AKVA group ASA ($AKVA)

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and very much welcome to the Q1 presentation of AKVA Group. I will do the introduction and highlights. Ronny Meinkoehn, our CFO, will do the financial performance, and then we will do a Q&A session. So please post any questions during the presentation, and our moderator will read the questions. Kicking off with the highlights for the first quarter. We had a quarterly revenue of NOK 1.140 billion and record high quarterly EBIT of NOK 91 million. Strong order intake of around NOK 1.5 billion and order backlog of NOK 2.8 billion at the end of Q1 2026. Our last contract with value of approx NOK 200 million was awarded from Ardal Aqua in February and earlier announced. And a small contract of EUR 28 million was awarded from Laxey in April and then -- will then be part of the order backlog for Q2. Four new barges for the international market were awarded in Q1 with a total contract value estimated of EUR 6 million. Acquisition of remaining shares of Submerged was completed during Q1. That's our smart camera solution. Now we are the 100% owner and a dividend of NOK 1 per share were paid on April 21. And also the strategic review was announced the start of April to maximize shareholder value. I will comment on that a bit later in the presentation. Key figures for Q1 2026, record high activity level of NOK 1.140 billion, which is representing 13% higher than a year ago. EBITDA came in at NOK 153 million, where Sea Based landed at NOK 99 million, Land Based at NOK 41 million and Digital at NOK 13 million. And the overall EBIT of NOK 91 million is representing a record quarter for AKVA Group. Overall order intake of NOK 1.5 billion, which is also a record quarter, of which NOK 1.034 billion is related to Sea Based and NOK 460 million related to Land Based, also driven by the new Ardal contract. We are stepping up our order backlog and now it sits at NOK 2.8 billion by end of the quarter. I'm also very pleased to inform you that we have done a strategic expansion into the defense industry. This is a very value-driven milestone for our Polarcirkel boats being produced here in Norway in Mo i Rana. So in the first place, AKVA has qualified for the Norwegian defense industry as a supplier of high-quality Polarcirkel boat. So very pleased with that. It's a kind of quality stamp, and we have used quite some time for getting this qualification. Commercially, we have signed a long-term framework agreement with the defense industry in Norway for delivery of those boats. And the supply to the defense industry are expected to generate significant scale benefits and improve the profitability for the boat business. Deliveries are scheduled to start in the second half of this year and are expected to be reoccurring and increasing in volume in the years ahead. That's the frame contract. So if I should give some flavor of it, I will say that when we have stepped up pretty well during '27, the activity of the traditional boat activity will be 3x higher for '27 compared to where we came from. So that will drive also profitability because of scale effect. And those deliveries will be in addition to the ongoing commitments related to autonomous boats, both to the generic market and the defense industry. So if we are more than tripling the activity, we also need more production capacity, and that is secured. And we are now moving into new facilities, and they will be operational right after the summer. Then moving on to the long-term salmon opportunity. This is the high-level picture, the challenge, how to double salmon production by 2040. Here you see the illustration in the graph for how the growth projection will be if the industry is to support a 5% demand growth. That's basically a doubling by the year 2040. But the problem is that the current business model is running out of capacity. So new investments are required. And we believe box to the right that innovation and growth will be driven out of deep farming, post-smolt and grow-out. And this is an illustration based on our view, how to drive growth out of the traditional fish farming of 3,000 tons Atlantic farmed -- Atlantic salmon as today. We think deep farming can provide a growth for the next 10, 15 years of 0.5 million, plus multimillion tons and also Land Based will provide growth, but also other things like offshore and new technology like vaccines, new treatment, et cetera, et cetera. Looking a bit more specifically into each of the growth platforms. Deep farming, we think it's a potential to unlock 15% higher harvesting volume from existing licenses. It is documented that those submerged cases, the deep farming will reduce sea lice treatment with around 80%. I will give some statistics in the next few slides. And this is proven to support fish welfare and supporting the social license, which also has to do with growth in the long run. Also, very recently, we saw Sinkaberg, our first mover, our partner on deep farming. They reported that for the year 2025, they produced 38,000 tons of salmon, all with so-called shielded technology, but the clear majority is deep farming and Nautilus from us. And they achieved 4% mortality, which is way below the average of the industry being more like 60%, 70% and 92% superior, which is also excellent. So this is by far best-in-class biological results based on this technology. And we see that the fish thrives in the depth. So far, over 400 Nautilus units are deployed to the sea. We see significant reduction in lice pressure and higher share of superior, as