NTG Nordic Transport Group A/S

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the NTG Nordic Transport Group first half 2026 conference call and webcast. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you need to press star 1 1 on your telephone keypad. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw a question please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised today's conference is being recorded. I will hand the word to CEO of NTG Nordic Transport Group, Mathias Jensen-Vinstrup. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome everybody to our conference call for the first half of 2026. And thank you for dialing in. My name is Mathias Jensen-Vinstrup and I'm the Group CEO of NTG. I have Tineke Torpe, our Group CFO, with me today. As always, we'll spend the next 15 to 20 minutes taking you through our highlights and results for the second quarter of 2026 and finish off answering questions from the participants on this call. And if we move on to the next page, we kindly ask you to read the forward-looking statements provided on the page. And on page number three, you see the agenda for this conference call, which includes the highlights for the second quarter, Review of the financial performance of the group, as well as each of our two divisions. The financial highlights and ratios. The outlook for the year. And finally, we open up for Q&A. Moving on to the highlights for the second quarter of the year for the group. We are generally pleased with the performance that we delivered. Gross profit increased by 8%, while adjusted EBIT increased by 23%, compared to the same period last year. The performance was driven by strong organic growth across the business, supported by higher freight rates and continued market share gains, as well as the inclusion of the final month of the DTK acquisition, as we illustrate on the slide. We continue to operate in a uncertain market with big regional differences, but on a headline basis, market conditions improved during the second quarter. Germany, however, remained muted activity-wise, whereas most other markets, in particular in the Nordic region, developed quite positively. At the same time, freight rates were impacted by higher fuel prices and capacity constraints, which led to higher rates and thus revenue across both divisions. Within the road and logistics division, an important milestone was reached during the second quarter with the completion of the TMS rollout in the southern region of Germany. And while the implementation continued to affect operations and also working capital during the quarter, we are encouraged by the progress made and we remain confident in the long-term benefits of the direction that we have set out, especially in light of the valuable experience that we gained during the first six months of the year and also the organizational strengthenings that we have made in preparation for the continued migration of our groupage activities. Within AnOcean, the restructuring and reorganization program progressed ahead of plan and numerous initiatives have now been executed across the division and we are gradually seeing these efforts translate into a lower cost base and improved profitability. Based on the performance in the first six months of the year, as well as our current view on the market, We have narrowed our full year guidance range for adjusted EBIT to between 625 and 650. The range will be raising the floor by 25 million Danish kroner. On the next page, we summarized the financial highlights for the group. And in the second quarter, we realized double digit growth organically and including M&A. of 14.8% and 16.6% respectively. This was mainly driven by, as I mentioned before, higher freight rates across both divisions, while solid volume growth and continued market share gains, particularly in the road and logistics division, also had a notable impact during the first part of the second quarter in particular. On the gross margin side, which decreased to 21.5%, the development reflected changes in our business mix, as well as the impact of the higher freight rates in the Anocean division. And as we have communicated previously, increasing freight rates create revenue growth, but typically dilute gross margins. The conversion ratio increased across both divisions, supported by operational improvements and cost-out initiatives. which drove the operating margin up to 5.4% during the second quarter. Special items amounted to 12 million Danish kroner in the second quarter and 24 million Danish kroner for the first half of the year, primarily related to the restructuring initiatives that we are currently implementing within the Air and Ocean Division. We turn to the Road and Logistics Division on the next page. The division delivered yet another strong quarter and continued the positive momentum that we have seen over quite a few quarters by now. Growth in adjusted EBIT on an organic basis was 18%, supported by the higher freight rates, volume growth, and generally a strong performance across the majority of our entities. In particular, we did experience very strong performance across the Nordic region, where several of our larger entities delivered strong and significantly improving performance and continued to take market shifts. As quickly mentioned before, Germany continued to be challenging. Activity levels were muted and the rollout of the Group H TMS also affected operations and the results in the second quarter of the year. But as I mentioned, we remain optimistic about the long-term prospects of the migration plan, not only in Germany but across our footprint.

So while there's still much work ahead of us, we continue to be confident in the long-term viability of the initiatives that we have set out across the division.