Evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining NWS Holdings Financial Year 2022 final results analyst presentation. I'm Katherine, today's MC. First of all, let me introduce our panel members. Mr. Gilbert Ho, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Jim Lam, our Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Ben Wong, Director of Corporate Development & Investment and Investor Relations. For today's agenda, Gilbert will first walk you through the key highlights of our company's results and strategy. After this, Jim will present to you the financial highlights, and then Ben will cover the performance of individual business segments, followed by the Q&A session. If you have any questions, please enter your questions into the text box on the left-hand side of the screen. Without further ado, let me pass the mic to Gilbert. Gilbert, please.
Thank you, Katherine. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our analyst presentations. As Katherine mentioned, I will let Jim to go through the detailed financials and Ben to go through the details on the business segments. I will now first give you an overview of what we have done in financial year 2022. As you know, we have done a number of acquisitions as well as disposals of our business in 2022. We have acquired two roads, one in Guizhou, it's called Guiwu Expressway, and other is called Laogu Expressway. With that two acquisitions, our total road portfolio expanded to 17 toll roads altogether.
Together with the existing toll roads, the total length is around 1,000 kilometers. We have expanded in our logistics business with the acquisitions of six logistics properties in Chengdu and Wuhan. At the same time, we also formed an operating JV with our long-term partner, Goodman, for the operations and management of these six logistics properties, as well as for expansion in China. Last but not least, we have announced the disposal of Goshawk Aviation business in the aircraft leasing. After that, we will have more further details in the presentations ahead. As you can see, over the last four years since 2018, we have continued to optimize our business.
From 2018, we have various businesses, which a lot of you may have commented already, which is very complicated and very difficult to read. We have now simplified into four core businesses: roads, construction, and insurance, and later on, we might likely to reclassify strategics into our core business. Together with our facilities management, it will form our base businesses going forward. As I said, this is a very simplified portfolio, and it's very visible in terms of earnings and AOP. The roads portfolio, we have a very sustainable AOP as well as cash flow contributions with long-term economic positive outlook as well as sector outlook.
The new acquisitions for the last few years have contributed significantly to our AOP immediately as well as cash flow. Our construction has continued to be our core business and has delivered very strong results with strong growth in contract backlogs, as well as increase in our new tendering. Our insurance business, which was acquired in 2019, also has delivered very strong results amid the closure of the borders. We definitely can see the pent-up demand from mainland visitors once the border reopened. For our logistics business, we have expanded through the acquisitions of the six properties in China, and we will continue to look for targets to increase our cash flows and earnings. Together with all these four businesses already contribute about 90% of our AOP.
With the recurring businesses, which exclude our aviation business as well as strategic investments, the recurring business increased 9% year-on-year on the AOP contributions. As we have disposed a number of businesses over the last few years and have very disciplined acquisitions, we have now ample cash on our balance sheets with over HKD 13 billion as of the 13th of June 2022. Our net debt decreased around 30% to around HKD 10 billion, with our net gearing ratio decreased 6% to around 19%. Our adjusted EBITDA also increased by about 4.3% year-on-year. Not only that we have delivered very strong results, we also have delivered our promise to our shareholders since 2019 with a sustainable and progressive dividend policies.
Since the start of these policies, we have increased our dividends from a total of HKD 0.58 in 2019 to now HKD 0.61. We also announced a share repurchase program in 2022 of up to $300 million to purchase our shares to increase the shareholders' value. I will now pass on to Jim, our CFO, to talk about our financials as well as the performance by segments.
Thank you, Gilbert. In fiscal year 2022, our revenue was up 10% to HKD 31 billion, which was driven mainly by the insurance business, whose revenue was up 28% year-on-year to HKD 12.4 billion. In terms of AOP or Attributable Operating Profit, our overall AOP was down 17% to HKD 4.4 billion. However, if you exclude the strategic business, and those businesses that were disposed of or will be disposed of and classified as asset held for sale, our recurrent AOP actually went up by 9%, year-on-year, which is considered to be quite respectable, in the current environment. Between core business and strategic portfolio, our core business AOP went down by 1%, while that for the strategic portfolio, was down 84%.
