Before the presentation, we'd like to inform you that the information that will be shared today is based on the actual results and company judgment. Sabancı Holding does not accept any liability for the information or content discussed. This event will be recorded and published in an audio, visual, and written form on Sabancı Holding investor relations website in order to inform interested parties. Please be informed that while you take the floor, you give explicit consent to Sabancı Holding to process your voice and speech as well. With that, I'll now hand you over to your host, Mr. Orhun Köstem, the Sabancı Holding CFO, and Mr. Kerem Tezcan, the Sabancı Holding IR Director. Gentlemen, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone, wherever you are. Welcome to Sabancı Holding's Q3 results webcast. I'm happy today to be able to share with you another successful quarter that we left behind us. Our success in this quarter driven by improved contribution from our bank, obviously, as well as solid performance in our non-bank businesses. In the Q3, we've seen a solid demand environment that positively impacted some of our business units and operational efficiencies across the board, which has partly offset the increasing trend in input costs. Obviously, we also had a quite important growth in Turkey that has been there in the period. We benefited having complementary businesses not as a holding group portfolio, but also within business units.
In this quarter, our energy generation business is a good example of that, which you're going to hear in a little bit more detail later. Of course, our generation portfolio was quite resilient, generating strong top-line growth and profit growth despite this massive growth that was impactful in the Q3, especially in the Q3 of the year. Now, the demand growth in our local businesses and our global markets obviously was also benefiting from last year's low base. And as well as, we made use of the challenges in the global supply chain, based on our existing geographical footprint, which reaches a wider coverage, and proven to be a competitive advantage for us.
Our operating cash flow was solid in the first nine months, and obviously led to continued deleveraging of our balance sheet. Our net debt to EBITDA is at 1.4 times, compared to 1.5 times at the end of 2020. Our consolidated return on equity was up to 17.5% in the first nine months. That follows our, you know, midterm guidance and obviously benefiting the sharp increase that's coming on return on equity of the bank in the period. You have also heard, in the meantime, that there has been changes to the ownership of our insurance companies. A new partnership with Ageas, and then after which we started to fully consolidate both of our businesses with Ageas being a shareholder in both Aksigorta and AgeSA.
This full consolidation started from July first this year. This had a positive TRY 1.4 billion, one-off impact on our Q3 consolidated net income. However, as we have our discussion today, you won't be hearing about this one-off bottom line impact. Now, just to remind ourselves, because these were announced earlier, but in the Q3, we also completed the restructuring of our white cement business outside of Turkey and finalized the acquisition of the Buñol plant in Spain. Now this, we believe, is an important milestone for our building materials business, in which we believe we will create an efficient and strong platform abroad in order to position ourselves as a leader in the global white cement business.
Moreover, again, you heard, but ourselves together with Philip Morris International have started the process of transferring all of the shares that we hold in Philip Morris Turkey, which is about 25% of that business. Again, then Philip Morris International therefore applied to the Competition Authority, which was on October 6 of this year, for approval of that share transfer process, which were valued at roughly TRY 2.9 billion. This price obviously will be subject to certain, you know, adjustments at the end of this year. You will hear once obviously we close this transaction, hopefully, which is expected to be in the last quarter of 2021, pending relevant permissions and approvals as customary.
Last but not least, obviously one still, you know, big unknown is how the pandemic will take shape in the months and quarters to come. We believe we have done to the best of our ability to roll out at least vaccination across our group. And I'm happy to say that the average vaccination ratio stands at 98% in Sabancı Group as a whole. On the next page, if you look at the on a top-line basis, first of all, the, you know, financial performance in the period, obviously you see a 33% growth of revenues, 38% growth of EBITDA, and 45% growth of consolidated net income. Which is obviously a very good performance that makes us happy.