I already mentioned. And then diving a little bit into the details. We have followed 19 harvested sites from the generation spring '22 to fall '24. And to the right, you see the plotting of the data. So we know the 19 sites where deep farming is used, and we have then downloaded data from Barentswatch to see the number of sea lice treatments on those specific sites. And there you see deep farming is on average for all those harvested fish, 1 treatment, a little bit more than 1 treatment for the whole generation. And the benchmark has been the neighboring sites without deep farming, and they are on average 6 treatments for the same generation. And then we also benchmark towards the previous generation at the same site, and there the reference is 7. So to conclude, it's a 78% reduction versus neighboring sites without deep farming and it's an 83% reduction when you compare the last generation. So ballpark, you can say that 80% is a good number based on those 19 harvested sites. So in addition to our own data, we have also noted that the scientist, Frode Oppedal from Havforskningsinstituttet, has said in public and he also did a publication that research shows that deep farming will reduce sea lice -- number of sea lice treatments from -- in a range from 70% to 90%. Also there, the midpoint is 80%. So we think 80% is a good number here. Moving on to post-smolt. Post-smolt is established as an industry growth strategy. It provides shorter production cycle with reduced number of months in the sea. If you have a 1 kilo post-smolt, you typically go to 7, 8, max 9 months in the sea versus the normal, which can be 16 to 18. So the fish is just less months in the sea. And that is also providing fewer sea lice treatments, lower mortality and increased biomass yield. And we have, in practice, very strong documentation from the Faroe Islands and the Rogaland region. And if you are successful in implementation of the post-smolt, there is certainly a documented potential to unlock 30% to 35% volume growth. There is a big market here going forward. We are the only true global RAS supplier. We have a setup in Norway, Denmark and Chile, and we have an international project organization, which can execute the project globally. We are ready to capitalize in the merchant growth phase. You saw last year, we came up with almost a doubling in our growth for Land Based. And that is on the back of the fact that we have invested NOK 300 million to transform this business to improve the science behind the technology and based on the documentation, we have 250 highly competent industry experts there. And last year, a turnover of approximately NOK 1.2 billion, almost doubling, as you can see here, and a relatively solid order backlog. So what we deliver is proven and documented technology, end-to-end project execution and advisory services. Also Land Based grow-out is gaining traction. We basically have 2 major customers there being Laxey at Iceland on a hybrid flow-through where we reuse -- sorry, 70% of the water and NOAP in China with very high reuse of the water, more than 99%. So both of them are able and capable of harvesting big salmon. Laxey has started to take a fish at 4, 5 kilo and NOAP will harvest or they are planning to harvest 6,000 tons this year with a size of 6 to 7 kilo. We think fundamentally, the success of harvesting big salmon has fundamentally to do with the water quality. We have very, very good water quality. We are able to take out quite a lot of the particles in the water, and that is boosting and stimulating fish health and fish performance in the tanks. We expect to see commercial traction during 2026 and expect to sign one new customer during the year. And also NOAP will decide about their phase III project, which is a large project at the end of the year. And if they decide to go for it, we have the contract there. Moving on to Digital. We have also there invested significantly in the last few years, NOK 500 million since 2021. Majority of the investment was related to Observe. We have 120 digital specialists within our digital platform. We have 4 different platforms there with presence in all the major markets. Digging into those platforms, to the left, you see Fishtalk. Fishtalk is about biological ERP system where we have a 60% market share. So 6 out of 10 farm salmon will be on our system. And to the right, it's the control system, bringing hardware and software together, where we have a 50% global market share. And then in the midst, you have new systems, so relatively newly developed system, which is about short-term decision-making supported by AI. And there we have Submerged, which is our smart camera, which can do sea lice counting, biomass estimation and provide solid KPIs for fish health, and we have Observe. So let's look at Observe. Observe is the market leader by far for [ automated ] feeding based on AI -- supported by AI. We have now installed Observe globally on more than 170 sites. It's a truly scalable solution, and we are now leveraging our global footprint. We expect to see more growth from Norway during this year. Then summing up, we think AKVA is a global leader and a trusted partner. We have the 3 platforms, Sea Based, roughly with a turnover of NOK 3.1 billion last year, Land Based with NOK 1.2 billion and Digital with NOK 138 million. So in -- to summarize it, we think we are part of the solution. Our technology can provide growth, better fish health, lower mortality and more precise feeding with less waste. Then our organic growth agenda for 2026, which is the driver