Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CANCOM SE earnings call regarding the results of the third quarter of 2021. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to Mr. Bucher. Please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our earnings call after the third quarter of 2021. Thanks for taking the time to join us here. I have our CEO, Rudolf Hotter, and our CFO, Thomas Stark, with me today, and they will guide you through the following slides. Rudolf, please go ahead.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our earnings call for Q3 2021. Our CFO, Tom Stark, and myself will share with you in the following minutes a few remarks and explanations on the most recent financial results of CANCOM. As the financial results of the third quarter and the first nine months of 2021 for the first time show the full effects of the sale of our U.K. and Ireland business. Our main goal for today is to show you the new status quo after the deconsolidation of our U.K. and Ireland business and offer some insights on the most recent raise of our forecast. As already said, business development in the third quarter is for the first time officially presented without U.K. and Ireland.
That means 2021 and 2020 figures shown are presented without the business results from the sold entities. Overall, three things stand out currently. Firstly, the nice margin development in the cloud and IT solution segments in the third quarter. Secondly, the positive business development was the reason for raising our full- year forecast. Thirdly, we have started a share buyback program to return a good chunk of the proceeds from the sale of CANCOM Ltd. to investors. We plan to be a buyer in the stock market for rather long time, so please expect the program to at least be in place for six months, with tendency to be longer. In total, we will return roughly EUR 230 million via this program to investors. This gives you some certainty about the use of the proceeds from the UK sales.
Additional information on the topic of usage of funds shall be one of the main parts in our upcoming Capital Markets Day, which we will hold on the 29th of November in a virtual format. Ladies and gentlemen, the financial results for the third quarter 2021 show an increase in revenue of 5.6%. The figures show the operating business without U.K. and Ireland. It's a like-for-like presentation of 2021 and 2020 figures. An increase of 5.6% looks relatively moderate in the light of our historical growth rates. The third quarter was very much influenced by the current bottlenecks in the hardware supply chain. On the back of only 6% higher revenues, the increase in EBITDA of 30.4% looks rather unusual.
If you keep in mind that the supply chain issues with long delivery times for hardware not only lead to reduced revenue volumes and a high order book, it also leads to pricing power for those who have access to hardware. This is one of the major drivers for the EBITDA in the third quarter. A second and maybe more persistent factor in the rise of our EBITDA is the fact that we were able to increase our service revenues while at the same time improving our cost base connected to these revenues. Not only our trading margins was good, but also our Service delivery. Speaking about our Service business leads me directly into the results of our Cloud Solution segments. Revenues grew by 4.2% year-over-year in the third quarter.
Just as I said, here we see the EBITDA growth that is much, much higher than the revenue development, and that is based on the improved profitability of our Service business. You can see in our revenue growth that we still do not see a lot of onboarding projects of new customers that would lead to a higher sales growth. You can see that we do our homework with regards to the cost base and make ourselves ready for the return of a more usual supply chain situation and customers taking long-term strategic IT decisions again. Now let's take a look at the results in the IT Solution segment. The IT Solution segment was, to speak, the star of the past quarter. While revenue grew rather slowly due to the already well-known reasons, we were able to achieve an extraordinary good profitability.
EBITDA rose by 36.8% versus the previous year's third quarter. The EBITDA margin was at 6.7%. The segment's third quarter results show to you the nice part of a supply chain crisis. If you can deliver rare goods, you can set the prices to a certain extent. Dear ladies and gentlemen, always my favorite slide since quite some time is our ARR development. Here also, you can see the status quo after the deconsolidation of the U.K. and Ireland business. Again, a like-for-like presentation of 2021 and 2020 figures. The annual recurring revenue is the most important KPI for our strategic journey towards to the hybrid world of IT and what I call a system house 4.0. ARR grew with more than 23%.
That means that despite the rather low overall growth rates in the cloud segment, the development, our most profitable business, which is operating parts of our customers' IT environment on a day-to-day basis with operation, operational responsibility, is really nice. The development shows to you that the ARR growth in the DACH region was even more dynamic than in DACH plus U.K. combined. After these remarks, I hand you over to Tom Stark, who will lead you through more financial details and effects from the U.K. transaction.
