40% in energy efficiency services. District heating is a much more energy efficient model than individual heating. High energy prices are therefore encouraging new customers to connect to the network, which we are actually experiencing in Central and Eastern Europe. Our tariff increases follow cost increases for fuel purchases. The energy crisis is also an opportunity to accelerate the development of our energy efficiency activities, where we enable our customer to save typically 15% of energy without major works on buildings.
This is thanks to the optimization of installation controlled remotely by using digital technology. On top of that, we've launched a specific plan, the resource plan, to increase our energy production by 5% and to reduce our consumption by 5% as well over the next two years by seeking out all sources of local renewable energy that are not yet sufficiently exploited. I'm thinking of non-recyclable waste or wastewater, typically. For example, we've aimed at being energy self-sufficient in our Veolia activities in France within five years. This will be achieved by optimizing our biogas production from landfill waste, by digesting sludge from wastewater treatment plants, or by installing photovoltaic panels on all closed landfill. As you can imagine, what we do for Veolia, we can do for our customers. Let's move on commercial successes of 2022.
On page 11-14, you will find several examples of significant contracts in our priority areas of development, decarbonization, depollution, and resource regeneration, as well as in innovation and technologies. On page 11, you will find several examples of decarbonization projects with our industrial and municipal clients. At the end of 2022, we commissioned the Braunschweig bioma ss power plant, which replaces the old coal-fired plants and avoids the consumption of almost 90,000 tons of coal every year, and provides heating for almost 70,000 homes. It reduces the CO₂ footprint by 50%. In Saclay, near Paris, Veolia won the contract to manage a new generation heating and cooling network. This EUR 100 million six year contract will significantly reduce energy consumption and avoid 11,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions per year.
In Germany, Veolia extended its selective collection treatment of biowaste and production of biogas in three plants in Berlin, Dresden and Stuttgart. In Belgium, the commissioning of a waste recovery plant to produce steam from industry and green electricity will avoid 100,000 tons of CO₂ per year. On page 12, you will find the most relevant development in resource generation or circular economy. In Germany, we are strengthening our recycling activities with the integration of the Hofmann assets, notably in Bavaria. On page 13, you have the latest example of contract won in depollution with the management of new hazardous waste treatment sites in Japan, which follows the massive contract we've signed with the revised refinery in November with ADNOC. I'm now on page 14. For several years now, our business has been evolving to include even greater innovation and technology content.
The merger with SUEZ has further increased our competitive advantage by doubling our number of patents and broadening our range of expertise and offerings. In Montpellier, in the water sector, Veolia won a EUR 160 million contract to expand and improve the efficiency of the Maera wastewater treatment plant. The challenge is twofold: to reuse wastewater, as France discovered last summer that water is too precious a commodity to be used only once, as well as to produce biogas from the treatment sludge. In Turkey, in Izmir, we won the management contract for the wastewater treatment plant of Pınar Süt, a major project producer of dairy products, in order to help it adapt the site to new water discharge standards, but also to optimize biogas production again, to reduce the site CO₂ emission by 17%.
In Texas, we won recently the design, equipment, and procurement of the water treatment plant for Samsung's semiconductor plant. Our contract amounts to $177 million. As you can see, Veolia is practically well-positioned to seize opportunities in today's and tomorrow's high growth markets, and the train has already left the station. Page 15. The examples I've just mentioned show it clearly. Veolia, as a global champion of ecological transformation, is a key player in ESG in action. What I call the ecology of solutions. This unique positioning is already recognized by organizations that rate companies on sustainable development, enables us to obtain very good ranking in most rating agencies. You've understood that I'm not satisfied with this position, as Veolia should be the ESG company. Our business is very specific indeed, as we help cities and industries to decarbonize, depollute, and save resources.
Our impact on our customers' trajectory reduction is very rarely taken into account in ESG criteria. It can even be worse when we take over our customers' asset to depollute them before giving them back, as we are penalized for it. In terms of taxonomy, Veolia is very well-positioned compared to many companies. Our activity is already 48% eligible, even before all activities have been reviewed by the taxonomy and 33% are aligned. On pages 16 and 17, I wanted to provide an update on our progress in terms of multifaceted performance. As you know, we measure success at Veolia not only based on financial criteria, but on 15 non-financial audited KPIs as well. I think it's important we publish both simultaneously. Just an illustration of this, nearly 16,000 employees have part of their compensation based on the achievement of environmental and social targets.
