Good morning, everyone. My name's Kiet Huynh, and just to confirm, my name is pronounced differently to how it's spelled. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss our 2021 preliminary results. It's great to be able to meet some of you here in the room, and for those that can't be here, I look forward to meeting you over the next coming weeks and months. With me today is Jonathan Davis, our Group Finance Director. We also have Martin Lamb, our Chairman, and Andrew Carter, our Investor Relations Director here in the audience. We'll make a start, and we'll follow the traditional format today. I wanted to start by saying how proud I am to have been appointed Rotork CEO.
Having joined four years ago at the start of the Growth Acceleration Programme, I've input into its strategy, led a number of key initiatives within the programme, and prior to my appointment, I ran two of the three divisions. I'm excited to be leading Rotork into the next phase of its journey. Rotork is a first-class engineering group with a great reputation, and we're committed to our purpose and sustainability vision, keeping the world flowing for future generations. This means we have a major role to play, driving the transition to a cleaner future where environmental resources are used sustainably. Rotork has strong foundations, but we're yet to deliver the rates of sales growth we'd hoped to achieve. We remain committed to the financial objectives, namely mid- to high-single-digit revenue growth and mid-20s operating margins over time.
This slide is a reminder of how Rotork creates value for all of its stakeholders. Customers are at the heart of everything we do. It's by identifying their flow control challenges and to help improve the safety, efficiency, and reliability of their plant that makes Rotork a trusted partner. This is delivered through innovation, developing high-quality solutions that automate, electrify, and digitalize our customers' systems. Our aftermarket service and life cycle management programmes continue to be a key differentiator. As well as delivering innovative solutions that solve our customers' problems, we're committed to sustainability and have a major part to play in the flow control intensive, new energies and technologies that will help deliver a decarbonized economy. We do this while providing a great working environment for our people around the world, celebrating diversity, inclusivity, and rewarding our colleagues fairly.
At this point, I'd like to thank them all for their hard work during last year. Finally, our high cash generation and strong balance sheet enable us to fund investments, organic and inorganic, we need to make to drive growth and generate market-leading returns. Moving to the performance highlights of the year, I draw your attention first to the orders, where we started to see an improving outlook for the year as the year progressed. Full year orders were up around 8% year-over-year on an OCC basis, with all three divisions having higher bookings. While oil and gas customers started the year cautiously, orders returned to growth in H2. We firmly believe our strategy of focusing our sales teams on specific end markets and investing in targeted geographies and aftermarket activities is delivering results.
With regard to revenue, we faced a number of challenges in the year, particularly the impact of the pandemic on the supply chain. Lockdowns, requirements to isolate, and people leaving the workforce disrupted the flow of raw materials and finished goods, resulting in sales modestly down year-on-year. With orders up and sales down, we finished the year with a record opening order book. Returns remained resilient despite the supply chain disruptions. While full year margins were 110 basis points lower year-on-year, second half margins were comfortably ahead of the first half . We made important progress on our ESG agenda and announced today our net zero target date, as well as our near term science-based targets. I'll now pass you over to Jonathan, who will talk us through the results in detail.
Thank you, Kiet. Good morning, everybody. It's great to see some of you here in person. 2021 finished much as expected with revenue constrained by the supply chain and latterly COVID-19. While orders improved, particularly in oil and gas. Order intake in the year was 7.8% higher than 2020 on an organic constant currency or OCC basis. Q4 orders grew sequentially, helped by the best quarter for oil and gas for two years. Revenue was GBP 569 million, 2.5% below last year. Adjusted operating profit of GBP 128 million was 8.2% lower than 2020, and margins on an OCC basis were 140 basis points lower. Adjusted operating margins were 22.5% compared with 23.6% last year.
Adjusted earnings per share was GBP 11.3 , an 8% reduction. OCC results are adjusted to restate the 2021 results at 2020 exchange rates. Currency was a circa 3% headwind, reducing revenue by GBP 21 million and adjusted operating profit by GBP 2.8 million. Cash conversion was 108%, reflecting an improved working capital position in the second half , although this is partly as a result of lower than usual revenue in the last quarter. Return on capital employed fell 240 basis points to 30.1%, with a comparative restated as a result of implementing IAS 38 related to software as a service. The GBP 6.4 full year dividend is a 1.6% increase over 2020.
Revenue fell 2.5%, and once again, the divisions fared quite differently, although all three were affected by the supply chain disruption. CPI performed best with revenue up 3.8% after being affected most severely by COVID-19 in 2020. Water and power was next, with revenue 5.8% lower over the year as a whole, despite being ahead in the first half . Oil and gas was once again most affected, down 11%, reducing to 46% of group sales. Within oil and gas, midstream grew on an OCC basis while upstream and downstream both declined. From a regional perspective, Asia Pacific grew up 4% with growth in oil and gas and CPI. EMEA reported the largest decline in revenue, largely driven by oil and gas. The Americas declined in the full year with water and power the most affected.
