Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Q4 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star and one on your telephone keypad. I also must advise you that this conference is being recorded today, and I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Jörgen Rosengren. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everybody. My name is Jörgen Rosengren. I'm the President and CEO of Bufab, and I'm joined in this conference call by Marcus Söderberg, our CFO. We will be referring throughout this call to our presentation, which is available on www.bufab.com slash IR, that's relations, and to the page number in it, and we'll start on page two. We start there because we have the pleasure to report a very strong result in the fourth quarter of 2020 last year, and also, in fact, the full year result. That's quite attractive also. 2020 obviously was a challenging year. It was a challenging year for most people in the world and for most companies, and also for Bufab, but we can say, though, that our position strengthened year on year, as evidenced by the result figures and also by other things.
The last quarter was a strong one. Some headline numbers are that the sales were up 10%, and all of that increase was organic. There was a negative currency effect, which was offset by a positive acquisitions effect, and this 10% is a very strong recovery compared to earlier in the year and very certainly a strong recovery compared to the situation we had during the spring when the pandemic affected our sales quite severely. It was nice to see that the demand was spread rapidly across all segments and across many, many subsidiaries and customers. We noticed the strongest improvement in the two segments, U.K. and North America, and in Segment West, and it's so also that the underlying demand in all segments, actually, is higher, clearly higher than last year, and also that we are taking market share pretty much across the board, which feels good.
This strong growth development also translated into a strong improvement of our operating profit, which was up by 66%, as well as our net profit, which was nearly twice what it was one year ago. And here also, many of our subsidiaries contributed, not exactly each one, but most of them. But if we have to pick out a few that contributed most strongly, it was, in fact, the two most recent acquisitions that we made during 2019, one in Denmark and one in the U.S., and they both contributed in a very good way to this result. We announced in the middle of 2019 a cost savings program, which we then expanded in the spring of 2020 in the face of the pandemic. The target for this cost saving program was SEK 100 million , measured as the run rate relative to the middle of 2019.
This program has developed well, and it reached its targets in savings, SEK 100 million, by the end of 2020. It is now completed and fully contributing to our result improvements. Looking then at the full year result, it also was strong, like I said. It's, in fact, all-time high sales and all-time high operating profits, again, for the sixth time running. The main reasons for that are that we were able to quickly meet the actions with the actions needed to combat the effects of the pandemic early in the year, that we have been able to capitalize on our earlier investments in productivity and in digitization, and that we've been able to maintain and even strengthen our customer relations and our supplier relations.
And that is entirely, in fact, due to a very strong team in Bufab, which is also dedicated and quite successful in managing these things. Looking a bit at the balance sheet, we had a very good cash flow in the quarter and also for the full year. It's, in fact, our best cash flow ever. And that is quite gratifying since that cash flow helps us then strengthen the balance sheet in a way that makes it possible for us to continue our investment strategy and our leadership strategy and also makes it possible for us to continue to make acquisitions. And finally, it's worth mentioning that the board of directors met yesterday and is now proposing a dividend increase to SEK 2.75 a share, which is an increase done over the year last dividend paid, which was paid in 2019 because 2020 did not pay a dividend.
So that concludes, I guess, the headline statements about last quarter and last year. And I will now turn the word over to Marcus Söderberg, our CFO, who will take you through some more details and the numbers starting on page three of the presentation.
Thank you very much, Jörgen. As said, please go on to page number three, and you will see the financial highlights for the group. As you can see, for the quarter, the order intake was quite strong, up about 13% compared to the previous year. Also, net sales came in strong, an increase of about 10%, and the strong growth was actually mainly attributable to Bufab's performance in Segment U.K./North America, together with Segment West. All of those 10% in growth was actually organic growth. We saw a clearly higher underlying demand, and we saw market share that we considered to be higher compared to the comparable quarter. The reduced gross margin, which was down just slightly, was mainly offset by a significantly lower proportion of operating expenses, on the other hand, which declined to 16.3% compared to 20% in the previous comparable quarter.
