Good day, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bufab's Q4 2021 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, CEO Johan Lindqvist. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, operator. Very welcome everybody to Bufab's Q4 and year-end report for 2021. This call is me, Johan Lindqvist, CEO of Bufab Group, and Marcus Söderberg, the CFO of Bufab Group. You will find the presentation that we'll go through in our webpage under the section for investors. Let's start. We can look back on a really good year, 2021 and also Q4. Bufab reported the highest sales, the highest operating profit, and also earnings per share ever for the full year. As in Q3, we also have a really strong demand in Q4 across all segments, you can say. The organic growth was up 19%, 19% driven by strong underlying demand, improved market shares, but also price increases.
It's also very nice to see that we have an order intake that's in excess of the sales. We still, as we also had, I think during the full year of 2021, an operational challenging situation. It's continuous with problems, you can say, in the supply chain. For example, with rates, there is a big lack of the chauffeurs in Europe for distribution and so on. We will still see that also in the beginning of 2022, I think. Despite this, we have a strong improvement of EBITDA, +40%, and also net profit with +51%.
Maybe the weak point of this report is the cash flow during the year, especially in the Q4, but it's also a result, you can say, of the strong organic growth. We're starting the year with a really low inventory level, and we also have these price increases and long lead times that affect that. During the year, we have also made three acquisitions. We have two in Q4. All of them adding totally on a yearly basis, SEK 500 million, around that. The board will also propose a dividend of SEK 3.75 per share. It's a + 36% from last year. As we have mentioned in end of last year, we don't have the new CEO in place, Staffan Pehrson.
Since then I will continue as Acting CEO for Bufab Group until we have a permanent solution in place. Now I leave the word to Marcus, and we can go to page 2, I think.
Thank you very much, Johan. If you turn to page 2, like Johan said, and we start by looking at the financial highlights for the group, you can see if we start with the order intake, that the order intake increased with approximately 25% and actually came in higher than net sales in the quarter. Net sales itself grew by 29% to approximately SEK 1.6 billion. Of the total growth of 29%, 19% was organic and 10% came from the recent acquisitions. If we look at the gross margin, as you can see, the gross margin strengthened with approximately 1.6 percentage points. The main reason for this, or part of the reason for this is the successful efforts to push price increases on raw materials and transports over to customers during the quarter.
Part of it is due to higher volumes in general and a slight advantageous product/business mix in the quarter. If you take a look at the OpEx in relation to net sales, you can see that it came in around 17.1% compared to 16.3% previous year. So a slight up adjustment cost-wise. If you adjust for revaluation of additional purchase consideration that we have done in the quarter, and those are connected to the earlier acquisition of American Bolt & Screw, if you adjust for those and acquisition costs for Jenny Waltle and Tilka, OpEx in relation to net sales actually came in at 16.2%, so more or less unchanged compared to previous year.
The higher volumes that we have seen, the strengthened gross profits together with good cost control and good operational leverage leads the operating profits to increase by nearly 40% or in absolute figures, SEK 46 million. If you adjust for the revaluation of additional purchase consideration and acquisition costs, the EBITDA actually increased to SEK 185 million, corresponding to an operating margin of 11.5%. A very strong quarter indeed. If we just zoom out and leave the quarter as such and just take a quick view on the full year figures, you can see that Bufab, just like Johan mentioned in the beginning of the call, really had a strong year.
To summarize it, you can say that we had continued strong growth, both in sales and in profit on most levels, and that we also delivered our highest ever full-year results. It goes all the way down to earnings per share, as you can see, which increased by 56% year-on-year. With that said, we turn to page 3, and we have a look at the graph of quarterly net sales growth and net sales and EBITDA LTM and 12-month figures. We start with the left graph. Here you can see that we are now seeing growth for six consecutive quarters. Not only growth, also steady and during the last couple of quarters, a really strong organic growth. We had a dip growth-wise in the second quarter of 2020 as most companies.
Before that, we actually had, if I remember correctly, 28 consecutive quarters of growth, and most of them also with organic growth. So a good historical track record growth-wise. If we turn to the right part of the page and look at the dotted lines, you can see that the blue dotted line net sales is steady and the trend is really strong during the last 25 quarters fueled by both organic growth, but also through acquisitions that were made during recent years. But the most noticeable growth is of course the gray dotted one, which since the second quarter or the third quarter of 2020 really have taken some big leap upwards.
This of course is a combination of higher volumes, increased gross profits through successful efforts in pushing price increases that we have seen over to our customers, together with good operational leverage and good cost controls and that leaves us with significantly increased EBITDA and also EBITDA margin during the last couple of quarters. A really nice development, we have to say. With that said, we turn to page 4, and we start to have a look at the development in each of the segments. I will not go into details on every figure here, but I will keep it more on an overall level. As you can see in segment North, order intake increased compared to previous year, but it was slightly lower than net sales. Net sales, however, increased with 15%.
