Good morning. Welcome to Senior plc 's 2022 full year results presentation. Thanks for making the effort to get here to the London Stock Exchange, and a warm welcome to for those of you joining remotely. In terms of our agenda this morning, I'll briefly cover the highlights, Bindi will run through and comment on the results, and then I will give an update on markets, strategy, and outlook. As the recovery continues, it's pleasing that both Flexonics and Aerospace divisions contributed to the strong growth. Rather than steal her thunder, I'll leave it to Bindi to run through the strong results in a few moments when she covers the detailed financials. Suffice to say though, that her performance and the board's confidence in future growth has allowed us to recommend a final dividend of GBP 0.01 per share.
Amongst other highlights, on November 28th last year, we completed our first acquisition since 2015. Spencer Aerospace is a great fit with our other fluid conveyance businesses, we're excited by the growth potential it brings to the group. I'll talk more about sustainability and ESG later, another highlight in the past year has been our achievement of an A rating from CDP for our work on climate disclosure and action. We are the only aerospace and defense company in the world to have attained that status. As the world accelerates its journey to lower carbon economy, we have many developments underway to help our customers make that transition in some of the hardest to decarbonize sectors, I'll show you some examples of our great innovations there. Before I talk about markets, technology and outlook, I'll now hand over to Bindi to take us through the financial results.
Thank you, David. I want to start by shaping Senior's 2022 performance. We delivered a strong set of results with significantly improved profitability, excellent free cash flow, and further strengthened the balance sheet. Revenue grew 20% on a constant currency basis, helping the group's adjusted operating margin to increase by 240 basis points to 3.4%. Adjusted profit before tax was GBP 20.1 million, an improvement of GBP 22 million, and adjusted earnings per share significantly increased to 4.36 pence. The consequent excellent free cash inflow of GBP 27.7 million was double the prior year. Net debt before capitalized leases was GBP 100.5 million after taking into account the Spencer acquisition and GBP 14.2 million adverse currency translation.
The group's net debt to EBITDA improved further to 1.47 times, which is within our target range. With improved profitability, return on capital employed increased by 370 basis points to 4.7%. I will now summarize the key elements of the group's trading performance in 2022. We're operating in an inflationary environment and have provided bridges to show you how we've successfully mitigated inflationary pressures by diligently managing costs, increasing prices, and applying surcharges where appropriate. While we've been successful in more than fully covering inflationary costs, in the markets in which we operate, it is not typical to be able to apply margin to cost pass-through or to surcharges. The chart at the top bridges the 29% increase in revenue to GBP 848 million in 2022.
With a stronger U.S. dollar, the group recorded favorable exchange rate translation of GBP 46 million. We had pricing benefits of GBP 28.6 million and volume growth of GBP 114.8 million, reflecting the ramp-up in civil aircraft production rates, growth in land vehicle, power and energy, semiconductor equipment, and space markets. The charts at the bottom bridges the increase in adjusted operating profit from GBP 6.1 million to GBP 28.5 million in 2022. The improved profitability reflected volume-related operating leverage across our businesses and our ability to successfully mitigate inflation pressures and manage diligently the supply chain constraints. Overall, the combination of price increases and surcharge recovery of GBP 28.6 million offset inflationary cost increases of GBP 26 million. Increased volumes delivered underlying profit of GBP 28 million.
Resumption of travel to customers and operational site visits, along with continued investment in information security resilience, were the main factors increasing central costs by GBP 2.5 million. Looking at divisional performance on a constant currency basis, excluding prior sales from Connecticut, which was divested in April 2021, aerospace revenue increased by 20%. Civil aerospace sales were up 32%, reflecting higher aircraft production rates. Defense revenue decreased 5% as orders were delayed due to the continuing resolution being in place in the U.S. during the first half of the year. Our sales to the F-35 program were also impacted by customer inventory levels. A number of our aerospace businesses supply product to broader industrial markets, and revenue from these markets increased by 22% with growth in space and semiconductor equipment activity. In Flexonics, revenue grew by 26%.
Revenue from land vehicle markets increased 29%. Senior outgrew end market demand due to higher market share, helped by recent contract wins entering series production. Sales to the North American truck and off-highway market for Senior increased by 26%. Sales to other truck and off-highway markets, primarily Europe and India, went up 46%, and sales to passenger vehicle markets grew 23%. Revenue from power and energy markets increased by 22% because of increasing demand for upstream oil and gas activity and from improved maintenance and overhaul activity from Powergen customers. The growth in revenue in both divisions led to growth in profits and margins. In aerospace, adjusted operating profit increased by 142% to GBP 20.3 million, and the adjusted operating margin increased by 190 basis points to 3.7%.
