Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining NWS Holdings Financial Year 2021 interim results analysis presentation. First of all, let me introduce our panel members. Mr. Gilbert Ho, Executive Director. Mr. Jim Lam, our newly onboarded Senior Director of Finance. Mr. Ben Wong, Director of Corporate Development and Investment. I'm Catherine, today's emcee. Today, Gilbert will first walk you through the key highlights of our company's strategy, then Jim will present to you the financial highlights, and Ben will explain the performance of individual business segment, and then 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. With the further ado, let me pass the time to Gilbert. Gilbert, please.
Thank you very much, Catherine, and g ood afternoon, everyone. Welcome to NWS 2021 interim results analysis presentations. Let me start with the strategic roadmap, and what we have done over the last few years, because I think it is very important that we actually look back what we have done to drive the value for shareholders via acquisitions, non-core disposals, and sustainable progressive dividends. If you look from 2018, January, we have disposed a number of our non-core assets, including BCIA, a number of our ports, our transport business, and most recently, in January, we disposed of our environmental business. We also have added some senior management team which are more capital market-focused to be more in line with our shareholders. In addition to non-core disposals, we have done our business portfolio revamp for future growth, including the acquisitions of FTLife and a number of roads in China.
We also redefined our businesses in the core business and strategic portfolio so that the investors will have a more clear roadmap of how we developed our business going forward, and m ore importantly, we have changed our dividend policy from the historical 50% paid out to a sustainable and progressive dividend policy, which is in line with our entire New World Group. In the next page, you can see our business transformations. In 2018, our businesses were segmented into infrastructure and services, namely our roads, aviation, environment, logistics, construction, transport, and facility management. Now, in 2021, we have divided into core business, which is our road business, aviation, construction, and our insurance. We have our strategic portfolio, which is our logistics and facility management. I have already walked you through the key changes over the past three years.
I want to highlight that even though we have done a number of acquisitions in excess of over HKD 2.7 billion, we have maintained a very healthy gearing ratios of 26% as of the 31st December 2020. We have also disposed our businesses at relatively good valuations. Take an example, w e have sold our transport business and our ferry business at over 300%, 300 x PE, and our ferry business at around 15x, and t he recent disposal of our environmental business at around 16x to 18x . We have recouped over around HKD 16 billion of cash through our disposals, and w ith our acquisitions of FTLife and our roads, we have accumulated AOP contributions of over HKD 1.5 billion over the last few years. We'll continue our portfolio optimizations to further strengthen our own fundamentals.
As you can see in the next page, our newly acquired business, together with the disposed businesses, have actually add altogether around HKD 500 million AOP nets, and w e have a very dynamic balance sheet with value crystallizations since 2018 with around HKD 16 billion. In the next three years, we'll continue our transformations. We'll look to future growth on our roads, modern logistics, as well as our insurance. For our roads, we look to partners with SOEs and major PRC investors in China regional clusters, including the Central China, as well as the GBA. In modern logistics, we'll invest in the traditional warehouses and also the most in-demand cold chain, and also the technology and NWS relating to the logistics. This we will focus also in China and we will also look into other regions such as the Southeast Asia.
For insurance, we'll continue to develop our own business, and together with New World Development, we will enrich our customer base with the ecosystem to develop a New World Group. We will also focus our business development in the GBA area with the applications of the China license in near term. We'll continue to monitor opportunities to unlock value to continue our non-core disposals. In terms of the investments, some key investment criteria is it has to have strong growth prospect and also attractive risk-adjusted returns. As with most projects NWS has, we want to have solid recurring cash flow and as well as the income generated. Last but not least, we aim for high single-digit to double-digit return on capital deployed. Going back on our dividend policy, we started our sustainable and progressive dividend policy in 2019, supported by our very strong balance sheets.
As you can see, we maintained our dividend for HKD 0.29 in the first half of 2021. Some might ask when we will have a progressive dividend, meaning increase in our dividend. I want to answer all of you up front. We will look at our dividend when we have a portfolio optimizations, on the progress of our portfolio optimizations, a lso look at the business environment, as well as the business growth, as well as our AOP. All together will lead to the DPS growth going forward. I wouldn't go through the next page in details, but I would like to highlight to you the ample cash we have on hand of about HKD 11 billion, and also the unutilized committed bank facilities of over HKD 18 billion.
