Good afternoon, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sabancı Holding's Q1 webcast. Please refer to our disclaimer before we move on to presentation. I have our Group Chief Financial Officer, Köstem, with me today. Orhun Bey, floor is yours for introduction.
Thank you, Kerem. Again, good morning and good afternoon, everyone, wherever you are. Welcome to our Q1 results webcast. We're very happy to be here. Of course, when we announced our annual results, we had, at the time, reference to the earthquake, given that happened back in February 6th. Having said that, this is the first time that we can quantify some of the impact that actually we can show and talk about. Now, if you look at the general highlights, first of all, we believe we have a, you know, reasonably good start to the year and potentially more opportunities in rest of the year. We've seen our top line growing by 76%, combined EBITDA by 27% and our consolidated net income by 18%.
We're happy that we have been able to deliver an ROE of 35%. Obviously, that's higher than what we have achieved the same time, same quarter in 2022. We believe we still maintain a very healthy balance sheet at 0.4 x net debt-to-EBITDA at the end of the period. We have a, across the group, a long fixed position of $318 million. The holding-only cash position at the end of the Q1 was $338 million. Now, we believe, depending on the outlook and expectations for rest of this, let's say, dynamic 2023, we believe it will allow us to be more defensive or offensive, as the case may be, as the year unfolds ahead of us.
One really important message, I hope that you have been able to follow, that in addition to our 2050 carbon zero commitment, we have just announced our interim objectives. We have committed now to reduce our Scope one and two emissions by 42% across the board by 2030. These are actually without any carbon credits to be more specific. We are obviously working with Science Based Targets initiative. Our companies, group companies, you know, they're already defining their Scope three. The coverage is now seven. We are continuously supporting our objectives, as you know, our objective statement as a group.
In that expect we, you know, by the Q3 of 2023, we will be able to cover, you know, about 60% of all our Scope one and two emissions under Science Based Targets initiative. That's an important milestone we believe in our journey. Our net asset value has grown by 54% on a year-on-year basis at the end of this Q1. As you know, our net asset value discount is down to 26% and have improved by, you know, from about 34% compared to a year ago. I believe this is obviously adds quite well to our overall value proposition in Sabancı Holding market capitalization. Now, moving into the financials.
First, on page 5, I would like to draw your attention to a little bit about background, what's happening this year. Obviously, if you look at, you know, between 2021 and 2022, where the commodity and the energy prices have been relatively higher, which was quite remarkable in the Q1 of 2022, obviously owing to the fact that this was at the start of the Russian adversary against Ukraine as well. We're seeing at the Q1 easing on both fronts, both in commodity and energy indexes. It's a debate if rest of the year, how China will grow and how the demand for both commodities and energy will shape up, but that has been the environment in the Q1 globally.
If you look at something more specific to Turkey, I'm sure you must be following some of the discussions that, given the relatively higher inflation that you see on the top left corner, the Consumer Price Index was 72% across 2022, and now came down a little bit, about 50% in the Q1 of 2023. Nevertheless, the minimum wage increase was quite significant to see, you know, on an index about 100 basis points between the Q1 of 2022 to Q1 of 2023. If you've seen how it has developed, between the years, of course, there was a massive increase starting from 2022. What that means is, obviously in certain of our businesses, it impacts the operating expenses.
In some of the other businesses like insurance, it potentially impacts the minimum capital requirements. Basically that's also, even though local and important, let's say an important element to follow. On the bottom right, you see how the FX basket has been moving. Obviously a whopping 73% in 2022, and that's starting from a 79% in the Q1 of 2022, and now about 34% in the Q1 of 2023. There's a slowdown in the basket devaluation, which obviously has implications on our bottom line, especially when you compare it to the Q1 of 2022. Which you can see on the next page. Now, on the net revenue or combined net revenue side, we grew our net revenues by 76%.
Of course, Akbank's net revenues have grown in excess of 100%, and then the non-bank businesses' revenues have grown by 62%. If you look at the combined EBITDA, again, an overall 27% growth, slowdown coming from the bank, which has grown by 31%, but also from non-bank businesses where the growth was about 20%. You see, I'm going to walk you a little bit detail about the breakdown of the contribution of different segments of our business into EBITDA. I think we can say that we're happy that we still have a diversified portfolio of businesses, where one part of the business had a slow start to the year, which is compensated by some other part of our business.
