Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Sabancı Holding Q4 earnings webcasts. Please refer to our disclaimer before we are starting to go through our presentation. Today, I have our Group CEO, Cenk Alper, and Group CFO, Orhun Köstem with me. I now would like to leave the floor to our CEO for his opening remarks and for providing details on 2022 highlights. Cenk Bey.
Thank you, Kerem. Hello, everyone. Welcome to our 2022 webcast. I'm Cenk Alper, Sabancı Holding CEO. This time I am speaking to you with a great sadness given the tragic earthquake our nation has faced in the eastern part of Turkey, where thousands of lives are lost or permanently changed. We have been working to ensure the safety of our employees and their families first at these very difficult times, of course, supporting all citizens in the region, both directly and indirectly. We have so far allocated TRY 12 billion of resources to the region, we are continuously working in the region from the first day on. It is a long journey to reconstruct 11 cities, we will be on the ground until all wounds are healed.
I now kindly ask a moment of silence for the ones who lost their lives in this tragic event before going ahead with our earnings call. Thank you. Let me start with our group's 2022 highlights from my perspective. Orhun and Kerem will provide more details on our financials. 2022 was a year of dramatic changes in the world that affected global economy. The pandemic's continued impact in certain regions. Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in sharp inflationary pressures on commodities, raw materials, energy prices, and wages, and further disoriented global supply chains. Given this background and adding up with Turkey's own issues, we showed an extremely strong resilience in 2022. We managed to muddle through the volatility with a very strong financial performance and by successfully executing our transformation strategy and by deepening our ESG approach. As you can see, the numbers speaks for themselves.
Our financial performance remains strong, with further improvement in earnings quality by also outpacing inflation across the board in 2022. Our balance sheet and cash levels remain solid, ensuring us to strategically position ourselves not only against potential headwinds for this year, but also continue to reap the benefits of new investments as well. In 2022, we have been very active on portfolio movements as we made various new investments following our exit from tobacco business at the beginning of the year. We have raised TRY 3.1 billion from PMI divestments, and deployed TRY 4.9 billion , particularly in new economy, which is perfectly in line with our transformation strategy.
We also managed to size several opportunities in venture capital, which will contribute to the diversification of our growth portfolio, build know-how and expertise on disruptive and digital technologies, and develop an ecosystem of innovative partners with Sabancı Group. We were also active on ESG, which is now fully embedded in our investment strategy and in our day-to-day management in the group level. I touch upon ESG more detail in the following slides. Let's start with investments. As I mentioned, 2022 was a very busy year in terms of portfolio management. We started the year with the divestment of PMI and captured various investment opportunities, which paves the way to raise our exposure in new economy, which we define as energy and climate technologies, advanced material technologies, and digital technologies.
As promised, we have deployed 76% of the invested amount for the investments that are falling under new economy, which is in line with our commitment to invest 75% of total CapEx in the new growth platform. In energy and climate technologies, 2022 marked a milestone for Sabancı Group's commitment to energy business. Unit through an expansion to the U.S. We have made our first renewable capacity investment in the U.S. with 272 megawatt solar power plant project located in Houston, Texas. We have also invested directly in two of the world's leading startups originating from MIT. Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Quaise Energy. Commonwealth Fusion Systems has been developing an innovative magnet technology that aims to fundamentally change the global energy industry through fusion energy.
Quaise Energy has been developing a deep drilling technology to better realize worldwide geothermal energy potential and convert thermal power facilities into geothermal power plants. In our generation business in Turkey, we have launched the new 1,000 MW wind capacity investment in Turkey, worth at amount of $1.2 billion. This is one of the major greenfield renewable energy capacity investments undertaken in Turkey and across Europe in 2022. Our generation company's total capacity will reach 4.7 GW, and share of renewables will reach 57% once the project completed by 2026. Enerjisa Üretim business also started the first green hydrogen production at our Bandırma energy base, which will be used in generator cooling first. This pilot study was a critical step for our group to boost its capabilities further in possible actions on green hydrogen.