During the period, we recorded a non-operating loss of HKD 1.6 billion, which is related mainly to the HKD 1.9 billion share of remeasurement loss, asset impairment costs, provision for expected credit loss, et cetera, from Goshawk, which included the HKD 0.8 billion full provision that we made for the 6 aircraft leased to the Russian airlines. That HKD 1.9 billion loss share from Goshawk was partly offset by the gain on disposal of SUEZ NWS as well as the Rin Enviro
We utilized the HKD 6 billion proceeds that we generated from the sale of SUEZ NWS and Rin to repay some of our Hong Kong dollar bank loans and to redeem about half of the $650 million senior notes due 2029. Excluding the distribution made to the perpetual capital securities holders, our profit attributable to shareholders of the company went up by about HKD 1.6 billion. Moving on to page 9 of the presentation.
In terms of the AOP performance of each segment within the core business, our AOP for the road segment declined by 5%, which was driven mainly by the outbreak of COVID-19 in various provinces of the mainland in the second half of the fiscal year, also the temporary prohibition of type 5 and 6 trucks on the Hangzhou Ring Road, which was lifted by the end of June 2022. Aviation's AOP increased by 3%, driven mainly by the higher mark-to-market gains on the interest rate swaps. Our construction AOP declined by 6% year-on-year, which was due mainly to the decline in AOP contribution from Wai Kee.
We disposed about half of our 23% stake in Wai Kee towards the end of fiscal year 2021, and hence the reduced contribution in fiscal year 2022. However, if we just look at Hip Hing, which accounted for about 90% of the AOP of the construction segment, its AOP actually went up by 4% year-on-year in fiscal year 2022. For the insurance AOP, it went up by 11%, due to the enhanced product mix and the tight control on expenses, despite the border remain closed and hence no AOP contribution from the mainland visitors. Moving on to the strategic portfolio.
The logistics AOP declined by 11%, which was due mainly to the lack of profit contribution from Xiamen Container Terminal Group. If you strip out the contribution from Xiamen Container Terminal Group a year ago and just look at the contribution from the remaining logistics assets, the AOP actually increased by 5% year-on-year. Facility management, the AOL, or Attributable Operating Loss, declined by 37% to HKD 410 million. All three businesses within the facility management, namely, HKCEC, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, and Free Duty, saw a decline in AOL. For HKCEC, it was driven by the continued ramp-up of the business.
For Hong Kong CEC, it was driven by the significant increase in number of local events, such as the Hong Kong Book Fair, the Legislative Council election, the chief executive election, et cetera. For the Free Duty, while the border remain closed, the business saw a significant increase in profit from the contribution from Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge outlet, and also its pop-up stores. For the strategic investment, the segment, you know, saw AOL of HKD 142 million from an AOP of HKD 739 million a year ago.
The decrease in contribution was driven mainly by the lack of significant fair value gained in fiscal year 2021, and also the expected credit loss that we made on a number of investments, including some of our bond holdings. Overall, the AOP declined by 17% to HKD 4.4 billion. As mentioned earlier, if you strip out, you know, strategic investment and also the businesses that were disposed of or will be disposed of, our recurrent AOP actually increased by 9% year-on-year. Okay. I will then pass on to Ben to talk about the performance of each of our individual businesses.
Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Gilbert. I'll now give you a review of what has happened in our core businesses as well as strategic portfolio, as well as an outlook for each of this business. In roads, last year was a year full of value accretive acquisitions focusing on positive long-term growth prospects. As Gilbert has mentioned, we have made two acquisitions in last year. One being Laogu Expressway in Hubei, approximately 39 kilometers, as well as 40% in Guiwu Expressway. Pending completion will be a rather long acquisition of 198 kilometers. Both have an extended remaining concession, which has now extended our overall portfolio concession to 11 years.
It operationally was a bit of a challenge with traffic volume down by about 5% as well as toll revenue down by 8%, mainly attributable to the outbreak of COVID-19 variants and also power crunch as well as temporary prohibition for the Type V and VI trucks in Hangzhou Ring Road. Overall, our major expressway constitutes about 90% of our roads AOP and the overall AOP is down slightly by 5%.
Looking into the outlook of roads, as we have explained also in the press conference, we have been applying some innovative as well as sustainability features in one of our new lines of business, which is operating a new service center in the Hangzhou Ring Road named Zhiyi West Lake Service Area. It has soft opened in July, end of July, and it has incorporated AI technology, unmanned hotels, unmanned convenience stores, and also make good use of renewable energies technology to reduce carbon footprints. We have also been looking into other value-accretive investment opportunities. Hopefully, over the next 12 months or so, we'll have more investment opportunities that can continue to accrete value.