In Flexonics, adjusted operating profit increased by 83% to GBP 25.4 million. The adjusted operating margin increased by 270 basis points to 8.6%. This improvement in profitability in both divisions reflected volume related operating leverage across our businesses and price increases to help offset the impact of material and other inflationary cost increases. This shows the reconciliation of adjusted operating profit to statutory reported profit for the period. It also highlights our interest in tax charges. Net borrowing costs increased by GBP 1.3 million to GBP 7.1 million due to higher interest rates on variable rate debt and foreign exchange movements on our fixed rate US dollar loan notes. We expect these costs to increase in 2023, reflecting higher interest rates on variable rate debt.
IFRS 16 interest charge on lease liabilities was stable at around GBP 2.5 million, and net finance income from pension plans increased to GBP 1.2 million. A tax charge of GBP 2 million was recognized on the group's adjusted profit before tax, an effective rate of 10%. The impact of some tax incentives, R&D in the U.S. and CapEx in the U.K., as well as some prior adjustments, have had a positive impact on our effective tax rate for 2022. For 2023, we currently expect the group's effective tax rate on adjusted profit before tax to return to a more normal level of around 21%. In terms of reconciling adjusted profit to statutory reported profit, we recognized net P&L restructuring income of GBP 4.2 million, which included GBP 4 million income from a U.S. manufacturing grant.
The other items excluded from the adjusted profit measures relate primarily to the acquisition of Spencer Aerospace, GBP 1.7 million under corporate undertakings, including interest unwind, and GBP 0.2 million for amortization of intangible assets from acquisitions. As a reminder, the GBP 21 million gain in 2021 related primarily to the gain on the divestment of Connecticut. With our continued focus on cash generation, we delivered excellent free cash inflow of GBP 27.7 million. With growing demand and to protect against supply chain disruption, we had some increase in working capital, particularly inventory. However, with our laser-like focus on working capital management from a cash flow perspective, we limited this to a working capital outflow of GBP 12.1 million in the year. Net capital expenditure of GBP 30 million was 0.8 times pre IFRS 16 depreciation.
For 2023, CapEx is expected to be in line with pre IFRS 16 depreciation. We are prioritizing new investment in growth projects where contracts have been secured, in sustainability related items, and important replacement equipment for current production. Pension cash contributions in excess of service costs were GBP 1.4 million. The latest triannual actuarial valuation of the UK DB plan as at 5th of April 2022, has shown the plan to be well-funded with an actuarial surplus. As a result, the company is no longer paying contributions, which used to be five and a half million pounds a year to this plan. We will, however, continue funding our US plans and currently estimate contributions of GBP 2.3 million in 2023. Payments for interest and tax total 12 and a half million pounds.
Having reinstated the dividend at the interims, the cash payment in 2022 was GBP 1.2 million and the employee benefit trust purchased four and a half million pounds of shares to satisfy anticipated future share awards. Net cash proceeds from restructuring activity were GBP 2.1 million, mainly related to the aerospace manufacturing grant. After GBP 26.7 million net cash outflows from corporate undertakings, primarily related to the Spencer acquisition, the group had net cash outflow of GBP 2.6 million in 2022. We further delevered the balance sheet in 2022. The group's net debt to EBITDA improved from GBP 1.87 million in 2021 to 1.47 times in December 2022. Leverage is now within our normal range of between 0.5 and 1.5 times.
Net debt before lease liabilities was GBP 100.5 million. The group had liquidity headroom of GBP 179 million under its committed borrowing facilities. In June, we refinanced the U.S. revolving credit facility of $50 million and extended its maturity to June 2025. In October, we repaid the $20 million loan note as planned. In November, we refinanced the U.K. RCF with a GBP 115 million sustainability-linked loan maturing in November 2026. These actions mean there are no financing maturities until 2025. Senior has a healthy balance sheet with strong liquidity. In summary, Senior delivered a strong set of results. The group is managing inflationary pressures and supply chain constraints diligently. Profitability improved in both divisions. We generated excellent free cash flow, significantly delevered the balance sheet after investing strategically in future growth. All these factors contributed to ROCE increasing by 370 basis points to 4.7%. We are on track to deliver our minimum medium-term target of 13.5% ROCE, and the final dividend proposed reflects confidence in the group's performance today and our future prospects. Thank you, and I will now hand back to David to cover markets, strategy, and outlook.
Thank you, Bindi. Let's turn our attention to markets. In 2022, aerospace represented 65% of the group's revenues and Flexonics was 35%. You know, it's great to see civil aerospace recovery in full swing and our other important markets remain buoyant as our Flexonics land vehicle and power and energy businesses benefit from resilient demand. Defense has reduced as a proportion of overall group sales, and that was partly due to orders being delayed in the first half of 2022 as a consequence of the continuing resolution being in place until the U.S. Appropriations Act was passed in March. One thing I did want to bring out is our relative exposure to wide-body compared to single-aisle. In 2022, wide-body sales accounted for 21% of total civil aero sales, while smaller aircraft represented 79%.
