AKVA group ASA (AKVA) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and very much welcome to the Q3 presentation for AKVA Group. I will do the introduction and the highlights. Ronny Meinkoehn, the CFO, will do the financial performance, and then followed by a Q&A session. So, please post any questions you might have, and our moderator will read your question. The highlights for the third quarter. Solid quarterly revenue of NOK 1.1 billion, and EBIT of NOK 89 million. Just into the fourth quarter, early October, we were awarded the RAS contract from Tytlandsvik Aqua, with estimated contract value of NOK 220 million. Order intake is expected to be strong in Q4, providing a solid foundation for continued revenue growth into 2026. And AKVA is confident to deliver on 2025 revenue and EBIT guidance of minimum NOK 4 billion and 6%, respectively. Let's go straight to the numbers. Revenue for the quarter was NOK 1.1 billion. EBITDA came in at NOK 148 million and EBIT at NOK 89 million. This is representing our best third quarter ever, and we are pleased with both the activity level and the financial performance. Year-to-date, revenue of NOK 3.3 billion, EBITDA of NOK 406 million, and EBIT of NOK 236 million. This is representing a 20% increase in revenue year-on-year, and also our best financial performance ever. So, we are pleased with that. Let's look into order intake and order backlog. Order intake of NOK 786 million in total, which is on the soft side for Q3, above the level as a year ago. And please be aware that there is a seasonality in the order intake pattern. Saying that, we expect Q4 this quarter to be very strong, significantly stronger than the same quarter a year ago, which was NOK 1.1 billion. And that will secure a good momentum for continuous growth into 2026 versus '25 then. And this statement is based on actual sales we have seen now in October, and the number of tenders being out there. So that is the basis for our qualification of a strong order intake in Q4. Order backlog of NOK 2.4 billion, which is a reasonable level. Then I will spend some time, some minutes on the long-term Salmon opportunity. And this is a kind of executive summary of the Capital Market Day we had back in June this year. First of all, a few words about AKVA Group. We are a technology innovator across multiple areas. We are the pioneer. We have been the first mover in many important areas. Starting in the 1980s with the automated feeding, which is kind of the DNA of AKVA Group. More recently, over the last 8, 10 years, the development and the first mover of the deep farming concept where we have delivered more than 200 cages now till date. And then over the last 30 years, we have been a pioneer and a mover, first mover within the Smolt and the Post-smolt segment, which is now proof-of-concept is very much there. And that gave also birth to the Land Based grow-out area, which is now happening first and foremost in China with Nordic Aqua Partner. Also, since the '80s, we have been there with software and more recently more AI-based solutions. Then moving more into the industry. Salmon farming industry is at a crossroad. The graph on the numbers here is representing Atlantic salmon, the volume globally over the last 20 years or so. It took 3 decades, 30 years to pass the first 1 million tonne in 2001. And then another 10 years or so, a little more, 11 in 2012 to add another 1 million tonne. And then slightly less than 10 years till 2021 to pass 3 million tonnes. But then followed by some years of stagnation. And why stagnation, there have been some industry barriers in the recent years, which is about fish health, high mortality regulations. We have seen growth constraints related to regulations and also the social license has been at stake. And even more, we have seen financial risk, first and foremost, represented by the new resource tax as such. So, this has hindered some growth. But saying that in 2025, we have seen some good growth of 9%. That is on the back of excellent biology. But still, in 2026, we do not expect too much growth again, more flattish. And now the challenge. The challenge is how to double salmon production by 2040. So, the -- what we see is that the current business model is running out of capacity and new investments are required. What we like to see in this industry is a healthy growth. Probably a healthy growth is something like 5% because there is an underlying megatrend and growth for salmon consumption demand. And 5% is representing a healthy growth because the market can handle that and you will have a healthy salmon price with that type of growth. And if we can grow the market with around 5% year-on-year, that will take basically the challenge to double over the next 15 years. And that cannot happen within the current production model. So new investments will be required, new investments in new technology, technology like deep farming, post-smolt and also grow-out. And that is to overcome the industry barriers, so to say. And then, we have just illustrated some of the growth potential. Of course, it can be -- it can happen in real life in a different way than this, but this is for illustration purposes. So, the starting point is that the traditional Sea Based farming currently produces around 3 million tonnes of Atlantic salmon globally. We believe that, if we can scale deep farming over the next 15 years, that could add another 15% capacity by reducing lice, lowering mortality and open the social license to produce more. Furthermore, post-smolt holds the potential to add 30% to 35% to volumes That is by improving biomass yield and reducing mortality. Land Based growth beginning to gain traction with long-term potential of 500,000 tonnes or more. And of course, other emerging technologies like offshore, close containment is likely required also to support growth as such. Diving into deep farming. We see a potential to unlock 15% higher harvesting volume over the next 15 years or so. Submerged cages reduce the sea lice treatment by up to 85% and hence, reducing mortality with relatively speaking, limited additional investments. Proven improved fish welfare supporting social license. This is important because we think in addition to