Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Reunert's 2023 year-end results presentation. I'm Alan Dickson, the Group Chief Executive, and together with Nick Thomson, our Group CFO, we'll be presenting our results today. This is a pre-recorded webcast with a live Q&A session immediately after the webcast, where we'll be taking your questions. I'll be taking us through the overview and the key highlights of the year before Nick will unpack the financials, and I'll return with the segment and strategy performances and provide some insight into the new financial year. 2023 has been another positive year of progress for both the financial performance and the strategy execution at Reunert. On the financial front, 2023 delivered a strong segment operating performance, which we continue to consider the best indicator of the true cash and profit-generating capability of the group.
The segment operating profit increased by 28% to ZAR 1.462 billion, and was driven by strong performances in both the applied electronics and the electrical engineering segments. This segment operating profit flowed through the income statement and yielded a 14% growth in profit for the year to ZAR 959 million, and this delivered a headline earnings per share growth of 16% to ZAR 6.02 per share. Importantly, and after a period of significant global supply chain complexity during and after COVID, the group's efforts in unwinding some of the necessary investment we'd made into working capital in the prior years was successful.
This generated a very pleasing free cash flow of nearly ZAR 1.3 billion, and has resulted in the group now holding nominally the correct levels of working capital for the size of our business. Strategically, Reunert's 3 key growth initiatives, which are the expansion of our ICT segment capabilities, the investment into our renewable energy ecosystem, and the increase in non-South African revenue streams, all proceeded on track this year. Our renewable energy cluster's revenue grew and exceeded ZAR 1 billion for the first time, and the cluster's key strategic imperatives of increasing the ownership of solar energy assets, or BOOs, as we call them, and sales of large containerized storage solutions, or iESS, both made solid progress during the year. Our ICT segment's objective to build a leading digital integration solution provider made significant progress in 2023.
The segment acquired a cybersecurity capability into + One X, and the country's leading independent technology and management consulting company, IQbusiness, was acquired in July. Our international revenues grew materially this year as the worst of the COVID impact on the defense businesses diminished and our Zambian power cable operation continued to grow and benefit from a more stable and business political environment in Zambia. This resulted in good growth in our Africa exports, and our defense businesses delivered a significant growth in revenue and, importantly, entered 2024 with a record order book. While not a strategic initiative per se, an important enabler for our strategy is ensuring that the necessary funding is available to invest into these strategic growth initiatives.
The group enhanced its financial capacity in 2023, and together with converting our traditional short-term, uncommitted facilities into long-term, committed facilities, the group secured non-recourse external funding for Quince. This enables Quince to release Reunert's investment from the low-yielding loan book and make it available to be deployed into the group's other higher-yielding strategic and organic growth opportunities. The good growth in both profit and cash flow have created increased shareholder returns this year. This is evidenced by an improved quality of earnings as the group increased its return on capital employed to 17.4%, as measured on a like-for-like basis of the prior year. In addition, the group's total shareholder return reflected a 47% growth in 2023, and if we go back and look over the past three years, total shareholder return has grown by a CAGR of 34%.
Pleasingly, the profit and the cash generation has enabled the group to increase the dividends return to shareholders by 11.1% to ZAR 3.32 per share. To unpack the year's financial numbers in more detail, I'll now hand over to Nick to take us through the financial performance of the year.
Good morning to all the webcast participants. We are very pleased to be able to share these very positive results for the year ended September 30th 2023, despite a persistently tough South African macroeconomic backdrop and ongoing global uncertainty. The results presented in these slides are summarized extracts from the 2023 audited consolidated annual financial statements, which are available in full from Reunert's website under the Investor Center tab. For context, these results must be viewed against a September year-on-year contraction in South African GDP of 0.1% and 8% growth in gross domestic fixed investment off a low base. GDFI, which we consider to be a good proxy for expected demand levels in the electrical engineering segment, is still some 7% lower in real terms than in 2017.
Recent economic analysis published by Econometrix reflects that despite inventory levels increasing back to levels reflective of pre-COVID activity, and supply chain disruptions having largely subsided, South African manufacturing output remains at 91% of pre-COVID levels. In addition, commodity prices in 2023 remained under pressure in dollar terms due to weaker global demand. Consequently, metal prices and rands remained relatively in line with those of the previous year, despite the weakening of the rand. Average copper prices in 2023 were ZAR 153,000 per ton, as against ZAR 145,000 per ton in 2022, a 5.5% increase. This means that substantially most of the increase in revenue in the electrical engineering segment is from an increase in volumes and improved mix, and not as a result of the pass-through of metal price increases.
Against these background factors, we are very pleased to report that group revenue increased by 23% or ZAR 2.6 billion for the year, as can be seen from the extreme right column on the bar graph. This performance was driven by a 14% or ZAR 893 million increase in the segmental revenue of electrical engineering, due to improved performance at both the South African and Zambian cable power factories and a consistent year-on-year performance at the circuit breaker business. ICT segmental revenue increased by 18% or ZAR 465 million, due in part to the acquisition of IQbusiness, which was consolidated for the last quarter, and the continued revenue growth in all other clusters in the segment, except for the communication cluster, where in line with the major mobile operators, minutes across the network came under pressure.
The Applied Electronics segment achieved a stellar year-on-year revenue increase of 51% or ZAR 1.2 billion. This increase was the result of the delivery into substantial defense orders, the high demand for renewable energy solutions, including storage and the acquisition of Etion Create. These segmental performance have resulted in 52% of revenue being earned from the electrical engineering segment, 22% from the applied electronics segment, and 26% from the ICT segment. From a group perspective, this is an improved revenue mix, well-aligned to our growth strategy, particularly when compared to the mix achieved over the last several years, where the revenue contribution was more concentrated from the electrical engineering and ICT segments.
Turning to the next slide, which depicts segment operating profit, it is important to note that the segment operating profit is the profit derived by each segment before all non-recurring items, including IFRS-driven profit impacts, such as fair value remeasurements. In the annual financial statements, a full reconciliation of segment operating profit can be found under the segmental analysis towards the back of the financial statements. Accordingly, segment operating profit, in the view of the executive management, the appropriate starting point to assess the sustainable profit generation of each segment, as it is the closest measure to pure sales revenue, less all the true costs of operating, including depreciation. Total segmental operating profit increased by 28% or ZAR 322 million.