If you look at the net income, the overall net income growth was 18%. On the bank side, this was 40%. On the non-bank side, there's actually you see a like for like contraction of 15%. Now, two things again, we're going to address going forward. One, something that our colleagues on the bank side must have been referring to as to their CPI-linked portfolio, where the inflation assumption makes a difference about TRY 800 million per %. From their assumption, which is 35 to, let's say, 45, which was more or less the case, the difference here would have been in this quarter, would have been an incremental TRY 2 billion.
Which is an opportunity for rest of the year if we feel that the inflation would be more towards 40-ish than 30-ish. Moreover, as I said, if you look at the devaluation the Q1 of 2022, which was 79%, of course we see an incremental TRY 400 million give or take, that we have recorded in the Q1 of 2022, which is not the case in the Q1 of 2023 because the devaluation has slowed down. If there's anyone, obviously, that has a viewpoint that there could be more Turkish lira devaluation rest of the year, of course, we should keep that in mind, again, as a potential opportunity for our bottom line.
Moving forward, if you look at, first of all, the return on equity on the non-bank business, you know, is pretty flat. Our overall, our ROE has grown with some contraction on the banking side. Our operational cash flow was continued to be quite healthy. You remember, this time around last year, we were discussing for a little bit of, let's say, uncertainty on the working capital of energy business due to the, you know, price equalization mechanism. Now, as this has been resolved toward the back end of 2022, we see a very serious swing of our operational cash flow in our businesses.
Please bear in mind, this comes at a time when the working capital performance of some of our businesses were far from perfect. That's primarily attributable to the impact of the earthquake. Some of our businesses, like Borsa, have already extended their, you know, receivables from their business partners, like distributors, in the period to ensure that they can support the altogether ecosystem that they're working on. The similar for businesses like Temsa Bus business who had to shut down for a period, given their facilities is Adana. Although we didn't have any issues, physically, of course, there has been some impact that flowed into this Q1.
We're quite happy that we have been able to deliver this quite strong turnaround in the operating cash flow. That's now significantly supported by our energy businesses. If you look at, as I discussed, our holding only net cash position is about TRY 6.5 billion , slightly less than the same period, the same quarter of last year, it was at TRY 7.7 billion at the end of the Q1, and our net debt-to-EBITDA stands at 0.4 x. This is, for me, this is quite remarkable because as we've discussed in 2020, across 2020 to the amount of investment that we put into our business, acquisition of businesses or etcetera.
I'm quite happy that we're able to maintain a very healthy cash and balance sheet position, as I said, which we hope will enable us to play both offense and defense based on how the rest of the year will develop. If you get to a breakdown of the businesses, or the contribution of the, you know, business segments to the financial performance, as you've seen, of the overall 76% growth of our top line, we've already seen that the biggest contributor is the bank, followed by the energy business. We now separated the digital, as you see. That's just for the reminders. We have now established a separate digital business unit for the Teknosa underneath that.
For those of you who, whom we have discussed from also last year in 2022, that, Teknosa is transforming itself to a marketplace which we launched in February of 2022. As long as we're successful in continuing doing that, and so far we have done so, we see Teknosa as a digital business and part of our digital initiative. The businesses that we acquired under digital, the cybersecurity business is doing quite well. The digital marketing business had a relatively slow start to the year. That's owing to the impact of the earthquake and the impact of the earthquake on the general marketing budgets, which again, is an area that we expect to be normalized in the course of rest of the year.
Otherwise, the growth of this business is quite satisfactory for us. The industrials, I'm going to walk you through the industrials when we get to the financials, but that was also an important contributor to our top, the top line as well as the building materials, basically. Financial services on the other that you see here, obviously now there is CarrefourSA, our retail business. Again, a very healthy top line growth that we've seen in the Q1. When we get to the EBITDA, you see the growth of the energy segment was at about 13%. Here, Kerem is going to walk you through in detail. We're happy that we have both generation and distribution businesses together, something that we have repeatedly told you over time, the benefit of the portfolio.
Given that the electricity prices are relatively lower, the electricity demand is relatively lower versus last year. We're going through a lower hydrology period. Generations start to the year was slower than the distribution, but overall, we're happy with the contribution, and we believe there are more opportunities as we go in rest of the year. You see the industrials, their contribution was much actually less. That's owing to a general, you know, market outlook, because obviously at the start of the year, as the expectation on the economies was relatively bleak.