My name is Tom Stark, and I'm happy to have you here on the call. Just as always, I'm happy to provide you with some more details on financial KPIs and on the impact, basically, and that's the starting point for today, of the effects that we have seen from classifying U.K. as discontinued operations. Let me first comment on the things that Rudolf commented on. Rudolf commented basically on the financial KPIs that are directly related with the income statement, and they are all like for like, just the previous year's financial data as this year's financial data. Classifying something as discontinued operations means that this is a point of time transaction. We have reclassified U.K. and basically eliminated all the data from U.K. in the P&L, and in the balance sheet as of August 2021.
Let's take a look at the effects that we have seen in there and where can we find the actual impacts of the transaction. Well, we have already commented on this transaction in the last call. We have received a cash inflow of approximately EUR 398 million, and we ended consequently the first nine months of 2021 with a profit for the period of EUR 260.9 million. You can see this on the slide in front of you. The profit from discontinued operations finally ended up as being EUR 229.6 million. We had some currency effects that were included that we had that have even increased the profit from the transaction from EUR 225, as we've communicated to you, to EUR 229.6.
An outstanding result, and we are very happy with what we actually have achieved with the sale of the U.K. transaction. Nevertheless, I would like to show you the earnings per share, and this is something that we should talk about. We have an outstanding earnings per share from discontinued operations of 5.96 in the first nine months of 2021. Yes, clearly, there's a one-off effect included, the one-off effect of the successful sale of the U.K. Business. Nevertheless, let me point out the earnings per share from continuing operations, and there you can see an outstanding increase from operations that was from 0.47 to 0.81. The operational performance was 72% based on actual earnings per share increase.
Clearly, absolutely in line with this development is the development of the EBIT, which increased from EUR 30.5 million to EUR 52.1 million. Operations have been at a very good mode in the first nine months of 2021. The operating cash flow is not affected the same way from discontinued operations. We are not adjusting the balance sheet. That means that, or this is simply accounting policies. That means that the operating cash flow is not changed in 2020, and is not changed until August 2021. You can see the slide that you can simply verify by comparing it with the financial statements and the interim statement as of 30th of September.
We have added something on the top line, which means, well, without the transactional effects, the cash flow would have been different. From real operations, for like-for-like view, we would have had an operational cash flow of EUR -47.7 million, and we would have improvement from EUR 66.6 million in the previous year. What does this mean, basically? Basically, we have seen an increase of the inventories. I think Rudi commented on the supply chain shortages that we have seen in the third quarter.
Dear participants, we have lost the connection to one of the speakers. He will dial in immediately. Thank you for your patience.
Ladies and gentlemen, Sebastian Bucher speaking from CANCOM again. Sorry for the technical disconnect. We don't know exactly when we lost connection to our call. We would start basically with the operating cash flow comment right away, and I hand over to Tom Stark. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you, Sebastian, and sorry for the technical issues. Hopefully, we catch up at the point that you are not missing anything. We will repeat the things that we've commented on the operating cash flow. Basically, the operating cash flow is not affected by discontinued operations. That means we have not a like-for-like view on what you see in the interim statement.
That's why we have commented on this slide with a line that is called Without Transaction Effects, and compares basically the operating working capital of the first nine months 2021 with the operating cash flow of the first nine months 2020. We can see we have an improvement from -66.6 to 47.7 in terms of operating working capital. The effects are very sophisticated, but this is the basic outcome. If we focus on what actually is behind the operating working capital, then we are certainly all pretty much aware of the supply chain shortages that we are facing and the way we have to handle them to manage this.
I think we have seen in the financial performance, as Rudi commented on, that we have done a very good job in managing the networks, managing our vendor relationships properly, to benefit from this situation, to increase the margin profile, to get the products, at least most of them, and by that way, outperform in our margin profile in the third quarter. Exactly what we expected to do when actively managing these things. Nevertheless, we have an impact on the working capital. We have an increase, a significant increase on the inventories of about EUR 30 million. We have a positive effect on AR side. Accounts receivable developed well, but we have a negative impact on the accounts payable as well. We have a EUR -30 million impact on the accounts payable.
What's the reason, therefore? Clearly, if you are networking with the manufacturers, then we are paying them directly. We have to pay earlier than usual, but we get the products, and we are benefiting that way from the position where we're in at the moment. If you look at the business results and the business first strategy that we have, not taking into account in this, well, exceptional period, the working capital management too tightly, we have been very successful, and you can see this in the margin development of the third quarter. What's the outlook for Q4? Clearly, we expect the best quarter for the working capital and the best cash inflow in the fourth quarter, just as in the previous year. Again, it's difficult to predict what's going to happen.
