Thank you. Welcome everyone to this earnings conference for Karnov Group, where we are going to present the outcome of our third quarter of 2021. Next slide, please. I'm Pontus Bodelsson, President and CEO of the company. With me, I have our CFO, Dora Brink Clausen, and our IR specialist, Erik Berggren. Dora and I will present the outcome of the third quarter using a few slides, and then we'll open up for questions. With that said, let's get started with the presentation of Q3. Please go to the next slide. We are happy to see the outcome of the third quarter, where we have had a stable high growth based on our growing online sales and increase in demand for our new and existing offerings from both new and existing customers.
We also believe we have had a catch-up effect in the third quarter as the comparable quarter last year was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Net sales grew by 15%. Organic growth was 8%. EBITDA margin of close to 40% and leverage within our target of not more than 3x. Next slide, please. I will now comment a little on our segments, starting first with Sweden and Norway, where we have had another strong quarter. We see a clear trend in Sweden and Norway, where our offerings for the public sector, municipalities, and our EHS vertical continue to grow well. Our municipality solution in Sweden is broad, with historic content and functionalities widely appreciated among our customers. In the third quarter, the organic growth was 12.5%, both to new customers and upselling to existing customers, where also non-core users are using Karnov services.
Further, the catch-up effect was a little larger in the Swedish segment, as we have had larger portion of offline sales in Sweden, Norway. DIBkunnskap has performed well also in the third quarter, in line with our expectations, and will launch their services in Sweden later this year. Turning the page, please. We are happy about the performance in Denmark, where we now have launched our solution for municipalities, Karnov Kommune. The municipality solution is based on the same platform as our Swedish municipality solution and is our way of broadening our offering in Denmark with an additional product requested by our customers. We have also launched Karnov Whistleblower, which is our way of helping our customers meeting the demands following new EU regulations.
In the third quarter, the Danish segment developed positively with an organic growth of 4% and an adjusted EBITDA margin on the high level of close to 45%. The growth is driven by a combination of an increase in demand for our new and existing offerings from both new and existing customers. Our enhanced platform, which was launched in the end of February, is appreciated among our customers. We will continue adding more features to the platform. Turning the page, please. Karnov Group has a solid growth strategy, and our ambition is to grow both organically and through selective value-adding acquisitions. In Europe, the market for environmental, health, and safety, EHS solutions is growing due to increasing regulatory demands and need for compliance tools. The EHS vertical is a great opportunity for Karnov Group to grow on the non-jurisdictional markets.
In Echoline, we have found a great software as a service company with high recurring revenue and a unique focus on regulatory monitoring. Echoline combines legal intelligence with in-house legal experts and thereby offers tailor-made legal registers and compliance tools in an easy-to-understand language. Echoline's solution therefore makes it much faster and simpler for companies to be compliant. The acquisition of Echoline is not only another way to grow in the EHS vertical but also proves that Karnov Group is able to make acquisitions on an international level. Early October, we also acquired a majority stake in the Danish legal tech company Ante ApS, which had cracked the legal tech code and developed very efficient search algorithms based on artificial intelligence. We have followed the company as a minority holder for 1.5 years and see great synergies in bringing the company closer to Karnov Group.
We will now collaborate deeper, both on go-to-market activities and product development strategy. Next slide, please. I will now hand over to Dora, who will tell us more about the financial results in the third quarter.
Thank you, Pontus. As you said, a solid quarter for Karnov Group. Let's start with an overview, switching to slide number eight. We are very pleased with the results in the third quarter as we had a top-line growth of 15% compared to the same quarter last year. However, we believe a little portion of the organic growth is a catch-up effect from the COVID-19 pandemic having an impact on the Q3 results last year. Net sales Q3 this year was SEK 222 million. Adjusted EBITA increased by 14% to SEK 88 million with an adjusted EBITA margin of 39.5%. Next slide, please. Looking more specifically at our sales growth, organic growth was 8.0%, while currency effects had a negative impact of approximately 0.7%.