This represents an improvement of 5% above the overall revenue increase of 23%, reflecting the positive operating leverage achieved, particularly in the Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics segments. The Electrical Engineering segment's operating profit increased by 27% or ZAR 116 million due to the improved throughput and sales mix of the power cable factories. The ICT segment only achieved an overall segment growth in operating profit of ZAR 16 million. As will be seen from the segmental performance that Alan will shortly take us through, this segment has been adversely affected by the impacts of load shedding, high interest rates, and the low growth environment, which has been the most felt in the communication cluster. Applied Electronics' contribution to the segment operating profit increased by 163% or ZAR 268 million.
This was achieved through the substantially increased levels of throughput as the record defense orders were successfully executed, augmented by the inclusion of Etion Create for the full year and the strong demand for renewable energy and battery storage solutions. The result of the significant increase in the operating profit is that the group's return on capital employed, calculated on a similar basis to the prior year, increased from 16.1%- 17.4%. For those webcast participants who would like to better understand the contribution of Etion Create and IQbusiness to the group's revenue and profit after tax, I draw your attention to Note 28 of the annual financial statements, which sets out details of these businesses' revenue and profit after tax, pre and post the impact of the amortization of purchased intangibles or so-called purchase accounting.
This next slide shows the reconciliation of segment operating profit to the operating profit before the impairment of financial assets, which ties into the associated line in the statement of profit or loss. The reconciliation starts with the segment operating profit just discussed. The major items adjusted for are: at item one on the slide, this reflects the net ZAR 56 million fair value remeasurements, arising mainly from the group's put and related Lumika call for the balance of the 72% shareholding the group held in Terra Firma, the group's solar subsidiary, where the shares could be put to Lumika for a pre-agreed selling price denominated in U.S. dollars. Lumika, in turn, held a call option to call these shares, which fell away on the exercise of the put by Reunert.
These put and the call options were both considered to be derivative instruments under IFRS 9, and have had to be remeasured at each reporting date, up to the date of being exercised. The put was triggered in June 2023 for execution, with effect from the end of September 2023, and the call therefore fell away in June. The net remeasurement of the put and call for the period up to the effective date of the put and the date the call fell away, was a ZAR 58 million gain. This gain largely arose due to the fixed exercise price for Terra Firma's shares, which was denominated in US dollars, and the weakening of the rand against the US dollar from the date of the put and call were written to the exercise date.
Item three on the slide relates to the follow-on consequences of the Terra Firma put having been exercised. The exercise of the put has resulted in Terra Firma being de-recognized as a subsidiary, as the group no longer has management control over Terra Firma, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Lumika, the group's renewable energy joint venture with A.P. Moller Capital. This de-recognition required that all of the assets and liabilities of Terra Firma be de-recognized from the consolidated statement of financial position, together with the cumulative value of the related put and call. This de-recognition was then measured against the external proceeds received for effectively 50% of the subsidiary, which proceeds amounted to ZAR 141 million. This treatment resulted in an accounting loss of ZAR 33 million arising on the disposal of Terra Firma.
As the group's policy is to hold its investment in its investments in joint ventures at original cost, plus equity accounted earnings, net of dividends received, the group has not recognized the increase in value in its investment in Lumika, implicit in the fact that Lumika now holds 100% of Terra Firma. Going back to item two on the slide, this refers to insurance income received of ZAR 44 million. This was received as a part settlement of the group's COVID claim under its business interruption policy. The insurance claims for the COVID interruption, which are per segment, have been finalized by the group finance team and have been assessed by the appointed loss adjuster.
The final claims are now with the insurers for assessment, but as the claims are extremely technically complicated, it will be some time before the insurer's position regarding these claims will be finally determined. The net results of these fair value and other adjustments, together with the elimination of the results of equity accounted investments, which are incorporated in the segment operating profit, but reflected below operating profit in the statement of profit or loss, is that the 28% increase in segment operating profit reduces to a 24% increase in operating profit before impairment of financial assets, as per the statement of profit or loss. This next slide is the summarized consolidated statement of profit or loss.
We have discussed the main drivers of the 24% increase in revenue, the 28% increase in segment operating profit, and how this reduces to a 24% increase in operating profit before impairment of financial assets. Reunert has not been unscathed by the tightening economic conditions, and as you can see at Note 1, these difficult trading conditions have resulted in an increase in credit impairments of ZAR 91 million. This is a substantial change over the prior year, where there was a release from credit impairments of ZAR 5 million.
In the current year, the forward-looking requirements of IFRS 9 have resulted in the expected credit loss allowance against Quince's rental receivable and loan book increasing by ZAR 25 million to the half year, and then by a further ZAR 23 million for the last six months of the 2023 year, to end the financial year at ZAR 131 million or 5.3% of the book. In 2022, the ECL was 4.3% of the book. However, positively, the actual credit loss experiences at Quince for the year remained very low at ZAR 18 million, of which ZAR 12 million was against the residual Pan Polokwane book. In 2022, the credit losses were ZAR 40 million, with ZAR 36 million against the residual Pan Polokwane book.
In other words, against the Nashua franchise channel, the actual write-offs were ZAR 6 million in the current year and ZAR 4 million in the prior year. The Pan Polokwane book remains fully provided for. During the year, the group increased its ECL against its trade receivables by ZAR 22 million and wrote off credit-impaired debtors of a further ZAR 21 million directly to this income statement. The year-end ECL against trade receivables amounted to ZAR 155 million versus ZAR 165 million in the prior year. Notwithstanding these credit impairments, which total ZAR 91 million for the year, the group achieved an operating profit of ZAR 1.4 billion, which is 16% up on that of the prior year.
At note two, the group's interest expense increased from ZAR 84 million in 2022- ZAR 171 million in 2023, due to three factors: the funding arrangements for the various acquisitions undertaken during the year. Secondly, the 200 basis point increase in interest rates during the year, and the fact that the majority of 2022 was at interest rates of 6%, as against the interest rate of 7.4% at the end of 2022. And three, the high levels of working capital required in support of the group's revenue growth during the year. As supply chains normalized, and as inflation and scarcity pricing and component prices stabilized, the group was able to reduce its working capital investment in the last quarter of the year, down to ZAR 7 million for the year.