We'll have the opportunity to talk about this again in the CMD that follows. As you can see, almost all the objectives we set for 2023 have already been achieved in 2022, a year ahead of schedule. Back on page 19 to operational performance. You have the details of the efficiency gains we achieved in 2022. At EUR 370 million, they are above our initial target of EUR 350 million, which was nevertheless increased to take into account the integration of SUEZ into the new group parameter. We are maintaining the pace, and this will continue in 2023, with a new ambitious target of EUR 350 million in efficiency gain.
In addition to the EUR 371 million in savings, they all caught the synergies from the measure that I've already mentioned, and we are well ahead of schedule with EUR 146 million delivered in the first year. Which allows me to confirm once again our target of EUR 500 million cumulated in synergies, despite the disposal of the SUEZ U.K. waste assets. Our objective is to reach more than EUR 280 million of cumulated cost synergies by the end of 2023. Page 20. The 2022 figures show it. Veolia is a solid, agile, and piloted group, and we are set to continue strongly growing our results. Our growth will come from our priority development areas, depollution, decarbonization, and resource restoration. Our unique range of offerings and geographical footprints gives us confidence in the growth of the group.
Our position in the top three in all key countries we're present is a clear advantage. Our business portfolio is very resilient, with 85% not exposed to the economic cycle, which gives us great visibility. We continue to generate a significant amount of cost-cutting each year, of which we keep between a third and half, depending on the year, to fuel our earning growth. The EUR 500 million in synergies from the merger with SUEZ, which will ensure solid earning growth for years to come. Our balance sheet has already returned to a leverage ratio of less than 3x by the end of 2022, which gives us the capacity to seize opportunities as they arise. All these elements allow us to forecast solid growth in our results and our dividends in the coming years.
For 2023, our objective are also ambitious and fully in line with our goals of an earning per share accretion of around 40% by 2024. In terms of revenues, we expect a solid organic growth. We target organic EBITDA growth of 5+, or 5%-7% compared to 2022, driven by revenue growth, plus a target of EUR 350 million of cost saving and around EUR 280 million of cumulative synergies by the end of 2023. We are targeting net income before non-recurring items of around EUR 1.3 billion, which means double-digit growth compared to 2022. With a dividend that will grow at the same pace of our earnings per share. We maintain our balance sheet discipline with a leverage ratio that will remain around 3x.
I will now hand over to Claude Laruelle, will comment on our results in more detail, and then we'll be able to answer your questions.
Thank you, Estelle. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm on slide 23. Before starting the review of the full year results, I wanted to inform you that we are now using an adjusted definition of our current EBIT, current net income, and net debt in order to be in line with our previous guidelines that excluded the price purchase allocation, the purchase price allocation impact of the SUEZ acquisition. The numbers you have on the slide are therefore before PPA allocation. Of course, there is no impact at the EBITDA level. If you look at the PPA impact at the current net income level, it's limited to EUR 52 million. As Estelle already highlighted, our 2022 results are outstanding, and we delivered record high numbers for all the KPIs of our P&L, despite all the uncertainties we faced in 2022.
This is clear evidence of our ability to adapt quickly to a rapidly changing economic environment. As you can see, we experienced a very strong organic revenue growth in 2022, 14.1%+, driven by continued solid volumes in all our activities, good indexation mechanism on our long-term contracts, and a strict pricing discipline on non-indexed businesses. Of course, the favorable impact of energy price increases, which is pass through. EBITDA is significantly up at 7.2%, which is above the top of the range of our guidance, 4%-6% EBITDA organic growth, and also above the organic growth of revenue, excluding energy prices. Thanks to the operating leverage, current EBIT is growing faster and is up 16.3%.
Our current net income is up 29.7% at current forex and 27.7% at constant forex, at EUR 1.162 billion above our EUR 1.1 billion objective. Net CapEx remain well under control at EUR 3.1 billion. Net debt was massively reduced in Q4 by EUR 4 billion, as 99% in value of our antitrust disposal were completed in December, we also fully reversed the working capital. The net debt landed at EUR 18.1 billion, allowing us to achieve a leverage ratio below 3x , one year ahead of our initial plan. Moving to slide 24. You can see the quarterly growth on our main geographies. The different trends that we experienced over the first three quarters of 2022 remain more or less the same in Q4.
