Thank you very much. Good morning everyone and welcome to this audio cast. My name is Mikael Norin, I'm the CEO of Cavotec, and as usual, I have our CFO, Glenn Withers, on the call with me today. It has been almost a year since we launched our strategy to focus on clean tech for ports and industrial applications and to divest the airports business. This is a new strategy that's backed by more than 40 years of providing connection and electrification solutions that ensure the safe, efficient, and sustainable operations for our customers worldwide. We have since seen continued increase in demand for our sustainability solutions in what we call New Cavotec, that is excluding the airports business.
During the fourth quarter, this focus on finding sustainable solutions has been top of mind of our customers as well, with especially strong growth in orders for on-ship ShorePower for both new vessels and for retrofits. We also saw an increase in orders for motorized reels, including two key orders for reel electrification systems for container cranes at major ports in China and the U.S. from leading crane manufacturer ZPMC. Furthermore, industry showed a strong increase in the order backlog, driven by an increase in orders from heavy equipment OEMs. It is truly encouraging to see the continued increase in demand for our clean tech solutions and the effects of our new strategy. The fact that shipping lines chose to install our equipment in anticipation of ports around the world to do the same is very encouraging.
The orders send strong signals to ports around the world that their biggest customers plan for a reality in which charging in port will be the new normal. Looking at the whole of 2021, while order intake has been the highlight of our performance, the majority of revenue from the maritime orders will not materialize until 2022, so this year, and onwards. That is due to the planning cycle industry being long. As a result, annual revenue in 2021 was flat compared to the previous year. During the quarter, we continued to make investments in line with the strategy we announced back in March 2021. Our focus is, as many of you know, on developing our clean tech systems further, as well as the recruitment of sales and marketing people globally.
On February the twenty-second of this year, we signed an agreement to divest 100% of our airports business to a U.S.-based investment company called Fernweh Group. The transaction expected to close in the summer of this year, 2022. I'd like to say that it is with a bittersweet feeling that we're gonna see our airports colleagues leave. We believe that they, as well as our customers, partners, will benefit greatly from the focus that the new owners will bring. The sale of our airports business is an important step to allow us to fully focus on New Cavotec going forward. I'm gonna come back to that, but before I do that, I'd like to hand over to Glenn to walk us through the fourth quarter in more detail.
Thank you, Mikael, and good morning, everyone. First I'll start with a recap on the basis for our reporting during 2021, especially for those of you that have followed us during the whole year. Up to and including the third quarter, we reported our results in terms of New Cavotec and then Airports and finally the total group in that order. However, during the fourth quarter, the process of divesting the Airports business, as Mikael just mentioned, reached an advanced stage, and then subsequently in February, we announced the agreement to sell the business. This has triggered a different accounting treatment for our Airports business during the fourth quarter in accordance with IFRS 5.
We determined that the conditions required to classify the business as held for sale were satisfied, and we've published our Q4 report today with the Airports business classified as discontinued. Specifically, Airports is disclosed as discontinued operations in the income and cash flow statements and as assets and liabilities held for sale in the balance sheet. In addition, as a direct result or consequence of the spin-off, a non-cash one-off impairment charge has been taken in the fourth quarter of EUR 32.8 million. This adjustment takes our book value down to net realizable value for the post-transaction for a confirmed transaction. We're progressing well on the carve-out of the business in preparation for completion.
The majority of that work has taken place in the U.S., Germany, and the U.K., and we are well on track for completion in the summer, as Mikael already mentioned. Now I'll turn to New Cavotec. Order backlog in the fourth quarter increased 6.5% compared to the prior quarter and 71% compared to a year ago. We're reporting just under EUR 100 million of order backlog at the end of the year. The increased order backlog is due to new clean tech orders in the Ports & Maritime sector, and those are predominantly coming in Asia and Europe. It's also that our flow services and industrial performance business has performed well, and order backlog for Cavotec service offering also continued to grow during the quarter.
I would say we also continue to see good order growth during the start of this year. The momentum towards the second half and the end of last year has continued into the beginning of this year. Now turning to revenues, those increased in the quarter 5.4% to EUR 31.4 million, which is a reflection of the strong order book we've recorded in previous quarters. The services share of revenues in New Cavotec during the quarter increased to almost 23%. Although this development's in line with our strategy, I don't expect that sort of percentage to continue that high in 2022 due to the high number of deliveries that we have in the order book are coming from the products business.
