Good morning, and, welcome to this presentation of the results for the first quarter 2022 for Multiconsult. My name is, Grethe Bergly, and with me today I have our CFO, Hans-Jørgen Wibstad, who will take you through some of the more details, regarding the figures. The KPIs for this quarter are all strong, and we see an improvement, on, all these major KPIs that we follow. The EBITDA is at NOK 169.2 million, reflecting a margin of 14.9%. We also see an improvement, when it comes to the billing ratio and an increased, operational revenue. It's a strong quarter, and, it's an all-time high results for Multiconsult, for one quarter.
We have a solid growth of 16.2%, driven partly by more calendar days, but also that we have more employees than we were in the first quarter 2021. We have had a strong intake in the quarter, and we're making an adjustment to the business area, where we are now putting energy and industry as one business area, and the rationale for this is that we see the changes in the clients with respect to the deliveries we have in this business area. We have seen over the last year really how the competence that we have is of major importance for us to support our clients in the activities they need to implement with respect to the green shift.
We have strengthened our market position in the Western Norway through the acquisition of Smidt & Ingebrigtsen, and we are on track with respect to the strategic ambitions that we released in November 2021. Looking at market and sales, the largest sales in the first quarter was Ocean Space Centre. This is a research facilities in the in Trondheim in in Norway. We have the Fornebubanen, which is a extension of the tube in Oslo, major infrastructure project. We also won the continuation of the Sotra project. This is the largest ongoing infrastructure project ever in Norway. We have also Mosvangen, which is in the building and property business area, and we have been awarded a large bridge contract.
As you can see, we've had a positive development of the order intake. Sales are close to all-time high, and we leave this quarter with a very strong and diversified backlog, and the outlook is good in all the business areas that we operate in. Looking at ongoing projects is to a large extent some of the ones that we have also been awarded in the quarter. To remind you that we're also involved with Gaustad. It's a major hospital development in Oslo. The water supply infrastructure also in Oslo, and we are involved with a large electrification project at Melkøya up in the north of Norway. As you can see, order backlog is stable. We are seeing and expecting an increased investment in the energy and industry market.
We would, however, also like to mention that there are some more uncertainty with respect to the macroeconomic environment that we see around us in Norway and in Europe, and also with the COVID situation in China. We are doing a major change with respect to business areas, and this is to strengthen our and coordinate our work in the market of renewables. We're seeing now that our clients base is changing. Our clients are changing from industry to renewable, and we therefore establish a new business area of energy and industry. It's partly to increase and strengthen the capability with respect to electrification.
This area that we call green industry, we see an increased demand for factories related to batteries, hydrogen, ammonia, and we expect that this will continue also in the next few years. We're also making sure that we are strengthening us to be positioned for offshore wind and similar projects. With respect to ESG, we have just completed a major project in office project in Oslo. It is the first FutureBuilt building when it comes to rehabilitation and reuse of materials. We believe that the circular economy will have a boost. It will be expected from our clients, and we are all well positioned to support our clients in this very important journey that they need to make developing their infrastructure and the buildings that they have.
We have also, for 2021, reported on the E.U. taxonomy with respect to green aligned turnover. We have a goal to be among the leading companies to have a majority of the project aligned as green. With respect to social, we donated NOK 2 million to the Red Cross to support the position and the situation in Ukraine. When it comes to governance, we have included sustainability in all our business strategies. Also for 2022, the executive bonus program includes a sustainability criteria. We are 3,246 people as we leave the quarter, a growth of 10.9%, mainly driven by the acquisitions that we made in 2021. We have a new Chair of the Board, Rikard Appelgren.
We have made one change in the executive team, and Thor Ørjan Holt has taken over as EVP for Sales. We also have appointed a new CFO, Ove Haupberg, who will take position on September 1st, 2022. When it comes to excellence, we have one PhD candidate who just finished in the first quarter. We have won some prizes, the school building of the year. In Norway, the construction, building and construction industry always give a prize to the best infrastructure project and the best building. Of the eight nominated projects, Multiconsult has been involved with five of those. That, of course, makes us very proud. With this, I leave you over to Hans-Jørgen.
Thank you, Grethe, and good morning. I will, as normal, go through the financial results for the first quarter for Multiconsult. As Grethe mentioned, we've had a very strong quarter, strong growth. We have record high profitability and also very good sales or order intake. Getting into some more details, the net operating revenues are up 16.2% to NOK 1,138,000 . A strong growth, partially driven by the acquisition of Erichsen & Horgen, which we did in the summer of 2021, contributing strongly to that, as well as the fact that we have four more working days in the first quarter of this year compared with the same quarter last year. The organic growth is 1.6% if we take out the acquisitions and the calendar days.
