Proximar Seafood AS (PROXI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation by Proximar Seafood of the second quarter and first half 2024 results. As usual, the presentation will be given by our CEO, Joachim Nielsen, who will be speaking to us from Japan, and myself, CFO, Ole Christian Willumsen, who is sitting in Norway. Following the presentation, there will be a Q&A session moderated by our Strategy Director, Marius Birkenes. And with that, I'll hand the word over to Joachim to kick us off. Joachim?

Thank you, and good morning. We're now approximately 1 month from our first harvest, and this is a truly exciting time for us. Following close to 10 years of planning and investments, we're now looking forward with great excitement to start generating revenues. The production is moving forward and showing stable performance, and we remain on track with our long-term production target of 5,300 tonnes in 2027. Our biomass keeps developing positively. And the current biomass is around 530 tonnes. As natural, our activities on sales and marketing together with Marubeni has been high in the last quarter and continues with high intensity, as we now prepare for the harvest. We're also pleased to see the products being welcomed and proving the significant cost advantage of local production. In years ahead of competition, we are the only supplier of the domestic Atlantic salmon in Japan, which gives us a unique position. This gives us a huge first-mover advantage, which we will also take advantage of in terms of future capacity growth. During the quarter, we continued to transfer of batches to the grow-out where we had 2 of 4 modules now in operation and carrying fish. We see the modules are providing stable water quality and good growth conditions. This follows also what we've seen in the nursery department, which has been in operations for approximately 1.5 years. Currently, 7 batches have been transferred to the grow-out since taking it into operation in December 2022. The first fish is to be harvested in September, and we are therefore also very happy to have our first sales agreement in place by the end of second quarter. We continue to see strong interest and will soon also be launching our logo and brand name. Our production staffing developed according to plan with all key positions secured, and we've also strengthened the administration in Japan. And I'm pleased to see you also the internal training and recruitment program is progressing. Water quality is steady and good growth conditions continue with low mortality overall. We've had some turbidity issues lately, but we're now also installing equipment to handle this. During the quarter, we've sent several samples of our fish for tasting with different potential customers, and the feedback is positive, which is also very encouraging. On this slide, you can see the sashimi slices on the top right here, and this is actually a Proximar fish. And as you might see, color and fat content looks good. Since end of first quarter, our biomass has more than tripled, reaching 360 tonnes by the end of the second quarter. By end of June, we also had 15 batches in production, and we continue with higher number of eggs in our inserts to have adequate buffer also going forward. We welcomed 7 new colleagues during the quarter and counted 45 employees by the end of the quarter. As we start harvesting, we will have another team of 10 new workers joining from September, but subcontracted from processing company. Looking at the market, the outlook continues to be steady and attractive. Prices have normalized lately, primarily driven by the export price for Norway coming down. And in parallel, we've seen some softening in the transportation cost from Norway to Japan, but still remain at very high levels, also driven out by the recent year's development in the geopolitical situation, make it the transportation route from Norway to Japan significantly longer. The normalized price levels are also expected to have positive impact on demand in the Japanese market, which you have seen lately being softened by the sudden and sharp price increase a few years ago. As we're now approaching harvest and we continue spending increasing efforts on marketing and sales, I'm therefore very pleased to see the strong interest for our fish in Japan, but also from other markets. Our first sales agreement was reached in the end of June, and I'm happy to see how we managed to achieve our goals in terms of pricing for our products. We're the only domestic supplier of Atlantic salmon in Japan. This also gives us a uniqueness to our products, and we see customers appreciating the value proposition of Proximar. We have seen price pressure in the global market for Atlantic salmon in the last couple of months, which does not make the timing to launch our product ideal. However, we are seeing willingness to pay price premium according to our expectations. Having said that, despite falling prices and transportation costs, the prices of Atlantic salmon in Japan remain at very attractive levels and demonstrates the significant cost advantage of Proximar. We're now excited to finally see this cost advantage materializing and turning into revenues and profits for Proximar in the future. The interest for products remain strong, and we have seen a high activity of visitors from potential buyers to our site during the quarter. In April and May, we participated at SushiTec in Tokyo serving salmon from Aqua Maof facility in Poland and giving a company presentation. And the event had more than 600,000 visitors, and Proximar was able to generate good attention also in media and TV, all part of our strategy to build the awareness and interest for our product, as we're now approaching the supermarket shelves. We have also sent several samples as mentioned to potential buyers with positive feedback in terms of the taste, texture, fat and color. This is, of course, an overall condition for successful sales. Ahead of our first shipment in September, we will reveal our logo and brand name as part of our overall PR strategy. Marubeni is doing a great job and their dedication to make Proximar fish a success is very high. According to our sales and distribution agreement with Marubeni, Proximar is responsible for the fish until harvesting and gutting is completed on an HOG basis and then the fish is delivered to Marubeni, transferring the responsibility also at that time to Marubeni from our site. All the work from the site going to the customer is on Marubeni scope and responsibility, meaning that Proximar can focus on production. In September, as mentioned, we will have a workforce of 10 new people joining, the harvesting department, also contracted including supervisor from an experienced processing company in Japan. This is to secure good and experienced staffing and reduced risk for Proximar, also permitting us to focus on the production. Production is continuing to develop positively across all departments, and we continue to see lower mortality. In the grow-out, we've had some turbidity issues lately. This has not had any direct impact on growth, and we see no impact on fish health or mortality either. However, as a short-term precautionary measure, we have reduced feeding in July and August, which has some impact on growth, as you can see on the curves there. But no dramatic changes. And for us, the fish welfare and avoiding mortality is first priority, although it gives a slightly lower growth rate temporarily during the period that we keep the reduced feeding regime. We expect the turbidity issue to be resolved once we have our ozone system up and running, expected within a few weeks from now. Overall, the growth is according to expectations with smaller deviations. Primarily, as you can see on the graph here, related to batch 2, which was the first batch transferred to the grow-out system. This batch was also exposed to reduced feeding for a month or so during the biofilter maturation process in January. Overall, we are on track and believe our growth curve is a representative benchmark also going forward. Our current biomass stands at 530 tonnes, up from 360 tonnes by the end of June, and we continue building our biomass in line with our production plan and targets. Following up on the turbidity issue, as mentioned on the previous slide, we are currently installing our ozone system, which we expect will resolve the turbidity issue. In parallel, we are also installing nanobubble generators in our facility to have additional water treatment, also to have -- expected to have a positive impact on the water quality, including turbidity, but also geosmin. We are also testing geosmin in the grow-out and no geosmin is detected so far. As for the other measured water parameters, these continue to remain stable and well within the tolerance levels. The numbers shown on this page are from the grow-out, and as you see, all are good and providing good growth conditions for our fish. We have now been through peak summer season, and I'm pleased to see that the temperatures are stable and maintained below 13 degrees despite temperatures outdoor passing 35 degrees. We saw the same performance last year in our nursery department, and I'm happy to see that the cooling system is also doing well here in the grow-out. I will now hand over the presentation to Ole Christian for update on pricing expectations and the business case.

