Bodycote has more than 40,000 customers serviced by more than 180 facilities around the world. These facilities are organised into two customer focused businesses; the ADE business and the AGI business. Our AGI business is focused on automotive and general industrial customers. These include many multinational businesses which tend to operate on a regionally-focused basis, as well as numerous medium sized and smaller businesses, all of which are important to Bodycote. Much of the AGI business is locally oriented.
Strategically we have focused on building customer relationships to enable our participation in long term programmes. Not only do we have a competitive advantage as a result of our scale and capabilities, but our global reach allows customers to work with us on multiple projects simultaneously, making us a valued business partner.
Our extensive network of more than 120 AGI facilities enables the business to offer the widest range of capability and security of supply. Bodycote has a long and successful history of servicing its wide-ranging customer base.
The following review reflects constant currency growth rates unless stated otherwise.
Revenue was £440.6m, 7% ahead of the prior year (6% at actual rates). Western Europe delivered solid growth, driven by a strong performance in the first half of the year. North America also registered robust growth through the year. Once again, Emerging Markets were the standout performer, registering growth above 20% and now representing 14% of total divisional revenues, driven by strong performances in Mexico and China.
Headline operating profit was £82.4m (2017: £74.2m), 12% ahead of the prior period (11% at actual rates). Return on sales expansion has been a focus for our AGI business over many years and we continued this trend, reporting further improvement to 18.8% (2017: 17.8%). Statutory operating profit grew to £79.6m (2017: £71.2m).
Net capital expenditure was £50.2m (2017: £37.8m) representing 1.3 times depreciation. We are continuing to invest in the rapid growth Emerging Markets, our Specialist Technologies and investing in new facilities alongside investment in new capacity in existing facilities.
Return on capital employed increased to 20.1% (2017: 17.8%), further augmenting last year's improvement and hitting the Group's hurdle return on capital employed for the first time since the AGI business structure was created.