the effect from lower mortality, we think also there will be a positive impact of increased or greater social license, enabling growth as well. And this concept is currently applicable for close to 60% of the locations, and we believe this is representing a NOK 6 billion market. Using this opportunity also to give a short commercial update on deep farming, where we are right now. As I mentioned, we have delivered more than 200 cages. And now just into October, we got our first commercial contract of deep farming to Turkey of NOK 45 million. And the concept in Turkey is to produce trout in the Black Sea. The surface temperature is very high during the summer. And the concept is to bring the fish 30, 40 meters underneath to come to more ideal temperatures, enabling the industry to grow salmon throughout the summer months. So, this can be a breakthrough in Turkey. We also believe that talking Turkey for the bass production, also the temperature in the sea is too high in the summer now. So, we also believe that, there is a business case for moving bass down in the deep. Back to Norway, we expect to sign contracts with several new customers during Q4. Post-smolt established as an industry growth strategy. It is bringing shorter production cycles down to 7, 8, 9 months with reduced exposure in the sea. It's about fewer sea lice treatments, lower mortality and increased biomass yield. And we have a strong documentation from the Faroe Islands and the Rogaland region. And we see a potential based on those business cases, Faroe and Rogaland of unlocking 30% to 35% volume growth. Also here, a short commercial update. In addition to the new contract of NOK 220 million we have reported early October, that's with Tytlandsvik. We also expect to close several new contracts over the next months to come. AKVA Group, we are the only true global RAS supplier. We have physical presence in Norway. We are the only one with the presence in Chile and the only one in China. And we have a global project capabilities, so we can drive projects, execute projects all over the world. We have invested a lot in Land Based, actually around NOK 300 million in the last 5 years. We have 250 very competent people, and we have a solid order backlog, which we expect to increase in the years to come. So, we are very well positioned for taking part of the expected growth. We have proven and documented technology. We have end-to-end project execution, and we have advisory and services. With regards to Land Based growth, Land Based farming is beginning to mature. We saw 25,000 tonnes of production in '24 after a decade with trial and errors. And several RAS and reuse facilities now showing commercial validation. Nordic Aqua in China is now delivering predictable and well-documented volumes of superior fish. Also here, a small commercial update. We are now working with other Land Based projects than NOAP. NOAP is exciting still for us. It's our #1 customer within this segment. And we also expect to -- in the future to deliver Phase III for NOAP. But now we're also busy with increasing the customer portfolio, and it's getting more concrete now than before. So, we expect something to materialize over the next months. When it comes to digital, also here, we have invested to create a globally leading digital platform within aquaculture. Over the last 5 years, we have invested as much as NOK 500 million and majority or a bit more than half of that was acquiring the AI company, Observe. And the rest of the money went into further development of AKVA Fishtalk, AKVA Connect and also the acquisition of AKVA Submerged. And we are present in all the major salmon markets. Our platform is based on, first of all, a complete platform. It's about biological control. There, we have a 60% market share. That's Fishtalk to the left here. To the right, it is about control system between the barges and the pens where we have more than 50% market share. And in the midst, it's about short-term decision-making using AI to support short-term decision-making. And here, for instance, Observe is very, very instrumental. We are now the owner -- we own Observe 100%. We have global presence. It's a truly scalable solution, and we have around a bit more than 100 sites now. Also here, a small commercial update. During Q4, we expect to add and contract another 70 to 80 sites on top of the more than 100-plus sites being there. So Q4 is expected to be a kind of breakthrough when it comes to the commercialization of Observe. Coming to the end, AKVA Group has the position as a global leader and trusted partner. We have the 3 platforms, Sea Based, Land Based and Digital. And we bring improved fish health and welfare, higher growth and higher value creation. We truly believe we are part of the solution, and our technology can provide growth and value creation as such. This is a graph just showing in the blue or black colors, AKVA revenue over the last 8, 9 years. And then in the orange graph, it is the development of the investments in fixed assets by the farmers. So, the investment level in the Salmon farming industry increases by 12% annually over those years. And that is significantly outpacing the harvest volume, which is more at 2.3%. And the AKVA Group revenue had overall also increased to the same 12%, in line with the industry investments. Year-to-date, we are a bit higher. We are at 20% revenue growth year-to-date. And then coming to the end, our strategic road map, which was presented during the Capital Market Day in June. First of all, we like to confirm the 2025 guidance, which is a revenue of NOK 4 billion and minimum NOK 4 billion, sorry, and EBIT of 6% or higher. Then a new 2026 guidance, that is to be reported as part of the Q4 reporting, which will happen in February. So, in February, we will release the 2026 guidance. And then we have the 2027 target of NOK 5 billion and EBIT of 9%. And today, we have a bit more information than in June when we issued this, and we just want to reiterate the 2027 target, which was reported during the Capital Market Day. And that brings me very much to the end. We will now move into the financial performance. And Ronny Meinkoehn, our CFO, he will do the presentation. So please, Ronny.