We have a very stable debt maturity profile with 17% of our debt will be matured in the second year, and after that will be 49% in the third to fifth years. As I said, the net gearing ratios dropped from 31% to 26% now. I have talked enough about the transformation as well as what we will do going forward. I will take you through the business at the moment. As I said, our core business involve now roads, which has 15 toll roads in China. Our aviation business, Goshawk Aviation, our construction business, which include Hip Hing Group, as well as our investment in Wai Kee, and our insurance, FTLife Insurance. In our strategic portfolio, we have our logistics, which include the ATL Logistics Centre, CUIRC, as well as a port in Xiamen. Facility management, which include Hong Kong Convention Centre, Gleneagles Hospitals, and Free Duty shops.
The last one, which we considered as a discontinued operations, is our environment business, which is SUEZ and Derun Environment. You can see in this page, we actually have a very strong rebound with potentials yet to be fully reflected. In our roads business, we already see very strong rebound since the toll-free resumptions. For insurance, we are actually very well positioned for a strong rebound upon PRC border reopening. In our aircraft leasing business, we already seen stabilizations in the airline operators with the support from the governments and also the financial market. With the vaccine start to roll out, we will assume the travel will be resumed very soon. I will pass it on to Jim to give you some highlights on our financials.
Sure. During the period, the revenue of the group increased by 26% year-over-year to HKD 14.2 billion. The increase was driven mainly by the full six-month contribution from FTLife during the period versus only two months of contribution in the same period last year. Total attributable operating profit or AOP of the group increased by 46% year-over-year to HKD 3.3 billion. I will go through the AOP performance for each segment in a few moments. Despite the very robust growth in AOP during the period, we recorded certain non-operating losses in the results totaling HKD 2 billion. Such non-operating losses mainly include, first, HKD 1.33 billion remeasurement lost resulting from the reclassification of an investment to an asset held for sale.
Second, our share of asset impairment loss and provision for expected credit loss from Goshawk with an amount of HKD 416 million. Finally, a remeasurement loss of HKD 128 million in association with the disposal of our stake in SUEZ NWS, and Derun Environment. As you know, we signed an SPA to dispose our stake in these two associate and joint venture in January 2021. As a result, we have decided to reclassify, you know, such investment into asset held for sale at the end of December in 2020.
Profit for the period was HKD 903 million representing a decline of 50% year-on-year. Stripping out the distribution payable to the holders of perpetual capital securities, the profit attributable to the shareholders of the company was HKD 612 million, a decline of 60% year-on-year, which is consistent with our profit warning announcement published last month. The basic EPS was HKD 0.16, a decline of 59% year-on-year. As Gilbert just highlighted, despite the fall in EPS, we have decided to maintain the interim DPS at HKD 0.29, which is the same as last year, w hich shows our commitment to the sustainable and progressive dividend policy, supported by a very solid balance sheet. The adjusted EBITDA for the period was HKD 3 billion, which represent a small decline of 4% year-on-year.
In terms of the AOP performance by segment, the core business as a whole registered a 13% increase in AOP to HKD 2.3 billion, and t he strategic portfolio as a whole saw a 3.2x increase in AOP to HKD 1 billion. Within core business segment, the insurance segment saw a 1.9x increase in AOP to HKD 462 million, which again, was driven mainly by the full six-month contribution of FTLife. For the roads, due to the rapid traffic recovery after the resumption of the toll fee collection and the appreciation of the renminbi, it saw a 12% increase in AOP to HKD 1 billion. During the period, the toll income of our portfolio increased by approximately 8%, and the renminbi appreciated by an average of 3% to 4% during the period.
Within the strategic portfolio, the strategic investment segment registered the strongest increase of 14x increase in AOP to HKD 752 million. Which was driven mainly by the increase in fair values of some of our investment due to a buoyant stock market, as well as the strong AOP recovery of some of our investee company, including Derun and Haitong. I will pass over to Ben to walk you through the operational performance of each segment.
Thank you very much. I will quickly walk you through the various segments. First, start off with roads. We have seen swift recovery with positive outlook, with AOP increasing 12% year-on-year, with our traffic volume up 9%. As we previously discussed, we are still discussing with the government on the compensation measures for the toll fee exemption that we have extended last year. For the outlook, we continue to look for new opportunities, including distressed opportunities and opportunities with good growth prospects in areas such as Central China and GBA, and w e are also keen to look for partners such as SOEs and major PRC investors in the road section. Looking into aviation, we have seen signs of stabilization, s uch as if you look at our AOP contribution year-on-year, it's up 1%.
