Good morning, everybody. My name is David Wells. I'm the CEO of AqualisBraemar. I'm pleased to be giving you our quarterly presentation once again. I apologize that this is a pre-recorded presentation. Due to the effects of COVID, I'm unable to travel across to Norway to give the presentation live as we'd normally do. Therefore, as a result of that, our normal Q&A session following the presentation will not be available. I encourage you to reach out to ourselves after the presentation if you have any clarifications that you seek or any more information that you might wish. We'll follow the normal format, where I'll talk about the highlights, and our CFO will talk about the financial numbers separately. I'm pleased on this occasion to introduce our new CFO, Dean Zuzic, who has joined us recently.
Comes with a wealth of experience from the Scandinavian markets and elsewhere, and he'll give a little bit of introduction about himself before he gives his talk. Moving to slide three, I'd just like to remind you all of our disclaimer, because there are some forward-looking statements within our presentation. Moving to slide four. Very pleased to report an increase in our revenues over the same quarter of last year to $18.4 million in spite of a difficult market. With a fantastic continued growth in our renewables arm of over 100% from Q3 of 2019. From these, we drove an EBIT of $0.5 million and adjusted EBIT of $0.6 million, both significant increases on the same quarter of 2019. Q3 for us is exposed to seasonal weaknesses, partly holiday-related, but mainly driven by the effects of the Southwest monsoon offshore India.
Travel restrictions related to COVID have impact, particularly the Middle East and to some extent, Asia- Pacific. Our positive bottom-line results showed our flexible business model in terms of staffing, really allows us to adapt to circumstances very quickly. During the quarter, we made significant progress with cash collection, a prime focus for us these days, ending the quarter with a cash balance of $14.1 million and a record operating cash flow of $3.4 million. It's a good achievement and just where we wanted to go. I'm pleased to announce our intention therefore, to pay a second dividend in 2020, which will be distributed in November, and Dean will give more details later on when he gives the financial data. All in all, a very positive quarter given the current circumstances. Moving to slide five.
COVID, of course, has been a nuisance to us and to everybody else, and it continues to be. Mainly, as far as we're concerned, related to travel restrictions and the need to work from home. There are positives. Our footprint gives us competitive advantage, and we have more or less managed to service all our instructions with respect to site visits and have been able to take advantage of some government-sponsored relief programs. The negative is a limited travel, which has meant lower utilizations in some hub locations. However, on the positive side, again, on the staff and client front, we continue to make significant efforts to comply with safety protocols and to increase efficiencies internally. I'm pleased to say I'm not aware of any COVID-related instance to our staff. Moving to slide six.
For those of you who don't know us, we focus on the provision of high-end consultancy to the energy, shipping, and insurance markets. Our focus is largely upon reduction of risk. Main scopes of work focus on project consulting, which tend to be longer-term, larger projects. On accident prevention, where we tend to ensure compliance with industry standards, such as acting in the capacity of marine warranty surveyor. Finally, on incident management, where we're called out to survey, inspect damaged assets, and act in the best interest of our clients. Moving to slide seven. Our business is split into four main business lines, which we monitor separately. Firstly, on the renewables front, we tend to provide independent engineering and consultancy services to the offshore wind industry. On the oil and gas front, we're very much focused on risk mitigation.
We provide engineering and consultancy services to the market as a whole. On the shipping front, we provide worldwide emergency call-out responses and undertake surveys of fixed assets and vessels for the insurance markets and vessel owners. Finally, on the adjusting, where we work for the insurance market, we provide loss adjusting and dispute resolution services to those markets. Moving to slide eight. We have a simple but ambitious strategic vision. Our focus is increasingly driven by our involvement in the energy transition. We have a stated strategy to have 50% of our revenues driven by renewables and other ESG services by 2025. Our focus is therefore on rapidly growing our involvement in renewables-related consultancy, both organically and through targeted M&A.
On the more traditional markets, we're focusing on leveraging our number one position and increasing our efficiencies internally and profitability with the ultimate aim of both passing dividends back to our shareholders and using excess cash to grow our company and increase shareholder value. Moving to slide nine. We ended the quarter with 465 full-time equivalent employees. That's an increase of nearly 4% over Q2. Even in this difficult market, we're continuing to expand. We're currently servicing the world with 51 offices in 33 countries, the same as last quarter. Our global footprint is extensive and unmatched by our competitors, which gives a significant advantage in these COVID-restricted travel times. Moving to slide 10. On the left side here, you'll see our trailing 12 months revenues driven by oil and gas continues to decrease to less than 50%, whereas renewables steadily increases. We measure renewables as a standalone.