The ability to access customer sites and more resilient nature of some of Site Services activities, combined with the success of the lifecycle management program, helped Rotork Site Services to increase share of group revenues. RSS represented 21% of group revenue, compared with 19% last year, with revenue similar to 2020 levels. This adjusted operating profit bridge highlights the higher cost of moving components and finished goods around the world. The volume bar shows the reduction in profit from lower product sales. The logistics column highlights the GBP 7 million headwind from higher costs in the year and has a significant impact on drop through. This is net of receipts from our logistics surcharge implemented during the year. Price mix then reflects the impact of commodity costs increases, net of sourcing savings and sales price increases, plus the normal elements of product and geographic mix.
Although these were less significant this year. The fact this net zero indicates that successive price increases mitigated the cost increases as intended. In both direct costs and overheads, there was a decrease compared with the previous year. Headcount at year-end was 5% lower than 12 months earlier, with reductions from footprint optimisation and sales back office consolidation within the Growth Acceleration Programme. In total, people costs are circa GBP 9 million lower than 2020, but this is largely the result of lower variable pay. Travel costs remained at similar levels to 2020, with only minimal international travel for most of the year. In total, gross margin is now 46.2%, an 80 basis point decline over last year, but identical to the first half. Adjusted operating margin was 110 basis points lower at 22.5%.
We started the year with net cash of GBP 178 million, which reduced to GBP 114 million by year-end after GBP 126 million of dividend/buyback, and with a cash conversion of 108%. Working capital in the cash flow was flat over the year and would have been positive, but for GBP 10 million increase in prepayments, which is mainly the advanced purchase of chips. Net working capital based on trade receivables and payables only as a percentage of sales fell from 23.2% last December to 21.8%. We've deliberately increased inventory in some locations as a response to the logistics disruption experienced in the year. Reflecting this inventory at balance sheet exchange rates increased GBP 7 million in the year, while trade receivables reduced GBP 18 million.
The lower Q4 sales this year compared with the last was largely responsible for this reduction. As reported in day sales outstanding, trade receivables were 57 days compared with 56 days last year. CapEx and investment in the new ERP system was GBP 23 million in total for the year. The GBP 50 million buyback launched in August was completed in November, and the dividend payment of GBP 76 million represents the combined interim and final dividend in respect to 2020, as well as the 2021 interim. We've now completed four years of our Growth Acceleration Program, so it's worth reviewing our progress to date. Despite a challenging 2021, where some metrics reversed compared with 2020, the program remains a great driver of change. Our Growth Acceleration Program has now delivered GBP 30 million of profit improvement and GBP 40 million of working capital improvement.
The GBP 30 million is net of higher raw material costs, and the GBP 40 million net of increases in tactical inventory during 2021. Adding in the cumulative reorganization costs and CapEx investments, GAP has generated a net GBP 32 million of cash over the four years, so very much self-financing. Within the commercial excellence pillar, our accelerated new product development efforts have now launched 36 new products. To ensure we sell on overall value rather than price, we've continued to drive our value selling program and have now provided over 45,000 hours of training. Within our operational excellence pillar, we've closed three factories this year, bringing the total to 13 closures or 43% of our footprint since the start of GAP.
Given the supply chain challenges, our sourcing program was unable to mitigate all of the increases, but over the program to date has driven GBP 5.7 million of net savings. Our inventory program has now yielded a reduction in net inventory of 26%. Our productivity per employee, as measured by adjusted profit per full-time employee equivalent, has improved by 8% in four years. We highlighted earlier in the year that the IFRIC interpretation of IAS 38 relating to software-as-a-service would impact us in respect of our ERP development. These results reflect the revised treatment in both 2020 and 2021, with most of the cash spent being expensed rather than capitalized. However, they do not impact our adjusted operating profit numbers.
The charge to the income statement has been included in exceptional items and is GBP 5 million in 2019, GBP 10 million in 2020, and GBP 9 million in 2021. Basic earnings per share for 2020 reduces from 10.7 pence to 9.8 pence, but there's no change to the adjusted basic earnings per share. In the restated 2020 balance sheet, this change results in a reduction in property, plant, and equipment of GBP 14 million. Now turning to some specific P&L items and our directional guidance on these for the current year. Logistics costs and commodity costs are likely to remain elevated for 2022. We continue to secure supply of a number of critical components into the future, in some cases now into 2023, as we do not anticipate the market for chips improving in the near term.
The price increase in January this year was higher than prior years to take account of these factors, and we'll keep pricing under review throughout the year. Currency was a headwind in 2021, but if current rates of around 1.35 for the U.S. dollar and 1.20 for the euro were to apply for the rest of this year, it would be a small tailwind. Looking at the GAP initiatives, most delivered the expected benefits this year, with the exception of procurement. The benefits from realignment of the sales force and consolidation of sales support are nearing completion, so we'll deliver less benefit in 2022. Footprint optimisation is progressing with three facilities closed towards the end of last year, so most of the incremental benefits from these will accrue in 2022.
