Good morning, welcome to Prevas Presentation for this quarter. I'm Johan Strid, the CEO of Prevas. I will present together with my colleague, Helena Burström, who is our CFO. Before going into last quarter, for those of you who doesn't know Prevas by heart, we are a consultancy company. We also call ourselves a design and development house. We help our customers with product development and production development. The customers use us when it's little bit more tricky than usual, more demanding, tougher requirements, and more complex environments. That's when we perform at our best. We have been around since 1985. We have been public since 1998, and we're almost 900 people now in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. That's us very briefly.
The agenda today is a brief introduction, check on that, of course, a few comments on the financial performance, comments on the last year, and a few words about the way forward. Maybe most important, questions and answers. Please state any question you like, and we'll do our best to answer them. Before going into the financial performance, I would like to thank all of our stakeholders, our colleagues, our customers, our partners, and also our owners. We achieved all of our goals last year, and we did that together. Thank you a lot for that. Moving over to the financial performance, this will be a busy slide, lots of figures, of course, but let's start with the net turnover. It increased with a little bit more than 20% last quarter.
The profit, operational profit increased as well with a little bit more than 20%, and the operating margin landed at 13.4%, almost the same as the year before. The last quarter is always a good quarter for consultancy companies, but we're fairly satisfied with that margin, 13.4%. If we look at the full year, we increased the revenue with about 12%. We increased the EBITDA profit with about 20%. It's important to remember that last year, 2021, we divested Tritech Solutions, and that amounted to about SEK 10 million. We should compare SEK 164.5 with SEK 126 if we look at the operational business, and that is an increase with about 30%.
The margin for the whole year landed on 12.4%, that's well above of our financial target, we are satisfied with that. The earnings per share increased both before and after dilution. All in all, check on the financial performance last quarter and last year. If we look at the more long-term perspective of our financial performance, this is a graph of the margin, EBIT margin, and EBIT profit. The blue bars is profit, the orange line is the margin. In 2018, at end of that year, we initiated a change program where we focused on profitability, focus on margin first, when we increased that, we also added growth. After that, we have grown the profit more or less every quarter by quarter.
Now we have stabilized the margin a little bit above 12% since a year back. Now I would like to give the word to Helena, my colleague.
Thank you, Johan. Helena Burström, CFO, Prevas. Cash flow from operating activities in Q4 amounted to SEK 28 million compared to SEK 24 million in 2021. In FY 2022, cash flow from operating activities amounted to SEK 103 million compared to SEK 79 million in 2021. Cash flow from Investment Activities in FY 2022 amounted to minus SEK 50 million and minus SEK 58 million 2021. Cash Flow from Investment Activities includes acquisitions in 2022, which amounted to SEK 45 million compared to SEK 73 million in 2021. The disinvestment of solution contributed positively by SEK 21 million in 2021. Cash flow from financing activities includes a dividend in FY 2022 of SEK 45 million, and in 2021, SEK 25 million.
In FY 2021, includes a loan taken in connection with the acquisition of Evotech Group of SEK 90 million, contributing positively. SEK 45 million of the loan remains in 2022. Cash amounted to SEK 83 million at the end of 2022 compared to SEK 122 million in 2021. At the start of 2022, the overdraft facility was ended at Prevas request because there was no longer a need for it. Overall, Prevas has a very good cash position. Net debt in relation to EBITDA is negative, which means that there is no net debt at Prevas, and thus Prevas is well below the financial target of maximum 2x EBITDA. The equity ratio is good and amounts to 56.9% in 2022 compared to 57.2% in 2021.
Given a solid financial position and a healthy balance sheet, a dividend of 4.5 per Swedish krona per share will be proposed to the annual general meeting. This represent an increase of 29% from last year's dividend, which was SEK 3.5 per share. The proposed dividend ensures a good financial position and enables room for acquisitions. With that, I hand over to you again, Johan.
Thank you, Helena. A few more comments on last year. First of all, for us it was about executing and delivering on the long-term strategy that we formed a few years ago. Last year, I think we made good progress relating to our long-term endeavors, that is to be perceived as a premium company by all of our stakeholders. I think we made good progress on that part last year. Here are a few examples of achievements and progress. We made 4 acquisitions. I will come back to that later on. We improved gender equality. We started with 17% women and ended with 20% women. Still very low, but it's good progress for one year. We grew with 126 colleagues, the net growth. That's really nice.