Thank you, Knut, and good morning to everyone. We are satisfied with the financial performance in this third quarter. And as we told you when we did the Q2 presentation back in August, we expected Q3 to be a repeat of Q2, and that's exactly what happened. So, we had a strong revenue in this third quarter, NOK 176 million higher than Q3 last year and revenue year-to-date of NOK 3.3 billion is more than 20% higher than in 2024. So, we have demonstrated good growth in Land Based and Sea Based in 2025. And we are, of course, comfortable to deliver on our revenue guiding this year of NOK 4 billion. The profitability in the third quarter was strong. EBITDA of NOK 148 million is NOK 20 million higher than in Q3 last year. And year-to-date EBITDA of NOK 406 million is more than NOK 100 million than in the same period last year, which is a strong increase of more than 30%. On EBIT, year-to-date, we have a margin of 7.2%, well above our guiding for the full year of minimum 6%. And the net financial costs in the quarter was low of NOK 14 million, positively impacted by the NOK 10 million increase in market value on our investment in Nordic Aqua Partners. So overall, we are satisfied with a profit before tax of NOK 75 million in Q3 and NOK 177 million year-to-date. And for Q4, we expect a soft closing for the year, both with regards to revenue and profit due to the seasonality in our Sea Based business. The book-to-bill ratio over the last 12 months is a bit above 100% with both order intake and revenue of NOK 4.1 billion. Book-to-bill ratio in the third quarter was somewhat soft of 71%. However, as stated by Knut, based on the momentum we see in the market, we expect a strong order intake in Q4, which will support continued revenue growth into 2026. And compared to Q3 last year, we see increased revenue in all our markets, except Americas with 22% increase in Nordic, 27% increase in Australasia and 53% increase in Europe and Middle East. Sea Based business represented 69% of our total revenue in the quarter and the increase in revenue is mainly related to Land Based, which had 90% higher revenue in Q3 this year compared to a year ago. We delivered a strong EBITDA of 13.3% in Q3, in line with Q3 last year and a bit higher than in Q1 and Q2 earlier this year. We have a strong EBITDA margin of 14.7% in Sea Based, which is supported by a sound product mix and also high activity, which provides economies of scale at our production facilities. For Land Based, we continue to see improved profitability due to higher revenue and also improved project margins with an EBITDA of 7.3% for the quarter. Available cash was reduced by NOK 31 million in the quarter and ended at NOK 442 million, and the main reason for this reduction is due to the increase in net working capital of NOK 56 million from 9.4% in Q2 to 10.5% in Q3. We expect some relief in the net working capital during Q4. And the leverage ratio was increased from 2.3 to 2.62 in Q3. And the reason for this increase is related to the observed gain of NOK 71 million recognized in Q3 '24, when we did the 100% acquisition of Observe Technologies. And this gain is no longer included in the last 12 months EBITDA. But still, our ratio of 2.62 is comforting compared to the threshold of 4.5. Net interest-bearing debt has increased by NOK 35 million in the quarter, driven by the increased net working capital of NOK 56 million. We have NOK 44 million in CapEx and also NOK 49 million in new IFRS 16 liability. Year-to-date, we have a reduction in net interest-bearing debt of NOK 94 million, which is driven by the net proceeds from the sale of our shares in Abyss Group back in Q1. Total CapEx of NOK 44 million, where close to 40% is related to our 3 innovation agendas, one for Sea Based, Land Based and also one for Digital. And we have another NOK 7 million in CapEx related to rental products, meaning investments in products we are leasing out to our customers. Year-to-date, we have CapEx of NOK 118 million. The improved financial performance is also reflected on the return on capital employed, which increased from 7% in Q3 last year to 10.5% in Q3 this year, which is in line with our guiding. Dividend, we paid NOK 1 in April for the first half year, and we also paid another NOK 1 now start of November for the second half year. And of course, it's good to be in a position to distribute dividends again and NOK 2 per share for the 2025 is a record for AKVA. Continue somewhat details on the financial performance in our 3 business segments, and I will start with Sea Based technology. Overall, revenue of NOK 770 million is NOK 30 million higher than Q3 last year, while order intake was somewhat lower of NOK 15 million compared to 1 year ago. Strong EBITDA margin of 14.7%, driven by a healthy product mix and also high activity, which provides economies of scale. On the regions, we see in Nordic, we have increased revenue of 3% in the quarter, reduced order intake of 12% compared to Q3 last year. In Americas, revenue was down by 14%, but we see a sharp increase in order intake of more than 100% compared to 2024. And last, Europe, Middle East, revenue increased by 64%, while order intake was down by 61%. We see the 12 months revenue trend for Sea Based is positive, and we also expect the 12 months order intake trend to turn positive in Q4 on the back of a very high tender activity in the market. So order backlog in Sea Based, NOK 745 million is NOK 35 million higher than Q3 last year. And the OpEx-based revenue in Sea Based is a very important part of our Sea Based operations, and the revenue was somewhat lower in Q3 this year compared to last year. But overall, for the year, we are at NOK 826 million, which is a bit more than in 2024. For Land Based, the order intake in Q3 was NOK 138 million and primarily related to the new contract for Laxey on Iceland of EUR 8.5 million. The revenue in the quarter was high, more than NOK 300 million and a 90% increase compared to Q3 2024. So we had good activity and good progress on our project for NOAP in China, as well as for other larger projects, both in Norway, Iceland and also in Chile. EBITDA improved significantly by EUR 17 million in Q3 this year compared to last year and ended at 7.3%. The improved profitability is, of course, related to the higher revenue, which provides economies of scale and also to improved project margins. So the 12 months revenue trend for Sea Based is really positive, and we also expect to see a positive shift in the 12 months order intake trend in Q4 due to the newly awarded RAS contract for Tytlandsvik Aqua of more than NOK 200 million. So order backlog in Land Based is solid. It's just above NOK 1.4 billion, which is NOK 70 million lower than last year. And last, digital with an order intake of NOK 28 million in Q3, same level as last year. Revenue was also at the same level as in 2024. We see EBITDA margin improved from 31.9% to 36%. And the trend, the 12 months revenue trend is a flatliner. However, as Knut stated, we have secured some good sales now in Q4, we expect to see a positive trend, both with regards to revenue and also order intake in 2026. And we have an order backlog of NOK 183 million for digital, which is NOK 36 million higher than 1 year ago. That was my financial update. I will hand it back to Knut now for the outlook and the Q&A.

