ABL Group ASA (ABL) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody. My name is Hege Norheim. I'm the CEO of ABL Group, and I will be presenting our Q4 2025 results together with our CFO, Stuart Jackson, today. [Operator Instructions]. I will start by giving you a little bit intro into ABL Group. I want to talk a little bit about our operations in Q4, and I will share some observations as CEO in my first quarter since I started 15th of September. And then I will hand over to Stuart to take you through the details of our financials for Q4, and then we'll round off with some discussion around the market outlooks going forward. Let me also remind you of our disclaimer, and I'll let you read that on your own time. All right. Let me give you the highlights of Q4. Our revenues are up 3% compared to year-on-year Q4 2024, mainly by our acquisitions, Techconsult and Proper Marine, which we did in 2025, but also organic growth in our biggest segment, ABL segment and Longitude. Our adjusted EBIT in Q4 was $3.2 million, which is a bit above what we delivered in Q4 2024, so year-on-year, but the same margin in percentage, 3.6%. Our net debt increased to $5.4 million, up from Q3 last year, $2.6 million, and that was primarily driven by dividend payment, which Stuart will come back to. And we are proposing a dividend of NOK 0.45 per share in first half of this year, corresponding to about USD 6 million. All right. Let me remind you a little bit of who we are before we continue. ABL Group, obviously, a technical consultancy company, global, with 77 offices over 44 countries and in Q4, an average of 2,023 employees, including our highly beloved freelancers. And I want to draw your attention to the pies here in terms of where our revenues and EBIT comes from. We work in 3 sectors, of which oil and gas constitutes about 3/4 of our revenue, and the remaining quarter is divided between the marine sector and our renewable sector. And we do that through 4 brands, where ABL segment and the AGR team is contributing about 40% each, a bit more of our revenues and the remaining is generated through Longitude and OWC. I'll come back to these brands in a second. But on EBIT, ABL is clearly our biggest contributor with about 70% and the others then constitute the rest of our EBIT, which I will also remain and return to. And then on the bars, just to remind everybody that this group has had an enormous journey over the last 7 years, tenfold growth in revenue as well as tenfolding our number of employees, mainly through acquisitions, obviously. And then we've had some headwinds in our markets and a fall in EBIT over the last 2 years, which we will also discuss more. Our 4 brands, just to remind everybody what they do, what is different. Longitude starting to the right is our engineering arm, working across the sectors with experts in design and engineering. OWC is our renewable expert consultants and particularly, I would say, have a strong brand globally on offshore wind. AGR, specialists in drilling wells and subsurface for all sectors and also have a subsea or marine operations team here in Norway, working mainly in Norway on the Norwegian shelf as well as in Australia. And then finally, ABL segment, which are leading marine consultants working on loss prevention and loss management, both in energy and maritime as well as asset integrity management and general technical consultancy into the oil and gas and marine sector. And we're busy. Through a year, we typically have around 8,000 contracts. And you can see here how they spread across sectors and across some of the business lines as some examples. We are a major player in rig moves, 1,300-plus contracts within rig moves last year, of which the main part is in the Middle East, but also outside of the Middle East and into Asia. We do -- we're a major player in marine warranty surveys, projects, MWS, also all over the world. And then in the middle there, more than 2,600 marine instructions over the last year, of which more than 1,000, 1,300 in loss management as an example. And we also work in then renewables, more than south of 1,000 projects in wind, solar and battery, onshore and offshore, generating or touching on generation up to about 270 gigawatt hours, which is actually coincidized to be the consumption of Norway in a year. So that's the size of what we are actually contributing to. And we work in CCS, as you can see here as well. Okay. We normally give you an example of what we've done in Q4 to give you a flare of our projects. I want to mention in the ABL segment to your left here, we did the marine warranty survey for the cargo in the Northern Lights Phase 2 project here in Norway, highly -- a great project that we're very proud of being part of. AGR did the independent evaluation of reserves and resources for one of the operators in Norway called DNO, which is one of their core specialties to do. OWC supported a Japanese company called Kansai Electric Power with their technical due diligence when they invested in a U.K.-based floating technology company called Simply Blue. And in Longitude, they were able to provide an extension of a very lucrative contract on the FPSO called Fred in Brazil to do hull integrity management analysis, detailed inspections, repair, et cetera, for hull and wings over the next 5 years as well. So these are examples of contracts, 4 of the 8,000 that we normally win throughout a year. Before I then give the floor to Stuart, I'd like to share some observations, some thoughts as having been the CEO now for a quarter in ABL Group. So I think, first of all, I want to say it's an honor and privilege to be the CEO of ABL Group because it is an excellent company full of excellent technical consultants globally. I've traveled now quite extensively and met a quarter, 30% of our teams so far. It's a big world, and I'm very impressed and very honored. So that's the starting point. And I think we are in an industry or in sectors that are fundamentally very strong and robust and will be with us for a long time. Now I do think though that we have sort of 2 main observations in the management team that I want to share. And one is, of course, as I have alluded to already, the growth that we've seen over the last 7 years has been a fantastic journey. It has given a lot of opportunities for the company, but it comes with pains. And there has -- that has increased complexity. We've had focus on growth more than maybe efficiency and profitability. And there is a time now when we then met the second observation to put it that way, choppy markets, headwinds in the markets, we were too slow to react to that development. And I think it's clear for me and for the management team that turning the focus or switching some of the focus over to profitability, balancing that with continuous focus on growth is necessary going forward. So what we've done so far in this quarter I've been here in Q4 has been to really address the efficiency issues. So we have had both -- and this started before I arrived, a good look at our costs, both in our technical teams, really trying to adjust our technical teams and the cost locally to the markets locally because they will vary. Some markets are currently very strong and others are struggling. So in creating that agility locally in the teams on the technical side has been important. And then we have also addressed our overhead. So looking at to what degree our corporate staffs and our segment staffs and our overhead costs have been adjusted or rightsized to the activity level has been a major focus in Q4, and we have been able to address some of those and take them down, as you will see in the numbers that Stuart will be presenting in a moment. And then we have focused on increasing what I call accountability. So I've established a new executive team, and we have come together to really cascade down and support across the company, the mandate and the accountability of the teams out there who are constantly close to the market to be able to agilely react going forward. So this idea that we had a cost plan and now creating a cost culture is the journey that we are -- have started. And then we do think that revenue generation is going to be incredibly important. So we are also focusing on proactive sales and setting sales targets and supporting the teams close to the market and our excellent client relationships over many years to win contracts. Going forward, I think you should expect that we will still have opportunities to create more efficiency in the organization. When I travel, I hear clearly from our teams that there are opportunities in improving the way we work, the way our systems are connected, the way we are digitalized so far and continue that journey to take out more efficiencies. So that will be a continuous focus through 2026, on our way to delivering what we have already set as a target for us, namely 20% return on capital employed in 2027, coming out of 2025 with a return on capital employed ROCE at around 10%. So that's a good step-up that we believe in and we'll be working towards. We will also continue this agility accountability journey. So aligning our cost to the market at all times will be a high -- a big focus for us. And then I want to reassure everybody that the journey in terms of acquisitions has not stopped. We will be looking for opportunities going forward, and we will continue to carefully assess those and grab the opportunities that we find of high value going forward in order to continue the journey of growth as well as -- and the opportunities that, that gives us. So I think I'll leave it there and let Stuart take us through the financial numbers.