For procurement, components and commodity cost headwinds resulted in higher costs in 2021, and the team had to focus on maintaining supply of components rather than on savings. The price increases implemented during the year helped mitigate these increased costs but are not reflected in this GAAP scorecard. New product development continues to gain momentum, so benefits will be higher again in 2022. Continuous improvement and lean initiatives performed well in the year but are expected to be slightly lower this year. In terms of restructuring costs, we anticipate these to be offset in 2022 by gains from the sale of some vacated properties. Finally, tax rates have moved higher. The geographic mix of profits has the largest influence on this, with the highest growth in Asia Pacific this year, where on average we're subject to higher rates of tax.
The headline effective tax rates have increased 40 basis points, and the adjusted effective rates also 40 basis points to 23.8%. Now turning to provide a little more detail on the divisions. Encouragingly, we saw an improvement in oil and gas orders towards the end of the year, and over the year as a whole, orders were consistent with the prior year. However, supply chain disruption prevented the usual pickup in revenue in the fourth quarter, and full-year oil and gas revenue was 7.7% lower than the prior year. EMEA sales were significantly lower in both upstream and downstream, more than offsetting a positive performance in midstream. Spend in the Middle East was lower across the board, but all other parts of EMEA saw increased activity in midstream. In Asia Pacific, revenue grew on an OCC basis, with growth in midstream and downstream.
Downstream growth was most significant in China, with several refinery and storage projects delivered in the year. The Americas were modestly lower overall, with downstream the weak spot, having been particularly impacted by supply chain constraints. Upstream and midstream both saw growth, as did Latin America as a whole. Adjusted operating profit for the division was 14.3% lower than the prior year, and margin fell 170 basis points to 21.7%. The lower revenue, combined with higher logistics costs, could not be offset by GAP benefits, a reduced proportion of shared costs, and a reduction in variable pay. CPI reported the strongest growth in both orders and revenue, but even here, the supply chain caused disruption in the second half. Revenue grew in all regions, producing a combined 7.7% increase.
Asia Pacific revenue was up mid-single-digit, and our targeted niches were showing encouraging growth. China is the biggest CPI market in the region and saw growth across a wide range of applications, as did India, while Korea declined. EMEA achieved a similar level of growth to Asia Pacific after a slower start to the year. This growth was spread across many countries and applications within the region. In the Americas, revenue grew double-digit compared with what had been a heavily impacted 2020. The chemical market saw the strongest growth, followed by process. Adjusted operating profit was 15.7% higher, and margins improved 190 basis points to 26.7%. The higher revenue, combined with a positive product mix and GAP savings, were only partly offset by logistics headwinds.
Water and power orders were more consistent than either of the two divisions through the last two years and grew double-digit compared with 2020. One of the characteristics of the water and power division is that it has the highest proportion of electric actuator sales. This supports the higher margins of this division, but meant it also was most affected by the availability of chips in the supply chain. Revenue was 2.7% lower in total, with EMEA the only region to report growth. Asia-Pacific revenue was similar to the prior year in total. Water grew, but power declined as a reduction in refurbishment projects was greater than the growth in waste-to-energy activity. The Americas were most significantly affected by the supply chain issues, but still managed to show modest growth in water, which included a major U.S. water treatment works.
The decline in power was the result of there being a refurbishment project in the prior year, which was not repeated. The growth in EMEA was across the region, and spend in the U.K. was particularly positive, partly offset by lower power sales. Adjusted operating profit was 11.3% lower. Margins fell 260 basis points to 26.2% on operational gearing, adverse product mix, and as water and power suffered a disproportionate amount of the higher logistics costs. The savings from GAP and lower variable people costs were not sufficient to offset the headwinds. In summary, while the impact of higher component costs in 2021 has been mitigated through successive price increases and higher logistics costs have been partly offset by the logistics surcharge, the disruption to the supply chain negatively impacted our ability to ship product in the second half.
Having more than half the year's full year's sales in the first half is most unusual. This phasing has impacted revenue and therefore profitability in the year. However, with good order momentum and a book-to-bill of 1.08 in 2021, we have a strong order book entering 2022. I'll now hand back to Kiet.
Thank you, Jonathan. I'd now like to talk about our priorities and focus areas, provide a sustainability update, and finish with our outlook. We'll provide a more detailed update on our plans, including how we deliver on our growth ambitions at a Capital Markets Day later on in the year. We have two immediate priorities in 2022. Firstly, delivering on our record-opening order book, and secondly, continuing the execution of the Growth Acceleration Programme. We believe we have a great opportunity to deliver on the order book, though it's important not to underestimate the supply chain issues we continue to face. To deliver on it, we need to continue to work closely with our customers, our supply chain, and internally with operations and engineering. We need to keep up the momentum in our tactical component purchasing, product reengineering, and recertification efforts.
