Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sdiptech quarter three report of 2019 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to queue for a question, you will need to press zero followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Jakob Holm. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you very much. Hello, everybody, welcome to our presentation of the Q3 report. Together with me, I have our CFO, Bengt Lejdström, as always. To start with, I would just like to say that the third quarter is a strong quarter for Sdiptech. We are happy to present it. Good growth both in terms of organic profit growth and also growth from acquisitions, and good development in all business areas. We will come back to those details further on. The cash generation is also very positive, close to 150% in the quarter, and the earnings per share is also up substantially for the quarter. All in all, it's a very strong report. We can move forward to page number three. Sdiptech, we are an infrastructure technology group.
As you all know, our net sales last 12 months for the third quarter, above SEK 1.7 billion. We're also very happy to see that our EBITDA margin is continuously growing, now at 13.6%. Our overall goal is, of course, to grow our operating profit margin, and it's up 40% the last 12 months, all according to our plan. That's just a brief introduction. Moving forward to the next slide, number five. Just to repeat some of the underlying drivers for growth in our markets, it's very much based on the challenge that modern societies are faced with in terms of infrastructure. To start with, the infrastructure surrounding us is aging, as you all know, and the important maintenance that always needs to be done is to a large extent neglected. It's an increasing demand to rebuild our infrastructures.
At the same time, our capacity requirements continue to grow. Water consumption grows, electricity consumption continues to grow, transport volumes continue to grow, but the capacity in our systems are not growing at the same pace, and many of the systems are at peak levels. In urban areas, everything becomes more complicated. The concentration of people and economy makes technical challenges even higher. The first three points are very much around the volume demands in our markets. The fourth point is more around the demand for technical improvements, and it's really driven by basic human drivers for sustainability, efficiency, and safety. These are not new drivers. It's more built into us as human beings. Politicians adapt and improve the regulations which are implemented in infrastructure. Overall, the long-term drivers in our markets are strong and never-ending. We can move forward to slide number six.
Here we just present three examples of infrastructure challenges. The first one being 23% of the water flowing in our fresh water networks is leaking, which is, of course, a huge challenge. 30%-40% of the energy required to heat and to cool our existing properties are also leaking. At the same time, we are doing an important change. The society is doing an important change over to renewable energy. This is an important change. The change will continue, but it doesn't come without challenges. The more renewable energy we put into our power grids, the less quality of the electricity. This is, of course, a challenge when society is being increasingly electrified, but it's an important shift that needs to be done.
Overall, these are just three examples, but overall, one data point saying that the investment need over the 15 coming years is 27 times Sweden's GDP, which is, of course, substantial investment needs. Moving forward to next slide, number seven. This is to illustrate to you how we are dealing with these challenges. If we have a look at the leakage in the freshwater networks, our recently acquired company, Auger. Customers are insurance companies, and Auger provides an outsourced claims management service to deal with problems with underground infrastructure. When there's a leakage in the network, Auger fixes the issues. Of course, the issues with the networks, they occur when they occur. There's no connection to how the overall economy is. It's a non-cyclical type of business, and it's showing slow but steady growth due to the aging infrastructure. The second example is CoSS.
CoSS provides control systems to optimize energy for properties, the energy required to cool and heat buildings. By doing that, we can reduce the energy consumption in buildings up to 40%. Moving over to the third example, Unipower provides meters to monitor power quality. It's hardware that are implemented in the power grids, and then also Software as a Service for the clients to monitor the power quality in the power grids. Our clients are typically energy companies, and by doing this, they can increase the portion of renewable energy in their power grids, thanks to Unipower's products. Okay, we move forward to page number eight. A summary of our strategic position and our business model. Our offering is products as services to clients in the infrastructure sector. Our business model is to acquire and develop niched profitable businesses within the infrastructure sector.
