Recording in progress.
First, we will do policy status. We have our Group CEO, Cenk Alper, and Group CFO, Orhun Köstem, to tell you about policy status. Without further ado, I would like to give the floor to our CEO, Cenk Alper.
Thank you, Kerem, and good afternoon, everyone. As you know, normally I attend these meetings twice a year for half and year-end results. Yet, in the light of the recent leadership transition at our board, as well as the evolving global and local developments, I felt that it was necessary for me to be together with you and with the IR team this time. Before going into details, I would like to underline that both local and global incidents, particularly around U.S. trade policies and ongoing political turbulence in Türkiye, have a relatively limited impact on our performance. Thanks to our diversified portfolio that is spreading across 17 countries, which has provided us flexibility to manage these effects. We will continue to monitor how these issues evolve and their impact on our businesses. Given the number of questions we have received on U.S.
Trade policy, we can start elaborating the impact of tariffs on our businesses. Tariffs, obviously, introduced a wide range of uncertainties on the global economic environment, creating both challenges and opportunities for Sabancı Group. We operate in the U.S. through our local investments in renewable energy, advanced materials, including composites and cement grinding, while our export-oriented businesses include tires, technical textiles, white cement, and buses, supplying the sectors such as energy, automotive, aviation, construction, and public transport. You know, our initial analysis shows that banking, financial services, energy, material technologies, and electronic retail businesses, which make up 95% of our NAV, are neutral to better positioned against tariffs compared to mobility businesses, which constitute 5% of our NAV. Although tariffs may increase input costs for some sectors, they could also lead to higher prices and potentially better returns.
However, increased competition and weaker global growth might weigh on profitability as well. Therefore, we are closely monitoring potential sector-specific impacts to maneuver in the right direction and preserve value for our shareholders. As you know, the ongoing political turbulence in Türkiye has triggered a new wave of volatility in the stock market. Despite this instability, orthodox policies have been maintained, and this inflation program is indicative of the dedication of the economy management to rebuild the confidence. I can easily say that during these volatile times, the economy management was in close contact with us, the leading economic players in the country. Overall, throughout our 100-year history, we have successfully navigated numerous periods of volatility by concentrating on the factors which are within our control and preparing for those that are beyond our control. We have a proven track record of financial and operational resilience.
Our balance sheet strength, combined with our well-diversified portfolio, provides us with a strong foundation to weather the current environment. Yes, based on what we are seeing today, there can be limited impact on our businesses, and our medium-term strategy remains unchanged. We are committed to achieving our midterm guidance, which includes the goal of increasing our capex-to-sales ratio up to 15%-20% over the next five years. We are also focused on accumulating value for our energy generation company by expanding its capacity. Turning to our highlights in the first quarter, Enerjisa Üretim showcased its strong position in the Yeka wind power plant 2024 tender in January, securing the two largest projects with a total capacity of 750 megawatts out of 1,200 megawatt tenders. The 1,000 megawatt capacity awarded in the previous Yeka wind tender is being gradually commissioned.
With Kıvanç Bey, our Enerjisa Group President, I had the chance to visit the construction sites, and I have observed in place the progress of our project. With the completion of ongoing investments and additional capacity, Enerjisa Üretim is planning to reach at least 6,250 megawatts of installed capacity by the end of 2028, solidifying its leadership in Türkiye's private sector electricity generation, in line with our strategy to lead economic growth and sustainability in the country. This quarter also marks a historic milestone for Sabancı Holding. After 21 years of tremendous track record of successfully serving as the Chair of our board, Ms. Güler Sabancı stepped down on March 27 in the General Assembly. Working with her for 26 years has been an invaluable experience and a unique opportunity for me, especially in the last five years as CEO.
Her visionary outlook, principled stance, and foresight have left a significant mark not only on our group but also on the business world in Türkiye. I extend my heartfelt thanks to Güler Sabancı on behalf of myself and our group, and our goal moving forward is to elevate her standard even higher. Today, for the first time, Sabancı Holding is chaired by a career executive, Hayri Bey, from outside of the founding family. This is also a groundbreaking move among major peers and corporates in Türkiye, where family members are shareholders. Following a meticulously planned succession process, the transition of the chairship has been executed with seamless continuity, reflecting the resilience, foresight, and maturity of our governance framework. Additionally, the majority of our newly elected board members are seasoned professionals, another testament to our commitment to international best practices in governance.
