Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our presentation of the third quarter of 2022. My name is Sondre Gravir, and I'm the CEO of SATS, and I'm here today with Cecilie Elde, our CFO. We will now present our Q3 figures, but please note that this will be a condensed quarterly presentation solely focusing on the quarter that has passed without any outlook. We will host a SATS Capital Markets Day in an hour at 9:00 A.M., where we will dedicate more time to see how the future of SATS will be, both in the short and long term, and our strategic focus areas. The Q3 Q&A will thus be merged with the CMD Q&A and is scheduled as the last part of the CMD presentation at around 11:10 A.M. today. We had a third quarter with significant member growth despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop.
The growth is driven both by very strong sales of new membership and low return compared to pre-pandemic third quarter. We see no signs of weaker consumer sentiment, neither going into October. The growth is fueled by a higher marketing push than usual to secure a solid run rate out of 2022. The cost base in the quarter is affected by high inflation and soaring energy prices. Lastly, visits continues to exceed pre-pandemic levels, driven by member habits, new product launches, and several upgrades of our clubs that we have done during 2022. The member base reached 708,000 members out of Q3. SATS has never reported such a high member base, and we are so proud to have been able to grow the member base by 36,000 members during the quarter.
In 2019, the third quarter was pretty flat, as a normal third quarter in SATS is. Last year, we had a very strong growth that was fueled by the reopening after the pandemic. Hence, proving so strong net growth in the normal third quarter with a challenging macroeconomic environment, we take as a clear proof of our unique and strong member value proposition and the focus in the Nordic population to prioritize an active and healthy lifestyle. We have also seen the positive sales of new membership development into October. The strong sales is a result of a strong focus in the whole organization, supported by a successful marketing campaign. We have both done campaigning to strengthen our brand, focusing on SATS' unique product offering as a one-stop shop for training, and we have done selected tactical campaigns, which is an important lever to trigger sales.
We have in Q3 had more tactical campaign days than normal, which affects profitability in the short term. Cecilie will comment more on this, but we are not discounting our membership price in the campaign long term, but we are, for example, giving away one free month in the beginning of the membership. It feels encouraging to see that three out of the best six selling days in SATS' 20 years history have been reported during the third quarter of 2022. As of today, the challenging macroeconomic environment is not affecting the demand side in our business. We follow this closely, and I will not be too certain about the future, but so far it's very clear that staying active and living a healthy lifestyle is really something consumers prioritize, even with a somewhat smaller wallet.
We follow several parameters, and in the third quarter, we have seen a record high sales. We have seen lower churn rates than in Q3 2019. We have not seen any signs of members trading down to cheaper memberships, neither through low-cost club offerings as we see with our Fresh Fitness brand, nor to a lower-priced SATS membership. We have also seen the average retail basket size increasing compared to Q3 2019. All of these trends has, as I said, also continued into October. We are also very pleased to see that our members are more happy and more healthy than ever, proven by NPS score and visit per member data. Member satisfaction is at record high levels, and visits per member is 5% higher than in 2019.
We know that active members are happy members, and they stay with us much longer than our passive members. This was a short summary. We are happy with the development in the quarter. I hope to see you all at our CMD presentation starting in a little bit less than one hour, either physically here at SATS Colosseum or in the live stream. I will now leave the word to Cecilie Elde, our CFO, who will take us through the Q3 financials. Please, Cecilie.
Thank you, Sondre, and good morning, everyone. As we've talked about before, we have accelerated our club rollout over the last couple of years and have since the beginning of 2020 opened a net of 36 new clubs. Further, we have signed additional 13 clubs opening over the next year, which gives us a sufficiently strong pipeline for growth in the medium term, limiting the need for adding new capacity. Over the last year, the growth in the member base of 8% comes from both acquired and maturing clubs, but most importantly, a strong recovery in the like-for-like clubs. Compared to last quarter, the deviation in members per club have reduced from 200 members to now being only 80.
