Thank you for attending Wajax Corporation's 2022 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Financial Results Webcast. On today's webcast will be Mr. Iggy Domagalski, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Stuart Auld, Chief Financial Officer. Please be advised that this webcast is being recorded. Please note that this webcast contains forward-looking statements. Actual future results may differ from expected results. I will now turn the call over to Iggy Domagalski.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, thank you for participating in our fourth quarter call. This afternoon, we will be following a webcast which includes a summary presentation of Wajax's Q4 2022 financial results. The presentation can be found on our website under Investor Relations and Events and Presentations. I will provide you with a general update and then turn it over to Stu for comments on backlog, inventory, cash, and balance sheet. To begin, I would like to draw your attention to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information on slides two and three. Additionally, non-GAAP and additional GAAP measures are summarized on slides 18 and 19 for your reference. Turning to slide four. In the fourth quarter, Wajax saw significant improvement in key financial metrics and TRIF.
Revenue of CAD 541.3 million was up CAD 138.5 million, or approximately 34% in the quarter. The increase in revenue resulted from higher construction and mining equipment and product support sales in Western Canada and higher material handling, industrial parts, and ERS sales in all regions. EBIT of CAD 26.7 million was up CAD 11.4 million, or approximately 74% in the quarter. The improved EBIT resulted from higher sales volumes and equipment margins, offset partially by lower product support margins, a higher proportion of equipment sales, and increased selling and administrative expenses.
Gross profit margin of 18.1% decreased 220 basis points compared to the same period of 2021 due to lower product support margins and a higher proportion of equipment sales, largely due to the sale of several large mining shovels in the fourth quarter of 2022 without any similar sales in the same period of the prior year. These decreases were partially offset by higher equipment margins. Gross profit margin of 19.9% year to date is in line with expectations. Selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased to 13.2% in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 16.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Selling and administrative expenses in the fourth quarter of 2022 increased CAD 4.9 million, or 7.4% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, due primarily to higher personnel costs as the volume of business increased over the prior year. Management remains committed to ongoing cost productivity. Adjusted net earnings of CAD 0.83 per share was up approximately 154%, or CAD 0.50 in the quarter, noting the adjustments recorded on the charts. At the end of Q4, the year-to-date TRIF rate was 0.84, a decrease of 18%. This represents our safest year on record. Wajax safety continues to be Wajax's number one priority, and management is committed to continuously improving our safety programs to improve on this result. We thank everyone on our team for their ongoing dedication to workplace safety. Turning to slide five.
Revenue increase of 34% in the fourth quarter resulted from growth in all regions. Western Canada sales of CAD 279 million increased 64% in the quarter, mainly due to robust growth in equipment and product support sales in the mining and construction and forestry categories, with strength in the ERS and industrial parts categories. Central Canada sales of CAD 87 million increased 14% in the quarter, due primarily to organic growth in industrial parts sales. Eastern Canada sales of CAD 176 million increased 12% in the quarter due to organic industrial parts growth, driven by higher bearing sales and higher equipment sales in the construction and forestry and material handling categories. Please turn to slide six. An update on equipment and product support sales and year-over-year variances are shown on this page.
Equipment sales of CAD 202 million increased CAD 83 million, or 69% compared to last year, due mainly to higher mining and construction and forestry sales in Western Canada and the strength of our new expanded relationship with Hitachi. Product support sales of CAD 118 million increased CAD 16 million, or 15% due primarily to strength in construction and forestry and mining revenue in Western Canada and higher power systems revenue in Eastern Canada. Please turn to slide seven.
An update on industrial parts and ERS sales and year-over-year variances are shown on this page. Industrial parts sales of approximately CAD 138 million increased CAD 29 million, or 27%, due mainly to organic strength in industrial parts sales in all regions, led by higher bearing sales. ERS sales of CAD 73 million increased CAD 11 million, or 17% due to strength in Western Canada.
Turning to slide eight. This slide summarizes sales at a category level for the quarter and year to date for our company's overall groupings of heavy equipment and industrial parts and services. In the third quarter, the heavy equipment group increased CAD 99 million or 42%, driven by higher sales in all categories. Total growth in industrial parts and services categories of approximately CAD 39 million, or 22% was driven by increases in both industrial parts and ERS. I will now turn the call over to Stu.
