Hoegh Autoliner Asa

Good morning and a warm welcome to Herc Autoliner's fourth quarter presentation. My name is My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations. And with me today, we have a CEO, Andreas Enge, and our CFO, Espen Stubru, who will walk you through the last quarter, business and financial performance. As usual, we will conclude the webcast with a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. So if you have any questions, please send an email to our Investor Relations mailbox at ir.herc.com. So with that, I will leave it to you, Andreas.

Thank you, Mylin. And once again, welcome to our quarterly presentation, starting today with a picture of Hög Sunrise, one of our new build vessels that was named, had to celebrate its naming ceremony last summer with valued customers in the land of the rising sun. We are pleased to report another quarter, and this is also an end of a year with solid performance in, I think, somewhat we could justifiably call a somewhat turbulent year on the macro side, but has still translated into very solid performance from our part. EBITDA for the quarter, 145 million, translating into net profit 105, gross rate of 91.4. And we are now back on our regular full payout dividend policy of average. This quarter translates into 99 million dollars. One more new build delivered in the quarter, a solid equity ratio of 55%. If you look at the year, $621 million VBTA and 513 million net profits delivered, gross rate of 93.4%. We have We have declared for the year dividends of $424 million, maintaining our very solid dividend yield, taking delivery of three vessels, and we have a return on investment capital of 26%, all adding up, as I said, to very robust performances. I'm just going to go through some pieces on the market and sustainability and then hand over to Espen for a capacity financial before we end up with an outlook for the current quarter. On the market side, I think it's important relevant to emphasize the importance of China and Chinese car exports for our industry and for the capacity balance and clearly being the driver for vessels running full and delivering the performance. Europe remains China's clearly largest export market, but we also see strong growth in other markets such as the Middle East and South America. So the export boom is broadening. The Chinese OEMs are almost doubling their market share in Europe in 2025, now surpassing American and Korean OEMs. So it's a very, very strong continued growth from China that is the main driver in development of our industry. And that goes across also the cargo segments. Clearly, the main driver from China is new vehicles. where China has established clear position over the last few years as the dominant car exporter to the world. And that development is continuing at full force. Also importantly, we've had some fairly soft development in the high and heavy market over the last several years, but we are now seeing a change in that. But also that part is driven by a strong growth in the exports of construction equipment from China, with other exporters being largely flat. Then let's turn to our contract backlog. In the quarter, we have increased the contract share of volumes transported up to 84%. That is the result of our strategy over the last year to prioritize duration and robustness of contracts over short-term profit rate optimization. And clearly increasing the contract rate from 80% to 84% in the quarter is diluting to profit because we are actually leaving behind potential higher paid cargo to serve our customers as a part of our strategy. We believe that is a... what should I say, resilient, robust strategy in the current market. And we are pleased to, you know, continue to exercise that, even if it then leaves out some opportunities to take higher pay cargo. The average duration of the contract backlog is 2.9 years, almost three years. We are basically sold out for 2026. Also have... a very strong contract backlog into 2027. We have added $250 million of contracts during Q4, though being contracts below the $100 million threshold individually for separate reporting. But there's still been a solid contract inflow during the quarter. And when it comes to the 29% of contracts that are up for renewal during 2026, you know, those are 80% of those contracts. are with customers that has been with us for 10 years. So it's with very solid customer relationships where we basically expect good opportunities to renew most of all or all of those. And then obviously we have the other ones which we talked about, the rate agreements, which are, you know, non-committing agreements where we have, you know, clients and a structure where we unfortunately have had to do a little less of taking well-paid cargo. And just on the spot volumes, which is a small share of it, but I just also want to emphasize that our spot business is primarily a high and heavier break bulk business where, you know, the volume of sort of individual lots and spot cargo is larger. So 70% of the spot volume is in the high and heavy segment. On the sustainability side, we are, with the introduction of our new builds, delivering strong improvements on our carbon intensity. And this is to the... story we have around Aurora-class vessels that are delivering substantially better carbon performance, also on, you know, fossil fuel. It's in... And... So on that side, it is the Aurora class primarily that is driving our improvements. But we also had a fairly intensive docking cycle during the last year. And we do have extensive energy efficiency improvements scheduled for all our dry dockings of legacy vessels. So it's a combination of continuous improvement of energy efficiency improvements. on our legacy fleet, an introduction of very carbon-efficient new builds. We also have certified four of the Aurora-class vessels during the quarter for shore connection, so we are stepping up shore power as a source of reducing auxiliary engine use and carbon emissions in port. Then I'll leave it to Espen for capacity and financials.

