Kaldvik AS (KLDVK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to our quarter 4 presentation. My name is Guomundur Gislason, and I'm the CEO of the company. And with me today is Robert Robertsson, our CFO, and we're going to present the Q4 results of '23. We are presenting from Arion Banki headquarters in Reykjavík, and we want to thank the bank for allowing us to be here today. Arion Banki was the first bank to finance the company back in 2013. And I can still remember the phone call when I was driving from East Coast to South when they called up and announced that they will give us loans, that we could use to build out the company, biomass and top-of-the-line equipment. Arion Banki has been a good partner through the years and has a big role building out the industry in Iceland. So thank you. I also want to thank you who are here today. This is our first presentation outside our offices. We've usually been using Teams, and we listed the company back in beginning of COVID. And so technology has been a great help, but it's also good to be face-to-face and have a good discussion. And also, you, online, thank you for being with us. Our highlights of the quarter is that we succeeded in building up biomass as planned. And it's not always easy to plan in fish farming, but we are really proud of being able to stick to what we have been saying in the last quarters and managed to triple the biomass during 2023 from about 5,000 tonnes to 16,000 tonnes. And we had quite low mortality, and biological status in the quarter was pretty good, except for one site where we had more downgrades than anticipated due to winter wounds. The site will finish harvesting in quarter 1 this year. And we harvested in the quarter of around 4,200 tonnes, and we are really proud of that. It took a lot of efforts to start up again after several quarters of low harvest and -- but we managed to, yes, get this volume. And guiding for 2024, based on our good biomass status and buildup, we can stick to 21,500 tonnes and be on track to become the biggest farmer in Iceland, and we're really motivated to do that. And operating EBIT amounted to about NOK 52 million in the quarter. That gave us about NOK 12.3 per kilo. We -- due to the winter wounds and downgrades, the sales price was lower due to that, but we are still quite happy regarding the sales. And of course, there was a little bit fluctuating up and down on prices. The prices increased later in the quarter than anticipated. And then we have a new CEO appointed, and I will go better to introduce him in the coming slides. Then I hand over to Robert. He will go through the financials.

Thank you, Guomundur. Good morning. As Guomundur mentioned, I'm Robert Robertsson, CFO of Ice Fish Farm. We prepared a brief overview of the 2023 and Q4 financials. '23 was a big year in the history of Ice Fish Farm, a year where we did necessary actions to lay a foundation for future success. After a harvest break from the beginning of '23, we resumed harvesting in the late September '23. And during that period of the harvest break and the whole year '23, we put focus on building up biomass, like Guomundur mentioned, and implementing improvements to our infrastructure, improving quality, improving and implementing biosecurity initiatives as well as to increase our production capacity. We also took the company through a financial restructuring, where we refinanced all loans within the group and simplified the loan structure as well as to increase the equity through our private placement and subsequent offering. We furthermore streamlined the group structure by merging 3 companies, and that merger was effective as of January 1, '23. So our financial health remained robust at the end of '23 with around 67% equity ratio, which is consistent with the previous quarter Q3 and an improvement from 62% equity ratio at the beginning of the year. So if you take a look at the left-hand side on this slide, you can see the -- how the total asset balance has increased in '23 and evolved. So total increase of assets amounted to NOK 1.4 billion and ended at roughly NOK 5 billion at the end of the year. The biggest impact there was having the investments in our biological assets. So the book value of biological assets, including fair value adjustment, increased by, well, around NOK 1 billion during the year and ended at NOK 1.3 billion at the end of the year. As expected, net investment in biological assets decreased or was lower in Q4 compared to other quarters. And that is due to the fact that we started harvesting quite heavily in the fourth quarter. We did also see a significant increase in fair value adjustments to our biological assets, and that is mainly due to the fact that the forward prices are higher -- yes, due to higher oil prices in our calculations. And total liabilities increased by NOK 290 million during the year. So we go over to the next slide. Yes, here's a high-level overview of net interest-bearing debt. First of all, Ice Fish Farm is fully financed through 2025. We have a bank facility of roughly EUR 156 million, and the net loan facility from the bank syndicate amounted to EUR 112 million at end of year, so -- and to all facilities around EUR 44 million. Yes. On the left-hand side, you can see how net interest-bearing debt evolved through the year. As I mentioned, we have been restructuring the company. We went to increase the equity, and the fluctuations in the year reflect that. On the right-hand side, you can see how net interest-bearing debt evolved in this flow chart in Q4. And the main items that affected net interest-bearing debt, and the first would be EBITDA, which reached NOK 85 million in the quarter, the first quarter, where we are harvesting in all months. And like Guomundur said earlier, the harvest volume reached roughly 4,200 tonnes, making the total harvest for '23, 4,400 tonnes. We harvested around 200 tonnes in September Q3. The cost level was stable quarter-over-quarter. But like Guomundur mentioned, the price achievement was lower in Q4 due to the fact that we harvested smaller-sized fish. And due to quality impacts with regards to fish we harvested in one of our site, that was impacted by winter wounds. That site will be harvested out in the first quarter '24. So we expect the price achievement to be affected by that in the first quarter. Investments in working capital amounted to NOK 36 million. The biggest contributor there is investments in biological assets. CapEx investments reached NOK 99 million, making total investments -- CapEx investments in '23 reaching over NOK 230 million, which is surpassing the initial projection of NOK 200 million. And the main reason is unfavorable currency fluctuations as well as basically higher prices than we anticipated. And we plan to continue our journey to improve production quality, increase biosecurity and production capacity and to reach a stable 30,000-tonne annual production, which is the first milestone. And I would say that this goal is reflected in the updated CapEx projection for '24, which we are increasing from the initial NOK 210 million to around NOK 290 million. And the final item in the flow chart is financial items, which amounted to NOK 44 million. The main contributor there is a financial cost of NOK 37 million. So 2023 was a turnaround year for Ice Fish Farm, where we started our production and increased quality, implementing necessary biosecurity measurements and took the company through restructuring. So the financial health is very good at the moment. And I think the foundation for food to success has never been as good as today. Thank you.