Thank you, Joachim. When we talk about the pricing and price expectations, it's natural to look at the cost picture for importing Norwegian Atlantic salmon into Japan, as this represents a floor for the prices that can be expected for Proximar. This illustration, we have shown also in previous quarters. It shows the cost of importing salmon over the last 2.5 years, and we can see that the cost picture has varied from just over NOK 100 per kilo to the top of NOK 164 per kilo. The average for the second quarter this year was NOK 137 per kilo, so just in the middle of the historical range. And since that time, now in August 2024, the importing cost has come down to about NOK 115 per kilo. If we then look into what this can mean for the margins, that can be obtained. Let's start by looking at the illustration on the left-hand side where the red line is an illustration of what we just looked at on the previous slide, namely the cost of importing salmon. And the blue horizontal line represents the EBIT cost per kilo at our targeted annual volume of 5,300 tonnes, meaning that the area in between indicates the profit margin that can be obtained per kilo of Atlantic salmon. Moving over to the right-hand side, we illustrate the expected EBIT cost per kilo at varying production volumes, indicated that -- indicating that Proximar can be profitable also at quite low annual harvesting volumes. And with this in mind, we remain optimistic regarding our business case. And we feel we are in a good position with the first harvest soon to commence. Now let's have a look into the financial figures, where we start with the P&L as usual. We report a quarterly loss of NOK 25.8 million before tax and NOK 31.8 million after tax. The earnings before tax developed as planned with growing operational activity, including growing feed cost, increased personnel and also increasing depreciation. The operating expenses also include the 2 items that I also mentioned in the first quarter presentation, namely the cost of unutilized production capacity and the fair value adjustment. Moving over to the balance sheet. We report a total asset base of NOK 1.376 billion, financed roughly by 70% debt and 30% equity. About 91% of our assets are so-called noncurrent, meaning it's the long-term assets made up by the value of our land, the buildings on that land, the equipment and the asset under construction. For the current assets, cash made out NOK 53 million and the inventory and biological assets made up NOK 55 million of the current assets. Moving over to the passive assets. It's been a quiet quarter for the equity with no capital increases, meaning that the equity has been adjusted only by the comprehensive loss in the quarter and stood at NOK 414 million by the end of June. All our loans are now classified under noncurrent liabilities, as no loans are falling due within a year. The first loan to mature is the syndicated loan in Japan, which falls due in August of next year. Our 3 other loans are all maturing in the fourth quarter. And with that, I'd like to hand it back to Joachim for an update on the completion of the facility and equipment installation.