Thanks, Iggy. Please turn to slide nine for my comments on backlog. Our Q4 backlog of CAD 468.8 million decreased CAD 90 million or 16.1% compared to backlog of CAD 558.8 million at Q3, and increased CAD 44.5 million or 10.5% on a year-over-year basis. The sequential decrease was due primarily to deliveries of multiple mining shovels that were in last year's backlog, along with most of other categories experienced more deliveries in the quarter versus new orders added to backlog, most notably in the construction and forestry category. These decreases were partially offset by higher ERS orders. The year-over-year increase was due to higher orders in the construction and forestry, industrial parts, and ERS categories, offset partially by lower mining, material handling, and power systems orders.
Overall, strong backlog reflects continued momentum in our heavy equipment, industrial parts, and ERS businesses. Please turn to slide 10 for an update on our current inventory levels. Inventory increased CAD 15.5 million compared to Q3 2022, due largely to higher parts inventory driven by an investment in certain key parts stock levels as part of our efforts to improve availability of core SKUs to drive enhanced customer fill rates, even with ongoing supply challenges. Inventory increased CAD 72.9 million compared to Q4 2021 for the reason just noted above. We continue to work with major suppliers, with a focus on construction, forestry, material handling, and power systems equipment to secure inventory to meet customer demand. Please turn to slide 11, where I'll provide an update on cash flow and leverage.
Cash generated from operating activities in the current quarter of CAD 19.1 million increased CAD 22.5 million from cash used in operating activities of CAD 3.4 million in Q3 2022, mainly due to a decrease in cash used in non-cash operating working capital and lower finance costs paid on debts. Our Q4 leverage ratio decreased from 1.28 x in Q3 to 1.13 x due to the combination of lower debt level in the current period, driven by cash generated from operating activities and the higher trailing-12-month pro forma adjusted EBITDA. Corporation's leverage ratio is currently below our target range of 1.5- 2.5 x at the end of Q4, due primarily to strength in the trailing-12-month pro forma adjusted EBITDA.
Our available credit capacity at the end of Q4 was CAD 308.9 million, which is sufficient to meet our short-term normal course working capital and maintenance capital requirements, our acquisition program, and strategic initiatives. Please turn to slide 12, where I'll provide an update on financial position. We continue to focus on working capital efficiency, which is a key component in managing our overall leverage targets. The Q4 working capital efficiency of 16.8% has been consistently improving over the last five quarters as a result of lower four-quarter average working capital and higher trailing-12-month revenue. Please turn to slide 13, at this point, I'll turn it over to Iggy.
Thanks very much, Stu. Our board has approved a 32% increase in the corporation's quarterly dividend. The corporation has declared a first quarter 2023 dividend of CAD 0.33 per share payable on April 4th, 2023 to shareholders of record on March 15th, 2023. The increase in our quarterly dividend, representing an additional outlay of approximately CAD 6.9 million, reflects growing confidence in both our near and long-term outlooks, which are being driven by our expanded relationship with Hitachi, as well as solid demand for the full suite of products and services we offer across our business. Our strong ability to generate cash flow, coupled with over CAD 300 million available on our bank credit facility, allows us to invest in organic growth and acquisition opportunities while supporting this increased distribution to our shareholders. Please turn to slide 14.
Rather than reading the outlook verbatim, I'll highlight a few important points. As we move into 2023, we continue to see solid fundamentals in many of our key markets, particularly mining, energy, and construction, supported by relatively elevated key commodity prices and sustained budgeting for capital projects. We expect the challenges of 2023 to be similar to those of 2022: ongoing supply chain volatility, higher interest rates, inflation, and a tight labor market. We continue to manage these challenges through frequent dialogue with suppliers and customers, as well as through a combination of initiatives designed to help us hire, train, and retain our key teammates. Overall, we are very pleased with our Q4 performance as it represents a significant improvement over Q4 last year, including strong top-line growth in our less cyclical industrial parts and engineered repaired services businesses.
We started 2023 with a strong backlog of CAD 468.8 million, up 10.5% from a year ago, which further supports our confidence in the near-term future. In 2023, our core strategic priorities remain unchanged. We are focused on continuing to invest in our people and their overall health and well-being, delivering exceptional customer value, organically growing our business, transacting on a robust acquisition pipeline, leveraging our enhanced relationship with Hitachi, prudently managing our balance sheet, continuing to develop our ERP system, which has now been fully deployed to all of our power and equipment locations, and entrenching sustainability into our business. Thank you. I'll turn it now over to the operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from Jonathan Goldman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, guys. You've put together a very solid year, so congrats to the team. First question is on Hitachi. You know, it's been a year since the transition. It looks to have gone smoothly, but I wonder here if the idea is now to go on the offensive. Maybe can you discuss, you know, how much has been achieved to date, and then, you know, going forward, what you think are the best near term and medium term opportunities?