Most recently, in line with our strategic priorities, we have conducted an organizational review to bolster the growth of our core businesses and to enhance our focus on investing in new growth platforms. In this restructuring, the Mobility Solutions Group has been discontinued, and Brisa will operate under the Materials Technologies Group. Additionally, we have streamlined our operations under the Digital Group to sharpen our strategic focus specifically on data center investments. This restructuring will enable us to drive growth more effectively across our key businesses and increase operational efficiency further to enhance shareholder value. All in all, the first quarter truly underscored our strategic focus on execution, organizational structure, and corporate governance. Now, let's come to the financials. Our top line increased by 4% in real terms compared to last year, reflecting our resilient portfolio and market positioning.
In non-bank, our EBITDA margin reached 11%, the highest first-quarter EBITDA margin over the past three years, despite tough business environments. Our consolidated net loss narrowed down to TRY 2.9 billion. Excluding monetary loss at the holding level, our non-bank net loss further declined to TRY 874 million. More importantly, I think very critical at the time of volatilities, we also delivered a sharp improvement in our operational cash flow as well and maintained our strong cash position, which provides financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities and navigate through these uncertainties. Our double-digit capex-to-sales ratio and 1.6 times leverage were in line with our midterm guidance, underlining our commitment to invest strategically while maintaining prudent financial discipline. Now, I will hand over to our CFO, Orhun, for further financial. Orhun.
Many thanks, Jake. Again, good morning, good afternoon, everyone. We're very happy to host you in our first-quarter financial results webcast. Before I walk you through our combined and consolidated top-line results, I would like to, as always, give you a background of the environment, at least for the Turkish market, prevailing in the quarter. On page five, on the top left, you see the Turkish PMI index. Obviously, it was not very strong if you look at the past 15 months. Compared to the first quarter of 2024, where the PMI was improving consistently month-to-month, unfortunately, in the first quarter of 2025, we're looking at the PMI decreasing consistently month-to-month.
I think more than its impact on the first quarter, I believe this is an important indicator that we need to continue watching as we look out for the rest of the year for an indication of how the economy can potentially perform for a slowdown or acceleration compared to previous periods of last year. On the top right, you see the CPI change versus the FX basket change. Again, although the gap is getting smaller, the inflation continues to be faster than the devaluation of the FX basket. This is obviously important mainly for our exporting businesses like Akçansa, Çimsa, Brisa, and their continued competitiveness in the market. On the top left, we see the CPI, PPI versus the policy rate. We believe this shows a few things. One, as you see, the inflation is coming down. That's a good thing.
However, as you see in the first quarter of 2024, compared to the policy rate, the inflation was higher. Now, we've come to a period where the policy rate has surpassed the inflation. That's even before we look at the first quarter of 2025, that's before the latest high data. I think going forward, we're looking at now a relatively higher new positive interest rate environment, which is quite important, obviously, for many of our businesses' bottom line. Also, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that this is the start of this year, but that gap has remained. There's a gap between the CPI and PPI, which obviously has an influence on the third tax liability for our companies. As you may recall, the statutory accounting of the statutory accounts comes from PPI, whereas IFRS comes from CPI.
That difference will always result in some third tax calculation. That is also another factor to watch out for the bottom line of our businesses. Finally, on the right bottom corner, you see how the EMF is changing. Now, I'll try to give an essence of not necessarily the magnitude because we could argue that the changes between the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2025 may not be that high. However, I'd like to draw your attention to how those tend to oscillate in relatively small periods of time. Of course, trend-wise, as you see, we were looking at a period where the reference interest rates were coming down as we entered 2025. It was the outlook for the year and the rest of the year.
Now, unfortunately, it has also come up somehow, given the latest also highs in the interest rate. Again, this is an important watch-out for the rest of the year as to how things develop and how that could be influential in the financial performance of our businesses. With that, if we get to the next page, basics, as Jake was indicating, our net revenue on a combined basis has grown by 4% compared to the first quarter of 2024. You see our bank upfront has a very significant contribution to that. The growth was much higher, which also is translated into the net profit performance of the bank and the inflation accounting, whereas you see it has moved from a minus TRY 4.9 billion to close to break-even in the first quarter of 2025.