Both will grow in 2023. This chart shows the percentage of our aerospace sales for 2022 by platform and helps to set the scene for our aerospace and defense markets. Remember, this includes all sales to all customers that end up on a particular platform. For example, sales to Safran on the LEAP-1A engine would show up on the A320 segment. As can be seen, the Airbus single-aisle program represents the largest percentage of sales by platform, and that actually increased last year compared to 2021. It's great to see the growth in the 737 MAX as Boeing increased production rates and there's significant further growth anticipated in the years ahead. The 787 temporarily moved down the rankings, while production remained at a low level.
Despite the most recent setback, I expect that to climb this year, now deliveries have recommenced and with planned increases in production levels. The F-35 and C-130 aircraft remain our largest defense platforms. I've shown this chart a few times now, so most of you will be familiar with the high proportion of sales not attributable to any specific platform at 1% or higher. At 40% of our aerospace division revenue, this is an important part of our business and will include sales on space platforms, aftermarket, and also sales which emanate from our aerospace businesses, but are for other industrial markets. A good example would be sales for semiconductor equipment and medical applications. Thank goodness that we don't need to dwell on the pandemic and how that is affecting aviation and aerospace now.
With domestic and international travel both recovering very strongly, any notions that somehow video conferencing was going to replace travel are firmly in the rearview mirror. The opening up of China has had an immediate impact for long-haul travel, and short-haul routes were already pretty much back to 2019 levels. Let's remind ourselves again of what drives the long-term structural growth of the aerospace sector. The growing middle classes in Asia will drive growth over the next 20 years. Around the world, only about 20% of the global population has ever flown, and in Asia, it's a fraction of that. This is a barely tapped market for aviation, so the drivers supporting air traffic growth over the long term of around 3%-4% per annum remain in place.
Production rates for single-aisle aircraft continue to increase, and wide-body production is also now poised for growth. As demand continues to recover, everyone wants new aircraft, and demand is further supported by the replacement cycle driven by the retirement of older, less efficient aircraft. Given the climate challenge and high fuel costs, the imperative for efficiency has never been greater. With our diversified product portfolio, and especially the attractive positions we hold across the newest generation of single-aisle aircraft platforms, we are well-positioned to benefit from this market growth. There's one simple message from this chart, which is that the only way is up. We're showing here our expectation of average monthly production rates for all aircraft types combined based on what our customers have announced, supplemented by our own estimates.
For Airbus, that includes A220, A320, A330, and A350, and for Boeing, it includes the 737 MAX, 767, the 777, and the 787. Let's just remind ourselves what the aircraft OEMs have said. On single aisle, Airbus said at their recent results call that for the A320 family, they intend to ramp up to monthly production rate of 65 by the end of 2024, and then to 75 per month sometime in 2026. On A220, Airbus have said they're at rate 6 now and plan to increase to rate 14 by the middle of the decade. Boeing stated on their recent results call that the 737 program is stabilizing at 31 per month and intend to ramp production to around 50 per month in the 2025, 2026 timeframe.
Recovery in the long-haul international travel sector, which typically uses wide-body aircraft, is also well underway now, which is underlining confidence in those build rates increasing. Airbus confirmed in the results presentation that production of the A350 family is now around 6 aircraft per month, and it is targeting a rate of 9 per month at the end of 2025. They also reported that A330 has increased to 3 per month as planned, and they now plan to increase further to 4 per month in 2024. Boeing continue to run the 787 at low production rates, with plans to ramp to 5 per month in late 2023 and 10 per month in the 2025-2026 timeframe.
We expect the production of the 767 will continue at a rate of three per month, and Boeing have said that the first delivery of the 777X is still expected in 2025, and the production of the passenger and freighter versions of the 777 continue at current levels. The supply chain challenges are very real, and while they've eased somewhat in our Flexonics businesses, they still require relentless management in our aerospace division, a situation that has been compounded by a fire at one of our key suppliers in Thailand, and which we have sprung into action to quickly mitigate. While it's easy to become preoccupied with the supply chain pressures, it's worth remembering that the real story here is the strong recovery in air traffic and the subsequent big increases in build rates. That is great news for the whole industry.
Overall, our focus for defense remains very much on the U.S. market, where defense spending is almost as high as the next 10 countries combined, and Senior production volumes reach meaningful levels for sustained periods, which in due course will also generate good aftermarket sales for our fluid conveyance products. There has been broad bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate for a big increase in spend to $858 billion in fiscal year 2023. Long-established programs such as C-130 and P-8 remain important revenue drivers for Senior, but of course F-35 is the largest defense program that we are on. We have several operating businesses supplying to various customers on this program, so we're encouraged to see Lockheed Martin confirming high levels of production over coming years. There are the newer growth programs that will become important for us.