As we discussed, the revenue growth, obviously comes from strong demand growth, both local and international, which benefited the EBITDA performance, which furthermore, accelerated through operational efficiencies, higher capacity utilization, and thereby ending up in a higher, you know, margin. Consolidated net income was high. As we said, we continue deleveraging our balance sheet, which obviously helps us lower our financial expenses, and together with good, you know, cash flow generation obviously helps us drive a much stronger bottom line. This again, we'll talk about later, comes through a number of challenges, including the drought in Turkey, you know, rising input material costs, et cetera.
We can say we're quite happy with the performance and obviously need to underline the fact that our bank's performance in the Q3 was much better, obviously, supporting the overall performance of our business. We talked about cash flow, obviously our operating cash flow for our non-bank business was up by 17%, which is great. It comes on top of a 28% CAGR growth over the past, you know, five years. We continue with the strong momentum that we see. As we said, we've continuously and gradually lowered our net debt to EBITDA, deleveraging our balance sheet. In fact, our total non-bank combined liquidity, excluding financial services and tobacco business, stands just under TRY 10 billion at TRY 9.6 billion.
In our insurance business, there is additional TRY 5 billion. That's a very strong position to be in. If you look at return on equity, obviously it follows this good performance. Our non-bank return on equity was 17.5%, which is great. The return on equity is driven by improvement in, you know, both bank and non-bank businesses, but obviously the change in the bank business was much sharper. Our cash position at the holding entity stands at TRY 1.9 billion, whereas some 63% was in effect at the end of September. If we talk today, I think it's more like 75%-76%. Pretty much in line, continues with the trend that you are accustomed to.
We break it down into the quarters. If you look at the Q3 per se, again, just to underline, banks' performance in the Q3 was remarkable. I'm sure you must have heard from them earlier. They've announced our results. Outside of our banking business, obviously, the combined, you know, revenue of the non-bank business was, you know, up by 40%, over a combined revenue of 43%, including the bank. The energy business was an important driver. You're going to hear more about that later in the presentation, but the pricing there supports this strong top-line performance.
On the industrials, we see good demand, generates higher volumes, generates higher share of market for us obviously a relatively weaker TL compared to last year drives better revenue growth in terms of the export businesses. On the building materials, the domestic demand was strong to support and contribute to the combined revenue growth of the business. If you look at the EBITDA, there is a strong growth of EBITDA 46% in general, in a combined all businesses basis, 16% on a non-bank basis. As we discussed at the end of the Q2, now, obviously on our generation business, the mix is different. There's, you know, less hydro and less wind per se, and then there's higher natural gas, which results in very strong absolute profit growth, but relatively lower margin growth.
That's why you see Enerjisa Enerji business contribution coming from there, resulting in slight contraction in margin. Together with the higher inflation, obviously our EBITDA in the distribution business has done quite well. We look at a remarkable performance. On the industrial side, the good, let's say top-line growth flew through the profit growth, basically, which we've obviously amplified with a better operational excellence. On the building materials piece, there's a higher fuel mix this year compared to last year, which stand at about, I think 15%, at least a 2.5% increase compared to the mix last year. If you look across past three years, obviously that trend continues, which Kerem will underline.
This is important for us because the input cost there is obviously increasing and the alternative fuel is a very good way for us to mitigate such input cost inflation. If you come to the net income line, on a combined basis, the net income was up by 40%. If you exclude the bank, actually there's a slight reduction in net income. That's not necessarily operational. That's owing to, let's say relatively stronger Turkish lira in the quarter, which you may assume has rectified itself since then, given how the Turkish lira has moved. Excluding which actually the net income growth would be at 14% if you only took an operational bottom line performance.
There as well, the industrials and the energy businesses was strong contributors to the bottom line performance. Now, with this, I will ask Kerem to walk us through the business segments. Kerem?