In Q4, the acceleration of our revenue growth, 16.2%, is due to the impact of high energy prices on our district heating business, for which revenue is of course, mainly generated in Q1 and Q4. If you look at Q4 only, these are the main trends. France and hazardous waste Europe are up 1.1%. Water revenue in Q4 was up 2%, with volumes almost stable in Q4, but the tariff indexation was good at 3.8%. Our solid waste business was slightly down due to contract selectivity and lower recycled paper prices. Hazardous waste business remain well-oriented, both in terms of volume and prices, up 4.8%.
All our operation in the rest of Europe were very well-oriented and experienced high revenue growth, 32.5%, boosted by very strong energy prices in Central Europe and to a lesser extent in Southern Europe. In the U.K., our volume were good, we benefited from higher power prices in our waste-to-energy facilities. In the rest of the world, the trend remained very solid over the year, between 8%-10% every quarter. The U.S. operation grew by 12%, with both hazardous waste and municipal water growing at double-digit pace. Australian waste volume continued to be well-oriented in Q4. In Asia, we delivered growth despite the economic slowdown in China. In Q4, our Chinese operation were back to an encouraging moderate growth, thanks to a good level of activity in December. Water technologies were up 10%, which is very good.
Q4 growth was 8%+, including WTS, up 14.5%, thanks to significant price increase in the chemical business. On the other side, Veolia water technologies was flat in Q4 with the completion of a desalination project in Q3, but the results were very good. I'm now on slide 25. You can see the strong increase of all our business in all geographies. Excluding energy prices, we delivered a 6.5% organic growth, which is clearly very satisfactory. It demonstrates that inflation in our cost is passed to our clients in all geographies, either by indexation or by voluntary price increase. In 2023, the trends will remain well-oriented. On the next three slide, as in Q3, we will detail the performance by activity, water, waste, and energy, and we start by water on page 27.
With EUR 18.3 billion revenue, our water operation represent more than 40% of our total revenue. We have put a reminder of the top geographies for Veolia: France, U.S., LATAM, and the Czech Republic. Our water business experience a very solid organic growth at 8.2% as all our contracts are protected against inflation by tariff indexation. The SUEZ acquisition has significantly increased the size of our water operation in the U.S., in Chile, and in Spain, reinforcing the visibility in our operation. In 2022, we experienced solid price indexation at 3.2%. Volume and works contributed to 3.6% to the water business growth. On water technology, we performed very well, growing by 10%, thanks to our superior technologies and our very good market positioning.
Veolia water technologies has contributed to significantly increase its EBITDA, 16%+ in 2022. The strategy to refocus activity towards more recurring services and no construction risk to restore profitability has been a success. EBITDA margin reached a record high of 7.7%. On WTS, revenue grew by 13.5%, driven by commercial successes and strict pricing policy. Now on slide 28, and you have the trends of the waste activities which represent 36.5% of the group revenue at EUR 15.8 billion, up 6.8% like for like. The growth came mainly from our strict pricing policy, complemented by a resilient volume and a small positive impact from recycling.
The strong growth of our waste activities, despite the economic slowdown in Q4, is a confirmation of our ability to mitigate economic trends on our operations, as we always told you, thanks to our mix and our strong pricing discipline. Let's have a look at the different items in detail. Volumes were up 1.2% comparable to the first nine months. With solid waste activities in our key geographies, especially Australia, U.S., LATAM and Asia. We continue to remain selective in our contract renewal portfolio, especially in our municipal activity in France, which explains the slightly negative net contribution of our commerce. Price increase, plus 4.6% continue accelerating compared to Q3, that was 4.2%, as we progressively have the full effect of the price increases decided in H1 and the additional ones implemented in H2.
The priority goes to the quality of the tons and the profitability over the volume. We are clearly looking for the best volumes to be collected and treated. Our hazardous waste business contributed to this solid performance with a 12.1% growth over the year, which is remarkable. Veolia is a important energy producer, thanks to our waste businesses, with a generation of 3.7 TWh on a yearly basis. The price of the electricity and biogas produced on our waste-to-energy facilities and in our landfills have benefited from higher energy prices and contributed to 0.9 point of growth in our waste activities. In 2023, average foreign gas prices will continue to increase in our revenue given our three year rolling hedging policy. Recycling impact progressively decreased in our revenue since Q3, reflecting mainly paper and cardboard price decrease.