The bank's performance in this quarter supported our overall performance, especially on the bottom. If you look at the non-bank businesses, we've seen a 5% deceleration in our net revenues. Having said that, we're quite happy with the fact that our operating performance has been somewhat intact. You see the EBITDA, which in absolute terms is almost flat, even in the first quarters of the last three years. The margins have been consistently improving. Between the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, it was about 36 percentage points.
I'm happy to report that the non-bank EBIT margin has also grown from the first quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, about 120 basis points, which obviously is quite important at this time of relative volatility, where we expect to maintain the operating viability and health of our businesses, which we believe could put us in a much better footing when hopefully the macro environment normalizes. Now, with this operating financial discipline approach that we believe translates into good operating results, you also see on page seven that our operating cash flow has increased quite significantly compared to the first quarter of 2025. Of course, you get focus on how we manage working capital across many of our businesses.
It's of course the non-bank part because we believe, especially at these times of volatility, it's quite important to make sure that we manage our cash quite effectively. I'm happy to report that we have been able to do so in the first quarter of 2025. Our return on equity compared to the end of 2024 has somewhat improved, but obviously, we're still in the negative territory given the fact that our bottom line is negative. As you've seen in the previous page, the net profit performance of our non-bank businesses was somewhat limited, only about an 8% improvement compared to the first quarter of last year. Compared to the overall consolidated net profit change, it's about 57%. As I tried to explain, much of that has been contributed by the bank in this quarter.
Now, on the next page, obviously, we believe and we will continue to focus on maintaining a healthy balance sheet. Our net debt to EBITDA on the non-bank side has been at 1.6 times. Obviously, it's increasing year on year as we expand our investment across renewable generation capacity build-up in Türkiye or in the U.S. for acquisition of subsidiaries like Monarch. At this period, obviously, it's a reflection of such growth initiatives. Having said that, as Jake also underlined, we're at 1.6 times, which is below our long-term policy rate, two times. Our cash at holding level was at TRY 18.4 billion. That's before the distribution of dividends. You can safely assume that we maintain the level of cash that was at the end of 2024 after our dividend distribution. On the capex-to-sales for our non-bank businesses, the percentage was at 10%.
Still, we're looking at a double-digit number, slightly slow compared to the first quarter of 2024. However, if we annualize this, we'll still see something about 13%, which is pretty much in line with our midterm guidance that we have shared with you earlier. Basically, the businesses, from an operating point of view, are in good shape, although we are not able to yet deliver net profits. Our net loss has been coming down consistently. Now, on the next slide, again, I will show you the net asset value, which unfortunately is now at more or less the same level of what it was at the end of December 2023, following the recent volatility in the market, with a somewhat expanded discount.
However, what's interesting to note is that our NAV, if you look at the balance of our NAV, obviously, as we have been reporting and advocating that the energy and climate in banking and financial services are almost equal. Again, going forward, just to remind, one of our aims is to make sure that we continue getting to a more balanced NAV share among our key business segments. With this, I'll turn over to Kerem to walk us through the details of each business segment, and then we can talk about the potential questions. Thank you. Kerem.
Thank you, Ömer. Let's begin with the bank. Just a reminder, banking numbers presented on this page are based on the RSA financials as the banks are exempt from the projections.
Akbank started the year in year surplus, supported by dynamic asset liability managements, as paid fee performance, as well as solid treasury management. Despite newly emerged sector-by techniques, including short-term reversal of rate cuts, Akbank has maintained that it has remained committed to enhancing security value and ensures stable profits. Akbank's active customer base reached 14.6 million, up 73% over the last three years, with a 6.1 million net active customer profit. This growth has solidified the bank's market position and set a strong foundation for long-term resilience. Moreover, Akbank's ongoing success in customer position contributed to an improvement in the P/B ratio, which improved by 34 percentage points since 2022, reaching 92%, thanks to an all-time high in chargeable customer base and strong cross-sell.