For example, our high-pressure ducting products are on the Boeing-Saab T-7A Red Hawk platform, which is the new Air Force trainer jet, which will ramp up in production over the coming years. We would expect this program to be successful internationally in addition to the U.S. volumes. Sales of the type of products we make in our aerospace operating businesses into end markets outside of civil aerospace and defense markets are classified under other aerospace and include sales into the space, semiconductor equipment, and medical markets. At 11% of group sales is an increasingly meaningful part of our business. We're pleased that our business development efforts have matured into volume production revenues. This time I'm highlighting space and why it's become an increasingly attractive market.
The exponential growth in low orbit satellites as a consequence of programs like SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon Kuiper means that there are significant volumes now representing excellent revenue growth opportunities. With all the satellite requirements, naturally, there's a huge increase in requirements for launch vehicles too. Our sales are growing in this sector where we provide, for example, structural parts and cryogenic valves. Turning now to Flexonics, we'll firstly look at land vehicles, which covers truck, off-highway and passenger vehicles. For this market, we sell a range of proprietary products to major OEMs, in particular our exhaust gas recirculation coolers, or EGR coolers as they're commonly known, which protect the environment by reducing emissions.
North American and European heavy-duty truck and off-highway sectors were pretty resilient last year, although global passenger vehicle production continued to be affected by the well-publicized supply chain issues affecting our customers, we did see some market growth. As Bindi already mentioned, Senior outperformed each of the land vehicle sectors in which we operate, recording strong growth in truck and off-highway and passenger vehicle customers. This is a direct result of partnering with market-leading customers and the benefits from new contracts won in recent years that are now ramping up in production. Our EGR cooler expertise means that we are well positioned for other applications which need innovative thermal management and fluid conveyed solutions, notably battery and electronics cooling for electric vehicles.
The level of bid and product development activity in this area is continuously increasing, and we are securing our first production contracts, which augurs well for medium and long-term success in these markets. Our other most important Flexonics market is power and energy, where we supply to upstream and downstream oil and gas customers and are keenly involved in the transition to clean energy. Markets grew in 2022, including repair, overhaul and replacement work for downstream customers, an important market sector for Senior's Pathway business. In the medium term, we are well-positioned to grow our non-fossil fuel business, building on our existing renewables and nuclear energy customer base, including the nascent small modular reactor or SMR sector, where we are involved in active bids for North American customers.
Just before we move on to cover technology and strategy, I wanted to first talk about Senior's company purpose. Like many organizations, we introduced a company purpose some years ago. The board felt we should revisit that to better reflect all the fantastic stuff we're doing as an organization, and we subsequently had a lively debate with the board and other internal stakeholders, which has led to us updating, in fact, upgrading our company purpose. Our renewed purpose is we help engineer the transition to a sustainable world for the benefit of all our stakeholders. A bold but authentic statement. How do we do that?
Well, we do this by using our technology expertise and fluid conveyance and thermal management to provide safe and innovative products for demanding applications in some of the most hostile environments by enabling our customers, who operate in the hardest to decarbonize sectors, to transition to low carbon and clean energy solutions, and by staying at the forefront of climate disclosure and action by ensuring our own operations achieve our net zero commitments. Far, the reaction from our employees has been great. This is really something we believe in as an organization and will drive our strategy, business model and investment case. As you will see, sustainability is the central theme of our purpose, our strategy, and indeed our technology roadmap. How do we shape up as an organization in terms of our own sustainability actions?
For a full update on sustainability and ESG, please do have a read of our comprehensive sustainability report within our 2022 annual report, which is already available on our website today. We're making great progress. With regard to our actions on climate change, you remember we were the first company in our sector anywhere in the world to have our near term Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets approved and verified through the Science Based Targets initiative. I'm pleased to report that we're absolutely on track to achieve those 2025 targets. We've also submitted our long-term net zero targets to SBTi for verification approval, targeting 2040 as the year we will achieve net zero emissions.
That will keep us in the vanguard of companies taking real and decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within our own operations and through our supply chain. This year, we are the only company in our sector to have been awarded the prestigious A rating from CDP for our climate disclosure and actions. Complementing that is the A rating we also received from CDP in 2022 for the trailblazing work we're doing with suppliers and climate. Their words, not ours. On the social side, we've further stepped up our game in 2022, looking after our employees in the midst of the cost of living crisis, continuing the highest levels of commitment to diversity and inclusivity, and becoming more active and supportive to the local communities in which we operate. Again, you'll see some great examples of this in our annual report.
