Fourth quarter and full year 2017. I will start by giving you some of the financial and operational highlights of the quarter and the full year, I will then hand over to our CFO, Ulf Bonnevier, who will take us through the detailed financials of the quarter. We can move on to the next slide, the financial highlights. In the quarter, our operating revenues decreased by 4% to SEK 1.62 billion. This is down from SEK 1.68 billion the same quarter of 2016, the decline is mainly attributable to the divesture of the home care operations. In the fourth quarter, we had an organic decline of 1.7%, our operating profits were SEK 66 million, down from SEK 73 million last year. The operating margin was 4.1%, slightly lower compared to last year.
In the quarter, we saw a substantial improvement in our operating cash flow to SEK 197 million, an increase of SEK 318 million compared to the same period last year, our net debt was lowered to SEK 1.44 billion. Our leverage was lowered to 3.8 down from 3.9 in the same period last year. Humana's leverage in the third quarter of 2017 was 4.2. At the end of the period, the proposal from the board to the AGM of 2018 is a dividend of SEK 0.60, a slight increase from last year. Next slide, please. Moving on to Individual & Family, where we in the quarter have finalized and closed a structured improvement program that we've been running in INF during parts of 2017. The program has been successful, we have achieved expected results in terms of cost savings, operational efficiency, and the overall structure.
As a result, we see a clear improvement in earnings in the fourth quarter due to the implemented measures. The operating profit for INF increased to 27% compared with the fourth quarter of 2016. Although we now find ourselves in a much better situation with enhanced cost base, there is still a need to improve. In our youth division, utilization has recovered over the quarter, but we're still running slightly lower in terms of utilization compared with historic levels. With the improved efficiency and less volatile demand for services, we now enter into 2018 stronger compared to 2017. We will increasingly shift our focus more to growth, both organic as well as through acquisitions. Next slide, please. Moving on to Personal Assistance, the market conditions remain challenging with the number of individuals entitled to Personal Assistance declining by 5.1% during 2017. This is the lowest number in 10 years.
Humana continues to gain market share in these tough conditions, we compensate well for the margin squeeze due to high operational efficiency and high quality. The Swedish government has recently proposed a temporary stop to the two-year reviews for individuals with Personal Assistance. This, we expect, will give some stability to the market going forward. During 2017, we've seen the consolidation in the Personal Assistance market intensify as many smaller providers experience difficulties in coping with the challenging environment. We estimate that the M&A market in this segment is attractive currently. Despite the environment, we continue to develop our quality and operations in Personal Assistance, we see customer satisfaction increasing from already very high levels. In PA, Personal Assistance, we enter 2018 with confidence, our ambition is to return to growth, although the markets remain challenging. Next slide, please.
In our Elderly Care segment, the revenue development in the quarter compared with last year was negatively impacted by the divesture of the home care services. We did, however, see an organic growth of 13% driven by our newly started units. In the fourth quarter, we saw a negative impact on profitability, not only from the ramp-up of Bäcksjön and Åkersberga, but also from two additional units that we started to prepare in Q4. In December, we started operations in a unit in Sundbyberg outside Stockholm with 50 beds. In the beginning of January, we started operations in another unit in Stockholm with 30 beds, both outsourcing contracts. In 2018, our focus will be on getting these newly started units up to speed and to turn them profitable. As we see utilization steadily improving, we feel confident in doing so.
Come end of 2018, we will start preparations for the two new old managed Elderly Care homes estimated for opening in the beginning of 2019, Staffanstorp and Kungsängen. Next slide, please. In Norway, we saw a very weak development in the fourth quarter, and the challenging market conditions remain in certain areas. In parts of operations, demand was low in Norway in the fourth quarter, and we have incurred continuous startup costs for the units where utilization in some of the units has not developed according to our plan. Moreover, we need to improve our efficiency even further in the Norwegian operations. During the fourth quarter, we have also severely intensified our efforts to improve operations in Norway. And although much work remains, we remain confident that we will succeed as we have a good view on what measures that need to be taken, and it is within our control.
