Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Aqualas Braemar LoC's Q1 2021 results and thank you for joining us. My name is David Wells and as usual I will be focusing on the operational performance of the company and I will be giving this presentation with Dejan Suchic, our CFO, who will give color to our financial performance. I have to say it's been an exciting quarter and we have a lot to get through. Unfortunately, we are once again in these COVID times still unable to present live and have to use a recorded webinar.
So we can't take Q and A after the presentation. If you have any questions, then please contact us by email or telephone afterwards. So moving to slide 3, just to remind you of our disclaimer and the fact that we're making some forward looking statements within this presentation. So turning to Slide 4, our highlights. It's been a very, very busy quarter but we're happy with our results on many levels.
The market, as you can imagine, has not been easy. Many countries have been in lockdown and travel has been difficult. In spite of this, our revenues are up 5% on pro form a Q1 2020. And just to remind, Q1 2020 was a very strong quarter where we believed at that time we were rapidly coming out of recession pre COVID. So, it's good news that we still perform better.
Revenues are driven by another strong result From renewables, which are up 30% Q on Q, but also supported by a strong quarter from the maritime section, largely driven by catch up on marine claim notifications and increased diversification away from just simply casualty work. Our adjusters also performed well and have been further boosted by some new recruitment and also reduction in overheads from measures that we took in 2020. Our oil and gas revenues are down a little, largely driven by completion of several major offshore projects that were ongoing this time last year and also driven by a slight slowdown in Saudi Arabia this year due to lockdowns. Oil and gas is going through a slightly quieter phase as capex related work reduces, but we think we're starting to see the green shoots of new small operations judging by the amount of small call up contracts that we are winning. On the bottom line, we produced an EBIT of US1.9 million dollars and an adjusted EBIT of US2.4 after allowing for cost mostly centered on the recent merger that we have accounted for.
In addition, we have been doing some initial pre investment post merger to get ourselves on the right track and some of those costs that we're taking at the moment will be collected later on. So all in all, quite pleased with our results. All this has been achieved whilst we've been fully focused on integrating both AB and LOC together. We're very happy to update that this was completed In the first part and as of 21st April, we are working together and working together ahead of schedule. So the 2 companies are now trading together.
It's been a lot of hard work to get there, But thanks go out to a lot of my colleagues who've really been pushing the boat out to get this done. Our cash balance at the end of the quarter was $28,300,000 a slight reduction on the last quarter, mainly driven by working capital requirements related to increased revenues over the last few months and also settlement of merger costs which were accounted for in Q4. On top of this, we've also completed the merger of Eastpoint Geo, our new geoscience division. That was done in February and they have hit the ground running and have been producing good results from the start. Finally, to remind that we will maintain our intention to pay NOK0.25 per share dividend in June subject to AGM ratification to maintain our semi annual schedule.
So all in all, I think we're quite pleased with the results that we put together in Q1. Turning to Slide 5. For those of us those of you who don't know us very well, I'll give it a little bit of extra color into what we do. Post merger, we have decided to ratify how we record our trading and we will be focused on the renewables, maritime and oil and gas markets. Turning to slide 6.
Our service line portfolio broadly falls into 3 arms: our consulting and engineering division Focused mainly on key areas of support for consultancy to our clients covering a wide range of Engineering and Marine Expertise. On loss prevention, which is focused on risk reduction, Largely driven by acting the capacity of marine warranty surveyor for underwriters and protecting their interests, but also heavily involved with vessel and other asset audits, inspections and surveys. And finally, on loss adjustment where we're focused on casualty support, work associated with Hull and Machinery P and I claims, Loss adjusting, salvage and rec removal and of course, dispute resolutions. Turning to slide 7, our strategic vision remains quite simple and can be summarized into 3 distinct areas of focus: continued expansion and growth into the offshore renewable sector and also into sustainability orientated services in both the shipping and oil and gas arenas. We still have a bold ambition to have 50% of our revenues to be driven by green services by 2025.
The second area of focus is to leverage our leading position on the more mature industries of shipping and oil and gas to drive growth and to also increase profitability. And finally, of particular interest to listeners here, focus on capital efficiency and to return Cash back to shareholders in the form of dividends. Turning to Slide 8. Our global footprint is hugely important to us. We have one of the most extensive footprints of all our competitors around the world and this has stood us in great stead, particularly during this last year.
