Okay, good morning all, and a warm welcome to ABG Sundal Collier's Q3 results presentation. Before we kick off the presentation, I would like to mention that we will, as usual, have a Q&A session after the presentation, and should you want to raise a question, please use the Q&A function in Teams, and we will answer all questions in turn. I would also like to mention that I'm joined by my CFO, Geir Olsen. Before we dig deeper into the numbers, I'd like to start with some general comments about the quarter. That was a very special quarter for us indeed. We celebrated our fortieth anniversary in September as a firm, and we did it with one of our strongest third quarters ever.
In what usually is a seasonally slow quarter, we were able to close one investment banking transaction every other day, or, well, in fact, actually several a day in September, since it is in September everything happens from an investment banking perspective. This, combined with the return to growth from our brokerage and research operations, explains our strong performance in this particular quarter, but over time, I would like to once again emphasize the importance of our full product offering across products and sectors, providing a solid foundation for the success of our business. I will revert to this topic later on, where I will share some reflections on where we are as a firm and what we are doing to elevate our position and relevance even further going forward, so let's look more at the numbers in detail.
Looking at our revenues, we were able to grow top line in the quarter by 10%, from 356 to 392 million NOK, resulting in a 12% top line growth the first nine months of this year compared to same period last year. On a rolling twelve months basis, we ended up at roughly 1.85 billion NOK, compared to the 1.7 billion NOK we have been at over the last two calendar years. The top line growth, combined with our continuous efforts to mitigate not least the negative effects from the continued weakening of the Norwegian krona, contributed to the increase of our operating margin by three percentage points during the first nine months of this year, from 17% to 20%.
This resulted in 35% growth in earnings per share from NOK 0.26 last year to NOK 0.35 this year, the first nine months, and in the quarter specifically, it resulted in a 29% increase in earnings per share from 7 øre last year to 9 øre this year. That means a rather healthy operational leverage on the 12% and 10% top line gross growth, respectively, year to date and in the quarter. Let's flip to the next slide, please, and look at the markets and the macro backdrop.
I think it's fair to say that many of us that returned from our traditional Scandi holidays in the first week of August had a bit of a tough start on the back of the dramatic sell-off in Japan, started off in Japan, with ripple effects in equity markets globally. In hindsight, this, well, at least up until now, proved to be a healthy shakeout and acted kind of like a reset for the rest of the year, with equities actually ending up in the quarter, and in spite of tons of things to worry about, not least when it comes to geopolitical risks, that unfortunately seems to be on the rise, the markets are performing strong, both equity markets and debt markets, not least the vibrant Nordic high-yield market that we will return to shortly.
Well, I think with that, we could flip to the next slide and actually take a look at how our markets that we operate in have performed, and starting off with the Nordic equity markets, activity in terms of primary volumes has been, well, muted, to say the least, but the headline is, in all honesty, somewhat misleading, with more activity again in small and mid caps, and also in terms of number of deals, it has been on the rise, especially in Sweden, I would say, and then, of course, we have the secondary placings on top of this. Still no IPOs, however, even though we expect activity to increase, maybe already towards the end of this year, and especially into next year with a lot of pent-up demand.
Debt Capital Markets, on the other hand, has been very vibrant, and the headline is, not misleading by any means, with volumes up by 40% in the quarter. Activity has been underpinned by credit spreads going down, fueled further by limited new issuance activity across sectors up until a couple of quarters ago. And finally, looking at the M&A market, it continues to be stable to slightly muted, perhaps, in terms of volumes and number of deals being flat in the quarter and down by 8% on a rolling 12 months basis. And we have some way to go. I've talked about this in the last couple of quarters before we are back at normalized levels with structured processes.
It's still somewhat of a bilateral process arena and some public to private as well in these numbers that make out quite a lot of these volumes. And such, as such, visibility is somewhat lower on execution and timing of execution. Let's take a look on next slide, please, and look at how we performed in these markets. And starting off with corporate financing, I think our performance is decent. Looking across ECM and DCM, especially within DCM, this particular quarter with revenues up by 32% in the quarter to 161 million NOK and by 22% in the first nine months of the year to 531 million NOK.
