Good. Warmly welcome to Orthex first quarterly presentation of the results from January to March. My name is Alexander Rosenlew, and I have with me Saara Mäkelä, our CFO. We'll take you through the events related to the first quarter. We have set an agenda which is a bit different. We have added sustainability to the agenda, as this is, for us, a very important point as well, and we want to go through what we have done in terms of sustainability during last year. That will be a little bonus. At the end, we will have a Q&A session, and you are welcome to put your questions in the meeting chat. We'll take care of as many questions as we can, but if there are really many, we don't have time to do all of them.
We'll do our best to focus on those which seem to be the hot topics. I'll just give you a quick introduction to who we are, because we are quite new on the stock exchange. We are the leading Nordic producer of everyday household goods, and that actually means that we have a strong position in the Nordics with three owned factories, two in Sweden, one in Finland, producing more than 90% of the products that we are selling. Approximately 90% of the products we sell are sold under our own strategic brands, which are SmartStore, GastroMax, and Orthex. We're about 300 people working, which means that the factories are highly automated. We have sales offices, of course, in all the Nordic countries, but also in our focus export markets, those being U.K., France, and Germany.
Very high on our agenda is sustainability, and as I said, I'll save a few words on that for this presentation as well. Overall, we have customers in around 40 countries around the world. Storage is, for us, the most important category. It's the biggest one, and it's also the fastest-growing at the moment. The kitchen category is also important at around 20% share of our sales, and there we focus a lot on biomaterials and new products related to sustainable choices. Home and yard, traditional Finnish plastic products like mailboxes or sauna plastics. Also there, a lot of recycled products going in. It's a cash cow for us. We have plant care, where I'm happy to say that all our flower pots are made of recycled plastic. The idea with the products is that we help everyday life. We make it easier.
All the products are functional. All the products are designed to last for decades, and at the end of life, they can all be recycled. No single-use products in our portfolio. Often, the design is also part of the sustainability. A good design means that you don't have to throw away the products. That's also a benefit, of course. A Nordic, quite strict design. We strive to be the forerunner in sustainability. We launch quite a number of new products, and that's also the sustainable choices, but also the good design. Our ambition is that about 10% of sales is coming from new product. Jumping into the main topic of this meeting, and that's the Q1 numbers. Looking at the summary, I think we've had quite the flying start of the year. Excellent growth in all product categories and market areas.
The COVID-19 impact pandemic on the business, I will go through. There are both positives and negatives. We have, of course, the raw material, which is quite important when thinking about business and margins. We'll comment a little bit on that one as well. That's the overview of the presentation. Going into Q1, net sales growth by 32.4%, and then the adjusted operating profit grew by EUR 3.3 million. We had a EUR 21.6 million net sale for the first quarter. If you look at the invoice sales, it's obviously a little bit higher. The adjusted EBITA grew to EUR 3.3 million from EUR 1.9 million, and that means that the margin is around 15.3%.
Regarding the leverage after the IPO, our ambition was to, of course, get down the leverage as well, and we're quite happy to show a figure of 1.5 times net debt to EBITDA. The net cash flow also grew considerably by 21.6%, up to EUR 3.2 million. That's the first quarter in a nutshell. Looking at the areas growing the fastest, storage, the big blue chunk of the circle. You can see that it's 66% of the sales today, and during the full year last year it was 64%, so that's the fastest-growing bit. Even though all these categories are growing, the importance of storage is increasing. That comes from, of course, many new good customers and also new products. There you can see to the right, one of the new concepts just launched onto the market.
Looking at the categories and the markets in more detail. To the left, you can see that the Nordics demand is still high. It's a good growth in the Nordics. A small reminder that our market share is around 20%-25% in the Nordic countries, which means that we believe that there's still room for growth on our home markets as well. The rest of the world, or rest of Europe first, our key focus areas where we have put in place our own organizations, is percentage-wise growing much faster than the Nordics, or at least faster than the Nordics. Still quite small numbers, but going exactly in the direction that we had planned for. The rest of the world, small numbers, high percentages, good growth there as well.
Then to the right you have the picture of the categories, where storage bringing a big chunk of the growth. Maybe worth mentioning is all categories are growing, and the plant care with the recycled flower pots is growing quite fast. Even though the spring has been fairly cold, we've had a better spring than last year, which was already good in the flower pot business. That's fast-growing at the moment. Looking at COVID and the implication of that, there are a few factors to keep in mind, and the first one is, of course, keeping the personnel safe, and trying to limit the spread of COVID in our production units and in our shifts. I'm really happy that we haven't had any major problems with infection. We've been very strict on who we let into the premises.