Thank you, Hege, and good morning, everybody. I'll take you through the financial numbers. We'll do a slightly different presentation to those we've done in the past, hopefully provide you a bit more transparency around the individual segments because whilst they're complementary, they're also very different in terms of their structures. So hopefully, that will help you get a better understanding. Firstly, just looking at the results for the quarter and comparing that to the same quarter of 2024. From a revenue perspective, up 3%, so a small increase and a small increase in terms of where we are in terms of the EBIT for the period. But looking a bit more into that, from an ABL perspective, reasonably strong performance during Q4 from a revenue perspective, we've seen organic growth there. So our revenue is up $2.2 million. And thankfully, a lot of that has flowed through in terms of the improvement in EBIT that's been during that period for the ABL sector. And that's obviously key for us because that's the largest element in terms of profit generation. From the AGR perspective, flat in terms of the revenue profile. We've consolidated Techconsult, but we've had less revenue on the vessel side. So from a revenue perspective, that's relatively flat. But from an EBIT perspective, we've seen a good performance within the AGR sector during that quarter. Little more disappointing in terms of OWC. Fourth quarter is traditionally a downturn in terms of our level of activity within OWC, but we're slightly lower than we were this time last year. And actually, we're also slightly lower on the EBIT side, which I'll come to when I come to the OWC slide. And Longitude, it looks a mixed message, but actually, I think it's a reasonably good message. We've consolidated Proper Marine. So that's the growth in terms of the revenue side. Whilst we're down in terms of EBIT, the comparison period we're having is to Q4 of 2024. And those of you who have been following us will remember that in that period, we had lots of project completions and running at 34% EBIT margin. So that's why there's a downturn in that respect. And then finally, from an EBIT perspective, corporate costs, corporate costs in this quarter are higher than they were this time last year. We've had some changes in leadership during the period. We've had further investment in terms of our growth initiatives and our commercial activities and further investment in terms of the IT and IT security we have within the group. So in overall terms, 3% up in terms of revenue and then the EBIT sitting at $3.2 million, so marginally up on this time last year. Turning then to the ABL sector in particular. So we're looking here again at revenue and EBIT on the left-hand side at the top. And then we've broken out the staff numbers by the different segments. So you can see the different mix that we have in terms of freelancers and technical staff sitting on the business in those sectors because they are quite different across the sectors. In terms of the performance for ABL, as I said, good performance during the quarter. Revenue is up 6%. Our EBIT has moved up from 15.5% in the same quarter of last year compared to 18.4% for this quarter. So good strong performance. A lot of that's come through the Middle East activities, particularly on the rig moves and the MWS. So marine warranty service, where we've seen a good performance during the period. But I guess the other areas of APAC, Europe and the Americas have been slightly weaker compared to this time last year. And then in terms of the technical staff and the mix, you'll see over time, there's been a gradual increase in terms of the proportion of staff who are freelancers. This provides a bit more flexibility within the cost structure we have within the business. But also some of this is driven by the fact that the rig moves and MWS activity we have offshore is quite often covered by freelancers anyway. Turning then to AGR. As I said, a bit mixed. From a revenue perspective, we've consolidated Techconsult during this period, which wasn't there in Q4 of 2024. So that's a change in terms of revenue and about a $7 million uptick in terms of revenue from Techconsult. On the other side of it, our vessel activities we have within AGR. There hasn't been much activity in Q4 of this year compared to last year. So that's led to a relatively flat revenue profile compared to the 12 months ago. But I said from an EBIT perspective, we have seen some improvement. So we're sitting at 5.6% in terms of our margin on EBIT in the AGR sector, which is up from where we were in Q3 and up from where we were in Q4 of last year as well. The other thing I'd highlight is in the technical staff, you see a very high level of freelancers within this business. That's because a large part of the revenue we have here is associated with our resourcing business. So finding, locating and providing resources into our client companies. So it's a low-risk activity, and that's why we do this through a freelancer model. That means that's a significant proportion of our revenue is actually pass-through revenue in the same way that our vessel revenue is very much pass-through revenue. So to just give you a comparison on the right-hand side in the middle, we've looked at that structural difference compared to ABL, for example. So if I took out the pass-through revenue looked on a net revenue basis, we're running at an equivalent EBIT level of around about 20% in this business, which is comparable in terms of EBIT margin to the ABL business. Turning then to the OWC segment. It's a bit of a mixed result, as I said here, disappointing in terms of revenue is down and EBIT is down. As we've talked before, we have had some deferral of projects. So awards have been made to us, but the commencement of those projects has taken some time to take off. So we've been carrying costs through that period. But also you see in terms of the downturn in Q4 of 2025, relative to where the market is at this