Going forward, the group expects to invest approximately 18% of absolute revenue growth into working capital. This is in line with the group's rate of working capital investment pre-COVID. Note three reflects the impact of the group no longer holding any investment in its previous joint venture, CBi- Electric Telecom Cables. This business was sold while under business rescue, and all credit to compromise amounts due to the group, including all of its post business rescue funding, was fully settled before the year end. Positively, the business is now in the hands of a European industrialist who's opened up new markets for the business, for the business, and the 300+ jobs in the business have been saved.
The impact of all of these items discussed is a 14% increase in profit for the year, which translates into an 11% increase in earnings per ordinary share, due to the allocation of attributable earnings between Reunert shareholders and the minority shareholders, and a 16% increase in headline earnings per share. This next slide reflects the group's statement of financial position, which continues to reflect the group's financial strength, with some of the movements over the prior year reflecting the start of the outcome of the work done on the group's capital structure over the last 12 months. In a later slide, we will deal with the changes in the group's capital structure. The breakdown on the right-hand side of the slide reflects the impact of the various activities undertaken during the year on both the group's assets and its liabilities.
These activities resulted in an approximate ZAR 1.7 billion increase in assets and liabilities during the year under review. The major movements resulting in the ZAR 1.7 billion increase in assets are: One, a 341 million increase in cash on hand resulting from the cash generation during the year. Two, a ZAR 1.4 billion increase in assets arising from the various acquisitions concluded, and particularly that of Etion Create and IQbusiness. Three, a ZAR 368 million increase in working capital assets arising from the significant revenue growth. These were offset by a reduction in total assets of ZAR 759 million due to the derecognition of Terra Firma, due to its sale to Lumika.
Correspondingly, the group's equity and liabilities increased by ZAR 440 million in retained earnings and other movements in equity, net of the final 2022 dividend and 2023 interim dividend paid. Secondly, the various liabilities of ZAR 674 million taken on through the acquisitions. Thirdly, the reduction in liabilities of ZAR 613 million due to the derecognition of Terra Firma on its sale to Lumika. The increase in trade and other working capital liabilities reflective of the group's growth of ZAR 332 million, and lastly, long-term borrowings raised of ZAR 1.1 billion. As the group has now introduced longer-term debt, gearing on a gross basis amounted to 14.36% at the year-end.
But on a net cash on hand basis, which is in line with the financial covenants, the group remains ungeared. The group's strong balance sheet has enabled it to secure significant longer term funding, which will enable the execution of the group's strategy and the continued investment into both expansionary and replacement capital, and to meet its working capital requirements. We continue to be disciplined in our approach to capital allocation. This slide depicts an analysis of the group's cash flows for the year and reflects a very healthy free cash flow generation of ZAR 1.3 billion. This represents free cash flow generation at the level of 331% of profit after tax, and a cash conversion rate of 70% of EBITDA.
Starting at the first blue bar on the right-hand side graph, the group generated just under ZAR 1.9 billion in cash from operations. Pleasingly, only ZAR 7 million in cash was needed to be invested into working capital by the year end. This resulted in the group's improved free cash flow of ZAR 1.255 billion, as compared to the ZAR 671 million in the prior year, an increase of 87% in actual free cash flow generation. All investing activities were matched by appropriate financing activities, resulting in net cash of ZAR 1.3 billion in cash being generated for the year. The main investing activities related to the various acquisitions undertaken, of which the two largest were IQbusiness and Etion Create, which resulted in a cash investment of ZAR 631 million.
The group also advanced ZAR 139 million to Lumika and invested a further net ZAR 113 million in Quince's rental and loan book during the year. The financing activities mainly centered around the new group long-term banking facilities of ZAR 1.1 billion and the ZAR 288 million raised in Terra Firma while it was still a subsidiary to fund the build, own, and operate solar plant program.
Turning to the graph on the left-hand side of the slide, the group started the year with net cash of ZAR 359 million, and after the cash paid out for the dividends of ZAR 505 million, being the final twenty 2022 dividend and the interim twenty 2023 dividend, adding in the net cash generated for the year of ZAR 1.3 billion, the group ended the year with net cash on hand of ZAR 1.2 billion. The dividends for the year are covered 2.3 times by the group's free cash flow for the year. The group has continued to invest in its asset base in line with the strategic objective of renewable energy investments, communication cluster infrastructure network investments...
maintaining the fabric of the group's core assets, and the capacity expansion into the South African power cables and the fuse factory, where demand has increased and prospects remain positive. Accordingly, as can be seen from the slide, the group invested a total of ZAR 355 million into capital assets in the 2023 financial year. This is largely in line with the group's depreciation and amortization of ZAR 325 million for the year. During the 2023 year, the group finance and corporate finance teams worked hard, together with the group's relationship banks, to put into place appropriate facilities that both de-risked the group and provided it with significantly enhanced financial capacity for the execution of the group's strategy. In the past, the group relied primarily on uncommitted short-term facilities.
With the group's increasing exposure to debt as it invests into its strategic growth initiatives, it was considered more appropriate to implement a longer-term funding plan comprising of committed facilities. Part of the process was to ensure the group could draw down on the group's ZAR 1.4 billion shareholder funding, which currently finances Quince's rental and receivable book, without any restrictions on how this cash returned could be applied, and without any recourse to the Reunert balance sheet beyond Quince itself. All these processes are now complete, with the group funding fully implemented by the end of the financial year. The new funding arrangements in Quince were finalized in early November 2023 and are now active. The extent and duration of these facilities is as set out on the table on the slide, with the total facilities raised amounting to ZAR 3.1 billion.
The group can now confidently draw down its cash from the lower-yielding rental book in Quince and invest the cash returned into the group's higher-yielding opportunities in line with the strategy. My thanks go to the lead arrangers who guided us through this process and to all our relationship banks for their active participation in the process. With our strong balance sheet, our significant banking facilities, our continued positive cash generation capacity, and our new ability to return funds from Quince to reinvest into higher yield, higher-yielding opportunities, we are well positioned to execute our strategy and to continue to generate positive cash returns for our shareholders. With that, I will hand back to Alan to take us through the segmental results, the group's strategy, and the group's prospects for 2024. Thank you.