In 2022, Eşarj won the national charging tender for 495 fast-charging units in 53 cities in key regions with more than 90% of electrical vehicles in Turkey. Aims to reach 1,000 stations in 81 cities by the end of 2023. TEMSA, our commercial vehicle manufacturer, restructured its international network and bolstered Sabancı Group's electric bus journey by providing e-buses to Sweden, a major showcase market. In 2022, TEMSA reached 18% market share in North America. It also became one of the world's leading manufacturers by providing electric bus models to the U.S. and European markets. TEMSA is also diversifying its renewable streams, revenue streams by producing battery packs and battery management systems. These new product portfolio take us one step further into the fast-growing world of electrification. Under advanced material technologies, Microtex acquisition was an important step to diversify our composites portfolio.
2 new R&D centers in Munich started operations to provide tailor-made building and advanced material technology solutions. Meanwhile, calcium aluminate cement investment has initiated to double Group's capacity. 2022 was a year of transformation for our digital businesses as well. Aiming to create a global player in the digital world by focusing on business models based on next-generation technologies, we invested in Radiflow and SEM, active in cybersecurity and digital marketing respectively. Similarly, with the acquisition of Arvento in our tire business, the aim is to create higher value while involving more telematics in our business. Teknosa took a major step forward in our digital transformation journey by successfully launching Turkey's first consumer electronics specialized marketplace at the beginning of the year. In just 11 months of operations, Teknosa Marketplace has increased its product offering by 22x .
Traffic on digital channels has risen by 38%, and the platform's overall performance has reached global benchmarks. We were also very active to strengthen our leading positions in core businesses with capacity and efficiency investments, mainly in building materials and tire reinforcement businesses. Coming to Sabancı Ventures. Sabancı Ventures has completed five new deals in 2022, with a total investment amount of $6 million. These are all separate from our other venture investments that I mentioned before in energy and climate technologies. Corporate venture capital investments are a crucial part of our growth strategy as well as an instrumental tool to foster innovation and create value in our existing businesses. ESG. As you followed, we were also very active on ESG, which is now fully embedded in our investment strategy and in our day-to-day management in the group level.
We have already 35% ahead of our number of actions in our sustainability roadmap. Our transformation in ESG is currently driven by four main initiatives. First main initiative is our responsible investment approach. We developed a group-wide responsible investment policy to guide the entire value chain of our group companies. Second, we started a group-wide decarbonization project to identify key improvement areas related to our net zero emissions targets. We are now 60% of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions that are subject to decarbonization plans that are aligned with Science Based Targets initiative. For the remaining part, we have identified absolute or intensity emissions reduction targets. Third, we have integrated ESG in every aspects of our business, from strategy and capital allocation decisions to executive management performance and daily operations and everything in between. The fourth one is sustainable innovation.
For this reason, we prioritize sustainability as one of the major themes in all our internal and external entrepreneurship programs and innovation platforms. We are proud of the acknowledgment by ESG rating agencies after our long-lasting efforts in this area. We have received rating of A in MSCI ESG rating assessment, three notches increase in three years. We became the first conglomerate from Turkey to be included in Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for two consecutive years. We are also included in the BIST 25 Sustainability Index. We received an A ratings among more than 50 companies in the investment holding companies category in the Refinitiv ESG assessments. We are also categorized as low ESG risk by Sustainalytics. These are all achieved in just one year. I believe it will continue as we increase our efforts to transform our businesses.
I will hand over the call to Orhun to discuss our financial performance more in detail.
Thank you, Cenk. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. This is Orhun Köstem speaking. Before we go into discussion of the financial performance in detail, I would like to first draw your attention to the macro backdrop in 2022. Obviously, the macro back-backdrop was also quite volatile, as I'm sure we've all experienced. If you look at the commodities on one hand, we could argue that the rate of change has been somewhat behind the previous year. Having said that, the buildup throughout the quarters in the year have been different. We have strong commodity index price growth in the first half, which has eased in the second half of the year. A similar picture and even an amplified picture is true for the energy.