The next slide gives an update on the supply chain situation. We've been facing and continue to face a number of challenges, particularly material shortages and logistics delays. On many occasions, key components have become unavailable with little notice. We've experienced shortages in various categories, with semiconductor chips the most challenging. We are attempting to manage the situation in several different ways. First, we're staying close to our key suppliers to identify potential issues early with the aim of minimizing disruptions where we can. Next, we're tactically buying forward semiconductors, looking to avoid the necessity for more complex design changes. We started making these purchases early last summer. Finally, we are in some cases reengineering circuit boards. While this can be a solution, this often requires us to recertify our products, which is not a quick process. As mentioned, logistics delays have also been an issue.
We saw sea freight journey times in many cases double in 2021, with total times increasing and becoming more unpredictable. In response, we've revisited our supply chain design, looking for opportunities to redesign any elements. For example, we'll see some lead time improvements from the recent commissioning of new paint plants in Bath and Rochester, eliminating the need to outsource these processes. We continue to manage inflation through cost reduction programs and pricing actions. The second immediate priority is continued execution of the growth acceleration program while evolving the next set of initiatives to focus on driving profitable growth. GAP has already significantly strengthened Rotork's foundations, and you can see the benefits it's already delivered from Jonathan's section. One of the major GAP initiatives was sales force realignment, a project I personally led. This pivot was completed in 2020, and we're now pleased with early results.
Another major initiative was footprint optimisation. This continued in 2021, and we now have 17 larger, more flexible factories, down from 31 at the start of the program. Other GAP initiatives such as strategic sourcing, lean, and inventory management, while still a major focus, are now well embedded and will continue to drive savings as part of our business as usual activities. As you can see through all these activities, GAP has made Rotork stronger and more cyclically resilient. While there's still some operational elements of GAP to complete, the next phase is more focused on driving profitable growth. We've identified a number of additional focus areas we believe will help deliver our profitable growth ambition. The first is a greater emphasis on customer value. We want to partner with our customers in tackling their flow control automation challenges.
To drive this, we'll continue to build on our end market structure and invest in key growth markets. We've made progress in becoming easier to do business with, but we must go further, putting customer value front and center. It's not sufficient for us to just have the best products and the best service offerings. We need to have the quickest quote times, the shortest lead times, and the highest quality. The second focus area is innovation and new product development. Having streamlined our product commercialization process, we have a stronger pipeline that is more aligned to our customers. We want to convert the pipeline to launches, leading with new products that offer high efficiency, which are aligned to the electrification of everything and digitalization trends. We'll expand more on this in our Capital Markets Day. The third focus area is enabling a sustainable future.
Our businesses are well-positioned to enable the low carbon economy with products and services used to electrify flow control processes, but also in new energy technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, and battery production. We have a major part to play in the transition too, for example, in reducing methane emissions and enabling gasification. It's increasingly apparent that the world faces climate change, and at Rotork, we are committed to not only enabling a sustainable future, but also to play our part in minimizing our own carbon footprint. We recently completed work to better understand our 2020 baseline emissions and the ways we could reduce this. We're today announcing the outcome of this work and our net zero targets. We believe our targets, which cover scope one, two, and three emissions, are tough but achievable.
We are pledging to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% by 2030, and achieving net zero by 2035. Our two main categories for Scope 3 emissions are those arising from energies used by our products during operation and upstream emissions relating to our purchase of goods and services. We're pledging to reduce our use of sold products emissions by 25% by 2030, and for 25% of suppliers to have science-based targets by 2027. We are targeting achieving net zero for our Scope 3 emissions by 2045. Our roadmap is underpinned by numerous initiatives, such as sourcing renewable electricity wherever we can. To address Scope 3 emissions, we will prioritize a reduction in our own product emissions and engage with our supply chain in their sustainability commitments.
We're excited to be setting these ambitious targets today, and we're committed to achieving them. We've submitted a commitment letter to the Science Based Targets initiative, and we will shortly apply for validation. A question we're frequently asked is, "What proportion of Rotork sales are products and services which deliver particular sustainability benefits?" The answer is that our eco-transition portfolio represents a significant proportion of our sales. This is hard to measure, as it's often for us hard to identify the end use of products we've sold. For example, significant segments of industrial process water management used in oil and gas and in power falls into this hard-to-measure bucket, as do gasification solutions. We're better able to quantify three portfolios: water and wastewater, methane emissions reductions, and new energies and technologies. We estimate these three represent around 30% of our sales in 2021.
Some of these markets are quite small currently, for example, carbon capture and hydrogen. However, they have great potential for growth. We are hugely excited about the potential of our eco-transition portfolio to enable a sustainable future and, of course, to contribute to our own growth ambition. Turning now to the market outlook. Starting with oil and gas, hydrocarbon prices have recently made multiyear highs. The price rise reflects three principal factors, demand returning as economies come out of lockdown, years of underinvestment, and geopolitical tensions. Following several years of limited large project activity, we are seeing some pickup, and industry observers are forecasting a solid increase in oil and gas capital expenditure this year. Whilst the resumption of larger projects will be welcome, we should remember that the majority of Rotork's activities is driven by customers' operational rather than capital expenditure.