Thanks, Nick. Nick has already covered the relative financial movements in our segment revenue and operating profit, so I'm going to focus on the reasons for the 2023 performance and provide some insight into the 2024 prospects. Our segments all delivered positive segment operating profit growth in 2023, despite facing the South African economic challenges that Nick referred to in his section. In our view, it highlights the quality of the group's assets, the strength of the management teams, and the positive strategic positioning of Reunert. In our electrical engineering segment, it delivered another year of very pleasing financial growth, as the power cable and circuit breaker businesses delivered good results. The power cable volumes increased in both Zambia and South Africa as the companies benefited from a slightly improved electrical infrastructure investment environment in both countries.
The circuit breaker business experienced good product volumes and sales in South Africa and in most of their export markets, with the exception of the USA, where destocking by certain customers post-COVID reduced the volumes for the first three quarters of the year. These volumes sold by the segment were augmented by an improved margin performance. The power cable companies delivered an improved product mix, where in South Africa, several large cable contracts were secured, which command better margins, while in Zambia, the company had a greater percentage of higher-margin cable sales compared to the lower-margin copper rod sales. The higher power cable factory loading also increased operational efficiencies, which, together with the improved product mix described above, led to a better set of margins being delivered by the cable companies.
At the circuit breaker company, their supply chain improved as management was successful in reducing many of the COVID-related costs, and they benefited from the positive impact of the price increases that were implemented in the prior year. The electrical engineering companies remain well positioned, as the overall infrastructure investment in South Africa is predicted to increase slightly again in 2024. The investment in renewable energy is already in place and will continue, while South Africa's need to invest in both logistics and water infrastructure, both which have large power requirements, looks set to increase as the private sector participation in these sectors seems destined to be allowed. Importantly, good orders on hand exist in both cable companies that carry them into the new financial year. The temporary dip in our U.S. circuit breaker exports has been alleviated, and the orders resumed in quarter four of 2023.
In addition, the company's investment into their new products and their IoT energy management range Astute bolster the product demand of circuit breakers. Similar to the cables companies, they entered the new financial year with positive orders on hand, both locally and in all key export geographies. The growth in the financial performance for the segment is, however, likely to be biased towards the second half of the year, as the large cable contracts, which bolster both revenue and operating profit, are only scheduled for delivery in this period. The ICT segment has had a challenging year in 2023, as the segment's key small and medium enterprise customer base came under increased pressure due to the weakening South African macroeconomic conditions. The segment's profitability was negatively impacted by three key matters.
Firstly, the country's record load shedding severely disrupted the segment's SME customer base and reduced the voice minutes sold by ECN by 17%, as their customers could not make calls. In addition, the load shedding increased the internal costs necessary for our companies to meet their customer expectations, and specifically, SkyWire's last mile infrastructure required increased maintenance and investment to overcome the extended periods without grid power. Secondly, the segment operating profit was impacted by the government's decision to place the South African Post Office into business rescue, which resulted in a large once-off loss at Nashua. And finally, the segment operating profit was impacted by the sale of ZAR 250 million of the Quince loan book in the prior year, which was used to fund the acquisition of Etion Create, and resulted in both lower earnings and lower interest earned.
While the loss of Quince earnings negatively impacted the ICT segment, they did result in improved earnings and improved returns in the Applied Electronics segment, where the results for Etion Create are reported. While these three factors impacted the ICT segment's profitability, it was encouraging that revenue increased in the year. At Nashua, the easing of the OEM supply challenges and the good work done in prior years in introducing multiple brands, has opened new market segments and supported robust print volumes and revenues. Their complementary offering revenues also continued to grow, supported by a good take-up of the renewable energy and storage solutions that Nashua offers. In the business communications cluster, the last-mile broadband connectivity solutions, which offer a carrier-grade alternative to fiber optic, continued to have a strong market uptake, and SkyWire national network yielded a good growth in both revenue and operating profit in 2023.
The rental finance company's loan book grew by 5.1% to just over ZAR 2.5 billion this year, and exhibited resilient collections despite the challenging economic conditions. Importantly, the actual bad debts remained at a low level. Nick has already described the increase in the ECL, which leaves the book well-provisioned for the current economic conditions. Finally, the solutions and systems integration cluster grew strongly as +OneX's expanded offerings continued to be well-received by its enterprise market, and the addition of IQbusiness for the final quarter of the year added to the cluster's positive financial contribution.
The segment's strategic diversification actions continued to deliver good results, and Nashua's complementary revenues, sold by their channel, achieved a five-year CAGR of 19% and has now reached nearly ZAR 650 million in revenue, all of which has franchise fees attached to it and forms a critical component of their strategy going forward. The solutions and systems integration cluster's value offering place them as a leading digital integration service provider to South Africa's large customer and enterprise market. The relevance of their offering is evidenced by the growth in new customers, the breadth of their offering, and the increased revenue, which grew by a further 28% in 2023. After a tough year, it's expected that the challenging South African macroeconomic environment will not materially improve in the first half of 2024.
This will continue to place pressure on our customers and the ICT segment. It is hoped that the predicted improvement in load shedding and the GDP growth will materialize in 2024, and when it does, this will ease the pressure on both the South African business environment, and that will aid the segment. Looking forward, the growth of the traditional core of the segment is underpinned by Nashua's robust print offering and their complementary sales growth, while the finance book should grow as channel sales accelerate. This traditional core will be augmented by the new solutions and systems integration cluster that will benefit from a full year of + One X's new acquisitions, their continued growth in market share, and the addition of IQ Business for a full 12 months, which will add impetus and contribute positively to the segment's growth for 2024.
The Applied Electronics segment had an excellent year, as defense revenue reached a multi-year high, and the demand for the segment's renewable energy products and solutions remained positive. In our defense businesses, the order books had returned to an appropriate level during 2022, and we entered 2023 in a positive position. The management teams performed well and delivered an excellent performance as they executed these orders, created operational leverage, and delivered a strong year-on-year improvement in financial performance at the radar, the fuse, and the encryption business. This was bolstered further by the results of Etion Create, which was acquired into the group with effect from the first of October 2022, and delivered a very pleasing first year in the group, and contributed materially to both the segment's revenue and operating profit. The management teams proactively managed the key challenges that impacted our local operations.
