Welcome to this presentation of BEWi's results for the fourth quarter and the full year of 2021. My name is Christian Bekken, and I am the CEO of BEWi. With me today, as always, I have our CFO, Marie Danielsson, who will take you through the financials. Our presentation includes some forward-looking statements, so I would like to point your attention to our disclaimer. I will start with some highlights for both the quarter and the full year before Marie will go into more detail on our numbers. We can now look back at 2021 and say that it was indeed a special year in many ways. For BEWi, special is normal. We delivered a strong and profitable growth in 2021. This is first of all driven by solid demand across all regions and segments, but also from M&A activities.
The solid demand resulted in higher volumes and prices in all segments, providing us with record high earnings and a strong cash flow. Still, we have challenges like in any other business. As you all know, the automotive industry is still impacted by the shortage of components, while our downstream segments still have a lag on price adjustments. However, throughout the year, we have adjusted for this, and we are now in a better position. Our organization continues to deliver a solid operational performance. On top of this, we have completed a record high number of transactions, which I will come back to in more detail later in this presentation. This includes the refinancing we did in September and November 2021, when we issued sustainability-linked bond and a new super senior providing us with a very solid financial position, enabling us to continue to pursue growth opportunities.
Summing up, we are very pleased with the accomplishment for 2021. Still, as always, we are more focused on the existing opportunities ahead of us. For the fourth quarter, net sales are up by 60% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. Which as much as 43% is organic coming from higher volumes and increased sales price in all segments. We have an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 26.4 million, a significant increase from EUR 16.4 million last year and the best fourth quarter we have ever had. As you probably know, historically, the fourth and the first quarters are somewhat slower than second and third, related to the seasonality in building and construction of our industry.
For the quarter, the strong gap continues to provide us with good results for segment growth, while putting some pressure in margins in other segments. Improved volumes from food packaging in Norway positively impact the results. While the automotive industry, as I have already mentioned, is still challenged. Marie will go into more details into each segment later on. As you can see from this graph, we have added Jackon's results to show what the combined company will look like in the fourth quarter. We have had a combined EBITDA of close to EUR 40 million. Like us, Jackon also had solid profitable growth last year. Needless to say, our offer for the company was based on our knowledge about the markets and the industry which both companies are operating in.
For the full year, we have had revenues of almost EUR 750 million, 62% growth from 2020, coming from the higher volumes and prices. Our EBITDA came in at EUR 109 million, more than EUR 150 million if we include Jackon. The EU taxonomy confirms our fundamental product and sustainability strategy. Our internal calculation identifies that 49% of our revenues was eligible, so-called green revenue, according to the EU taxonomy. This is based on screening of our activities qualifying as contributing substantially to climate change mitigation in line with the EU taxonomy. Also, looking at our latest transaction, including Jackon, which is not completed, Kemisol and Volker Gruppe, all within insulation or circular, these companies will contribute to increase this number going forward. In October, we made an offer for Jackon Holding, introducing the most transformative transaction in our history.
We received an acceptance from all shareholders, of which 50% will receive shares and 50% will receive cash. The transaction is still subject to approval from the competition authorities in selected countries. We are prepared to take the necessary measures to make sure that the transaction will be completed, and we still expect this to happen in the first half of 2022. I also repeat that we have a goal of synergies of each acquisition, and I have communicated earlier that this is in the high range, equals to EUR 12 million-EUR 15 million in this transaction. The acquisition of the Belgian company, Kemisol. I was actually there visiting the company last month, and I am very pleased with the acquisition. We did a consideration of EUR 30 million.
The net sales ended up at EUR 33.9 million for 2021, with an EBITDA on 18% equal to EUR 6.1 million. This will further increase BEWi's footprint in Benelux, and it will be a strong position for us to continue to develop the company in Belgium, expanding our customer base and potentially also cross-selling and new products as, for example, packaging. There is a lot of things going on in BEWi, and it's not easy to at all time be in line with everything that's happened. Here you have a slide which shows that the company combined, if you had added all the companies acquired in 2021, with a turnover on approximately EUR 1,200 million, and the combined underlying results of over EUR 170 million. Our key acquisition last year confirmed our strategy.
We broaden our product portfolio, we did strengthen our positions, we grew geographically, and we strengthen our circular activities. As you can see here, the natural way of going forward is to continue to grow on all these parameters, and we do have a strong pipeline with attractive M&A opportunities and other opportunities to further strengthen our strategy. As we have now announced, we will continue to acquire companies in 2022. The first one is in Baltic region, a company very similar to Kemisol, a company with a turnover between EUR 25 million and EUR 30 million and EBITDA margin of 10%-15%, with well-identified synergies, but also a platform for growing in Baltics and a platform for strengthening our circular activities in the Baltic region. With that, I leave the word over to you, Marie.