Yes. Turning to the capacity market, we've had a couple of years now with relatively strong fleet growth. We had 75 vessels delivered during 2025 and 13% fleet growth. So despite quite a large number of ships being delivered, the charter market remains strong. Although the pricing is down from the elevated levels seen in 23 and 24, the pricing is still relatively expensive and has been stabilizing and moving flat over the last few months. And in fact, into January this year, pricing is up. So there are no idling ships. The capacity market is firm. And if you want to add a few ships over the next few months, there are very, very few candidates. Turning to the financial update, as Andreas already said, 2025 was another strong year for Högåtliners. Despite U.S. tariffs, despite the U.S. port fees, despite increasing imbalance in our system, and not the least, the growth in the net fleet. EBITDA came in at 621. That's down from 2024. Two main drivers. One is reduced rate, and the other one is increased charter costs. Okay. The rate is down about $5, as we can see here, from $85 net to about $80 year over year. That's following our strategy of adding to our contract backlog, taking on more contract business, long-term agreements, which has increased the share of contract business from 73% in 2024 to 82% in 2025. The increased charter costs comes from overall growth in volume. We increased total volume by 10%. That increased volume out of Asia by 40% year over year. And that comes with added charter costs. Turning to the quarter, the 2.4 volume came in at 3.9 million. That's down 2% on quarter on quarter. That's following us having two vessels fewer in operation. We redelivered two ships in the third quarter, two long-term chargers, and we also sold one vessel. So we had two ships fewer in operation. That's just a quarterly impact. As we had, as Andrea said, another new bid delivered in December and also one very early in January. We've seen very strong demand from contract clients, as Andreas alluded to, also towards the year end, which has increased the share of contract cargo in the fourth quarter and is reducing the rate by close to 2%. MBTR came in at 145 million, that's down $10 quarter on quarter. Five is related to USTR cost, while the remaining five is sort of a net impact of lower activity and somewhat lower rates. It looks like net profit is down 21% quarter on quarter. Just as a reminder, we sold one vessel then in the third quarter. So the third quarter net profit before tax includes 20 million from selling that ship. Interesting for that, the net profit before tax is down 7%. Looking at the EBITDA bridge quarter on quarter, you can see the drop in volume following fewer operating days and marginally lower rates. Lower activity comes with lower fuel costs and also lower voyage costs. However, in this quarter, the lower voyage costs was fully offset by the USTR cost, which is booked under voyage expenses, leaving us with 145 million in the fourth quarter. We have a strong balance sheet with healthy ratios and stable ratios. Net debt to EBITDA still at one times, equity ratio 55%, moving flat. And we end the year with 299 million in cash, somewhat up from previous quarters, following the change in dividend calculation that we announced in the last quarter. We also had close to 200 million in liquidity reserves at the end of the year from a revolver. That revolver was originally maturing in the first quarter of 28 and have been extended by two years. So we end the year with 299 million and we have decided to pay out cash in excess of 200 million, meaning we'll pay out 99 million in dividends in March. And we now paid out 90 NOK per share. Then I think we're at the outlook, Andreas.

We're coming to the outlook section. And very briefly, what we have seen last year and what we still see is that demand for ocean transportation and car carriers remains strong. supported primarily by increasing demands from Asia. When it comes to the discussions going on around the Red Sea and the Middle East, there is no return to the Red Sea transit planned for the near future. The risk level is still considered high and we are observing but not planning to act on that in the near term. And for the first quarter, 2026, somewhat also driven by, as you said, the two new build deliveries right in December and early January of this year getting into operation, meaning that we now have the first eight of our class new builds in operation and performing very well. helping us to a slightly increased expectation of a slightly increased EBITDA in the first quarter of 2026 over the fourth quarter of 2025. That ends our presentation, and then I think we'll leave it to Mai Lin to manage questions from the audience. Thank you.

We see a few questions from our online audience during the webcast. And the first question is relating to our capacity planning. So does the company have a plan to sell further older ships during 2026? Do the companies have a plan to sell further older ships during 2026?

I don't think we, I mean, I think we are continuously looking at what to do with our fleet composition, but we don't have any immediate plans for selling vessels. And I'm not, I wouldn't, I don't think we would guide anything of that because... Vessel sales are also, I think, in this market triggered by opportunistic situations. But we are clearly committed to fleet renewal and energy efficiency. So I think it's fair to say that with our new build program, we have a strong preference from larger, modern, more efficient and more carbon efficient vessels over what is the dominant sort of legacy fleet in our market.

Thank you, Andreas. And the next questions. We have talked a lot in 2025 about the structural trade imbalance that has negatively affecting out operating costs. Can we comment a little bit? Do you see any improvement in this POI for 2026?