Welcome all new colleagues. We have also been working with our employer branding, employer value propositions, both internally and externally. Lots of good things going on internally amongst the colleagues. If we look at the customers, we gained 125 new customers for the full year. We are trying to be active at seminars, breakfast seminars, fairs, conferences, and spreading the word around in the industry. Many of the customers are actually contacting us and want to initiate a dialogue if we can help them out, and that's really nice. We are also active promoting or contacting different customers as well, of course.
Many of our relationships are really, really long-term. I think we tightened the relationships for lots of customers last year. We had really good discussions how we can provide value in what form and how to do that together. Another stakeholder is, of course, society as a whole. We have been working with sustainability. It's an important aspect for us. The most impact that we can do is in our customer assignments. We are working with saving lives, improving lives, reducing carbon emission, improving work and environment, and so on. Many of our customers are focused on sustainability in different ways. We have also been working with monthly donations to Ukraine, for example, but also to local organizations in Scandinavia. We collaborate with colleagues in our business. A summary on the financial progress.
It's not a stakeholder in itself. It's important for all of our stakeholders, of course. The margin, a little bit above 12%, increasing revenue, increasing profit, and a really solid financial position. A few examples of progress last year. A little bit more into the acquisitions that we did. This is five companies in four different deals. First out was Factor10, April 1. It's a company focused on software development, and they are extremely good at that. Extremely good. Really nice to have those colleagues on board. BitSim NOW, one month later, working with product development, more or less a small copy of Prevas. They're really good at glass-to-glass working with cameras, optics, vision technology, all the way up to image recognition and machine learning.
Really spearheaded in that area and other offerings as well. Koteko working with automation in the process industry and energy, for example. Lots of things going on in that area. Installation, working with electrical installation, a hot area that as well. Finally, but not least, Myra Industrial Design, working with industrial design, very clear name, and have won a lot of prizes over the years, and they're really good at designing different aspects. Good contributions to the Prevas network. Welcome all new colleagues in those units. If we summarize the numbers for 2021, that is public numbers, figures, about SEK 160 million in turnover or more or less SEK 0 in profit. We think that the units performing well can continue to perform and develop in our context.
The ones struggling with profitability can have colleagues helping out and working in the context of Prevas. We look forward to increase the total profit in this area together. There's a potential for improvement there. Our customers, we are well diversified. We have well-chosen segments. Many of them are stable: energy, telecom, defense, food is included in others, for example, and Life Science, of course. Many segments with increasing needs or stable needs. In the engineering area, automotive, we're working a lot with electrification, and that will be a continuous large demand over the years as well. We think we're in a really good position for a possible downturn in the economy. A few words about the market. We share that with many others, of course.
That's the big uncertainty probably this year. We see a few customers, not many at all, reducing their spending. Decisions take a little bit longer time. Maybe that's customers most related to end consumer products in that area. Many of the customers are really onto it, increasing their spendings and focusing on improving efficiency or automation and so on. There's a lot of demand out there. The decisions takes a little bit longer time, and it's more discussion about the actual value, but I think that's probably healthy. It's a more normal market than it has been the past years. In the long term, the need for really complex technology competence and the ability to take on complex responsibilities, that will increase over time. We are very optimistic about the demand.
If it will be a downturn, there will be a lot of opportunities and possibilities as well. Finally, just a few words about the way forward. It's an uncertain world, it's a complex world. There's a lot of trends, counter trends interacting and so on. It's about navigating in that landscape, and that's one of the strengths with a consultancy company. We are really used to navigating and changing and so on. I would like to view that as opportunities. We have a clear focus on our long-term endeavors, that is to be perceived as a premium company for all of our stakeholders. We will take steps also this year in that aspect. With that, I would like to end the presentation. Now we are open for questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Stefan Knutsson from ABG. Please go ahead.
