Akastor ASA (AKAST) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the presentation of Akastor's second quarter results. My name is Oyvind Paaske, CFO of Akastor, and I'm here today together with our CEO, Karl Erik Kjelstad. We're also pleased to have our colleagues from HMH, joining us from Houston, Mr. Tom McGee, CFO; and Mr. David Bratton, SVP Finance. We'll start with some key highlights from Karl, followed by an update on HMH from Tom and David. After that, I'll walk you through Akastor's consolidated financials before handing it back to Karl for some closing remarks. As always, we'll wrap it up with a Q&A session. Please feel free to submit your questions at any time during the presentation using our web-based Q&A tool. With that, I'll hand it over to Karl. Please, Karl.

Thank you, Oyvind, and good afternoon and good morning to our U.S. participants, and thank you to everyone for joining us this afternoon. Let us start with some key highlights for the second quarter at Slide #2. We are pleased to announce a cash distribution of NOK 0.35 per share to our shareholders, supported by a strong cash flow in this quarter. This is aligned with our communicated strategy to return excess capital to shareholders while maintaining a sound capital structure. HMH continues to deliver robust financial performance despite reduced offshore drilling activity and softer demand for spare parts. HMH reported an adjusted EBITDA of USD 36 million and a margin of 17.7% in the quarter. HMH is continuing to keeping its S-1 filing with the SEC updated and timing of a potential launch continue to be dependent on market conditions and sentiment. The book value of our shareholding in HMH remains at around 70% of our total net capital employed with a book value of NOK 3.4 billion per end of the quarter and NOK 12.3 per Akastor share, somewhat down from last quarter due to currency effects. AKOFS Offshore. Building on several years of strong operational performance, including this quarter, AKOFS Offshore is steadily renewing its order book. This includes the previously announced new contract for AKOFS Seafarer and more recently, AKOFS Santos, which has been nominated for an award for a 4-year MPSV contract with Petrobras. Both these contracts will have positive effect on 2026 results and reflect improved market condition through a stronger day rates than the current terms. Our book value of AKOFS was around NOK 0.3 per Akastor share at the end of the quarter. We consider this book value to be a conservative measure that it does not fully capture the company's underlying asset values. We continue to see meaningful upside potential and remain focused on ensuring that this is increasingly understood and reflected over time. DDW Offshore. Unfortunately, the announced sale of Skandi Peregrino vessel was canceled as the current charter did not agree to noviate the associated charter contract. However, all 3 DDW vessels are now on term contracts in Australia, and we see interesting opportunities for all vessels, both when it comes to possible asset transaction and in terms of new charter contract post existing solid backlog. The book value of our investment in DDW Offshore is NOK 1.3 per Akastor share based on an average book value per vessel of about USD 11 million. As you might recall, we received about 3 million shares in Odfjell Drilling in May 2024 through the execution of a warrant agreement that we established with Odfjell Drilling back in 2018. In the second quarter and during some days of this third quarter, we completed the sale of 50% of our shares in Odfjell Drilling, generating total proceeds of just over NOK 100 million. Following this sale, we now own 1.5 million shares in Odfjell Drilling. The divestment of parts of our Odfjell Drilling shares is in line with Akastor strategy of realizing assets to enable distribution of capital to shareholders over time. We will continue to assess the whole strategy based on market developments and capital allocation priorities. Our total book equity value at the end of the period was NOK 20 per share, and this is somewhat down from the first quarter, mainly due to currency effects. Akastor continues to be in a very solid financial state, which has enabled us to pay dividends. We have positive net cash position and no draw on corporate RCF. With that, I'm pleased to introduce HMH's CFO and EVP, Thomas McGee, that will take us through the HMH second quarter results. Tom, the word is yours.

