Borgestad ASA (BOR) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome to this Q4 2025 presentation of Borgestad's results. Please use the Q&A function if you have any questions, and we will take that at the end. And with that, I leave the word to you, Pal and Bendik.

Thank you. Thank you for hosting us. For second year in a row, Borgestad is distributing a dividend. The Board of Directors has approved to distribute NOK 0.50 per share in dividend for 2025. The dividend will be paid out to shareholders the 6th of March and is a repayment of paid-in capital. The distribution reflects what has been communicated from Borgestad over the last years. Borgestad shall be a shareholder-friendly company who prioritize distribution of dividend. Fourth quarter is a quarter where the seasonality sets in for Borgestad. Through Höganäs Borgestad and activity and results within the group decreases. This is also the fact for fourth quarter '25. Historically, fourth quarter has been a quarter with material differences from year-to-year. But for fourth quarter '25, the overall results is that Borgestad are relatively stable year-on-year. 2025 has been a year with high uncertainty, and this uncertainty will probably continue going forward. For Höganäs Borgestad, this uncertainty has been reviewed, especially in the Swedish market. Höganäs Borgestad has seen a slowdown across several industries and segments with multiple project postponements and scaled down activity. In Norwegian ferroalloy market, recently introduced tariff barriers between the European Union and Norwegian -- Norway has added uncertainty to the broader ferro market, which is expected to have short-term negative impact for Höganäs Borgestad. To establish a stronger foundation for future development and profitability, Höganäs Borgestad implemented cost-cutting measures and organizational adjustments throughout 2025. The underlying performance of the business remains solid, even as market conditions continue to be somewhat challenging. Despite these uncertainties, the group continued to invest in the future. During 2025, Höganäs Borgestad completed 2 acquisitions Emcotech AB, a Swedish flue gas cleaning company closed in June '25. And now in fourth quarter, Norsk Ildfast Drift Gjenvinning AS, a Norwegian company in Mo i Rana, focusing on recycling materials. Both transactions are expected to generate long-term shareholder value, and Bendik will touch upon this later in the presentation. Borgestad Group reports an adjusted full year profit before tax of NOK 51 million, a decrease from 2024. The decrease full year -- for full year profit before tax is due to a slower start of the year in 2025 and the challenging market conditions. The positive trend during the year is that the second half of the year has been better than same period 2024. Borgestad's shopping center, Agora Bytom maintained its positive momentum in connection with leasing and Agora Bytom ended 2025 with occupancy rate at 96.2% based on signed leases. During 2025, Agora Bytom has increased the occupancy rate of about 1.7% for the year. Before going into details, we'll start with a brief introduction to Borgestad for those of you who are not familiar with who we are and what we do. Borgestad is a company with a lot of history with industrial and shipping routes dating back to early 1900s. Over the years, we have now evolved into an industrial investment company currently invested in commercial real estate and refractory industry. Our current main priority is to improve and maximize the value of existing portfolio. Looking ahead, we aim to take positions in niche segments with consolidation potential where we can see that we can make a difference. We operate as active owners, meaning that we work closely and support our portfolio companies to drive operational improvements. A key part of our strategy is to leveraging the networks and expertise of our Board of Directors to identify and capitalize on new opportunities. Our current portfolio consists of 2 key assets: Agora Bytom, a fully owned shopping center in Poland; and the refractory supplier, Höganäs Borgestad, in which we hold a stake of 69.7% ownership. Agora Bytom is a modern shopping center located in the city of Bytom in Poland. The center is 52,000 square meter of gross area with nearly 34,000 square meters of leasable space. With close to 5 million annual visitors, Agora Bytom holds a leading position in its local market. Höganäs Borgestad is a manufacturer and supplier of high-quality refractory products and installation services serving industries that rely on high temperature processes such as steel, cement and pulp and paper. With a strong presence in Norway, Sweden and Finland, Höganäs Borgestad is the market leader in the Nordic region for refractory businesses. Let's go into Agora Bytom and some more details. Agora Bytom continues a positive trend with improvements driven by revenue growth and EBITDA growth for full year 2025. EBITDA increased from NOK 41.3 million in 2024 to NOK 42.3 million in full year 2025. Q4 has been a bit weaker, dragged down by some one-offs and with some changes for tenants in the quarter. Despite a bit weaker fourth quarter, 2025 has been a good year for Agora Bytom for overall performances. Agora has a positive momentum on signing leases and had by end of 2025 an occupancy rate of 96.2%. As part of the increase in occupancy, also the total area for commercial spaces are increased by converting common areas to leasable areas. And this is something we will focus on further to try to increase further on leasable areas. Agora Bytom had a new year with a lot of changes in relations to tenants. The development in tenant base in Agora Bytom is a trend of increased commercial attractiveness and better tenant quality. The new signed leases will open during first half of 2026 and will increase rental income and profitability going forward. Borgestad will continue to focus on increasing rent levels and occupancy and change out tenants with low rents with better commercial attractiveness and higher rents. As of December 31, 2025, the debt stands at EUR 28.9 million, maintaining a sustainable financial position. Tenant turnover at Agora Bytom increased by 6.6% in fourth quarter 2025 compared to the same period in 2025. Number of visitors are relatively stable. The increase in turnover reflects the higher spending pattern among visitors, contributing to improved tenant performances for the tenants in Agora Bytom. The Polish economy growth has been resilient and above the EU average growth despite the trade turmoil and the ongoing war in neighboring Ukraine. Borgestad expects continued positive development in consumer spending in Poland, and this should lead to better performance for Agora Bytom. Agora Bytom benefits from a diverse tenant base and a healthy weighted average unexpired lease term of about 4 years, ensuring low contract duration risk and high visibility for the years ahead. Lease expirations are well spread over time with first due date for top tenants in first quarter 2028. Local management is actively engaged in ongoing negotiations with both existing and potential new leases. This should strengthen the center for the future. Bendik?