Thank you. To deep dive into segments, let's start with energy. In Q3, energy segment delivered strong EBITDA performance and annual growth reached 14% despite continuous weakness in hydrology in generation and lower liberalized profit in retail. On Enerjisa Enerji, the company's EBITDA growth remained resilient with positive contribution from distribution business. In distribution segment, despite lower theft detection performance, mainly due to high base in Q3 2020, as field activities accelerated following the lockdown in Q2, EBITDA increased by 3% in Q3 on higher financial income driven by higher long-term inflation assumptions and regulated asset base. As of September, RAB growth reached 14% on faster pace on CapEx spending in line with our communication in previous quarters and higher long-term inflation.
In retail side of our energy business performed lower but was overall resilient despite the high base and the impact of increasing procurement costs. Liberalized gross profit declined due to lower margins as a result of increasing procurement costs, strong base impact, and change in product mix. Note that a part of the negative impacts offset by higher liberalized sales volume and higher regulated gross profits. Higher customer solutions and decline in doubtful provisions supported EBITDA growth in Q3. The company's net income declined 9% year-on-year due to higher financial expenses driven by increase in the cost of CPI-linked financial instruments. Looking at the generations performance, electricity demand increased by 6% year-on-year in Q3 as a result of high industrial and tourist demands and peaking temperatures in July and August.
Average market price increased by 7.7% in Q3 due to higher demand, lower hydrology, and increasing commodity prices. Enerjisa Üretim's revenue increased by an impressive 59% year-on-year, thanks to much higher spot electricity prices on a year-on-year basis. On a separate note, higher power purchase agreement prices in lignite plants and better operational performance continued to support top-line growth. Despite lower hydro generation due to extreme drought conditions and lower wind generation in Q3, EBITDA increased by 41%, thanks to higher spreads in natural gas plants and lignite plants with the increase in market and prices respectively. Net income registered a remarkable growth of 6.60% year-on-year due to strong EBITDA pass-through and relatively slower pace in increasing financial expenses offsetting negative impact of mark-to-market of hedging contracts.
For industrial segments, the combined revenues increased by 57% year-on-year driven by volume growth, thanks to not only strong demand, but also higher market share in both businesses. Specific to our business, we operate the focus on local market in Q3, and we remain agile to provide more supply to the export markets in the coming quarters. Profitability remained resilient through operational excellence and volume growth despite the cost pressures in finance expenses and commodity prices. The negative impact of high raw material prices offset by well-managed hedging strategy in the entire business. The strong operational performance pass-through and declining financial expenses as a result of lower debt level supported the segment's bottom line.
Please note that our tire reinforcement business maintained its performance target for the year-end, despite the negative impact of ongoing force majeure and nylon manufacturers in the world, and the fire that occurs in the nylon production line in Indonesia in the last week of August. Moving on to building materials. The most important highlight of the quarter was the completion of the acquisition of Buñol plant in Spain, which is an important milestone for our building materials business to create an efficient and strong platform growth which would pave the way for Sabancı Group to position itself as the leader in global white cement trades. Becoming operational back in early July, Cimsa Sabanci Cement BV not only runs Sabancı Group's overseas white cement business in Spain, U.S., Italy and Germany, but also started to contribute to segment's financial performance.
Following the ramp-up period, CSCBV is expected to become a key driver in segment's financial and strategic value creation. Continuing with the financials, segment's revenue growth registered 7%-9% year-on-year in the quarter on strong domestic demand and new synergies created by CSCBV, as well as positive contribution of weak TL exports. As cost side pressures started to escalate in the quarter, top line pass through on operational profitability remained rather limited. While fuel mix optimization, better energy margin, and operational efficiency helped EBITDA growth to remain in green territory, while year-to-date EBITDA growth reached 7% year-on-year. Bottom line, however, slipped down by 4% on the back of higher financial expenses driven by higher interest rates. However, year-to-date net income grew by 240% on an annual basis.
Looking forward, trends in fuel and electricity and freight costs as well as supply and demand and capacity dynamics in the sector should be monitored closely. On retail, segment's combined revenues increased by 18% thanks to the improvement in the basket size both in electronics retail as well as food retail, bringing the top line growth to 24% in the first nine months of the year, which is well above inflation. Meanwhile, e-commerce sales continued its high pace trajectory, reaching 7.2% of total sales revenues in Q3 in 2021, compared to five point four to seven percent last year. Compared to the pre-pandemic periods of Q2 2019, the e-commerce sales of our retail companies nearly quadrupled.