for the step-up we are expecting to see into 2027, where we are on track to deliver on the NOK 5 billion mark. We will exceed it the way we see it today. And we have 5 organic growth projects. One is to commercialize next generation of Nautilus Next that will happen this fall. And the news will be about introducing a winch system, which will make it more easy to operate Nautilus. It will be more easy to bring it down and take it up, you will not need to bring in a service boat. Internationalization of our net business, that's another project where we are now setting up a joint venture with an Indian partner. That is still in motion, still in progress. Also, we will introduce a new more bigger size of our pen product that will also be launched this fall. We have already partnered with a concrete barge producer, so the customer can choose between steel and concrete that's DOKK Husoy, and that is already now part of our product portfolio, what we can offer. And we already announced that we have the ambition to develop our boat business with the defense industry. And I already said today that we already there have a contract in place. So I'm very confident that those 5 generic growth projects will be supportive for reaching the NOK 5 billion target in 2027. And the way we see it today, we will exceed the NOK 5 billion target. Focusing on '26, we have guided into this year that we expect to see a 20% step-up in our EBIT versus 2025. And on the back of a solid performance -- financial performance for Q1 and a solid order intake, we want to reiterate that we expect to meet with that guidance. For 2027, we expect to exceed the NOK 5 billion. Then closing off with some few comments related to the announcement of the strategic review. This announcement was made on April 8, and the process is supported by the largest shareholder, of course, given the right market conditions. So AKVA has entered a phase of strong commercial momentum and sees the potential to exceed the 2030 guidance of NOK 7 billion revenue and minimum 10% EBIT margin. So then a little update from where we are in the process because now we are 4 weeks down the road. So what we can report is that we see high-quality interest. And in particular, there is interest related to a potential sale of the entire company as a complete platform. Of course, I have to underline that we are still in the relatively early stage, but this platform sale will be our focus now, and that is what will be given priority. So the strategic review is expected to be concluded after the summer or during the fall of 2026. I have to underline no decisions have been taken at this stage, and AKVA will provide an update to the market upon conclusion of the process. So that brings me very much to the end. So I hand over to Ronny, please.

Thank you, Knut, and good morning to everyone. We are, of course, pleased to report that the strong financial performance in 2025 has continued into 2026 with high activity levels and also record high profits. So the revenue for the first quarter was strong, NOK 127 million above Q1 last year, driven by high activity in the Land Based business. So on the back of a strong revenue, providing economies of scale and also a solid product mix in Sea Based, both EBITDA and EBIT reached record high levels for the quarter. EBITDA amounted to NOK 153 million, which is NOK 40 million higher than Q1 2025 and EBIT of NOK 91 million is NOK 34 million higher than the same period last year and provides strong support to our guidance of delivering at least 20% increase on full year EBIT compared to last year. Net financial costs in the quarter are high, negatively impacted by NOK 8 million reduced market value on our investment in Nordic Aqua Partners and profit before tax of NOK 56 million for the quarter. So both revenue and order intake is showing a very positive trend. The book-to-bill ratio over the last 12 months is just above 100% with order intake of NOK 4.6 billion and revenue of NOK 4.5 billion. In Q1, we had a strong book-to-bill ratio of more than 130% with a solid order intake of close to NOK 1.5 billion. So compared to Q1 last year, we see increased revenue in the Nordic market of 10%, 27% increase in Americas and 18% increase in Europe. We have a slight decrease of 8% in Australasia. On the segments, we see Sea Based business still the major business area, representing 66% of the total revenue in the quarter. And the increase in the total revenue compared to last year is driven by Land Based, which had 96% higher revenue this quarter compared to 1 year ago. After a soft EBITDA margin in Q4 last year, we delivered a strong rebound in Q1 this year with an EBITDA margin of 13.4%. Sea Based achieved a solid margin of 13.2%, supported by a solid product mix and Land Based delivered a strong EBITDA margin of 11.8%, driven by economies of scale and also a healthy project portfolio. And last, Digital maintained a stable and strong EBITDA margin of 32%. Available cash, including unused credit facilities, was NOK 442 million at the end of Q1, which is a reduction of NOK 105 million compared to year-end. As we expected, the net working capital increased during the quarter and the increase of -- was NOK 85 million from the record low 6.2% at year-end to 7.9% at the end of the first quarter. So we aim to stabilize the net working capital below 8% on an average level, but please note that there will be some seasonality to it. Leverage ratio was reduced from 2.37 in the fourth quarter to 2.32 in this first quarter, which is reassuring and also provides