The scope effect, -4.2%, is mostly coming from the antitrust disposal of assets in Australia to Cleanaway and REMONDIS, and a few hazardous waste in Europe for the antitrust after we have decided to do that in Europe. In 2023, our waste operation will take into account the disposal of the SUEZ U.K. waste assets completed in early December with a record high multiple. I'm moving to slide 29, where you have the detail of our energy business. Energy revenue was EUR 9.2 billion. It represents 21% of our total group sales. Growth last year achieved an outstanding 44.7% like for like in this business, accelerating from nine months because of the seasonality of the district heating business.
The main driver of this high revenue growth is a sharp increase of energy prices for 30.6%. Our business model allows us to pass the increase to our clients, which protects our results. Our volume have grown significantly, thanks to a very good commercial momentum in Italy and Spain, and a strong performance of our cogeneration, allowing us to increase our electricity revenue as well. Contribution to growth is 6.4%. Weather remained unfavorable due to a mild winter and fall for 1.5 points. In summary, our combined heat and power generation and our district heating networks continue to drive the growth of our energy business and delivered a very solid performance. Due to strong increase of heat prices, very high electricity prices in Europe, and a successful commercial development.
I'm now on slide 30. You have the usual revenue bridge detailing the different effects. forex has been a tailwind for 1.8%. Negative scope effect offsets the forex with a mix of small antitrust remedies and asset disposal. The 14.1 organic growth is fueled at 50% by energy price increases. On top of that, we benefited from good commercial momentum and volumes complemented by our strict pricing policy. The solid commercial momentum, as Estelle highlighted, is contributing 2.4% to revenue growth. The contribution of price increases in water and waste was almost EUR 1.4 billion, or 3.7% revenue impact. It is a result of escalation formulas for 70% of our business and voluntary price increases for the remaining 30%.
With the escalation formula taking more into consideration the impact of the 2022 inflation, we see an acceleration of this pricing effect in our revenue. That was 2.8% in H1, 3.5% in nine months, and now 3.7%. The weather impact was slightly unfavorable, -0.3%, and recycled prices were slightly positive, 0.7%, with lower paper and cardboard since August. Let's have on the following page a look at the EBITDA bridge detailing the 7.2% organic growth in 2022, which is above our guidance, which was 4%-6%. As a reminder, we were up 5.2% after nine months, meaning that the Q4 was a very strong contributor to EBITDA.
Compared to the nine months, the negative scope effect is higher after the closing of some antitrust disposal, like the SUEZ U.K. waste since December. Like-for-like trends otherwise are comparable to the nine months, with just one exception for energy prices, on which we have been very reactive to adapt to the electricity market move in Q4. Volume and commerce contributed EUR 81 million, or 1.4%. As usual, the main contributor to our EBITDA increase is the efficiency and synergies for EUR 517 million, with the efficiency plan delivering EUR 271 million, above our EUR 350 million target for 2022. The synergy delivery has been remarkable, above our initial objective of EUR 100 million, reaching EUR 146 million, which is close to 30% of the total EUR 500 million cumulated synergy objective.
The price cost squeeze that also include contract renegotiation landed at -EUR 220 million. Recycle impact is 75 million for the full year, and it was 79 million after nine months. The price decrease of paper, cardboard, and to a lesser extent, plastic, had a limited impact at the EBITDA level. As we told you, Veolia business model and recyclates have been progressively de-risked in order to be less exposed to commodity price volatility. As a reminder, we have isolated one-off items in the last brick of the bridge for -EUR 116 million. They are the same two items that we showed for the first nine months. On slide 32, let's see how the EBITDA increase is fueling the current EBIT, which is growing very strongly by 16.3%, at EUR 3.062 billion.
Renewal expense at EUR 303 million is slightly up in, compared to 2021. Amortization are up EUR 40 million, but stable at constant scope and Forex. You can notice the Veolia operating financial asset repayment one-off for EUR 83 million in 2021. It had only a positive effect on the EBITDA 2021 Q3, with no impact at the EBIT level. Industrial capital gains of EUR 157 million are mainly linked to the divestment of a landfill in Australia in Q1 and to antitrust industrial water disposal in Q4, and were partially offset by asset impairment for -EUR 61 million. JVs had a lower contribution at EUR 127 million after the Shenzhen JV disposal in 2021. Let's move to the page 33, to the current net income, up 29.7%.
