Welcome to the presentation of Momentum Group's interim report for Q1 2022. I'm Ulf Lilius, CEO for Momentum Group, and I'm here with my colleague Niklas Enmark, Executive Vice President and CFO, and we will guide you through our report. Our agenda today is to give you some information about Momentum Group in brief, the highlights from Q1, our strategic position, and of course, the development during the quarter, as well as our focus going forward. Momentum Group is today operating with a decentralized business model where our two business areas are Components and Services. Business Area Components is a group of companies working with component services and solutions for industry with expertise in industrial improvement consisting of companies with leading specialist positions in their respective market niches.
Business Area Services is a group of companies in Sweden offering through its services longer life and efficiency of installed machines, new installations. Solutions are also offered for digitized maintenance. We operate in a decentralized business model with strong local presence, close to customers, and we would like to grow through development and acquisitions of sustainable businesses. Focus on aftermarket sales, specialist companies in, for example, selected product verticals and technical service companies. Some highlights from the report. We had a good underlying demand during the first quarter in both our business areas. The global component shortage affected final deliveries somewhat during the quarter, and COVID-19 related sick leave, especially in our service companies, affected charged hours at the beginning of the quarter.
Organic sales growth in combination with good cost control and well-managed price increases from suppliers contributed to a sales increase of 14% and EBITA growth of 19% compared with the first quarter last year, and our EBITA over working capital increased to 62%. When the extraordinary general meeting on the 23rd of March this year decided on the spin-off and the listing of Momentum Group, a new start as an independent company took place. With an even clearer focus on the development of our operations within components and services for the Nordic industry, we now have better conditions for expanding the business. On March 31st, Momentum Group was introduced on Nasdaq Stockholm Mid Cap list, a new company, but with a long and proven business model and philosophy. Our aim is to be the market's best partner for sustainable industry in the Nordic countries. Our strategic direction.
Momentum Group is an active owner that focuses on developing and acquiring companies within the product and service verticals where we have knowledge, competence, and experience. We have a clear growth strategy with the ambition to grow through both acquisitions and the development of existing businesses, opportunities we are now working to fully realize. Our strategic direction is to offer sustainable products and services that helps our customer in their everyday operations. Sustainable for us is to offer quality products with long lifetime and low energy consumption. Our value-added services is combining our product offering with service, maintenance, repairs, and replacement of products, as well as training and specialist expertise in order to also be sustainable in the circular economy. Our financial target is to have an EBITA growth by 15%. To do so, we of course have to increase our sales.
If we can grow 15% five years in a row, we will double our earnings. In order to do so, we have to finance the expansion. We therefore have our super efficiency target of EBITA through working capital to be larger than 45%. This is a simplified measure of cash flow, and the aim is to pay dividend of 1/3. We also have to pay tax, which is 1/3, and then we have 1/3 left to invest to grow and develop our businesses. In order to grow our business, we have a framework to work by. We call it our mind and soul and heart and soul. The mind and soul is to have business development in our companies through decentralized responsibility in each company employee development.
We also like to be an active owner and work with our companies to find new opportunities to grow and develop the business, as well as grow through acquisitions. Secondly, we like to work with heart and soul. To achieve this, we believe very strong in decentralized responsibility as well as the willingness to improve. We call this to be better than yesterday. To be able to be better than yesterday, we have to work with simplicity. Now I want to hand over to Niklas, who will guide you through our Q1 report.
Thank you, Ulf. My name is Niklas Enmark. I'm CFO with Momentum Group. During the first quarter, our revenue increased by 14% compared with the year earlier period and amounted to SEK 399 million. Growth in comparable units was 11%. The quarter included one more trading day than the corresponding quarter in the preceding year. Contribution from acquisitions made in 2021 added 1% to top-line growth. The increase in sales is related to the favorable demand during the first quarter with underlying volume growth and also attributed to price increases. Due to a global increase in demand, however, the shortage of materials and resources in some of the Group's product areas continued to dampen sales to a certain extent through delivery delays during the quarter.
Despite the worsened security situation and the crisis in Ukraine, sales in the Group's operations are yet to be impacted. Elevated uncertainty due to the political situation, the continued global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the clear rise in inflation, particularly in energy and fuel, make it likely that the shortage of components will continue during the second quarter, and that price hikes can be anticipated in certain areas such as freight and shipping, as well as components. The ongoing pandemic situation at the beginning of the quarter limited customer visits, and sick leave during the period had a certain impact, especially for the companies within business area services. Our EBITA increased by 19% to SEK 44 million , corresponding to an EBITA margin of 11% during the quarter.
Our operating profit rose by 6% to SEK 37 million, corresponding to an operating margin of 9.3%. Operating profit included expenses affecting comparability of SEK 4 million related to the separate listing and mainly pertain to advisory costs, review costs, and separation costs. All in all, these costs for Momentum Group now amounts to SEK 10 million compared to the estimate of SEK 30 million that we set in the prospectus, and we still have some smaller costs remaining in Q2. Also, our operating profit was affected by slightly higher amortizations from acquisitions. The main drivers of our profit expansion during the quarter was attributed to the organic sales development mentioned before, coupled with good cost control. During the quarter, we especially noted an increased cost from freights as well as travel and sales-related activity costs.