Solid top line growth and relatively limited impact of elevated operating expenses translated into double-digit operating profitability as IFRS-adjusted EBITDA increased by 20% year-on-year in this quarter. The adverse impact of higher financial expenses continued to affect bottom line of the segment in Q3, mostly driven by food retail. Moving on to financial services segments, top line growth registered 26% year-on-year, driven by strong growth performance in both life and non-life businesses. In non-life business, underwriting results was adversely affected by decreasing positive impacts of lockdown, coupled with increasing effects-driven claim costs in motor segment and big claims in non-motor segments. combined ratio reached 112% in Q3, compared to 104% in the same period last year.
In life business, on the other hand, total technical income increased by 15% year-on-year, driven by the growth in life protection volumes and assets under management in the pension business. Recovery of financial income on the back of increasing interest rates and FX rates continued in the quarter. Segment's bottom line remained almost unchanged compared to a year ago as life business's performance managed to offset the deterioration in the non-life business bottom line, driven by lower technical profitability on higher claims. To remind, we have TRY 1.4 billion one-off impact in insurance companies due to the consolidation methodology change. This one-time positive impact is eliminated in the financial numbers on this slide.
Finally, on the banking, despite the challenging environments, along with higher global inflation as well as the negative impact of ongoing pandemic, Akbank's positioning enables the bank to leverage its strength while carrying priorities for improving profitability. Robust TL loan growth, strategic securities positioning as well as across the board stronger than guided fee income growth were supportive factors for solid core operating performance. Its net cost of credit evolution has fared much better than guidance thanks to strong risk discipline through the cycle. As a result, the bank's ROE reached 14.9% and return on assets reached 1.8%, and leverage is realized at 8.4x. Already delivering mid-teens ROE targets for the year. This is the details on the segments. We can go to Q&A now.
We have one question from Umut from OYAK Securities. Thank you for the presentation. How would you evaluate the possible impact of recent significant increase in energy and natural gas prices on your business?
Thank you, Umut. Thank you very much. Obviously, the energy segment in general has been quite volatile globally as well, not only in Turkey. Obviously, the market prices, the input prices have been changing. Now, I believe so far, we have been able to, let's say successfully deliver on our expected performance, between our, let's say, diversified portfolio of generation, our, let's say, aligned balance sheet between revenue growth versus exposure. Our hedging, let's say, initiatives that has been in place. Our sourcing abilities in terms of both access to raw material or our trading capabilities, all of which obviously comes to where we are today. Again, we have been able to successfully deliver on that.
Now, obviously, going forward, if you take a longer term view, for next year, I mean, I believe this year, looking from today, we see no reason why we shouldn't be able to deliver in line with our guidance. Having said that, next year, obviously, as in, globally, there are, let's say, some challenges building up. Obviously, we will be making sure that we leverage our abilities to mitigate such challenges. Ask the same question when we discuss about next year. Obviously, we'll be happy to continue discussing them.
Thank you, speakers. All right, as you may have gathered, ladies and gentlemen, we are into the audio question section. If you would like to ask a question, please press star five on your telephone keypad. Just a reminder, if you wanna participate in the written Q&A, just type your question into the ask a question text area and then click the submit button. With that, I hand you back to our speakers.
Thank you. The next questions come from Tunar. What are the plans for deploying cash generated by PM share sale?
Tunar Marhaba. Thank you for the question. Obviously, let me tell you in a nutshell. There are four pillars of how we would like to deploy our capital. Obviously, one of them is to ensure that we continue investing on our core businesses. One of them is obviously making sure that we grow our business by expanding into adjacent businesses and, you know, new businesses. Thirdly, we want to continue generating an above average shareholder return. That includes, of course, dividend distributions. Potentially other instruments like, you know, buybacks, which I know has been this in this discussion for a very long time, which again, is a good, I think, value. Could be a good value driver for the business going forward.
