Dampskibsselskabet Ord

this webcast with a presentation of the Annual Report 2025 from NOAN that was published this morning. In the first part of the presentation, you'll be in a listen-only mode which will be followed by a Q&A session. During the Q&A session, if you have dialed in by phone, you'll be able to ask questions verbally by pressing pound or hashtag followed by five on your phone's keypad. If you're watching this webcast online through a browser, you can ask your questions in the chat below. Those questions will not be published, but the operator will read them aloud. With that, I'll hand over to CEO Jan Renbo and CFO Martin Balstedt from Norden. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and a warm welcome to this annual report presentation and also welcome to the Center of Global Trade where Norden plays a major role as one of the largest operators of dry bulk ships and product tankers moving just under 130 million tons of essential raw materials across the globe. But let's dive into the financial figures for 2025. And we delivered a full year profit of $120 million, which was right in the middle of our latest announced guidance for the year, but significantly better than our guidance at the beginning of 2025. We have delivered a return on invested capital of 8.9% and the underlying net asset values in the portfolio were as of the 31st of December 379 Danish kroner per share. We are returning a significant part of the annual profit back to the shareholders through a combination of a dividend of 2 Danish kroner per share and a share buyback program that will run until the end of April. This year was busy on the asset transaction front. We had 48 transactions for the full year and an important part of our profit in 2025 was generated from vessel sales. where we sold 23 ships, of which 15 were from our purchase option portfolio. But we were not just selling vessels. We actually added even more ships. 25 came in through new leases and also the purchase of one vessel. And when you look at the purchase option portfolio, we actually finished the year with 90 vessels in the portfolio, which was a growth of 14% in the number of purchase options that we control. And of the 90 purchase options, 40 of them are in the money that can be declared in the next two years at values that are 18% below broker values. So still significant value in the portfolio, despite the fact that we have realized some of that during the year. With that, I'll hand over to you, Martin, to dive a little bit more into our NAV.

Thank you very much. As Jan said, our NAV at the end of the year was 379 kroners per share. That was actually a decline of about 11% since the beginning of the year, but all of that was driven by a weaker US dollar. So if you actually adjust for the FX change and the fact that we paid out dividends and share buybacks, there's actually a positive underlying development in US dollars per share. The current NAV, as you will see from the table here, is about two thirds exposed to dry cargo with 917 million of portfolio value and one third is tankers, $428 million. And when you look at the numbers just below there, you will see that there's actually very little leverage on the balance sheet. So a very, very strong financial position is baked into these numbers. On the right hand side, we show you the sensitivity of the NAV compared to changes, potential changes in the markets. So for instance, if both the dry and tanker market change plus 10%, then the NAV increases about 16% to 441 kroners per share. So a good exposure against rising markets. Now, if you have had time to look into the recently published annual report, you will see that we have now decided to show some of our numbers a little bit differently. We have six segments in Norden. That is the dry owner, tanker owner, and then the dry operator, large and small, tanker operator, and logistics. And up until now, we have allocated or we have made subtotals for these segments into asset management and into FST. That changes now, and instead we will group these segments by dry cargo and tankers, which we feel actually is probably more intuitive for most investors thinking about which exposure they are buying when they're buying a northern share. So going forward, we will be reporting the dry cargo business unit and the tanker business unit. But of course, nothing changes in the group figures and all the segment data will still be there. Looking then into dry cargo in this case, let's start with the market development. It's clear from this graph where the dark line shows spot rates for Supermax during 2025, that it was a year and two halves. So the first part of the year was actually fairly weak, whereas in the middle of the summer, the market suddenly actually took off and the second half was much stronger. That was to start with mainly a Cape size thing, but it actually impacted all the segments. I will say though that Norden had a fairly high coverage during the second half, so most of this has been impacting asset values and deferred periods. Looking then into the numbers for dry cargo you will see the four segments in the middle here and it's clear that the dry owner part really delivers the bulk of earnings with 67.7 million dollars for 2025. The other three combined of course produces a loss as is quite evident and I think the important thing to notice here is that they are actually all improving quite a lot compared to 2024. So the trajectory is good but the actual levels are of course not satisfactory. You are seeing that the trajectory on the graph on the right hand side where the red line indicates the total for 2024 and 2025 for the dry cargo business unit which has then increased from minus 56 to plus 29 million dollars for the full year 2025. So of course we hope to continue those improvements. On the tanker side, it was a little bit the same. The market in MR spot actually increased during the year and actually ended the second half of the year stronger than 2024. I think against many people's expectations. That of course impacts our tanker distance unit, because a lot of the exposure there is directly linked to the spot market. And looking into the tanker numbers, you will see that we made $116 million total between tanker owner and tanker operator. It is clearly tanker owner that delivers the bulk of these earnings. And the decline in tanker operator was very much expected because that is part of the business model. You can say that when the market is strong for a long period of time, the cost of tonnage goes up and it becomes harder and harder to make a good margin. But I will actually emphasize that we have been able to grow the pool part of our tank operator business, delivering good management fees for very low risk, which actually helps a lot in the measurement of return on invested capital. So with that, I will hand you back to Jan for a look at our guidance.