Hi, Johan and Helena. Congratulations on a good report. First question regarding the market situation. You talked a bit about it, Johan. We have seen some deteriorating PMIs, but yet you talk about full steam going into 2023. Can you relate that anything to the order book situation and how your visibility looks now versus, say, 6 months ago?
Yeah. Looking at the macro data and graphs and so on, it could be a little bit disturbing looking at that, but we don't recognize that in our daily business yet. I would say it's a quite busy market. As mentioned, some decisions takes a longer time, and it's a little bit more discussions, exactly the scope of the projects, but decisions are taken. I think it's a fairly good situation. Still, there are some problems still with components and deliveries and so on, and that makes the customers to take decisions very early in the other aspects. We have some projects that will start 2024. In that sense, we have a longer view on the order stock, actually. I think it's a fairly good situation.
Perfect. Also on the price wage balance, do you have any worries that customer will become harder to negotiate with during the year, or are you still optimistic about the relationship there?
I think everyone will focus a little bit more on prices, and there will be more discussions. It's important to relate to the value that we bring. If it was more or less quite easy to take those discussions last year, it will be more focused on the actual value. It will be a change in the pricing discussions. It's normal since the balance between demand and supply is changed in general. I think that situation will change this year.
Perfect. Then lastly, correct me if I'm wrong, but, the lower EPS in Q4, it was mainly related to one-time effects, if I got that correctly?
Maybe you can answer that.
Yes, that's correct. Especially due to some tax bookings and. That's just a one-time effect. That's correct.
Okay, perfect. Maybe I can do one more then. On the M&A market, and the possibilities there, are you able to find suitable targets at fair prices, or have you seen multiple started to come up again, from a strong stock market the beginning here in 2023?
No, I think that that's a more long-term discussions, and we have lots of discussions going on continuously, so it doesn't affected by the stock market in the short term. I think it's more affected of the general business cycle or if it's a downtrend or not. There's a lot of opportunities, but we're not in a hurry in that aspect. Does that answer your question, Stefan?
Yeah. Yeah. That's okay. Thank you very much for your answers, and, yeah, good results.
Thank you.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time on the teleconference. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any written questions.
We have some from the chat. You were quite busy on the M&A front in 2022. Do you still see many opportunities for 2023?
Yes, we see opportunities on the acquisition side. As mentioned, we're not in a hurry. We have good discussions with lots of potential candidates, and we will take it step by step. I think there is a lot of companies and in different situations. It could be a few at one go, or it could take a year. The important part is not the volume. The important part is to be a good match and a good fit with Prevas, and all the prerequisites must be there. We are very picky on that one. There are opportunities. Thank you.
Congrats, Johan, and the whole of Prevas. What is the most interesting area, industry area for the moment?
What is the most interesting industry area? That's a tough one. Lots of them are very interesting in different aspects. There's a lot of things happening in the Life Science area, but also in the defense area. We are quite proud of being a large vendor in the Defense Industry, for example. Very hard to say. We have electrification and the whole energy chain. We're working with producing energy, solar cells, windmills, and wave energy and so on, and transporting energy, storage of energy with batteries, and then electrification. It's a tough question. All of them.
Net Working Capital as % of sales went up to 11, versus 7-8 on average over the last 5 year. What's your view on that? Do you expect to come back to a more normal level in the future, or is this a new normal?
I hand that to Helena, actually.
I think it's something that will go back to more normal because we do not see a change in payment from customers. I think that will go back to more normal.
Last question here from the chat. Do you think you will be able to continue shifting the salary increase in your selling price in 2022?
That's a good question. If we can increase the salaries and the prices in, in par, so to say, I think that's the most uncertain question for the whole consultancy industry this year. We think so. We have done that before, continuously, and it's important to have focus on that. That's the big question mark that it will be a change situation, but I think we can manage that during this year as well.
Actually, one more chat question.
Sure.
Do you see sectors where the demand from customers start to drop?
Yes. not a single demand for Prevas, but in general, customers working with End Consumer Products, it could be dishwashers or products like that, they are reducing their spending, their investments and so on. It's very clear on that point, but not in a specific segment in our division of segments. It's more type of customer. Okay. If that was the last question, we would like to thank everyone for joining, listening in, and also for the questions, of course. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much.