Almost all of it was organic or 14%. Gross profit also had a healthy development, mainly due to higher volumes and successful efforts in pushing price increases over to customers. Costs in good control. Segment North has, however, during the last couple of quarters, invested in their own organization, which is the reason for the cost level going up slightly. On top of that, you should always take into consideration that the comparable figure of 14%, OpEx in terms of net sales previous period or the comparable period was exceptionally low. Going forward, the mission for segment North will be to leverage on the investments made and to focus on accelerating growth and continue to grow their market share.
If we look at segment West, also segment West had a good and strong quarter, especially in terms of order intake. Order intake was significantly higher than net sales. Net sales came in 19% stronger than previous year. 10% of that growth was due to organic growth, and most of the rest came through the acquisition of Jenny Waltle. Gross profit, on the other hand, they didn't really have a good development in the period, as we have seen in some other quarters during this year. However, even if it's lower than the comparable quarter, it's stronger than the previous quarter, the third quarter of 2021.
Main reason for low gross margin is due to price pressure and that they haven't really been successful in pushing overall price increases on raw material and transport to customers. That's the main priority going forward. On the other hand, good cost control, as you can see. All in all, this leaves them with an increased EBITDA of 26% or 29 million SEK in absolute figures and also an increased operating margin. Focus going forward, as said, price adjustments and also to continue to invest in their own organization to ensure long-term profit growth. If we turn to page number 6 and have a look at segment East. You can see that segment East had a really strong quarter. Net sales increased with 32%.
Organic growth actually up strong 34%. On top of this, a steady gross margin. On top of that, good cost control level, as you can see. This of course led to a very strong profit increase in the quarter. Operating profit increased with very strong a 113%, ended up at SEK 34 million , corresponding to an operating margin of 14.6%. When looking at those figures, you should remember that Segment East experienced some one-off costs during the fourth quarter last year, which makes the operating expenses in percentage of net sales being slightly high, and also it affected operating profit last year. Anyway, it's a very strong result development from Segment East in the quarter.
Focus going forward is to continue to invest in order to grow even faster and to gain market shares. Finally, segment U.K., North America also had, as you can see, a very strong development. Net sales came in 68% stronger than the comparative period, and the order intake was more or less in line with net sales. The gross profit increased with about a percentage point, and operating expenses was significantly higher in percentage of net sales, but the main reason for that is, as we talked about in the beginning, the reason for it is additional purchase consideration revaluation of approximately SEK 14 million .
If you just look at the strong growth that they had during the quarter, it's most noticeable mainly in two of the larger companies in that segment, and that is American Bolt & Screw, who is a bit more focused into RV segment, which has been strong during the full year of 2021 and also in the fourth quarter. On top of that also, our sister company, Apex in U.K., who is more focused on stainless steel products, also saw a very strong quarter. Organic growth, 31% out of those 68% in total growth. Meaning that CSG, as you can understand, also had a good development, a Component Solutions Group also had a good development during the quarter.
Going forward, segment U.K., North America will also focus to continue to invest in their business and to continue to grow their market share. That leaves us with the result for the segments, and we turn to page number 8, and we'll have a look at operating cash flow together with net debt to EBITDA. As we said, we saw a strong development more or less on most levels in the P&L during the quarter. One thing that we are not happy with is of course the very weak cash flow. There are, of course, reasons to this. I mean, there is net working capital we are talking about, and mainly inventory increases.
The reason for this is, like Johan said, the strong organic growth that we have seen during the year builds up net working capital in our balance sheet. Also on top of that, inventory levels were really low in the beginning of 2021, and there is a normalization ongoing and has been ongoing for the last couple of quarters. Also, of course, the strained supply chain that we have seen during the full year of 2021 has caused many suppliers to increase their lead times, which has forced us to adjust safety stocks, et cetera, and that's the effect we see in our cash flow statement in this quarter.
We think that this normalization will be ongoing for at least a quarter, but that it will flatten out and that we will see a strengthened cash flow at the end of or somewhere during the first half or at the end of the first half of 2022. If you take a look on the right row of net debt to EBITDA, you can see that we still, even though we made those three acquisitions during the last 4 months, are down at decent multiples in terms of net debt to EBITDA. That brings us good future outlook in terms of a strong balance sheet, meaning that we have still quite much room for a strong execution of our acquisition strategy also going forward, which is of course nice to see.
My last page is page 9. It's just a quick view of the EBIT bridge. As you can see, we start with the quarter. Currencies had a negative impact of approximately SEK -1 million in the quarter. Volume, strong contribution by SEK 66 million. Cost price mix and other, negative impact with SEK 17 million. Acquisition together with acquisition cost and reevaluated additional purchase consideration had a net effect of SEK -1 million. As you can see, in the segment bridge, you can see that we saw strong contribution from more or less all segments during the quarter. North, SEK 11 million, West, SEK 6 million, East, SEK 18 million, and U.K., North America, SEK 11 million. For the year, just quickly, currency, bigger negative impact in the beginning of the year, for full year, SEK -21 million.