The key inhibitors of prior year's performance, specifically export permits and the supply chain, were effectively managed this year, and the investment into strategic stock was utilized to meet complex customer expectations. Together with the increased revenues that the segment generated, margins also improved, as the higher volumes enabled enhanced operational efficiencies, and a good product mix was supported by a foreign exchange rate that weakened to an average of just over 18 rand to the dollar, where in the prior year it was closer to 16 rand to the dollar. One of the primary defense business' key initiatives is to expand our markets internationally, and pleasingly, this year, significant progress was made in both the European and the Middle Eastern markets. The access into these geographies has been entrenched, as several long-term orders were secured in both our traditional and the new markets that we've secured in these geographies.
In addition, the local defense market showed a mild improvement, and our mining radar products experienced a record year as we sold significant product into South America and Asia. The global geopolitical uncertainty continues to support the sale of our defense solutions and products, and we believe this is going to continue through the medium term into the longer term. The high-quality products and IP that the segment possess are much sought after, and this is reflected in another record order book position as we enter 2024. The segment has more than a 75% order coverage for 2024, and several businesses, specifically fuses, already have orders into 2025. The group invested CapEx into the fuse factory this year, which, when complete in December 2023, will improve operational efficiencies and increase the volume that the company can manufacture.
These order books position the defense business well for an improved financial performance in 2024. It should be noted that the customer requirements indicate that the growth expectation is likely to be weighted towards the second half of the year, when a greater portion of the customer's deliveries are required. In our renewable energy cluster, the positive market growth conditions continued, and the cluster increased its revenues by 24% to ZAR 1.1 billion. This growth was assisted by the record levels of load shedding that drove the sales of residential and small commercial batteries, and secondly, by the private sector investment into solar energy solutions, which are increasingly providing a real alternative to the expensive and unreliable grid power.
In the first half of the year, the demand for our solar solutions was biased towards EPC projects rather than our preferred BOO assets, and this has resulted in a build rate for 2023 in our solar company, largely in line with the prior year. The expansion of this renewable energy market has, somewhat predictably, led to a notable increase in competition this year, both in terms of an increase in the number of competitive products and in the pursuit of the skilled human resources required to operate the businesses. This has led to some margin compression, firstly, at the storage solutions, and this is due to the commoditization of the residential and small commercial products that is occurring, and secondly, in the solar business in some sectors of the market.
Just as a reminder, at our Capital Markets Day earlier this year, we shared the fact that the South African renewable energy market is estimated to grow by ZAR 90 billion over the next 5 years at around about a 30% compound annual growth rate, and we believe our renewable energy ecosystem is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth opportunity. The solar company has transitioned from its entrepreneurial management, and the new leadership team has invested well into the human resources and systems needed to drive our strategic aspirations on the ownership of solar BOO assets. This has resulted in a meaningful improvement in the second half of the year, and the company now owns 57 megawatts of operating, work in progress, and near financial close EPC assets, and has a strong pipeline for more projects.
While load shedding is predicted to reduce next year, which is likely to lower market activity in the residential and small commercial market segments, and this will reduce the storage company's sales of these products, the overall cluster's primary target market is the C&I space. The momentum in this segment is driven by load shedding, but more by the liberalization of energy generation, and this is expected to continue into the medium term, and is evidenced by the fact that our solar order book is full for the first half of the next year. On the strategic front, Reunert's strategic initiatives remained on track this year. The ICT segment's growth strategy has traditionally been underpinned by + One X. The acquisition of IQbusiness significantly bolsters the cluster and the aspirations of the segment.
The two companies' value offerings are strongly complementary, and synergies exist across business development, technical skills, and client coverage. IQbusiness has integrated well into Reunert in its first quarter, and the strategic focus of the cluster is to expand joint client value propositions to offer technology services, insights, consulting, solutions, and managed services to a wider client base. Pleasingly, this has already yielded success, as a closure of a key corporate joint opportunity has already been achieved in the first quarter. The expanded solutions and systems integration clusters capability positions the ICT segment to be the leading provider of digital integration solutions, and this cluster is expected to grow at better rates than the remaining ICT clusters. In our renewable energy ecosystem, the joint venture with A.P. Moller Capital in our solar business was completed prior to the year-end.
This has the impact of deconsolidating the earnings from our solar business going forward, but delivers shareholder alignment as we drive our aspiration to build a meaningful solar BOO asset in the C&I space. In line with this aspiration, our BOO portfolio grew this year, as described in the segment review, and now constitutes a de-risked, diversified portfolio of 87 plants with a total effective investment of ZAR 352 million. The debt portion of this portfolio is ZAR 159 million, which constitutes an average debt-to-equity ratio of 60/40, and will increase over time as more debt is injected into these projects. The EBITDA from this portfolio has grown nicely and was up 39% over the prior year, and will continue to grow meaningfully as the new plants are energized and the pipeline is converted.
Our storage business at BlueNova Energy doubled in 2023, and the efficiencies derived from the move into a single facility have been meaningful. While we do expect a slowdown in the residential and small commercial batteries next year, the primary strategy of the storage business remains in the large containerized storage solutions. Importantly, this market is expected to continue to grow, and it will form the core of the future storage market for BlueNova Energy. At our winning company, Apollo, it has become clear that a majority of the IPP energy supply that will be wheeled into the market is projected only to be available from late 2025 onwards, primarily due to the Eskom grid constraints. Importantly, Apollo has secured a small pilot supply and signed the corresponding PPAs to allow revenue to flow in late 2024.
The cluster continues to grow pleasingly, and in 2023 delivered an EBITDA of ZAR 77 million. The country's investment into renewable energy will also have a positive spin-off for our power cables business. The imminent creation of an independent national transmission company, spun out from Eskom, will trigger an investment into the upgrade of the country's transmission network. This initiative has been articulated in Eskom's Transmission Development Plan, or TDP, and has been endorsed by the presidency. The TDP requires over 14,000 kilometers of new transmission grid, which will require a multi-billion ZAR investment in new ACSR cable over a 10-year period, and will be a significant benefit to the local cable industry and into our operation. The group's internationalization aspirations have been a strategic imperative since the new group strategy was first adopted in 2015.
The strategy is primarily focused on the applied electronics and electrical engineering segments, and takes the group's IP and products to geographies where we have a key strategic competitive advantage. Over this period, the group's international revenues have grown steadily from just about ZAR 1 billion, and this year increased by 20% to over ZAR 4 billion, driven primarily by global defense and Zambia's improving economy. The group has wholly owned subsidiaries in Australia, the USA, UAE, and India, and will shortly open more offices. These physical presences entrench our market position and enable us to meet the specific requirements of our in-country customers. The growth in these revenues is underpinned by a robust defense revenue and increasing exports of circuit breakers and power cables.