Hey, Michael, nice to hear from you. Thanks for dialing in. Thanks for the question. We continue to be quite excited about Hitachi. Well, not quite first full year. We started on March 1st, so it's been 10 months to the end of 2022. It was a great transition period. We've fully separated our relationship with Deere and Hitachi, they're learning a lot, but they've been delivering their units and their parts as promised. They continue to invest in technology. The Construction Expo is coming up in Las Vegas this month in March, where Hitachi will be releasing their new Dash-7 unit, which has a number of new technological changes that we're all excited to see, and that will be coming into the market shortly thereafter.
Another piece that we're quite excited about, just in the last couple of months, Hitachi launched their own proprietary branded financing solution. That was really one of the last pieces that we were missing in the puzzle. Our customers, most of whom finance their machines when they buy them, were needing to go to third party financing solutions. Today they can go and do that through Hitachi.
Awesome. Thanks, Iggy. Making a pivot here to the dividend, you know, fully understanding that it's a board decision, I was wondering if you could contextualize, you know, the sizable increase. You know, Wajax, you know, today I think pays the largest dividend yield amongst its peers. That's both equipment dealers and industrial parts peers. You also wanna be acquisitive. I'm looking at the dividend increase today, and I'm wondering if it's a kind of like a one and done bump, or if dividend growth should be part of the capital allocation strategy going forward.
That's a great question, Michael. Thank you for that. I've been here a little over a year now, and I had a really good opportunity just to get an understanding of the strength of this business and how solid the business is. The increase in dividend is really a signal about how we feel about the future of this company. It's got strong cash flow generating ability. The business is as solid as it's ever been. We have this new enhanced relationship with Hitachi, and our less cyclical IP and ERS business continues to grow. We just feel very strongly about the future of the business, which is why we opted for a large dividend increase to send that message to the market that we are confident about the future.
In terms of capital priorities, we believe we can do this additional distribution to shareholders and at the same time invest in all the acquisitions that we can find and at the same time continue to invest in the organic growth of our business. It wasn't a question of or for us. It's we can do both based on the solid fundamentals of our business.
Just to follow up, do you want to become a dividend grower? Is that how the board views that? Or is it, you know, you're happy with your level of dividend today?
Good question, Michael. The dividend is something that the board looks at every quarter and will continue to look at it on a quarterly basis.
All right. Thanks, Iggy. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Michael.
Your next question comes from Devin Dodge from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
All right, thanks. Good afternoon, Iggy. Good afternoon, Stu. Demand's been pretty strong the last couple of years, we've seen SG&A costs grow roughly in line with revenue, which I think has muted some of the margin expansion at the operating income line. Can you help us understand what's been driving those SG&A costs and how we should be thinking about operating leverage in 2023?
Yeah. I mean, if you look at our cost structure, one of the biggest costs that we have is people. As, you know, revenue goes up, you know, our people costs go up. There is some level of productivity, but we still think that, you know, we'll still fit in the range of somewhere in the 14.5%-15.5% range is still our target, albeit, you know, we'd like to continue to manage that down as we go forward.
Okay. Then, working capital efficiency looked as also really strong in 2022, much better than the historical average. You know, do you feel that this is sustainable at these levels? How should we be thinking about overall working capital in 2023?
Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for the question, Devin. When we think about working capital, if we look at where we are today in terms of inventory and receivables and payables, we feel pretty good about where we are today. I think we were a little low in the beginning of the year, but we're pretty happy with the amounts, as I said, at the end of December.
Okay. Maybe just one last one. Just coming back to one of the earlier questions on capital allocation. I noticed that, you know, share buybacks really weren't or one of the, you know, outlets you mentioned. You know, was that intentional? Is that something that you guys could look to do in the next little while? Seems like it should be an attractive use of capital given where the stock is trading.
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Devin. Our stock is fairly illiquid and not traded as much as we hope it would be. So NCIB today is something that we're opting not to do just because of the low trading volumes.
I got it. I'll turn it over. Thank you.
Your next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good afternoon.
Hey, Mike.
Hey. Obviously strong, very strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter, really across the business. In particular, very strong revenue growth in equipment sales. I know you know, you'd expected to deliver some large mining shovels in the fourth quarter, and appears you did. Are you able to provide a little bit more detail around what the contribution from those was in the fourth quarter?
In terms of revenue, Michael?
Yes.
Yeah. I mean, I'd say the revenue growth was a good chunk of it was mining. We delivered a number of larger shovels. There was still construction and forestry in there, the biggest proportion of that growth was in mining.
