Key highlights of the quarter included an 8% increase in sales, with growth in U.S. Positive net flows in several strategies, including high conviction growth equity, multi-sector fixed income, listed real assets and event-driven. We remained active in broadening our product offerings to meet the evolving client demand and expand our growth opportunities over time. We continued to launch attractive, actively managed ETFs, including emerging markets dividend ETF from our systematic team, a real estate income ETF from Duff & Phelps, and a growth equity ETF from Silver.
Total sales increased 8% to $5.8 billion, with a 26% increase in sales of equity strategies, in large part from some of our strategies that do not have a quality orientation. The operating margin was 24% and reflected the impact of seasonally higher employment expenses. Earnings per share as adjusted at $5.38 declined from the fourth quarter, primarily due to a $1.26 per share of seasonal employment expenses. In addition to first quarter seasonal expenses, cash usage included the $200 million closing payment for the Keystone investment and $23 million representing the majority of our remaining revenue participation obligation.
During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 73,000 shares for $10 million and paid our quarterly dividend. We continue to have financial flexibility to balance our capital priorities of investing in the business, returning capital to shareholders, and maintaining appropriate leverage. The increase was led by sales of equity strategies, which increased 26% with the growth broadly across domestic, international, and global equity. Retail separate account sales increased to $1.4 billion from $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter, primarily due to a 30% increase in sales in the intermediary sold channel across strategies.