We are organized in a decentralized way. This is very important. Decisions are made close to customers. Product development is made in a decentralized way where the competence exists. This is a proven model to provide continuous profit growth over years. The infrastructure sector is a good sector to acquire companies in. It's fragmented in terms of niche technology companies. For us, it's good to focus on the infrastructure sector. It's not only good since it provides an underlying growth, but it's also good market to pursue acquisitions, because there are a lot of companies out there. We move forward to page number 10 and have a look at our business areas. Since 1st of January, we have three business areas, the first two being water and energy, and special infrastructure solutions, and the third business area, property technical services.
The first two areas, those are our investment areas. We do acquisitions in these areas, and we also have a strong organic natural growth in these areas. For property technical service, we focus on profitability improvement only, so we don't pursue any acquisitions in this area. We focus on it equally much. It's important to us, but as I said, we focus on profitability improvement only. We move forward to just have a look at our first business area on page number 11. Water and energy, currently at SEK 600 million in net sales. Our share, the share for the business area is continuously growing, now at 44% of total EBITDA. As I said, this is an investment area for us. It's growing in terms of both organic growth, but also in terms of acquisitional growth.
The sectors within the area is, of course, water and sanitation, but also energy and electricity. Our companies, we have also provided to you on the right-hand side, and I will just give you a few examples within this area. We start off with a few energy companies. We've already talked about Unipower, and of course, the underlying growth there is the task to switch over to renewable energy. The underlying drivers for Unipower is growing energy consumption, but also the drive for increased sustainability. We can also have a look at a second company within the energy sector, Eurotech. Eurotech provides uninterrupted power supply. Of course, this market is driven by the increased electrification of society, where the uninterrupted power supply is more and more important. We can have a look at a few companies in the water sector as well.
Polyproject provides components and systems for water cleaning systems. Topas Vatten provides wastewater cleaning plants to smaller communities. We can also mention RIA, who provide control systems for water cleaning plants where municipalities are the main customers. These three companies are also driven by growing water consumption, but also driven by stricter regulations to remove contaminations in our groundwater. Once again, it's growing consumption and sustainability that are the underlying drivers for these companies. We can move over to next page, have a look at our business area, Special Infrastructure Solutions. Currently at slightly above SEK 400 million in net sales. The share of the total EBITDA is also growing. It's an investment area for us. We have an organic growth, we also have the acquisition and growth in the area. The underlying sectors for this area are three.
One being clean air and climate control, the second one being transportation, and third one being security. We can start off by just giving one example in the area security, Cryptify. Cryptify provides encrypted solutions for mobile communication. Today our customers there are primarily government, but we believe that the cyber threat will also come to the corporate world, and that we believe that there will be growth in that area as well. We can have a look at company for transportation. RedSpeed International provides traffic monitoring cameras. This area is, of course, driven by higher traffic volumes, and an increased demand for efficiency in terms of traffic, but also an increased focus on traffic safety. We can have a look at also Frigotech as an example, in the area for clean air and climate control. Frigotech rebuilds a lot of refrigeration solutions in the retail industry.
The underlying growth there is very much driven by stricter regulations to reduce emissions on the global warming potential. Once again, the companies are driven by sustainability and increasing demand for safety, but also for efficiency. We can move over to our third and final business area on page number 13, Property Technical Services. Net sales close to SEK 700 million. The share of total EBITDA is shrinking, and that is due to that the other business areas are growing faster in terms of EBITDA. Within this area, our companies provide technical services for properties, mainly elevators. In Sweden, Stockholm, and Vienna, we provide modernization service and repair for property owners. In Europe, we provide the service of the product for new elevators. We also have Castella and Tello Service Partner, which also are included in the Business Area.
Our elevators companies, they show a very positive trend in terms of profit growth and profitability improvement. Castella Entreprenad who are in the business of shell completion, they've been through a tough year in terms of correction in the market for housing. However, that correction we've been through already, and we have positive outlook for the future. We are very happy with the development in this area with a good outlook for the future. We can move forward to page 14. Moving over to acquisitions. Historically, we have a pace of between four to eight acquisitions per year. Currently in 2019, we've acquired four companies, totaling SEK 93 million in terms of EBITDA. Our overall goal is to acquire SEK 90 million each year. Of course, the acquisition target is also calibrated with our other key financial ratios.