comfortable headroom relatively to the threshold of 4.5. Net interest-bearing debt increased by NOK 68 million during the quarter, and the big tickets are the increase in net working capital of NOK 85 million, CapEx of NOK 45 million, and we also had M&A activities of NOK 56 million, including payment of seller credit to the former owners of Observe Technology, and we also increased the ownership in Submerged from 58% to 100% in the quarter. Total CapEx is NOK 45 million for the quarter, where NOK 20 million that's related to our innovation agenda and another NOK 7 million is related to our global ERP project. And the return on capital employed continued to improve on the back of strong underlying operations and a disciplined capital allocation. So the ROACE improved from 9.3% in Q1 last year to 12.8% in Q1 this year, and we also expect further improvements during 2026. A dividend of NOK 1 per share was paid on April 21 for the first half year, and the dividend for the second half year will be decided ahead of our Q2 reporting in August. Continue with some more details on the financial performance in our 3 business segments. And for the Sea Based Technology, the revenue of NOK 653 million in the quarter, that's 6% lower than Q1 last year. On the other hand, we had a really strong order intake and more than 30% higher this quarter compared to 1 year ago. EBITDA margin was strong, 13.2%, supported by a solid product mix. And overall, we can also report that the product mix in -- we added to the order intake and order backlog in -- during the first quarter was really sound. Nordic region had a reduction in revenue of 9% in the quarter, while order intake increased by 25%. In Americas, revenue is down by 7%, while we had a strong increase in order intake of 160%, which is driven by the award of the 4 new barges. Europe revenue increased by 18%, while order intake is down by 28% compared to last year. On the Sea Based side, both -- especially the order intake is showing a very positive trend, and we also expect the revenue trend to turn positive in the second quarter on the back of a really strong order intake in Q1. The order backlog is high of NOK 1.3 billion and is NOK 215 million higher than 1 year ago, indicating sound activity levels in the coming quarters. And the OpEx-based Sea Based revenue in Q1 was NOK 233 million, representing 31% of the total Sea Based revenue and was NOK 17 million higher than the same period last year. For Land Based, a strong order intake of NOK 416 million in the quarter related to the NOK 200 million contract with Ardal Aqua in addition to variation orders on existing contracts. The revenue was high in the quarter, NOK 346 million and 96% higher than the same period last year. EBITDA improved significantly by NOK 31 million in Q1 compared to last year, and the EBITDA margin ended at 11.8%. And the improved profitability is mainly due to economies of scale on the back of a higher revenue and with additional positive impact from closure of projects. We see that both the 12 months revenue and order intake trend for Land Based is positive. Order backlog of NOK 1.3 billion at the end of the quarter is NOK 270 million lower than 1 year ago. Digital order intake of NOK 44 million in the first quarter and NOK 12 million higher than last year. Revenue increased by 22% in the quarter and EBITDA margin was solid of 32%. And we see both the revenue trend and order intake trend is positive for Digital, and we expect this development to continue throughout 2026. Order backlog of NOK 226 million at the end of the quarter is NOK 85 million higher than 1 year ago. That was my financial update. I will give it back to Knut now to close off with the outlook and the Q&A.

Thank you very much, Ronny. Closing off with the outlook, we see still a strong momentum for our deep farming concepts. Just to elaborate a little bit on that one. We have very good results from bringing the cod down in the deep. In particular, the cod doesn't like too much higher seawater temperatures than 15 Celsius, then it affects the appetite and the growth of the cod. So the cod should, in an ideal situation be lower in the sea. So we expect to bring more deep farming to the cod industry, the farm cod industry. We also have an interesting development in Turkey, where they are farming trout in the Black Sea. In the Black Sea, it's very, very hot during the summer with high seawater temperatures. So they need to take out the fish in June. Now we have had one full cycle of production last year, where we took the cod -- sorry, the trout in the Black Sea down by 50 meters. And then we could produce growth entire summer. So we also expect to see further growth and scale up there. And then we have the launch of Nautilus Next with the winch system this fall, which we think also will gain a good momentum in the market. Moving on, we continue to invest and improve our solutions, both the 3x innovation agenda with Sea Based, Land Based and Digital. And we are aiming for revenue above NOK 5 billion. We expect to exceed NOK 5 billion next year in '27 and with a minimum EBIT of 9%. And the strategic review is expected to be completed during the fall of 2026. So that brings me very much to the end, and we like to open up for questions. So is there any questions in the call?

Not yet.

Okay. I urge you to post any questions, and we'd like to answer. Give it a little bit of time. Okay. If no questions, we conclude. It was a very strong quarter and no need for questions. But thank you anyway for listening. Have a nice week.

Thank you.