Welcome everyone to this announcement of our 2022 annual results. I am very pleased to report that the MM Group could close the exceptional year 2022 with excellent results, growing top line more than 50% while almost doubling operating a net profit. The main profit drivers were a very strong demand in the first three quarters of 2022, successful acquisitions, multiple successful cost reduction initiatives, and strong operations from a highly motivated MM team. Our mission is to lead in consumer packaging from renewable resources. In 2022, we made good progress towards that mission. In my opinion, speed was the key to this success, for which I would like to extend sincere words of thanks to the entire MM team, who walked this famous extra mile several times to make this success happen.
I would also like to thank our shareholders for the great trust they placed in MM's transformation strategy, on which we embarked more than two years ago and which now yields results. I am pleased to announce that we will propose a dividend increase of 20% to EUR 4.20 at our forthcoming shareholder meeting, which is in line with the good earnings performance and our long-term dividend policy. Now, let's look at our markets. Demand for our natural recyclable packaging products made from renewable raw materials was dynamic for much of the year. Customers are appreciating our recent investments in competitive sites, innovation, quality improvements, and sustainability. In this context, MM Packaging recorded encouraging organic growth of more than 5%.
Cost inflation and the energy crisis were certainly the biggest challenges, which started off already the year before and turned to an unprecedented volatility in connection with the war in Ukraine. Getting our sales pricing right was crucial since prices for fibers and energy climbed from one all-time high to the next all-time high. We were successful in reducing some costs, and we did some very successful structural cost reduction programs, and we could also, in most cases, pass on the cost inflation in time. This ensured the continuous supply to our customers despite unstable supply chains. We rented gas storage facilities in Austria, which received much acclaim from our customers, and fortunately, they have not been needed. We have hedged a significant part of our energy costs for 2023 and 2024 in order to be able to guarantee long-term pricing to our customers.
After the war in Ukraine started, we quickly started a process to understand if a divestiture of our two plants in Russia was in the interests of MM Group and our employees in Russia. In December, we decided that it was the best solution and closed the transaction for a debt-free enterprise value of EUR 134 million. It is a clear cut. Pleasingly, our plant in Ukraine was in operation the whole year, even so at reduced output, and I can only congratulate all employees for this achievement. The year 2022 was the second year in which we continued to successfully implement our strategic transformation of MM Group for more competitiveness and growth in sustainable and innovative packaging solutions. The 2021 acquisitions of Kwidzyn and Kotkamills in Virgin Fiberboard and Paper were successfully integrated into the MM Group and contributed already substantially to our profit in 2022.
Second, it was not planned, but when the opportunity came up, we seized this opportunity to enter the growing, profitable, and resilient market of secondary pharmaceutical packaging. With the acquisitions of Essentra Packaging and Eson Pac, we added another pillar to the group with more than EUR 500 million sales and a leading global position in this resilient and growing business. Essentra Packaging was historically only marginally profitable, and we identified with very deep-going due diligence, huge potential to improve results. While it is still early days, we can confirm that we are on track with our turnaround of the former Essentra Packaging. Just a word to Eson Pac, which we acquired in April and where we have a longer view, this company has far exceeded our expectations. Third, we continued our CapEx program with plant expansions and technical modernizations in both divisions.
We want to grow our business through more innovative solutions, more sustainability, and higher efficiency to be the cost and technology leader. Some of these projects unfortunately faced some delays in the last years, but overall, I'm pleased to say that we are well on track. Fourth, we have defined challenging science-based climate targets, and we are proud about the inclusion of MM in the A list of the CDP, since this confirms our sustainability approach and efforts by an independent organization. A number of projects with regards to increasing biomass and photovoltaics are underway to both achieve our climate targets, as well as increase our self-sufficiency in energy. Although sustainability has for a long been embedded in MM's business model, reflecting the circular economy, non-financial performance has become a key criterion on how we define success.