In conclusion, there are clear signs of industry confidence returning. In addition, we see good opportunities for environment-related activities, such as projects tackling methane emissions and biofuel conversions. CPI, now our second-largest division, has good momentum, is clearly seeing benefits of the sales force realignment, and having success in its chosen targeted niches. It's benefiting from industry's drive to lower carbon emissions, and 2021 saw business growth in chemicals, mining, and steel end markets. We also saw exciting transition-related project wins, including hydrogen electrolysis and carbon capture, and the outlook is positive. Water and power is benefiting from increased global water infrastructure investment, which it is considered a priority and is expected to continue. We're seeing investment in a number of areas, from building new water networks to improving existing ones. Customers are increasingly focusing on operational efficiency and water quality with digitalization an important trend.
Rotork can help in all areas. We believe our position in the water market has been strengthened by our earlier end market realignment. To see this, note that our water sales growth in 2021 is higher and would have grown faster were it not for the supply chain issues. In power, we continue to see refurbishment opportunities as well as good activity in smaller but higher potential markets such as waste to energy and district heating. At this point, with the ongoing situation in Ukraine and Russia, we continue to monitor the situation closely to understand its impact on the outlook of our end markets. In summary, we remain committed to our financial objectives, namely mid- to high- single-digit revenue growth and mid-20s adjusted operating margins over time.
Our immediate priorities are to deliver on our record opening order book, though it's important not to underestimate the supply chain challenges we continue to face, as well as continuing the execution of our Growth Acceleration Programme. GAP has already delivered GBP 30 million of profit improvement and has strengthened our foundations. Going forwards, we will focus the next initiatives on driving profitable growth. In addition, our additional focus areas in driving customer value, innovation, and NPD, as well as enabling a sustainable future, will help deliver our growth ambitions. To the third point, we are well positioned to enable the low carbon economy with products and services used to electrify flow control processes and to enable new energies such as hydrogen. We have a major part to play in the energy transition too, for example, in reducing methane emissions as well as enabling gasification and carbon capture.
We're committed to delivering net zero across all three scopes by 2045. We look forward to expanding on all of these points during our Capital Markets Day later in the year. Thank you again for your interest in Rotork. I think at this point we'll take questions.
There is a microphone for those in the room, and maybe we'll start in the room before going to people who have joined us online today.
Thank you. I'm Mark Davies Jones from Stifel. Can I start with one quite big picture one and then one more detailed one? The big picture one is GAP has clearly done a lot of good things for Rotork, apart from accelerating growth, which was there on the tin. Is that largely, do you think, about the end markets, or was there something that has not come through as hoped within that? We're coming to the end of that GAP program. Is it more of the same, or is there gonna be a sort of GAP two for that Capital Markets Day later in the year?
I mean, as I said, one of our priorities is to continue the execution of our Growth Acceleration Programme. If you look at the inception of GAP in 2018, Rotork were in a position where the initiatives that we started were really to build the foundations. Delivering lean, savings, inventory management, footprint optimisation, they were the right projects to take us forward. Over the last four years, we've made significant progress, and we've built some very strong foundations. GAP will continue, but those strong foundations have allowed us to pivot to focusing on the profitable growth that I talk about. The next initiatives will be focused on driving profitable growth going forwards.
Thank you. The more detailed one was on CPI. Can you talk a little bit about that division? Lots of moving parts, very strong margin this year, partly attributed to mix. How does that mix go forward from here? Are those margins sustainable, do you think?
Yes. I'll take the first one, and I'll hand over to Jonathan. You know, having led CPI over the last few years since the end market transition, initially, when we took over the CPI, when I took over the CPI division, we wanted to make sure that we embedded the end market structure which we have. Part of that end market structure philosophy was to pull through sales from all product divisions. Instead of going in and looking at an application and just selling an actuator or an instrumentation valve, it's looking at the full solution and then delivering a solution for that, which pulls across all of the different components. The other key thing within CPI is at its inception, we looked at which niches we wanted to play in.
We carefully chose the niches that we wanted to play in, and we also chose the geographies that we wanted to play in. You're seeing the results of those come through now. For example, you know, some of the niches we chose were HVAC, steel and cement. Steel and cement were chosen for two reasons. One, because our products aligned to that market. Two, we had one eye on the future, and we knew that those businesses will need to move towards hydrogen and carbon capture. It was a, you know, it was a double benefit for us. I think we're positive about CPI, and we'll continue to drive in our key niches.
Mm-hmm.
Jonathan, do you wanna take the
I think the margins are, you know, partly a factor of obviously that's the division that has grown most strongly in the last 12 months. There's an operational gearing element of that. I think as we pull more products through and we pull more electric actuators, which, let's face it, is our biggest product portfolio, then clearly that's margin accretive as well for the division.
