Warm welcome to the presentation of our Q3 results. And we will start off with Johan Poetzel, our CEO, presenting the results followed by our CFO, Helena Saxon, and then we will have a Q and A session. I would also like to say welcome to those of you who are joining us on the call and also those of you who are following this on the web. And we will when we do the Q and A, we will start with you in here in the audience. Welcome, all of you.
Okay. Thank you, Vivek. I will start with just briefly highlighting the Q3. The Q3 was a strong quarter for investors. We had a successful IPO of EKT on the stock market, and we had a high profit growth in our subsidiaries within Patricia, up more than 20% in the quarter.
We invested another SEK 1 point 3,000,000,000 in ABD. Our total share return and the growth in our adjusted net asset value was up 8% in the quarter, which was clearly about the stock market that was up 2% in the quarter. And finally, due to continued strong cash flow, our financial strength even improved despite the investment in ABB, so the leverage is now 4.6. So all in all, it was a very strong quarter for us. On the other hand, we are also aware of that if you look on the leading indicators out there and for you being here, you can see that I have the U.
S. ISM and I have the IFO in Germany. And you can see the direction. It is pointing downward. So what does that mean?
We are preparing. We don't know to what extent the downturn will come, and we don't know how fast, but we believe it's likely that we will enter tougher times. And therefore, we are working hard to secure agility in our company. And on the other hand, we are also working hard to make sure that we have a strong financial flexibility as investors. And today, we have a strong balance sheet, but also have a very good liquidity.
So I think from our point of view, if we should enter tougher times, we are ready, and we are also ready to use opportunities that might arise. Turning then to the different business areas. This time, I will actually start with EQT. We will remain a long term owner in EQT. Our ownership is 18.3% after the green show.
At the end of the quarter, it was 18.5%, but then there was also green show. So we are now at 18 point 3 ownership in the company. At the end of the quarter, the market value of the whole company was SEK 83,000,000,000 and as you know, it was a very successful one. Our ownership in IK 3 AD now corresponds to about EUR 15,500,000,000. If we do that add our investments in the fund of EUR 21,000,000,000, dollars the total exposure to EPC is now $37,000,000,000 And that is 8% of the asset value and you have been used me saying that it's about 5%, but now it's roughly 8%.
From a cash flow perspective, we had a cash inflow of SEK 2,100,000,000 in the quarter. SEK 1,600,000,000 is due to our participation in the secondary sales that we did per Rata with the partner. And then you had an underlying cash flow of $500,000,000 in the quarter. Moving then to listed companies. As I mentioned, we invested $1,300,000,000 in ABB, and the reason is that we believe in the strategic direction.
We believe in the focus in the organization and also the decentralization and also that it will be led by the new upcoming CEO. In Electrolux, you know we are working to split the company in the consumer business and the professional part. And in the quarter, it was announced that Kaivans, the CEO of Husqvarna, will become the shareperson of Electrolux Professional. Ericsson reported its results yesterday. And for us, as a large owner in this company, we can executing in a good way on the strategy that they have laid forward.
You also know that the company has made a reservation or provision of SEK 11,500,000,000 in the quarter related to the discussions with the U. S. Authorities. We can just say the obvious that we strongly support the Board and the management in their work to continue to improve the internal related to business ethics and compliance. Finally, then Sobe, in the quarter, they announced acquisition of Dova Pharmaceuticals.
And that's a launch acquisition, and it is actually the 3rd big transformational acquisition in about a year. So I think the company has in a good way now broadened the product portfolio in the company. Moving then over to Patricia. To the left, you can see the organic sales growth in the portfolio. Overall, it was strong at 6%.
You can see it's a good organic growth in all companies, except Sia, Ben Labaritas are down slightly, 1% 2%, and I will come back to that later on. If you look on the profit growth, you can see that it was a broad based growth in all companies. And you can see 2 gray areas, and that is related to the fact that in Sarnova, there was a onetime gain in the Q3 this year. And for Melendyche, we had a write down of a distribution center in Belgium last year. So that is why we are doing that just to remind you of those adjustments.
But overall, a very strong growth in the profit. Moving then to Menelikia. The organic growth in the quarter was 7%. We had an organic growth in Wound Care of 7% also. Wound Care was mainly driven by strong performance of the new launches product launches and also a very strong performance in emerging markets.
Surgical had a good quarter, up 6%. That was mainly driven by the growth in gloves and also surgical trade. In the quarter, we can see that all large geographies developed well, both Europe, U. S. And Emerging Markets, But it continues to be Emerging Markets that has the highest growth.
And in this particular quarter, Emerging Markets was growing at 30%. When it comes to the profit margin, you can see that it's quite a big profit improvement compared to last year. If we adjust for the right time last year, there is a slight margin improvement even underlying in the company. So it was a strong quarter, good development, but we should, of course, recognize also that the 3rd quarter was a little bit softer quarter and the Q4 last year was a tougher quarter. So we should, of course, not focus on individual figures on individual quarters.