Thank you, Robert. Transitioning more biomass, and we also transitioned on the leadership in the company. We have been -- I have been in many roles in the company from starting it in spring 2012 and step by step in delegating responsibilities to new members. And it's been a joy ride, and the goal of building up a large salmon farming company, delivering premium, certified, sustainable salmon with about 200 employees and making positive impact on the communities we operate in has been achieved. So a pretty -- very good place. And I'm proud of what we have done and look forward to hand over newly appointed CEO, Roy Tore Rikardsen, later this year. Roy Tore brings over 20 years of experience in the salmon farming industry. He has expertise in operations in cold water, like we have in Iceland, cold water, in regions like North of Norway and Canada. He will bring strategic vision and operational focus, as I believe, will be located on the East Coast to where all the action is. And in his skill set, he aims to develop the company and focus on excellent operations, animal welfare and environmental safety. Rikardsen has a comprehensive experience across the value chain. So currently, he's, for example, running a 40,000-tonne harvesting station and earlier in the Canada process. So the whole value chain has been covered by him. And hopefully, we can gain his experience and continue the road on better production. We welcome him on board. He is expected to start in, I would think, around summertime, but this is in development. We don't have a fixed date yet. But until then, I am acting as CEO for the company, and it will be announced later when he will step in. Then we go into operation for 4 months, and that's where all the emphasis has been in the last years to do things better and get things on our state that we are proud. We have small stations in Iceland, one on the South Coast in [indiscernible], close Reykjavík, and then one on the north side of the island in Kopasker and Rifós, close to Húsavík. So we name them Land South and Land North, just for simplification, as some of you maybe not up to date on that. But the Land South, which is in [indiscernible], has embarked on a transformative journey, setting new benchmark and aquaculture through a series of strategic improvements aimed at optimizing operations and evaluating quality standards. These enhancements both implemented and underway, signify our commitment to excellence in fish health, welfare and operational efficiency. And we did several steps in the quarter and helps -- for example, creating efficiency. We have put in one more grading before we vaccinate the fish, that simplifies the process and also makes it faster. We have enhanced biosecurity upgrades, extra fish traps, cleaning stations in every house and new broodstock locks, both for safety and environmental protection. Water quality and fish health by installing degassers in tanks, a new oxygen system in pre-smolt department, significantly improved water quality and fish health. We have plenty of water in Iceland, but we need to handle it well. So it's a good environment for the fish. And we transported fish from North to South as we have more capacity of starting fish or eggs in North at the moment, and we managed to move like 300,000 to 400,000 fish from North to South as we have quite a good capacity of bigger smolts in the south. So we are optimizing both sides of the country to utilize the capabilities. And that will add around 230 tonnes of biomass that we can put out to sea, about 300,000, 400,000 fish extra by doing this maneuver. And this is what's highly successful, and we plan on keeping this as a tool to even out the different capacities at the sites. And then on Land North, close to Kopasker and Reykjavík, we have both freshwater and post-smolt facilities. And specifically at Rifós, freshwater site. In Kopasker, we have salt water site. And Rifós underwent a complete rebuild in 2020. So by enhancing the operational efficiency, it has been operational ongoing construction since then. So we've been -- we've built it up starting in 2020, and it's been great to say story how with new technology, new quality standards and procedures that this is remarkably good. And we are building out a new house there, a new growth house. It's under construction at Rifós, designed to accomplish -- accommodate 10 to 30 gram fish. So we'll get that, and then, we'll start feeding. And then we have ongoing 10 to 30 gram, and that's been added now for further biosecurity. That means we can take all the fish in and clean and then the next-generation come in. So there's no interaction between generations. And that's important for biosecurity. We are adding capacity in Kopasker. Currently, we have like 7,200 cubic available, but we are building up four 1,500 cubics at that site. And we plan to have that ready for the spring 2025 generation. So we're doubling the capacity there. And Land North had a landmark year, the output, the transport from tanks to the sea and the wellboat and then to the cages went really well. And we had less than 2% mortality after 60 days in sea. So that's like close to industry standard. And at sea, we managed to harvest 4,200 tonnes, as I've already mentioned. And with an average weight of 4, we would have liked to have that a little bit higher. But the average sea temperature was close to normal. By the end of the year, we achieved a significant biomass increase, 60,000 tonnes, and 8.9 million fish in the sea. That's about 45% of the fish in Iceland in the