The especially rechanging part of our business, not the original equipment part, but replacement part of our of the tire business globally was relatively slow, which obviously had the impact on the industrial in general side, which again, is expected to normalize hopefully in the next half of the year. We're quite happy that the building materials contribution was very strong. The overall, you know, cement businesses basically. Together, if you look at these two businesses, obviously we had a satisfactory contribution to our EBITDA base. The financial services basically coming after that.
If you look at the net income, again, the banking, apart from the banking contribution, now the energy, contribution of the energy segment was much better than the EBITDA, with a 49% growth, year-over-year. Between the building material and the industrial, there's a, you know, balance, although of course, the contribution remained limited, given the industrial segment's contribution was, under negative territory. You see in the other piece, there's about TRY 850 million swing.
Now, majority of that is owing to the fact that, as I told you, the FX gains which were there in the Q1 of 2022 with a 79% devaluation of the FX basket, which was not to the same tune in the Q1 of 2023. That's how the net income has unfold between the Q1s. If we move to the performance of our stock price, you know, our, as we said, our net asset value has grown by 54% in dollar basis. Again, an 8 percentage points contraction of our discount rate. If you see, you know, since the starting from the Q3 of 2022, our discount has more or less stabilized around, you know, mid-20-ish levels.
Basically, that's obviously quite low when you compare to the averages of the last three, five, 10 years . If you look at the contribution of the net asset value, again, here you see the way that we strategically describe to you the banking and financial services together, then the advanced material technologies, which is mainly today's building materials and industrials contribution together. The energy and climate technologies piece is relatively understated here, given at the back of this presentation here in the appendix, you're going to see the breakdown of our net asset value where we refer to the unlisted Enerjisa Üretim generation piece by the book value, and that actually represents its contribution, basically, then the rest, digital and the rest, as you see.
Again, we move hopefully going forward a more balance between the energy and the advanced material technologies and hopefully with the growth of the digital technologies across our net asset value breakdown. We've, again, if you look in the course of last 12 months, even though our share has comfortably outperformed the BIST 30 index, we believe that our P/E multiples potentially could point to more value generation going forward. With that, I'll pause and leave the ground to Kerem, who's going to walk you through some details of our business segments.
Thank you, Emre. Let me start with the energy segment as always. We continue to benefit from our diversified business in the energy in terms of generation and distribution. In Q1, energy segment delivered a robust performance despite the earthquake in this eastern part of Turkey, which affected more than 10 cities at which both of our energy businesses operate. Specifically as for the generation business, revenue growth remained limited at 15% year-on-year due to low demand, decline in mix prices, and low hydro generation due to drought conditions in Turkey. For natural gas, EBITDA remained below last year due to lower prices, lower demand, and lower dispatch contribution. On renewables, EBITDA performance remained in line with last year as lower generation volume offset by higher dispatch contribution and a fixed-linked feed-in tariff revenue.
On call, EBITDA performance was strong, thanks to higher FX spreads, driven by higher market prices and higher generation volume on strong availability. Net EBITDA further dropped to 0.6 X in Q1. In addition to strong EBITDA performance, lower financial expenses and lower effective tax rate resulted in a 48% year-on-year growth in net income in Q1. With regards to Enerjisa Energy, with regards to financials, despite the impact of the earthquake, Q1 operational earnings increased by 41% to TRY 3.5 billion . On distribution business, positive impact of financial income driven by high inflation was neutralized with negative efficiency and quality impact, mainly due to earthquake-related operational expenses. The contribution of the retail and customer solutions business units in operational earnings slightly increased to 21% in Q1 from 20% last year same periods.
Customer solution business gross profit resulted below previous year due to the shift of the projects to the subsequent months because of the earthquake focus. The re-regulated segment's gross profit increased by 50%, mainly due to increasing energy prices. Meanwhile, liberalized gross profits increased due to increasing energy prices and low comparison base. Below operational earnings line, financial net expenses decreased due to lower average debt and decrease in financial financing costs. For industrial segment, combined revenue growth remained at 43% year-on-year in Q1 due to weakening demand in tire reinforcement markets despite strong local demand in tire business. Moreover, strong TRY and last year high base have played an important role in slower momentum in revenue growth in tire reinforcement business. Segment EBITDA margin deteriorated due to high base impacts.