As you can see on the right-hand side of this slide, we have been able to close a pretty wide range of different transactions during the quarter, both in ECM and DCM and across geographies as well as sectors. Let's take a look at next slide, please, and have a look at M&A and how we did within M&A. I think headline can be described as solid. Last year, we had a bit of a tough comp, especially since we had one big transaction contributing strongly to our M&A revenues Q3 last year. But this quarter, our M&A revenues have been supported by more transactions.
So from that sense, slightly higher quality and the numbers as such, and lots of ongoing transactions as well, that if they close during this quarter, Q4, bodes well for continued strong performance from our M&A operations. Let's continue with next slide and have a look at our brokerage and research operations that has returned to growth in the quarter, and it has accelerated as well towards the end of the quarter. So this is not a consequence of the volatility I talked about in my opening statement in August. All sales offices contributed to growth, with the biggest delta percentage-wise from our U.K. office, but also with continued strong performance from Oslo sales and return to growth as well in Stockholm. Okay, so when it comes to costs and headcount, I'll leave the word over to Geir.
Please go ahead, Geir.
Thank you, Jonas. Really not much to report on this quarter, so I'll keep it quite brief. The main story is similar to the previous quarters with the total fixed cost base continuing to be inflated by the weakening NOK. The effect year to date is about NOK 13 million, and it's about NOK 7 million in the quarter specifically. However, the main driver for the increase in cost is our profitability-driven compensation model with variable compensation cost increasing our cost base by the same. As you can see, total headcount year over year is slightly down in the quarter.
And I would also like to say that, albeit not being significant numbers, we would add that the new business initiatives we have recently made is included both in the cost base and the headcount, and we expect them soon to contribute to revenues. So, with that, Jonas, I'll let you continue. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Geir. Before we conclude on the quarter, I wanted to draw your attention once again to the fact that we celebrated our fortieth anniversary this quarter. I certainly think that calls for some reflections on where we are, what we have achieved so far, and of course, where we are going from here. We have, with a relentless focus on our clients and their needs over the last four decades, built a leading full service supplier of investment banking services in the Nordics. The Nordic investment banking is a very highly attractive market indeed, and as such, of course, highly competitive.
But what makes me most pleased with what we have achieved so far, and also gives me confidence in our path forward, is that we are highly regarded by our clients, and that we have been able to establish leading market positions across the board when it comes to products, sectors, and segments. We always assume a client-first perspective when we build our business. We don't start with what would be beneficial for us, such as broad-based revenues from many products and sectors, reducing our sensitivity to the very cyclical industry in which we operate. We always think that what is best from our client's point of view, and that has led to our strong focus on being leading in all product segments. So why is this important? Well, simply because that enables us to provide the advice that suits our clients, not our own capabilities.
That builds credibility, and that builds trust. This, combined with our close to obsession of always being as efficient and lean as possible, has contributed to a stability in terms of profitability that I would dare to say is not very common, at least in our industry, in fact, outstanding. We are not relying on recurring revenues or income from other activities, such as lending activities or what have you. We are relying on our own capacity to deliver advice to our clients, regardless of market conditions, paired with, once again, a relentless focus on costs.
That has contributed to what we every single quarter since we went public back in two thousand and one we are thus approaching 100 quarters by now that we have been able to report operating profits in plus nineties consecutive quarters. For a highly seasonal and cyclical business with basically no to very limited recurring revenues, I think that is a bit of an achievement. On a yearly basis we've had operational margins that has been very strong and healthy indeed over time between high teens and low thirties. This has furthermore contributed to those that have been invested in ABG in the ABG share since we went public 23 years ago that we have been able to deliver an average total annual return of 17%.
In a company that, once again, operates basically without any long-term debt. So next slide, please. Being proud of what we have achieved so far doesn't mean we are becoming a bunch of fat cats. On the contrary, we have tons of plans for how to continue to increase our relevance for a growing base of clients, and thereby continue to deliver long-term attractive returns from for our shareholders and partners co-invested with external shareholders in our firm. The key words when it comes to the coming few years for us is to better leverage our well-invested and best-in-class platform by scaling up and grow with increased profitability. Why is this so important? Simply because the cost of doing business as a full service in integrated investment bank has increased over the last years.