That also means that the preventive action, as soon as you have a little bit of a flu, we want our employees to be at home. It means that there's some additional cost with overtime or extra personnel and so on. COVID is not only generating demand. COVID is generating demand well on the markets where you spend more time at home, like the Nordic countries. If you look at some of the export markets, the markets have been closed altogether. There has been very little opportunity to visit stores or do the work with customers that we are used to doing. It's actually going both ways with COVID. Still really happy for the great efforts and the commitment of our personnel to work well under these quite strange conditions. We're looking at the brighter future in term of this.
A few words on strategy, as we are a new company to many of you, I think it's worthwhile looking at the key strategy we have. That was, of course, the overall picture was to improve the daily life. If you look at what we're aiming for, it's to be the number one brand in the storage category in Europe. It's also to strengthen the position we have in the Nordic countries. That's the two clear goals we have in front of us for the next coming years. If you look at the building blocks in getting to those two goals, we believe that on the home markets in the Nordics, we can still grow, with a 20%-25% market share. There's plenty of room for expansion and cross-sales and bringing new, nice products to the market.
When we are looking at the focus growth area, the export markets, where we have our own organizations in place, we have landed quite a few of the big accounts where we want to play. Now the task is to get a broader assortment into those accounts. Also the task is to get into more of the many shops that these customers have. The number two box is really important in terms of growth opportunity. Of course, also landing new customers is important. Online cannot be forgotten, especially during COVID-19. We can see both pure online channels growing, and we can see traditional multi-channel retailers focusing on online or click and collect. There we have a few good examples of great work done, like our own brand pages on Amazon, Germany, France and the U.K.
These would be the organic opportunities to growth, and then we have, of course, a joker as well. We believe that market consolidation will be coming at one stage or the other. With the clear strategy on the focus on the categories, with showing the way in sustainability, that opens a lot of doors that's relevant in the industry and that's relevant among the consumers. We keep a high innovation rate, and we look brightly at the guidance we give you. The guidance we have is actually that the total company should grow year-on-year in sales by above 5%.
We leave the outside of the Nordic business as being one of the focus growth areas that should grow at more than 10% annually. I'm quite happy to report the first quarter, we are above those numbers, keeping in mind that the first quarter last year was quite a strange quarter with COVID just starting and the world looked very different at that time. We're really happy about the big and nice growth we see in basically all markets we have. In terms of profitability, the guidance is 18% EBITDA adjusted. We did 15.3%. We are quite fine with that. The long-term target is 18%, so that's also in line. Leverage below 2.5. Needless to say that 1.5 times is where we want to be or where we're at the moment.
It gives room to get a bit more leverage, of course, if needed. Regarding the dividend payouts, since we had a lot of IPO costs this year and last year, we're not paying out dividends for 2020, but looking forward to paying next year 50% of the net profits on a biennial basis. That's the guidance for the group. We'll let Saara, our CFO, take you through the financials in a bit more detail.
Thank you very much, Alexander. Net sales growth was very high during Q1. The growth was +32.4% and in value EUR 5.3 million compared to last year. As Alexander already mentioned, all our categories and all geographical areas were growing strong. On the other hand, I have to mention that the base for the growth was rather low, as last year Q1 was the weakest quarter for us. COVID-19 effects started during Q1 last year, and customers started to postpone and cancel their orders. Anyway, an amazing start for the year. Also, gross margin development was still positive. Raw material prices have increased during Q1 on an exceptionally high level, but it did not yet affect the profitability during this quarter.
Positive gross margin and EBITDA development were driven by very strong sales growth, then scalability on the business model and efficiency measures, especially at our operation sites. Tight raw material supply has caused extraordinary price increases, and global demand has increased, and there has been exceptional challenges at several polypropylene production plants in Europe. Due to tight supply, the spread between plastic raw material, so ICIS, and the raw material for polypropylene, C3, is very high. This means that the margins of plastic suppliers has increased on exceptional high level. If the price ever stays on this extremely high level, this will affect our profitability, but it remains to be seen how significant the effect will be. We have, of course, started the price increasing process, but there is an implementation lag before effects can be seen.
Our investments were EUR 1.7 million, which is EUR 1.2 million higher compared to last year. Demand has been very high. We have decided to bring forward one bigger machine investment, which was originally planned for year 2020. That increases the total investment level for us. In general, our investment phasing during this year will be very different compared to last year. This is also a COVID-19 effect, as last year, we froze all the investments for a couple of months due to COVID. Most of the investments were made during second half of the year. Our net debt level decreased from EUR 39 million- EUR 28 million. Leverage compared to adjusted EBITDA went down to 1.5 at the end of the quarter. Balance sheet totaled EUR 87.3 million.