Moreover, in Q1, COGS to sales ratio of tire reinforcement business was negatively affected from high-priced inventories and rising share of personnel expenses due to wage inflation, which remains well above TRY depreciation. Coming down to the bottom line, net profit declined by 19%, led by higher net financial expenses due to increasing net position related with financing of Microtex acquisition. Net EBITDA for both businesses remained above last year. Entire business, higher dividend payments and CapEx spending are the major drivers of this increase, and as I mentioned, entire enforcement business, Microtex financing is a major reason. It's important to note that net debt level of the tire enforcement business is still in line with its global peer average. On building materials, despite sluggish demand, global demand, segment's top line improved by 9% year-on-year as local demand remained strong.
EBITDA growth and margin improved in Q1, driven by sales mix that is dominated by the domestic market, better energy margin and fuel mix optimization. Segment's net income grew almost by fivefolds compared to last year, thanks to strong EBITDA pass-through and relatively lower financial expenses as segment's net debt continued to decline. Our digital segment's top line grew by 117% year-on-year, with a higher contribution from electronics retail business on basket size and customer traffic growth, driven especially by higher demand in telecom sales. Our new digital marketing and cybersecurity companies also contributed strongly to the top line growth of the segments. Worth to mention that we have successfully completed the acquisition of SEM, the digital marketing company, and Radiflow, the cybersecurity company, back in Q2 last year, which were important steps for strengthening our position in digital business.
In addition to physical store sales growth on higher basket size, e-commerce sales positively contributed to the segment's top line growth, driven by more than tripling gross merchandise value owing to the marketplace investments in February 2022 . Segment's EBITDA margin deteriorated in Q1, led by adverse impact of sales mix in electronic retail and high fixed cost to sales ratio in digital marketing and cybersecurity companies due to ongoing integration work process. Higher financial expenses pressured net income growth. Financial services segment had another quarter with robust performance as top line growth reached 112% year-on-year, driven by life and non-life businesses. Segment's EBITDA more than tripled with the contribution from both businesses as well. In life business, number one market position maintained in all of its product range.
While technical income before general expenses was as strong as top line growth, EBITDA growth remained limited at 27% due to wage inflation. Assets under management re-reached TRY 8.7 billion , up by 102% year- on- year, and the average annualized yields stood at 24%. Net income remained below previous year due to limited financial income contribution on lower CPI-linked income and lower interest income. In non-life business, top line growth reached 108% compared to last year, and selective growth approach in non-motor and health prevailed in order to improve the combined ratio of the company. EBITDA growth remained strong, thanks to improved motor segment loss ratio that declined to 112% from 164% year ago. Expense ratio increased from 11% to 15% on wage inflation.
In retail, segment's revenues increased by 105% year-over-year, which was well above inflation, average inflation, driven by like-for-like basket growth despite five store closures at the earthquake region. Operating profitability deteriorated compared to last year, led by elevated operating expenses, especially driven by cumulative minimum wage hikes in the past 12 months. High financial expenses continued to push net income down to negative territory. In banking, Akbank is one of the best positioned banks with its superior capital and liquidity buffers, agile balance sheet management with lowest TRY interest rate risk among peers, prudent risk management and solid efficiency. Its cutting-edge infrastructure, sophisticated digital capabilities and competitive product offerings gives the bank superior ability to focus on future while dealing with the daily challenges and volatility.
In Q1, the bank reached a solid 3.6% return on assets and 27.9% return on equity while maintaining a low leverage of 8.2 x. Buffers remain for both return on asset and return on equity as the bank used 35% for CPI-linked accreditation versus year at year-end inflation expectation of 45%. Had the bank used 45%, reported return on assets and return on equity would have been notably higher at 4.2% and 32.9% respectively. Akbank proactively complies with regulations while focusing on maturity mismatch. As a result, TRY deposit to deposit ratio reached 60% as of February 2023. Meanwhile, fixed rate bonds for CBRT fetch is limited TRY 30 billion as of April 2023, which is only 2% of its assets.
Outstanding momentum in customer acquisition accelerated further during the Q1 as Akbank gained 730,000 new customers on top of 2.3 million gained last year. This customer acquisition has resulted in record high market share gains across the board in consumer loans, loan-based deposit base, and demand deposits. Robust XL ratio, along with sizable customer acquisition, led to across the board fee performance in Q1 as well. The bank keeps its lending position, leading position in capital with a robust figure of 18.6%, which will continue to provide the bank significant competitive advantage going forwards. This concludes our segments as well. Let's move on to Q&A. If you'd like to ask a question, please go to Zoom's Q&A section.
We have the first question: What is driving low inflation growth in the energy and industrials business in Q1?