sea, and that's up from 5.8 million fish. So it's a growth. And this growth underscores the success of our operational and health management improvements throughout 2023. However, we encountered challenges at one site due to winter wounds, leading to harvesting the fish with smaller sizes in the quarter. This will be harvested in Q1 2024. At all other sites in production, we have not experienced any winter wound problems. So the other generations that are coming are showing great results after our enhancements of biosecurity and quality control. We're really pleased to see the development in sea. But looking ahead, we are able to keep our production and harvesting goal of 21,500 tonnes in 2024, and that's up from 4,400 tonnes this year. So it's going to be a big year. Research and production is expected to positively impact our costs per kilo, benefiting from economies of scale now in place. So now the ball is rolling. The surge in protection with -- yes, sorry, with our comprehensive infrastructure, employee, sites, cages, perches, cameras, boats and highly efficient team, our operational capacity is optimized for increased utility and efficiency. And we go to next slide. During the quarter, we had operational capacity of up to 27,000 fish per shift in the harvesting station. I'm very proud of that. It's a lot of fish, and we need to be handled -- be able to handle a lot of fish going forward. So -- but we still have programs to increase it as we want to be able to take big fish, and that's being worked on at the moment. And we are on track of obtaining ASC and BRC certifications in the second half of 2024, signaling our commitment to maintaining high-quality standards. Currently, we have AquaGAP standard, that's sustainable standard that our fish is sustainably produced. And then we have also Whole Food standards. And then in addition, we are putting up ASC and BRC. So that's a standard that is quite comprehensive on not only how we do things in production, but also how we behave in the communities. We have run regular meetings with the people who live around our operations. So the connection between the company and the area that we work in, that's important to us. And we need to be responsible in our actions. And all in all, outlook has not changed much from Q3 report. We are on track with biomass buildup and achieving what we have aimed for last, yes, few quarters. But to summarize, market prices are good and looking good in the near future. Harvest outlook, Q1, 4,100 tonnes and full year, 21,500 tonnes. Company is fully financed, now '25. Both in action and aim to reach around 30,000 tonnes with our current investment program. Our top priority is to be a responsible farmer and in process to implement ASC certification. The reason for we are here in Arion Banki today is to introduce the company back to the Icelandic investors, and we are still looking into do a listing in Iceland. And it's very interesting to be here today, and I have finished the presentation, and thank you for listening.

If you have some questions, then please can add them in the chat or fire away here in the room. There are no questions yet from the chat room. Are there any in the room here? See we have a full room. We were discussing earlier if we should be in a big room, and I don't know if we are not, but we managed to fill this one. Yes, here we have a question. What was the superior share in Q4? And what is expected for Q1? Superior share in Q4 was around 80%, approximately. We are looking at a lower number for Q1, but we cannot state that at the moment as the quarter is not finished. What is the discount on downgraded fish versus superior? Usually, it's around 20% and cannot go down to 30%. The contract price is below spot [indiscernible] in Q1. Yes, the contracts that we have for this quarter were done combined with quarters previous in quarter 4. So on average, it's giving us good price. But currently, it's lower than the really high spot price at the moment. But we had anticipated that. So we had lowered the contract share, down from about 50% down to 20%. So we keep the customer happy, but not too much contract. Well, harvest profile in Q1 be evenly distributed through the quarter? I would say so, but we are ending in week 12 in March. So it's 1 week harvesting, not so much. Could you comment on the expected cost per kilo development in Q1 compared to the level in Q4? That is quite similar, isn't it Robert? Stable. It's the same cages, same generation that we are harvesting from. So in general, it's same cost level. The expected smolt release in 2024. I was waiting for this question. We decided not to put it out in the presentation at this time, as we are now focusing on harvesting numbers, but our goal is 7 million to 8 million smolts, and we are looking at that going forward. That's -- it's always hard to have this presented each time as there are fluctuations in the smolt production. But the smolt situation is really good. The situation, especially in the South, has improved dramatically from last year and the year before. And with this transfer of smolts from North to South is compensating and fulfilling and fully utilizing the tax in Land South, where we have 27,000 cubics of capacity to keep fish, so about 1,300 tonnes, we can put out of smolt. Are there any more questions from the room? I don't see more questions on the chat. And thank you for being here with us, both online and those of you who came here and have a face-to-face look. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.