The reason for lower operating expenses is mainly due to good operational leverage from the high volumes we saw in the quarter and due to the effective cost control achieved throughout more or less all of the subsidiaries of Bufab. The cost savings program that Jörgen just talked about developed in accordance with plan during the quarter. Just as Jörgen said, we are now running at full speed from January 1st, 2021. All in all, the operating profit increased sharply, about 66% to SEK 121 million , corresponding to an operating margin of 9.8%. The good development went all the way down to profit after tax. We increased with 96%, which also means that earnings per share had a really good development with an increase of about 97% to SEK 2.03 per share.
If you look at the lower left corner, you can see the EBITDA bridge, and you can see that currencies in the quarter had a negative impact of about SEK 7 million. The strong increase in volumes had a positive increase of about SEK 41 million. Cost reductions, together with price mix and other, added about SEK 1 million in total, and acquisitions contributed with about SEK 13 million. If you turn to page number four, you have two graphs, one of them showing the development of the growth quarterly the last couple of years. And as you can see, we are now back at solid and very healthy organic growth levels in the last quarter. If you look at the right graph, you can see the rolling 12 months, the development of the net sales and EBITDA.
As you can see, we have seen growth once again the last two quarters. When it comes to the EBITDA development, you can see it's a big leap upwards the last couple of quarters, of course, achieved by good cost controls, implemented cost savings programs, and volumes going up again, so to say. A really nice development when it comes to the EBITDA line, the gray dotted line. If we turn to page number five, we start by going through Segment North, and I will just go through the segment figures quite quickly. As you can see, in Segment North, we had quite healthy demand in the quarter. The demand came mainly from the Swedish and Danish companies. The organic growth was about 6%.
We actually saw really good and strong performance from our rather new company in the group, HT Bendix, who saw high demand, mainly from customers in the kitchen and furniture industry. As you can see, the gross margin was slightly lower, and the lower gross margin was mainly attributable to the segment manufacturing companies. On the other hand, the lower gross profit percentage was more than fully offset by a lower level of operating expenses, leading to an increased EBITDA of about SEK 10 million , or 26%. And the corresponding operating margin went up to 9.2%. If you turn to page number six, we see the figures for Segment West. And in Segment West, you can also see that we had a good development net sales-wise. All of the segment companies actually noticed quite a strong recovery, but of course, from rather low levels.
The organic growth was strong, 10%, and it's mainly attributable to high volumes across more or less all markets and for most industries. The gross profit was slightly increased, mainly due to the high volumes noted, but also due to good work when it comes to purchase savings or realizing purchase savings throughout the quarter. This, together with reduced operating expenses, had a rather dramatic impact, positive impact on operating profit in the quarter, who increased with 77% to SEK 23 million, corresponding to an operating margin of about 8.4%. Segment East, you can see Segment East actually had a really good development when it comes to net sales as well. Unfortunately, negatively impacted by currency effects, but anyway, the organic growth was about 16%. The healthy demand mainly recorded in China, Southeast Asia, and Poland. Gross profits slightly down, mainly due to high price pressures from certain customers.
The share of operating expenses increased mainly due to adjusted reserves in the quarter. Expenses for the full year were significantly lower compared to 2019, which should really be mentioned. All in all, operating profit decreased with about SEK 4 million, or 20%, corresponding to an operating profit of about 9%. If we turn to page number eight, we can have a look at the segment figures for U.K. and North America. And as you can see, of course, the segment had a really good development as well. Order intake + 36%, net sales + 35%. We saw a really strong recovery in the demand in the quarter, especially in the North American market. The organic growth came in as strong, 16%.
High gross margin, mainly due to a strong contribution from the newly acquired company, American Bolt & Screw, and on top of that, realized purchase savings in the quarter. All in all, together with the good cost control, we saw a really strong EBITDA improvement due to acquisition and significantly lower operating expenses, as said. With that, I leave the word over to you, Jörgen, again, to talk a bit about our efficiency improvements.