Having reached a new peak in cleaning market share last year, Akbank recorded an additional 80% gain among private banks as of March, bringing its share to 17.2%. While identifying areas for subsidy growth, Akbank maintained previously risk management and cost control. The bank's coverage ratio for stage 3 loans increased further by 140% to a solid 19.4% amid ongoing risk management. Additionally, with a total capital equity ratio of 17.4% and a tier-one ratio of 18.8%, Akbank continues to maintain a solid capital structure, providing properly against multiple existing challenges, ensuring critical resources for sustainable and profitable growth. Moving on to our largest non-bank segment, energy. In generation business, revenues increased by 21% during 2021, driven by higher generation volumes from last year's surveys. Record that last year's generation volume affected financing activities that are majorly pressurized.
Despite strong supply, the EBITDA margin contracted cleanly due to global contribution from hydrology, reflecting the impact of growth and deeper displacement distribution. While the contribution of trading was lower compared to last year, the bottom line was reasonably affected by other financial expenses, reflected increased debt, and the higher preferred tax expense, related to liquid assets tax incentives. Please also note that combined with the T RY 6 billion in Q1, it does not include significant hedge impacts in this quarter, with less hedges expired by the end of 2024, and the TR and the year started figures do not differ from each other. On distribution and retail business, in the first quarter, Energy and Energy delivered higher EBITDA, supported by OPEX outcomes and higher contribution from both regulated and liberalized retail segments.
However, margin expansion remained limited due to lower financial income compared to last year as a result of global inflation expectation in regards to future economic outcomes. On distribution, the company expects to reach an even growth with its planned CapEx for 2025, exceeding 2024 full-year levels in year terms. Excluding one of the banks, the company disclosed more than double government buying rate income, reflecting significantly reduced monetary losses recorded within the quarter. Energy segment constituted 71% in Sabancı Holding's combined non-bank EBITDA and supported on the margin expansion recorded in the first quarter. On material technology segments, market dynamics, ecosystems, tariff enforcement, and composites notably diverged. In this semantic case, domestic market conditions were challenging, particularly with Akçansa's operating conditions due to adverse weather conditions and external projects.
These factors weighed on local construction activities and resulted in global cement expectations, while pricing remained constrained as inflation continued to outpace the pricing adjustments. That said, the overall performance for Çimsa was more resilient than all the savings it was maintained for domestic operations. Now, the risk reduction also contributed to the operation capacity, which added approximately EUR 13 million to Çimsa's continuity. Meanwhile, lower energy costs and increased alternative grid usage limited the expanded margin contraction in cement conditions. In tariff enforcements, profitability came under the factor due to multiple external factors. These included production suspension in the Indonesia facility, following a flawed float at the beginning of March, ongoing effects on inflation in Türkiye and in the region, which put pressure on TL cross-base, as well as demand and pricing gaps with global tariff violations.
In contrast, composites showed a relatively strong growth in sales to more capital investors. Consequently, segment EBITDA declined by 24% year on year with a 106-margin contract. Despite the strong operation capacity, segment net income increased by 3% year on year, supported by monetary gains, which offset increasing financial and tax expenses. Materials technology segment constitutes 12% of Sabancı Holding's combined non-bank EBITDA, and the hedge itself is supported by gaining a positive bottom line performance. On the mobility solutions segments, in the first quarter, EBITDA margin remained soft due to global profitability in tire business. The commercial vehicle segment improved its performance, doubling its share in segment EBITDA, while tire business remained dominant contributor. In tire business, domestic sales decreased and maintained a similar season compared to last year, while sales in both trends dropped.
Commercial segment developed a dime in both trends parallel to market contraction, while OE was more resilient than the previous weeks. Export volumes slightly increased as Greece increased market share in Europe's global refreshment markets, while OE continued to face pressures in that region. Ongoing shifts toward premium products were also supported for the total sales growth. Pricing conditions remained challenging both for domestic and export markets, affecting inflation mismatch, specifically pressured export prices. On bus operations, payroll sales weeks contributed positively to overall segment margins. At the segment bottom line, in addition to dropping EBITDA, the net growth was driven by increasing financial expenses in tariff business, higher tax expense on bus operation, and global monetary gains on the segment. Mobility solutions constitutes 10% of Sabancı's non-bank EBITDA, with a global contribution compared to last year.
