A warm welcome to CapMan's Q3 result presentation. My name is Joakim Frimodig. I'm the CEO of the company. In this presentation, I will give you some highlights of the financial development of the first nine months of this year, and I will also give you an update on the strategy and the business developments at CapMan during the first three quarters of this year. I will start by going through the financial highlights. I'm happy to report that the strong growth and the positive result development has continued in the third quarter of this year. If we look at the first nine months as a whole, our turnover grew by 29% to approximately EUR 38 million, and our EBIT hit record levels at EUR 32 million for the first nine months. Our earnings per share was at approximately EUR 0.16. Our assets under management continues to grow.
During the last 12 months, this figure has grown by close to EUR 800 million or more than 20%. After the review period in October, we have been able to raise additional funds of approximately EUR 250 million, and we expect further growth during the upcoming 12 months. This is an important growth driver for CapMan's business. Overall, our management company business develops well. The turnover grew by over 40% in the first nine months, driven by continued positive fee development and also by some carried interest income in the third quarter of this year. Consequently, our EBIT in the management company business grew by close to 80% during the first 3 quarters. The positive fair value development that we saw in quarter one and quarter two has continued into quarter three.
Cumulatively, fair values are at +EUR 24 million for the first 9 months, and we have also been able to close a number of transactions, and we are working on several transactions at the moment with the objective to be able to show carried interest income during the next 6 months. We expect carry from multiple funds during the next 2 quarters. Our balance sheet is strong. Equity ratio is at over 50%, and we have close to EUR 60 million cash at hand. These figures are after the second dividend payment in September. Talking about dividends, we are committed to our dividend policy, which is an annually growing dividend.
We have been increasing the distribution to our shareholders for 8th consecutive years, and this year we paid EUR 0.14 in total in two installments, and I said the second one was paid in September. Here you can see how our turnover has developed, quarter by quarter and also how our EBIT is developing, so you can see an accelerating pace in the turnover, in the top line, and then a significant improvement in the EBIT from last year. Worth noting, of course, that last year we saw significant impacts of COVID, especially on our fair values. Nevertheless, the development has been very strong during the first nine months of this year. Here you can see a further breakdown of the EBIT during the first three quarters.
The total number was EUR 32 million, and the management company business contributed approximately EUR 10 million, EUR 7.5 million in fee profits, and EUR 2.5 million in carry. There's a significant improvement, close to 80% improvement from last year's figures. The service business is slightly behind last year, so we have reported EUR 3 million EBIT compared to EUR 3.9 million last year. Worth noting that in the last year's figures, we still have our fundraising business impacting profitability, which has since been discontinued. If we look at the current continuing service businesses of CaPS and JAY Solutions, both have grown and improved their profitability during this year. Our investment business has already highlighted significant improvement from last year, and if you look at other costs and eliminations, we are roughly in line with last year's figures.
This gives us the total EUR 32 million. If we then take a bit longer time horizon, and we look at quarterly EBIT figures, you can see here the development since 2018, and we have reported 4 strong quarters in a row. If you look at the EBIT of the last 4 quarters, we are over EUR 42 million. A significant improvement from previous years, and this is much more than just a recovery from the COVID impacts that we saw in 2020. This is showing the true robustness of our business and also the results of many of the strategic actions that we have been implementing in recent years. A quick reminder about our business model before we go into the individual earnings streams. We report three segments, the management company business.
From that part, we get management fees and carried interest income. We have our service business providing us with fees from sold services. We have the investment business where we receive return from investments and fair value changes. If we look at these individual earnings components, you can see the fee base, how that has developed over recent years. An average annual growth rate of close to 20% in the last four years, and you can also note the accelerating growth of the management and other fees. Consequently, our fee profit has steadily improved and is now at new record levels. Our cost base is fixed when it comes to fixed costs. If you look at the overall operating costs during the first nine months and compare them to the same period last year, you can see an increase.
This is mainly due to larger earnings-linked and variable bonus accruals. Also worth noting that last year we did some one-time savings of approximately EUR 1.5 million. These two things explain the increase in the cost base. Otherwise, there have been only minor increases in fixed personnel costs, and other costs are in line with the previous years. It really comes to the variable cost part. In total, operating costs then increased by 20%, and if you take out the variable personnel costs, the increase was 7%. These figures can then be compared to the growth in turnover close to 30% and an EBIT which is more than 12 times higher than what it was in the comparable period last year.
A large part of the personnel costs relate to the management company business, and you can see the development of the management company EBIT excluding carried interest on a rolling twelve-month basis in this graph. You can see that this, of course, has been one of the core objectives of ours to grow this part of our earnings. We have been doing so for 15 consecutive quarters, and actually the current level is 15 times higher from where we started at the end of 2017. The current EBIT margin based on this income stream is close to 30%, and we see continued growth here. We are committed to growing this part of the business, and we've been able to do so throughout the COVID period and also in recent quarters.
This is a combination of very stable and predictable earnings and then a flexible cost base, as I explained on the previous slide. Of the earnings behind this, EBIT, more than 90% are based on recurring revenues. The third part of our income was return from own fund investments. The EUR 24 million fair value change in the first three quarters converts to a 26% annualized return on own investments, well above our set targets of 10%-15% with the current allocation. As already mentioned, a large part of this value change is based on realized transaction. It is a broad-based change, so all of our active strategies are positively contributing to this number, and especially the private equity part of the business has been driving up this figure in recent quarters. Our balance sheet is solid.
