Good morning, everyone, and Welcome to the Presentation of SATS 2024, Fourth Quarter and Full Year. I'm Sondre Gravir , the CEO of SATS, and I will present together with the CFO, Cecilie Elde . We will run a Q&A session in Teams at 10:00 A.M. today, and you will find the link to this Q&A session in the Q4 Stock Exchange announcement published this morning, both at NewsWeb and at SATSgroup.com. And I'm excited to take you through the highlights of another strong quarter, where we continued to see the benefits of our strategic initiatives.
Let's dive into it. SATS is the leading fitness club operator in the Nordics, with a strong presence in our key clusters, with 272 clubs and 733,000 members. Our high-quality clubs, combined with a team of 10,000 dedicated employees, ensure that we deliver high-quality training experiences, with close to 130,000 visits on average in our clubs every day throughout the year. Financially, we continued to demonstrate solid performance, with rolling 12-month revenues just north of NOK 5 billion and EBIT of NOK 525 million.
These figures reflect our ability to drive operational excellence, sustainable growth, and deliver strong financial results. 2024 was a year of strong progress for SATS, and Q4 continued this positive trajectory. First, we have made targeted and disciplined investments in our product offering, ensuring that every NOK spent delivers real value to members. These investments have led to increased activity levels and stronger member loyalty.
Norway has been at the forefront of this strategy, and as we have implemented the same approach in our other markets, we are seeing similarly positive results across the board, with positive developments in all relevant operational KPIs. Secondly, our financial performance has remained strong. Q4 marked another quarter of robust growth across all key financial metrics, confirming that our strategy is delivering results. Revenue growth of 7%, EBITDA growth of 37%, and EBIT growth of 87% proved this.
With a strong cash flow, we've been able to further strengthen our financial position. In Q4, we reduced our debt by NOK 103 million, bringing the leverage ratio of net debt to EBITDA before IFRS down to 1.4. And yesterday, we initiated the first part of our shareholder distribution program, a share buyback program of NOK 100 million, an important milestone in our shareholder distribution journey. We enter into 2025 with confidence. The positive momentum we saw in Q4 has carried over into the new year with high activity levels in our clubs.
Group training remains the driving force, reinforcing that our strategic focus is well placed. These positive trends make us optimistic about the road ahead, both operationally and financially. We will continue on this path going forward, enhancing our product quality to keep members active and maintain the price premium. To sustain our premium positioning, we continue to upgrade and refine our product offering. In Q4 alone, we invested NOK 155 million in club upgrades, ensuring that our members train in high-quality environments that support their fitness goals and stay with us for a long time.
These investments improve both the product quality and the capacity in our existing clubs, resulting in increased profitability. We continuously make sure to stay relevant. We launch new classes and concepts, we add more classes that stimulate demand, and we also launch completely new products. And as an example, we are now bringing a major global fitness trend to the mass market with the launch of our new reformer bundle. This includes reformer Pilates, reformer strength, and reformer HIIT, three unique offerings to different training needs.
Engaged members are also loyal members, and our investments in product development have proven to be a key driver of retention. The number of workouts increased by an impressive 7% both in Q4 and in January. Group training, however, increased by as much as 15%. Over the past year, we have piloted increased investment into our group training product in Norway, and the results have been overwhelmingly positive. More members are participating in classes, leading to increased overall engagement and higher loyalty.
Given the success of this pilot, we have started rolling it out in our other markets, and the early results are promising, with both increased load factor, group training NPS, and share of new members adding group training to the membership, which is a key driver for our improved ARPM, as Cecilie will come bac k to. With strong momentum in operations and increased member engagement, we are well positioned going forward, and I will now leave it over to Cecilie for the financial review.
Thank you, Sondre, and good morning, everyone. We are concluding another financially strong quarter with positive developments in all KPIs. The price-driven revenue growth translates into even stronger growth in EBIT, resulting in an underlying healthy cash flow and a leverage slightly below the communicated target range, enabling initiation of share buybacks. So let's dig deeper into the drivers of the fourth quarter result. We closed the quarter with a member base of 733,000 members, which is on par with last year, despite four fewer clubs in the portfolio.
Member growth in the quarter remained solid, with an increase of 5,000 members during the quarter, which should be considered strong given that the fourth quarter typically sees flatter development, as was the case last year. Efficiency improvements in the club portfolio have been a priority in 2024, and we track efficiency through, among other KPIs, member base per square meter, which has risen by 3% compared to the fourth quarter last year.
This improvement reflects efforts to optimize the club portfolio by closing underperforming clubs and right-sizing and relocating clubs with excess capacity to enhance space and asset utilization. Over the last couple of years, we have successfully maintained a robust member base and implemented higher prices for both new and existing members, demonstrating our growing brand strength.
The investments and development in our product offering are driving member engagement and have led to an improvement in the membership mix, with more members opting for broader offerings like group training, ultimately contributing to a higher yield over time. In addition, our pricing strategy has led to a significant increase in average membership prices, and we have now implemented price adjustment in line with previous years by increasing the list prices for memberships corresponding to inflation across the product portfolio, adjusting the prices for existing members based on the country-specific consumer price index, varying from 1.3% - 2.6%.
Finally, a somewhat higher price adjustment for members that have a membership price far below the current list price. These changes have led to a 7.5% improvement in membership prices compared to last year. We continue to optimize for revenues and see some impact of the price volume trade-off, with yield growth outpacing the member base growth. As previously mentioned, quarterly revenue growth is largely driven by increases in average revenue per member, reflected by the successful and gradual price adjustments.