One important point, as of end of April, mobility solutions group structure has been discontinued. This will continue to operations under the material technology group, while bus operations will be structured under energy and climate activities, given the electrification focus of businesses. On the financial services segment, inflation is at the top line, declined by 12% year on year, mainly due to global premium generation in non-life businesses. However, segment EBITDA improved significantly, which was largely driven by life and pension businesses and supported by the increased classification of deferred income from a non-monetary to monetary life business. This increased classification impacted the technical profit of the pension business and offset the impact of monetary losses under inflation accounting. Profitability was also supported by reduced technical reserves in the long-term credit-like products as the RSA contraction shortened long-term share businesses.
Live business also maintained its number one position in gross retail premiums and in among tariff companies and personal expenditure, which continued to grow its asset dynamically, supported by solid premium generation. In non-life, the focus remained on powerful growth through high-margin products, with a strongly promoting capital equity ratio, which recorded a 108%. The product rates continued to shift, with an increased focus on powerful products in each segment. This strategic transition led to a 24% return on premium generation from year on year. The financial services segment's net income distribution was still negative but improved compared to last year, thanks to stronger profitability in the live and pension businesses. Still, monetary losses dragged down bottom line as the issues parallel balance sheets are heavily exposed to monetary excess.
Overall, financial segment constitutes 8% share in Sabancı Holding's combined non-bank EBITDA and was the leading contributor to margin expansion in the first quarter. On this note, in the first quarter, revenues declined by 14% year on year because of last year's high gains, due to strong impact on retail activities, sales volume, and weaker performance in both consumer electronics and IT markets. Despite declining top line, gross margin improved on retail electronics, thanks to better productivity and disciplined promotional activities. Segment EBITDA increased by 30% in the last year, driven by higher contribution from trial as well as managed services and digital transformation projects. Restructuring efforts in SAMP and Revitable have started yielding positive results, while domestic seller position and new customer acquisitions in managed services have further supported.
At the bottom line, a higher net cost was recorded in the first quarter as global financial expenses and higher tax income were not enough to compensate global monetary gains recorded compared to last year. Northern, as of April 30, techno sector continued its operations under strategic and business development. Final result, the segment achieved a 2% year on year top line growth in the first quarter, driven by improvements in alternative channels, despite weakening consumer spending. Strongly, improvements were driven by operational efficiencies. However, the bottom line remained under pressure from higher financial expenses and global monetary gains, resulting in a net growth. Again, as of April 30, Çimsa will also continue their operations under the strategic and business development. With these finalizes, our segments, if you have any questions, please use the Q&A section of the Zoom for your questions. Thank you.
For questions, please use the Q&A section of the Zoom. Thank you. Please use the Q&A section of the Zoom for your questions. Thank you. Yes, we have one question from Cenk. Can you please elaborate on the sanitary investments?
Thank you, Cenk Bey. Let me take that question. As we have mentioned to you in the last call, we are actively working on a couple of projects, both in Türkiye and abroad. Hopefully, you will be hearing from us this year about the data center investments. Our current focus is to well integrate Bulutistan to our managed services business with Sabancı DX. We are quite happy with the integration efforts as of today.
Thank you, Cenk Bey. If there are any further questions, 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. Thanks. It seems like we do not have any further questions. I am now handing over to our CEO, Cenk Bey, for closing remarks.
Yeah, thank you very much for listening to us. It is clear that the environment has changed dramatically since March, both in Türkiye and abroad, and we remain vigilant on assessing the impact of these local and global developments in our businesses. Despite the challenges this environment may pose, we are confident in our strategy, our investment pipeline, and our ability to execute as demonstrated by our portfolio transformation in previous years and balance sheet strength.
We are focused on being agile in the current environment, and I firmly believe that we have the right strategy to deliver higher returns to our shareholders with our strong, highly liquid balance sheet, providing us with a solid foundation for achieving this. Once again, thank you very much and goodbye. Hoping to see you in one-to-one meetings.
Thank you for joining. Thank you and bye for now.