These initiatives will continue to grow our international revenues, and together with the other strategic growth initiatives that I've described, give Reunert income streams that are decoupled from the general South African macro environment, and provide a strong underpin for Reunert's investment case. In conclusion then, ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased with the financial, operational and strategic performance of Reunert in 2023, which delivered increased value for shareholders. Reunert will continue to face the risks associated with the general South African macroeconomic environment, which we do not expect to materially improve in the first half of the year, and will continue to place some pressure on our key customer segments.
Despite these challenges, the group is well positioned through its solid positioning in the electrical engineering segment, through the incorporation of IQbusiness in the ICT segment for a full 12 months, through the continued growth and investment into our renewable energy businesses, and through the record defense order books that we have to deliver growth in the financial performance for 2024. As we mentioned in the segment reviews, the timing of these defense deliveries and the large cable contracts do bias this growth in 2024 towards the second half of the year. But our belief remains that Reunert's investment case is a compelling opportunity for shareholders. Thank you for your interest this morning, and we'll now open the floor for questions.
Good morning, ladies and gents, and thank you for joining us today at the presentation of Reunert 2023 results. Just again, a quick, you will know who we are, but it's Nick and myself as the CFO and CEO, who will be answering your questions today, and we're in the live Q&A portion of it. Just by way of organization this morning, I'll read the questions and then direct either Nick or myself to provide the answer. If you'd like to send some additional questions, we do already have three questions, which we'll take you through in just a moment, but if you'd like to add any questions, please do so in the Questions tab on the left-hand side of your screen.
You're welcome to enter them into that, and we'll then read out the question, and then, like I said, direct it to either Nick or myself. So the first two questions that have come in both come from Charles House of Bataleur Capital. I'll read the questions out one by one and answer them before continuing on with the second question. So the first question relates to the ECL in Quince, and the question is: The substantial credit impairment had a material impact on earnings. Are you satisfied that the loan book is sufficiently provided for, and that the credit provision for FY 2024 will be improved versus the FY 2023 year period? And Nick will provide us with the answer for that.
... Good morning, everybody. It's a great question, and I guess Alan and I both wish we had the perfect crystal ball to be able to, to answer the question with. What we can say is that the methodology that we use is completely consistent with prior years and consistent with IFRS 9, and that this is a key audit area that the auditors spend a lot of time and attention on, to ensure that the provisions that we raise or the ECLs that we raise are, are appropriate. And I... You know, when one looks at the income statement, it has had a material impact on earnings this year, the ZAR 91 million charge. But I think one has to understand that that's got two components to it.
First of all, there is, as the question outlines, there is the impact of the ECLs provided on the rental and loan book at Quince. And then the second portion of the charge on the income statement comes from what I would call the normal provision for bad debts in old-fashioned terminology, for trade debtors and trade receivables across the rest of the group. If one wants to go and have a look at the detail of this, it's quite clearly set out in Notes 12 and Notes 13 of the annual financial statement. But again, just to put it in perspective, there's approximately ZAR 3 billion worth of trade receivables and ZAR 2.3 billion worth of loan and rental receivables in the Quince book.
Looking at the Quince book, the ECL was increased quite substantially in the current year by ZAR 48 million, half of it through the first half of the year and half in the second half of the year, and that was driven really by two things: a slight extension in days outstandings for the current portion of the book, and that obviously then drives the mechanistic methodology within IFRS 9 to increase your provision.
And then secondly, we spent a lot of time with our credit agencies, understanding where they feel that there is risk in sectors of the economy, and we then analyze our rental book in terms of those sectors, and then do a management overlay, in respect of those sectors where the credit bureaus believe that there could be some stress in the years ahead. And that's a requirement in terms of IFRS 9. And that, this year, added some ZAR 26 million to the total provision required beyond just what the debtor movement did. And again, if one looks at prior years, there are approximately three sectors that we looked at last year, and this year that increased to nine.
And then I think probably the greatest comfort I can give you is that if one looks at the actual credit write-off in the current year, we wrote off ZAR 6 million in the 2023 financial year against a book of ZAR 2.3 billion. And then when one looks at the trade debtors, which is the balance of the provision, where we wrote off ZAR 43 million in the income statement, that as a percentage of the revenue is a very low percentage. And our debtor books are very well controlled at each of the business units, and the provision represents their understanding of what is likely to need to be impaired or written off over the next 12 months, which exists at the balance sheet date.
So from our perspective, we're very comfortable that we've applied the methodologies appropriately and that we've accounted for the answer to the methodologies. But obviously, should economic circumstances in South Africa become much better, then there should be a release from certainly the ECL at Quince. But of course, if they become far worse than they currently are, if interest rates continue to stay high for a longer period, there may be future adjustments, but that'll be based on the events of future years. Thanks, Alan.
Thanks, Nick. Thank you. I hope that answers that, Charles. The second part of your question, Charles, which also deals with Khosie Rahubie question from Melville Douglas, is: Can we quantify the large once-off loss relating to the South African Post Office? We'll have a go at it. The credit impairment, so that was the actual impairment that we took through the income statement for effectively the day that it went into business rescue, was around about ZAR 15 million. And then the... We obviously then lose the ongoing revenue and operating profit associated with the contract for the remainder of the year between the period that it went into business rescue and the end of the year, and that was about a further nearly ZAR 5 million.
In total, it was around about a ZAR 20 million hit that we took through the income statement on the back of that movement of SAPO into business rescue by the government. The next question comes from Ryan Rajatan from MIBFA. He is quoting here, which these things come back to bite you from time to time. "I am famous for saying that Eskom is my best salesman, but the salesman seems to be improving. With a two-year view, is the residential market somewhat tapped out, given those homeowners who can afford it have mostly done so?" So we did talk about this in the presentation, and I can, I'm happy to expand a little bit on that. So we...
If I look, the biggest impact that I believe we're going to face is going to be in the residential and small commercial energy storage or batteries at the BlueNova Energy company. In the year that's gone and even a little bit of 2022, they were certainly a large portion of the growth in that business as small businesses, homeowners, and the like, all looked to find battery backup storage during particularly the record load shedding that we had during FY 2023. As we've indicated in the presentation, there is two things happening there. One, there's a fair amount of commoditization that's taking place in that market, and second, as you've indicated, it's quite sensitive to load shedding. So when load shedding decreases, and we anticipate that load shedding will decrease next year, the sales of those products come under pressure.