Thank you, Martin. So looking ahead now to this year, 2026, we have a expected full year net profit for 2026 in the range of between $30 million to $100 million. And there are three key drivers in the guidance numbers. The first I'd like to highlight is the new activity that we bring in during the year. So there's of course some uncertainty both in the terms of the volume of the new activity, but also the margins that we can generate from this new activity. Then the second point is that we have a significant open position of days that are not yet covered and exposed to the spot market. We have 5,700 open days in tankers and just over 7,000 days in dry cargo for the balance of 2026. And then the third point is just a reminder that the guidance here only includes known vessel sales. So we have already concluded sales with profits of $20 million, but it's only the known transactions that are included in our guidance for the year. If we move on to the business model of Norden, we have four main engines in the business, so to say. We have both dry cargo and tankers. And as Martin just showed, we have actually made a profit in both of these two segments. And then we have the asset light, the operator part of the business, and the asset heavy, which is the asset management part of the business. And here clearly the results in 2025 has been driven mostly by the asset management or the asset heavy, the ship owning part of the business. What we can see if we zoom out and look at this over a longer period of time is that having multiple legs to stand on, having different types of activities actually helps generate superior returns over time. because usually if not all four engines are running then at least some of them are and in some years it can be dry cargo other years it can be tankers or acid light or acid heavy but over time we have generated in the last five years a return around 25 on the invested capital which is significantly higher than our industry peers What we also see in this graph is where you have the absolute returns on the graph to the left. Then at the bottom, you see the volatility in the earnings. And here you can also see that the earnings in Norden have been more volatile than our industry peers. And this is something that we would like to address in our strategy. And this is clearly where the operating part of the business has had larger fluctuations But if we look towards the strategy and the direction for us towards 2030, then one objective for us is to reduce this earnings volatility, obviously maintain the high returns. We like that, but we like to bring that with a higher degree of stability in the earnings so that we don't have such a large volatility in our earnings. And the way we will do this is, first of all, we will look at the engine room of the operating business, become even more customer focused, really look at our cargo network, how we build a more efficient cargo network, reducing ballast time, capture more margins, optimize cargo flows, the voyage efficiencies that we see. We are also expanding into areas that are less volatile. One of the significant points in 2025 has been our expansion into MPP and Project Cargo. We have in the last three years made three M&A acquisitions all within this area. And we have now also built a core fleet of leased vessels. So in the typical Northern style with purchase options and extension options. And those ships are actually starting to deliver already this year in 2026. So project cargo, minor bulk, port logistics are all areas where with our expertise, we can bring more stable returns as it's more capability driven and less exposed just to market fluctuations. But I think the third point in our strategy towards 2030 is that we are maintaining the core elements in our business model, the four main engines that I showed you, because we think that really brings a lot of value, as we've seen also in them in the past. And that brings me to the last slide where we're just looking at summarizing as an investor what are the main drivers for Norden that you should have as part of your thinking when you look at Norden. And I think the first point to highlight is that we are actually in an industry with good fundamentals. We see an aging global fleet, especially when we look longer term. So towards 2030 or even beyond 2030, there is a significant aging of the fleet, both in dry bulk and in tankers. we have a relatively low order book and especially in the smaller segments of dry but actually low order compared to the fleet h profile and all these geopolitical tensions that we're seeing are creating dislocations that is also supporting ton mile demand And that reduces the risk of prolonged periods of oversupply, which traditionally has hit the shipping industry after periods of good markets. The second point is this business model that I just highlighted. So I don't need to say too much more about that, but we think that's a very strong model to generate value from. And then the third element is that we are within that business model really focusing now on more the what we call the capability driven earnings that are less market exposed. So our operating capabilities and building these more complex cargo flows, essentially building higher barriers to entry in what is traditionally very commoditized segments. And then the last point is continuing this disciplined capital allocation, which has really driven our ROIC outperformance. So the benefit of running a large business with an asset light platform is that we have the freedom, so to speak, to also buy and sell vessels. We are still servicing our customers because we are able to do that through the charter fleet. that we do and this sort of strict capital discipline allows us to return a lot of our profits to our shareholders over the last five years we have actually returned through dividend and share buybacks 1.2 billion dollars which is about the same level as our market cap today and that has also driven over time a strong shareholder value creation And then overall, our target for Norden remains to generate ROIC above 12%, so well above the capital cost, but also continuing to generate returns that are better than the peers that we compare ourselves with. So with that, that concludes our presentation, and we're now ready to go to the Q&A part of the presentation.