Hi, good morning. It's Andy Wilson from J.P. Morgan. I've got three, if I take them one by one, I guess. Just on the oil and gas market, you kind of give obviously some encouraging updates with regards to what you saw in the Q4 and kind of through the second half as a whole, and talked about some of the industry forecasts being more supportive for 2022. I guess, I was just interested in how much that's actually sort of coming through in terms of conversations you're having with customers. I appreciate that orders obviously picked up, but if you kind of look out into 2022 and 2023, we've heard, I guess, from elsewhere that, you know, maybe activity around refineries and maybe quite a lot of catch-up spend, particularly on refineries coming through.
Just interested in terms of, are you actually seeing that on the ground in terms of the conversations, or is it still expected but not necessarily quite that far down the line?
I guess we were talking in sort of even in the middle of last year around those conversations about projects recommencing and there being glimmers of opportunity sort of looking like it was coming closer. I think we've seen some of that feed through in the fourth quarter and the strong quarter that oil and gas ended the year with. I think it's interesting there's no particularly large individual projects within this. It's fairly broad spread. I think, you know, we're still seeing the issues we've talked about before in terms of maybe, yes, investment in new refinery capacity in Europe or America is not where the spend is.
Converting some of that refining, former refining capacity into storage or those sort of, you know, changing use of old assets is what's tending to be happening there with still additional spend, new spend coming in Asia. I don't think we've seen any dramatic change in what we were talking about previously in terms of oil and gas market and what's driving the spend.
Secondly, just on Site Services. I guess I just wanted to get a bit more detail, I guess, in terms of sort of how that, how the business actually developed kind of 2021 versus 2020, given I assume there were certain times when you must have been restricted in terms of access. You know, how has it performed versus how you might have expected it to perform, and then maybe what benefit could that have in 2022? 'Cause I think that business was on quite a good trajectory, and I, you know, even if it's done okay, I suspect it hasn't done necessarily as well as you might have hoped, and if that's a fair comment.
Yeah. I mean, I'll take that one. I mean, Site Services continues to be a key player within our strategy going forward and a key growth driver for us. In 2021, the percentage of our Site Services increased from 19% - 21%. However, as we went through into the second half, we did see some slowdown in that business, namely for a few reasons. A, you know, the supply chain disruptions did disrupt the spares that we could supply into that market. But also what we saw when we were talking to customers is that our customers' programs were delayed due to the COVID effect.
For me, talking about water and power, for example, in Q4, especially in the U.K., you know, we were unable to get into our customers' sites as they had closed those sites. We couldn't get in. We did see a slowdown. As we get through COVID, we expect to see momentum improving.
I guess, just to add, you know, COVID's impacted first month or so of 2021 and the last month or so, but it's equally affected the first month or so of 2022. We've seen those sort of waves come through. The other thing that's been positive through the year is the continued momentum around the lifecycle management activities, which is this, you know, way of selling service as a, you know, supporting customers on their sites proactively.
You should be reasonably positive in terms of sort of 2022, 2023, in terms of that Site Services kind of picking up on the trajectory it's been on?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess finally, just on capital allocation, which is probably a fairly obvious question, an easy question maybe, but I think in the statement you mentioned about sort of potential for acquisitions. I appreciate, I think you've been in the job about eight weeks, so it's possibly a little early to expect anything too dramatic. You know, clearly you've been involved at, you know, the exec level for a while, alongside Kevin, I'm sure. You know, then obviously during 2021, you had the share buyback, which seemed to be pretty successful as well. I'm kind of interested in what you feel the landscape feels like from an M&A perspective, conscious that price has obviously been at very high levels recently and whether
Yeah.
that's necessarily changing.
Yeah. We're continually monitoring opportunities for acquisitions and partnerships. I think what you've said is key, you know, we don't want to overpay. We're strict with our processes and we make sure we get the right returns. At the minute, we are seeing multiples that are high. We need to be strict in our discipline in terms of how we manage it. We're continually managing the process and opportunities. Do you wanna say a bit more on the app-
No. I think you've covered it. Appetite is undiminished. Pricing remains a challenge.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Morning. It's Robert from Morgan Stanley. Three questions as well. First one was just on, I guess this year's shift in priority from what you're doing now, on the current GAP program to accelerating organic growth. Just wonder how you sort of tie that in with the R&D expenditure. Is there any differences? Is there new products coming to market in the next sort of one to two years we should be aware of?
Yeah. We've got a good pipeline of technology coming forward. However, for us, the problem is that there's lots of opportunities in terms of new product development. The key is picking the right ones to develop and the right ones to launch. Last year, we launched a Voice of the Customer programme where we went to talk to our customers in key end markets to truly understand what their needs are and then aligned our technology roadmap to those needs. We're clear now in terms of our pipeline and what we've gotta do in 2022 is deliver the product launches against those pipelines for our key end markets.