Thank you, Ole Christian. As we're now entering the final stages of equipment installations and have identified some minor modifications and improvements we want to do, we expect some extra CapEx through second half of 2024. We're also doing some extra efforts to speed up installation works to make sure that we will finalize on schedule and without impacting our production. We have 2 remaining modules under installation of which the first of these will be completed in September and the second and fourth quarter. The amount is approximately NOK 30 million, and we have a good visibility on this cost. To contribute to the financing of this, we have the financial flexibility to sell up to NOK 40 million of the outstanding convertible bonds that are currently owned by Proximar. We have already received interest from several investors on these holdings. And in addition to this, we are working with different financial institutions in Japan to secure extra credit for the working capital purposes and to secure adequate buffer going forward. This is also to have the required flexibility from an operational point of view. We are experiencing good progress on these discussions in Japan. And following the strengthening of our finance team here in Japan, we've had a significantly higher activity related to following up on financial institutions and working towards potential investors in the Japanese market. Wrapping up, we continue to see stable performance in the system. And in terms of biology and water quality, fish health remains good, and we see low mortality. We are well on track in terms of staffing. Our internal training program and recruitment has started to secure the transfer of know-how in line with our strategy. We continue to strengthen our administration in Japan, also preparing for future growth. The big milestone with our first sales agreement in place, confirming our pricing strategy and demonstrating the attractiveness of our locally produced Atlantic salmon from the foot of Mount Fuji. We're preparing for the first harvest in September and continue building our biomass to reach our targets going forward. In terms of harvest volumes, our expectations for 2024 and 2025 in total remains unchanged at 4,700 tonnes HOG, of which approximately 350 tonnes are expected to be harvested in 2024. We will then gradually increase production to reach our target of 5,300 tonnes HOG in 2027 according to the production plan. Being the first mover ahead of competitors, we will continue to take advantage of this situation and start planning further capacity growth, as we now get the first facility up and running and start generating revenues. We're also considering strategic alternatives going forward to strengthen the company and position us for the growth, including the possibility of listing at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. We believe that when we have -- now you can see the start of generating revenues, going forward, more options will be available, and we're actively working to create shareholder value. So with this, we will conclude the presentation and open up for questions.

Welcome to this Q&A session in conjunction with Proximar's second quarter and half year reporting. My name is Marius Birkenes. I'm the Director of Strategy in Proximar, and I will function as the moderator. Our CEO, Joachim Nielsen; and CFO, Ole Christian Willumsen, will be answering the questions, Joachim from production site in Japan and Ole Christian from our office in Norway. We have gotten a few questions already, of which the first one is whether Proximar has a plan of uplifting from Euronext Growth to the main list at the Oslo Stock Exchange?

Yes. I can answer that. That's a good question. Thank you for that. Uplisting in Oslo is one of the options, obviously, for Proximar as we move forward and grow our business. However, at this stage, no decision has been made regarding the timing for doing so. And as we also just mentioned in the presentation, an alternative is also to list in Japan. So we are working on this, and we'll, of course, communicate as soon as a decision has been made. But so far, we haven't come to that stage.

Moving on to next question. When does Proximar plan to proceed with building further production capacity, the so-called Phase 2?

We have not set the date on this. As said in the presentation, we want to secure the first stage production up and running and then we will gradually start working on the Stage 2 planning. So it will be a step-by-step and then we'll have to come back to exactly a bit more specific once we now get our Stage 1 harvesting started and see that we have capacity to look at next stage.

Moving on to a question for you, Ole Christian. Could you comment on numbers concerning cost of growth per kilo due to the recent new impact on water quality and ozone equipment installation?

Yes, the cost relevant for that little increased CapEx will not make up a very material change in the cost per kilo in the long term. So we stick to what we have said before, around NOK 70 per kilo when we get up to our targeted harvesting volume of 5,300. Of course, in the phase from when we start harvesting now in September and up until we are at the full capacity, the cost per kilo will, of course, not be higher than the targeted NOK 68. However, we don't see that the increased costs associated with the -- that you mentioned in the question will have a direct impact on that cost as such. So we stick to the current estimates.

A related question for you, Joachim, for how long do we expect to have reduced feeding in relation to the turbidity issues?

The reduced feeding will be continued as normal as soon as we get the ozone system up and running and hopefully within weeks.

Moving on to the sales side. Could we say something about pricing achieved in the new sales agreement?

We can say that generally, we have -- we've previously referred to the benchmark, the cost of import of Atlantic salmon from Norway, including also associated cost of importing both on the exporter side, but also on the importer side. And then we -- with that, as a benchmark, we have also managed to achieve a premium. So I think that's to the details I can comment on that question. We are very pleased about the achievement.

And also an additional question related to sales. Could we elaborate a bit more regarding the agreement between Proximar and the distributor Marubeni and also whether we receive a part of the price premium?

Yes. The agreement between Proximar and Marubeni is for all of the volumes for the Japanese market, and it's also based on a percentage cost -- percentage fee, which means that we get the equivalent part of the price premium as well. So it's a very good balance from that perspective.

Thank you. Then we have no more questions, but you're always welcome to send any additional questions to Ole Christian Willumsen by e-mail. Our next scheduled communication to the market is a production update at the beginning of October before we return with the third quarter report presentation on the 15th of November. So that all -- then all that remains from us is to wish all of you a nice day and a good weekend. Goodbye.

Thank you.

Thank you.