In these difficult times of travel restrictions, many new clients come to us because of it And through this, we believe we've taken quite a lot of work away from our smaller competitors. In the last year, I'm still pleased to report there's only been 4 or 5 occasions where we've not been able to get to site to service A survey or an inspection on behalf of our clients and I think that's a pretty good record in these times. Moving to Slide 9. So, on integration, We have made great steps forward. As I mentioned earlier, we are pleased to announce The 2 companies are now trading together.
We've completed the main integration process ahead of schedule And we're trading together under the new ABL logo. So we've rebranded the company And within that, we have 6 affiliated companies as you can see here on this slide: OWC, Innossea and Eastpoint Geo being largely focused on renewables, JLA being largely focused on rig moving services in the Americas, Longitude being our engineering division. And finally, ABL Yachts, which is really part of the ABL portfolio, Focuses on the specialized division on superyachts and large luxury vessels. Our cost synergies still remain at an expected US3.5 million dollars per year And we will largely be expecting to realize these in the second half of this year. At this stage, we have put in some extra costs as we bring the 2 companies together and haven't really started realizing those bottom line savings.
So, as the year goes on, We should be adding these to our bottom line. Slide 10, We continue to operate with a simple matrix trading structure Similar to that that we've used all along, with 6 vertical P and L operating segments, Cross fed with 4 market stream business development segments that service across regions and across companies. It's a fairly simple structure and easy to understand and easy to administer. Moving to Slide 11. The new company now has a good diversification by both markets and segments.
If we look at the left hand side, about half our business It's still related to oil and gas, about a quarter related to shipping or maritime, about 20% is focused on renewables with the rest in the loss adjusting. On the right hand side, we can see the diversification Of the regional segments has changed somewhat. Europe is now our largest segment at 27%, followed closely by Asia Pacific at 22%, Americas and Middle East are both roughly the same, 17%, 18%. OWC, our renewables arm, at 12% and the remainder made up from our engineering division of Longitude. A positive interest in this segment is that our renewables revenues amount to 19% as of end of Q1 So therefore, the additional 7% that we don't see on this pie chart is serviced by all the regions within the ABL structure.
It gives us quite a strong position for servicing that market. Moving to slide 12. So I've spent a little bit of time now focusing on the individual market segments that we service, Starting with renewables. So this is a very strong sector at the moment and continues to be so. As we can see on the left hand chart, 2019 was a record year of almost $32,000,000,000 of FID investment.
Last year was substantially bigger at US50 $1,000,000,000 being earmarked for investment into the market. That's a massive step change and it's a massive step change around the world as many countries start taking interest in this arena. Also what's changed, looking at the right hand side, is the mix of clients who are now moving into this market with investments into the offshore renewables and renewables in general market. This is with the oil majors now starting to take interest in reducing their carbon footprint and making Fairly substantial investments into this market. This is actually quite good for us because many of those companies We've already been servicing for many years in the oil and gas market and therefore moving across into this arena should hopefully be good for us.
More clients means more business. Moving to slide 13. So I'm just highlighting a couple of projects here. Last year, about the middle of last year, we opened up an office in South Korea. We believe at that time we were ahead of the curve before operations had really started in that part of the world and our investment has paid off.
We won this contract with Saman, who's a main contractor working to install 2 wind farms offshore South Korea, the first two wind farms. And we have a scope of work to act as owner's engineer on that particular project. It's a very good piece of work to get, Highly prestigious. And coupled with that, on the next slide, we have also won some extra work which we wouldn't have won pre our merger with LOC. This is engineering review work and consulting services associated with the analysis of the foundations and the jacking structures that hold the wind turbines for the Jeju Hanlim offshore wind farm.
Again, this gives an indication of why we're trying to be ahead of the curve as we extend our footprint around the world And it's a good example here of foresight and paying off quite well as the operations start moving forward. Moving to Slide 15. Oil and Gas is going through an interesting period at the moment. This time last year in 2019, we thought we were coming out of recession and heading into a new period of investment. COVID came along and put us back on our heels and put us back into recession and spending decreased substantially in 2020.
As we sit at the moment, looking into 2021, spending is starting to increase, albeit small scale, but we do expect an improvement at the end of this year and certainly into 2022 And to some extent, this has been borne out by what is happening on the rig market. If you look at the right hand side, we keep a close monitor of the rig utilizations in both the jackup market where we're very strong and also the floater market. And I think that we can see a continuing trend here from the previous quarters that we have passed the Nadia and more rigs are starting to go back to work. That's a good A bellwether for us because the more rigs that go back to work means the more opportunities there are in the consultancy work that we do with rig moving, with vessel inspections and all the associated services to go with that. We do see this market as improving as well in that around the world we are getting a substantially increased number of Small call out projects and inquiries related to small operations and small ramp up in offshore activities.