Okay. As we look ahead to 2023, the outlook commentary you provided, sounds fairly positive, really sort of across multiple areas. I guess as we look at the equipment business, it sounds like you feel there's an opportunity to grow, notwithstanding some of the large shovel deliveries you had in 2022. Can you talk a little bit about that, I suppose, just in terms of the growth outlook you see there? And also, if possible, to kind of remind the other quarters in 2022 when we're looking back for prior year comp purposes, what came through in 2022 in the other quarters as far as large shovels?
Yep. Thanks for the question, Mike . Let's talk about the past first. In 2022, we delivered a large shovel in Q3 and two in Q4. Looking forward, it's not in the December 2022 backlog, but since December 31st, we've received an order for another large mining shovel, which we anticipate will be delivered in Q3 of this year. That's what we have in backlog now. Quoting activity is very robust with our customers, mining customers, oil sands customers. The activity is robust amongst them, and they're all doing quite well and still interested in mining shovels and other equipment. While nothing in the backlog, we're working hard to add things to that backlog.
Okay. That's helpful. Thanks very much. You got a couple questions already about the dividend increase. I guess the one additional question I would have is the 32% increase that the board landed on, was that in any way tied to some type of a payout ratio or other particular metric? Just wondering, you know, if we can put the increase into context relative to, you know, relative to earnings or, or some other metric?
No. It wasn't related to a payout ratio. Where it stands now at CAD 1.32, it is within the payout ratio that we're comfortable with and somewhat comparable to our peers. The reason for a large increase was simply to show the strength of our business. If you, I mean, if you look at this year and compare the last six years before that, I mean, we're up quite a bit. The trend is very strong. In the last year, revenue is up 20%, EPS up 35%. This developing relationship with Hitachi continues to get better. Our industrial parts and ERS business continues to get bigger and is less cyclical. Our customers are cautiously optimistic about the future.
We've got our lowest leverage in a decade and plenty of dry powder. We're feeling really confident about the mid, short, and long-term future of this company. That's the message that we wanted to send.
Okay. No, that makes sense. Just a clarification. You said that the dividend increase puts you at a place where you're within a target payout ratio range you'd be comfortable with. Hey, can you remind me, have you articulated that range publicly?
No, we have not.
Okay. Just last question. As far as capital allocation, you mentioned in the release, you know, one of the, one of the objectives here is to transact on a robust acquisition pipeline. Can you provide an update on what that pipeline looks like right now and your confidence that you'll be able to complete some transactions over the coming year?
Yes, good question. Thank you. As mentioned on some previous calls, we've got a full-time person and a couple helpers in this area that are devoted to finding and acquiring companies. We're really continuing to build our skill set in this area. We've deployed nearly CAD 200 million of acquisition capital over the last five, six years. We did two small tuck-ins over the last year. We've got a robust pipeline of tuck-in acquisitions. None are huge, nor do we think they need to be. There are some larger ones in there as well. We're quite confident that we'll be able to close on some of these deals.
We've had a few that were at the one-yard line and unfortunately, fell apart because we're not intent on buying companies just to buy companies. We wanna make sure we buy the right ones.
All right. That's helpful. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. Your next question comes from Bryan Fast from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon.
Hey, Bryan.
Just on Central Canada, I mean, you saw a nice year-over-year gain in the region. I know that you made some leadership changes there last year. Could you just talk about maybe the progress you've made there and then some of the opportunities you're seeing?
Yeah, thanks for the question. We've talked about this one at the last few calls, and we figured it would take about a year, maybe year and a half or two years to really start seeing the positive results from those changes. It seems to have started happening here in the fourth quarter. Year-over-year, whole year over whole year, is up only 2%. This last quarter, we really saw a meaningful improvement in the region. Most of that was driven by our industrial products business, which is a strength in that region. When we think about Ontario compared to the rest of the country, it is our lowest market share and our biggest opportunity.
I think we've just started to scratch the surface of what we can do there. It's great to see that those leadership changes that we made about a year ago are, you know, they're working.
Thanks. That's helpful. Just maybe on the backlog, it looks like the waiting has increased to industrial parts and ERS just compared to this time last year. Sounds like you gave a little bit of color there with the last answer, but maybe just some more color on where that strength is being driven from regionally.
The strength for our industrial products and ERS backlog is being driven by all regions. That business for us is it's really firing on all cylinders everywhere. The decrease in the equipment backlog, as Stu mentioned earlier in the call, a large chunk of that was due to those large mining shipments that happened in the fourth quarter.
Sorry, the ERS one is predominantly in Quebec.
Okay, thanks. That's it for me.
Thanks, Bryan.
Presenters, there are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with your closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for joining us today. Have a wonderful day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. You may now disconnect your lines.