Yeah, I think we've had a history in our company to try to fill ships in both directions. And we've been doing that successfully for a number of years. We saw starting 2024, we saw that we had a slight imbalance, meaning we ballasted about one ship per month from the Atlantic and back to Asia. And as we've talked to many times, we've seen very, very strong growth in Asia over time with obviously China as the main driver. And the growth we've taken and the scene over the last year of 40% means that all the growth is coming in Asia and the volumes coming back is increasing. is somewhat in decline, meaning that the imbalance has increased quite a bit. So the balancing activity is up two and a half times year over year. And I think that's a theme for all operators. I don't think we see any change to that into 26. So we expect that imbalance that we've seen in 25 to be about the same in 26.

Thank you, Sven. Yes, and the next set of questions coming from analyst Pat Hogan, IBG. First, about our outlook. Can we say more about the slightly above in the guidance for Q1?

No, I think we mean slightly above.

Yes. And the next question is about the four-year guiding. So one of our company in our segment guides for four-year EBITDA. Why do we choose not to guide for the four-year?

We basically, if you look at the world around us, we believe that guiding for a full year is mostly speculative and we don't engage in speculation.

Thank you. Yes. And for our new building plan, we have put today about 12 vessels on order. Are we contemplating further new builds?

We have, I think I said repeatedly that we consider these 12 vessels to be the current program. Clearly, if you look into our 2040 and 2050 objectives, I'm sure there will be further renewables in there, but currently there are none in our plans.

Thank you. Thank you, Andreas. Yes, and also in this quarterly presentation, we also updated our contract backlog, including renewals for 2027. Can we comment anything about the expected duration or rates for the 29% contract renewal 2027?

No, I don't think so. But I think we are experiencing, you know, strong demand for contracts. The typical sort of duration of contracts, I guess, in our industry has been sort of three to five years for the longer contracts. And I think we are likely to be in that territory. But it's a bit individual contract by contract. And these are things that we haven't even started negotiations. But I think we said in our presentation that most of the contracts that we are going to have renewal negotiations in 2026 are long-term customers. They stayed with us for a long time. So we are negotiating with companies where we have a long-term relationship.

Thank you, Andreas. And one of the topics that we will talk a lot about in the last quarterly presentation in the next question from one of our investors online. So with the current, for now, the USDA port fees on pause until November 2026, what are our view about how much, if we're coming back in November, how much do you think we can pass this on to our customers?

I think I said a few minutes ago that we're not engaging in speculation. And I think that, you know, having any view on that now is highly speculative. What I would say is that, you know, closely following, working through relevant challenge to understand, respond to And if there is any possibility, particularly together with our customers, including US customers that will be hurt by some of those fees, we are working actively with the matter. But I think we're pretty far from wanting to speculate on the outcomes.

Thank you, Andreas. And we mentioned in light of the strong China export demand ongoing, we also have that comment in our outlooks. What is the management latest view? Whether your car carrier order book is still too big?

I think, I mean, I think what we observe is that the current, I mean, the order book so far, counter to most expectations, have been absorbed very well. And we see it continue to be absorbed well. Well, and so in that sense, I think the view that the order book was far too big is becoming maybe challenged by realities. And I think the answer to that question is basically based on a forward view on Chinese exports. And what we see from our customers is that they have the capacity, they have quality products, and they have attractive price points. If the Chinese are allowed to continue their export growth, you will continue to get good absorption of capacity.

Thank you, Andreas. Yes, and we also see a lot of questions. We've seen some of the questions already covered previously by other audience. So I would just read the question that is new on the topic that we haven't seen. So in 2025, how to actually chat in a few vessels? How do we see that in 2026? Do we see more TCE opportunities after the fleet or are we comfortable with the current fleet? I think for you, Esme.

Yeah, now as we've talked to, we took on some new business out of Asia at the end of 2024 and we've been supporting that new business volume with some charter in activity, particularly up to deliveries of the new bills. And we had two new bills delivered just before the summer and we have very recently just had two more delivered. So we've been planning for that capacity to come in. And we've been supporting that volume growth this year with extra capacity. And I think as we talk to the imbalance, I think that will be stable from 2025 to 2026. We have now two more new bills coming in, fully in operation in the first quarter. So that should reduce the chartering activity. Having said that, we think we will also use the capacity market opportunistically with short-term chargers, typically between three months and 12 months to some level also in 2026.

Thank you, Espen. And I guess let's bring it to the end of the Q&A session today. Thank you very much for your tuning in and we look forward to see you next time. Thank you.