Both ARPM and total revenues rose by 7% in the quarter, and the primary driver of this increase is the membership revenues, which accounts for 80% of our total revenues, with a slightly higher growth of 8%. Other revenues, revenues from personal training and retail, have remained relatively stable. While personal training volume was slightly lower, this was offset by price adjustments. In retail, margins are helped by balancing the slight decline in sales per visit. Our cost base remains well managed, with a 5% increase compared to last year.
The increase is primarily due to inflation, but also the development of the product offering, with more group training classes on the schedule. Overhead cost has risen by 3% in the fourth quarter and remained flat as a percent of total revenues. As a risk management measure, we have hedged approximately half of our projected electricity consumption from this quarter throughout 2026. In line with our strategy to enhance member engagement, we will continue to develop our group training offering by adding classes at clubs with untapped potential.
Member engagement drives loyalty, so these additions will slightly increase costs, but they are expected to grow the member base and yield over time. While this investment adds to the short-term costs alongside general inflation, our long-term plan is to continue to balance the inflationary pressures with disciplined cost control and selective price adjustments. We are reporting an EBITDA of NOK 175 million in this quarter, 37% up compared to last year, and at a 13% margin.
This demonstrates the positive impact of operating leverage on our profitability in the business, where a 7% growth of revenues translates into a 37% growth in EBITDA. As communicated last quarter, the estimated lifespan of fitness equipment has been extended two years, leading to somewhat lower depreciation expenses compared to last year. Consequently, the improvement in EBIT is slightly higher than normal, increasing by 87% to NOK 125 million, resulting in a 10% margin for the quarter.
After a period of moderate upgrades and maintenance CapEx, we have now returned to normal investment levels, making significant club upgrades and equipment purchases during this fall to support further growth. Sustained investment discipline remains a priority, with full-year maintenance CapEx totaling NOK 265 million, or 5.3% of revenues, which is in line with our communicated long-term target of 5%.
Through strategic portfolio optimization, we systematically assess our clubs to prioritize investment based on quality, competition, and cluster strategy, ensuring high-return investments and optimal space and equipment utilization. This quarter, we closed one club in Sweden, and we have three new clubs planned for 2025. We are actively working on expanding this growth pipeline further, scouting locations in our key clusters and other larger cities in the Nordics, targeting a run rate of eight to 12 new clubs annually.
Following a strong financial quarter, free cash flow ended at NOK 153 million, further improved by positive working capital effects in the quarter. The working capital effects are normal for a fourth quarter and follow the seasonality of the growing business with prepayment of memberships. However, as maintenance CapEx is skewed towards the end of the fourth quarter, this will result in some CapEx cash carryover to the first quarter. Operating cash flow over the last 12 months is at NOK 509 million and the cash conversion at 68%.
Over the last 12 months, we have generated NOK 407 million in cash, illustrating our strong cash generating capability with the capacity to continue reducing debt and distributing excess cash to shareholders. Our liquidity position remains strong, closing the quarter with NOK 371 million in cash and NOK 931 million in available and drawn revolving credit facility. We have, over the past year, focused on debt reduction, with NOK 103 million repayment on the revolving credit facility this quarter and NOK 320 million in total in 2024. This is reinforcing our commitment to lowering debt, also in absolute terms.
At the end of the quarter, net debt stood just below NOK 1.1 billion, resulting in a leverage ratio of 1.4, which is slightly below the communicated target range and enabling the first round of share buybacks, which Sondre will come back to. So, to conclude this financial section, a brief summary of the full year 2024. Over the past two years, we have remained consistent in our messaging and have delivered strong financial results for eight consecutive quarters, fully aligned with the ambitions set at our Capital Markets Day in October 2022.
We have demonstrated our ability to drive growth, implement price increases, control costs, and make smart investments that support growth while rapidly reducing leverage. 2024 marks another year with record high financial delivery, a strengthened financial position, and high member activity levels, highlighting the continuous momentum of our business. With that, I'll leave the word back to Sondre.
Thank you, Cecilie. As Cecilie just outlined in the financial section, our strong cash flow and the leveraging has put us in a position to initiate the shareholder distribution program, and the first step, the board resolved to launch a share buyback program of NOK 100 million.
The program will be executed in accordance with the applicable regulations, ensuring a structured and transparent process, and this marks the beginning of a broader capital distribution strategy, where we aim to return at least 50% of annual net profit to shareholders through a combination of share buybacks and dividends, and the timing and structure will be evaluated continuously to ensure the most efficient use of capital. So, to sum it up and look into the outlook, the strong financial delivery in 2024 was driven by investment in improved product offering, combined with yield initiatives, growing member revenues, and strong focus on operational execution and efficiency.
And we will maintain a sharp focus on these areas also in 2025, which will result in further strengthened financial results with strong cash conversion. We will be disciplined in our CapEx decisions, increasing club capacity in existing footprint, which will improve return per square meter, strengthening the product offering, and building the pipeline, as Cecilie said, to deliver on a moderate club expansion within the Nordics, with eight to 12 new club openings per year.
We also reiterate the financial guidance on keeping leverage ratio in the lower end of the indicated 1.5-2.0 interval and focus on shareholder return by distributing at least 50% of net profit, materializing in 2025, with share buybacks starting now and first biannual dividend payment to be paid in Q3. So, before we wrap up, I want to highlight an important date. On May 7th, we will host our Capital Markets Day. This will be an opportunity to dive deeper into our strategy, financials, and long-term growth plans, and we look forward to sharing more details with you then. Thanks for listening. We wish you all a healthy and happy Wednesday.