Of course, our personnel costs were also higher due to the fact that we are approximately 100 more FTEs during Q1 this year compared to last. Finally, we have successfully managed to compensate for higher supplier-related costs also during this quarter, and we see our gross margin is improving compared to last year. Important to keep in mind, this is also partly related to mix effects from acquisitions where we have a higher degree of service sales. A few comments per business area. Firstly, the components business area. Revenue rose by 8% to SEK 322 million compared with the corresponding quarter of the preceding year. Revenue for comparable units measured in local currency and adjusted for the number of trading days rose by approximately 6%. EBITA amounted to SEK 42 million, corresponding to an EBITA margin of 13%.
The Business Area's profitability, measured as the return on working capital, increased to 75%. Looking at the individual companies, in Momentum Industrial, sales increased in all product areas, bearings, automation, transmission, and seals, with particularly strong demand and sales at the end of the quarter. Among the customers, the steel sector and other machine manufacturing experienced the greatest increase during the quarter. The specialist companies, Öbergs, ETAB, and JNF, all trended positively during the quarter, particularly through increased customer activity in system sales and projects. However, the impact of delivery delays and material shortages, primarily within hydraulics and pneumatics, led to deliveries of certain complete order systems being postponed. Turning to our second business area, Business Area Services, our revenue increased by 52% to SEK 82 million.
This increase was partly due to Rörick's closing of the acquisition of three electromechanical service workshops from Assemblin in April of last year that is accounted for as organic revenue. However, also adjusted for this, we saw a good development in sales. EBITA amounted to SEK 7 million corresponding to an EBITA margin of 8.5%. The business area's profitability, measured as the return on working capital, amounted to 47%. The decrease compared to last year was a result of the somewhat lower EBITA margin on a rolling twelve-month basis, partly attributed to the costs for the integration of businesses, as well as the somewhat higher level of capital tied up in acquired operations.
We are working to increase the profit margin, and we saw a strong contribution from Rörick as the acquisition of workshops from Assemblin now is fully integrated, and we have started to see a positive effect. Also, in our other larger company, Mekano, we saw a slightly improved performance in Q1. However, the businesses in our service operation experienced challenges as a result of COVID-19 related sickness, resulting in a negative impact on workshop activities and customer cultivation, especially at the beginning of the quarter. Positive to note is that the level of incoming work and inquiries remained favorable. Looking at the group's profitability, cash flow, and financial position, the group's profitability measured as return on working capital increased to 62% for the most recent twelve-month period. Cash flow from operating activities before changes in working capital for reporting period totaled SEK 13 million .
The decrease compared with the preceding year was primarily the result of paid tax of SEK 38 million, a large proportion of which concerned supplementary payments regarding taxes for the last financial year. During the period, inventories increased by SEK 4 million, whereas operating liabilities decreased by SEK 1 million. All in all, this means that cash flow from operating activities for the reporting period amounted to SEK 8 million. Cash flow from financing operations includes the net change in interest-bearing liabilities of SEK 12 million, mainly related to IFRS 16 effects. Cash flow from investing activities was 0 during the quarter. Looking at the financial position at the end of the period, the group's operational net loan receivable amounted to SEK 57 million. Cash and cash equivalents, including unutilized granted credit facilities totaled more than SEK 1 billion, meaning that we have ample room for continued growth.
With that, I would like to hand over to you again, Ulf.
Thank you, Niklas. Now we'll give you some input about our focusing going forward. We have identified a number of product and service verticals where we would like to be present. We have then divided them into three focus areas. One is the after market, where we today combine the value offer with the broad and deep product offering and related services with expertise in industrial improvements. Second, we focus in specialist companies with expertise in one or two product verticals. For example, ETAB in hydraulics, Öbergs in pneumatics. The third focus area is technical services, where we today have companies that do maintenance service on and off customer sites, like digitalized maintenance, refurbishment of gear, motor, pumps, generators, as well as spindle service.
Our decentralized business model is the key to the success and continued development of the business within each company, and we would like to be a niche compounder within our selected product and service verticals. Our feeling is that we have the critical success factors in place to succeed with our strategy. We are financially strong with room for acquisitions. We have a strong cash flow from operations and the possibility of acquisition financing through revolving facility of SEK 800 million. We have principal owners who want to grow the group in our desired position. We have a good industrial network, mainly Sweden, but also in Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
We have a proven process and resources and a total of around 10 employees who work on acquisition in various forms, in place to evaluate and implement acquisition, as well as a proven onboarding model with decentralized performance and business responsibility. We have competence in our field at several levels from the board and management as well as in our companies. Finally, I would like to thank you for your time and interest in listening to this presentation. The presentation shown today and the report is also available on our website. If you have any questions or specific requests, do not hesitate to contact us through email or by phone. Once again, thank you very much for your time.