Everyone. I am Pascal Imbert, cofounder and CEO of Wavestone. I am pleased to welcome you to this meeting presenting Wavestone's half year results and introducing Impact, our new strategic plan. Over the first half of Wavestone's 2021-2022 fiscal year, the firm posted EUR 217.8 million in revenue, a rise of 17% year-on-year. If we compare this to the first half of 2019-2020, that is to say the year before the start of the pandemic, revenue increased 12%. At constant exchange rates and excluding Everest Group Consulting consolidated since May 1, 2021, growth came to 15% over the six months. As a reminder, Q1 growth was boosted by a very favorable baseline since Q1 of the previous year was hit by the start of the pandemic.
Q1 growth benefited also from a 3% working day effect that did not apply to Q2. Let's now look at our first half KPIs. The utilization rate remained high through the first six months at 78%, which is significantly above our 75% normative figure. Pricing was good. The average daily rate was EUR 847 over the first six months, with Everest Group Consulting contributing EUR 5 to sales prices. We are therefore entirely confident that we will achieve our target of raising prices over the whole year to slightly above the EUR 842 figure published last year. Finally, after an exceptionally full order book at June 30th of four months, this figure has gone down to 3.9 months at September 30th, but even so, the outlook for our business remains excellent.
Let's now have a quick look at our activities outside France. In the U.K., Luxembourg, Belgium, Hong Kong, and Morocco, growth is dynamic and profitability is excellent. We are particularly pleased with the recovery in the U.K., which, as you know, went through difficult times last year. Regarding Switzerland, the situation is improving. After a tough Q1, there has been a good return to profit in Q2. In the U.S., finally, first half revenue was disappointing, putting us slightly below breakeven in terms of profitability. Despite the buoyant market in the U.S., we have had business problems caused by poor sales performance. The actions being taken since the summer should put us back on track in the next fiscal year. A recent key event was the purchase of the ASEAN consultancy, why innovation!, last October. why innovation! specializes in agile transformations. The firm is based in Singapore and Hong Kong.
We know the firm quite well, as we are partners in the region since 2015. why innovation! has around 20 staff and helps companies in various sectors with their innovation and digital transformation requirements. why innovation! has had revenue of an average SGD 5 million over the last three years and an average EBITA margin of about 15%. We bought why innovation! for SGD 5.2 million, plus potentially up to SGD 2.7 million in earn-out payments, depending on the firm's performance over the next 18 months. why innovation! was consolidated from November 1, 2021. This acquisition strengthens Wavestone's position in Asia, a region in which we have been established in Hong Kong for several years. Let's now come to human resources.
As anticipated, staff turnover continued to rise in Q2 to 15% over the last twelve months at September thirtieth, compared to 13% at June thirtieth. We now expect annual staff turnover to be between 15% and 20%, excuse me, which is above the 15% we set as a target at the start of the period. To offset this upswing, we are stepping up recruitment. We are now targeting 900 new hirings over the period, compared with our original target of 800. Let's now turn to the financial part of the presentation. As we've just seen, Wavestone's revenue has risen 17% during the first half. In terms of profitability, Wavestone's EBIT was EUR 31.8 million, up 122% over the first half of the previous fiscal year.
Wavestone has therefore posted a 14.6% EBIT margin for the first half, which is a record for Wavestone. Last year, for the first half, EBIT margin was of course severely impacted by the health crisis and amounted to 7.7%. For the record, one year earlier in 2019, the half year EBIT margin stood at 10.6%. In addition to the positive trend of our KPIs, this result has been achieved thanks to tight control of operating expenses and also to the reduction in office size, saving EUR 1.9 million. On the next slide, you can discover the bottom lines of our P&L. As you can see, the group share of net income was EUR 20.7 million, a rise of almost 200%.
Net margin on the end of September 2021 was therefore 9.5% versus 3.7% the previous year. As a reminder, it was 4.8% one year earlier. I mean at end September 2019. Let's now look at the cash flow statement. As you can see, our self-financing capacity rose sharply by 71%. Working capital requirements, on the other hand, increased significantly and consumed EUR 22.8 million of our cash. This increase was because of higher client receivables linked to our strong growth, and also because of a higher than usual fall in company debt in the first half. After payment of taxes, the business generated EUR 7.5 million in cash over the period.
Investments cost EUR 7.1 million in the first half, and consisted mainly of the acquisition of Everest Group Consulting and finance related flows absorbed EUR 15.4 million. On the balance sheet, you can see that equity rose EUR 15.7 million to EUR 221.8 million at the end of September 2021. Goodwill increased by EUR 6.2 million, essentially as a result of the acquisition of Everest Group Consulting. Net cash was EUR 16.9 million on 30 September 2021, compared with EUR 31.8 million at the end of March 2021. Let's now turn to the outlook for the end of the fiscal year. The good momentum of the last few months have continued in the second half.