Revenue growth in the quarter was not as strong as the growth in the order backlog, and that's really due to the high proportion of orders, as Mikael mentioned earlier, that were taken in 2021 for delivery in 2022. During the quarter, we continued to make investments in sales, marketing and engineering and technology costs to meet future demand and to increase our order intake and revenues. Adjusted for those growth investments, we recorded a break-even EBIT for the quarter. Now turning to cash flow. Our operating cash flow amounted to EUR 5.8 million in the quarter, and this was predominantly driven by working capital performance inside the quarter.
We also recorded R&D investments in New Cavotec products, especially the continued development of the MoorMaster and ShorePower ranges in Ports and Maritime, resulting in EUR 1.4 million of investing activity in our cash flow in the quarter. We reported a leverage ratio of 3.2x , which is similar to the third quarter, and there was an impact from the one-off impairment coming from Airports that I just discussed on our equity ratio, which reduced in the quarter to 38%. I'd like to confirm that we're in full compliance with our banking covenants in the fourth quarter, despite the size of that adjustment or that impairment. Finally, one more topic from me.
In our report this morning, I'd just like to draw to your attention that we've disclosed in subsequent events the impact that we're seeing from the current COVID lockdowns that are occurring in Shanghai, especially in the latter part of March, and as we speak on this call now, and are expected to continue into April. As a result, our facility there has not been able to deliver and invoice the substantial part of the booked orders at the end of the first quarter, despite the production being completed. I want to emphasize that orders are not canceled, that deliveries will resume as soon as the situation is normalized, therefore represents a temporary delay in revenue. We anticipate that approximately EUR 4 million worth of revenue will be delayed from the first quarter into the second quarter.
The final value of the delays will depend on individual deliveries and discussions with customers who have deliveries sitting in our factory on the floor in China. Even though this is a temporary impact on our ability to deliver and invoice according to plan, we've nevertheless started a discussion with our banks, or will start a discussion with our banks this morning in the event that we're not able to meet all of the conditions of our existing bank agreements in the first quarter of 2022. Again, I want to emphasize that we're in full compliance with our bank covenants at the end of the year and at the end of the fourth quarter.
What I'm referring to here is an anticipation, an abundance of caution in preparing for our first quarter reporting as a result of the closure of the facility in Shanghai. We will update on the status of those discussions when we report our annual report, which we will now publish on the 27th of April, 2022. On that note, Mikael, I'd just like to hand back to you.
Thank you very much, Clem. Looking back then at 2021, I believe we are on track with our strategy, and the trends that we are seeing in the marketplace is working in our favor. We are well-positioned to create unmatched environmental and financial benefits for our customers through the technology solutions we will have. We're gonna continue to develop connection and electrification solutions to enable the decarbonization of ports and industrial applications. As I said, 2021 has been a year of confirmation for the strategy, and the growing demand for our solutions is a strong sign of our expectations for the future of Cavotec. Before we end, you may have seen that in January, I informed the board of directors that I have decided to leave my position as Group CEO of Cavotec.
After five years in the role, the family and I wish to return to the U.S. later this year. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead the transformation of Cavotec from a traditional product manufacturing company to a focused clean tech solution provider. I believe that as this journey is almost complete, now is the right time to hand over to someone else to continue developing this incredible company. I know the board and the executive management team is fully committed to this strategy, so this should not make any change to the future of Cavotec. With that, I thank you for your attention. It concludes our prepared statements, and we will be now opening up for questions. Please.
Our first question comes from Karl Bokvist with ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you and good morning. My first question just relates to what you highlighted here in the near term. Thank you for the color that you provided. I was just a bit curious on the bank discussions here. Is it, you know, related to potential risks with any form of covenants? Is it possible to disclose, you know, what kind of measures those relate to without perhaps disclosing the absolute level? You can point to the EUR 4 million in deliveries, but you can also point to the minimum EUR 10 million that you will receive from the sale of Airports in the summer. I also read that you sold a property in Italy due now to be received in Q2.
How much do you think you could receive in cash from that one?
Okay. Good morning, Karl. There's a few questions in one there, I think. First, to address specifically the first question about covenants. To repeat for emphasis, as we exited the fourth quarter, we're in full compliance with all of our covenants under our existing banking arrangements. Unfortunately, the timing of the closure and disruption caused by the closure of our Shanghai facility right at the end of the quarter, there's an outsized impact because China, for us with the types of deliveries that we're making, has a significant amount of deliveries to ship, not just at the end of Q1, but going into Q2 and for the rest of the year.