Anzad, thank you. As you know, Kerem also explained a little bit on the energy side, on the generation side especially, the electricity prices have been low in the Q1, lower. There have been reductions in electricity prices, I'm sure you must have noticed, which impacts our generation business negatively, impacts the distribution business positively. More importantly, the hydrology has generally been lower this year compared to last year, which I believe is something we're going to see for rest of the year as well. Basically, it was more about the spark spread, and the spark and dark spread was relatively stronger. That's going forward, hopefully, is an opportunity for rest of the year, between the energy demand and electricity prices, especially for the generation business.
On industrials, again, as I said, it's more about a general global market outlook also true for the Turkish market, where we see a slower demand pickup in the replacement business. Then, that is, you know, met by a stronger demand in the original equipment business. Obviously, the, if you look at the automotive industry, which actually is relatively stronger compared to last year, the replacement tire replacement business potentially in rest of the year could pick up. That's a time lag issue. You know, we don't see that in the Q1, which resulted in a relatively slower growth for the industrials section.
The second question, about the food retail. Do you think to exit Carrefour operations in line with your investment strategy, which focuses on lower regulation, more FX revenue? Thank you.
Well, I think, if you look at the food retail or CarrefourSA business, obviously that business has somewhat improved its financial performance over the course of 2022, actually continued to do so in the Q1 of 2023. If you look at our general, you know, strategic outlay, where we say we specifically would like to invest going forward on energy and climate technologies, advanced material technologies, as well as digital technologies. Obviously, we will need to see how CarrefourSA may fit into that strategic framework. Otherwise, you know, back to your point, could be a divestment opportunity for us.
Thank you. The next question is NAV discount is around 26% now. What's your next target for the medium term? What drives drivers to help you to get there?
Thank you, Sreshan. I think, again, over the top of mind, let's say a top of mind target is difficult to say. Having said that, when our, let's say, when some of the investments that we're making today, like our expanding our footprint in renewables in the U.S. as well as in Türkiye, higher contribution of the digital business basically, or any new initiatives in the overall advanced material part of our business, which is either the building materials or the industrials of today, segments of today. I think, we hope to see a, of course, a value, potential value proposition. Now, then it's a matter of where we want to, where we can see, the discount taking place.
I'm sure you must see that if you measure our discount to the listed assets, you know, it's so many, almost at par today. I think I'm looking at something like in yesterday's closing about 1%-2% difference. I'm not suggesting that's a target. All I'm saying is, obviously, there should be more room for us to lower that discount going forward given the value proposal of our businesses.
Thank you, Orhun. If you have any further questions, please type to the Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. Once again, if you have any questions, please type to Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. If you have any questions, please type to the Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. It seems like there is no further questions. Orhun, the floor is yours for final remarks.
Thank you very much, Kerem. For the closing, first of all, let me reiterate our midterm guidance. Obviously, in addition to everything that you heard, we also have integrated our 2030 Scope 1 and 2 emission reduction objectives into those, which we'd be more than happy to follow up. The reason why we can reiterate our guidance is on the last page that you see. At the start of this year, what we see is a, you know, solid set of results in a relatively uncertain environment. I believe we have a great portfolio of businesses and balance sheet, which is robust.
In general, if you see any macro volatility in the rest of the year, like for example, any potential devaluation, et cetera, I believe in our non-bank businesses, we look at a very robust piece, you know, We measure that even though we can build another 10% devaluation of the basket into our macro set as a stress scenario, we still see, you know, almost no change in our top line or our bottom lines on the non-bank side. My friends in Akbank have already explained in their webcast earlier, the bank's position vis-à-vis any interest rate differential. Overall, I think it's a very solid portfolio for performance.
There are pockets in the Q1 that we have highlighted to you, which we believe, could in the rest of the year turn into, you know, opportunities for growth, and profit delivery. We're quite happy with our cash flow generation and our ROE contribution. The net asset value growth was strong. But still, we believe the valuations have potential in Turkey, not only for our business. I mean, you know, many other prominent Turkish businesses, this could be said. And we have a healthy balance sheet and a strong liquidity, which will enable us to, you know, work both ways in rest of the year, for both investments on an offensive side or cash flow management on the defensive side.
We're able to play the game in every way. Many thanks for joining us today. We'll be looking forward to share with you our results for the next quarter and share with you a good delivery of performance again. Bye for the time being.
Thank you for the participation. Goodbye.