So we would argue, particularly in the storage business, we are not expecting the same level of performance in those residential and small commercial batteries in the 2024 year. We don't expect them to cease completely, but we don't expect the same level of activity in that market going forward. If we then look just slightly broader at our renewable energy cluster, however, and again, something that I've mentioned in the presentation, that cluster, our target market is the commercial and industrial space, the C&I space, and that's where we are really targeted at. It's where Terra Firma has operated for all the years that we've had it, and it's increasingly where Blue Nova is placing its large containerized storage solutions, those iESS products, and it's also where our wheeling company will play. So that's our target market.
Now, that market, in our view, is very much more driven by the liberalization of energy and the realization that if you're going to only have grid power, one, it's going to be expensive, and one, it's not going to continue to be reliable. So while the grid may become and load shedding may become slightly better next year, we don't expect it to disappear. And that C&I market we see as being much more robust, and we see that that being much more sustainable. So while we do think, let me call it, the smaller end of the market will become increasingly commoditized and pressurized, the C&I space, we think, is still a market that will continue to be robust for over the medium term. Then there's a follow-up question from Ryan as well, which just speaks about...
The question is: Regarding the Eskom transmission company and the required 14,000 kilometers of transmission lines, is it much more aluminum than copper focused? This is this purely a price issue? The answer to that is yes, it is. It's exclusively aluminum. This is bare overhead conductor, so there is no... It's not a bulk of what we do in our cable business is actually buried cable. This is overhead cable, and this transmits power from where it's generated to where it's required on long transmission lines. It is a little bit more than a price issue. Price is a real driver, but that would typically be a driver in many of our cable products in any event. Eskom is the offtaker for this, so quality is important.
They have a preset of requirements that they need from a technical point of view, and they then have their own procurement requirements, which need to be complied with, within terms of the PPPFA, which includes things like local preference. It includes things like black economic empowerment, credentials, and the like. Now, we are very well positioned in terms of that, and on the back of that, we would anticipate that provided our prices are correct, the rest of our criteria, both from a technical point of view and a local preferential procurement point of view, we're well positioned to participate in these bids. So, we anticipate that most of this cable will go locally, and we don't anticipate that there will be a particularly large port of import that will come into this.
So that's why we believe it will be beneficial to the local industry and to our cable operation over, in my view, this probably runs for, for close on a decade. Then the second part, of course, the Rahubi's question from Melville Douglas. The first part was the, South African Post Office. The second question was: "Can I please or can we please comment on the trading conditions over the past few weeks, and are we seeing an improvement in the SMEs?" Again, we've tried to touch on this in the presentation. I think the macro environment in South Africa remains tough for the first half of the year. We're not seeing a material improvement.
Load shedding has got a little bit better, certainly in the last couple of months, although this week or so, in the last sort of in November, it's got a little bit worse again. So we expect that to cycle through. Until there's material improvement in that, I don't think the real benefits of reduced load shedding flow, and that, I think, pushes us out to the second half of next year. And then, of course, we've just had Transnet hit us, so the ports has been a real disappointment. But that's. We are impacted, and many of our customers would also be impacted by that.
So in truth, we are not seeing and haven't seen an improvement in trading conditions in the SME market, and if I call it generally in the South African market, since the end of the financial year. So between first of October and where we find ourselves at the moment, I'd argue that the local conditions are very much as they were last year, and those tight conditions, if I characterize them as that, I expect to continue, at least for the first half. Then the next question is from Itumeleng. Oh, there's a whole bucket load of questions. I'll try and speed up now. It's from the Eskom Pension and Provident Fund. His question is: Good morning. You mentioned you saw increased demand for mining products in our applied electronics division.
Given that commodity prices broadly have softened year to date, have you seen a demand in H2 2023 versus H1 2023, and what's our outlook for demand in respect of these into next year? So, it was actually a good year all the way along. Just to bear in mind, commodity prices do impact our radars that we sell into the mines, but this is a health and safety device, and so from that point of view, so it tends to transcend. Whilst, things are always better when the commodity prices are higher and the mines are doing well, as a health and safety device, and much of what drove the performance this year was entrance into new markets, particularly into Asia and South America.
So I would argue that it was more around penetrating new markets that we did very nicely, rather than commodities. And certainly, the order book that we have and the prospects that we have is we expect that to continue the performance in H both H1 and H2 of last year; we expect to continue for the 2024 year. The next question is from Sipholeli Abdull from Matrix Fund Managers. And he asks: The questions faced by the ICT division led to margins being under pressure. How much can be reversed as once-offs, or is this a new normal given the challenges? Again, Sipholeli, I mean, it's quite a complex question. I think, first of all, I think those we tried to articulate where the margin pressure came from.
So, it's relatively specific around the load shedding that had a big impact for the reasons we described in there. We had the SAPO loss, and we obviously had the once-off sale of the Quince book in the prior period. That were the three primary drivers of the margin pressure that we had in ICT. And if we just take those one by one, the sale of the book, that is largely is largely gone for the reasons that we have described. And so the book that we take into Quince this year, the closing book that Nick has got in the AFS, that is the book that should drive earnings into Quince going forward. So that once-off sale, I would argue, would be a once off that we can sort of reverse out.
The SAPO effect, I think we can reverse out. The impact of load shedding, however, we can't. That I would argue, would be in the base, and that will be somewhat dependent on the extent to which load shedding plays out in 2024 compared to 2023. And then the rest of the general metric, macros are in place. ICT, I think will be, well, one must remember that we obviously have IQbusiness in the mix for the full 12 months this year, which they weren't in last year, and that too, will have an impact on the margins for next year. The next question is from Charl de Villiers, from Ashburton.
He asks: Given the strength in cash flow generation, strong cash flow position, new Quince funding arrangements, strong outlook statement, as well as your communications at the recent CMD, that you would not be looking to do further material or large M&A deals, why then was the growth in the dividend lower than the growth in the underlying earnings? Charles, we spent quite a bit of time on the dividend, while. There was strong cash flow that we drove out this year, and I think we'd indicate or we have indicated in the presentation that we're probably at, call it, normalized and correct working capital, given the position that we found ourselves at the end of the year.
