Last week, we announced our financial results for our fiscal 2021 fourth quarter and year end, which concluded on May 31, 2021. Despite the incredible disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and more recently by unprecedented supply chain challenges, we generated strong financial results. This is due in large part to your perseverance and execution of our MAP to Growth program, which was successfully concluded at year end. I would like to thank each and every one of you for your contributions to this program and our financial performance.
Over the course of our three-year MAP to Growth initiative, we made significant improvements across the business. We reduced our global manufacturing footprint, created a lasting culture of manufacturing excellence and continuous improvement, consolidated material spending across our operating companies, negotiated improved payment terms that helped us to reduce working capital, consolidated accounting locations and migrated 75% of our organization to one of four group-level ERP platforms.
Our fiscal 2021 full-year consolidated sales increased nearly 11% to $6.1 billion, our earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margin increased by 150 basis points, and adjusted EBIT was up by 26.5%. Also, operating cash flow climbed nearly 40% to a record $766.2 million, and our adjusted EBIT margin climbed to 12.8%, which was also a record.
For the fourth quarter, we generated consolidated net sales of $1.74 billion, an increase of 19.6% compared to the $1.46 billion reported in the year-ago period. We were very pleased with this strong top-line growth considering the raw material shortages and supply chain disruptions we faced. Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 13.3% to $1.28 compared to $1.13 in the fiscal 2020 fourth quarter. Our adjusted EBIT was $236.2 million compared to $213.6 million during the year-ago period, which was an increase of 10.6%. If you exclude the impact of our non-operating segment from both years, our four operating segments combined generated adjusted EBIT growth of 27.5% as they overcame margin pressures and supply availability challenges.
Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2022, we expect consolidated sales to increase in the low- to mid-single digits compared to the fiscal 2021 first quarter, when sales grew 9%, creating a difficult year-over-year comparison. Additionally, supply constraints have slowed production in some product categories. In fact, we anticipate having more raw material availability lost production days in the first quarter of this year than we had from the impact of Covid-19 shutdowns during the first quarter of last year.
Despite these factors, our revenue growth is expected to continue in our Construction Products, Performance Coatings and Specialty Products Groups based on the assumption that global economies continue to improve. Sales in our Consumer Group are expected to decline double digits as it continues to face difficult comparisons to the prior year when organic growth was up 34%. However, the Consumer Group’s fiscal 2022 first-quarter sales are expected to be above the pre-pandemic record, indicating that it has since expanded the user base for its products.
We expect our first-quarter adjusted EBIT to grow in the same three of our four segments, with the exception again being our Consumer Group. Based on the anticipated decline in this one segment, our first-quarter consolidated adjusted EBIT is expected to decrease 25% to 30% versus a difficult prior-year comparison, when adjusted EBIT in last year’s first quarter was up nearly 40%.
For more information about our results, I encourage you to read our earnings release or listen to a replay of the fourth-quarter earnings webcast, both of which can be accessed via the RPM website.
This past fiscal year is one we won’t soon forget. But thanks to strong leadership, the unwavering dedication of our frontline workers who kept our manufacturing and distribution centers operating during the pandemic, and the success of our MAP to Growth program, I believe we came out of every challenge we faced even stronger than we were before. Although we may have reached the 2020 MAP to Growth’s conclusion, we will continue to leverage the lessons learned from the program to chart a course for 2025.
Sincerely,
Frank C. Sullivan
Chairman and CEO