Thank you, Pal. Höganäs Borgestad concluded 2025 with the quarterly results in line with last year's fourth quarter with revenues of NOK 228 million and an adjusted EBIT of NOK 4.5 million. For the year as a whole, we delivered an EBIT of NOK 64.7 million, down from NOK 81.1 million last year. This drop was, as Pal mentioned, largely explained by a drop in revenue in the first half of 2025 with considerably less project activity in the low season from January to April. Our subsidiaries in Norway and Finland continued to perform at a high level, whereas we now also see good signs of improvement in Sweden, but we still have a lot of things to improve. And as Pal mentioned, it's quite clear that we are facing challenging market conditions with customers within several industries having temporary shutdowns or postponed projects, which in the short term is implying reduced utilization among all Nordic refractory actors, which inevitably is affecting us negatively. We have seen this in Sweden, and we now also see this in Norway among ferroalloy producers, which are having production shutdowns, partly explained by the recently introduced tariffs on Norwegian ferroalloy into the EU, but also explained by the unusually high electricity prices in the northern part of Norway, which is drastically reducing the gross margins for the ferroalloy producers. Nevertheless, we remain committed to our medium-term EBIT target of 10% for the group as a whole. And as Pal mentioned, in December '25, we acquired Norsk Ildfast Gjenvinning Drift, a company recycling refractory materials located in Mo i Rana, close to both existing and potential customers in the Northern region of both Norway and Sweden. And we have a group ambition of increasing our share of recycled materials in our products while maintaining the same high quality. In order to ensure the same high product quality, we will make some smaller investments in the production plant in Mo i Rana, and we already have activities ongoing to secure a positive development for the production plant and the profitable growth in the department in Mo i Rana. As mentioned in previous presentations, the Nordic refractory market is highly seasonal with activity being low during the first quarter, while picking up in the second and peaking in the third quarter. Following a slow start to 2025, activity levels increased as anticipated in the second quarter and continued to improve throughout the third quarter, which was the best quarter in the history of Höganäs Borgestad. In the fourth quarter, both revenue and EBIT matched the previous year's figures, although this was slightly below our internal expectations for the fourth quarter. The shortfall compared to our internal targets for the quarter was mainly due to certain fixed price projects, which yielded lower results than projected, and we have since implemented measures to reduce the risk of doing similar mistakes in the future. Looking at our trailing 12 months results, our adjusted EBIT margin remained stable at 6.2%. Although several customers have postponed projects, which are negatively impacting our business in the short term, we are thinking long term about how we act. And we believe in maintaining a position as a trusted partner for our clients rather than downsizing in direct proportion to the declining revenue, we are committed to retaining our capabilities. This will position us to capitalize on increased market activity, which we anticipate in the coming years. That said, we have strengthened our focus on profitability and cost control across all 3 countries to reduce general redundancy, aiming to improve our results also in the short term. We expect positive progress despite challenging market conditions as we work toward our midterm EBIT target of 10%. And finally, a short update on the Bjuv sale-leaseback agreement. For those of you who are not familiar, at the end of 2023, Höganäs Borgestad entered into an agreement to sell 2 properties in Bjuv in Sweden to the local municipality. The transaction included an option for us to lease the properties back for up to 5 years, providing flexibility as we plan to relocate production. Following a complaint about the sales price filed by a local resident, the administrative court in Malmö rejected the transaction in March 2025, citing the lack of documentation supporting the transaction value. The municipality responded by appealing the decision in April, adding additional supporting documents. And in June, the court agreed to reconsider the case and ultimately, in December 2025, the Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the transaction, allowing the sale to move forward. However, in January this year, the same local resident appealed the decision once more and the Supreme Court is now set to review the case. We anticipate that the court will reach a final verdict within 4 to 6 months, meaning that we should expect a final decision by this summer. We remain confident that this transaction will proceed. And once the transaction is completed, we will once again start planning for future production, which has been put on hold due to this legal process.