Actually, the member base of 708,000 members is an all-time high after positive development in both sales and churn in recent months. Strong sales numbers come at a cost, and we have invested more than usual in marketing and number of promotional days, which temporarily affects reported yield negatively. Adjusting for campaign effects and somewhat inflated freeze remaining after COVID, the yield shows an increase of 7%, which corresponds to the increase in the contractual price members are signing up for. Knowing that the market is not entirely back, as the share of Nordic people is not yet fully back to an as active lifestyle as before COVID, our priority has been to sacrifice short-term profitability to ensure that we gain market share in terms of members and to secure a solid run rate out of 2022.
Total revenues continue to grow up 4% versus 2019. Member revenue has had an even stronger development, increasing by 7% since 2019 after periods of solid membership sales from existing and maturing clubs, but also driven by an improvement in yield. The member revenue bridge on the right illustrates where we stand in terms of run rate compared to 2019. The yield improvement contributes to a NOK 50 million increase in revenues. Member base is now surpassing the 2019 level, and improves revenues further by NOK 25 million in the quarter. Slightly elevated freeze levels and campaign impact from current and previous quarters continue to impact revenues negatively. Most importantly, the annual run rate improvement in revenues from growing 36,000 members in the last quarter is around NOK 200 million.
Total operating expenses have increased by 4.9% annually since 2019, partly pure inflation driven, but mainly due to adding a net 27 clubs to the portfolio. In addition, the ramp up of SATS Mantra and energy costs results in further cost increase, where energy costs alone amounts to NOK 60 million in the quarter, up 88% from 2019. For like-for-like clubs, the average annual increase is lower at 3%, again, mainly inflation driven, adjustment on rent related costs, but significantly increased energy prices, which is partly offset by successful cost saving efforts to compensate for the overall cost increase. Looking ahead, we expect to see continued inflationary pressure as we see increased prices on most of our input factors, especially energy prices, although the outlook for the next year seems to have come somewhat down compared to the third quarter average.
Over time, we are aiming to counteract inflation with cost discipline and price increases. Adjusted EBITDA of NOK 20 million in the quarter is improved compared to last year when you exclude the governmental compensation we received last year, originally related to previous periods. Compared to 2019, and despite solid revenue improvement, profits are highly affected by increased costs, not only due to a higher share of immature clubs with lower profitability, but also higher than usual energy costs. On top of that, we have, as said, invested significantly more in special offerings to drive membership sales. This hits EBITDA in the short term, but have significant improved annual revenue run rate. Going forward, increasing number of members per club is the strongest lever to improve profitability and will be the most important focus.
Maintenance CapEx is higher than usual in the quarter due to general equipment upgrades and major upgrades in the Stockholm area. For the year, we are still averaging somewhat below historical maintenance level CapEx of around 5% of revenues. We anticipate that we will return to more normal level of maintenance CapEx in 2023 at around 5% of revenues. Expansion CapEx in the quarter is partly driven by the acquisition of seven clubs in the south of Norway. Going forward, expansion CapEx will reflect the current expansion pipeline of signed greenfields as further additions will be highly selective.
Moving on to liquidity, we are in a well-controlled and satisfactory position as we close the third quarter with a cash balance of NOK 125 million and NOK 712 million in total liquidity. Free cash flow for the third quarter is negative by NOK 106 million after investing in both existing club portfolio and adding a total of eight new clubs. Overall liquidity, including undrawn amount under the revolving credit facility, is sufficient to handle current operations, even in a more challenging macro environment that we're currently experiencing. Now ending this section with an update on net debt. COVID-19 period has resulted in significant losses, which have resulted in increased debt. In the short term, investments in the club expansions will be limited. We will prioritize to reduce debt to responsible levels.
An addendum to the revolving credit facility was signed earlier this year, extending the facility by one year until September 2025, and included also adjusted temporary covenants, which will apply until the end of 2023. The adjusted covenant set out quarterly minimum levels for liquidity and adjusted EBITDA, which will come into force from the first quarter of 2023. Note that 2022 results will not constitute any part of the measured adjusted EBITDA covenant. With that, I will leave the word back to Sondre for closing.
Thank you, Cecilie. As I said, I hope to see many of you present on the Capital Markets Day presentation starting at 9:00 A.M. here at SATS Colosseum. With that, we wish you all a great day. Thank you.