Moving to slide 15, whilst capex is reduced at the moment, we're still winning project work. Here's an example, which is some work that we have won in Egypt through one of the offices that came on board with the LoC acquisition, Working for Petrovel, provision of marine warranty services in the Zohr gas field, which is a very large gas field in the Mediterranean and also for work in the Gulf of Suez for the Petrogel assets down there. Moving to slide 17. So, maritime section has been quite busy in Q1, Cashing up with a lot of claims and getting a lot more instructions. Instructions were up about 11% on the quarter, which is a good movement forward.
Of course, there's been many, many casualties around the world. One which we'll all be aware of is the Ever Given, the vessel, the container vessel which blocks The Suez Canal, we've been appointed on that particular casualty by the owners of the vessel to look after interest. The ship is still in Egypt as we talk and we'll be doing a lot of work on that to protect owners' interests. And we seem to be getting most of the big casualties which are happening around the world, which is a nice position to be in. So moving to Slide 18, our order backlog has slightly decreased during the quarter.
This is largely related to our oil and gas market where the order book is not strong as it has been, mainly as a result of new CapEx work not being instructed. Our backlog mainly covers our renewables and our oil and gas sectors. The renewable side has got an increased backlog, a slightly increased backlog over previous quarters. Most of the other work that we do is on a callout basis on maritime and adjusting and on rip moves and those sort of things which don't get captured in our backlog. So whilst there has been a slight decrease in backlog, I don't see this as a particular concern because we are getting quite a lot of call out work in the national course of events on day to day activities.
Turning to Slide 19. As indicated earlier, staff levels continue to grow. We're up 2% on the previous quarter at just under 900 full time equivalent staff, which shows that we're still growing, we're still recruiting, we're still adding new people to our payroll. In addition to that, we'll see here that our subcontractor mix has increased from 27% to 29%. This is mainly the renewables and offshore oil and gas industries which use consultants on a regular basis.
It's a good position for us to be in with this ratio because it means that we can maintain our cost flexibility, We can ramp up quickly to take on new work and once work is finished, we can ramp down quickly without having to carry the burden of extra costs. So, we're heading in the right direction. Say we have about 900 people on the full time equivalent basis, which probably means around about 1,000 people actually working for us on the course of any one month. With that, I would like to pass you across to Dan, who will take you through some color on the next few slides about financial performance.
Thank you. Thank you, David. Let's go to the next page and I'll give you a quick run through our top level figures. This is the Q1 where we consolidate LOC and that explains big increase, the high double digit increase in revenues from compared to Q1 of last year where we've gone from 19.8 to 36.7. But revenues are increasing also on a pro form a adjusted basis.
We can see a nice increase of 6% in the Q1 of this year compared to the combined revenues of the 2 companies in the Q1 of last year. EBIT improved To a nice margin of 6.6%. We are seeing effects of the synergies the Remar acquisition, you will see more of that as we move forward and as we start taking out synergies from the acquisition of LOC. Top line figures, we went from CHF1.4 billion in adjusted EBIT in the Q1 of last year to CHF2.4 billion in adjusted EBIT in the Q1 of this year. Next page, please.
The as I mentioned, consolidation of the LSC Group It was done in the Q1 of this year. So this, of course, affects comparability Of the segment figures, but what we can see here is the underlying strong revenue growth in WCR in our renewable business that is continuing. There's also decent profitability across the board. There is a new segment here that stands out in the EBIT, which is longitude, which is LLC's engineering arm, Sure, which is a stand up performer with 16% adjusted EBIT, but we do have stability in all of the other regions too with mid- to high single digit EBIT margins. Let's move to page 23.
These are the reported figures On the income statement and not pro form a adjusted figures, just so I can mention that. As we already have seen, our Q1 revenues, the reported revenues are up 85% compared to Q1 2020. The growth, of course, driven by the consolidation of the LSC Group revenues on a pro form a basis are up 6% as we have mentioned earlier. The reported EBIT came in at CHF1.9 million in the Q1 of this year, up from CHF1.3 million last year. Adjusted figures are CHF2.4 million This year compared to 1.4% last year and the adjusted EBIT margin is 6.6%.
