Grieg Seafood AS Aktie

Good morning, and welcome to Grieg Seafood's Fourth Quarter Presentation. My name is Nina Willumsen Grieg, and I'm the CEO of Grieg Seafood. Together with me today is also our CFO, Magnus Johannesen. Today's agenda will cover a current status on our strategic turnaround and updates on our operational and market performance. As always, Magnus will walk us through our financial review and also share some information on the dividend after the transaction.

Starting with the highlights of the quarter. This is our final presentation covering discontinued operations, and I'm pleased that the closing occurred as scheduled in Q4. It has required quite some resources and focus from our organization, and we look forward to focusing solely on Rogaland going forward. Q4 represents a solid quarter, harvesting just below 7,400 tonnes and delivering a farming EBIT of NOK 20.7 per kilo, a result we are very pleased with. I will get back to details on this in our operational review.

A high priority for the management team continues to be restructuring of the company. We are continuously doing changes and improvements in our balance sheet, structure and operating model. As a result of the closing of the transaction, we have used the proceeds to repay debt, taking up a new syndicate with Nordea and SEB, and the Board has taken the principal decision to advise the general assembly to pay NOK 4 billion in distribution to shareholders.

I will continue to repeat this slide and our new focused strategy. We will go from global growth to regional profitability. This shift requires disciplined execution, and we have maintained momentum also in Q4. A key operational focus for us continues to be how to best utilize the strong position we have on post-smolt and land-based. During the quarter, we announced the planned expansion at Tytlandsvik of 2 new buildings, and we are also planning to build an in-house smolt facility at Ardal. This project has been in development for a long time and will support improved performance and fish welfare throughout our value chain. We will give you more details on this in our Q1 presentation.

Capital discipline is key to our new direction and investment in Grieg Seafood is kept at a minimum level during Q4 and until new strategic plans are reviewed and implemented. Having completed downsizing, we have turned our focus to absolute cost and reducing complexity. As part of that, we have defined additional cost reduction of a conservative estimate of NOK 50 million for 2026 as we target below NOK 3 in overhead cost on average. These actions are all key for us to achieve our targets.

Deep diving into operations and quarterly performance in Rogaland. All our freshwater facilities, including joint ventures, delivered solid production with an average smolt weight of 1.2 kilo. Following a challenging Q3 for us, we have to say, we had a slow start for production at sea with elevated mortality into this quarter as well. However, the performance improved as lice and gill challenges eased and production was strong in the quarter overall. This allowed us to recover the lost growth and enter into 2026 with high average weights in sea and maximum MAB, actually 98% for the year on total on MAB utilization. Harvest volumes increased from Q3, resulting in all-time high harvest volume of almost 30.5 tonnes for Rogaland. Our guidance for 2026 is 31,000 tonnes for the full year and 6,600 tonnes for Q1, slightly skewed towards the end of the quarter.

The farming cost for the quarter was NOK 63.6, still higher than we like, but lower than Q3. And we still have our long-term target of NOK 60. Summing up the key figures for Q4, it has been a strong quarter with an operational EBIT of NOK 152.8 million. The post-smolt we put to sea is now significantly higher than any of our peers. The distribution of smolt size has shifted dramatically over the last few years, as you can see in this chart, with more than 50% being above 1 kilo. As noted in Q3, our main objective going from '24 to '25 was to minimize the lower sized groups and only our broodstock smolt, 7% of our smolt was below 500 grams in 2025. Finding the right-sized smolt for each site is a key part of our production planning.

The smolt put to sea in Q4 was 900 grams from Tytlandsvik and 1.4 kilo from Ardal on average. In 2026, we also plan to harvest 500 tonnes of fully grown fish from Ardal. This is a pilot. The fish is performing well, and it is providing valuable insights into the potential of full cycle land-based production.

Turning to some comments on sales and processing. We were very happy with our achievements in this quarter. Our achieved sales price was NOK 84.3, a solid beat on the index, driven by high harvest weights, 55% contract share and strong sales performance on spot. The price experienced an upward trend during the quarter as illustrated in the middle chart. Looking at the details of the chart, it reveals that we benefited from optimal harvest timing, both for the entire quarter and on a weekly basis. We believe we are able to achieve this over time through close collaboration between production and sales.