The net effect of the listing and the share issue of EUR 10 million to equity was EUR 9.3 million. Our equity ratio increased from 19.3% to 31.1%, mainly due to share issue. The total cost of the listing were approximately EUR 2 million, of which EUR 1.3 million affected operating profit negatively. We are very proud that we got more than 20,000 new shareholders during the listing. Here you can see the 10 biggest shareholders who are owning 54.2% of the total shares. Conficap is still the biggest owner with 12.5%. Sponsor Fund owns 11.6%. Alexander Rosenlew owns 11.4% of the total shares. Alexander will walk you through our sustainability report.
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Saara. I promised you a little bonus in terms of going through the sustainability report. Keep in mind that this is looking backwards at what has happened last year and not forward. The ambitions are high as well, we're reporting on what has been done. Just giving you a little bit of a view of our takeaway on the strategy. For us, the major problem globally is actually global warming. That's the biggest problem we have. Global warming is directly influenced by the carbon footprint of different activities. We thought that the red thread for us should be that if we can reduce our carbon footprint, it means that we can also make sure that global warming is being less affected.
That's why we have set as a very ambitious goal to, in 2030, be carbon neutral in our production. That drives the choices we make. It drives the choice of producing long-lasting products that last for decades. It drives the choice of local production, and it drives the choice of choosing raw materials that are either recycled or bio-based more and more wherever it's possible for the applications. These things are really influencing the carbon footprint. Then, of course, green energy is another area where we can influence the carbon footprints. Strongly supporting the UN sustainability goals in our action. If you look at the life cycle of an Orthex product, it starts with the product development, where we already look at the opportunities to use new, different materials, and that's a key part in decision making.
If you can do manufacturing efficiently with less scrap, less energy, then you're doing a good job. Optimize the transportations, and make sure that the whole sort of circle until the disposal of the product, which optimally then after tens and tens of years of use, is actually a recycling of the product. That's how we view the path of a product life cycle for us. Just a few highlights on what's been going on in terms of environmental choices. There's a lot of them and, of course, recycled and bio-based materials are key here. Launching a lot of new bio-based products and also I think last year's one of the headlines was actually joining the European Plastics Pact as one of the first companies in Finland, together with the government. This is a great forum to discuss the sustainable use of plastic materials.
Quite often actually, the footprint of plastic, from a carbon emission point of view, can be much lower than if you made the same product out of metal or glass or something else. Correctly used and correctly handled at the end of life, then plastic can be a really fantastic material. Looking at some new products, SmartStore Collect, that's actually a good example of sustainability in a nutshell. It's a recycled product that helps the consumer to sort their everyday garbage. The picture here to the left shows you that new nice design product. It's won already a few design rewards. Made of recycled plastic and helps the consumer to act responsibly. Of course, our favorites, the buckets made out of old fishing nets.
Instead of dumping them into the oceans, we make sure that there's a value in actually collecting the nets, and we're proud to make buckets out of them instead of just dumping or scrapping. Looking ahead on other things, what's been going on in terms of bio-based materials? I think one of the key things last year is that we were certified with a four-star TÜV certificate, which is actually a measure of bio, an outside organization being very strict on who to nominate and also who to give these certificates to. Proud to focus on the bio side, and as you can see, the carbon footprint of bio materials is much lower than other choices. We strive to grow this. You're not alone when you're doing sustainability. I think that's one of the key messages for us as well.
There's plenty of great partners that we're happy to collaborate with. For example, together with Stora Enso had a bio-based material shift, a mix between cellulose and sugarcane, 99% bio, which we now can make cutting boards and kitchen utensil handles of. Single-use plastic flower pots are being collected by L&T in Kesko stores. We are happy to make new flower pots that last for decades out of those single-use products. I think hot topic is the Finnish startup, Woodly, that is creating a completely new wood-based plastic, which we have already tested in our factory in Lohja, and it looks promising. We're trying to get some products out on the market of this completely new Finnish material. Really nice development there. Looking, of course, for interesting partners all the time. If we summarize a little bit, that was sustainability in a very short nutshell.
I think looking at sales and profit, exceptional growth in Q1, really nice to share those numbers. I think the demand has been so high that we have been able to actually take a few investment decisions. Saara mentioned that there was one bigger investment that we changed from 2022 to 2021 to be able to supply our customers even better. That's on the positive note. The third one keeping in mind the demand for raw material is very high at the moment, and depending on that demand, the raw material price is at the moment at quite an exceptionally high level. Of course, we don't know if it's going to stick to this level, but it seems like a high peak at the moment because it doesn't correlate at the moment with oil price that strongly.
Just keeping in mind, it hasn't yet shown in the numbers of Q1. We're of course taking action, but there's usually a small lag between action and when we can see it in the numbers. This was the highlights for that one. Now I'm happy to take Hanna Kukkonen, our Marketing Director, as well with us to help us to answer any questions that might have come in during this presentation.