Thank you very much, Ronny. Outlook, we foresee a continued strong momentum for our deep farming concept, as I already explained about, continuing to invest and improve our solutions across Sea Based, Land Based and Digital. And once again, we are aiming for our revenue above NOK 4 billion this year and EBIT of 6% as such. And we also expect a strong order intake in Q4 to support continued revenue growth in 2026. And that brings us down to the Q&A session. So we like to open the Q&A session. So -- we ask our moderator, if there is any questions.

We have one question from Mr. Henrik Knutsen, Pareto. How do you see the competition in post-smolt production from closed systems in sea?

Yes. Yes. First of all, we see a good appreciation for post-smolt -- the post-smolt concept as such. And there are 2 ways of producing a post-smolt. You can do it in a RAS facility on land, and you can also do it in a closed containment in sea. I think the answer to the question is very much related to regulations. We see an uptake in the interest for producing post-smolt in the sea very recently because of the new incentives related to the Miljuflex -- sorry, for the Norwegian Miljuflex regulation. And that -- there is an incentive up to 30,000 tonnes there, because you can get back some of the lost volume in net track in Norwegian. And that is attractive when you can have this growth without utilizing and using your current MAB. So, we think that is a fair opportunity for the farmers. However, in a more regular situation where you have to use out of your current MAB, we think that for us on land is competitive. So, I think it's a question about regulation at the end of the day. Saying that, we see good tender activity on both smolt because there are still smolt facilities, regular smolt facilities to be built and also post-smolt. And even on the ongoing, we have some good activity. So, we are not worried for the next few years to come.

We also have a question from Mr. Ola Trovatn, DNB. Do you expect a stronger order intake in Sea Based Q4 2025 versus Q4 2024? And also, do you expect a similar revenue level and EBITDA margin for Land Based in Q4 2025 versus Q3 2024?

So on the order intake first, and we have said clearly that, we expect a higher activity level for Q4 for AKVA Group in total, but we also expect that to be the case for Sea Based. Now I'm talking order intake Q4. And Ronny, you can comment on the expectation for Land Based in Q4.

Yes. We are, of course, pleased to see the progress in Land Based with high activity level and also improved profit margins, and we expect more or less the same to happen in Q4 this year, yes.