With regards to work safety, we've again achieved strong progress in reducing accidents. The key pillars in our transformation process are profitability, sustainability, responsibility, innovation, and last but not least, financial stability. In the last three years, we have focused on creating value mainly through strategic realignment, expansion, and top-line growth. In the next three years, the focus of value creation moves more towards delivering synergies and executing operational improvements. It's not black and white, it's not a change in strategy, but it is putting a different emphasis on issues, because now we have a broad base, and from this base we can develop a lot of shareholder value. Let me hand over now to Franz Hiesinger, our CFO, who will outline how MM successfully created value in 2022. Afterwards, I will come back with an outlook on the current business year.
In the year 2022, the MM Group grew significantly in terms of profit and sales in a very challenging geopolitical environment. This growth was driven both organically and by acquisitions. Massive cost inflation was successfully compensated by mainly passing on costs in time. We included our two acquisitions from August 2021, Kwidzyn and Kotkamills, on a full year base for the first time. We added our newly acquired pharma entities, Essentra Packaging and Eson Pac. At the end of the year, we divested our packaging plants in Russia and exited from the Russian market. In connection with these activities, and due to further structural adjustment measures, some special effects had to be accounted for this year. Comparisons with the previous year are only limited meaningful.
With EUR 4.7 billion, group sales were up 53% or about EUR 1.6 billion, mainly due to acquisitions and passing on cost inflation. With EUR 510 million operating profit, we achieved an operating margin of 10.9%. The operating margin at MM Board & Paper was a solid 13.9%, whereas it was only 6% in MM Packaging. As already mentioned, we had to account for a series of one-time expenses in 2022, affecting both divisions. At MM Board & Paper, one-off expenses amounted to EUR 25 million, resulting from the closure of one of two carton board machines at our Slovenian MM Količevo mill. At MM Packaging, we had non-recurring expenses of EUR 27 million.
These consisted of transaction costs of EUR 15 million for the acquisitions of Essentra Packaging and Eson Pac, and the sale of the sites in Russia. While the sale of the Russian sites resulted in a gain of EUR 20 million, the reduction of goodwill in customer stock for the exit from the Russian market cost expenses of EUR 32 million. Group return on capital employed was above 16%. An EBITDA of EUR 730 million represents a solid EBITDA margin of 15.6%. We spent EUR 385 million on acquisitions and invested EUR 345 million in capital expenditure for increased competitiveness and future growth. EUR 70 million were distributed as dividends to our shareholders. Our net debt is slightly below EUR 1.5 billion.
With two times net debt EBITDA ratio, we remain comfortably below our long-term threshold of 2.5 times. With an equity ratio above 40% and a net debt equity ratio of 76%, the MM Group's financial position is very solid. Continuous dividend payment is highly important for us and our shareholders. We are delighted to propose a dividend increase by 20% or EUR 0.70 to EUR 4.20 per share at the forthcoming shareholders meeting in April. This prolongs a more than 25 years upward trend in dividend payments, along with the further improvement in earnings per share. Thank you, I hand back to Peter.
Looking into 2023, geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties make any forecast difficult. The demand boom in board and paper ended abruptly already at the end of the Q3 last year due to de-stocking in the supply chains. Since customer inventories are still high, significant market-related downtime in our carton board and paper production are carrying on from Q4 into the Q1 of this year. In addition, our major CapEx projects at Frohnleiten, Neuss, and Količevo mills will lead to longer technical machine downtimes during the first three quarters. On the other hand, some input prices are declining, reflecting current weak demand, which is positive, but may gradually put more pressure on sales prices. As expected, for our board and paper division, a decline in volume end results is foreseeable for 2023.
In the MM Packaging division, demand has weakened slightly in the first two months but shows resilience. Nevertheless, structural adjustment measures and cost optimization efforts will have to be further pursued, mainly for the Essentra Packaging business, but also our legacy packaging. This will lead to one-off costs. Our investment activity will remain elevated in 2023, surpassing EUR 400 million, in order to further strengthen the competitiveness and growth abilities of MM. 2023 will be a transition year for board and paper, as well as an integration year for packaging. The balance sheet of MM and our ongoing cash generation are solid. Our business model, with a focus on sustainable packaging for daily consumer goods, substituting plastic, remains resilient and growing. MM has a good long-term perspective. Thank you