In 2022, the current net income group share is reaching EUR 1.162 billion, which is above our target of around EUR 1.1 billion. It excludes the PPA impact of the SUEZ acquisition, which amounts to EUR 52 million. The cost of the net financial debt, EUR 707 million, is a combination of the historical Veolia debt and the one we have acquired from SUEZ. On the Veolia standalone side, in 2022, after an exceptionally low level of interest paid in 2021 with few positive one-off, we are back to the same level as 2019 or 2020, despite a much higher interest rate. The euro and dollar debt is at 83% at fixed rate, and we did not issue any new corporate bonds in 2022. The impact of higher interest rates has been limited.
The increase of the other financial income and expense at EUR 386 million, compared to the reported number in 2021, include EUR 128 million of non-cash financial costs due to the Aguas Andinas inflation-linked bond. These costs are factored into the tariff indexation we benefit in Chile and have only a very small impact on the bottom line due to minority interest. The EUR 70 million capital gain are mostly coming from the Longzhou water concession in China that we sold this year. The income tax rate is at 26.9%. As we told you, the tax rate is not optimized in 2022, as we are creating new tax group in each country to improve our tax profile in 2023 and afterwards.
Minorities stand at EUR 363 million, more than doubling compared to the Veolia perimeter standalone as SUEZ operation integrate minorities in Chile, in the U.S. regulated business and in WTS. On page 34, let's have a look at the net income group share that increased by 77% to EUR 716 million. The net non-recurring charges amount for minus EUR 446 million, which is exceptional because it is the first year of the SUEZ merger. The main non-current item are the following one, the SUEZ acquisition and integration cost for EUR 285 million. The second is a non-current impairment for EUR 275 million, of which 100% are for Russian assets. The third one is a non-current capital gains for EUR 322 million.
On antitrust remedies requested on Veolia's assets, we have generated outstanding valuation multiples, crystallizing significant value creation. In other items, there is of course the EUR 52 million PPA impact. On slide 35, you have the free cash flow generation, which is above EUR 1 billion. Both growth and net CapEx remain under control despite inflation, which is very satisfactory. Gross CapEx is stable at constant strikes at EUR 3.7 billion, and the net CapEx envelope is slightly down at EUR 3.1 billion, with significant antitrust asset disposal in 2022. Discussionary CapEx increase through increasing decarbonization spendings in Central Europe for EUR 165 million and hazardous waste project under construction in Germany, Saudi Arabia, and in the U.S. The strongest achievement is a full working capital reversal to register another working capital improvement of EUR 48 million despite the strong revenue increase.
The very strict balance sheet and CapEx discipline allowed us to achieve a leverage ratio below 3x one year ahead of our initial plan, at EUR 18.1 billion. On the following slide, you have the main debt variation with a strong impact of the SUEZ transaction for EUR 8.1 billion, net of the proceed from the antitrust remedies and the other items I've already mentioned. I'm moving to the slide 37, which is our guidance for 2023, fully in line to deliver our 2024 acquisition target. After our record high 2022, we're expecting another year of solid organic growth with an EBITDA increase that will generate between 5% and 7%, driven by EUR 350 million of efficiency gains, more than EUR 280 million of cumulative synergies at the end of 2023.
Current net income around EUR 1.3 billion, which means a double-digit growth compared to 2022. Our leverage ratio will remain around 3x . As usual, our dividend will go in line with our current EPS. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Claude. We'll have time for a very few questions. You know, since there is a CMD in half an hour or so, you will have an extra time after the CMD, of course, for extra questions. The floor is yours for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Please dial star one one on your telephone keypad if you wish to ask a question. The first question comes from Michael Gallo from Societe Generale. Sir, please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation, and thank you for taking my question. Maybe if I could start by focusing on water. Not so long ago, water used to be a somewhat risky activity from a political point of view. I'm not just thinking about Veolia, but also SUEZ. It seems that that has improved a lot in no small part due to the energy crisis, which brings the focus on energy and not water. If you could update us on your relationships with the different local governments and municipalities, whether it is in France, in the U.S., in Chile, and how that is going?
Also if I could ask a second question to that. On the contract negotiations, I think in terms of contract negotiations, we don't have much coming up aside from the Sevice contract in 2023, which is maybe extended to 2024. Is that right? Or is there something else that we should be keeping in mind? Thank you so much.