We'd spent 18 months driving out the impact of the COVID-related supply chain out of the business, and really, that came to fruition in the second half of 2023. But as I've just spoken about, I mean, as soon as we've normalized those, we've been hit by Transnet's. We now have problems at many of our factories, and in fact, most of our factories, where we have either components that are stuck on the waters again, and we're going to have to try and deal with that now. When we take that and we take the tough macroeconomic environments, we thought it was prudent to at least match it to the earnings per share metric, which is what we've done from the dividend point of view.
But just to see how the next sort of six months goes. December and January are always the tightest cash period for the group, in which where we don't have strong operating cash flows that flow through that period because of the December shutdown, and then obviously we pay the final dividend in January. So it's quite a tough cash period for us, and we just thought before we bake in the improvement or the full improvements with cash flow, we want to just have a look at what is going to be required for operating in South Africa for the next four months. So that's the reason why we have done that level of dividend payback. Kobus Cilliers from Allweather Capital: Congrats to everyone at Reunert for a good set of results.
On your fuse business optimization and expansion, can you provide some insights on what capacity expansion looks like as a percentage of sales or unit, or what the increased throughput would look like? The guys at the fuse factory would hang me if I told you what we can do. It's actually expands product line, is really what it does, Kobus, so it doesn't increase overall. We don't have a fixed number, and I don't have a guidance. I'm not able to give that to you sort of off the cuff where we are now. So it also, it gets commissioned at the end of December. There's also then a ramp-up period, which will take us sort of three or four months to get everything stabilized.
So I think there will be an impact in 2024, but I don't think it's gonna be such a material impact. I think the bigger part of that will probably come into 2025, when we have the benefit of that factory for a full 20 months, a full 12 months. Khosie Rahube again from Melville Douglas has asked: Can you please talk about the competitive landscape for your Apollo business? I can, yes. It's like everything in the renewable energy, there's been so much interest, so much focus on it, that just the general environment has got more competitive. And there are some big players who've stepped into this. I think everybody would be aware of the Discovery Green, which is effectively a doing what we do.
So I expect the market net space to also be competitive. So while it is very good for us to have it, because it gives us in our ecosystem, it allows us to move our energy and gives us quite a lot of flexibility in the power that we own and what we can do with it. So we still believe it's important for us to have it as within the ecosystem. I think the environment within which not only Apollo and the Wheeling business will be operating, but the renewable energy, energy generally will continue to be a contested space. And last, we've got one for Nick, Itumeleng, again, from Eskom Pension and Provident Fund. He's asked: Can you give color on note 13 on the trade and receivable aging schedules?
I see mining large business receivable days worsened to 193 days from 147 days. Do you expect these to continue to worsen, or was there specific issues why this worsened? Nick, can you that-
Thank you. The most important thing is that the numbers that you see there, Itumeleng, are not days. That's actually monetary amounts. It's an analysis of the age bucket in monetary terms. The total due by mining was ZAR 193 million in this year, and it was ZAR 147 million last year. What's in 90+ days is ZAR 98 million in the current year versus ZAR 94 million in the last year, so there hasn't been any material significant deterioration in the aging. So when you look at that particular note, just bear in mind that the amounts that you see are not days, they're actually rand amounts, and the aging categories are on the left-hand side.
Thanks, Nick. We then have a question from Viwe Kupiso, from Prescient Securities. He has asked: Could you please shed some light on Reunert's relationship with labor? With order books looking healthy, what is the risk of strikes derailing Reunert's 2024 performance? And then, what other risk could derail the performance in 2024? So our labor relationships are as good as they have been for many years, in fact. So we find ourselves having worked very proactively with labor, and we've been very pleased with the response of labor, primarily at our factories. And the biggest risk from a labor point of view sits within the electrical engineering segment, where there's a large unionized workforce, and that is governed by the three-yearly wage negotiations that take place between the primary union, who is NUMSA, and the employer body, who is SEIFSA.
Now, the current wage arrangement is, expires on the 30th of June 2024, and it's typically around about that time that negotiations for the new 3-year deal would take place. So while we are quite comfortable that within our companies, we are, would not expect any labor disruption, this year caused by anything other than potentially the wage negotiation strike, which is an industry-wide, negotiation that takes place. So I don't think we would expect, and I'm not anticipating any unique to Reunert, challenges this year, but there is that, risk because of the negotiation that needs to take place in around about June of next year. Now, historically, any action that tends to come from that either comes very late in September or early October. Certainly, the last one actually was in the October year.
Business and the unions are already working on creating environments in which we can hopefully have a relatively seamless and both non-violent and minimize the disruption into that. But that is a risk that sits there, and it sits sort of in quarter four in the Electrical Engineering segment if it does materialize. The other big risks for me are typically South African-based. I think the risks center around, again, load shedding for me is quite a big issue, that if we don't continue to improve the generation coming out of our coal-fired power stations, and the renewable energy doesn't come on at the right level, I think load shedding remains a risk, and that does hurt us all in the country.
And then the broad macroeconomic environment within South Africa. You know, business confidence is low at the moment. Investment by business is a little bit low, and that hurts us. And if that gets worse, rather than just stabilizing and hopefully getting a bit better, which is what we're hoping for, I think that is potentially a risk that that hurts us. Then the final one is probably state spend at the municipalities. In an election year, that's normally not such a big issue or so not such a big threat. But if the finances of the state continue to worsen and the National Treasury are more brutal than what they've indicated, that may also be a bit of a curveball that we may get in the back half of the year.
But broadly, you know, given the defense businesses we've got, renewable energy that we've got, you know, I still think despite those challenges, we find ourselves relatively well positioned to be able to deliver growth again into 2024. So ladies and gents, that's all of the questions that we've had. I hope that we've answered it for it. For any that we haven't got to or didn't answer in the way that you'd like, or any others that you may have, please just drop us a note and an email to Karen Smith, who's our investor relations manager, and I think you all know her. And then we'll either jump on a call with you or get you some emailed answers back on those questions.
So in conclusion, again, thank you for your time this morning in joining us at the results presentation. And from Nick and myself, thank you all. I'm sure we'll see you on the roadshow as we go around the country, but thank you for your attention, and goodbye.