Warm welcome to the presentation of our Q3 results. We will start off with Johan Forssell, our CEO, presenting the results, followed by our CFO, Helena Saxon, then we will have a Q&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. When we do the Q&A, we will start with you in here in the audience. Welcome all of you.
Okay. Thank you, Viveka. This presentation. I will start with just quickly highlights the third quarter. The third quarter was a strong quarter for Investor. We had a successful IPO of EQT 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 1.3 billion in ABB. Our total share, the return, and the growth in our adjusted net asset value was up 8% in the quarter, which was clearly above the stock market that was up 2% in the quarter. Finally, due to continued strong cash flow, our financial strength even improved despite the investment in ABB. The leverage is now 4.6. 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 indicator out there, and for you being here, you can see that I have the US ISM, and I have the IFO in Germany. You can see the direction. It is pointing downward. 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. We believe it's likely that we will enter tougher times. Therefore, we are working hard to secure agility in our company. On the other hand, we are also working hard to make sure that we have a strong financial flexibility as investors. Today we have strong balances, but we also have a very good liquidity.
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 down to the different business areas. This time I will actually start with EQT. We will remain a long-term owner in EQT. Our ownership current is 18.3% after the greenshoe. At the end of the quarter, it was 18.5%, but then there was also a greenshoe, so we are now at 18.3% ownership in the company. At the end of the quarter, the market value of the whole company was SEK 83 billion. As you know, it was a very successful one. Our ownership in EQT AB now corresponds to about SEK 15.5 billion. If we to that add our investment in the fund of SEK 21+ billion, the total exposure to EQT is now SEK 37 billion.
That is 8% of the adjusted net asset value. 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 2.1 billion in the quarter. SEK 1.6 billion is due to our participation in the secondary sale that we did pro rata with the partner. Then you had an underlying cash flow of half a billion SEK in the quarter. Moving down to listed companies, as I mentioned, we invested SEK 1.3 billion in ABB, 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.
In the quarter it was announced that Kai Wärn, the CEO of Husqvarna, will become the chairperson of Electrolux Professional. Ericsson reported its result yesterday, for us, as a large owner in this company, we can conclude that we believe the management team is 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 11.5 billion 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 processes related to business ethics and compliance. Finally, down Sobi. In the quarter, they announced the acquisition of Dova Pharmaceuticals. That's a large acquisition, it is actually the third big transformational acquisition in about a year.
I think the company has in a good way now broadened the product portfolio in the company. Moving down 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 Piab and Laborie that are down slightly, 1% and 2%. 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. You can see two gray areas. That is related to the fact that in Sarnova, there was a one-time gain in the third quarter this year. For Mölnlycke, we had a write-down of a distribution center in Belgium last year. That is why we are doing that, just to remind you of those adjustments.
Overall, a very strong growth in the profit. Moving down to Mölnlycke, 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 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 Trays. In the quarter, we can see that all large geographies developed well, both Europe, U.S., and emerging markets. It continues to be emerging markets that have the highest growth. 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 write-down last year, there is a slight margin improvement even underlying in the company. It was a strong quarter, good development, but we should, of course, recognize also that the third quarter was a little bit softer quarter, and the fourth quarter last year was a tougher quarter. We should, of course, not focus on individual figures on individual quarters, but overall, the company is performing well. Moving down to Permobil, the organic growth in the 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. You can see that it was also a very good profitability in the company, and that was driven by good efficiency improvements, but also currency benefits.
Moving down over to Laborie, the organic sales growth was -2%, as I presented before. Laborie's business consists of two parts. One part, which is the biggest one, is disposable, and the other part is the capital equipment, the machines. In this quarter, the disposable business continued to 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 the new generation NXT, which is the new capital equipment. 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 turned out well, much better cost efficiency in the European operation. Secondly, also reaping benefits from the integration of the big acquisition, Cogentix. Thirdly, is 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 down over to BraunAbility, also here, strong 6% organic growth. This quarter, it was mainly driven by the consumer business, while the lift and the commercial sides were more stable. You can see a good profitability improvement also here, mainly driven by efficiency improvements. Piab reported an organic growth of -1% in the quarter. Here we can see that Europe and Asia Pacific region actually grew slightly in the quarter, but America remained weak.
That's from a geographical point of view. If we look on the different business areas, we can see that the ergonomic handling business 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. As you know, that one has been weak for a number of quarters. The biggest business area, vacuum automation, which is the classical suction cup, grew slightly in the quarter. If we then look on the profitability, you can see that despite the fall in sales, it was very good profit. The main reason for that is good cost control in the company. Favorable currency.
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. We had 3 Scandinavia that joined [SDU] in the quarter. Sarnova 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 supplier of products within the respiratory area. There was a mutual agreement that the distribution will go back to Ambu for direct distribution instead of Sarnova doing the distribution for them for these products. That meant that in the agreement, Sarnova got paid for part of that rearrangement of the deal, and that means that we got a one-time boost in the quarter on the profit line.