Yes. And then we'll be turning to page nine. We've worked quite a bit during the year, obviously, on improving our efficiency, our productivity in the Bufab Group. And there are two aspects to that. One is, of course, our cost savings program, which, as we have already mentioned a number of times now, was completed in the last quarter of 2020. In the actual quarter four, there were in our bridges that we will present in a moment, rather low savings from the cost, low cost savings. But that is due to the high volumes in the quarter and to restructuring costs. We are, however, convinced that we are quite content that the program has generated the run rate savings of SEK 100 million starting now then. But we have also, on the other hand, worked on efficiency, meaning the productivity of our actual workforce within this envelope.
And that builds heavily on the digitization of our internal processes, but also on the organization, which we changed about a year ago or so into 10 business units. These business units were able then to organize their work a little bit more independently and to also create efficiencies between the subsidiaries within each business unit using a concept of a Call Center of Excellence. And there are some especially hard-hit subsidiaries in the sense of hard hit by the pandemic, where we are also implementing restructuring moves. And all of this is a bit of a proof of the strength of a trading business model, where we have low fixed assets, low structural costs, and are able, therefore, to be fast and flexible when meeting a challenge such as the pandemic. We've made quite significant staff reductions.
We've reduced staff by a little bit more than 170 people, or well above 10%, relative to the middle of 2019, but the vast majority of those staff reductions were voluntary, and that means that we've had also quite limited restructuring costs associated with the cost savings program. It does take some time, of course, until such measures take full effect, but this last year, we were able to meet or fill that gap by reducing our discretionary spend and also by very short-term work measures, like many other companies have done, so in summary, the organizational model is a key to the success.
And on the right-hand side here, you can see that we have reduced the number of full-time equivalents, that we have increased the gross margin generated by each full-time equivalent, and that we have decreased the cost as a percentage, the OpEx as a percentage of the sales, to a level where it has never been in a long time and maybe never before, of just about 15%. Turning to page 10, you can see how the savings that we created in the last year protected the margin. So there was a slow down, obviously, in the first and second quarter of last year, which really was an acceleration of the slow down that stopped already in 2019. That was fortunate for us because we had already put a cost savings program in place, which we were then able to quickly expand to the new level needed.
Therefore, we also generated quite large savings in the second and third quarter of last year in total of about SEK 100 million. Here you can also see that in the last quarter, there were not large cost improvements, but like I said before, it depends on the increased variable cost and on the one-time effects of the cost savings program itself. The result, all of which, is that we were able to keep a stable operating margin and, in fact, top 10%, which we have not been above for quite some time. That feels quite good, of course. Finally, on page 11, as mentioned, the cash flow, our main focus in Bufab, our first focus, is always organic growth. It is the strength of our business model that it does not require a lot of CapEx.
And that means that, especially in years of low growth, we are able to generate good cash flow and good cash conversion. That has also been the case in 2019 and was very much the case in 2020. And on the left-hand side of page 11, you can then see how the cash conversion, in fact, topped 100%. Last year, we made over SEK 500 million of operating cash flow. The result of which is that our leverage on net debt has a multiple of EBITDA, was reduced every quarter last year and ended up below 2.2%, I think, or well below 2.3%, I'm sorry. And it was well below 2.5%. And at the lowest level it's been for many years, despite the two very large acquisitions we made at the tail end of 2019.
The acquisitions we have made are mentioned on page 12 with a good list there of mainly quite successful, in fact, acquisitions, and we intend, of course, to add to that over time. Finally, turning to page 13 to wrap up the year 2020, we can look briefly at the EBITDA bridge. There you can see the effects, both on the quarter and on the full year, of currencies, of volume, of cost reduction and price/mix, other, and finally, of acquisitions, bridging the quarter to the previous year to this last year's quarter. On page 14, we show that early in 2020, we set three priorities for the year. First, to protect the health of our employees, protect our customers from the effects of the pandemic, and to protect the subresult-wise also from the effects of the pandemic.