Finally, of course, making sure that we maintain our net debt to EBITDA at or below two times going forward. Depending on the chronological order, you could expect to hear from us based on these elements as to how we're going to deploy the cash that we're going to receive once that transaction is closed.
We have another question from Vittorio, from Helikon Investments. Are you speeding up increase your CapEx in electricity generation renewables given the current positive environments?
I mean, obviously, we already have discussed the expansion strategies on the renewables or expansion, you know, opportunities on the renewable base, which have already been in our CapEx plans. Yes, I mean, look, could be. If you look at the general environment in our generation business, as you rightly put, we believe we are at an opportunistic place, with our, you know, portfolio, our trading abilities and etc. Maybe we would be keeping a close eye on additional opportunities that we can see, because as I'm sure you know, as you heard us state many times that we would very much like to continue expanding our renewable generation base and would capitalize on the opportunities as they come our way.
We have the means to do that, not only, you know, our capabilities, but also obviously financially, we are also able to deal with that.
The next questions come from Varim. What will be the dividend income growth this year?
I mean, I can't give you a guidance for the full year, obviously. However, what I can say is, you know how our dividend policy goes. We say, and it's not changed, obviously, and then you see how our bottom line is improving. I'm sure you can have an estimation from there, as indicated earlier.
The next question comes from Shashank from Bank of America. Thank you for the presentation and the opportunity to ask questions. Congrats on executing the PM share sale. Are there any other businesses that you may to look divest the stakes which you think is non-core to your strategy? Also, any update on the share buybacks, given some of the peers have become active in their units?
Yeah. Thank you, Shashank. Let me start with the second one again. It was part of the answer to an earlier question. Look, I'm technically, I won't be able to say whether or not we can do a buyback, obviously. I'm sure you're not expecting that. All I can say, as I wanted to underline earlier, it's been part of our capital allocation. It is part of our capital allocation strategy, we see potential value creation in doing so, given where the stock trades today. You know, I can't say anything more than that. Again, other businesses could be.
In the meantime, of course, what we didn't put here is, there are some assets that has been, also in the Q3, actually, that we've sold under the building materials business, which was part of the network optimization in Turkey, which is again, expecting clearance from the Competition Authority. These are relatively small, but I believe should give you an indication to, you know, obviously going forward, if you feel that any of the businesses does not necessarily perform, or, you know, industry wise, we feel that's not fitting to our overall purpose and portfolio going forward. Yes.
If it, in the case of this building materials business, if it doesn't fit for some reason from an operational point of view, obviously, we will be quite willing to liquidate those assets and see how we can invest those.
All right, gentlemen. I don't see any more written questions. Let me just quickly remind everybody, if you would like to ask a question, the written Q&A, please just type your question into the ask a question text area and then click submit. We will leave it for a minute, another minute or so, but it appears that those are the written questions. Speakers?
We don't have any further questions.
All right. Thank you. Thank you very much, gentlemen. That's Mr. Orhun Köstem, the Sabancı Holding CFO, and Mr. Kerem Tezcan, the Sabancı Holding IR Director. Thank you very much, gentlemen. If you would like to conclude, please.
Thank you. Again, thanks for everyone for joining. I hope what you have left, since we start this conversation, to remember for the Q3 is, obviously, we continue with our remarkable financial performance, and quite poised to meet our guidance for the year, despite the challenges. There has been some portfolio movements in the period, some of which were in the pipeline for a bit of time. We're happy to be able to close them and move on. Obviously, going forward, quite keen to continue adding value to our portfolio by such movements as and when we feel these are opportunities for us. Finally, we are quite happy that we find ourselves healthy and hopefully do the same at the end of the next quarter after hopefully another successful period.
Thank you very much for today, and have a very good weekend.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, that now concludes today's webcast call. We'll thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.