Thank you for your question. I will start with the first part, you have the exact answer in the CMD in a few minutes about what is up for renewal the next few years. You're right, the answer is not much apart from the usual suspect you've just mentioned. In terms of what is our relationship with the political landscape in general and our customers, local authorities, in the water sector, they are very good. It's fair to say that it's probably due to two things. One is the quality of the service we give to those customers, which has been over and over the years, you know, delivering good performance, efficiency, and delivering the best value for the end customers.
That's probably an important part of it. I've mentioned just one figure this morning, which is 320 million cu m of water saved thanks to the efficiency of the distribution network. I think our customers are sensitive to these type of statistics as much as, you know, like, the planet is asking for it. The second probably reason for that is that COVID helped everybody realize that, you know, it's an essential service. It's super important to have a reliable partner to deliver this type of service when you are in big crisis time. We've been always there, you know, during the COVID crisis.
I want to thank again, you know, all the teams in Veolia who've been, you know, in and out to actually go on delivering the good service. I guess, quality of our service plus, you know, like, being a resilient and always there, including, you know, when bad times comes are probably two large element of the answer. In a nutshell, we typically have a 90% or over 90% renewal rate of all our contract worldwide, and this is a KPI we monitor closely, and which is consistent.
Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Thank you.
The next question.
We maybe have time for another question.
Yeah. Yes. Thank you. The next question comes from Arnaud Palliez from CIC Market Solutions. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. I just have one question about your financial leverage target for 2023. I just would like to understand why you keep it stable at 3x . Does it imply that you're going to accelerate on acquisitions or on CapEx?
I guess, we always over the last few years, have set ourselves a target of being around 3x EBITDA as a leverage. We will maintain this target as we think it's a sustainable, good way of being able to seize the opportunity, but being very rigorous on our balance sheet as well. No specific idea in mind in terms of acquisition, but that's the typical target we've had over the years, and we will maintain for 2023.
Okay. maybe a second question also on, working capital, requirement. Can you be a bit more specific about the 2022 evolution and, what we can expect at this level for this year?
Just to answer your question, Arnaud, regarding working capital, you know, we have the usual evolution of the group with a lot of revenue and working capital negative in Q1 and Q2, with a reduction in Q3. In Q4, we have a stronger push on working capital every year. Each year it has been a positive contributor to the free cash flow. Some year it's more, and some years it's a little bit less. EUR 48 million is a very strong achievement if you look at the revenue increase. 14% revenue increase and working capital contribution of EUR 48 million, which is slightly positive, is a massive effort of our teams in order to work on the collection, and we achieved a record high collection in December.
We will continue to work on the cash flow generation and working capital improvement, I would say in the countries where we see some potential as well. We keep the best in class as best in class, and we will continue to improve where we have to improve in the other different countries. I don't, I'm not expecting for 2023 a different level of working capital. We have the same curve, the same yearly curve as we have seen in 2022. We expect, again, the, I would say the, not the less performing be used to improve significantly in 2023.
If I want to wrap up, in a way, your two questions in one, you have a team here, which is very dedicated to maintain the rigor we've seen in the last few years, in terms of balance sheet as well as cash management.
Okay. Thank you and congratulations for these good results.
Thank you.
We have no-
Maybe time for just one last question, if there is one.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. We have a new question from Arthur Sitbon from Morgan Stanley.
Question. Just first a quick follow-up on the leverage target. Around three times I was wondering if that means you expect a stable leverage compared to 2022, or if you would still expect some deleveraging versus 2022. That's the first question. The second question I see there were some capital gains in your results in 2022. I was wondering if you could provide a bit more details around that. Thanks a lot.
Claude, maybe.
On the leverage target, what we expect, we will see how the year will come. We continue to have a very strict, you know, balance sheet management. We, as we are looking at, as Estelle said, we have the room on balance sheet. If we can see some opportunities, we will seize them. Regarding, we will continue to keep the balance of the group. You have to keep in mind that we have to keep our triple B rating. A key driver for us is to keep the leverage and to keep the triple B rating with S&P. On the capital gains, we have a few capital gains in 2022. The biggest one, if I remember correctly, was in Australia.
We have sold a landfill and a big one which was also a mobile unit we sold to Saur at a multiple, the record high multiple of 19x EBITDA was around EUR 150 million, but is in non-current items.
Thank you. I suggest we close the floor for now, because we'll see you in half an hour for our capital market, and you have opportunity to ask extra question, obviously. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this conclude the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may disconnect.