Thank you, Jan and Martin. Yes, we're now ready for the Q&A session. And just to repeat, you can get in line to ask questions by pushing the pound key or hashtag followed by five on your phone's touchpad. If you dial in by phone, should you wish to withdraw from the line, you can push the pound key or hashtag followed by six. And if you're watching this webcast online through a browser, you can ask your written questions in the chat below. Those questions will not be published, but the operator will read them aloud to management. But let's go ahead with the first question here. To what extent are the involving US sanctions framework reshaping investment decision by ship owners and operators when it comes to ordering new tonnage, especially considering exposure to secondary sanctions, financing constraints and future trading flexibility?

Thank you. That's a great question because this was a big topic in 2025 with the USTR, the US sanctions against Chinese shipbuilding and then the retaliation from China against the US. So there was a lot of noise in the markets and I think everyone was scrambling to prepare for that. I think it's fair to say that when we look at the investment part of this and what has happened since then is that there is no clear pattern showing that people or the industry is shying away from ordering in, for example, China. If you look at dry bulk and tankers, I think now close to 70% of new orders are coming to Chinese shipyards. So you can argue whether there is actually a choice the ship owners can make. Order books are also pretty full until at least 2029 now. So I would say there's no clear pattern that the industry has shied away from investing in Chinese shipbuilding or in Chinese ships from Chinese yachts. So I would say that it hasn't really changed the dynamics.

Thank you. And according to the Q4 financial report, the company had around 70 leased vessels and 12 owned vessels. Furthermore, it appears that 24 new leasing agreements has been made in 2025. Can the company explain the interest rate risk associated with the leasing agreements?

Yes, thank you for that question. So the structure really works in the way that instead of buying the ship, we take it on lease, which is typically a five-year period with a firm lease payment during the period. And since that is a firm and constant lease payment during the period, that actually implies that we have sort of fixed the interest cost that is baked into that project. It's the same with the OPEX for running the ships. That is all taken care of within that fixed time chart of hire. so in essence i would say the leases that we do have a fixed interest rate component meaning that we have very low interest rate risk from that part at least thank you and the next question here goes why do you expect a weaker second half for tankers Yeah, so if I can answer that. So the current strength in the tanker market is to a large extent based on a strong crude market where OPEC is pushing out a lot of products to the global markets. Of course, still the Russia sanctions and the Suez Canal issues, but also a low supply growth. But when we look into the second half of the year, we think actually that supply growth will accelerate a little bit, so that will keep or add more pressure to the market. And it's probably also likely that OPEC at some point will need to adjust Because the way that we view it at least is that there's simply too much oil coming to the market at the moment. And at some point this will hit inventories and that will hit prices. So we think there's reason to believe that the second half of the year will be somewhat weaker than what we have seen recently.

Thank you. And the next question here. If dryball continues its positive momentum and tankers also does so partly in the first half, at least of 2026, I'm left with the impression that your guidance may be somewhat on the low side. Is your guidance set low and conservatively partly to be able to counteract geopolitical surprises?

So our guidance is based on the market expectations that we see now. Of course, if the market expectations or the markets continue to go up and improve, there is further value. We have the open days that we mentioned during the presentation, both actually in dry bulk and in tankers. And of course, if asset values also continue to go up, then that will support the NAV value of Norden. So of course there is uncertainties. As we look into a year again, we are just at the beginning of the year. We also have a significant part of our business, which is the new activity that is coming in that will generate a margin. And here there are some uncertainties around both how big that activity will be and what margins we can log in there. So it is the reason or one of the reasons why we have a larger span in the full year guidance. And again, just to repeat, the guidance only includes the asset sales that are already agreed. And therefore, if we choose to sell more ships during the year, and here we are being very optimistic, looking at the opportunities in the market, looking at the market developments, But if there are further sales that we can do at profits, then that could add to the expectations during the year. And as I think we've shown you during the presentation, there's a lot of underlying value in Norden, both on the purchase options and on the own vessels that we have in the fleet. But it will be opportunity driven as we go through the year.

Thank you. And the next question here, what is Nuon's strategy for MPP slash project segment for the next five years?