As you see, the energy prices have grown quite significantly, and this time, the growth throughout the quarters in the year have been longer. The energy prices have only come down, beginning from the last quarter of 2022, which obviously was an important factor when looking at the performance of some of our business units. If you look at the consumer price index in Turkey, the change in the average CPI was 72%, you know, a massive increase compared to 2021, of course. If you look at how the basket of effects have changed, it was at 75%.
Of course, within this, the dollar devaluation was over 80% and euro was lower at about 60s, given how the parity has moved throughout, through the course of the year, as you all know. With this, I'll get to talking about the financials. We're quite happy, as Cenk was underlining, that we've left behind another year of successful financial performance delivery, and a healthy one. A healthy one suggests for us that our top line, the growth of our top line should follow the growth of our bottom line. The profits should be growing ahead of the top line, which you see in our performance this year.
On one hand, of course, Akbank's performance have been very, very strong, and that's quite understandable given that the whole banking sector performance in Turkey in 2022 was strong. Without only looking at the numbers, I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the fundamental, some of the fundamental banking performance was also quite well. The net customer growth through digital onboarding of the bank has exceeded 2 million, which is a very significant number. The cost-to-income ratio has been very, very satisfactory. The capital adequacy ratio was very satisfactory. We should keep in mind that beyond the numbers, the fundamental performance was also satisfactory for Akbank, which I'm sure you must have heard from my colleagues in their own webcast last week.
Looking at the non-bank performance, again, we're quite happy that the net income has grown faster than the top line. Having said that, the EBITDA growth, although was strong versus 2021, was behind the net revenue growth, primarily impacted by, as I've tried to underline, the rate of increase in the energy prices and the commodity prices, fuel prices in some of our business units. Again, we're referring to mainly the underlying business. What impacted our bottom line also this year was about TRY 9 billion of one-offs, primarily coming from the revaluation of energy assets and then, the gain on sale of the divestment of the tobacco business. Obviously, this strong performance has led up to good return matrix.
Our return on equity overall on a consolidated basis was 45%, whereas the non-bank ROE was up to 31, which obviously was a massive growth. The bank's ROE was 54.7. As they have indicated, even on an inflation accounted basis, the bank has achieved a low teens ROE level. Now, we could argue with the numbers versus the impact of inflation. Which is also true. However, for us, it's important that we continue with this healthy trend of return performance going forward as well. Our holding on the net cash position has increased from TRY 2.5 at the end of 2021 to TRY 3.1. Therefore, we continue to maintain a healthy cash position in our balance sheet at Sabancı Holding only.
The operational cash flow, if you look outside of the bank for our non-bank business, has been very, very strong, and has reached to almost TRY 30 billion in the period. Hence our net financial debt to EBITDA on the non-bank businesses has come down to 0.4x .
That's obviously important because, A, as we're trying to mention, we've closed the year where we have seen a very, you know, important number of strategic investments as we stepped up our CapEx, and at the same time have been able to meet that with our cash flow growth and our dynamic portfolio management so that we still maintain a healthy balance sheet, which we hope will enable us, obviously, in managing our business beyond 2022, both in a volatile environment, but at the same time allows us flexibility to continue investing for growth. When we talk about CapEx, as you see, we have stepped up our CapEx as we have committed to you, that was back in 2021.
Our non-bank CapEx to sales was at 10.3%, moving closer to our midterm guidance. As we have indicated then, a quarter, about 76% of the CapEx has gone to the new economy investments, and a quarter roughly went to our core business. If you look at the strategic investments that we at Sabancı Holding in our group companies were making to support our portfolio transformation, it was actually about TRY 11 billion. Without accounting for the renewable capacity investments of Enerjisa Üretim in Turkey, that's going to kick in in the years to come, as we've disclosed.
If you look at the composition of the CapEx, of course, the majority went to our energy business, especially with the new investments that we're undertaking in U.S. on renewable, as well as our acquisition of renewable capacity in Turkey within 2022. If you look at the last quarter, our combined revenues was up over 150%. Of course, the primary contributor was the bank, followed by the energy business. As I'm sure you've seen that the bank's share in the overall revenues has grown disproportionately this year. We believe this is especially fueled by the special conditions within 2022. Going forward, we will obviously expect a more normalized distribution of revenue among our business units.