That program was put in place in the beginning of the year. And during the second half of the year, we ran another program, which we called Restart, the focus of which was to restart, in fact, profitable growth. And we believe that the fourth quarter is a good proof of how that program has succeeded. The success of the first two steps in this picture makes it possible to go on to the third step, which is to invest. And what we're intending to invest in is leadership because we have a strategy to be the leading company in our industry, and now we have good plans for the next couple of years to execute on that promise. So in summary, and then turning to page 15, the fourth quarter was a strong one. It showed a recovery of demand.
It showed improved margin, a strong profit, and a very good cash flow increase, and also strengthened balance sheet. The outlook is uncertain because there is, as many of you are probably aware, a very severe strain on the global supply chain systems in the world, both logistics but also raw materials, and that may cause pressure on operations and may cause pressure on our margins during 2021, on the one hand. On the other, we saw very favorable growth, as we've now seen, at the end of 2020, and it has continued, at least until the beginning of this first quarter of the new year, so those two effects are going different directions, but I think it's fair to say that the uncertainty is very large, and we certainly do not know what will happen with the development of the pandemic.
That being said, though, we feel we're in a strong position to be able to both meet any challenges that we may be facing, but also take advantage of the opportunities that will no doubt also present themselves in this new phase. Our priorities for the year 2021 is to manage our customer relations well during these very tough operating conditions, and that is always a priority at Bufab. One of our strategies is customer- first. The second priority is to make sure that we continue to keep our team motivated and that we develop it throughout the year, and finally, we are, of course, also prioritizing our margin, especially our gross margin, and the productivity necessary to keep also good operating margin development in these tough conditions, and with that, I would like to close.
But just before I close, remind you that we have invited to our Capital Markets Day, which will be, of course, in the digital format and take place on the 18th of March. It's in about a month's time. And you're all cordially invited to participate in that event, where we will be able to talk about our strategies and plans for the next couple of years in more detail. But with that, I conclude my comments and also our joint comments on the fourth quarter of 2020 and on the full year of 2020. And Operator, if there are questions from the audience, now is a good time to ask them. So I'm turning the word over to you, Operator.
Yes, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question- and- answer session, and as a reminder, if you wiss to ask a question, please press star and one on the telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, star and one if you wish to ask a question. Once again, as a reminder, for those who want to ask a question, just press star and one on your telephone keypad, and we have a question that came through, and this comes from the line of Johan Ståhl. Your line is now open. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Hi, Jörgen and Marcus. I have two questions regarding Segment East, and it's a negative bias question, but you're talking about increased price pressure from clients and then that you had an impact from some kind of reserves, negative impacts from some kind of reserves. Could you explain to me what that means?
Yes. Regarding the price pressure, it is so that we had during 2019, we had, generally speaking, falling raw material prices. And that resulted, in some cases, in customers then pressuring us on the price front. And that was most prevalent in Eastern Europe, where some large customers simply got price reductions. And our subsidiaries trailed in our business. They trailed. And so we have had an effect of that, a negative effect on the gross margin in Segment East in the fourth quarter, which is why we're commenting on that. And when it comes to reserves, it is so that we have reserves for various things, including our cost savings programs, and they get adjusted every quarter. And sometimes there is then a one-time effect on adjustment, large up or down.
In the case of Segment East, there was a sizable adjustment up, I guess, of the accruals in that particular quarter. But it's not an effect that we expect to recur. It's also, I think, worthwhile noting that the full year cost picture in Segment East was quite satisfactory in respect of the case going forward.
Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
You're most welcome.
Thank you once again. For those who want to ask a question, just press star and one on your telephone keypad. Seems like no further questions have came through, sir. You may continue.
Then I would like to say the following, that thank you, all of you, very much for attending this conference about Bufab's full year result. And we look forward to seeing all of you then at the digital Capital Markets Day on March 18, to which you are, again, very heartily welcomed. But that, otherwise, concludes the conference. And Operator, thank you and goodbye.
Yes, sir. Thank you. That concludes our conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.