Looking on the right-hand pie chart, we can see that renewables now represents our third largest region, if we were using regions as a terminology. Going to slide 11. This slide shows a track of our renewable revenues. It remains spectacular, and the upward trend continues, reaching 21% in Q3. The quarter was especially busy with offshore site attendances during the summer months, which is the traditional time for these operations in the Northern latitudes, thereby creating a bit of a spike in revenues, and we would expect to see some reductions going into the winter. However, we continue to win some good-sized contracts, which involve large elements of desktop work and significant backlog.
I think from this, you can see whilst we have an ambitious target of 50% of our revenues to be driven by this business stream, we're very pleased with progress and feel confident we can reach this goal. Turn to slide 12. Why are we so confident in the offshore wind market? As indicated in last presentation, the investment decisions in offshore wind in the first half of 2020 alone have amounted to $35 billion, which is more than the entirety of 2019 in itself, which was a record year. The pipeline of projects is tremendous. In addition, looking at the right-hand side, the market has changed. It's no longer dominated by the top players. The top three developers used to have 70% of the market not too many years ago. This is no longer the case.
More and more new players, and often small players, are coming into the market. This will drive growth in the consulting market to an even higher pace, which gives us confidence for long-term horizon. Slide 13. In 2020, we've opened three new offices in Poland, Japan, and South Korea. Each is being managed by knowledgeable nationals who are well-experienced renewable consultants. Despite COVID, each has made successful starts. In Poland, we've been appointed as owner's engineer and technical advisor on one of the largest round one projects. In Japan, we've already undertaken a number of niche consultancy scopes and are actively bidding in bigger projects. In South Korea, we've been heavily involved in LiDAR deployments, which is effectively the collection of met data offshore, and will shortly be appointed as owner's engineer on a major contract.
We're delighted with this progress, and it shows the benefits of early entry into these new markets. In 2021, we expect to increase our footprint further. Moving to next slide, slide 14. The growth in this industry throws up new opportunities. At the moment, we're very focused on infrastructure opportunities. Port facilities in many of these new countries and many regions, even in the more mature countries, need investment and adaptation to make them suitable for the offshore wind industry to handle their logistical requirements. We're making strenuous efforts to involve our ports and harbors team into active involvement in this area and provide the benefits of our experience to our clients in advance of the construction phases, particularly in the U.K. and on the East Coast of the U.S.A. Turn to slide 15.
On the offshore oil and gas front, we continue to watch the industry metrics with interest. Given our strong position within jackup rig moving, these graphs form a particular interest. Oil cos have severely cut back on E&P spending for 2020 and into 2021. However, the trends on the right are perhaps indicating a flattening out in demand and even some pointers towards stabilization. It's possibly too early to tell, but we hope this to be the case. Moving to slide 16. Regards the specific work that we've been doing during the course of this quarter, we've been heavily involved in some decommissioning work. On this particular project, we're working for Chevron in Thailand for the removal of seven wellhead platforms. The top sides were separately lifted off earlier and taken to shipyard facilities.
In this phase, the jackets were removed by lifting and taken to a nearby site, where each was laid on the seabed to form future subsea reefs. For this project, we were representing underwriters as marine warranty surveyors. Slide 17. Similarly, in the North Sea, we were retained by Chrysaor as client representatives for the removal of several platform structures, which involved full recovery and transportation back to shore-based facilities for disposal. As we can see, the industry is starting to get active in this particular area. 18. On the marine front, we were pleased to be retained by the Royal Navy National Museum in U.K., for the movement of the last surviving World War II tank landing craft to a final exhibition location near Portsmouth.
