Hexagon Composites ASA (HEX) Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Hexagon Composites Second Quarter Presentation for 2026. My name is Berit-Cathrin Hoyvik, and I'll be moderating today's presentation. Joining me in the studio today is our CEO, Philipp Schramm; and CFO, Eirik Lohre. They will take you through a company update, financials and outlook before we wrap up with the Q&A session. a reminder that you may submit questions on your screen at any point during the presentation. And with that, I'll hand over to Philipp.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Q2 2026 earnings call. Let me start with the headlines. I can proudly describe this quarter as a turning point for Hexagon Composites. Over the last year, we've been focused on improving our resilience, strengthening our balance sheet, lowering our breakeven point and positioning the company for the next phase of growth. This quarter, we saw the results of some of these actions materializing, building on the improvement we have delivered in Q1. We are now fundamentally moving from a defense position into an offense position. The progress we delivered is visible across 4 important developments. First, we have successfully completed the cost reduction program that we launched during 2025. When we initiated this program, we committed to reducing costs while retaining the capacity required to scale up as markets rebound. We have delivered on those commitments. Second, we have strengthened our balance sheet through a NOK 650 million equity raise and significantly improved our financial flexibility. Third, our Mobile Pipeline business signed the largest order in its history in July. We secured an order of USD 100 million equivalent to NOK 1 billion. That opens up a new application for our technology in supporting data center power generation. And finally, we secured an important long-term agreement with IVECO BUS who has selected Hexagon Agility as the exclusive fuel system and cylinder supplier across its entire global CNG bus platform, and this for the next 3 years. As I mentioned in previous quarters, our goal was never just to navigate a market downturn. Our goal was to emerge from it as a stronger, more resilient and more profitable company. That disciplined execution is highlighted in these developments and testified in our results this quarter. Hexagon Composites delivered revenues of NOK 627 million. Adjusting for currency effects, revenues were steady compared to last quarter. What is most significant about these results is the increase in profitability. We delivered EBITDA of NOK 69 million for the quarter, a significant improvement of NOK 57 million from the low point of the market downturn a year ago. This profitability step-up corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 11%, a vast improvement of 9 percentage points from last year. Let me explain some of these actions we have taken to deliver this improved profitability. We have now successfully completed the cost reduction program that began in 2025. This program was ambitious, and it required difficult decision, but it has fundamentally improved the economics of our business. We reduced our headcount by approximately 25%. With that, we reduced personnel expenses and SG&A costs by around NOK 260 million. Adjusting for currency effects and extraordinary items, the underlying structural saving is NOK 120 million. We reduced layers within our organization. With that, we improved the efficiency and the agility of our organization. We reduced CapEx spend and released around NOK 60 million in core working capital in spite of strategic inventory buildup. With those actions, we improved our liquidity. We consolidated our European manufacturing footprint. With that, we streamlined productivity. And in doing so, we have structurally lowered the cost base of our group. Today, we are operating from a much stronger foundation, and we will retain the capability, the expertise and the manufacturing capacity needed to capture future growth. Alongside our own operational improvements, the equity raise of NOK 650 million has enabled us to strengthen our balance sheet and amend our lending facilities with extended maturities and flexibility. The proceeds were used primarily to reduce debt. With that net interest-bearing debt now reduced from just under NOK 1.3 billion to NOK 576 million. Our available liquidity has also improved from NOK 528 million to NOK 796 million after the -- and this is all after the repair offering. This combined strategy has enabled us to deliver on one clear purpose to give Hexagon the financial flexibility required to execute through the recovery cycle and the growth ahead. We now have that flexibility, and we intend to use it with the same discipline that has characterized our actions throughout the last year. Now let's move on to one of the most exciting developments for our mobile pipeline business. In July, we secured the largest mobile pipeline order in Hexagon's history, valued at USD 100 million, equivalent to NOK 1 billion. This latest order from Certarus also includes an additional option valued at around $25 million through to entire 2028. Beyond the size of the order, it represents our first confirmed entrance into data center power generation. Alongside this exciting new application in data center power generation, we have also taken important steps recently in Europe. Last week, we secured a strategically important agreement with IVECO BUS. IVECO is the market leader in European CNG transit. After 2 decades of collaboration and delivering more than 10,000 CNG buses together, IVECO selected Hexagon Agility as its exclusive fuel system and cylinder supplier across its entire CNG bus portfolio. Transit remains one of the more resilient parts of our core business and natural gas and biomethane continue to deliver both economic and environmental benefits to municipalities and bus fleets. This new agreement strengthens our market leadership in Europe while unlocking a piece of future growth in emerging geographies. With that, I will hand over to Eirik, who will walk you through the financials in more detail. Eirik.