Acquired growth from DIBkunnskap contributed with 8.0%. We assess that the catch-up effect on group level was approximately 1 percentage point. The online business continues to grow, while offline sales was above the general market trend due to the catch-up effect. The main drivers in the online sales are the public sector, municipalities, and our EHS vertical. DIBkunnskap has performed according to expectations in the third quarter. Next slide, please. We believe the margin is on a satisfactory level in the third quarter. Adjusted EBITA increased by 14%, and the adjusted EBITA margin was 39.5%, which is a decline of 0.4 percentage point. The decline is due to the acquisition of DIBkunnskap, which has diluted the group margin with approximately 1 percentage point, as announced earlier.
The increased net sales predominantly from the online sales, better product mix, and our drive for operational excellence had a positive impact on our margin. In the third quarter, we have a portion of SEK 7.5 million on items affecting comparability. This is due to our ambitions in executing our growth strategy and making acquisitions and includes costs related to our acquisition of Echoline and Ante ApS and other targets. Next slide, please. On slide 11, you see the net sales development with two different views, and you can see that also in the third quarter, the online and subscription-based sales grew. First, to the left, you see that the online business increased in its share of our group sales by 2 percentage points to 82%.
Offline sales are typically on a higher level in the third quarter as universities are starting new courses and lawyers have their autumn legal training sessions. Therefore, the catch-up effect had a small impact on this graph. The share of subscriptions in our sales increased to 87% in Q3, which is a percentage point higher than last year. Move on to next slide. Thank you. Here we have one of our two segments. In Denmark, we are content to see that we continue to grow organically. In Q3, organic growth was 4.4%, while currency effect had a negative impact of 1.6% on the net sales. Organic growth was driven by strong online sales, especially in legal, where our new products have been appreciated by our customers, and we have been able to increase upselling to existing customers as well as attract new customers.
The municipality solution was launched on September 1st and will have the same business model as in Sweden with a longer contract based on public tenders. Therefore, it will take a little time to see the effect in the net sales. In Denmark, adjusted EBITA improved by 1 percentage point, and the adjusted EBITA margin was at the high level of 45%. Next slide, please, which is the Swedish Norwegian segment. The performance on the Swedish and Norwegian market continue to be very good. Net sales increased by 31%. Organic growth was 12%. Acquired growth accounted for 18%, while currency effect had a positive impact on 1%. As we have a higher portion of offline sales in Sweden and Norway, we believe the catch-up effect was a little larger on this segment than on group level.
The organic growth comes from good online sales to new customers as well as upselling to existing customers. We are proud to say that we are gaining market shares in the public sector, municipalities, and in our EHS vertical. Adjusted EBITA in Sweden improved by 27% compared to last year, while the adjusted EBITA margin declined by 1 percentage point to 34.3%. This was due to DIB dilution on 2 percentage points on the Sweden-Norway segment. Next slide, please. Here we have our cash flow slide. Adjusted operating cash flow was as typically low in the third quarter, as our invoicing season is normally Q4 and Q1. In the third quarter, we had a negative cash flow in line with the previous year. Due to timing of payment of other liabilities, the cash conversion rate declined to -4%.
As you can see on the graph, we will have a strong inflow of cash in the fourth quarter. Our leverage was 2.9x at the end of the period, which is in line with our target of not more than 3x . As to our balance sheet, we have a solid cash in bank and have utilized the power to acquire Echoline and a majority stake in Ante ApS. However, we are still ready to execute should the right acquisition turn up as we have unutilized credit lines and have the possibility to exceed our leverage target if the right acquisition occurs. I'm now handing over to Pontus again, who will present our last slides.
Thank you, Dora. Please switch to next slide 15. I just want to conclude this presentation by presenting a summary of the highlights during the third quarter. Number one, we have acquired Echoline in the third quarter and shown our ambition in the EHS field as well as our ability to do international acquisitions. Number two, we are happy about the performance in Sweden, Norway, with the strong online sales both from our core legal services and our closely related verticals. We look forward to DIBkunnskap launching in Sweden later this year. Number three, our enhanced platform in Denmark is appreciated among our users. We have also launched our municipality solution as another way of providing value to customers in Denmark. Next slide, please. By this, I'll end our presentation, and we are now ready to take questions.
I'll hand over the conference again to our host, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on the telephone keypad. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Yes, speakers, we have no audio questions at this stage.
Okay. Thank you everyone for listening. We will report our Q4 report on the twenty-third of February, and we hope to hear from you then, if not earlier. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye.