Aker BioMarine ASA (AKBM) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Aker BioMarine's presentation for financials and highlights for the fourth quarter 2025. It will be presented by me, Matts Johansen, I'm the CEO; and our CFO, Katrine Klaveness. We ended another strong quarter with growth for the Aker BioMarine Group as a whole, fueled by especially strong growth in Human Health Ingredients. On a total, delivering 6% top line growth and 66% EBITDA growth. $32.7 million of revenue for Human Health Ingredients, that is up 28% compared to the same quarter last year and delivering an EBITDA of $14.1 million, that is 59% growth over the same quarter last year. Consumer Health Products had a weak quarter, 8% down from the same quarter last year, especially driven by especially strong fourth quarter a year ago. Delivering okay on the EBITDA, $2.5 million for the quarter, in line with previous quarters. Emerging business, which now consists of Kori, Understory and a few other items, delivered $0.5 million of negative EBITDA and a flat revenue compared to previous quarters. For Kori, which is the main asset there, we achieved cash neutrality for the fourth quarter, meaning that the cost out and income in equals 0, which is an important milestone for that business. Also following the announcement of the sale of Feed Ingredients now almost 18 months ago, we have received a lot of interest from interesting parties in our Human Health Ingredient business. As a result, we have hired Jefferies and Houlihan Lokey as investment banks to support in evaluating the different alternatives, and we're working towards a transaction for the Human Health Ingredient business during '26. So as mentioned, 6% top line growth compared to the same quarter last year, downplayed by Consumer Health products, but especially strong from Human Health Ingredient and delivering quite strong EBITDA growth of 66%, up to $10.6 million for the group as a whole. On an annual basis, delivering on the top line, 10% growth to now $218 million of revenue and 53% growth on the EBITDA now up to $45.7 million on the group level. Now moving into each of the segments, starting with the most important part of our business, which is Human Health Ingredients. As mentioned, we're delivering a stellar 28% growth in the quarter, up from $25.5 million of revenues in the same quarter last year to now $32.7 million of revenue in Q4 '25. The same growth we also have in the core Krill oil business. So this is developing also on our most profitable products. EBITDA was $14.1 million, up from $8.9 million in the same quarter last year. So that's a 59% growth on the EBITDA. The strong performance in the quarter comes from several factors. One of them being the new business that we announced end of last year, which at that time we couldn't disclose, but now we can disclose that, that is Costco. We have a new brand launch that came in shelf in December of last year that is performing very well, also above both us and our customers' expectations. That will be a key growth driver for us coming into 2026. Our margins are up from last year. But compared to the third quarter, they're down a little bit, and that is because we have a bigger share of capsules versus bulk oil sold. So even if we on the net oil price have a higher margin when you include the cost of the capsulation, our gross margin comes down a little bit. We also sold $1.6 million of Algae. Majority of that business was going to Epion, which is now preparing for launch in the mass market with a consumer-facing product in the U.S. We had our first revenue of Lysoveta in 2025 and expect step growth coming into '26. And also in Australia in the annual conference where all the industry meets, Lysoveta was awarded the Ingredient of the Year now coming into 2026. They have also published a new study connected to our PL+ technology, where we're looking at how the PL+ technology can enhance the absorption of a liver health ingredient used quite a lot in Europe. That study was done together with the customer, which is rolling out this product now across multiple markets. And also here, we see take-up above our expectations. On Consumer Health Ingredients, you can see we are delivering an 8% decline compared to the fourth quarter last year. But if you look at the previous quarter, that -- you can see that we are pretty flat. We are still struggling with the drug channel generally performing weak in the U.S. now, CVS and Walgreens and also generally private label for dietary supplements are also seeing an overall decline across all retail chains in the U.S. In 2025, brands were growing more. And this different a little bit from year-to-year depending on how the retailers focus their shelves. Coming into '26, we have won quite a significant amount of new business and we expect to come into single-digit growth in the coming year. Our gross margins are improving driven by gross margins on the products that we sell, meaning that the products that we sell now more on have a higher margin than those that we sell less of. We have also good control on our fixed costs. For Emerging Business, it's quite stable. We have reduced our cost and spending on the Kori brand quite significant to achieve our cost of first cash breakeven and then EBITDA breakeven coming into 2026. We had some accounting effects and also effects from some of the other emerging business that drives our EBITDA to be negative $0.5 million in the quarter. But the main asset here, which is Kori is continuing to develop in a positive way. We also have an ongoing process for the Understory factory, where we have multiple interesting parties that we are progressing. But in the current market conditions, these things take some time before it will conclude. With that, I'm going to give the word to our CFO, Katrine Klaveness, that will take us through our numbers.

Good morning. I will present the financials for the quarter. The company yet again presents a strong quarter with growth year-over-year with an impressive 28% growth in the Human Health segment. Strong top line growth, combined with good cost control improves margins for the group compared to Q4 last year, mainly driven by our Human Health segment. We will start with a quick run-through of the P&L. Net sales are up 6% from Q4 last year, mainly driven by good development in the Human Health segment with a year-over-year increase of 28% and Superba krill also up 28%. Both volume and prices for krill oil is up compared to same period last year, but current quarter is heavily affected by a larger-than-normal share of capsule sales because of the Costco launch, which is driving the average price up. Sales in the Consumer Health segment is down 8% compared to same period last year, and the year in total has been marginally lower than 2024. However, Q4 2025 showed an increase in both gross profit and EBITDA compared to the rest of 2025 despite lower sales. Lang has been diligent in working with cost efficiency initiatives when growth stalled, protecting their EBITDA margin. SG&A is down for the group in total compared to the same quarter last year. Restructuring and refocusing efforts after the exit of the Feed Ingredients have yielded cost reductions in human and corporate. Epion has also reduced SG&A significantly after the operations were integrated with Lang. Discontinued operations now only includes Understory Protein as AION has been reclassified as an associated company. Adjusted EBITDA is $10.6 million in the quarter, up from $6.4 million Q4 previous year, and Human Health Ingredients reports an adjusted EBITDA of $14.1 million, up from $8.9 million same quarter last year. Adjustments in the quarter include costs related to restructuring and preparation for a potential Human Health transaction. The Corporate segment has lower SG&A than same quarter last year, driven by cost efficiencies and restructuring efforts. Underlying SG&A levels are more or less stable throughout the year if adjusting for nonrecurring cost items related items related to severance packages, restructuring and preparation for a potential transaction. Some seasonality due to timing of trade shows. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment $0.5 million lower than same quarter last year and previous quarters in 2025. As the transaction service agreement with Aker Qrill Company is now terminated, there is no TSA revenue booked in the quarter. In addition, profit eliminations of $1.1 million from internal sales also reduces the adjusted EBITDA figure. Working capital is down this quarter from previous quarters with $14 million based on lower inventory due to the consumption of Nutra and strong Superba Krill Oil sales, lower receivables and higher payables in the quarter. Investments in the quarter include maintenance, upgrades and development CapEx in Houston of $2.3 million. Throughout the year, costs related to development processes was booked as OpEx in Q1 to Q3, but has been shifted to development CapEx after a year-end review. Hence, this has been adjusted for Q1 to Q3 to reflect correct development CapEx, slightly increasing the CapEx numbers for those quarters compared to what has previously been reported. This ends the year at $9.5 million in total CapEx, slightly higher than what has been the management guiding at $7 million to $8 million. However, a significant portion of this year's investments were to ensure that the company has the right structure and foundation for future capacity expansion and cost improvements. The company is currently running a feasibility study to identify alternatives for increased capacity at the Houston plant. This includes debottlenecking, yield improvement initiatives and certain technology improvements with the ambition to increase Houston capacity from the current 1,300 tonnes to up towards 3,000 tonnes. Moving into 2026, we expect CapEx levels to be at similar levels as 2025, but depending on the results from the above-mentioned study, this could alter the investment level somewhat going forward. Cash flow from operations was $9.7 million, driven by an improvement in working capital of $13 million due to lower inventory, lower receivables as well as higher payables. Cash flow from investing activities included CapEx related to used in maintenance, upgrades and development as well as intangible assets booked in line and for Lysoveta. Cash flow from financing activities included repayment under the overdraft so that the outstanding balance for December was at $22 million. Cash flow in the quarter was negative $0.5 million with the ending cash balance at $17 million. Total available liquidity, including capacity under the overdraft is at $25 million. Interest-bearing debt is at $157 million, down from $165 million previous quarter based on lower working capital. Leverage is at a comfortable 3.5x adjusted EBITDA, well below the leverage test at 5x adjusted EBITDA which is under the overdraft agreement. The company is also compliant with its cash covenant under the bond agreement of $7.5 million. I will close off with a look at the balance sheet. A proper asset review have been conducted, resulting in certain development projects being transferred from intangible assets to assets under construction under the PPE line item. The line item contract assets now include contracts related to new customers or new markets. This item will be amortized over the life of the contracts. Inventories are up from Q4 last year with good production in Houston through the year and increased inventory in Consumer Health segment to prepare for launch to new customers, BJ and Whole Foods in Q1 2026. Cash ended at $16.9 million. Assets held for sale now includes only Understory Protein, the sales process is still active. Interest-bearing debt includes leasing and the secured bond at NOK 1.6 billion swapped to dollar. So this line must be seen together with a derivative asset of $8.2 million. Interest-bearing debt -- interest-bearing current debt includes the bank overdraft at $22 million. And finally, equity ratio sits at 37%. With that, I will hand the word over to Matts to conclude the presentation.

Thank you, Katrine. Now we're going to move into the outlook session. So following the announcement we made earlier in the presentation today that we have hired investment banks to look at alternative for a transaction for the Human Health Ingredient, we have also decided to give a little bit more visibility, at least short term on what we expect that growth to be at coming into 2026. So as you can see, we are guiding continued strong growth for Human Health Ingredient of between 15% and 30% for the first quarter '26 compared to the same quarter last year And as you remember, first quarter, we saw -- fourth quarter, we saw a growth of 28%, and we are now seeing continued strong growth coming into '26 as well. For Consumer Health Products, as also mentioned, we are expecting that to get into a stable slight growth scenario in '26. And the focus still for emerging business is to do transactions to exit out of those assets and reach cash breakeven for each of them as soon as possible. And also to repeat how I started this session, we have based on interest from interesting parties hired Jefferies and Houlihan Lokey as investment banks to advise us for different alternatives and working towards a transaction for Human Health Ingredients in 2026. With that, we're going to open up for questions. If you have any questions, you can e-mail those questions to [email protected], and we will answer those questions right now.

Okay. Thank you. Then over to the Q&A session. First question here is regarding the new customer, Costco. Can you say something more about it and how you see this customer evolving over time?

Yes. So first of all, it's a customer we've been working on for many years to get across finish line. It product popped up at the shelf at the Costcos across all the U.S. in the beginning of December and right away had really good sales volumes. So beating both our expectations and also our customers' expectation. So that is very good. When it comes to these retailers, it's not like you get a long-term contract, they commit to keep the product. As long as your product perform, you stay on the shelf. And this is a very good start where we are performing way above the thresholds you need to stay on the shelf.

Okay. So over to some financial questions and on the guiding here. So how should we think about volume versus price growth on 15% to 30% krill oil sales growth for Q1?

Yes. I think this is mainly driven by volumes because it's driven by the Costco business we just talked about and also developers in other markets. So there might be some product mix impact there as well, but mainly driven by more consumers buying krill oil products.

I think that makes sense. And I can just add that we don't necessarily guide on the quarterly price development. So it's product mix will happen from time to time. Okay. And then how should we think about net working capital going into Q1 from Q4?

So not a lot of change from Q4 to Q1. The main change will be when we start purchasing Nutra again after the peak of the fishing season, which will be April, May, June and July. So that's when we buy most of the Nutra volume that we use for the year. So -- but yes, we'll continue to work on supplier terms and customer receivables. But we -- with Houston producing as expected, we don't see significant changes in working capital from Q4 to Q1.

Then should HHI be sold in 2026, what are your plans for remaining assets in the company?

So our focus now is on HHI, and that's where the majority of the value is, and it's also linked to capacity and focus. So all our focus goes into that. And once we have good traction and that is kind of way underway, we will start planning for how to manage the remaining assets. So -- but the focus now is on maximizing the values of HHI.

So -- and then what are expectations for volume of Algae and Lysoveta sold in 2026?

So we're not guiding on that specifically. We did about $.5 million of Lysoveta revenues in '25. You saw the $1.6 million we did now in the fourth quarter for Algae. I would say that for the Algae business we did in the fourth quarter now, that is a big chunk of pipe fill. So it's a big peak and shouldn't kind of have that as a starting point to kind of build on in the coming quarters in terms of growth. So -- but we are commercializing both of those products coming into '26 now. It's a key focus for our salespeople. So we will see uptick on these product lines as well, but no specific guiding for '26.

And then what is the status on sales of krill oil to South Korea?

So we had, let's call it, a launch, prelaunch or relaunch now in December where we were back on home shopping and also back with influencers similar to how it works in China. Some adjustment that needs to be done, especially on pricing on the products that they're doing right now and then getting back at it. So now things are kind of starting to roll and too early to conclude what will be the levels in Korea going forward, but it has started.

And then a question on margin going forward. How do you see that developing?

So generally, I mean, you'll have from quarter-to-quarter margins going up and down driven by customer mix, also how much capsules we sell versus bulk. But generally, long term, we will have the operational leverage effect, which means that as we grow, the margin will increase.

Yes. So right now, there are no more questions, but we will give it some more time to see if it comes in. Yes. So nothing has come in here. So I think we can conclude, and thank you all for listening in and joining.

Thank you. See you next quarter.