moment, we're probably carrying too many costs in that business at present. I think that's very much the focus we're trying to now put around the individual segments of making sure they're moving their cost base in line with the market, which is, as Hege mentioned in terms of the introduction, we were probably slow to do that when the downturn took place in OWC back end of 2023. And then in terms of the Longitude business, as I said, a bit of mixed results as it looks from the revenue and EBIT perspective, slight improvement from where we were in Q3 on the EBIT side. Probably a bit of a similar story to OWC. We have a very strong backlog position and weighted pipeline relative to this business. So we have a lot of work we anticipate coming ahead of us, but that work hasn't commenced largely during this period. So we're relatively low in terms of the EBIT compared to previous periods. As I said, the same period of 12 months ago, we're at 34% because there are a lot of completions of projects, and it's the completion time where we tend to be able to realize the additional benefits of those projects. So it is a lumpy project, and that's simply what you see in terms of results quarter-on-quarter as we look at it here. Turning back then to the, I guess, the more traditional presentation of our results through the abbreviated financials. From an income perspective, 3% increase in the revenue. Our operating costs are up higher than that through the period, but a lot of that is associated with the restructuring that's taken place during Q4 of 2025. And you'll see when we come down to the adjustments that, that gets adjusted out to get back to a normalized basis. And that's really just focusing on the cost base and making sure we take costs out of the business where we're carrying too much cost relative to the market opportunities at present. And then depreciation and amortization, $6.7 million negative, so a significant step up, but that's driven by impairments. So on the OWC business, we've now taken an impairment of $4.4 million against the carrying value of that on the balance sheet and a smaller impairment of $0.3 million on some software called AssetVoice, which we don't think we'll be able to realize the full value sitting on the balance sheet. That leads us to a $4.2 million negative EBIT on a straight basis from the P&L. And then the adjusting items down below take us down to the $3.2 million. So quite significant changes. But obviously, the largest element of that is reversal of the impairment charge that's gone through the business. And then the other large element will be on the restructuring and integration costs. So most of that is associated with people who have been leaving the business over the period of Q4. There will be some of that, that flows into Q1 and then that process will be completed when we got through Q1. And then there's the ongoing integration of businesses and dealing with the legacy side, which we have to do after the M&A activities. That leaves us with $3.2 million in terms of EBIT at the end of the period compared to $3.1 million this time last year, on a like-for-like basis, flat in terms of the EBIT margin at 3.6%. Turning then to the cash flow and obviously adjusting the noncash items, which the largest element is the impairments. And we see an improvement in working capital, which I'll show you on the balance sheet in terms of our working capital ratio. We generated cash from operations of $6.6 million during the period, so slightly up from $5.9 million where we were in Q4 of 2024. And not much change in terms of the investing and financing activities. And obviously, the large element on the financing line is the dividend payment that goes out in June and November of each year. So a net outflow of cash of $0.8 million through the quarter, leaving us with cash at the end of the period of $14.6 million. Turning then to the balance sheet. Firstly, net debt position. So taking the $14.6 million of cash and the $20 million we have drawn under the short-term borrowings. So there's a net drawing under the RCF during that period. And that's really in relation to, I guess, prefunding some of the acquisitions we have in the pipeline at present. So we have the cash available to complete those quickly. From a working capital perspective, you see on the graph on the bottom right-hand side, the step down in terms of the working capital ratio. This is looking at our net working capital relative to the previous quarter's revenue. We guided around about 40% in terms of long-term expectations from the mix of businesses we have at present. And you see we stepped down to 39% to be more in line with where we've been before. So that's led to the benefit we've seen in terms of the cash flow of working capital contribution during that period. Finally, in relation to the balance sheet, the debt position. So we're sitting at $20 million in terms of drawings under the RCF. There's $40 million committed under our RCF at present. We have another $10 million under the accordion facility to take us up to $50 million should we exercise that option. We have a maturity in January 2027. But in the documentation, we have an extension period up to January 2029, and we're in the process of closing that with HSBC to extend the maturity. And at the same time, we've also asked them to re-top up the accordion. So we got up to move from $50 million up to $60 million in terms of total capacity under that facility. And then finally, for me, in relation to the dividend, we still maintain the policy of returning cash to shareholders when we can. And we see where we are in terms of the current business and the current markets. We're still able to return the level of dividends we paid throughout 2025 to shareholders. So the recommendation from the Board to the AGM will be NOK 0.45 per share, making a dividend payment of roughly $6 million to be made in June of 2026. And with that, I'll pass back to Hege, who will take us through the market outlook.