In Finland, we continue to see very good momentum and high demand for our services. With regards to the SOTE reform, little is new, and we maintain our assessment that the reform will be positive for Humana. Thank you, and over to you, Ulf.
Thank you, Rasmus. Now a little bit more flavor of the numbers we have presented here for the quarter. Starting on page seven, our operating revenue for the quarter was SEK 1.6 billion or SEK 1,616, 4% down from the previous quarter. This is due to main factor influencing this decline or this decrease is the divesture of our home care operations, but we also have an organic decline of 1.7%. This is explained by the low utilization in parts of the Individual & Family business area, in Sweden, the children youth area. And we have also a weak development in Norway. So those are the main reasons for the drop in revenue in the quarter. Moving on to the next slide, page eight. The operating profit is down from SEK 73 million, but SEK 66 million for the quarter, 4.1%.
The efficiency program in Individual & Family is running well, as you can see in the numbers, also in Personal Assistance, making this a very good quarter. We have some negative factors influencing the quarter, the Norwegian operations being a big factor. Weaker demand in some segments here in Individual & Family, but also the impact of the startups in the Elderly Care, where we are still filling up newly started units, Åkersberga and Växjö, and also the conversion program we have in Norway for the startups of the migration-related units. Those are the factors impacting profit in the quarter. Moving on to page nine. The full-year numbers, the full-year revenue SEK 6,557, so up 3% from last year, with an organic decline of 1.3%. Obviously, the same factors apply for the full year.
Low utilization for children and youth care within the Individual & Family and the development in Norway. Moving on to page 10, the full-year operating profit, SEK 316 million, slightly down from the SEK 329 million we had in 2016. The margin is 4.8%, versus 5.2% prior year. If we look at the 2016 numbers, we also had cost of IPO of SEK 40 million. So if we adjust for that in the prior year, adjusted numbers are SEK 369 million. In this year, we also had some adjusting items. The sale and leaseback from the property portfolio transaction we did was a positive SEK 14 million. Then again, we had a loss of SEK 14 million from selling the home care business. So net-net, no adjustment on the current year profits. The margin has been impacted by the utilization, obviously, in Individual & Family. The conversion of the migration units in I&F has been a factor.
Migration-related services in Norway has been converted and had quite a major impact for the year. We are also taking a significant cost for starting up our new Elderly Care homes. Those are the factors impacting the profit for the year. Moving on to our various segments, page 11. Individual & Family, slight decline in operating revenue of 1%, organically -2.9%. This is due to the utilization in children and youth area. However, the cost savings program has delivered well, and the quarter is up from prior year, where we had a SEK 34 million profit and this quarter is SEK 44 million. So strengthened margin in the quarter. The efficiency program is running well, and we are now closing the efficiency program with a lower cost base, which we are quite pleased with. So that is Individual & Family, page 11. Moving on to page 12, Personal Assistance.
Steady revenue or marginally up in the quarter. Profit is up from SEK 34 million to SEK 46 million, so 7% margin, an increase in the profits in the quarter. Very positive effect from the operational efficiency and a very strong quarter. I think it is prudent to point out that this improvement program has been running a while, and the incremental improvement is diminishing over time. So it is going to be really difficult for us to compensate for any additional margin squeeze going forward. We are very pleased with performance in the fourth quarter. Moving on to page 13, Elderly Care operating revenue. If you look in the books, it is a decrease of 38%, but that is due to two factors. One, the divestment of the home care operation, and then the positive effect from opening the own managed units, Växjö and Åkersberga.
We have an organic growth of 13%, which we are very happy with. Operating profit is SEK -8, lower versus last year, and the impact of SEK 6 million is coming from the openings of the new units in Växjö and Åkersberga. If we look at it on a like-to-like basis, profit is on an equal par to the comparable fourth quarter. Moving on from page 13 to page 14, here we have some dynamics in Other Nordics. Revenue decline of 1%, but the organic is 7.4%, totally driven out of Norway. Operating profit down from 23% to 7%. The weak development in the quarter is fully explained by Norway. Contribution from migration is nothing. High cost from the startups and the restructuring operations, and lower demand in some parts of the Norwegian operations.