Thank you, Karl Erik. Going to the next slide. Order intake of $173 million in the quarter. EBITDA of $36 million, down year-on-year, up quarter-on-quarter, really impacted by the reduced pressure control spares volume due to current offshore rig market conditions. Talk a little bit about that for a second. Customer is being impacted by 2 things. One is a little bit of white space that we've heard them all talk about, all the drillers talk about, and we're a little bit of a tailing indicator on that. And we'll talk a little bit about the future as we wrap up. These drillers are obviously very positive long term, but there's a pocket of weakness here where that slows their aftermarket and consumable purchase. At the same time, the macro uncertainty that's been introduced into the market weighs on order rates a little bit in a way that they'll try to say, I'll push this out a little bit longer before I buy, nonessential spending gets cut. So I mean, overall, pretty resilient quarter, but it is being impacted by that slowness. So the good news is that's really -- that is the pocket of weakness. While North America remains weak, it didn't impact us much. And we made some good solid progress this quarter on some land efforts outside of North America. So overall, again, a little bit of weakness, but it's very specific. In the past, when you look back at COVID, which is a much, much larger event of weakness, if you want to call it that, and you looked at what happened to the order rates behaved in a similar manner and post-COVID, they recovered fairly quickly in that environment. So we've seen -- kind of seen all this before, and we've just seen a little bit of air pocket here due to the white space with our customers. On the productivity and cost efficiency side, we say that we began yielding some results. Really, they just started. This is all the process of HMH 2.0 and integrating the company and becoming one HMH. So the initiatives that we're talking about here were the right long-term initiatives for the company that we launched a year ago, has nothing to do with a little air pocket of weakness in the offshore market. And so those just started to really kick in, in the second quarter, and that included some facility optimization, some very real heavy lifting by our team. And then finally, continue to take steps to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Those changed, obviously, as we all know, rapidly and frequently. We think we have the situation under control. We have very good dialogue with our customers. We continue to negotiate the pricing impact of that with them in a very open and transparent way. We're confident we can mitigate a lot of that. The second and third order effects that I talked about in Q1 are still there is weighing on the general macro environment. But in terms of what we can control, we have a very good handle on that. Our team has done a great job. So with that, I'll pass it on to David.

Great. Thanks, Tom. I'll be with the total company results and then move into the segment details. Revenue for the quarter was $203 million, down 2% year-on-year, primarily due to lower spares volume, partly offset by growth in projects and aftermarket services and up 3% quarter-on-quarter, driven by stronger aftermarket service performance despite the softness in spares. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $36 million, down 14% year-on-year, primarily due to lower spares volume, partly offset by stronger aftermarket services and cost reductions, up 10% quarter-on-quarter, driven by volume and indirect cost performance. The adjusted EBITDA rate was 17.7% in the quarter, down versus 2Q '24, driven by mix. Orders for the quarter were $173 million, down 4% year-on-year, driven by projects, Product & Other and down 13% quarter-on-quarter, driven by aftermarket services. Finally, on cash flow, unlevered free cash flow in the quarter was negative $10 million due to the timing of annual employee incentive payments and back-end weighted projects. We ended the quarter with $38 million cash and cash equivalents on hand. Next, I'll walk you through the product line results in more detail. In aftermarket services, revenue was $92 million in the quarter, up 6% year-on-year, driven by an increase in overhaul repair activity and digital technology and up 11% quarter-on-quarter, driven by higher overhaul and repair activity. Aftermarket service order intake was $79 million in the quarter, down 3% year-on-year, driven by overhaul and repair and field service, partially offset by digital technology orders and down 22% quarter-on-quarter, driven by the delayed offshore activity in repairs and field service. Spares revenue was $52 million in the quarter, down 26% year-on-year and down 13% quarter-on-quarter, mainly due to lower pressure control spares volumes, reflecting the current offshore rig market condition. Spares order intake was $64 million in the quarter, down 3% year-on-year and up 5% quarter-on-quarter, driven by continued spare part purchasing restraint from the offshore customers while they work through the white space in the quarter. In Projects, Products & Other, revenue in the quarter was $59 million, up 17% year-on-year and up 8% quarter-on-quarter, driven by our progress on projects. Lastly, moving to net interest-bearing debt. We ended the quarter with $38 million in cash and cash equivalents and a net debt of $175 million. Overall, I'm proud of the team's performance despite the macro environment this past quarter. And with that, we'll turn the call back over to Tom.