Volumes, very strong contribution of SEK 327 million. Cost price mix and other, -SEK 61 million. Acquisitions, acquisition cost and reevaluated additional purchase consideration had a quite big negative effect of approximately SEK 32 million. Yeah, as you can see, the segment bridge for the full year, very strong contribution from North, SEK 60 million, good contribution from West, SEK 37 million. East, also strong contribution, SEK 47 million, and U.K., North America, a very good contribution of SEK 78 million. I guess that leaves us going over to page 10, and I will leave the word over to you again. Do you want to talk a bit about our acquisition and our acquisition strategy?
Yeah. As mentioned in the beginning here, we have made three acquisitions during 2021 here. This is CSG, Component Solutions Group in U.S., company placed in head office in Dayton, U.S. It was a really good complement to the ABS business that we already acquired a couple years ago. We strengthen our position in the American market, and this is one part of our strategy there. We also bought a smaller company in Sweden, Tilka Trading, a company that we talked to, and that was also the case with CSG. We have talked to them since 2013, so it's a long relationship before we bought them.
Also, we see that Tilka have a good possibility to grow inside the Bufab family. It is located in Sweden then. We have Jenny Waltle located in Austria, a company that they complement to the West segment, mainly focusing on parts in aluminum. That could be also a good contribution to all Bufab to add on the new product segment, you can say. All in all, it's three great acquisitions that were made during 2021. Of course, we will continue to look at the acquisition targets also in the future. That is one part of our strategy. Let's go to page 11 then and make a summary and outlook.
We still have this operational challenge during the quarter, but continuous strong growth and sales and profit, really nice to see, of course. We see the demand improvement in all segments and increased market share. That will be a strong focus also forward, when now after a lot of regulations and COVID are taken away from the country, so to say, we can start investing in our customers. That will be super great, I think. We will continue to have the supply chain disruptions, meaning we'll fight for the containers and the ships and the freight, for example, but also higher inflation and also energy. Power is a problem in some parts of the world right now.
It's also nice to see that we deliver the highest ever sales, operating profit, and earnings per share for the full year. It's a really strong report, I think. As we mentioned here, we think we have a still strong demand in January, and that indicates for us at least a good Q1 here. It's of course hard to predict for the year, as we see January, we think that Q1 will be good as far as we can see. We have talked about the handling of the supply chain problems. They continue at least, I think, the first half year with the challenges there, but I think we can handle them quite good.
I think we serve the customer well compared to other years. I think in general, our customers are really happy even if it's been a really tough time, I think. Focus going forward then. We will invest, and we have started in some segments, invest in further growth, meaning that we will continue to add people in the sales department and marketing side. We will continue this first, I think, half year also to put some costs to our customers. We will also focus on productivity because this is a demand from our customer side that we will get more and more efficient here to serve in the best way. That to normalize, of course, the cost level and the inflation that we see also.
Of course, we will continue with the strategy of acquisitions. We have a quite strong pipeline, I think, and hopefully we can also do something good there during this 2022, I think. That was all I think from us. I don't know, Marcus, if you would like to add something.
No, I think you summarized it quite well. I think we can leave over for questions now, operator, if any.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, for questions, please press star one on your telephone. Your question comes from the line of Rasmus Engberg from Handelsbanken. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good morning, and congratulations to a very strong set of numbers and a very strong growth rate. I was wondering if it's possible in any way to think about how much of the organic growth that in some way is volume, and how much is kind of price compensation for higher input costs on the top line.
Hello, Rasmus, and good morning to you. That's of course a good question, and unfortunately not really an easy question to answer. It's really so that, you know, when looking at. First of all, it's hard to calculate. That's the reason for not giving out a figure for it, so to say. Why it's hard to calculate is due to that we're running approximately 150,000 different items to 15,000 customers, and some of those customers also buy the same items, meaning that the number of items are actually really much higher than those 150. To keep track on, you know, each and every price increase, et cetera, it's very hard. But it's just like you, like, you indicate here.
Of course, during the year of 2021, price increases have become a bigger and bigger portion of total organic growth, but I can unfortunately not give you a percentage figure. We still see a very strong underlying demand in terms of volume increase. As you said, price increases adds to the organic growth as well, but we do not have a split for it, which, t hat I can give you, unfortunately.
Thank you. Can I rephrase the question? As you look forward, are price increases continuing to? You said you anticipated further increases. Do you think that we are in a phase where price increases continue to be a larger part of the growth recorded or less? I mean, I know it's a difficult question given all the stuff. What's your basic feeling for that?
Maybe me, Johan, should answer that. I think, we still have something in front of us.
Mm.
Hopefully, as we see today, at least it's maybe during the first half year.
Okay.
It's also tricky because, you know, for example, the question about energy and so on. It is where it ends, so to say.
Yeah. Also, I mean, what we saw during 2021 was increased raw material prices and freight costs, so to say. Those are still on a high level, but they have flattened out a bit. But you know, since the last quarter or so other things tend to pop up as a challenge, such as increased inflation rates and energy prices and things like that as well, which given the development going forward might be needed to take into consideration when talking about prices as well. I mean, we don't know, but we are, of course, monitoring the development carefully.
Yeah. All right. That was all for me for now.
Thank you.
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Okay. If no further questions, so I will thank you for participating in this presentation. Thank you from us.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Have a nice day. Bye.
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