The shutdown is temporary, but obviously we can't control the overall timing of reopening and how much we can deliver in any given week at the moment. As of Friday last week, that is, we were relatively optimistic. By Friday night, a new shutdown had been announced across Shanghai. That's the reason we are where we are. In relation to looking ahead and what we were reporting Q4, as I just disclosed in my prepared statement, EUR 4 million of revenues is likely to shift as a result of the ongoing closure in Shanghai from Q1 into Q4.
Because of the size of the business we are, EUR 4 million has a big impact on us and that's why we're flagging that we will be discussing the impact of that movement in the quarter with our banks and seeking some additional headroom, I would say, in relation specifically to just the leverage ratio. In other words, it's the profitability of the business that's impacted short term for Q1. Again, I emphasize that Q4, it was in full compliance and we've taken a cautious step here in relation to Q1 expectations. It's not that Q1 is finalized yet, of course. Does that answer your first question, Karl?
Yeah. Perfect. Thanks. Then just, you know, I just thinking out loud here, but you will likely be able to point to the EUR 10 million in proceeds from the airport sale. That's, you know, an already agreed terms, right? It's not, that's the minimum amount that you will receive in cash in the summer. Then just that you highlighted in the report that you sold a property in Italy. I was just a bit curious about, you know, if you could share any comment on the potential proceeds from that sale or if it's a sale or a sale-leaseback or what you did there.
I'll address the Italian one first. That's a building that we owned in Milan that's surplus to requirements. It's not a sale and leaseback. It's a sale of the facility outright, where we'll have no future interest in the property. The cash will really come during Q2 in terms of completing that transaction. It's less than EUR 1 million in terms of overall impact, cash wise. Addressing the proceeds from the sale, first the EUR 10 million is the gross proceeds before transaction costs. Some transaction costs were already incurred in cash during Q4.
The majority will actually be incurred in cash, either during Q2 or on completion. That EUR 10 million is gross, not net of transaction costs. At the moment, we've said we expect to complete during the summer. Whether that falls into the second quarter depends on timing of various applications, like foreign direct investment approvals, for example. That's how I see it playing out.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Sorry for, you know, sticking to this particular topic, but just to get the numbers right here. What do you think about the net proceeds?
Net proceeds overall, it still depends, probably on how long it takes to get to completion. Prefer not to go through that right now.
All right. Then just on the products that you ship there from Shanghai, EUR 4 million, for example, is this you know fully related to Ports & Maritime products and systems? Is it only ShorePower, or is it more MoorMasters or what do they relate to?
The majority
Sorry, but I'm gonna jump in there, Glenn. The majority of the orders coming out of our Shanghai facility are related to our Ports & Maritime business. A lot of it is also relating to the on-ship ShorePower orders that we have received. You know, we talked about the increased interest in those products. We do have a lot of activity out of that facility. There's some coming also from some industry products also, but the majority is Ports & Maritime.
All right. Thank you. Let's say before we go into the supply chain, I think just the comment you made on continued growth, and I know that you continue to expand the employee base here. You talked about the total EUR 20 million in, let's say, growth investments over the next five years, but can you provide any insight into your view on, you know, if all things go well and you can find the people that you want, how should we think about the personnel base for New Cavotec?
Well, I think what we are doing is that we are balancing. Of course, we are investing in the future, but at the same time we are also balancing that, the pace of those investments with the reality that we're seeing in the market and how we're seeing deliveries. We've seen the deliveries have been, you know, we talked about that the planning cycle is long, so deliveries have been put further out in this year, although we had a great order intake last year. That's something that we are continuously on our mind.
In terms of attracting people, we have seen that has become easier for us also as a result of the strategy that we announced, that we have become, as we are, a more focused organization and focused on things like sustainability that is seen as attractive by many people, and especially younger people who wants to have also see a sort of a purpose with the work that they do on a daily basis. Quite optimistic about finding good people, and we've seen that, and that is very, very important for us.
Understood. Thanks for the comment there on providing a bit of flavor on the order momentum at the start of this year. It seems like things are progressing well here. On the, you know, the backlog continues to develop well. What are your thoughts and view on the delivery potential given what we continue to see globally with supply chain constraints and component shortages and everything?
Yeah, that's obviously something that we're keeping a very close eye on. It's something that we all have a lot of activities internally on to making sure that we have a supply chain that can meet the demand that we're now seeing. It's a lot of work around that. You know, I don't have a crystal ball. We will see what happens going forward here with the supply chain crunches that we have seen. So far we have been able to manage, but it is something that we keep a close eye on and making sure that we find or trying to find alternative suppliers and so on.