And just to wrap up, talking about the market a little bit and really talk about it from our customer perspective, so we can give you a view of what's happening. The North American land market, where we do have some business there, and we want to continue to grow that. But overall, it doesn't really impact the bottom line for us today much. Coming off some conferences this summer already, it's pretty -- it's not a great sentiment. I mean, rig count is down. There's a lot of talk about shale rolling it over and reaching its peak. So overall, it's created a pretty negative environment on the land market here. But on the complete other hand, despite the macro uncertainty that you see, which is very real when we talk -- people talk about cost escalating due to metals prices and everything else. Over the last 6 to 8 weeks, talking to offshore customers, they've become more optimistic in this environment. Now we saw this from the beginning of the year to today despite the challenges that we're facing today in the face of that, they're improving their optimism on '26 and '27. And you've seen some of that in the contracts that have been announced, right? You see a lot of contracts that are starting. Some of them will start this year, some of them not until halfway through next year. That obviously has an impact on us when you think about the timing of that. But the good news is they are firming up their view of '26 and '27, and it's a very positive one. And when you look at the equity research that's been coming out, I've noticed over the last week or 2, there's been some an increased volume of, hey, this is looking good long term. Let's look to '26 and '27 coming out of the Wall Street research community. So despite a little bit of air pocket, despite a little bit of weakness, our customers see a very bright future offshore and are continuing to invest in their rigs for the long run and upgrade technology. And again, once these contracts start, I think it's going to be a quite positive environment. So with that, I will wrap it up and pass it back to the team [indiscernible].

Thank you very much, Tom, for that update. I will then take you through the Akastor financials, starting on Slide 9 with our net capital employed. As mentioned, HMH remains our largest investment with Akastor's net capital employed corresponding to 50% of the book equity value in HMH. The carrying value of our HMH investment decreased by NOK 35 million compared to Q1, primarily then due to FX effects, partly offset by positive net profit from HMH in the period. The net capital employed related to NES and DDW also declined somewhat in Q2, driven by FX. The net capital employed of AKOFS as of Q2 was NOK 79 million, down from NOK 109 million in Q1, reflecting our 66.7% share of the net loss in the period. As noted, the current contract portfolio continues to generate losses in AKOFS, which reduces our book value. That said, and as Karl mentioned, we view this book value as conservative and not fully representative of the underlying asset values. The value of our listed holdings, which now include Odfjell Drilling, ABL Group and Maha Energy decreased by a total of NOK 57 million in the period. NOK 37 million of this was related to a value decline in Odfjell Drilling, broadly offsetting the cash dividend received from the company by Akastor during the period. Our holding in Odfjell Drilling was valued at NOK 146 million at the end of Q2, down NOK 16 million from Q1. This was driven by the sale of shares for NOK 57 million in the quarter, of which NOK 10 million was received as cash in Q3, partly offset by an increase in the share price. After quarter end, we divested an additional portion of the holding in Odfjell, bringing total cash proceeds to NOK 104 million. The negative value of Odfjell, which includes smaller financial investments, pension accruals and various other provisions was reduced by NOK 13 million in the quarter. The balance here mainly relates to pension obligations. In total, our net capital employed decreased by NOK 147 million in Q2, primarily then driven by FX effects. I'll then turn to the next page for an overview of our net debt movement or rather the net cash movement. In Q2, our total net cash position increased by NOK 126 million to a net cash position of NOK 145 million at the end of the period. This increase then was primarily driven by the divestment of Odfjell Drilling shares as well as cash proceeds from AKOFS Offshore following their refinancing of Seafarer in April. The Q2 net cash position includes a net debt position of NOK 228 million in DDW Offshore. Total net interest-bearing debt at the end of the quarter stood at a net cash position of NOK 814 million, including our interest-bearing positions towards AKOFS Offshore and HMH. Compared to the previous quarter, our position towards AKOFS decreased following the refinancing. And also half of the seller's credit to Mitsui related to the transaction that we closed in Q1 was paid out in cash in the second quarter, reducing the remaining outstanding credit -- sellers' credit towards Mitsui to NOK 39 million per June, which are to be settled in Q4 this year. In Q3, the cash balance will be impacted by the receipt of then the additional NOK 57 million from the Odfjell Drilling shares sale completed in July as well as the approved dividend to be paid out in July also. Then our external financing facilities. They remained as per end of the last quarter. The DDW term loan was reduced to about $26 million following one installment paid during the period. Our corporate bank RCF remained undrawn and fully available also per end of Q2. Per end of the quarter, our total available liquidity was NOK 704 million, including then NOK 30 million of cash through DDW. Then our consolidated P&L. As a reminder, most of our holdings, including then HMH, NES and AKOFS are not consolidated. And as such, our consolidated revenue and EBITDA reflects only a very minor part of our total investments. DDW Offshore reported revenues of NOK 79 million in the quarter with 2 out of 3 vessels on contract throughout the period, while Skandi Peregrino experienced low utilization as the start-up of her new contract was delayed until June 21. EBITDA in DDW came in at NOK 28 million, up year-on-year due to low utilization in Q2 last year and in line with the previous quarter. Looking ahead, we expect improved earnings from DDW Offshore as all 3 vessels are now then on contract. Other revenues were 0, while other EBITDA came in at a negative of NOK 18 million. As a result, our consolidated revenue and EBITDA for the quarter ended at NOK 79 million and NOK 9 million, respectively. Then a closer look at our net financials. Net financial items amounted to negative NOK 11 million in the quarter. Financial investments contributed positively by NOK 58 million, primarily driven by value increase in Odfjell Drilling. The FX accounting effect was negative by NOK 76 million, reflecting then the weaker dollar versus the NOK, which impacts certain of our USD-denominated holdings. Net interest and other financial income contributed positively by a total of NOK 8 million while share of net profit from equity accounted investments came in at a negative of NOK 6 million, mainly reflecting our share of results from HMH and AKOFS Offshore. AKOFS contributed negatively by NOK 43 million, while HMH contributed positively by NOK 41 million. And with that, I'll pass the word back to Karl.