This target should be seen as a goal over time. We expect less acquisition activity in the fourth quarter. We continue to page number 15. Just to mention acquisitions that we have done in the third quarter, we've already talked about Auger Site Investigations. An excellent company at GBP 12.5 million in turnover. It's a non-cyclical company for sure and showing a slow but steady growth due to aging infrastructure. By that, I hand over the word to Bengt, and I guess we will move over to page number 17 to have a look at the current trading.
Yeah. Thank you, Jakob. On slide 17, we have a summary of the financial development for the group. As you can see on the left hand, we have the sales over the last five quarters on a last 12 months basis. As you can see, we have increased the sales with 23% in total. We have also increased the EBITDA, our profit with 39%, which, of course, results in a higher profit margin, that's due to that we have acquired companies that has a higher margin than the existing businesses. We bit by bit increase the margin in that way. We have also, of course, done some efficiency programs, especially in the property technical service business area, which also is increasing the profitability of our group.
On the right-hand side, we see a distribution of our sales to which geography, meaning that here is where our customers are. We do not have that much of export within the group. We have a few companies. We have mentioned, like the Unipower, the electricity quality measurements, they are exporting a lot, but typically infrastructure is a domestic business, so mainly our companies have their customers within the same country or region. Yes, you can see we have almost 60% of the turnover from Swedish customers and about a fourth quarter of our sales from U.K. customers. The U.K. part will increase bit by bit since the acquisitions we have done this year will roll in for each quarter, since we have done three acquisitions in the U.K. this year. That part will increase a bit.
Then we have customers in the rest of Europe, especially Germany and Austria, of course, since we have businesses there and then also, of course, other geographies. Turning to next slide, page 18. Some highlights. We see a continued growth both through acquisitions and organically. The organic growth in sales for the group was 1% in the quarter, but that was then split between water and energy and special infrastructure solution business areas, which together accounted for 10%. The property technical services had decreased sales, which is expected and planned with 8%, because there we have done these efficiency programs, which we'll come back to. We have a very stable then sales development, and of course we are a diversified group.
We have a portfolio of now 32 business units, which of course makes it the more portfolio companies we get, the more stable the development will come, since if we have one company performing less, we probably have another company performing better than expected. On a group level, it should be quite stable. Of course within the three business areas where the number of companies are less, their development may be more volatile quarter by quarter, overall, we see also then a steady stable trend going forward. Apart from, yeah, Jakob already mentioned that within the property technical service area, we have done an adjustment of the shell completion business, now we're expecting going forward a better development year-on-year. We'll also come back to that. Looking on the profit, we have had a strong organic profit growth and cash flow.
All business areas, that's very good to see that all three business areas had a positive organic profit growth. We have had that in the water and energy and special infrastructure solutions before. Now also in the property technical service business area. All in all, the EBITDA increased with 51% to SEK 64 million this quarter. This quarter, the number three is perhaps looking throughout the year, the quarter with the least profit, since it contains a lot of vacation during the summer. We have had a strong cash flow, and a big part of that comes from working capital effects, but of course also from our running business. We are typically not that heavy in CapEx, capital expenditure in our companies. We don't have any big production plants or manufacturing equipment. We're quite slim on that.
Most of our profit goes straight into the pocket as cash flow. The outlook is still positive. We see that, for example, then in the water and energy, we have had a good development, but now we're kind of coming and biting our tail, so to say, from this year, so the comparable numbers will become a bit tougher, but still we see a continued positive outlook for all the business areas. Typically, infrastructure companies perform reasonably well in cyclical downturns, if we would head into that. That's good. Of course, then individual companies could be affected, but all in all, as I said, positive outlook. When it comes to acquisitions, we have now built up our internal team that has replaced the external team, which has been phased out. That is completed, which then results in that the acquisitions costs will fall significantly from now on.