Not because we or our peers, for that sake, have become sloppy when it comes to costs. It's industry trends we're talking about. So we have decided that leveraging this platform that gives us a license to operate in this highly attractive market is the right way forward. Execution will then, as always, be key, and our main priorities looking forward are to, number one, grow in clearly defined areas within our core operations, where we have conducted a very thorough bottom-up analysis of where we should do better in, in our core operations, given our position overall in our firm. We aim to deliver both current and potentially new services or products to additional markets and client groups. Short term, we are, of course, very focused on securing a successful launch of our new ventures, such as private banking.
Broadening our offering will be key to our success. And we will be doing this while staying lean and capital light, with core KPIs and targets of keeping front staff share above 80%. We are around 82% now, by the way, as well as continuing to keep a high dividend ratio and distribute all excess capital to shareholders. We simply see no need for accumulating capital or invest in activities that requires a lot of balance sheet and capital. So, how will this be achieved? What are the enablers? Well, since we are a people's business, we have to start there.
We have increased our focus as of late in investing in processes and infrastructure in terms of making sure we not only get top talent on our team, but the right type of top talent that constitutes a team that delivers more together than the sum of the individuals. That is, by the way, how we tend to define diversification internally. Individuals with different perspectives, different backgrounds, that together delivers outstanding service to our clients. We are also investing more in technology, or more precisely, I'd like to say more in how to better and faster implement the use of new technology in order to increase productivity. And we are lastly focusing on how to strengthen our own brand, which is important when it comes to fueling further growth, and sometimes I feel slightly underestimated in our industry, at least.
We're not talking about slogans or marketing as such, when we are talking about strengthening our brand. We're talking about making sure our clients, potential clients, and the market understands not only our capabilities, but our core differentiators, which I'll revert to later on. By making sure perception and reality is as close as possible, we will increase the tailwinds on our business from our brand. By executing on this, our main objectives are to safeguard we have a minimum top three position across all key products and segments. This is important since it fuels cross-selling and a market share increase in the 20+ billion core market we operate in, i.e., investment banking and securities.
Increase revenues per head by at least 20% by tapping efficiency gains and growing with at least, as already mentioned, plus 80% from staff share. And finally, by leveraging our best-in-class and well-invested platform, increase our operating margin to at least 25% in a mid-cycle environment. Let's take a look at the next slide, please. And before we will conclude with my summary, I would like to mention a few important things when it comes to our core unique selling points. That is also the essence of our culture and how we operate. We are convinced that combining our purpose, enabling business and capital to grow and perform, with our DNA, if you will, excellence, that means that our clients know that they always will get best-in-class advice and execution.
Dedication, that means that you as a client know that we work harder and are always there for our clients. And finally, persistence, that we never give up until we deliver. These keywords, combined with our purpose, makes us convinced we will reach our vision of being the Nordic investment bank of choice. The Nordic investment bank of choice for our clients, the Nordic investment bank of choice for talent and our staff, the Nordic investment bank of choice for shareholders. So with that, I'd like to summarize the key takeaways here today, this morning. Next slide, please. Well, one of the strongest third quarters ever, we talked a lot about that. And this was a result of solid contribution from all business segments and product areas.
I've touched upon our what we have achieved so far, but more importantly, what we're aiming to achieve going forward, and that is to deliver meaningful, profitable growth by increasing our market share within our core segments, broaden our product offering, and extend our reach, and of course, successfully launch new ventures. And finally, we are increasing our focus on leveraging our brand and infrastructure to increase margins. So, with that, I would like to open up the floor for any questions.
Yeah, we have received one question so far. You mentioned the contributions from DCM in the quarter. What drives the performance within DCM?
Well, of course, it's a strong market, as I talked about, but when it comes to our own performance, I would say it's a function of our broad sector coverage, closely integrated with the rest of our business and coverage teams. We are thus not dependent on one hot sector at the moment, but many different sectors in line with how we operate within all our products. But also, when it comes to ABG Sundal Collier specifically, I would like to mention that we are consistently outperforming competition in deals we are making, which in turn makes our clients and potential clients very comfortable with having ABG as an advisor on their team. Any-
I think that's it from the questions.
Okay. You know where to reach us, should you have any follow-up questions. We are available. Don't be shy or hesitate to reach out, and thank you for your attention this morning.