Similarly, on the governance side, we continue to devote significant time and resources to our compliance programs and have increased our investment in information security given the ever-evolving nature of cyber risk. Most of you will be familiar with our strategy and technology themes from previous presentations, including at our Capital Markets Day in October of 2021. As a quick refresher, we highlighted two key technology themes. One was fluid conveyance and thermal management, which in the first half of 2022 represented just over 2/3 of group revenue, with the other being structures. In Senior, we use structures as a generic term for precision machine parts and higher level structural assemblies for both airframe and aero engines, as well as highly engineered precision machine components and sub-assemblies for other industrial applications.
Our strategy for our structures business is straightforward, and we've been making good progress on it. We've a well-equipped global footprint, including truly world-class manufacturing facilities in Southeast Asia, as well as North America and the U.K. Our focus is on filling our existing capacity with work that meets or returns criteria. That is coming from the resurgent civil aerospace recovery, growing market share, and as I described earlier, some diversification into space as well as defense. In 2022, we made very good progress, with sales increasing as aircraft engine and space production programs ramped up, and we got to full production levels for recent contract wins. As volumes increase in 2023 and beyond, we fully expect more profitable growth for our aerostructures business.
You've seen this slide before, which describes some of the innovative, highly engineered fluid conveyance and thermal management products that we supply into a range of diverse and attractive end markets. I thought rather repeat what I've said previously, I'd bring it to life a little bit more by showing you a case study. Of course, there wouldn't be a Senior presentation without a cool picture of an aircraft, and they don't get cooler than this beauty. This is the X-59 demonstrator aircraft being built in the legendary Lockheed Martin Skunk Works for NASA's QueSST program. QueSST is NASA's quite supersonic technology program. To read more about it, have a look at NASA's website, where we're named as one of the suppliers on the program. Senior Aerospace SSP in California has designed and built the bleed air duct system for the aircraft.
Our innovative system draws on our fluid conveyance expertise and provides performance benefits. As well as traditional ducting production methods, we've extensively used our advanced additive manufacturing capability. This leads to lower weights than conventional manufacturing methods, lower parts count as it enables multiple components to be consolidated into single assemblies, and shorter lead times as we're able to print parts in-house and eliminate tooling requirements. First flights are due soon, followed by a multi-year test program. Continued investment in new technology and product design and development in the areas of fluid conveyance, thermal management, and additive manufacturing is vital in support of our key markets in airspace, land vehicles, and power and energy as they transition towards a low-carbon economy. In airspace, our traditional fluid conveyance products are entirely compatible with sustainable aviation fuels currently under evaluation by our customers.
As I've just shown, our additive manufacturing capabilities are enabling advances in complex product design for improved performance and weight reduction for the benefit of our customers. Our world-class capability in thermal management and fluid conveyance opens up opportunities to support electric and hybrid air vehicle applications. We're leveraging building upon our long experience of providing hydrogen fluid handling and distribution products for industrial markets to support development of both on-aircraft and off-aircraft hydrogen technologies as this alternative propulsion system evolves. In land vehicles, our current exhaust gas recirculation and waste heat recovery products continue to support evolving land vehicle powertrain systems as they become more efficient and lower their impact on the environment.
To focus on product offerings for the transition to a low-carbon economy, we are engaged with our customers' new product development programs by providing design and engineering support for cooling and fluid handling solutions for batteries and electronics on the growing number of electric and hybrid vehicles. We're supporting the development of commercial vehicle hydrogen fuel cell cooling and conveyance by capitalizing on years of experience of producing hydrogen fuel cell products in the energy sector. In power and energy, we continue to develop an established wide range of fluid conveyance and thermal management products, many of which, such as our expansion joints, use our world-leading bellows technology. Our products are ideally suited for harsh environments in green energy generation, including solar farms, wind power plants, hydroelectric, geothermal, fuel cell, and nuclear power applications.
Our many years' experience of providing fluid conveyance products for harsh environments, and specifically hydrogen fuel cell cooling conveyance, opens up opportunities in hydrogen production and infrastructure applications. Hopefully, as you can see, our capabilities and technology will remain highly relevant as we transition over coming years and decades to a net zero environment. Active portfolio management is something our board continuously focuses on. In recent years, that has been more about divestments, closures, or consolidation of some of our operating businesses, what we call prune to grow. However, on November 28th last year, we completed our first acquisition since 2015, and I'll talk more about Spencer Aerospace in a moment. As I described earlier, we have some excellent aerostructures businesses, and it's great to see them starting to perform again as commercial aerospace markets recover.
They don't necessarily fit with our fluid conveyance and thermal management strategic focus, we often get asked about them. I'm sure that most of you will remember that in December 2019, Senior confirmed that it was reviewing strategic options for its Aerostructures business, which included a potential divestment. We received strong interest for the business, the group determined that with the onset of the pandemic, it was in the best interests of Senior and its stakeholders for the Aerostructures business to remain within the group at that time. We are considering the best time to relaunch the process to ensure we optimize value for shareholders, taking into account financing markets and end market conditions. Coming back to our recent acquisition.