We look into the financials. As Christian was mentioning, we have another quarter with very good growth, both coming from organic growth and from acquisitions. Revenue is up from EUR 130 million up to EUR 208 million. A majority of that, more than 70%, is coming from the organic growth. Organic growth is, of course, then driven by both volume, it's price increases, and on top of that, we have price mix impacting our top line. Looking at the EBITDA, that is also improving very much in this quarter, up to EUR 26.4 million. Most of that, pretty much all, is actually coming down from the organic growth.
That is back to the fact that IZOBLOK, that has been a major acquisition, they are still not at this time contributing positively to our EBITDA. But all in all, we can see again the good thing with being integrated and also have a very diversified business model, where we as a group deliver very solid earnings, even if we have specific challenges in the individual segments. Overall, I think it's fair to say that this has been a quarter that has been characterized by, again, very high raw material prices. There is very good volumes. There is a strong underlying market out there.
It's very evident that we are in an environment with cost inflation, and it continues to be a shortage of semiconductors and other components that impacts our automotive customers, but we can also see this impacting other industrial customers. Looking more into the details of RAW, I think it's fair to say that we have had a fantastic year in this segment with an EBITA ending at EUR 54 million from EUR 9 million last year. It is high raw material prices, and with good price management, and also of course, supported with a strong market, we have managed to transfer all the price increases and some more out to the end customers. It's not just that, it's also that we have a very good production and stable production.
We have actually been able to produce more than 10% more volumes this year compared to last year. That has, of course, also added earnings to our income statement. In this quarter, we do have some lower volumes compared to 2020, on the same quarter in 2020. That is due to a planned maintenance stop, and that we were sold out before that. There was also some lower volumes than compared to the third quarter for that same reason. As Christian mentioned, there are some seasonality impacts in between the quarters. Coming back to cost inflation, it is some impact in segment RAW. We see it on energy cost, and we also see that on chemicals that we use in production, and they are increasing in this quarter.
On top of that, of course, driven by the maintenance stop, there are extra costs related to this maintenance. If we then go to Packaging and Components, we can see that they have also increased their sales, very much, and that is more than 60% and both then coming from organic growth and from acquisitions. Looking at the organic growth, most of that is coming from Norway and the fish industry that we serve with both fish boxes and also other products that we trade to that industry. We also have a good demand from our HVAC customers. If you then look at our EBITDA, that we do increase, you can see that we do not manage to have the full drop-through from the increasing revenue. There are a number of things that explain this.
One is, again, there is a high price on the raw materials, and we have gradually, throughout the whole year, managed to push that through the customers. Now with high energy prices, we need to continue to increase the prices even more. That is top priority right now in Packaging and Components. That is also the segment that has the highest share of energy cost compared to the other segments. Second, we have a new production facility up in north of Norway, in Senja, that are ready to start to produce fish boxes. However, that customer that we are going to deliver to and to which we have a customer contract tied to this factory, they are delayed in their production startup, so we do have some extra cost related to this at this time.
Also there is an impact from the sales mix in this segment, and that is coming from, again, that Norway is very strong right now with everything they sell to the fish industry. Part of this is traded goods. We have had a fantastic development in this quarter, but it is a business that has a lower margin to the more traditional packaging products that we produce and sell. Last, and maybe the most important, again, IZOBLOK that is consolidated. IZOBLOK is consolidated into Packaging & Components and are not right now contributing to the EBITA. All in all, we do have a diluting margin in this segment, but we have a very good demand.
If we then continue with insulation, I will repeat then myself again that we are growing also in this segment, both from organic growth and from acquisitions. The organic growth and the volume growth is coming from the Netherlands. In this segment, we do not have an increase in EBITDA. The reason for that is, of course, many things, but this is the segment that has the highest share of raw material prices. In this environment, with an extremely high, and which has been for a long time now, high cost for the raw materials, it's tough to get the prices that we want and to maintain the margins.
We are also comparing with Q4 last year with the raw material cost that was in the lower range, with a quarter with opposite raw materials in the very high range. For the same reason that when you have a low-cost environment, you do not need to give the last penny to the customer, for that same reason, you cannot take out the last penny in a high-cost environment. Same also as we mentioned last quarter is that we do still have some challenges in Sweden with a new production line that is not yet fully up and running, and that means two things. One is that you have direct cost that you need to spend to be able to get that production line up and running.