Thank you, Stuart. Okay. Let me conclude maybe then by taking us through a little bit of our thoughts around the outlook and the markets. As I said, we work in 3 markets, the oil and gas being the biggest one. I think we've shown these graphs for you previously. The bars you see to the left show the CapEx growth in the exploration and production of oil and gas companies as they are projected into 2026. Flat in 2025. 2026, early indication seems to say a downturn. However, also a split there between onshore E&P CapEx and offshore, where onshore has a further -- has a bigger downturn. So we do expect more of a flattish offshore E&P spending. Now we are prepared for that, but we also see that some markets where we are present as in Brazil are absolutely booming, very active for us. So is the Middle East and other -- while other markets will probably -- will be looking at whether this -- the projects will be progressing into FIDs and work for us. Now the rig market, as I mentioned, in the Middle East, is very important. We usually show this graph to indicate that we're on the light green, mainly on shallow water rigs. We have a lot of work to do with those rigs and that -- and they are still in the market, and we expect a high level but a stable level of jackups. Wind, we have -- we're introducing a little bit of a new drawing here, a graph here. As you see to the left, we've indicated -- we've looked at the U.K. offshore wind allocation rounds. And what you see on the x-axis are the years for the allocation rounds. Your Y-axis are the strike price of those rounds and the bubbles indicate the size of the volumes allocated in each round. To say that surely, 2025 as well for the whole industry was quiet and low activity. But we do think that this indicates and there are other indications as well of some green shoots of increased confidence and opportunities into 2026. We are prepared for a flat market. We are focusing on the costs in the OWC segment and in our renewable industry or business lines. But there are some green shoots into the year that we think are positive. We are also diversifying our renewable work into interconnector work, which is -- seems to be increasing as well as onshore renewables, where we are particularly working within, as I alluded to earlier, technical due diligence work. And actually, over the last year, we have increased that share of the business to 16%. And if we include the floating solar, which is very interesting for us, we have a global position in, the number rises to 25%. And finally, the maritime market, this is a graph we also show every time. It's the number of vessels in the global fleet. It's not a direct driver for our business per se, but it's a stable underlying market that we want to -- that we are working in, obviously, related much more to concrete projects and events, but a stable market where we expect to continue having our base load of work going into 2026. So to summarize, group profitability last year -- or Q4 last year, in line with Q4 2024. ABL segment delivered improved margins in that quarter, driven by particularly strong performance in the Middle East. AGR, improving performance, driven by subsurface and well activity in Q4. OWC with negative margin, seasonally weak quarter, but impacted -- and impacted by a continued slowdown in Europe and a stop in the U.S. Longitude down year-on-year, but delivered quarterly margin improvements. We are proposing a semiannual dividend of NOK 0.45 per share to be paid in June this year. And our outlook is mixed, but I think in oil and gas, flat with local variations, some regions very active. Renewables, we're prepared for continued flat, but we see some improving green shoots of improved confidence in that market. Maritime, strong, we remain having a strong position in a very stable market. We expect improving performance to 2026. I see opportunities for increasing efficiency and with impact on our overhead and our agility. And we are targeting for a return on capital employed of 20% in 2027. And we will remain active in consolidating our industry across the globe through our M&A activity. So on that note, I thank you for the attention.