This was a GBP 5 million restoration project, and AqualisBraemar were very proud to be involved as the marine warranty surveyor of such a high-profile project to save the heritage of that area for future generations. Into slide 19. Moving on our loss adjusting. We've selected two smaller scopes of work to showcase what we've been doing. The first involved a major pedestal crane failure on board a jackup in the Middle East, where we were appointed to adjust the loss. Subsequent to this, we were asked to perform damage surveys on behalf of the P&I Club, which allowed us to link up the scope of work in-house between different departments, demonstrating the benefits to clients of appointing a larger company. On the right-hand side, we were appointed to cover a loss involving the storage of bulk products.
This comes about through our efforts to widen the industrial focus of our adjusters away from upstream and downstream and into new areas. It demonstrates our ability to work in new markets, particularly important when traditional markets are in recession. Moving to slide 20. Back to our stats for Q3. Backlog has significantly improved during the quarter. This is particularly pleasing for a company that specializes in the provision of call-out services. These numbers are limited to the offshore and renewable sectors, and does not cover shipping or the insurance markets. We ended the quarter with $28.3 million of backlog. The significant growth comes from some new wins in our rig inspection service, both in Europe, Asia- Pacific, and Americas, which is also developing a very active pipeline of opportunities. The remainder comes mainly from new wins in our renewables arm in both Asia- Pacific and Europe.
Again, our pipeline of opportunities also grows here. I should add that we only add to backlog numbers when we can quantify revenues. Given that we service a lot of master service agreements on both rig moving and marine warranty call-outs and all of our loss mitigation business, these numbers are very positive. Moving to slide 21. On the staff front, we continue to expand. Employees on a full-time equivalent basis continue to grow, up nearly 4% this quarter, following a 3% growth in Q2. We continue to ensure that we maintain our flexible cost base through the use of subcontractors. This model has served us well through the unexpected slowdown related to COVID, and lets us react quickly to movements up or down in the market. With that, and turning to the next slide, I'd like to hand you over to Dean for the financial numbers.
Thank you, David. My name is Dean Zuzic. This is my first quarterly presentation for AqualisBraemar. I joined the company on September 1st. Just to give you a quick introduction to myself, I have 20+ years of experience in CFO roles, both in listed companies and in privately owned companies in Norway. I have a history working for several consultancy firms. I would claim that I know the business and the business drivers well. So much about me. If we continue the presentation and move on to slide 23. We are very satisfied to deliver a continued strong performance in spite of the challenging COVID conditions that we were facing this quarter. We delivered an increase in revenues of $400,000 from $18 million in the third quarter of last year. Seasonally weaker than in Q2, but this is a normal seasonal pattern in Q3.
Worth mentioning here is also that this is the first quarter where we do have comparable figures following the merger that was completed last year in the third quarter. Looking at EBIT figures, we can also show an improvement of $300,000 compared to the third quarter of 2019. This is a result of our continued focus on strict cost management, implementing synergy initiatives following the merger and taking out scale. We expect this to continue going forward, given that we now have the whole company on one ERP system, which will make it possible for us to enable further standardization and automation of processes to drive efficiencies and improve cost management. If we go to page 24. We are very pleased, as David already mentioned, to be able to show a significant growth in our renewables business.
We have a growth of 105% in revenues this year compared to the Q3 of 2019. Somewhat lower revenues in the Middle East and in Asia- Pacific, both compared to last year. This, as David already has mentioned, is a result of seasonalities is one thing, but comparing quarter, we are slightly affected by the COVID pandemic and the travel restrictions imposed on us. In addition to that, I can say that the monsoon season in India this year, combined with COVID, has resulted in a very challenging situation that explains the reduction in revenues in Q3 in the Middle East. If we look at the segment EBIT figures, there we can, in spite of lower revenues, we see a significant improvement in Asia- Pacific.
We see a slight decrease in the Middle East, which I already mentioned, caused by the combination of COVID and by travel restrictions imposed on us, especially Saudi Arabia, which is a very important market for us, was basically closed for our consultants in the third quarter. This has now opened up, and w e expect the results in the Middle East region to improve going forward. When we look at renewables, I think it's worth mentioning that we have an EBIT margin of 9%. We also managed to open three new offices, in Q3. Investments in growth are being booked as costs. We do not book them on the balance sheet, but they're taken over the P&L. Taking that into consideration, we are extremely satisfied with the EBIT results that the renewables business is delivering in this quarter. If we move on to page 25. Top line figures.