Thank you, Philipp, and good morning, everyone. Starting with the group financials. We delivered revenue of NOK 627 million in the quarter, broadly in line with the first quarter when adjusting for FX effects. Revenue for the first half of 2026 amounted to approximately NOK 1.3 billion, reflecting what is typically a seasonally softer first half of the year for Hexagon. The quarter was characterized by low activity level in Mobile Pipeline, partly offset by solid performance in Fuel Systems, which delivered another relatively strong quarter. EBITDA came in at NOK 69 million, corresponding to a margin of 11% and the improvement in profitability reflects both the favorable segment mix and the structural cost measures implemented throughout 2025. For the first half of the year, EBITDA amounted to NOK 126 million or a 10% margin. And overall, we are quite pleased with the profitability development so far in 2026, particularly given that these volumes remain below what we consider normalized levels. Segment-wise, I'll turn first to Fuel Systems, which, as mentioned, delivered a relatively good quarter with revenues of NOK 450 million and EBITDA of NOK 78 million, and this represents a margin of 17%. The truck market remained relatively quiet in the first half for us, but we continue to see solid activity from selected customers. During the quarter, we delivered meaningful volumes of Sleeper cab systems into Mexico, which is becoming an important growth market for Hexagon. Transit bus activity was strong across multiple regions in the quarter, not least in Europe, where we have consolidated production in Castle from the month of June, as also Philipp touched on earlier in the presentation. And together with aerospace deliveries and other specialized deliveries, this contributed positively to both revenue quality and margins in the quarter. And all this, together with operational cost improvements, a good mix contributed to very healthy profitability and in fact, our best quarter in Fuel Systems EBITDA-wise since our record quarter Q4 2024. Moving to Mobile Pipeline, which continues to be lumpy and delivered revenue of NOK 101 million during the quarter, which is significantly down versus Q1. This development was driven partly by timing effects, but also lingering caution among customers regarding capital investments in the North American market, a trend that we expect to see reverse. And looking ahead, we do expect a significant step-up in activity during the second half of the year and also into 2027, driven, of course, by the record Certarus contract we announced in July. And in preparation for this, we deliberately built inventory during the second quarter, and we do expect a significant portion of that inventory to convert into shipments during Q3 and Q4. Turning to Europe, which delivered a strong performance this quarter, good activity levels in the U.K. and Ireland, where we did supply modules to several RNG renewable natural gas projects in addition to deliveries into Continental Europe, but also into Middle East. And despite the overall activity level remaining pretty low for Mobile Pipeline in the second quarter, the segment delivered breakeven EBITDA, which also reflects improved cost performance and the actions taken over the last year to reduce the structural breakeven level of the business. Additionally, I do want to note that the discipline continues to guide our market expansion strategy. In Q2, we had multiple opportunities to pursue additional opportunities in South America, in particular, but chose not to participate where pricing didn't support our return requirements. So we do want to protect our margins also when approaching new markets and emerging markets. Aftermarket, we delivered revenue of NOK 98 million and EBITDA of NOK 11 million for the quarter. The overall parts and service market remains relatively soft as we continue to see fleet operators extending service intervals and also utilizing existing spare parts inventories. That said, the mix is gradually improving. We saw increasing activity in mobile pipeline trailer requalifications during the quarter. And while this is still a relatively small part of the business, requalification activities entering a more favorable cycle that follows mobile pipeline sales volumes in the years following 2020. Moreover, we're seeing our certified preowned and refurbishment offerings continue to gain traction as our first-generation systems and trailers reach end of life. And these activities typically carry attractive economics and represent a growing share of our external service revenues, but also contributed positively to revenue and margins in Q2. Turning to cash flow. Cash flow from operations was NOK 128 million for the quarter, which was helped by release of working capital and other accruals. And I do want to point out that this is despite the fact that we have built significant inventory of finished goods, as mentioned, to prepare for the extra and increased activity in the second half of the year, in particular within the Mobile Pipeline segment. So we should expect that particular effect to be reversed in the coming quarters. We continue with low CapEx spend, only prioritizing capital -- critical capital projects. So far this year, we have spent around NOK 20 million, NOK 12 million this quarter against our full year guidance of NOK 70 million to NOK 80 million. Net interest payments of NOK 39 million included an annual interest payment related to the Purus [ CRS ], which was terminated in April. So I expect this to drop significantly in the coming quarters also because we have obviously reduced our overall debt level. All in all, net cash flow for the quarter was NOK 115 million, which includes around NOK 30 million net proceeds from the equity raise and repayment of debt, but also NOK 30 million from our discontinued operations in Poland, which involved sale of inventory, but also a collection of receivables as we empty the factory in Poland. On top of our cash flow improvements, I wanted to touch briefly on our balance sheet. Our leverage has significantly reduced following the recent equity raise and refinancing. And at the end of the second quarter, we had gross debt of NOK 972 million, cash on hand of NOK 294 million and net interest-bearing debt of NOK 678 million. And including the proceeds from the repair offering completed in July, as Philipp mentioned earlier, at quarter -- after quarter end, pro forma net debt would be NOK 576 million. Available liquidity also improved significantly, supported by both positive cash generation in the business, but also additional flexibility from the amended financing agreements. And this stood at NOK 694 million at quarter end, which equates NOK 796 million on a pro forma basis, i.e., including the impact of the repair offering. So all in all, we believe the refinancing and the strengthened balance sheet provide us with the financial flexibility needed to support growth and also execute on our commercial opportunities for the second half of the year and not least beyond that. So with that, I'll hand it back to Philipp to walk you through what we see ahead.