Adjustments are related to the integration Costs and transaction costs and also the amortization of intangible assets, I think This is worth underlying, which is a new element in our P and L, which you will see this year from the purchasing price allocation Of the acquisition of the LOC Group, we have identified some customer relations That are in our balance sheet now and these will be amortized with SEK 0 point SEK1 1,000,000 per quarter going forward. So, I mean, You will see this in all of our P and L presentations in the following quarters. The €800,000 of our Depreciation is also related to the right of use assets, which basically are leases for premises and offices That we are using according to the IFRS 16 standard. Page 24, please. David commented on our cash flow.
We have a strong financial position, But we have seen a reduce in our cash levels this quarter. We ended the quarter with CHF 28 SEK 3,000,000 compared to SEK 30,600,000 at the end of 2020 and this was mainly due to an increase in working capital, which I will comment In a second. We have we financed the acquisition by taking on debt. We have 15,100,000 in bank debt. No installments were paid in Q1.
Installments will fall in Q2 and the capitalized leases in our balance sheet I have a balance of SEK 4,200,000 at the end of the quarter. Net working capital, we That's all we mentioned was an increase to SEK 31,200,000 up from SEK 27,500,000 at the end of 2020 and this was mainly due We had somewhat recollection in Q1, but most of the increase was due to Costs related to the acquisition and some special payments that needed to be done in the OWC In our renewables business that were done in Q1 this year, that influenced cash flow Short term. It's worth mentioning that the 79% we had in working capital at the end of 2020 is an extraordinary low level And not normalized. We are more at a normal level now and from this level, You can expect us to show improvements in the quarters to come as we will continue our focus on freeing up the underlying Working capital and this is a major focus of ours. Next page, please.
Dividends, there is a proposal of a dividend of NOK0.25 per share, which corresponds approximately $2,800,000 We will classify the distribution as a repayment of paid in capital as we did in the 2 dividend payments last year too. And of course, the dividend is subject to shareholder approval at the AGM that's planned for June 2 this year. Returning capital Shareholders remains a strategic priority for Qualys, Raymar LLC. There is a suggestion and subject to the approval of the AGM, we will declare an additional dividend in the second half Of 2021, that should be in line with the dividend that is proposed now The expectations we have to the underlying performance in the company. We paid out totally $0.4 per share last year, approximately The $3,000,000 we do expect to pay out a higher dividend during 2021.
That brings me The end of the financials. So, I will give the microphone back to David to run us through the outlook.
So thanks, Dion. Good summary there. Moving to the summary slide, please. So I think to summarize how we see things at the moment, Q1 has been actually very pleasing for us. A lot of stuff has happened, increased revenues in a very turbulent Market and increased bottom line and the main incubation process has been completed ahead of schedule and taking on board of Eastpoint Geo at the same time.
So, a lot of stuff has happened, a lot of good work has happened, a lot of good foundation has happened for moving forwards. I think the outlook as a whole we see as being quite positive. Renewables is clearly a strong sector and will continue to be a strong sector. There's much more positivity in the market with the introduction of vaccines, which is giving positivity into the other sectors as well. So I think short term, we see much more confidence going forward and certainly going into 2022, we feel that The market is starting we should start to get back to where we would expect it to be.
And that transfers across to shipping as well. The maritime sector utilization is generally pretty good in that sector. Shipping rates are sky high at the moment, charter rates are high, large amounts of cargo being carried and the more ships they're working, the better it is for us, of course. Cost synergies, we haven't started to really recover those yet. Those are start to be coming into our bottom line as of around about now, but mainly the second half of this year as we amalgamate offices around the world and as we start taking the cost synergies from the merger of LOC.
Focus is, of course, on still improving capital efficiency as Dan just talked you through and on returning cash to shareholders as well through the payment of dividends. And of course, we will still keep a lookout in the market. We the market is Our area of the market is still oversupplied, there will likely be opportunities around in that market and we'll continue to look for opportunities where we can to consolidate further, but only if it's going to bring value to shareholders. And as I have to say, at the moment, we We're quite busy with what we have on our plate already. So, we'll see what comes in that direction.
So, with that, I'd like to bring our presentation to a conclusion. Once again, just to remind that because we can't take questions live as we'd normally do. If you have any particular questions or clarifications that you need, contact either myself or Dan directly by email or phone or whatever and we will try and answer the queries that you have. So thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening to our Q1 results and I look forward to talking to you in Q2 and hopefully at some stage in the near future we can do these events live and actually see you face to face. So thank you very much.