Second is that you don't have the best production efficiency, so you don't get the full margins out from that production either that you do have. To end with something very positive for this segment, I will come back to Kemisol, which Christian presented more in detail. That was acquisition that we finalized in November and is consolidated from December. They have had a fantastic year, they are serving the market in the Benelux with different insulation products, so that will add and increase our product offering to that area.
They have had a fantastic year in 2021 and contribute positively from day one to our group's numbers as well. Last of the segments, Circular, that is our segment that is responsible for collecting used EPS for conversion so that we can use it again as raw material. This is a startup business that we started back in December 2018, so not that many years, which we have built up with acquisitions, with greenfielding, and then also with local initiatives. We have taken up the revenue from approximately EUR 6 million in 2020 up to EUR 24 million in this year. This journey will continue.
We are extremely happy that we now in this year has managed to turn the red numbers into black numbers and now also make a profit on this business. This slide is to highlight how we account for our minority interests. We do have some companies that runs insulation factories that we own to less than 50%, so they are associated companies and are accounted for based on that. That means that in a traditional consolidation, we would have taken in a much higher share of their EBITDA than we do. What you can see on this page highlighted is that our share of these joint ventures' EBITDA amounts to more than EUR 9 million, but what is reflected into the group's BEWi group's EBITDA is only the 4.7.
That is more to make it transparent that there are hidden values in these minority interests. Looking at the consolidated full P&L, there are a few things that I would like to highlight. We have spoken about that the net sales, it's up, it's a mix again between organic growth and acquisitions. If you calculate the raw materials in relation to net sales, you will see that that is increasing in the quarter, and that is explained by high raw material prices, but also now the increasing cost for chemicals. Residual is pretty much increasing due to all the acquisitions that we have done during this year. Looking at EBITDA, you could easily make the conclusion that we have not, or EBITDA, I should say, that we have not increased EBITDA that much.
I would like to highlight the sale of assets that we have done both in 2020 and also in this year, but where we divested real estates in Q4 2020, and this year we have sold one smaller company. If you revert that, EBITDA is actually up more than 100% in 2021. Looking then at the balance sheet, we have again been able to take down the leverage further. We have a very strong balance sheet, and we are also using our capital very efficient, where you now can see that we continue to increase our return on the capital employed up to approximately 19%. Net debt was up to EUR 196 million including IFRS, and EUR 120 million excluding IFRS.
We do have an unused credit facility that amounts to EUR 80 million. What we did now in the fourth quarter to be able to have even more flexibility was that we did a tap in our bond frame facility of additional EUR 90 million that we will use for the Jackon closing, among other things then, of course. Cash flow also extremely important and everything goes, of course, hand in hand, but we have a record high operating cash flow in this year. It's EUR 67.4 million, which is more than double compared to last year. We use it, among other things, to for CapEx. We invest in the future.
We do that in all the ongoing investment programs that we have spoken about since before, and then we also spend maintenance CapEx for our normal underlying business, and that is approximately 2.5% of our sales. With that said, the Board of Directors propose a dividend that is in the high end of our dividend policy, which is the 50% of our net profit. That means that the proposal will be that we distribute NOK 1.10 per share in dividend, and this is due to the high cash flow that we have and that we do have a strong balance sheet that we can propose this dividend. With that, I leave the word back to Christian.
Thank you, Marie. Summary and outlook. We are experiencing a stable or strong demand in all our key markets. We have a challenging market condition in some end markets, mainly due to the shortage of components and cost inflation. EPS prices are expected to remain at high levels, implying continued strong GAAP. Completion of the Jackon transaction is expected to happen the first half of 2022. We have strong pipeline of attractive M&A opportunities and also organic growth. I will also repeat our targets for the next five years, doubling our EBITDA, having a return on capital of 20%, doing this with deleveraging, having net interest-bearing debt not over 2.5, and our dividend policy on 30%-50%, as Marie has informed you, on the profit. By that, I leave it over to questions.
My name is Charlotte Knudsen. We will open for questions through the webcast. You can post your questions in the webcast console. We have already received a few questions, so we will start by asking the question from Herman Dahl in Nordea. What should we think about margins in the insulation segment going forward? If raw material prices stay at the current high levels, will BEWi be able to push more of the cost inflation over to the customers?
I think that you should expect for the first quarter to be pretty much in line with the fourth quarter because you do have the lower seasonality in Q1 as for the fourth quarter. Then with the volumes, the margins should start to pick up again. You are right. The raw material prices will, at least, what we know as per today, remain on a high level. We continue to push the prices that we can, but the volume will help us with the margins as from the second quarter.