We have good liquidity, so book equity close to EUR 120 million, equity ratio over 50%, cash at hand close to EUR 60 million, and we also have an undrawn credit limit of EUR 20 million. This gives us financial stability and a strong liquidity position, and we have the resources at hand to meet existing fund commitments and make new fund commitments. This provides us with a good flexibility overall. If you look at our own investments, we have about EUR 185 million of investment capacity. Some EUR 126 million of that is invested into the private markets, mainly into our own funds and selectively into external private market funds. As mentioned, we have this close to EUR 60 million cash at hand.
On the other hand, we also have significant outstanding commitments, close to EUR 85 million, which a large part of that cash will be used towards during coming years. Overall, on this slide, you can see the increased diversification of own fund investments from our balance sheet to different strategies in recent years. These were the highlights when it comes to financials, then a few words about the strategy and how our operations are moving forward. As a reminder about our vision, our vision is to be a Nordic private asset powerhouse. We are building this on three main blocks. We want to have top quartile value creation in all of our strategies. We want to have access to a broad investor base of international capital, and we want to have an attractive and innovative offering when it comes to the private asset space.
With these three main building blocks, we will be a Nordic private asset powerhouse. The strategic direction that we have been following during recent years has three main components to broaden the access of capital from Nordic tier one investors to the international investor space and also towards slightly smaller local institutional investors. We have been broadening our offering in the private asset space, and we are currently having a very good coverage already of the Nordic private asset market. The third component has been to introduce new types of products and solutions for combining the capital with the investment opportunity. Here are some of the results. If you look at these three angles.
When it comes to broadening the access to capital, more than 60% of assets under management are currently coming from outside the Nordic region. There's a big growth there from where we started in 2016. You can also note a growing share of the assets under management coming from slightly smaller local investors in the tier 2 and 3 categories. We have a number of open-end funds. We have large mandates that we are managing at the moment. We have been able to complement the product offering of closed-end funds significantly with these new solutions in recent years. When it comes to the offering itself, you can see that we have different strategies.
We have infrastructure growth, equity complementing buyout that is traditional for us and also complementing our real estate operation, where we have introduced a number of new products in recent years. We are taking steps in the desired direction. Our Assets Under Management, you can see the long-term development here. At the end of September, we stood at EUR 4.3 billion and with the 250 million that we have raised after the review period in December, it takes us to close to EUR 4.6 billion. We are moving in the desired direction here also. We also have a strong outlook for continued growth in our Assets Under Management. This is our active and current fundraising pipeline.
You can see on the real estate side, we have open-ended funds, NPI and the hotel fund, where we are taking in new capital. We introduced the residential fund as a new product in June. We took in some EUR 320 million in capital in June, and now in October, we have taken in an additional EUR 150 million, so taking it close to EUR 470 million, rapidly moving towards the target size of EUR 1 billion. As previously mentioned, we are working on introducing a new real estate product which will take place either before year-end or after year-end. Our special situations fund is currently at EUR 53 million, and their fundraising continues. When it comes to our credit fund, Nest Capital Fund III, we have taken in additional capital in October.
We are currently at EUR 100 million, which is the target size, but here also fundraising continues. One of the key projects for next year will be the fundraising of our second infra fund, and their preparation work is ongoing and pre-marketing meetings are held. When it comes to CWS, we yesterday announced a new product launch of our first access product of $90 million, and there we have plans to introduce similar products over coming years. Maybe some further words about this new CWS product since it's new to our offering. This provides access to mid-market U.S. buyout funds. We are talking about funds in the size range of $1 billion-$3 billion, which has historically been the most attractive segment of the U.S. buyout market.
We are introducing this fund in cooperation with the global private equity asset manager AlpInvest. This is part of CapMan Wealth Services' strategy to broaden and complement the product offering in the private asset space outside of the Nordic region. This program, this fund, has really been tailored for CapMan Wealth Services customers, i.e. local investors, family offices, and foundations. In this first program, we have raised $90 million from a relatively small number of investors. This is the first fund in a series of funds with similar strategies. The next vintage of this fund is scheduled for 2022, and we are also working on similar private asset access products with other strategies. Overall, this part of the business provides CapMan with good long-term and predictable fee income.
We reported a bit over EUR 2 million of carried interest income in the third quarter of this year. That came from the CapMan Mezzanine V, and we have several funds in the value creation and exit phase. From the previous figures, you saw that the fair values and the values of our fund have developed well, and we have executed a number of processes realizing this value, and we have advanced in other processes to achieve the same goal. We expect multiple funds to enter into carry in the next six months of those in the value creation and exit phase. When it comes to dividends, our policy is an annually growing distribution to our shareholders. We have been doing so for eight consecutive years. EUR 0.14 was distributed this year, EUR 0.07 in the spring and EUR 0.07 in September.
If you look at our recent result development and our outlook, these are supporting our long-term objectives. Finally, a look at our long-term financial targets and those compared to our recent financial performance. In terms of growth, we have set a target of over 10% annual growth that we have been exceeding in recent years, and as said, outlook looks good. When it comes to return on equity, we have not quite reached the target historically, but if you look at the performance of this year, we are well above the target and are trending clearly in the right direction. Our balance sheet has remained strong throughout the period here and also when it comes to dividend distribution. As previously mentioned, we have been growing the distributions since 2012. Our outlook estimate for this year remains unchanged.
This was a brief highlight of the financial developments of the first nine months and also an update on our strategy and business outlook. I hope you found this useful, and have a good day. Thank you.