So going to the financials and group overview. Turning to the financials for Borgestad Group as a whole, we start with the P&L. Revenue is stable in fourth quarter 2025, but has a decrease for full year 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The full year decrease is due to market conditions within the refractory market. Adjusted EBIT decreases in fourth quarter compared to fourth quarter '24 due to increased depreciation for Agora Bytom and the fact that in fourth quarter '24, the sale of the former headquarter of Borgestad were included with a gain of approximately NOK 5 million. For adjusted EBIT full year, the decrease is as expected due to the slow first quarter in '25 compared to '24. And also for full year '25, the increased depreciation for Agora Bytom is affecting the numbers. Looking at the balance sheet, working capital increased to NOK 241.4 million from NOK 197 million as of December 31, 2024, mainly driven by increased trade receivables and inventory within Höganäs Borgestad. Going forward, Höganäs Borgestad will focus on decreasing working capital through different measures. For the December 31, total interest-bearing debt stood at NOK 457.5 million, while net interest-bearing debt was at NOK 304.9 million. The property in Bjuv remains classified as held for sale, pending the expected court decision in near-term future. Borgestad expects that the process will finalize in 2026 with closing of the transaction, of course, conditional of positive outcome from the Supreme Court decision. Net cash flow from operating activities for the period was positive with NOK 33.7 million. Cash flow from investing activities was negative with NOK 46.1 million after closing 2 acquisitions and reinvestments in core business. Per December 31, available liquidity stood at NOK 212.6 million, including NOK 75.7 million in undrawn credit facilities, meaning that Borgestad has a good liquidity situation. To summarize, Borgestad delivered strong underlying financial results for full year 2025. Borgestad has invested for the future with 2 acquisitions completed in 2025 and cash flow remains solid and net debt at a sustainable level, giving the possibility to distribute a dividend of NOK 0.50 per share dividend for 2025. As communicated in the start of the presentation, the dividend will be payable already at 6th of March and is a repayment of paid-in capital. Borgestad expects to continue the good development going forward but Q4 -- sorry, Q1 2026 will be probably according to first quarter 2025, while fiscal year 2026 is expected to be somewhat better on EBIT level than fiscal year 2025. Thank you.

We will go over to the Q&A. [Operator Instructions]. I can start with a question here regarding what you mentioned in the Q3 report. You mentioned a noncash one-off effect that would be implemented in Q4 that you did not mention today. Can you give a comment on that?

Yes. That is a bit technical, but we are in the liquidation process of a company in Asia within Höganäs Borgestad Group. And it was expected that the liquidation would give a negative P&L effect of approximately NOK 44 million, while the equity would not be influenced and have 0 effect. Since the liquidation effect process has taken longer time than expected, we have done some changes to how -- or we have converted internal debt to equity. And by that, excluded the potential P&L effect with the same effect as communicated in the third quarter report. It will have no effect on the cash or the equity portion.

Okay. Thank you very much. We do not have any further questions. So I think we will round it off from there, and thank you all for listening in.