Thank you. Maybe just sort of following up on that, you mentioned, obviously trying to push the electric actuator sales. I'd just be kind of curious in the other part of the business, pneumatic actuators, and given obviously, the pickup in activity in oil and gas, and there was probably a bit more strength in that part of the business from pneumatic historically, if you went back. If you kind of, I guess, look forward to the next three, four, five years, is pneumatic actuator still an important part of your business? Are you still investing in that, bringing new products to the market, or is that just sort of sitting still while you're sort of shrinking it as a proportion of the overall group?
'Cause that was always a big margin differential, obviously, between the controls and the other businesses when you used to have it, the other divisional structure.
Yeah, the way I would look at it is more towards what is required within our end markets and what our customers require. You know, when we moved away from our product divisions into our end market division, it really gave us benefits in terms of understanding our end markets. What we really need to do is talk to our customers, understand our applications, and then understand what is needed in those applications. Going forwards, actually, the way I would think about it is looking at our product management and understanding what products that we need enable to deliver the growth within those end markets. They could be a different range of products, but that's key. We don't think about products and where to sell.
We think about the end markets, what our customers need, and then what we need to fulfill those.
I guess, is that implicitly saying your mix should be very different from 2021 to 2022 from just an electric versus pneumatic actuator that we should sort of factor into the margin bridge for 2022?
Not necessarily.
No.
I think if you know, bear in mind the electrification piece and the drive to electrification as a way of controlling methane emissions and things like this and replacing pneumatics is actually replacing a pneumatic product that we don't have in our portfolio predominantly. I think you are right. If we see oil and gas as an end market pick up, then that will be a boost to the pneumatic and hydraulic products that we do have in our portfolio. So there may be some headwind to margin on that. But if the growth is there, then I think that's a minor headwind relative to the operational leverage we'd get.
Thank you. Then the final one was just on, maybe just a bit of color in the water and power division between the sort of relative growth between the two parts of those businesses. Then maybe just as an aside to that, you mentioned obviously this 30% of your portfolio, which is tied into these new growing end markets of methane emissions, water. Is water by some measure the biggest piece of that pie at the moment? I guess I was looking at the sort of second and third buckets and was just curious what, how small are those at the moment and what are the prospects? Thank you.
Yeah, okay. Maybe I'll tackle the second bit first. I mean, as I said, the 30%, you know, that could be bigger. Some of our portfolio is quite hard to measure. When you say about water, we are measuring the water and wastewater, but we also deliver solutions into power and into oil and gas, which is also processed water. That's something that's quite hard for us to measure. The 30% is an approximate, but that number could be bigger. What I would say is that 30% piece with the water market included, that's the bit we're looking to grow faster than the other parts of the business as there's big potential there.
Water is a key market for us with the continued investment going forwards.
I think if we look at performance in 2021, then it was typically water that was positive.
Yeah.
In most of the parts of the world.
Yeah.
Within that division. Power, obviously we've had this changes around the refurbishment projects, which are relatively lumpy in terms of the overall size of the division. But shouldn't necessarily underestimate the impact of supply chain on the water and power division as well because of its greater concentration of electric actuators.
Thank you.
That's-
Morning, Dom Convey from Numis. Yeah, just a couple if I may. Just firstly, in terms of the ongoing supply chain disruptions, is it easier perhaps for us to think about the first half performance this year in the context of second half last year, and then hopefully as the situation eases, we get all that revenue growth coming through in the second? Or are you already seeing a degree of improvement in the first half relative to the issues you flagged in Q3?
It's hard to say because the issues are different issues. A lot of the issues we saw in the middle and through the second half of last year are now resolved. The particular component that we had a challenge with has been dealt with. We've secured allocation of those components stretching out through the whole of 2022 and into 2023. The issue is the other issues that are gonna crop up in the first half that we haven't yet got visibility of. It's something that we're managing on a week-by-week basis, tracking those components that are going to impact the business. I guess in terms of thinking of H1 2022, it's probably more akin to H2 2021 than, you know, anything else as a start point.
Thanks. Then I guess in terms of the Site Services business, we don't get an awful lot of granularity on that, but I don't wanna preempt necessarily your Capital Markets Day, but it'd be interesting to hear how that features long term within this growth emphasis that we'll see perhaps GAP to emerge.
Yeah, I mean, as I said earlier, the Site Services is a key differentiator for Rotork, so it continues to be a key part of our growth initiatives going forwards. You know, our Site Services division is baked in into the three of our end markets division. It's in the wider context of how we will grow the end markets in themselves. Site Services will continue to be a key focus. We've got Intelligent Asset Management initiatives. We've got life cycle management initiatives. These play a key role in the markets within each of the end markets, and Site Services will be key to driving the growth of that.
Do you disclose how many engineers you have now in Site Services? I wonder whether longer term there'll be more of a software component to that offering.
I don't think we have given those numbers recently. I think, you know, over time we've been shifting. I think we talked about shifting the proportion of the workforce in Site Services from more indirect to more direct on site. And also shifting or investing in Asia Pacific, for example, where we were relatively underrepresented in terms of guys visiting plants. It's been an evolving picture, but I don't think we've given those numbers for the last couple of years in fact.