Understood. The question that all Nordic capital goods companies will be facing this impending reporting period. How have you managed the price adjustments compared to cost inflation? Also, you know, lead times on orders that you have booked, whereas the cost related to those orders might still be volatile and thereby put pressure on near-term margins. Just the dynamics here and if you have clauses in your contracts that can handle that.
Yeah. I mean, that's also obviously something that we keep a close eye on. I think what has happened because of the inflationary pressure that everyone feels. The conversation that were difficult a year ago about price increases are much easier now. I think for us as a society, that's not a good thing because that means that we will have continued inflation, but it is a fact. We are working continuously now with price increases, especially in our flow business where it's easier to implement those. In the spare parts part of our service business, the industry products and so on.
When it comes to the more project-oriented business, then we are focused on, as you alluded to yourself, Carl, to have the CPI increase clauses in our contracts and so on. That's something that we are working quite focused on.
All right. Thanks. I have a couple of more questions, but I'll get back in line first. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you.
We have no further questions at this time. Karl, did you have a follow-up question?
Yes. Thank you. Just on what you are. We of course do have a bit of insight on the gross profitability from the Ports & Maritime segment before the pandemic. It was a bit of a different business back then, of course. You've done a lot of internal improvements and you have a higher service share and a bit of shift in equipment mix and everything. Could you give some flavor on how we should think about the margin trajectory this year if you get a bit more deliveries and mainly for next year, especially also given perhaps what we are seeing on the cost side? Thank you.
Yeah, I don't want to try to look into the future there, Karl. It's all depending on what happens now short-term with Shanghai. It depends on what's happening with the supply chain issues that we have with inflation and so on. I mean, what I can say is that we are trying to also move to a situation where we have longer series, larger volumes of products. For example, the on-ship ShorePower orders. That's going to mean that we can have more synergies in the supply chain and so on to also compensate for some of the other challenges we just spoke about. I don't want to speculate further on that right now.
All right. Thank you. Just two more. The first one, you comment a bit about the reported EBIT in New Cavotec, and then the amount related to growth investments. Then you also refer to adjusted for reconciling items. I believe it's EUR 1 million. Just out of curiosity, what does that relate to?
If you go to the basis of our accounts as they've always been set up, Carl, the segmental reporting further into the quarterly report, which still separates out New Cavotec Airports and these other reconciling items, which are basically central costs. Refer you to the detailed segmental analysis in the report for the breakout of that. That's what it is. As we progress with the carve-out of Airports in Q1 and Q2, we'll start to see those numbers change as we actually separate the business into the different legal entities as the airports operations are transferred to the target company.
Understood. You believe that at least a portion of the central cost can actually be allocated out to airports?
Yeah. It will be but on an actual basis, as you would appreciate with the reallocate count, which is already determined as part of the carve-out plan.
All right. Perfect. Just the final one was on, you mentioned continued good momentum in industry. Would it be fair to assume that also sales and profitability in industry continues to be on a good level?
We are very encouraged by the development that we see in industry, Carl. Two dimensions of that. First of all, the sort of more traditional part of that business towards our traditional OEM customers, that has gone very well. But on top of that, we also see an interest in some of the new solutions that we have developed around charging of the heavy duty equipment for you know heavy duty construction equipment, mining equipment and so on. This is really building on we talked about a year ago that we had done a pilot in the Port of Long Beach for electrification of some yard trucks. That has been picked up by several big OEMs, and they've looked at that.
We have started conversations around electrification, where we would help with charging stations for those type of equipment. That's our specialty, it's high power, high speed charging. We're seeing development there as well, and that's really interesting for the future.
All right. That's interesting 'cause yeah, you highlighted the port opportunities. Within, let's say, underground mining equipment, without mentioning any names, but there are not that many out there. Is that actually a you know a market where you see tangible demand or possibly of, you know, actual deliveries?
Yeah. You know, when we announced our strategy, about a year ago, there was of course a lot of focus on Ports & Maritime and the opportunities. We did say also the reason that we believe that industry is such an important part of us is because of the synergies in terms of technologies. That the same type of technology, especially in electrification and charging, it can be used. Because we're talking about, as I said, high power charging, high speed charging. Yes, the underground mining equipment manufacturers, but we also see interest from other heavy duty construction equipment manufacturers. We hope to be able to talk more about that when we report our Q1. I can tell you we're quite excited about the conversations that we're having.
Okay. Very good. Thank you. That's all for me.
Thank you, Karl.
At this time, there are no further questions. I will now hand back to Mikael Norin for any closing comments.
Thank you very much. With that, thank you for your attention, participation today, and wish you a good day.