I won't read the whole table, but I'll just drive you through the most important items here. Revenue of $18.4 million mentioned compared to $18 million in the same quarter of last year. That gives us a year-to-date revenue of $57.5 million. The figures for last year are not comparable since they do not include Braemar in the prior to the merger date. EBIT improvement, I already mentioned, we have $0.5 million of EBIT this quarter compared to a loss of $0.2 million last year. The adjusted figures are $100,000 higher. Adjustments relate to share-based compensation and to some minor costs that we had related to the implementation of the new ERP system. The profit or loss before income tax of $400,000, which we consider strong. The bottom line of $200,000, very satisfied, and a significant increase from the same quarter of last year.
If we move on to page 26, we can see that we have realized $2.4 million of the $2.8 million of announced synergies that are expected to be realized by mid-2021. Just to remind our listeners that haven't followed the company that long, that we had original synergy estimates of $1.1 million. We are now expecting $2.8 million, as has been announced earlier. We have completed the ERP rollout in October 2020 with all of the Braemar entities now on board. Our ERP system will now enable us to continue to drive efficiencies, robustness, and improve especially our working capital management, which is something we have a very strong focus on going forward. That will allow us to free up capital in addition to improving results. If we move on to page 27, we have a very strong financial position. In our view, we continue freeing up working capital.
We had $ 14.1 million in cash at the end of the quarter, which is up from $ 11 million at the end of Q2. For those that do not know us, let me mention one more time, we have no financial debt. The debt on the balance sheet is related to capitalized leases of $1.5 million due to the IFRS 16 standard. Net working capital of $23.9 million at the end of the quarter, which is down from $26.3 million. It's the first continuous quarter of us reducing working capital as a percentage of revenue. This is a high-focus area, and we have a target of getting below 100% by the end of 2023 in terms of working capital tied in the, I mean, business.
We have seen a nice reduction, as I said, five quarters in a row from 146% to 127% and are well on track to reach the below 100% working capital percentage over the next couple of years. We move on to page 28. It shows a strong cash generation during the quarter. We started the quarter with $11 million. We had an operational cash flow of $3.4 million, which is a combination of an EBITDA of $ 0.9 million and changes in working capital following the reduction in working capital days by $2.5 million . A total of $3.4 million. Other minor adjustments bring us to a total of $14.1 million closing the quarter, which is the highest we've had this last year. We move on to page 29, given nice cash flow generation during the quarter, the board has resolved and declared an additional dividend of NOK 0.2 per share.
The dividend will be paid out on or about the 10th November. The ex-dividend date will be the 2nd of November, record date, the 3rd November. This brings total dividend up to NOK 0.4 per share or dividend yield of about 7%, which we are very satisfied to be able to repay to our shareholders. Worth mentioning here also is that the distribution for tax purposes of the dividend will be considered a repayment of paid-in capital. Total dividend payout, $3 million this year. That brings me to the next page, and I'll give the presentation over to David again to run you through the outlook.
Good. Many thanks, Dean. I'd like to conclude with the summary on page 31. I guess the summary of it is that we had a very strong operational performance in the quarter, within one with normal weak seasonality. We achieved a very strong record cash flow, putting us in a robust financial position, and we're therefore pleased by our results given the uncertainties related to COVID. Q4 is expected to show an increased activity and increased margins. Those already being delivered in certain regions. Renewables had a stellar month and a stellar quarter, with 105% growth in year-on-year. We are on track to meet our 2025 target of 50% revenue being driven by renewables.
Offshore oil and gas activity is expected to be muted in the short- term, but we do believe we're well-placed to deal with this with our high subcontractor share, giving us good resilience to market weakness, and it also allows us to ramp up quickly to chase opportunities. As Dean has just given you some details on, we're happy to announce that despite the market weakness, another dividend of NOK 0.2 per share, bringing the total to NOK 0.4 for this year, meaning we returned about $3 million of cash to our shareholders in 2020. To conclude, as ever, we'll continue to be active in consolidating the energy consultancy industry and to target expansion, particularly of our renewables arm. I'd like to conclude with that. I thank you for listening.
I once again remind you that because we can't take Q&A questions at the end of this presentation, please reach out to either Dean or myself if you wish any clarifications or more information. I thank you for listening and look forward to talking to you when we bring our Q4 results to the market. Thank you.