If we adjust for that, the underlying profitability, as you can see on the dotted line, was stable compared to last year. 3 Scandinavia, good development, subscription base up 31,000, underlying service revenue up 4%, underlying profit up 10% in the quarter. If I summarize, this was a strong quarter. Year to date, we are up 31% total share of the return compared to 23% for the stock market. We had a successful IPO of EQT. We had a good development in our subsidiaries, and we strengthened further our financial position. We are ready if times get tougher. That is, as you 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 as Investor. We can make sure to use whatever opportunities that might arise out there.
With that, I hand over to you, Helena.
Thank you. Let's have a look at net asset value development. This graph shows the 10-year period, and at the end you see the orange addition, which is our estimated market value, which we started providing as a supplement a couple of years ago. We have had a strong development and actually ended the quarter at an all-time high of SEK 466 billion. Looking at the listed portfolio, it ended the quarter at SEK 316 billion. It delivered a contribution of SEK 6 billion in the quarter, and compared to the stock market, it was roughly flat at 2%. Just like the rest of the market, we saw mixed performance in our portfolio, and in the quarter, AstraZeneca was the highest contributor of SEK 6 billion.
Looking at the Patricia Industries portfolio and the development of the estimated market values, we can see that the portfolio grew from SEK 126 billion to SEK 140 billion, including cash at the end of the quarter. Excluding cash, this is a growth of 13%. Looking at the biggest drivers of value, we can see that Mölnlycke contributed the most in absolute terms. 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 a positive currency effect. This goes for all of these companies. Apart from Mölnlycke, of course, we had nice contributions also from Permobil, Laborie, BraunAbility, and 3.
Financial investment, this is the runoff portfolio where our strategic intent is to manage it down, but optimizing value, then use the proceeds to reinvest in the Patricia portfolio. In the quarter, we had strong cash flow from exits in WhiteHat Security , Nemira, and NSFOCUS. In terms of NSFOCUS, as you might remember, this is the listed IT security company in China. We are still waiting for another almost SEK 800 million to come. After the quarter, we also managed to sell another company, HireVue, which is in the table at SEK 440 million. 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 SEK 18.7 billion, and our gross cash position at SEK 19 billion at the end of the quarter.
The average maturity of our debt portfolio now exceeds 11 years. That was my last slide. Please, Viveka.
Thank you, Johan, and thank you, Helena. We will now open up for questions, and we will start with if there are any questions here in the room. 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.
Good. Derek with ABG. I was wondering with regards to Mölnlycke, these new products driving growth, is there a specific product or are there several ones, and was this the first quarter that you marked as this new product?
I would not say that it is. Of course, there are a couple of product areas within the Mepilex border area, Mepilex Flex, for example, that are taking off. It's not that this quarter we had a boom. It's a gradual process that in these launches, but it increases gradually and it's a good traction.
Joachim Gunell from DNB Markets. Just a broader theme question with regards to the emerging market footprint, which seems to be like the driver for the Patricia Industries. Which of the companies, we've seen this in Mölnlycke, and you mentioned some here, but which of the holdings have the largest untapped potential today in terms of emerging market footprint?
I think that it depends a little bit. Emerging markets, of course, are many different markets. If I say a few, in Mölnlycke, 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 Mölnlycke. 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 a 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. We are starting to see traction in these markets.
If I say, of the companies in the portfolio, we are, of course, for all companies, seeing a huge opportunity from a long-term perspective. Today, Permobil basically has nothing in China, even though we have opened a rehab center, et cetera, 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 Permobil. We are in different ways trying to establish our companies where we do see that we can get traction and where we can win. If I come back to where is a big potential, one company is very obvious, and that is our latest acquisition of Piab.
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.
That's clear. Perhaps a question on capital allocation for Helena. In terms of distribution capabilities, we saw a strong operating cash flow in Patricia Industries. Year to date, the distribution to Patricia Industries trailed the five or four-year average quite significantly. For Q4, should we perhaps expect a normalization of that, or a comment on that perhaps?
I would say that the cash flow from Patricia is rather lumpy. It’s not like they have a specific calendar where Mölnlycke 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. It’s not something that we worry about.
Thank you.
Just to state the obvious, the top priority for us when it comes to our strong platforms within Patricia is for sure to grow. If we can find attractive opportunities to expand these platforms, that is the top priority. On the other hand, if we gradually then will see that it takes two to tango , that we don't land a couple of these deals and they become too strong in the balance sheet, of course, we can rip it out and redeploy it.
Alexandra Bergsten, Carnegie. I also had a bit of a high-level question, perhaps. Now that we might be seeing a bit harder times as you're saying, could you elaborate a little bit on how you're going to see your sort of 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. 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 we 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. On that side, the focus is to secure that we have strong companies and develop them. Which of course, is the case also on the listed side when we work through the boards, but from an investment point of view.
We then talk about the Patricia Industries side, over the last five-year period, we have bought four new companies, and we have divested Aleris. I look forward, that we have said it's more focused on really developing the strong platforms we have. 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. The Piabs and the Permobils 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 on the call.
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Okay. Thank you. Magnus, do we have any questions on the web? No. If we don't have any more questions in here, we would like to say thank you for today, and we will follow on with short media interviews together with Johan. Thank you.
Thanks.