But overall, the company is performing well. Moving then to Permobil. The organic growth in quarter was 3%. All product segments, manual, electrical wheelchairs and also seating, they were all contributing to this growth. For Permobil, Europe and the U.
S. Was more stable, while the growth was mainly driven from the Asia Pacific region. And you can see that this was also a very good profitability in the company, and that was driven by good efficiency improvement, but also currency benefit. Moving then over to LABORI. The organic sales growth was minus 2% as I presented before.
Leverage business consists of 2 parts. One part, which is the biggest one, is disposable and the other part is the capital equipment, the machine. In this quarter, the disposable business continues develop well with a good growth in the quarter, but we had quite a big drop on the capital equipment side. In September, they launched a new generation NXT, which is the new capital equipment. So we will, of course, see how that develops going forward, but that is just to give you a little bit more flavor on the development in the quarter.
You can also see that the profitability is very high in the quarter. There are mainly, I would say, three reasons for that. First of all, the restructuring that we have talked about before in Europe has done us well, much better cost efficiency in the European operation. And secondly, also reaping benefits from the integration of the big acquisition, Coentik. And thirdly, it's related to mix, and that is what I said.
Disposable has higher margins than Capital Equipment, so we also have a positive mix in the quarter. Moving then over to vulnerability, Also here strong 6% organic growth. This quarter, it was mainly driven by the consumer business, while the leads and the commercial side were more stable. And you can see a good profitability improvement also here, mainly driven by efficiency improvement. Fiat reported an organic growth of minus 1% in the quarter.
Here we can see that Europe and Asia Pacific region actually grew slightly in the quarter, but America remained weak, And that's from a geographical point of view. If we look on the different business areas, we can see that the Ergonomic Handling business is actually had a very actually had a very strong growth in the quarter, while the robotic gripping part of the business, which is negatively affected by the automotive side, remains weak. And as you know, that one has been weak for a number of quarters. The biggest business, I have vacuum automation, which is the classical suction cup, grow slightly in the quarter. If we then look on the profitability, you can see that despite fall in sales, it was very good profit.
The main reason for that is good cost control in the company, favorable currency. And then also here, we have a positive mix effect since robotic gripping has a lower margin than the other parts, even though the profitability is actually good in all parts, but it is lower than the other three business areas. And then we had Lars that joined as CEO in the quarter. ParaNova had also a strong growth, organic growth of 8% in the quarter. In the quarter, there was a mutual agreement with Ambu, which is a distributor sorry, which is a supplier of products within the respiratory area.
And there was a mutual agreement that the distribution will go back to Hamburg for direct distribution instead of Cernova doing the distribution for them for these products. That meant that in the agreement, Cernova got paid for part of that rearrangement of the deal. And that means that we have got a onetime boost in the quarter on the profit line. So if we adjust for that, the underlying profitability, as you can see on the dotted line, was stable compared to last year. 3, good development, subscription based up 31,000, underlying service revenue up 4%, underlying profit up 10% in the quarter.
So if I summarize, this was a strong quarter. Year to date, we are up 31% total share of the return compared to SEK 23 for the stock market. We had a successful IPO of EKG. We had a good development in our subsidiaries and we strengthened further our financial position. So we are ready if times get tougher.
And that is, as we have heard, we are preparing if it should be tougher, both when it comes in our role as an active owner and also when it comes to financial flexibility at the investor, so we can make sure to use whatever opportunities that might arise out there. So with that, I hand over to you, Elena.
Thank you. And let's have
a look at net asset value development. This graph shows a 10 year period. And at the end, you see the orange addition, which is our estimated market value, which we started to providing supplement a couple of years ago. We have had a strong development and actually ended the quarter at an all time high of EUR 4.66 $1,000,000,000 Looking at the listed portfolio. It ended the quarter at 316,000,000,000 It delivered a contribution of EUR 6,000,000,000 in the quarter.
And compared to the stock market, it was roughly flat at 2%. And just like the rest of the market, we saw mixed performance in our portfolio. And in the quarter, Estracenica was the highest contributor of DKK 6,000,000,000. Looking at the Patricia Industries portfolio and the development of portfolio grew from EUR126,000,000,000 to EUR 100 and $40,000,000,000 including cash at the end of the quarter. And excluding cash, this is a growth of 13%.
Looking at the biggest drivers of value, we can see that Maliki contributed the most in absolute terms. And looking at the whole portfolio, of course, this is a combination of strong earnings growth that Johan just mentioned and cash flow as well as significant multiple expansion and positive currency effects. And this goes for all of these companies. And apart from Vanleighck, of course, we had nice contributions also from Permobil, La Brea, BraunAbility and REIT. Financial investments.
This is, as you know, the runoff portfolio where our strategic intent is to manage it down but optimizing value and then use the proceeds to reinvest in the Patricia portfolio. In the quarter, we had strong cash flow from exits in WhiteHat Securities, Menera and Enes Focus. And in terms of Enes Focus, as you might remember, this is a listed IT security company in China. We are still waiting for another almost $800,000,000 to come. After the quarter, we also managed to sell another company, HireVue, which is in the table at 440,000,000 I will end the presentation with our financial position, which is strong.