Remember, we have a full set of services in Norway and several divisions that we do our service in, but lower demands in some parts of that. Finland, solid development, good quarter, good growth, and good margins. Moving on to page 15, the highlights of our cash flow. As you can see, we talked about that last quarter. It is now a normal quarter in terms of cash flow, so good improvement in working capital. We get some positive year-end effects, customers paying on time or early, some positive effects from the payments within Personal Assistance, but net, it is fairly marginal. Of course, the comparables are different, where we in the fourth quarter 2016, were forced to change the payment terms within Personal Assistance. The quarter-to-quarter comparable looks very favorable because of that. Those are the numbers. Rasmus, back to you.
Thank you. To summarize, for Humana 2017 was a rather challenging year, characterized by both change and improvement efforts, including restructuring in several parts of our businesses. During the year, we also saw plenty of dynamics in our various markets, with a big shift in demand for migration-related services in Sweden and Norway, followed by temporary overcapacity, which is now being dismantled. In Personal Assistance, the condition has also been challenging, but have been improving towards the latter part of the year and beginning of 2018. The political debate held at the national level in Sweden with proposals for further and profit constraints continues. In the beginning of 2018, the Swedish government presented a proposal to the council legislation for limiting profits in the sector.
The proposal has, as you know, met with severe criticism, both from authorities, leading experts, as well as companies, and it is not supported by a majority in the Parliament. During 2017, we have, however, also seen many important advancements in our quality of care. These advancements we share both internally as well as externally and across country borders. Humana continues to be an employer of choice, which is promising for the future. As we now enter 2018, we do so with confidence. In I&F, we continue to see clear improvements, and we enter 2018 in relatively good shape. With a better structure and adjusted cost base, we will focus increasingly on growth. In Personal Assistance, we are reaping the benefits of scale, whereas other providers have been forced to invest less in quality and operations.
We continue to invest in the same pace as before, effects are becoming increasingly more visible in our recurring customer service. We also see the market consolidating at a faster pace, we enter 2018 with the intention to grow. In Elderly Care, we are not pleased with the result in the year, we remain confident that the investments made during the year will start to pay off in 2018 as planned. Demand for our concept is high in Gävle. Our only unit which is fully up and running is contributing well according to plans. In Other Nordics, we've seen a strong momentum in Finland throughout the year and continuing into 2018. In Norway, we have a clear view on what needs to be done during the year, we know that there is a good underlying potential in our Norwegian operations. That said, much work remains.
All in all, our efforts during 2017 have and are paying off, in 2018, we look forward to increasing our focus on growth, both organically as well as through acquisitions. I think we can now open up for questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question for the speakers, please press 01 on your telephone keypad and you will enter the queue. After you are announced, please ask your question. Please ask one question at a time. Our first question comes from the line of Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, thank you. Could you hear me?
Absolutely.
Thanks. Yeah, my first two questions then. When it comes to utilization in the Swedish Individual & Family business, have you seen any improvements during the quarter? You talked about the more positive trend, at least in the fourth quarter, and what you could do to improve that in 2018. The second question relates to the Other Nordics business. Norway continues to lag a little bit. How should we think about the margins in the Other Nordics business? Do you still believe in the targets you have said before for that division in 2018? Thank you.
Kristofer, in the fourth quarter, we saw utilization recovering in the Individual & Family area. We would, however, have liked to see it increasing faster. There is a bit of change going on in the market. The trends are positive, but it will take some time for it to wash out so we are back on normalized level. We have seen an improvement in many parts of I&F are incredibly stable and with high utilization. We are obviously working on it quite hard on a number of factors. In this mix, we obviously also have a number of new units that we started during 2017, where utilization is ramping up. We need to focus even more on it, especially in the youth division. With regards to Norway as well as in the division.
Sorry, could I just follow up on that? Is it about getting more customers, or will you continue to close down capacity, or is that already done?
We have no plans now to close down any more capacity, Kristofer. It's about filling the units that we have, and we have seen a recovery also in the fourth quarter. As we are now, we don't intend to close down any more capacity compared to what we have done during the year.
Okay, thanks. Fine. On Norway?