If you look at the EBITDA, again, it grown by 212%. A major contributor was the bank, followed by energy and the building materials businesses. The financial services, both on here and you'll see at the net income, there is an impact coming from Aksigorta. Although finished the year on a satisfactory note from a capital adequacy point of view, nevertheless, delivered a net loss in the last quarter of the year as we were seeing. I would very much like to draw your attention to the performance of our financial services business quarter-on-quarter throughout the year, which has improved towards the back end of 2022. If we come to the net income, again, the net income has grown by 171%.
Again, bank was a major contributor, followed by energy and building materials. Here, we also seen a reduction coming from the industrial side. Although our businesses there has delivered a net profit, of course, that was lower than the last quarter of 2021. This was primarily coming from our Kordsa business where we already have started to feel the slowdown of the economies outside of Turkey in the international markets where we operate or sell our products. First of all, we're obviously quite happy that the discount on our net asset value has shrunk to about 26.6%. Of course, that's significantly below the past, you know, years' averages.
If you look at the net asset value, the contributors to our net asset value as we've present to you in our major investment areas, as Cenk was underlining. The banking and financial services obviously is a big part of our business, followed by material technologies, which is industrial and building materials business. The energy is another important contributor. Just to underline here, of course, we have an asset written which is not listed. I'm sure as you've seen in our disclosure, we account for that by the book value, so that's traceable, which suggests some more upside to the current contribution to the net asset value of Sabancı Holding portfolio. At the same time, you see a reduction coming from mainly disposal of the tobacco business within 2022.
We've grown our net asset value quite satisfactorily throughout the year, which has obviously been reflected on the stock performance vis-à-vis the, you know, index. Turkey, we've significantly outperformed the index, which is very nice. We could still argue whether it has been The investments that we're making and the value that we've been creating, whether it has sufficiently have been reflected onto the stock performance, which is indicated by the, you know, PE performance of our stock in the course of the year. That suggests some more value appreciation potential, hopefully. With this, I will hand over to Kerem, and he's going to walk us through the details of the business units. Kerem?
Thank you, Orhun Bey. For business units, let's start with energy. We continue to benefit from having a diversified portfolio in our energy business in terms of generation and distribution and retail. In Q4, energy segment delivered a robust performance as EBITDA growth doubled on a year-on-year basis, thanks to both Enerjisa Enerji and Enerjisa Üretim contributions. Enerjisa Enerji recorded a strong performance as distribution segments EBITDA jumped by 89% year-on-year in Q4, thanks to higher financial income and higher inflation trends and change in financial asset model approach, leading to a higher IRR. The strong growth in financial income, higher quality bonus as a result of increased quality customer satisfaction scores and lower outages, in addition to the higher theft accrual and collection, more than compensated for lower OpEx and CapEx outperformance due to high commodity costs during the periods.
As of end of 2022, regulated asset base growth is 77% year-on-year, mainly reflecting revaluation of opening balance with inflation. In the retail side of the business, gross profit more than quadruples in Q4, driven by volume growth, impact of increasing procurement costs and inflation, and to some extent, the base impact in liberalized segments. Higher gross profits in core business supported EBITDA despite higher OpEx spending as a result of high inflation. In the first half of 2022, the cash flow was negative, to a large extent due to high electricity procurement prices were not supported by national tariff levels and the fact that annual inflation assumption incorporated to national tariff calculations were below realized inflation. The cash flow in the second half of 2022 recovered due to numerous measures introduced by the regulator to address the sustainability of the system.
Financing costs increase on a year-on-year basis driven by both higher debt and interest rates, also the increase in revaluation expenses of customer deposits due to elevated inflation. Thanks to strong operating performance, the company's net income surged by 135% year-on-year, more than offsetting higher financial expenses. Looking at generations performance, Enerjisa Üretim revenue increased by 112% year-on-year, driven by higher spot electricity prices as well as weaker Turkish lira despite lower generation and sales volume.