As a leading manufacturer of highly engineered, high-pressure hydraulic fluid fittings, Spencer Aerospace is a great fit with our other fluid conveyance businesses, and we're excited by the growth potential it brings to the group. Having completed the acquisition at the end of November, integration is well underway and on plan. The start of the year well with a strong order book and good January sales. Our team, including myself, are having positive discussions with both existing and new customers, and confident will lead to excellent growth opportunities in support of our acquisition case. As we think about our priorities for 2023, first amongst equals is to fully support our customers, particularly in aerospace, as the build rates ramp up. That in turn will further improve profitability and return on capital employed.
Those supply chain issues in aerospace are going to be with us for some time and will require diligent, indeed relentless management, including mitigating the impact of the recent fire at one of our suppliers, which I mentioned earlier. The board will continue its active management of our portfolio, including ensuring we complete the Spencer Aerospace integration as planned. Our group-wide technology council will be providing the overarching focus on the technology and product developments, which I'm excited about and which our customers need. In line with our purpose and strategy, we will be striving to maintain our sector-leading sustainability performance. Let me finish by talking about the outlook for Senior as we start 2023. Our order book is healthy, reflecting favorable market dynamics with commercial aerospace recovery in full swing and other markets remaining buoyant.
Demand is currently holding up well, though we remain mindful of the potential impact of ongoing supply chain pressures in aerospace, as well as the broader macroeconomic situation and geopolitical uncertainty. With aircraft build rates increasing through the year and the continued supply chain challenges in aerospace, including the recent fire at one of our key suppliers, we anticipate trading in our aerospace division to be more weighted to the second half of the year. Overall, the board anticipates strong growth for the group in 2023, in line with its expectations. Looking ahead, we remain on track to drive the group ROCE to a minimum of 13.5%, in line with our previously stated ambition.
Our strategy and positioning in attractive and structurally resilient core markets, combined with our sector-leading sustainability credentials and highly relevant technical capabilities, is delivering a strong recovery across our aerospace and Flexonics divisions, which gives us confidence that we will deliver enhanced value for our stakeholders. With that, we'll open the floor for any questions which Bindi and I will be delighted to answer. Dom, you were there first.
Thank you. Thanks, David. Dom Edridge from Numis. Two if I may. Just, David, perhaps you can give us a little bit of color around how you see inventory levels in the various sort of civil aerospace platforms. Notable in recent weeks, Spirit AeroSystems suggesting that they're gonna see much stronger 737 MAX per ship sets into 2023 than perhaps you might have thought, given Boeing's expectations. Secondly, similar theme really. Within Flexonics, very strong outperformance in 2022. Statement points to continued benefit from new programs ramping up. I just wonder if you might comment on the relative impact in 2023 from that new program ramp relative to 2022.
Okay, I'll take the first and maybe Bindi will take the second one. Well, inventory levels, I think it means absolutely the case. It's been necessary to move from that, you know, just-in-time philosophy to a just-in-case philosophy. As Bindi mentioned, you know, we deliberately invested a bit more in inventory last year, as rates increase. It's much more stable in Flexonics, to be honest. If you looked at the inventory turns in our land vehicle business, for example, they're exceptionally high. In aerospace, you know, we have had to put a bit more inventory in place. Lead times have extended, but it's not just a case of ordering things earlier because what's been happening, you know, let's say raw material, hard metals have gone from like 16 weeks to 52 weeks.
You order it 52 weeks in advance and week 51, the supplier says it's not coming. We've deliberately actually brought material in a bit earlier, just to make sure we can support our customer programs. I think we'll find that's the case, you know, throughout most of this year. I'm in tune with what most other CEOs have been saying, Safran and GE, that it's gonna be 12 to 18 months to have a more normal supply chain, and that will directly affect the sort of inventory that people want to build. That's if you can get it, of course. So some people would love to build some buffer stock, but they're not quite there yet. As regards to rates, you know, I wouldn't second-guess what Boeing and Airbus are saying.
I think Boeing have said they're stabilizing MAX production at 31. They wanna go up to like 30 and beyond by the end of the year. That's what we are seeing coming through from them. So that's what we'd anticipate. Similarly, what Airbus have been saying is gonna happen is what we're seeing coming through as well. That's a good news story. You know, it's, it might be a little bit later than some people were expecting, but it's up. If, I think if you look at the next two, three years, that steady growth is really, really welcome. We've got all the capacity to cope with that.
Ship sets deliveries into the customer now from downstream, are they broadly running at sort of stated production levels?