We can have a follow-up question on that from Eva Larsson. Going forward, how should we think about seasonality?
Oh, Christian, you.
No, no. The seasonality is, of course, lowest in Q4, better in Q1, and on a high level in Q3 and Q2, also Q2 and Q3. That's always been the case, and that's due to what we are stating all along. It's due to the construction industry also in combination with HVAC, heating ventilation, which is HVAC, and also that we are selling raw materials to the installation business, which gives the seasonality in our company. Q4 is lowest, Q1 a little bit better, and then the best quarters, as always, in volumes, markets, Q3 and Q2.
Thank you, Christian. We will have another question from Herman Dahl. It's with regards to IZOBLOK and the automotive industry. Are you seeing any improvements in the component shortage situation? Is it seeming to slowly normalize?
It's a difficult question to answer. It's we have a low visibility because the automotive industry knows it better than us who are a supplier to the automotive industry. What we see is that the forecasts are better, and as I have said before, we expect it to be on a normal level in second half of this year. It's difficult to predict. I think we are pessimistic in that sense when we are looking at the second half of this year. We have seen already now information coming out that it will improve in Q2, but we will expect it to happen in second half of this year.
Thank you, Christian. We have a question from Johan Dahl at Danske Bank. Please develop your plan for synergy realization post the acquisition of Jackon. Have plans been further validated and put into context of the euro? It says EUR 150 million.
He means EUR 15 million.
I guess he means 15. I'm not sure. It says put it into context of the EUR 150 million EBITDA. It's probably related to the combined EBITDA for the two companies for the full year. We have said that we will have synergies of at least EUR 12 million-EUR 15 million from the transaction.
Yes, it has. We have been working on it, confirming it. We have been working on it with an external part working together with us, it's actually PwC. We have them working for us in these kind of cases, on the bigger cases. Due to the competition authorities, we cannot have a direct dialogue. Yes, we have been working on it together with an external part.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, we have been in our normal way of doing these cases, firming up the synergies.
Mm-hmm
in the high level.
Mm-hmm.
EUR 15 million is based in the high level, and that's correct.
Okay, thank you. We have a question from Jonas Lignell. What is the, I think he's referring to the leverage, the net debt EBITDA, including all announced acquisitions, including Jackon.
What we calculate with is that the leverage will, day one, increase to approximately 2.5.
Okay. The next question is from Joachim Huse. I think it's Pareto. What is the lead time for pushing cost increase over to customers?
Repeating what we have said all along, that's a quarter. Firming up what Marie said, we have had some push throughs in Q4. We will get more in Q1. Obviously, depending on where the prices goes, that's how it goes. It takes approximately one quarter.
Okay. Thank you, Christian. Another question from Morten Normann at Carnegie. You referred to higher volumes in order to help you with margins in brackets. Very broadly, what is the share of the variable costs in Packaging & Components and insulation? I think Marie has answered that question sometime.
Yeah. I need to come back to that. I can't take it straight from my head right now.
We will come back to that, Morten. We have another question from Jonas Lignell. How much of the raw material cost inflation can you pass through to clients for Packaging and Components and insulation within the first half of 2022, as EPS price has stabilized on high level? What is the normal timing lag effect? I think we've answered that already. Will you be able to pass higher costs for chemicals as well?
I think the answer to that is that we have shown historically that we are able to push through prices, and obviously this is a complex picture. We will use more or less time in different markets and different customers and different segments. We are very comfortable in being able to push all the costs through within the first half of the year, then depending on where the markets are at and what is happening with the markets. As we see it now, we will be able to push through all the costs, even the chemicals, the energy, and the styrene, which is the oil, through.
Okay. For now, we don't have any. We have one more question from Eva Larsson. When do you expect that Norrköping facility to be up and running?
The Norrköping facility is up and running, but we are now in low season. When you're talking about volume up and running, we expect it to be running as normal during Q1. The answer is it's up and running, but it's not high demand right now.
I think that was the last question. We will wait for, like, a moment. If there's any other questions, please post your question now. We have one more question from Morten Normann. You say that your share of EBITDA in associated companies was EUR 9 million. What is the corresponding net interest-bearing debt?
It's on that same page. BEWi's share of the joint venture has a net debt of EUR 36 million, and BEWi's share of that is the EUR 13 million.
There it is.
You will find the numbers on page 18, then, in the investor presentation.
I think that was the last question for today. Thank you for watching and participating, and we'll see you again next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you.