If you read our report, you could see that we have had about SEK 30 million expenditures for the acquisition costs this year, that will be dramatically less going forward from now on. Turning to page 19, it's a summary of some of our key ratios. We have mentioned most. We could look at in the middle where it says EBITDA margin, that the margin is increasing over time, both from efficiency measurements, also from acquisitions. Looking at our debt ratios, which is always a bit tricky when looking at our numbers, since we have a big part of our debt being non-bank debt. Actually, we have only 40% of our debt is bank debt, we have as large share as almost 50% coming from debt to our entrepreneurs who have sold companies to us through what we call contingent considerations for acquisitions.
You have to have that in mind when you look at our debt ratios, because this debt to the entrepreneurs, the contingent considerations, they are dependent on the future profit development of their companies. It's all taken into consideration that the profit will increase, and we will pay a higher amount as an earn-out and more money to the entrepreneurs, which then of course, makes part of the debt being dependent on a profit growth over time. Just bear that in mind when you look at the numbers. Turning to page 20. We have for the business areas, to summarize the financial development of water and energy. As you can see on the left-hand side, the net sales have been increasing steadily, as well as the margin has been steadily increasing.
Coming from companies with higher margin that has increased by share of the business and also from acquisitions. You can mention, for example, the company that was acquired during this year, Water Treatment Products have had a good start. When they are fully included on a yearly basis, they account for about GBP 2.5 million in EBITDA. We have also increased the margins, as I said, and we have increased the number of units now being 13 all in all. We can go to the next slide 21, Special Infrastructure Solutions. They have also had a continued growth in sales, and organic growth was 7% this quarter. All in all, the sales increased with more than 50%, a big part of them that acquisitions.
As you see on the left-hand side, the margin has been more or less stable or even a little bit decreasing since a year ago. That is that through the acquisitions, we step-by-step leveling out the margins on the expected level at around 18% to 20%, even though it was a bit higher in the Q3. We have had strong growth in the sub-segments of air and climate control and safety and security. Jakob mentioned some of these companies within the cooling business, in their climate monitoring and camera surveillance as well. We have done three acquisitions in this business area this year, RedSpeed, Cryptify, and Auger, then the latest one, all summing up to a number of units of 10 of this business area. Turning at page number 22, we have our third business area, property technical services.
Looking at that development on the left-hand side, we can see that the sales have been decreasing, which is expected since we have done activities where we prioritize more highly profitable projects and customers instead of big volumes. We have actually then decreased sales but increased profit. If you follow the margins, you could see that a year ago, we were picking up thanks to this efficiency program in the elevator business, but then it has gone down a little bit again. That is an effect from the shell completion correction, which has both lowered sales, but also a bit lower the margins. Now, as we've said, we have better comparative numbers year on year. Now the development will be positive going forward. The margins for this quarter, number three, was a strong 11%, much higher than the last 12 months.
That's partly due to that the summer months being a strong period for some of the companies, especially, for example, roof renovation business, which makes this quarter a bit of the highest EBITDA margin quarter for this business area. The number of units is nine. We haven't done any acquisitions the last two year, actually, and but for the companies we have, we see that the margins are leveling off within the expected range of 8%-10%. Yeah, let's hand over back to Jakob on page number 23.
Yes, 23. Well, this is actually the final page, and we open up for any potential questions.
Pardon the interruption, gentlemen. Would you like to go ahead and start with Q&A?
Yes, correct. We open up for Q&A.
No worries. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero followed by one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing zero two to cancel. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. Once again, that's zero one on your telephone keypad now. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel your request, please press zero followed by two. As there are no further questions in queue, I'd like to hand the call over back to your speakers. Gentlemen, please continue.
Well, we just say thank you for listening. We welcome you back in three months from now. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you all for your participation. You may all now disconnect.