Yeah. Norway is a bit more challenging than what we had hoped for. We see no reason now to deviate from our expectations communicated earlier in 2017. In I&F, we believe we are well in line with achieving the targets of 9%-10%. In Norway, we still have belief, and it's definitely too early to give up that expectation, but we definitely have a lot more work to do in Norway. We thought we had bottomed out during the third quarter, but it rather came a quarter later now in Q4. We have a very clear view on what needs to be done, and we have intensified our efforts severely in Norway, also sending in support from the central functions. We have a good view on what needs to be done, and we work on it intensely, and we also expect improvements throughout the year.
Do you think it's fair to say that you may be more confident in the targets for the Swedish Individual & Family business, but less confident in the Other Nordics? Is that fair?
Yeah. As I said, we are well in line with our expectations in I&F. In Norway, we still believe in it, but we have significantly more work to do. Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. Please hold for the next question. We have another question from Kristofer Liljeberg from Carnegie. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Okay. I continue that. Two additional ones. When it comes to Elderly Care, could you provide some data on the sales mix now when it comes to own management units and the contract management? Maybe more importantly, what that will look like, let's say, end of 2018 when the new homes are up and running. The other question relates to Personal Assistance. It's probably too early, but do you hear anything from politicians about how they're thinking about reimbursement, not in 2018 of course, but in 2019, if there could be a trend shift there? Thank you.
Hi, Kristofer. Ulf here. I'll answer the Elderly Care question. If we're looking at our own managed units, they are slightly bigger than normal units, so that we have more beds in general. The three we have will gradually fill up during the year, of course, if we're pasting some sort of picture at the end of the year, we expect them to be fully up and running at a very high capacity utilization of our three own managed units. We have a number of operational contracts that we're running. We're looking at maybe 25%-30% is our own managed stock of places versus the total. That gives you a bit of an idea. That, of course, is growing.
Yeah, the number of places now that you have in operations, that's 25%-30% owned managed.
Owned managed, yes.
Okay.
We have three.
Okay. Interesting.
Yeah.
Great. Thank you.
With regards to Personal Assistance, Kristofer, it's obviously an intense debate. The first positive signals we've seen now for a while is the government proposal to temporarily stop the two-year trials. This is the first important step because this is the primary reason why the market has seen its number of individuals entitled to Personal Assistance has decreased about 5% last year. I'm sure you're aware of some leakages from the ongoing LSS investigation. Our Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, was out this morning and basically criticizing these proposals as well. The investigation per se will be presented after the general elections this year, and it covers not only Personal Assistance but the entire LSS legislation, so all the services included there.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Otherwise, there's nothing new of importance. We know already remuneration increase as well as the collective bargaining agreements which were set earlier last year.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stefan Andersson from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Thank you. Two questions only. First on the pipeline and your M&A activity. You mentioned the Personal Assistance where you are open to look at opportunities, at least, and I guess quite a few of them are small, and given the situation, I guess prices should be low as well. Where are you activity-wise? Are you still in a slow mode when it comes to acquisition, digesting, working internally, or you're back into M&A mode, so to speak? If you understand my question.
Absolutely. Stefan, we always maintain a pipeline when it comes to M&A. Last year, we spent most of our M&A capacity in Finland, as you know, and it was also a year with less M&A than we're used to, driven by other factors. Come 2018, our intention is absolutely to be more active on the M&A side. As you say, Personal Assistance is an increasingly attractive market to do acquisitions in. We see the consolidation also ongoing. Also in INF, where we took a bit of a break last year, we have discussions in certain areas where we feel it's extremely stable and very positive, and also Finland. Our intention is definitely to be more active on the M&A side with respect to leverage, et cetera.
Thank you. Next question, maybe I missed something there, but in the financial net, what is the interest cost versus any revaluations there?
Yes, Stefan, I can answer that. We have some currency fluctuation. EUR 6 million of the finance net is currency, if you know.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press 01 on your telephone keypad now. As there appear to be no further questions from the telephone lines, I'll return the conference to our speakers.
Well, thank you all for listening in. I think we can conclude here from the Humana office. Thank you. Have a great day.