Even though hydro and wind generation volume increased compared to last year, total generation volume declined by 3% year-on-year as a result of efforts to optimize natural gas plants' production to reach highest profitability level as far as spot spreads are concerned. EBITDA growth reached 108% year-on-year, as naturally as profitability increased on higher spark due to higher market prices in addition to higher renewable volume in Q4. Moreover, our team's ability on energy trades, which led us to capture market opportunities and higher dispatch contribution, supported EBITDA growth in the quarter. Despite increase in tax, net income registered solid returns year-on-year, thanks to robust EBITDA contribution.
By the end of Q4, net debt dropped to EUR 131 million, indicating a net debt EBITDA of 0.5x compared to EUR 289 million net debt by the end of 2021. The quarter-on-quarter increase in debt is mainly due to 1,000 megawatt wind investments, as we have already announced in October. Coming to industrial segments, combined revenues grew by 89% year-on-year in Q4, thanks to well-managed pricing strategy and higher volumes in tire business driven by local markets. Segments EBITDA margin deteriorated due to inflationary pressures both in tire and tire reinforcement businesses. In addition to this, tire reinforcements reinforcement business negatively affected from relatively stable Turkish lira against USD and higher priced raw material inventories impacting pricing flexibility.
Coming down to the bottom line, net profit declined by 18% led by higher net financial expenses due to lower FX limited cash and increasing debt on completion of Microtex and Arvento acquisitions. All building materials, segments revenue growth was driven by sales mix optimization from foreign to domestic markets and FX linked revenue contribution from Sabancı Building Solutions, previously known as Cimsa Sabancı Cement. Despite negative impact of higher fuel, electricity, raw material, and transportation costs, substantial increase in air alternative fuel usage provided a better energy margin. Better sales and improved efficiency led to a 5x EBITDA growth, which resulted in a 5 percentage points improvement in EBITDA margin. Finally, segment's net income grew more than 5x , thanks to operational performance pass-through despite lower FX gains.
From retail segments, combined revenues increased by 145% year-on-year, thanks to strong contribution from both electronics retail and food retail, which was well above the average inflation driven by like-for-like traffic and basket growth. Both companies recorded strong performances in online sales, thanks to increased investments and advertising activities. Segments IFRS adjusted EBITDA increased by 85% year-on-year in Q4. Despite the improvement in segments' OpEx sales ratio, EBITDA margin declined 2 percentage points year-on-year due to contraction in gross margin. The decline in gross margin in electronics retail business is attributable to relatively lower price escalation due to stable exchange rates. In food retail on other hand, product and channel mix led by higher e-commerce and franchise sales were the main drivers of the gross margin contraction.
Despite higher financial expenses, segment's bottom line improved with positive contribution from both companies. Financial services segment had another quarter of robust performance as top line growth reached 99% year on year driven by life and non-life businesses. Segments EBITDA declined by 75% as a result of weakness in non-life business. In life business, thanks to the life protection volume growth and pension assets under management, EBITDA increased by 8% year on year. On the other hand, in a non-life business, underwriting results and combined ratio were adversely affected by, one, ongoing increase in inflation on claim costs, two, year-end minimum wage increase of 55%, three, update of underlying loss ratio of risky driver pools.
Consequently, despite the improvement in technical profitability with new business portfolio written in 2022 on motor-owned damage products, higher MTPL losses driven by the increase in minimum wage, higher pool loss ratio, and higher cost of claims negatively affected the segment's profitability. On the banking, despite all the volatility and challenging market conditions, Akb ank's strategic priorities have always remained intact. Akb ank is one of the best positioned banks in this environment with its robust capital, highest MoPS, strong liquidity, highest level of efficiency, and low operating cost base.
Akb ank's 2022 net income was up 5-fold to a record level of TRY 60 billion, a record high historical income even adjusted for currency. The bank achieved an eye-catching full year return on asset of 6.2x , 2%, and 54.7% ROE, with a low leverage of 7.5x in 2022, ahead of its guidance. Akbank's advanced analytical and digital capabilities, along with its state-of-the-art infrastructure, resulted in a record 2.3 million net customer growth in 2022. Strong market share gains in small tickets, stellar customer acquisition, across the board fee performance, and agile asset liability management contributed to solid core credit performance in 2022. The bank also further built capital during the year, reaching a robust figure of 20.8%, excluding forbearances of course, with main contribution coming from internal capital generation.