Yeah. You know, remember, it depends where you are on the supply chain. You know, some of our business in Malaysia typically about six months ahead, for example. You know, we always need to be, and that takes account shipping and logistics and where it's fitted on the aircraft. We're always like to be slightly ahead of the production rates of some. Now, if you take another example, the wing ribs on the 737 MAX, we build those in our plant very near Everett which is and Renton, you know, where Boeing with the aircraft. We're almost delivering sort of every other day into the line there. They're much closer to the actual requirements. It does depend a little bit on what we're supplying. On the Flexonics, yeah.
On the Flexonics side, when, you know, in 2022, we clearly outgrew on the land vehicle side every single end market because of the market share gains we'd made and having content on some of the newer programs. That continues into 2023. If you look at ACT or North America heavy truck, they're forecasting a 3% decline in North America heavy truck production. We will continue to outperform that. On Europe, they're forecasting a 1% decrease in production. We again will actually grow because of some of the new platforms ramping up that we've won recently. On passenger vehicles, I think in Europe, the forecast is for about 5% or 6% growth. We will strongly outperform that as well primarily because of new program wins, and some of these are on emerging technologies as well. That's on the land vehicle side. On power and energy, continued good activity in upstream oil and gas, and continued good activity around repair, overhaul, maintenance in downstream and on the Powergen side.
Andy.
Good morning, guys. Andy from Jefferies. 3 questions, please. You did a good job of managing inflation in 2022. Can you just give us a bit of an idea on how you're seeing pricing this year? Quite a few ups and downs, you know, labor going up, freight, et cetera, and raw materials going down. Just see if you can just give a bit of guidance there. Secondly, you talk about second half waiting in aerospace. Can you just expand upon that a little bit? Kind of any broad context will be helpful. I'm assuming that the second half waiting is underpinned by all your customers, you know, platforms increasing. I won't answer the question for you, but if you can expand on that. Last but not least, I've asked this question for about 10 years. Market share opportunities, feels like supply chains are, you know, getting even more integral for your OEMs. Is there more opportunity for you to continue to take market share in 23?
Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll answer 1, 3, and I'll then answer 2. Firstly on inflation, yeah, I think we kind of called this, didn't we, going back 18 months, we expected inflation last year to be primarily about material, this year to be primarily about labor. You look at the cost of living crisis and, you know, we've absolutely ensured that we've had fair settlements with all our employees around the world that takes account of that cost of living crisis and regional variation. You know, significantly higher than we've seen in recent years. We've taken full account to that when we've been having our pricing discussions with customers and suppliers. We're in good shape now for next year. We have done all our wage negotiations.
I think there's one site left to finish, and we'll be finished that soon. We can build that into our pricing discussions with customers and with suppliers. It's gonna be ongoing for some time, given the volatility in the supply chain. That's just a methodology that we've all got used to in those supply chains. You know, we're confident being able to continue to manage that pretty well. I think on the market share side, I will say there's lots of bid activity. You know, the nature of that changes a bit. I think there's a definite realization from our major OEMs that they really want stability and resilience in their supply chain. We've had great discussions.
I've been in Toulouse and other places, and, you know, they're emphasizing the importance of financial stability in their supply base. They, they want suppliers who are able to invest, who are able to attract talent and get enough people in to build the product. You know, that all augurs very well for Senior. I think we're in a good place. You know, you're always gonna have to be competitive. But I think with our footprint, our global footprint, we're that as well. Still plenty of opportunities to grow market share on the civil aerospace side. You know, on Flexonics and land vehicle, it's really about maintaining our position on conventional technology, but more and more about winning those new technology products.
That starts with prototypes and development orders, and then we'll build into production. We're just seeing the start now of the first kind of production orders, some of those cleaner energy technologies. We are extremely active on the sort of clean energy front and land vehicles and in power and energy. Good, I think we put an example on our annual report on one of the products. Think about diesel generators, not the ones that go into trucks and off highway vehicles, but the stationary diesel generators for Powergen. One of the future technologies to make that clean is solid oxide fuel cell technology. We've already won our first development contract and the low-level production contract from one of the major OEMs, and that will grow to be very significant in value over the coming years. It's great to see that transition happening, and much of our business development activity is around that now.
On the aerospace second half waiting, two factors. One, you answered yourself is around the build rate increases. That happens gradually through the course of the year. I mean, we've already seen the announced ones on single aisle, but it was encouraging to see the build rates also starting to be announced on wide body aircraft as well, particularly with international travel growing now. The second element is on the supply chain challenges, as David mentioned. I mean, this requires relentless management from our operations. We start to see some of that easing through towards the end of the year. That's why second half has a higher waiting for both those reasons.
I'll ask the fourth one. On supply chains, are you seeing things that you expected in terms of the challenges? Are there, you know, like Whac-A-Mole that we're seeing across the other industrials, you sort one thing out, and then something else pops up? Is it more kind of as you thought?