In terms of our businesses in construction, Hip Hing has done very well, and has led to a 4% increase on Hip Hing Group to about HKD 834 million. It has really, you know, been defying a lot of challenges with a very good outlook, a sanguine outlook, with some of the policies pushing from the government as well as the northern metropolis. If you look into the new contract awarded to Hip Hing Group, it's up 239% to HKD 23 billion. The contracts on hand would be HKD 62 billion, and the backlog would be HKD 37 billion. As Jim had mentioned, this year's AOP for the segment was down mainly due to part of the stake of Wai Kee that has been sold, which led to less attributable operating profit.
Looking into the outlook for construction, I think you can divide it into two parts. One is the continued pickup in the overall demand for premium construction services, and not just on the housing side, but also on the land formation, site formation, excavation works, so that it has really been picking up. If you look into the types of contracts, I think right now currently Hip Hing's portfolio is mainly skewed in the private sector, which we would expect to have more pickups in the government segment as well.
I think internally, if you look into what Hip Hing has done over the last 12 months, they have won quite a lot of awards applying modular construction and make good use of technologies as well as in BIM and reducing overall construction energy waste consumption and mitigating cost pressure. Looking into the insurance side, it was a very good year with AOP up 11%, given the market for mainland visitors have not really reopened yet. We have seen about 11% growth in AOP, 30% growth in gross written premium, and about 77% in gross new business written premium. We have also seen an enhanced product mix as well as repricing, which has led to an increase in the VONB margins to about 30%.
Embedded value has been down 17% due to the unexpected spike in interest rate and the credit spread widening. If you look into the overall investment return of. We have achieved about 5.2%, and the solvency for FTLife remains strong at 342%. Looking into the outlook of FTLife. Again, with COVID being past us and looking into the reopening of the borders, we would expect there would be some pent-up demand from the mainland visitors, as well as, you know, an increasing demand for higher level health and protection coverages. We continue to push for internal growth and drive more synergies from the New World Group.
If you look forward into the regulation part, I think there would be a couple challenges that you would see from the changing of the accounting and also the solvency regime in FY 2024 and as well as FY 2025. Those would be an industry-wide implementation. We're certainly taking our steps to get ready for the new standards. Looking into our strategic portfolio. Logistics has also been an interesting year with, you know, very stable foundation, which we have laid via ATL as well as CUIRC. But we have also seen exciting new acquisitions that we have made this year, investing into six logistics properties in Chengdu and Wuhan for about HKD 2.3 billion.
This year, we have also segregated our logistics into subsegments, logistic asset and management, which will have ATL Logistics Centre as well as the six logistics centers we recently acquired. If you look into ATL, the average rent is up 2% and occupancy is very high, maintaining at 99.4%. If you look into the six logistics properties that we have recently acquired, those are properties with immediate AOP contribution as well as cash flow contribution to avoid some of the gaps that you have seen in the sale of XCTG, which is the Xiamen Container Terminal Group, which led to part of the decrease in AOP for logistics as a whole. Continuing in logistics. If you look into the CUIRC, which has grown remarkably. AOP is up 16%.
Throughput is up 4%. If you look into the organic expansion, the new Guangzhou terminal commenced operation in late December 2021. If you look into the Wuhan Zhengzhou terminal, we are focusing on doubling the handling capacity, as well as for the Xi'an station. All in all, we have been trying to build a small ecosystem within logistics to create synergies among the few logistics investments we have made. Looking into the outlook for logistics. We have definitely laid a strong foundation via ATL and our warehouses. Now that we are more focused on new acquisitions in the mainland warehouses, under the logistics asset and management, I think we certainly share a view that it has a bright outlook within logistics.
Also, with the government supporting the sectors, we have seen CUIRC demand continue to grow and contributions continue to grow. Hence, as Gilbert has mentioned, one of the focus for the year in terms of M&A would be roads and logistics. Moving into our facilities management, we have seen AOL narrowing by about 37%, which has been reflected in the strong continued ramp up as well as growth in GHK Hospital. Our outpatient and inpatient is up 26% and 14%. If you look into the regularly utilized beds has increased to 264, and occupancy is about 61%. In terms of CEC, the AOL has remarkably narrowed by 40%, which constitutes about 40% of the segment.