Thank you, Alexander. We've received quite a nice number of questions here, and I hope that we've been able to answer already some of them during your presentation, but let's start to go through them. I've tried to group them a little bit here, so there's a few questions that came several times. First maybe about the raw materials. Have you been able to get enough raw material despite the ongoing shortage in the market? Could you give us some insight on how these circumstances have affected smaller European producer? In examples, have some of them been forced to cut their production?
If it's okay, I could take this question. We have been very lucky, and we have received the raw material we have ordered. We have yearly contracts with the suppliers, and that's been helping, of course, us. Regarding other suppliers, I would guess that maybe some suppliers might have had some challenges but won't be spending time on guessing how the competitors are doing.
Thank you. Continuing on the raw materials, what are your main initiatives to mitigate the impact of increased plastic prices after Q1? Less discounts, price increases, etc .
I can take that one. It's commercial choices in general. It's around how much campaigns you do, how you prioritize product groups that you can do directly from one day to the other. Then clearly at some point when raw material prices are going to higher levels and staying there, and including other costs as well, then you have to look at price increases. Price increases is something that is possible to do, but you have to announce them quite well in advance before they actually take place in the market. We are following the situation very closely with how the development of the raw material is going, and we have had to already announce a few price increases, but there's a lag, as I said.
Thank you. Okay, going to customers. Have you managed to open any significant new customer accounts in Europe or elsewhere during the first quarter? Maybe adding to this, rest of the world grew strongly. Are there any new customer accounts in the U.S.?
Good questions. We are of course always working on opening new customers and piloting with new customers and also succeeding with them. I would say there's a good mix of both increased distribution in existing customers and as well, a few new promising ones starting up. To start up a customer takes a while. Before a new big customer actually becomes big, it usually takes a few months or so. Commenting on the U.S., I think there we have been highly successful with the existing customers taking in new products that we have launched during 2020, and the new products are really performing well in actually all over the place, not only in the U.S.
Thank you. Okay, let's go on. You mentioned in the Q1 report that you have received three new injection molding machines this year and will be receiving another four later this year. How will these new machines be distributed between your different factories?
Yeah, most of the machines are related to storage, as storage is the category which is growing the most, and Tingsryd is our storage site, so most of the machines are actually coming to Sweden, to Tingsryd, but there are also investments and machines to Lohja factory where we have storage products as well.
Good. Okay. Where is the 5% organic growth target based on? This seems rather low target taking into account that sustainability is a real mega trend.
One could say it's a careful target, but we want to be absolutely sure to reach it. We are a new company on the stock exchange and this is a long-term overall target. That's what we have at the moment.
Thank you.
Sorry, if I may still comment that, as I mentioned, the base for the growth during the quarter one was rather low. The 5% target can't be really compared to the quarter one performance.
Thank you, Saara. Going on to sustainability, can you elaborate on your path to increase use of recycled plastics in example storage? How important is it that there is a solution for transparent recycled plastics, and what is the timeframe on a solution here?
That's a great question. I guess, Hanna, you would be as good as me at answering that one, but I'll give it a try and you can help me out if I don't get everything on the table. I think there are two solutions for actually increasing the sustainability in storage products. One is the bio-based alternative where a bio feed into a normal material can be possible, where you have a bio content. I know that plenty of the big producers of raw materials are actually working on getting these grades commercial at the moment.
That's one way of doing it. The other way is recycling, and chemical recycling, especially to get it transparent. As I understand it's already possible to do, but from a mass production commercial price point of view, we're not yet there. We strongly believe that good companies such as Neste and others will help us to get to sustainability in transparent materials as well.
That was a good answer. Thank you, Alexander. There's still a few more questions that have arrived since we started the chat, or the questions and answers. Was there a big difference in the monthly growth rates in the Q1?
We are not commenting or we are not publishing monthly rates, but I could say that no significant differences between the months.
Thank you, Saara. The final questions, and then we've actually answered, I think all the questions, is how does Brexit affect business in Britain? Is there tolls for Orthex products?
That's a really good question, and for a while we were of course, uncertain of what's going on, and also shipping was complicated. We're happy to report there are no additional tolls for our products. What we have is a bit of more paper exercise with VAT numbers and whatnot that we have worked with during Q1, and now it seems to be going as planned and we can continue to focus on growing business.
Thank you. That was all the questions today.
Thank you, Hanna, and thank you very much for listening and I would really like to thank the personnel for a good first quarter. It's been a good start to the year, so a big thank you goes to all of the personnel at Orthex, and of course, all our investors as well.
Thank you.