If you look into the industry as a whole, we have seen stabilization regarding air travel bubbles and various support from the government and also financial market on the funding side. In terms of the collection rate, we have seen collection rate stabilizing at 76%. If you break down further detail, second quarter was at 68%, and Q4 was at 82%. In terms of aircraft utilization rate, is at 99%. In terms of outlook, with the vaccination and rollout campaigns around the globe are set to enhance confidence in international and domestic travel, and we remain cautious and prepared for recovery. In the construction segment, we have seen AOP decreasing year-on-year, 21%, mainly due to less gross profit recognition for the first half. In terms of the full- year, we remain confident it will be on track.
If you look into the new contracts awarded for the first half of 2021, we have seen HKD 1 billion new contracts coming in. Again, looking at our portfolio, we have seen a well-balanced portfolio and sources of project with 64% private and 36% government. For the outlook, we remain positive over the mid to long term, particularly support and strong demand from the government and private sector, and Hip Hing's first-rate track record. We have also utilized new construction technology to mitigate some of the margin pressures that we can be a bit more efficient in terms of managing our projects. Looking into our insurance sector, it has delivered consistent performance, and with potential yet to be fully realized. As Jim had mentioned, the segment AOP is up 1.8x to HKD 462 million with the full period contribution year-over-year.
If you look into our performance against market, clearly, FTLife has outperformed the market in terms of APE, particularly as we have seen in Q3, and also the Hong Kong business. Looking into our solvency, it's still very strong. Again, well above the minimum requirement of 150% at 553%. We have seen the embedded value growing 16% to HKD 20 billion, and in terms of agents, it's still above 3,000. On the outlook, with the raising awareness on healthcare insurance protection, it presents a lot of growth opportunities, and if you look into the MCV of our customers, we are well positioned for growth when the border reopens. Looking into the strategic portfolio, i n terms of logistics, we continue to hold very unique asset and with resilient business. If you look at the AOP, it remains stable.
If you look at our crown jewel, ATL Logistics Centre, has delivered strong performance and almost fully occupied at a very stable and average trend growth at 1%, despite a very difficult market. CUIRC has recorded remarkable throughput growth, 30%, also AOP growth at 41%. Our new Guangzhou terminal is under construction and is expected to commence operation in 2021. If you look at the ports in Xiamen, AOP was down 8% due to the changes in the mix with cargo and more transshipment. All in all, in terms of outlook, business is expected to remain strong. We continue to seek opportunities to further invest into modern logistics to capitalize on the rapid demand in logistics under the new economy. In terms of facility management, we have continued to put up efforts to improve the business performance.
If you look in terms of our AOP, it has improved 11% year-on-year. If you look at our GHK, it's ramping up rapidly and AOL has narrowed. Our outpatient and inpatient up 18% and 31% with our increased effort in marketing, and also relocating our service center to New World Tower in Central, p artnering with another telecom giant r olling out the virtual outpatient clinic via DrGo. We have also seen regularly utilized beds up from 190 beds to 204 beds. In terms of CEC, our convention center, unfortunately, has reversed from an AOP position to an AOL position due to the COVID and the stringent social distancing measures. With the improvement of the COVID situation, we have seen some gradual recovery of certain events coming back. We're looking forward to once the social distancing measures relaxing, our performance should recover swiftly.
In terms of Free Duty, three outlets remains closed, and w e have also implemented stringent austerity measures to reduce our AOL. In terms of the outlook, we are well positioned for a border reopening and ready to capture opportunities once the cross-border travel resumes. In terms of environment, as explained by Gilbert earlier, we have announced the disposal of SUEZ NWS and Derun Environment at a premium valuation. If you look into the ForVEI, the solar farms in Italy, it will be reclassified into strategic investment going forward. In terms of our segments, we should have one less segment going forward to improve, hopefully more clarity for the investors, our strategic planning going forward. In terms of ESG, we continue to focus on ESG and try to improve on disclosure as well as more ESG focus.
As you can see, we have won the Best Corporate Governance Award of 2020 by the HKICPA. We continue to uphold a very high rating overall, AA plus under the Hang Seng Corporate Sustainability Index. In terms of sustainability financing, we have recently just announced our sustainability-linked loan with Bank of America for HKD 1 billion. Some of our key initiative for the climate resilience measures such as initiated transition risk assessment towards low carbon economy in 2021. We have also, as just explained, we have our second sustainability-linked loan with Bank of America for HKD 1 billion. We remain committed to our ESG initiatives and align with New World Group's ESG measures. For that, we will conclude our presentation at the moment, and then we will go to Q&A.