However, if you look at the growth of the business without consideration to the calendar days, the underlying growth is about 10.3%. Very strong EBIT, a record high level, with a good margin at NOK 169.2 million compared with NOK 98.5 million last year, giving a margin of 14.9%. The strong profitability is driven by several factors. One thing is, of course, the acquisition of Erichsen & Horgen, where we see the benefits and the contribution from that acquisition in the first quarter. The operating expenses are in control. We're also seeing increased prices in the market.
What is also very important is that we're able to improve our billing ratio to 71.4%, which is up 0.3% compared with last year, and which is very important for us. Also taking into account, which we mentioned in the report, that our short-term sick leave is about 2% higher than it was in the same quarter last year, and that directly impacts this figure, it is a very good figure for Multiconsult. That also then of course contributes strongly as we've had like the society as a whole, bigger or higher short-term sick leave in the first quarter.
As mentioned earlier, the order intake or the sales in the quarter is close to record level at NOK 1,467 ,000, which gives a book-to-bill of significantly above one in the quarter. This shows our figures in a little bit more historical context. We see on the upper left-hand corner, a strong growth in the business, 16.2% compared with the quarter and also a strong overall growth over the last three years. Of course, with the boost after the recent acquisition. What's maybe even more interesting is to look at the EBITDA figures historically.
We came in in 2019 starting the turnaround project with very poor results, and then seeing the effects from that, and this being a quarter where after consecutive quarters of strong results and the best quarter in quite some time. To give some comparison, of course, the calendar effect impacts the figures. The last time we had the same number of working days was in the first quarter 2020, where we delivered NOK 117 million as result. So that's just a comparison. Of course, a lot of things have happened since then, including acquisitions and further improvements of the operations, but it is somewhat a comparable figure, although it's a few years ago.
The other thing I wanted to mention on this thing is, and I've mentioned calendar effect a few times, is that in the second quarter of this year, we will have three fewer calendar days than in the second quarter of 2021. Also in the second quarter of this year, we will have eight fewer working days than in the first quarter. These are just normal fluctuations. When we summarize the year at the end of 2022, we'll have 1 more working day than we had in 2021. These are figures that our analysts and shareholders generally are in control of, but I just wanted to mention this, that this will of course impact on our second quarter financial performance.
Looking at the segments, it's also a good picture. We have strong and good activity in all segments, a particularly impressive performance within the Region Oslo, with revenue going from NOK 311.6 million - NOK 412 million. We're more than doubling the EBITDA from NOK 40.5 million - NOK 89.3 million, driven by a high billing ratio, driven by also acquisitions and strong operation in a very busy unit. We also see that all the units within the Region Oslo are improving their performance. A very impressive performance, giving an EBITDA margin of 21.7%.
Region Norway, which is the largest region with revenues of NOK 457.7 million, also a very strong performance, NOK 71.4 million of EBIT and 15.6% margin. A very, very solid performance by Region Norway again, and we're seeing that the organic growth in this unit is 5%, 5.8%, as also they get some contribution from the acquisition of Erichsen & Horgen of the units outside Oslo and Lillehammer. Energy, also, of course, they are much smaller, but still we're seeing that they're delivering a margin of 12.3%, which is much better than we've seen in the last quarters. A strong performance, giving an EBIT of NOK 8.1 million. Happy to see that this is improving.
Also, we've seen the impact of what we've done in our operations in U.K., which has been loss-making for several years. Now we have restructured that as well as some improvement in the market conditions, and this also contributes to the good results in our energy unit. On the LINK arkitektur side, it's a little bit different picture. Norway, the LINK Norway, which is the largest unit, has had a somewhat slow start to the year, even more impacted by short-term sick leave than Multiconsult unit. That is impacting the results.
What we also see is that what we've done for LINK Sweden and Denmark, we're seeing that that is continuing to deliver results as these units were loss-making for a period, but both of them. Now they're on a break-even result, which is giving where they are in the turnaround process a good result. We have strong belief that both LINK Norway will have a better performance as we move through the year, and also gradually improving the LINK Denmark and Sweden result. We are optimistic about how LINK will perform as we look a little bit further down the road. International business, which is Multiconsult Polska and Iterio in Sweden, a good first quarter for both units, particularly strong performance in Sweden in Iterio.