The market shows no sign of slowing down, allowing us to maintain a good utilization rate above our normative rate of 75% with solid sales prices. We've also begun exclusive negotiation with a view to acquiring NewVantage Partners, a consultancy in Boston, USA. The firm is a data strategy specialist that helps its clients create and implement data-based value creation strategy. NewVantage Partners is a niche consultancy that works nevertheless for very large U.S. accounts. NewVantage Partners should generate around EUR 2.6 million in 2021, and we are considering a purchase price of EUR 2.7 million. Excuse me, I was mentioning $2.6 million of revenue forecasted in 2021.
We are considering a purchase price of $2.7 million, plus earn-out of up to $1.2 million, depending on the firm's performance in 2022. The acquisition could be finalized in the next few weeks. Thanks to the good first half of the year and to the positive orientation of our KPIs for the second half, we have raised our profitability target. We are now aiming for an EBIT margin close to 15% compared to our original 13% target. In addition, as a result of the acquisition of why innovation!, contributing five months to our revenue over the fiscal year, we have raised our annual revenue target from EUR 460 million- EUR 462 million. These targets are at constant exchange rates. They include Everest Group Consulting and why innovation!, but no other potential acquisition.
Beyond our half year results, we are presenting today Wavestone's new strategic plan, a plan we called Impact. This plan starts in a radically changed context, as 2021 marks the start of a new economic cycle, following a crisis that has strong implication for the future. Companies are embarking into major transformations in response to deep changes that are altering the world. Three main drivers are at the source of these transformations. The first one is an even tougher and fiercer competition in all sectors of business as a result of the crisis and also of the sudden arrival of new players coming from the tech industry. The second driver is the sudden acceleration of the shift to digital as a direct result of what happened in 2020.
The third is the realization that we are facing a climate and environmental emergency, and that we urgently need to deal with it. A topic which in just a few months has leaped to the top of the strategic agendas of all large companies. This new wave of transformations, the purpose, and I would say the sole purpose of our strategic plan is clear. It is to become the preferred partner of the large companies facing these challenges. It is to play a decisive role in helping them facing their competitive, digital, and environmental challenges. An objective which naturally led us to name our strategic plan Impact. Impact is based on three pillars. International Growth, Expertise and Value, and what we call The Positive Way. International Growth to start with.
Our development priority in the coming years will be to strengthen our international activities and to take key positions with new clients by focusing on those with sustained growth on the one hand, and on international clients, both French and non-French, on the other hand. This will be our priority in terms of commercial action, of mobilizing the firm's best skills regardless where they are located, and this will also be the priority for our growth investments, marketing, recruitment, human resources. We plan to also accelerate our external growth, in particular in our target geographies, the U.S., the U.K., and in a more medium-term vision, Asia. Who knows, if opportunities arise, we'll not hesitate to consider more structuring acquisitions. Second pillar of Impact is Expertise and Value.
A pillar whose starting point is a double response to our clients' expectations on one hand, to our employees' aspirations on the other. We plan to intensify our investments in the development of the skills and know-how of our teams in order to make Wavestone one of the best training schools for consultants throughout their careers. We will also invest in the in-depth development of our expertise to bring our clients more innovation, more forward-looking vision, and more thought leadership. We'll focus our efforts on the key issues of the coming years, cyber security, of course, data, artificial intelligence, new digital business models, and sustainability. With a special mention for the latter, the issue of decarbonization and sustainable development on which we intend to develop a leading competence.
In summary, the objective of this pillar is to deepen and enrich the firm's value proposition in a 360-degree vision of business, technological, and sustainable development issues. The effort made may result in a decrease in our utilization rate, which we intend to compensate by an increase in sales prices, thanks to the additional value brought to our clients. Third pillar of Impact is to cultivate and strengthen what we call our Positive Way. The Positive Way, you know, it is the name that covers Wavestone's four core values. The satisfaction of our clients, the well-being and commitment of our employees, our responsibility and ethics, which make Wavestone a good corporate citizen, and the collective mindset, which is probably the most distinctive value of Wavestone in the consulting market.
Our desire is to find in our roots the means to strengthen our identity, our cohesion to better meet the challenge, of course. This is a new chapter for Wavestone, a new momentum that we are giving ourselves with one ambition: after France, to take Wavestone's success to a broader scale. We have given ourselves a few milestones to judge the success of our plan in 2025. First of all, we intend to reach a new growth level by targeting a revenue of EUR 750 million. Then we want to include four major international accounts, non-French, in our top 20 clients. Finally, we intend to meet the highest standards in terms of non-financial performance by positioning ourselves in the top 5% of companies regarding CSR.
As you can see, strong current challenges, especially in terms of growth, while with regard to profitability, we simply intend to maintain our EBIT margin at 15%, which gives us all the financial leeway we need to execute our plan. One last word. During the course of our plan, we will lay the foundations for Wavestone's future development beyond 2025. Throughout the plan, Patrick Hirigoyen, COO of Wavestone, and I will continue to structure and strengthen the management of Wavestone in order to be ready to transition to a new management team beginning of 2025. I would like to specify that notwithstanding this movement, the co-founders of the firm, Michel Dancoisne and I, intend to maintain our position as reference shareholders of the firm, supporting its long-term development. That's all, we wanted to cover today. Thank you for listening.