Thank you, Eirik. Let's move into the outlook. As I mentioned earlier, momentum is building across several of our key markets. Moving into the second half of the year, the market environment still contains some lingering uncertainty, but the direction is increasingly positive in mobile pipeline, broader industrial demand, including oil and gas, is showing the first signs of improvement after a soft year where customers focused on asset utilization as we have spoken in previous quarters about. New demand drivers such as data centers and data center energy demand are now also emerging and beginning to offset some of the cyclical market softness, which we had to experience. For fuel systems, refuse remains healthy and transit momentum continues to improve across multiple regions and geographies. In trucking, after a slow year, freight fundamentals are recovering and the economic case for natural gas continues to strengthen. Also, on the challenges side, we do expect diesel prebuy activity due to the incoming 2027 regulations, and we experienced some lingering caution from fleets who are limiting CapEx investments in new technology while they absorb near-term diesel OpEx increases. However, we do see good momentum and promising signal for the remainder of 2026 and the outlook for 2027 is improving. The structural drivers supporting natural gas vehicles continue to remain very compelling. While the recovery in our core markets is still ongoing and some conditions remain mixed, I want to be clear that the momentum we see today is fundamentally different from what we experienced 12 months ago. This is supported by our significant better profitability and significant better cost base. These improving underlying trends are why for 2026, we expect to deliver revenue growth moderately above last year's level. Based on the progress we have delivered during the first half, the strengthening of our financial position, and improving visibility in our key markets, we are raising our full year EBITDA guidance from above NOK 200 million to around NOK 300 million. We do see some normal uncertainty around timing of customer deliveries and project execution in the second half of this year, and we continue to monitor cost impacts from the broader geopolitical environment. That leads me that based on the current visibility, we are confident that the second half of the year will be stronger than the first with an improving base demand in 2027. This quarter's Certarus order validated what we believe could be a major opportunity for our business. Data centers are rapidly becoming a significant new end market for our mobile pipeline technology. The challenge many developers are facing is simple. Demand for power generation is growing faster than the infrastructure can be built. Grid expansion takes time with wait times exceeding up to 4 years in some U.S. states. Developers are seeking solutions now, and our mobile pipeline technology can solve that gap. Mobile Pipeline modules provide compressed natural gas directly on site for power generation, enabling projects to begin operations while permanent infrastructure is developed. And with the TITAN 510, our latest product launch in May, we have designed a technology platform specifically to service higher volume gas applications. The TITAN 510 contains the largest Type 4 composite cylinder ever manufactured, enabling a fleet of mobile pipelines to efficiently support power generation for a hyperscale data center. Our technology leadership and the scale of the opportunity gives us confidence that this is the beginning of a potential meaningful new market for our technology. Moving to one of our other exciting long-term growth opportunities, which is natural gas trucking in North America. For several quarters, we have spoken about the importance of the economics. That remains true today. Alongside the U.S. Class 8 truck market rebounding, fuel spreads continue to favor natural gas and fleets are increasingly focused on improving their operating costs. As I've said before, the industry is approaching an important shift from 2027 onwards. Natural gas trucks now offer diesel-like performance while delivering compelling total cost of ownership. While the latest U.S. EPA regulation revision may extend the transition period over the course of 2027, the incoming EPA regulation from '27 onwards will improve this CNG conversion equation even further. Diesel trucks will get more complex and more expensive. As we have seen over the last 18 months, fundamentally changing an entire industry that had used diesel for a century is not easy, but we are on it. While the timing of accelerated CNG adoption is difficult to predict, our conviction in the long-term direction remains unchanged. As we have seen the underlying drivers enablers materializing and more and more smaller fleets are piloting our systems. This gives us confidence the market is moving sustainably in the right direction. To wrap it up, I want to touch on how all of this ties together. First, Hexagon today is a stronger and more resilient company. Alongside a strengthened balance sheet, we have completed our cost transformation and structurally improved our profitability. Second, we have multiple growth drivers across both existing and adjacent markets. Natural gas adoption continues to advance. Transit momentum is positive. The data center opportunity is emerging, and we continue to expand our reach across geographies and applications. And third, -- we are well positioned to capture long-term profitable growth. We are the technology leader in our industry. We have unmatched customer base and unmatched capacity. With that, thank you so much for your interest, and thank you for joining us today. With that, let's move on to Q&A. Berit-Cathrin, please.