Johan already mentioned that our leverage is now below 5%. Our net debt is at $18,700,000,000 and our gross cash position at $19,000,000,000 at the end of the quarter. And the average maturity of our debt portfolio now exceeds 11 years.
That was my last client. So please, Birvekar? Thank you, Johan, and thank you, Krista. We will now open up for questions. And we will start with if there are any questions here in the room.
And we have a microphone that will be circulated and please also state your name and then we will follow on if there are any questions on the call. Yes? We will just wait for the microphone.
Thank you. Derek Alberts, ABG. Was wondering with regards to Mannlic, yeah, this or these new products driving growth. Is there a specific product or are there several ones? Was this the first quarter that you marked as this or this new product?
I would not say that it is of course, there are a couple of product areas within the MetoLex border area, MetoLex, for example, that are taking off. But it's not that this quarter we had a boom. It's a gradual process that indeed launches. So it increases gradually and it's a good traction.
Joakim Gunal from Dindwin Markets. So just a broader question with regards to the emerging market footprint, which is the driver for the Natricio Holdings. Which of the companies I mean, we've seen it in Manalikte and you mentioned some here, but which of the holdings have the largest untapped potential today in terms of emerging markets footprint?
I think that if we look on it depends a little bit emerging market, of course, on many different markets. But if I say a few, in Mernicke, we have a good traction in China, Brazil and Middle East, and it's growing fast. And that's normally what I refer to. It started to become sizable, of course, in Malvika. And APAC for them is slightly less than 10% as you see in the figure.
In Permobil, we have a very good traction in maybe not emerging markets, but this has traditionally been U. S. And European company. We are seeing good traction, for example, in Australia right now. In the quarter, the growth in APAC for Permobil was a significant double digit growth.
So we are starting to see traction in these markets. If I then say, of the companies in the portfolio, we are, of course, for all companies, seeing a huge opportunity in the from a long term perspective. Today, PermaV basically has nothing in China even though we have opened a rehab center, etcetera, but it's so small. You don't see it. In the long run, if you go 10, 15 years out, of course, that could be a huge market for a company like PermaVid.
So we are in a different ways trying to establish our companies where we do see track that we can get traction and where we can win. If I then come back to where is the big potential, one company is very obvious, and that is our latest acquisition of Piyab. If I look on the products they have today and the sales exposure they have to China, it should be much larger, and that will be a top priority for us.
Perhaps a question on capital allocation Helena Dunn. In terms of distribution capabilities, we saw strong operating cash flows in Patricia Industries. But year to date, distribution to Patricia Industries trailed the 5 or 4 year average quite significantly. So for Q4, should we perhaps expect a normalization of that or comment on that?
I would say that the cash flow from Patricia is rather lumpy. It's not like they have a specific calendar where Merlyke is distributing this much or this much. It's depending on their acquisition opportunities. And if they are looking at something, they should invest in that rather than distribute their cash to us. So it's not something that we worry about.
Thank you.
Just to say it's obvious, I mean the top priority for us when it comes to our strong platforms within Particia is for sure to grow. So if we can find attractive opportunities to expand these platforms, that is the top priority. On the other hand, if we gradually then we'll see that it takes 2 tangles, that we don't land a capital of these deals and they could become too strong in the balance sheet, of course, we can reach it out and redeploy
Aleksandra Bergenovsk, Kynurenia Market. I also had a bit of a high level question perhaps. Now that we might be seeing a bit harder time that you're saying, could you elaborate a little bit on how you're going to see your strategy going forward? Will you see this as an opportunity for yourself and maybe look for new potential holdings or new companies to go into? Or are you going to focus on your current holdings rather?
Okay. It's a great question. I think it is a little bit different. I mean, when it comes to the if I take the listed part and the unlisted part because the dynamic is different. We have historically created a lot of value by being ready on the listed side to strengthen ownership if we see great opportunities and that remains.
If we will find great opportunities in the years ahead, we will most likely try to use them. On the unlisted side, it's not that you try to always time the deal because when the business cycle and the values are at the lowest point, normally you don't have a seller. So on that side, the focus is to secure that we have strong companies and developers, which of course is the case also on the listed side when we work through the Board, but from an investment point of view. What we if we then talk about the Patricia side, over the last 5 year period, we have bought 4 new companies and we have divested Altery. If I look forward that we have said it's more focused on really developing the strong platforms we have.
But that does not mean that we are not open for new businesses and new companies, but relatively more focused in developing the strong franchises we have, for example, the Tabs and the Thermities of the world.
Do we have any more questions in the room? No. Let's see if we have any questions from the people following up on the call.
And we have no questions on the telephone lines at this time.
Okay. Thank you. And then Magnus, do we have any questions on the web? No. If don't have any more questions in here, then we would like to say thank you for today, and we will follow on with short media interviews together with you.
Thank you. Thanks.