I think at this point, should we take some? Sorry.
If you wanna just do.
Take some questions.
Just do Mark, as he's itching to.
Thank you very much. Jonathan, have you done some handy numbers on the price impact on revenues in 2022? There have been quite a lot of price increases agreed. Do we know what that translates to in terms of year-on-year impact?
We haven't given a number in terms of what the impact is. As you rightly say, there were three increases through, in effect, the first half of 2021. We've got a bit of a carryover in terms of those that happened in the Q2, Q3, early Q3, as well as then doing a larger than normal price increase on first of January 2022. Those, as we saw in terms of 2021, seemed to match the costs, escalating costs, as intended.
Yeah.
We pitched the first of January 2022 increase to cover the cost escalation that we believe is coming through the supply chain as we see it at the moment. I did also say we will keep pricing under review as we go through the year because the situation is constantly changing. It does have an effect obviously, in terms of drop through.
Yeah.
When looking at 2022 over 2021, but we haven't actually quantified the revenue number, I'm afraid.
Okay. We'll get into some numbers on that. On the logistics side, the logistics surcharge, is that open-ended? That doesn't come to an end at some point, does it?
No, not until we choose to. Well, until we see some change in the structure of logistics costs, which we haven't done so far.
Not yet, no.
Obviously the surcharge on that was implemented in stages through the first half of last year. We've got a little way to go before we kind of catch up with when that was implemented.
Okay. Finally, tax rates creeping up. Any guidance for this year?
I think in terms of guidance for this year, assume continuity of where we ended up 2021, to be honest. I don't think there's any particular large drivers of change that have been announced at the moment. Once again, geographic mix is gonna be the biggest influence on that, probably when we look back at 2022.
Thank you.
At that point.
At that point, shall we go to questions, from those on the line?
We take our first question from Jonathan Hurn from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. I just have three questions, if I may. First, it was just on the order book. I wonder if you could just give us a bit of color on currently where that stands in terms of sort of outstanding. Also essentially how much of that is for delivery in 2022. Also, can you just give us a feel for the mix of the order book? You know, how much of it is skewed towards a more electric actuator relative to what you saw in terms of or what you are currently seeing in terms of revenue? That was the first one.
Do you wanna take that?
That sounded like the first three, Jonathan.
Yeah.
Anyway, let's deal with those. In terms of order book, obviously we haven't given the value of the order book for quite some time. Obviously you can look at the orders versus the revenue number and see that it's grown something in the order of GBP 40 million through the year. I guess directionally, I'd say that takes it from somewhere under 200 to over 200 during the course of 2021. The majority of that is for delivery during 2022. I would say there are still a small proportion of orders that at the beginning of any year stretch out more than 12 months, but it is a relatively small proportion, and that's no different from normal.
In terms of mix in the order book, I suppose rather than think of it in terms of product, what I would say is, typically the order book is very much weighted to the oil and gas division, not only because it's the biggest value in terms of sales, but also it is typically the longer lead time projects. What we have seen in terms of the divisional end market mix of the order book, I suppose is actually CPI has in percentage terms, certainly seen the largest increase in order book during the year. You know, normally a good portion of the CPI business is very quick turnaround from receipt of order to delivery.
Therefore, when you add a few weeks into that because of supply chain issues, it proportionally increases much greater than maybe the oil and gas element of the order book does.
Thank you. That's very clear. Second one, Jonathan, maybe one for you. Obviously, there was an element of overhead recovery in 2021. Obviously probably a bit more in the second half. Have you put a number or can you give us a number of the level of overhead under recovery, please?
I don't think we really sort of work in the sort of way of under and overcovering overheads in the way you're suggesting. I think the biggest driver in terms of change of overheads in the second half certainly was around the level of variable pay that was you know paid out in respect to 2021 performance. I think you can see that relatively clearly if you look at the balance sheet and look at the accrual in respect of employee benefits. It's down GBP 10 million during the course of the year. Obviously, we would anticipate that reversing in 2022, hopefully.
Just last one. Just coming back to that sort of 30%, that eco-transition portfolio. Can you just give us a feel for what you think the growth rate of that portfolio can be sort of midterm? And is that sort of group of products, you know, sort of towards a higher end of the margin scale for Rotork?
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't like to put a number on it right now, like I said, but it is an area of the business that we will look to grow and has good potential for us to grow. In terms of the mix, I mean, with those types of projects, they benefit from the trends of electrification, automation, digitalization. Naturally, the solutions will be within our electric actuator range. Naturally they will carry a higher margin because of that product range.
Great. Thank you, guys.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question on the phone lines, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now.
Okay.
We currently have no questions on the phone, so I'll hand it back to the main room.
Any last questions in the room? No. Okay.
Guys in the room obviously did a thorough job on the questions.
Yeah. I'd like to thank everyone for coming today. I know it was very hard with the tube strikes, but I appreciate you all coming here today. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much.