We'll jump straight into the first question for you, Philipp, on regulation. How do you see the EPA's recent revisions to the 2027 NOx emission standards impacting CNG conversion?

Positive, first of all, and let me explain you why. the NOx rule holds, meaning that heavy-duty trucks in North America Class 8 trucks need to reduce their NOx emissions. These emission levels, which are proposed can be fulfilled by CNG trucks. Diesel trucks need additional after gas treatment. That means they become more expensive and from a technological point of view, more complex to maintain. So for the adoption of CNG, this is very positive. With the new discussions about EPA27, there is option in there that some of the OEMs can defer it partially by paying a penalty. This is something which we see from our discussion could lead to a slightly increased diesel prebuy into 2027. Nevertheless, the investments made by all the major OEMs to transition to lower NOx emission and compliant trucks will happen, what we hear from everyone. So what we only see is it might be that the diesel prebuy will extend into the early of 2027. So sum it up, it's very positive, and we are happy that it's going in this direction. It's good for our application, but it's also good for the environment.

Maybe to you, Eirik. Given the improvement delivered so far in 2026 and the stronger second half trajectory you're pointing to -- how should we translate that momentum into 2027 expectations?

I think, obviously, it's early days. And typically, we don't provide any guidance for next year at this point in 2026. I think we feel relatively good about the second half of this year. And for those who have followed Hexagon for a while, they know that the visibility is not always the best, but we still feel quite good about the second half. Of course, we have booked some business already, notably some of the Sartorius orders will be delivered. Quite a significant portion will be delivered in 2027. So that provides a good baseline for our Mobile Pipeline business. We know that our transit business and our refuse business and our aftermarket business is relatively resilient. And as Philipp mentioned, right, we're still trying to learn how those -- the new proposal from EPA will impact the demand for CNG trucks into 2027. But generally, we feel that we are -- we have the low point of the cycle behind us and that 2027 should be another year of market recovery, but we look forward to sharing more insights in the Q3 presentation, but also the Q4 presentation, which is typically when we provide forward-looking guidance or indications.

Another question for you, Eirik, on Mobile Pipeline. Can you give more insight into the forward profitability pattern in Mobile Pipeline? In the second quarter, it was 0 and the $100 million order will show up as revenues in the coming quarters. But which EBITDA margin should be assumed in the past 2024, Mobile Pipeline EBITDA margin was 20%. So is that a realistic level?

I think inherently, the Mobile Pipeline business is pretty lumpy. I think you've seen that with the volatility on the top line over the last couple of years, as an example. We have to acknowledge that we still are at a pretty soft overall market, although we think it is improving. So kind of commercial terms also in contract reflect that, even though we think the margin and profitability of this business will improve going forward. Generally speaking, this is a business that scales pretty well with volumes, so high operating leverage. And we think 20% is probably a stretch, but we're optimistic that we can restore a healthy margin. And I think also we have done quite a good job in terms of reducing cost, both on the material side, but also on the operating -- other operating cost side. So we're optimistic that we can deliver improving and sustainable margin in this business going forward.

A question for you, Philipp, X15N. Are you still securing new pilot orders for fuel systems to the X15N? And could you quantify the number of fleet operators who have or are testing?