Thank you for that, Oyvind. And let me run off this presentation with some ownership agenda reflections of the portfolio. Let's start on Slide 15. We have an overview of our portfolio of investments. As you see, we continue to have a portfolio of 9 investments, of which 4 are liquid listed holdings. And as mentioned already, we have reduced our ownership in Odfjell Drilling with 50%, and we now own 1.5 million shares in Odfjell Drilling that is reflected on this slide. Let's move on to Slide 16, HMH, where I think most has already been covered by Tom and Dave. As touched upon by Tom, we are somewhat cautious regarding the short-term outlook for the drilling market. That said, we see encouraging signs when we're looking future -- ahead. HMH is continuing to keep its S-1 filing updated, and it's a preparation for a potential future listing, but the timing of a public offer is subjected to a variety of factors like -- and therefore, difficult to comment at this time. Let's move on to Slide 17, NES Fircroft. NES Fircroft continues to deliver growth in revenues year-on-year despite a more challenging environment for recruitment and especially permanent placements given some turmoil in the market. As mentioned previously, the company is exit ready, and we are currently exploring several alternatives, including a potential listing. Recently, we have observed some signs of improvement in the primary equity offering market, and we remain cautiously optimistic that it may be possible to achieve an attractive valuation of a quality company like NES Fircroft. A key priority in addition to making this investment liquid is to continue to grow the company, both organically and through M&A to enhance value for all shareholders. Then on Slide 18, covering AKOFS Offshore. We are happy to see that AKOFS Offshore is delivering solid operations in yet another quarter. All 3 AKOFS vessels remain on contract through the second quarter, and they all delivered solid operation for its clients. Aker Wayfarer delivered a revenue utilization of 94%, while AKOFS Santos delivered a revenue utilization of 93% in the quarter. AKOFS Seafarer delivered a technical uptime of above 95% with a revenue utilization of 92% due to weather conditions. Revenue utilization was also impacted by a planned yard stay in May to prepare the vessel for coiled tubing operations. The vessel is scheduled to return to the yard in August this year for demobilization of the coil tube equipment and to carry out its 5-year SPS, special periodic survey. The yard stay is expected to last approximately 40 days and will impact the financials for the Seafarer vessel in the third quarter. With this, the total revenues for AKOFS ended up at $37 million and with an EBITDA of $10 million, in line with previous quarters. I would like to take the opportunity to highlight some positive AKOFS milestones achieved so far in 2025. Contract renewal of AKOFS Seafarer with Equinor with a gross value of $300 million. The contract is set to commence late this year and will run until ultimate at the end of 2028. nonrecourse USD 110 million refinancing of the mentioned Seafarer completed in April this year and then also the contract award for AKOFS Santos with Petrobras with a gross value of almost $250 million. And this contract is planned to commence in the third quarter '26 and will last for 4 years. Also, the AKOFS owners are well aligned. That is positive for the company post the new ownership structure with MOL and Akastor as owners. Through these achievements, AKOFS is now in a stronger position, both strategically and financially compared to 2 years ago. We are encouraged by the outlook. And as touched upon earlier, we continue our efforts to demonstrate the underlying values of AKOFS going forward. Then let's move to Slide 19 and DDW Offshore. We are, as mentioned, pleased to see Peregrino commence its contract in the second quarter. With this, all the vessels are on contract in Australia. And looking ahead, DDW Offshore remain focused on maximizing fleet utilization supported by secured contract backlog that will provide a solid foundation for operational and financial visibility. Our target remains unchanged, and we will continue to actively assess secondhand market opportunities for potential vessel sales. And finally, let's move to Slide 20 that sums up the key priorities for Akastor going forward. Akastor strategy continue as before with our key target being to develop the companies in our portfolio and when the time is right and values are attractive, execute value-enhancing exits. We are currently in a strong net cash position with no drawn corporate facilities, enabling us to time transaction when values are attractive. We are pleased to announce a dividend of NOK 0.35 per share today, and this is an important step towards delivering on our ultimate goal of returning proceeds to our shareholders. With that, Oyvind, we are through the presentation, and we will move over to Q&A session. And I guess we take a short break before we continue.