We have, on the one hand, a very good management and a very good vendor relationship management in place. On the other side, clearly, we have the highest backlog ever. As of end of September, we've seen an increase of the backlog compared with the backlog of the end of second quarter 2021 of 20%. This is something that we are facing but the uncertainty about the fourth quarter is still in place. We think we will benefit from margin profile point of view, but it's very difficult to predict at what point of working capital we will end up as of the end of the year. CapEx is the second slide and the second set of data that is not affected by discontinued operations.
Just by accounting policies, it has not changed in the previous years. We have commented approximately the same way as we have commented on the CapEx in the working capital slide. You can see the effects that we have seen without U.K. or without the effects of the transaction. The effect is minor only. We have a CapEx to sales ratio of 2.7%. Let me comment one thing on this, and this might clarify the ratio that is slightly above the level that you are used to see from us. We have generated in the first nine months exactly EUR 300 million of agent revenues. This is something that we have changed in our accounting policies as of the beginning of the year.
Given that, we would have ended with a CapEx to sales ratio of 2.1%, pretty much in line with what you are used to from ourselves. Next slide is the usual amortization slide. You can see a sharp decline or reduction of the amortization going forward. We will have another reduction in 2022. That means we will have a significant positive impact on EBIT and earnings per share. This is something that is changed just by transactions to come, but it gives an outline for your models on a basis going forward. One new slide, and this is also already related with the Capital Markets Day that we are looking forward to. We have just recently announced our new sustainability strategy.
We have also released a new website, a sustainability.cancom.com website, where we are collecting and gathering all the data and information that are required from you to get an impression about how we are actually handling the topic, what's the awareness of the topic, from the management, from the board, and of course, of all of the employees that we have. We have, for the very first time, quantified and measured and defined measurable ESG targets in the company's history. We will, from our point of view, achieve some significant improvements going forward, absolutely in line what we expect from ourselves, what our stakeholders and shareholders should expect from us and what we want our employees to take care of.
We've also defined the net zero goal being to achieving a zero CO2 carbon-free neutrality in 2027. We have defined other social and environmental goals as well. We will talk about it, these things in more detail on the Capital Markets Day, and it would be great to have you here to talk with you about everything we are having in place and all the initiatives that we have taken in order to cope with the challenges of climate change and so on. That leads me to the financial calendar and the upcoming events. You can see the next two events that are to come.
The analyst conference at the German Equity Forum will take place on 23rd of November, and our Capital Markets Day, as we have already talked about, will take place on 29th of November. Personally, I think it's a pity not having you in direct contact, but I think if you look at the development at the moment, it's difficult to actually plan events or venues that are held on-site in London, Frankfurt and Paris at the moment. We have decided to make an online event. Rüdiger Rath, our new COO, Rudolf Hotter and myself will be available for you. We will have a nice agenda for you, and we will have a Q&A session at the end. Please feel free to participate.
If there would be certain things you are interested in, and you can send the information to Sebastian Bucher, ir@cancom.de. We cannot promise to answer all of your questions, but it gives us some insights in what you might be interested. If possible, we will take into account what you are talking about or what you're interested in. Last but not least, another event, preliminary full year results of 2021 will be disclosed on 3rd of February. The financial calendar will be released, and just as you're used to from us in mid-December. With those things said, I will hand over back to Rudi. Thanks a lot for your interest.
Thanks, Tom. The following slides show the status quo after the end of the third quarter. These nine months' results for the group. For the group, we see in the first nine months, revenue growth of 12.9%, organically 10.9%. The EBITDA grew by 39.7%, organically 35%, and we could increase the EBITDA margin from 7.2% to 8.9%. Let's move to the cloud solutions for the nine-month results. The revenue growth 3.8%, organically 2.6%. EBITDA 20.3% and EBITDA margin on top level 31.3%. The first nine months of the IT solution segment, revenue growth 15.2%, organically 13%.
The EBITDA grew by a record level of 35.7% with an increasing EBITDA margin compared to previous year 4.6% to now 5.4%. At the end of this call, I just quickly want to show the current forecast for 2021. It was raised on the 27th of October with regard to revenue, gross profit and EBITDA development for the group and in the IT Solution segments. Just to be clear, yes, we still see good chances to reach our revenue goal in the Cloud Solutions segment as well.