The strong solvency ratio will continue to provide the bank significant competitive advantage going forwards. I now would like to leave the floor for Orhun Bey to go through the midterm guidance.
Thank you, Kerem. Our midterm guidance, in essence, have not changed from what you have seen earlier. On revenue and EBITDA growth, we could argue that we had a good performance in 2022 because we have actually grown ahead of CPI comfortably. We will need to check these over the long run, obviously. On other elements, CapEx to revenue run rates, affects revenue share, net debt to EBITDA, and the share of new economy in the overall revenue, I'm happy to say that we are pretty much moving in towards our guidance.
One important change in this page since the last time you have seen is the total funds allocated for our share buyback program, which I'm sure you have seen that we have increased to TRY 3.25 billion at the end of December 2022. We continue to run a successful share buyback program. With this, I will hand over to Cenk for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Orhun. Thank you, Kerem. To summarize, our results were extremely strong in 2022. Despite faster pace in investments, we kept our cash level stable and further delever our balance sheets. Therefore, we are very well prepared for potential headwinds, but also ready to seize growth opportunities to continue to transform our portfolio. We divested a major asset in 2022 and invested in various businesses that we classify as new economy that are hindering high growth potential and match our ESG roadmap. We accelerated our ESG efforts and fully aware of solid ESG commitment is a strong lever for additional value creation. Finally, we'll continue to focus on improving our shareholders' return by continuing to focus on value creative investments while ensuring to sustain our dividend policy and by continuing to manage our buyback program actively as we have done in 2022.
Thank you. Thank you, Cenk Bey. Now the floor is open for questions. If you have any questions, please push the button for the Q&A section of Zoom for your questions. We have 1 question. Thanks for the presentation. How do you see the profitability of Enerjisa Üretim in Q1 2023, given the continuing drought conditions and recent cuts in electricity prices by EMRA?
Thank you, Kerem Bey. Obviously, we are now living through the impact of the climate change and therefore has an impact on hydrology year-on-year. So far, we see that this year hydrology will be, you know, lower than what we've experienced in 2022. The there were cuts in prices, also, you know, reductions in natural gas prices for electricity generation. Again, we're quite confident given the fact that Enerjisa Üretim has the most complementary portfolio in the market, you know, from renewable to natural gas, of course, as you know, apart the lignite. We're pretty sure that we would be able to deliver still quite satisfactory profit results for the first quarter. The margins on year-on-year could change, you're right.
I mean, that's dependent on especially the level of hydrology. Still, you know, there's no reason why we shouldn't see strong profit performance.
Thank you, Orhun Bey. If you have any question, please use Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. Once again, if you have any questions, please use Q&A section of the Zoom.
Once again, if you have any questions, please use Q&A section of the Zoom. We have another question. Thank you for the presentation. I missed the earlier part of the presentation. Therefore apologies if you talked about this. What about total CapEx required in the earthquake affected region by Enerjisa?
Thank you very much for the question. Well, you know, the infrastructure of the 11 cities affected, will increase our CapEx investments. The city plans are not fixed yet. There are plans, alternative plans to change the places of the cities or rebuild the cities in their original places. Depending on that, we will sharpen our numbers. As of today, you know, we cannot give you a ballpark figure.
Thank you, Cenk Bey. If you have any question, please use the Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. Once again, if you have any questions, please use the Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. We have a question. I have a follow-up question on the banking industry. Do you share any sensitivity for the sector under a potentially higher interest rate environments?
Thank you, Kerem. I mean, as far as I know, we haven't necessarily shared any specific, let's say, work, around a, you know, a macro environment where the, let's say, interest rates, could be, higher. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that, you would be, looking at or calculating a number of different scenarios. Going forward, obviously, we have our own internal, let's say, scenarios that we work on. That's how we manage our business. It's too early to, you know, make an estimation, publicly as to what we could expect.
Thank you, Orhun Bey. If you have any questions, please use Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you.