Thank you. That's a great question because it ties right into the heart of our strategy. So we have done three M&A transactions that are all supporting our development in this part of the business. A big change for us in 2025 was that The sort of natural evolution was to then start building a core fleet. And we have done 16 transactions on MPP vessels alone during the year. So building a core fleet of the most fuel efficient vessels. So a great fleet that we have very high expectations for and already are seeing significant customer demand for. So the strategy the next five years towards 2030 is to keep growing this part of the business. It will help us to generate more stable earnings because this part of our asset portfolio is where we typically see the least volatility. um and it's driven by capabilities you know from our teams across the world and we by the way also see strong synergies you know between what we do in the mpp and project cargo space across our other vessel sizes so we are now regularly carrying project cargo not just on mpp vessels but actually across our entire range of dry bulk vessels

Thank you. And the next question here, how do you plan to restore a stable and competitive earnings in dry operator, especially large vessels, which is once again delivering a large negative EBIT?

Yeah, so again, it ties in with the strategy that we presented earlier. And what the component in our business that we are looking to grow here is what we call the base margin business. So all the margins that we generate, not from market fluctuations, but simply from having good cargo combinations, efficient voyage executions, where we're able to match a vessel and a cargo in the market without taking much market risk. Pool management, as Martin mentioned during the presentation, is also a great generator of these base margins. So that's where we have our strategic focus. We still want to retain the ability to also position ourselves for the ups and downs in the market, because that has done us very well over time. But building a more solid foundation of these base margin earnings is a key component in our strategy. And that will help us to both stabilize and hopefully also generate positive and better margins in the dry operator part of the business.

Thank you. And a question here. Can you please explain the strategy behind the coverage in dry cargo for 2026?

Yes, so we have a high level of cover, which was taken during 2025. So we had a more cautious view of the market. That was one driver. But it is also part of our business model to actually have a relatively high level of cover so that we don't like to be totally exposed to the markets. which, of course, when markets go up, you know, means that we're not getting the maximum out of the markets. But also during downturns, it means that we protect the downside. And again, looking at this over a five year horizon, we have generated great returns by having that kind of approach to to the markets. So we are more covered for 2026. But when you look at the numbers and our position, you will also see that we have a fairly large open position in dryball for 2027 onwards. We have over 30 new buildings coming in. We have invested in Cape size, also new buildings that are coming in where we've seen prices actually go up significantly from the time we made those investments. But it was always with a view that 2027 would be the time where we would see those benefits. It's fair to say that that has come a little bit earlier than also what we had expected. But our portfolio as such is actually well positioned to capture those upsides. But as things stand right now, it's mainly from 2027 onwards.

Thank you. And the next question here, you achieved a net profit of $120 million in 2025, but you're only guiding for 30 to 100 million for 2026. What specific factors are causing earnings to expect it to fall so significantly? And what will it take for you to reach the upper end of guidance?

Maybe I can at least start with this. So as Jan said before, the guidance 30 to 100 million dollars is only based on the known vessel sales that we have agreed to already. Whereas the 120 for 25, of course, includes all the vessel gains that were made during the year. And that was actually $70 million, leaving the $50 million residual as the operating earnings. And that, of course, indicates that the new guidance is more on par with actually with the operating earnings from 2025. And new gains, if you make new agreements on profitable sales, will come on top of that. So that is a big part of it, comparing sort of the visual gains and the operating earnings in two different ways.

Thank you. And the next question here, what are your expectations regarding the recent agreement between US and India, where India has pledged to stop buying Russian oil? Could that have a positive spillover effect on your business? And how are you positioned in relation to India? Is this agreement factored into the guidance for 2026?

I would say overall it is factored in to the extent that we base our guidance also on forward rates that are prevailing in the market. So if the market sort of has priced this in, which typically happens very fast, then it's also baked into our guidance. It's clear. that if this were to have a very positive effect, that would be positive for our spot earnings during the year. And you can say in principle, all the disruptions that we are seeing, including the fact that India now may not buy Russian oil, is net positive typically. But we have also seen over the last couple of years with new sanctions and disruptions that the market is really fast in actually adapting to new situations. And it often ends up not having a big impact because people will find ways around these disruptions. So it's both yes and no. I would say some positive effect it's baked in, but it's not something that will, I think, change fundamentally the market outlook.

Thank you. And then the last question here, how do I access the impact of a potential Hafnir acquisition of Torm on your competitive position and the markets?

That's a good question. Of course, there's no direct impact on Nord, but I think consolidation in the industry is a good thing. We in a way welcome that, but it's not something that really concerns us that much. We are focusing on our own business, servicing our own customers. running a efficient pool management business towards the third party owners that are part of our pool. I think that that that is what is top of our mind.

Thank you. There seems to be no further questions. And I'll leave the word to management for a final remark.

All right, well, first of all, just the usual caution about forward looking statements. But having said that, thank you very much for tuning in to this annual report presentation. Thank you very much for the many great questions. I think that gives us an opportunity to put a little bit more color. to some of the highlights that we've shared with you in the presentation. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for engaging. And we look forward to seeing you again next time when we report on the Q1 results later this year.