Also a good performance in Poland, although they had a little bit of a slower start than we saw last year. Overall, a good performance with an EBIT EBITDA margin of 9% for these two units combined. A few words on our financial position. We've had, as we can see, a good result, cash flow from operations. We've had some working capital build up in the quarter, where we see that this figure is negative by NOK 236 million. However, these are just normal fluctuations. Our working capital fluctuates quite considerably between quarters. In this particular quarter, we've seen a somewhat build-up of the working capital.
Fundamentally, nothing to worry about, but it's something that we're watching very carefully, of course. But overall, we're coming out of the quarter with a net interest-bearing debt of NOK 139, giving a gearing ratio of only 0.35, excluding IFRS 16 adjustments, which gives the business and Multiconsult a very strong position and good financial flexibility as we move forward into 2022. Also we have very solid bank lines, and which gives us strong flexibility and maneuverability as we move forward into the market we see ahead of us. That's that.
As this is my last quarterly review with Multiconsult before I move in as CFO of Norwegian, I would like to say thank you. It's been a pleasure and an honor to work for Multiconsult. It's been a fantastic journey together with great colleagues and a good business with a strong culture. I believe that Multiconsult is very well positioned to support future growth, profitable growth, and take the many opportunities that Grethe will talk more about as we move into the future. Again, thank you very much.
Thank you, Hans-Jørgen. Looking at the revenue within the four business areas, as you can see, there's been a good growth in three of them, and a steady result with respect to revenue also within water and environment, really reflecting what we're saying, that we have good sales, good revenues, and also a good balanced portfolio. Buildings and properties are now the largest area, affected by the M&A that we did of Erichsen & Horgen last year. Forward, we would like to go a bit deeper into each of the four business areas, and this time we will give you a bit more insight into the area of mobility and transportation.
Enabling social development through sustainable, efficient, and safe movements of people is a core in the strategy that we have set for the next five years. Although there's been a slight reduction in the order backlog and also with respect to sales in the quarter, this is just within the normal fluctuations that we expect to see in this business area. We are working on public transport systems. We are looking to strengthen our position when it comes to mobility and transportation hubs as we see that this is a growth area going forward. The same goes for urban planning. More and more people live in cities. We need to think differently about how we form them and also how we develop the areas that we already have.
We have great competence and skills within this area. We also have a very good capability base when it comes to large bridges, and there are expected to be quite a few large bridges built in Norway. At the same time, we continue to maintain the position that we have with respect to railways and roads. The largest projects we've already mentioned them, the Sotra project, the tram in Oslo, Fornebubanen, Sandefjord Station as a station for the railway authorities. We've also been awarded a large project to early phase planning with respect to the possibilities of a railway connecting all the way up to the far north of Norway. This is a very interesting project.
It's a project that I'm sure there will be a lot of writing in the public because this is of huge relevance to that region. This is Sandefjord Railway Station. Going back a few years, the majority of the work that we would have done here would have been in connection with all the technical issues with the station. Now we see that in addition to that, work is included to see how can we use the station area, how can it be an important part of the development of the city, and how do we make sure that railway stations no longer represent a barrier in the town. We're seeing here that new skills are required, and these are skills that we have in the company.
Fornebubanen public transport, largest and first real development of the tram system in Oslo since the late sixties. Enormous infrastructure project. This is a sustainability project. This is what we need to take the cars off the roads. In that sense, it's a very good one in the profile that we're in on helping society become more green. Large bridges in Norway. There is a plan to remove the ferries from the main road going along the coast. To do this, you have to have large bridges crossing the fjords. We are one of two partnerships now working on this fantastic bridge. It's an example of how Norwegian skills and technology is at the forefront.
Really, this is world-class engineering and it's an example where partnerships and also using some of the skills and the partners that we have from the work that we've done in the oil and gas industry can now be transferred into other business areas. This is top-notch technology. Summing it up, we leave this quarter with a high backlog. The overall market outlook is good within the areas that Multiconsult operates. We are seeing a growing market and demand for capability and skills for creating sustainable solutions. There are, however, some uncertainty due to the unstable macro environment that we are seeing in Norway and in the world at the moment. We are on a steady course with a good and balanced project portfolio.
Just finally reminding you of the dates for the next quarterly presentations, seventeenth of August and the second of November. With that, we completed this presentation and we open up for questions.
Yeah. There are no questions right now. We can thank you and sum it up. If there are questions, I will let you know.
Okay. Seems like there are no questions. Before we finish, I would just like to thank Hans-Jørgen for his contribution to Multiconsult in these three years. We've been a good pair. I wish you luck in your new job.
Thank you very much.
There are no questions. With that, we sum it up from Oslo. Have a nice day.