[Operator Instructions] First, do we have any questions in the room?

On the costs and restructuring, how do you think the restructuring cost will be in 2026 compared to 2025? And have you made like efficiency improvements that you plan? Or will there still be measures to be done in 2026?

So yes, we do expect a potential further restructuring costs in this quarter. So the impact of the things we've been doing now will continue into this quarter. And then we will be looking at implementing changes more in our systems, our processes that will impact efficiency and overhead throughout 2026 and into 2027. That will partly be investments, where we are carefully looking at the return on that capital exactly by improving efficiency substantially.

Okay. And also, how do you see the activity in subsurface and wells going forward? Do you expect it to remain higher? Or was it more like one-off in the quarter?

Yes. So to start with the wells, this is mainly work we do in Australia. We expect -- and in that part of the world, they're also working outside of Australia. And they also have a backlog and activity level that we are quite optimistic about. It's particularly within the decommissioning work in that region. When it comes to subsurface, that's actually quite a seasonal type of work. They have a very high season during Q4 and Q1 around verifying independent verifications of oil companies' resource and reserves in their annual reports. And then a slower months during the summer, but that's obviously something we will be addressing.

Then we have a question from the online Q&A. Should we assume that the focus from acquisitions to efficiency sharpens a bit further now that the oil price has gone up a bit? Or are there still attractive options to acquire?

There are still attractive options to acquire, and we will be very focused on efficiency as well. So it's both. And we -- I think we are generally quite happy with the acquisitions we made so far. They're paying the returns. So that's -- we're positive to keep doing that, and we believe there is more to be done. But I would say, and focus on efficiency and our margins and our profitability will maybe now be more balanced than we've had over the last -- of this massive growth that we've had over the last 7 years.

And then we have another question. What is the key driver for return on capital employed in 2027 rather than in 2026?

Some things will take some time. I would be very happy if we reach it in 2026. Nothing will -- I won't say no to that. But realistically, we will need to do those investments and make the changes needed. And these are people involved, ways of working, changing routines and yes, our processes. So that will take some time. So I think realistically, we're looking at 2027. But I do think we should be able to see -- you will see reduced costs as we start reporting on our 2026 results from what we've already done, and that will continue through 2026.

So we have no further questions for the Q&A.

Thank you very much.