Well, again, as you know, Andy, I've been talking about this for two years. You know, I think the first thing to say is in Flexonics, you know, aerospace is where Flexonics was 18 months ago. 18 months ago, you couldn't get a hold of stainless steel. It was really difficult, and our Flexonics business were really struggling. They're in pretty good shape now actually. Not many supply chain issues in Flexonics. There's always a few, but actually in much better shape. At the time I said to the aerospace guys, "Look, this is coming." They said, "Well, we're okay, we're okay." I said, "No, it's coming." It is here. I would say it is large as expected, but the big difference, of course, is what's happening in Ukraine and the impact that's had on hard metals, titanium, and that moves on to Inconel and so on. And then the energy security crisis. I think that has added complexity to what was already going to be a pretty difficult supply chain picture.
Harry?
It's Harry Phillips from Peel Hunt .
Hi, Harry.
Couple of questions, please. Just in terms of the lovely bridge chart, you had the pure volume bit of profit and revenue, which is, I think, circa GBP 20 million on 114. Strikes me just into recovery, that seems quite a low drop-through. Maybe the supply chain issue is a factor within that, but maybe just to sort of debate around where sort of drop-through could be and ought to be and stuff. Just on Aerostructures, can you sell this in blocks or does it go in one entirety? What does that do around capital allocation? I suppose a balancing item to that, the M&A pipeline and opportunity to sort of, you know, fill that equation out.
Yeah. Do you wanna start?
Should I take the drop-through question?
You can drop through.
Yep. At many of the operating businesses, we are seeing volume-related operating drop-through come at levels I've previously expected, remember in capital markets a couple of years ago, and I did say they were near-term. The point I made was when you are seeing the high inflationary environment, I mean, our businesses have done a really good job in trying to recover those inflationary costs, but you can't apply a margin on recovery of those, so that impacts that drop-through. Clearly, you know, you've seen particularly in Flexonics, which is, as David mentioned earlier in its post-COVID recovery, how the drop-through levels and the margins have expanded over the last couple of years. Once aerospace gets through to the same sort of level of sort of supply chain challenges going away, we should see strong pickup there as well.
I think on Aerostructures, we have an open mind, Harry. I mean, remember we already sold our Connecticut operating business in April last year for $74 million. That was originally part of the Aerostructures divestment that we were considering back in the end of 2019 and the start of 2020. In some ways it's easier to sell it as a whole, and I think it's a very attractive group of assets. You know, some potential buyers might be more interested in engine than airframe. Others might be more interested in certain geographies than others. Overall, you know, I think, I prefer to do it as a whole, but we have an open mind, depending what's, one, best value for shareholders, but also think of our employees and stability there.
Just on the sort of M&A aspect.
On capital deployment, there's always a debate, right? The board would consider that the right time. You know, value enhancing M&A is important to us. I'm sure some shareholders like to see some of that return to them. It will depend on a range of circumstances at the time, and the board would debate that fully and of course consult with shareholders as well.
Just availability in terms of M&A pipeline, is that getting tighter, keener, more like?
Well, I think, you know, debt markets are pretty tight at the moment, so that's affecting it to some extent. We've got a pretty active pipeline. We always, Martin, my colleague who runs strategy and business developments here, and, you know, we always maintain a pretty healthy pipeline of opportunities. Our focus at the moment is on integrating Spencer. We're not rushing out to do another acquisition at the moment.
Thank you.
Any more questions? Okay.
Thank you. This is Virginia from Bank of America.
Hi, Virginia.
Maybe two questions going off of what's been already discussed. The first one is on the margins for Flexonics. Obviously, they were quite good this year. How should we think about specifically margin expansion for next year and going forward, both to be honest, Flexonics and aerospace? On working capital in general, how should we think about working capital evolution for next year, putting together inventory and everything else? Is there anything specific you wanna flag? Thank you.
Okay. I'll start with working capital and start with margins. I mean, the key metric for us is about that minimum 13.5% ROCE target, and you've seen the significant improvement we've made this year on the back of good profitability. Continued increased profitability as end markets continue to recover will drive us towards achieving that minimum 13.5% target. Clearly we, part of that will see strong profitability and therefore strong margins coming through in both divisions over time as the recovery pans out. Again, making sure we're delivering that minimum 13.5% ROCE.
On the working capital point, at the year end, for the full year, our working capital as a percentage of sales was 15.5%, and I expect it to remain at that 15.5%. We clearly have, as Dave, you know, said in the presentation, a laser-like focus on working capital efficiency. We're mindful of this is a growing environment, so we will be therefore needing to invest more working capital efficiently and in the environment where we do have supply chain challenges as well, making sure that our pipeline of incoming materials is there as well. There are times when we are bringing some stuff in ahead or lead times increasing and making sure we're just taking care of all of that. Overall, around that 15.5% of sales.
Any more questions? Okay. Well, lovely. Thank you, very much, everybody, for attending this morning. We look forward to continuing the dialogue. Thanks a lot.