Thank you, Karl. Yes, we'll just pause for a couple of seconds in order to coordinate the Q&A session. Thank you. We'll start with a question for HMH, and I'll direct this to you then, Tom. Can you elaborate on the key growth drivers for HMH going forward and any specific markets or technologies that you are focusing on?

Yes. I think that we can talk about that in our presentation that you can reference that we filed in the past. And I think you've got offshore way to think about it would be within the core, it would be offshore equipment, offshore aftermarket, land equipment, land aftermarket, mining equipment, mining aftermarket, each are areas that we're pursuing. There's technology development offshore like the electric BOP that our team has done a good job of bringing forward and the drill form technology where we buy and bring to other markets. That's an example of a land technology, continue to try to expand our riser services aftermarket, continue to expand our parts and service businesses on land. And we've got a significant cost-out initiative on mining right now to be able to make our core products more competitive in a broader market. So I think think about scaling that core is really how we think about growth. And then you have the parts you can't control, which is what we talked about this morning, which is is rigs are reactivated. And as you see more rigs operating globally, that's obviously good for us.

Thanks, Tom. Then a question that we have received in some different shapes and versions, but I'll direct this one to you, Karl. Given the recently approved cash dividend and Akastor's strategy to realize assets, what is the company's long-term strategy for shareholder distributions? And are there any specific targets or time lines for potential future capital returns?

Yes. First of all, as we have touched upon, Akastor is now in a strong financial position with no debt at the corporate level and a solid net cash position. And the recently approved dividend of NOK 0.35 represent a milestone for Akastor marking our first ever cash distribution. And I think also reflect our strong commitment to return value to our shareholders through asset realizations. But looking ahead, we remain committed to this strategy. While we do not operate with a fixed payout ratio or distribution time, our intention is to return a significant portion of net proceeds from future realizations to our shareholders. But the level and timing of further distribution will, of course, depend on factors like future divestment activity, capital requirements and also, of course, overall market conditions.

Thanks, Karl. Then a last question, I believe, regarding AKOFS and you touched upon this, Karl, but let me read the question for you. Akastor increased its ownership in AKOFS in the first quarter and AKOFS Santos was recently nominated for a new contract. Could you provide some more insight into the strategic direction and how you are thinking of Akastor's ownership strategy on AKOFS.

Yes. As we touched upon, we have a significant strength in the backlog and earnings visibility from 2026 and onwards. That is always positive when it comes to developed values. And looking ahead, we will continue to assess the potential to realize values from this -- our investment in AKOFS. There's no fixed plan at this stage, but a range of options that could be actual, whether that is through sale, partnership or other structures. The key focus for us is to ensure that we maximize in terms of long-term value, and we will remain flexible around how and when this might happen.

Thanks, Karl. Then a last question, which I guess goes back to the previous question, but I'll ask it anyway. Are there any plans to initiate a share buyback program given the significant discount to underlying value? So Karl?

I think when we are saying that we are committed to return proceeds to shareholders, it can be done either through dividends or through buyback programs. And this is up to the Board to assess as we go along. So our buyback program is also something that is -- can be on the menu going forward.

Thank you very much, Karl. And with that, I do believe we are through all the questions. And we would just like to thank you all for your attention and thank Tom and David in Houston for participating, and welcome you all back for our presentation of the third quarter results then on October 30. Thank you very much.