As we saw, events continue to come back, patronage continue to come back, and hopefully with the new government push for the 0+3 quarantine measures and potentially less going forward, the activity within the HKCEC will continue to recover from COVID. Free Duty remains closed with our outlets in Luohu, Hong Kong, and Lok Ma Chau. As Gilbert had mentioned earlier, the businesses within Free Duty have gradually picking up through pop-up stores, through online sales. I think overall, if you look into the outlook of the segment, it certainly we have seen continued improvements and also bottoming out on the losses.
Hopefully, next year with the COVID measures continue to improve and with the new events coming back online, such as Rugby Sevens, conferences as well as other large-scale type of events to be held in Hong Kong, it will continue to improve for the segment. Last but not least, many of you may have wondered where the aviation segment has gone because it has always been in the core businesses. We have made an announcement in May that Goshawk, GAL, Goshawk Aviation Limited has announced its disposal of Goshawk Management Limited, which essentially selling all of its aircraft leasing businesses, except for the six aircraft that was leased to Russian Airlines.
It was a very timely disposal as well as at a very attractive valuation with enterprise value of HKD 6.7 billion. The valuation was very close to book value as well as it has mitigated some of the headwinds that we have seen in some of the lessees recently. Although you might have think that the air traffic is recovering, but with the high interest rate as well as the high oil prices, it remain a lot of uncertainties for the lessees as well. If you look into the AOP, it has about 11 months of AOP. Yet it still outperformed last year's AOP by about 3%.
I think with the completion of the transaction, we would expect that we will have continued to build our M&A war chest and continue to improve our gearing overall. I will talk about the ESG part of the businesses that we have this year. Just going through some of the highlights of the year. If you look into the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index, the overall rating is very high at AA+, which we have been in the index for the twelve consecutive year. MSCI ESG rating has been upgraded to A from BBB. From the Sustainalytics side, the sector ranking is 35 out of 298.
If you look into some of the social related recognitions that we have received, such as the Employer of Choice Award, CSR Award, it has really validated the efforts that everyone from the NWS Group has put in. If you also look into the ESG Achievement Awards, it's not just at the corporate level, but FTLife has also received as the ESG Performer of the Year for Large Enterprise. For climate resilient measures, there are a few key initiatives that we have rolled out in 2022. We are one of the first batch of signatories of the Carbon Neutrality Partnership of the HKSAR. We continue to explore various sustainability-linked financing transactions.
As of June 30, we have a total of almost HKD 4.5 billion, which are sustainability-linked, which also shows our commitment to upkeeping and also improving our ESG-related measures. From the climate side, we have done physical risks scenario assessments for the two tolls in China, and we continue to explore how we can adapt to the TCFD disclosures. As I mentioned earlier, being a socially responsible corporation, we have done quite a bit during the fifth wave of COVID outbreak, showing our care and love for the society and our stakeholders, such as donated more than 10,000 anti-epidemic items such as oximeters and participating in the New World Group's Share for Good platform.
Gleneagles Hospital Hong Kong, GHK Hospital has also given free video medical consultations for 1,250 patients. FTLife offering free COVID insurance coverage. Hip Hing providing, you know, 120 fully serviced quarantine units within 63 days. HKCEC, the management of HKCEC supporting the government, providing free storage and logistics services for pandemic-related supplies. I think all in all, it's not just the corporate level pushing for, you know, being a socially responsible corporate, but at all levels as well. If you look into the, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to explore various sustainability-linked financing to continue to ramp up. In terms of environmental, we are generally on track on reducing carbon intensity, energy intensity, water intensity, and construction waste.
As well as focusing on wellness in social targets such as wellness and caring. In our roads operation, we have also done a few things, such as developing patterned and anti-glare solar panel noise barriers, as well as for the Zhiyi West Lake Service Area, we aspire to be the first LEED certified service area in Mainland. In terms of FT Life, we continue to support investing into companies, investees, influencing or skewing some of the, not skewing, but making investments within corporates that have shown strong social responsibilities.
If you look also into HML, which is the management company of HKCEC, we continue to make improvements and asset enhancements to help our focus and continue to improve in terms of various points within the ESG side of things. I think that is a wrap up of