At Gardermoen, Oslo Salmon processing, it's called, construction was finalized in December, and we successfully started production in January. Initial ramp-up shows high demand for filets and access to external raw material is expected to be sufficient to maintain high production utilization in 2026, but we expect Q1 to be a ramp-up period. We are guiding a volume of 8,500 tonnes of raw material for value-added products in 2026. To ensure high utilization of this facility, we are currently seeking partners to supply external fish and also exploring partnership models for the facility itself.

And with that, I leave the floor to Magnus.

Thank you, Nina, and good morning, everyone. So I think as you might have seen already, this quarter is presented with implications from several of the processes that we have completed, but also initiated in Q4. This includes the closing of the transaction, which causes a significant inflow of cash. It's also about the hybrid bond, which has been temporarily reclassified to debt and also discontinued operations, which are still included in both our NIBD structure as well as our cash flow that we present today. We're also happy to report that we have completed what we promised in Q3, both in terms of dividend, but also in terms of closing the negotiations with Nordea and SEB, which we are very pleased to have entered into a new financial syndicate with very few days ago.

And with that, I will go into the profit and loss statement. Starting on the top, we see that our sales revenue have increased 10% year-over-year. This is mainly due to higher price achievements, both from our composition of higher average weight, but also our financial contracts and physical contracts. However, it's drawn slightly below -- slightly down again from lower superior share and lower volume compared to Q4 last year.

Moving then to EBIT. We see that our costs have increased slightly from what we have guided -- from what we have achieved earlier, and this is due to we have continued harvesting from a site in Q3 and had a higher capitalized cost to that inventory. This results in a higher farming cost that will also continue in Q1 as we will continue harvesting from this specific site. But we do see this as temporarily until this site is fully harvested out. But despite this, solid price performance ensures the group EBIT of NOK 142.9 million, corresponding to a NOK 19.4 EBIT per kilo.

Moving then my attention to some special items in the profit and loss statement, which includes the reversal of a previous write-down on one of our licenses in Rogaland. And this is done due to the demerger of our group company that kept the licenses of Grieg Seafood Norway, where we now reversed that write-down in this quarter. Moving then my attention to the net profit for the period from discontinued operations. And this number includes a gain of approximately NOK 900 million on the sale of Grieg Seafood Canada operations and our Finmark operations. And many might wonder why this is so much further below than NOK 10.2 billion equity value, and that is simply that the assets we sold also had an outgoing value from our balance sheet, but we still have -- we still have received the cash as stated in our cash flow statement. So this is basically the sold price or the price of what we have sold minus the asset value of what we have sold.

Moving on to cash flow. And as you might see, we don't have the catch function as things will have in our reporting formats. But overall, our net cash flow from operations came in at NOK 173 million for all 4 regions. This is positively impacted by operational EBITDA of NOK 408 million, but negatively impacted by changes in net working -- sorry, changes in working capital of slightly above NOK 400 million, which includes a biomass buildup of NOK 220 million across all 4 regions. And that also represents that both the regions that we have sold and Rogaland regions that we are maintaining have had good quarters in sea.

Looking then at the net cash flow from investment activities. This is also significantly impacted by the transaction. And not surprisingly, this is mainly due to the net proceeds related to the sale of around NOK 9.1 billion. But if we isolate the net CapEx investments, this came in around NOK 170 million. Out of this, NOK 140 million is related to the discontinued operations, which is, of course, mainly driven by continued construction of the Adamselv facility in Finmark. But this also shows that the Rogaland region have a very well-invested value chain and has no need for significant CapEx lifts in the year to come. And for 2026, we are doing the share issue in Ardal Aqua to build the on-site smolt facility of around NOK 45 million, which is NOK 15 million lower than what we guided on previous quarter.

If we then look at -- our eyes on 2027, we see that there's no significant CapEx plans except replacement and maintenance CapEx, which included here on the slide, which are conservative estimates. Going then down to net cash flow from financing, which is also heavily impacted by the inflow of cash from the transaction. All in all, when we received the settlement -- the proceeds in Q4, we distributed significant portions of this to repaying all our debt and credit lines in the previous bank syndicate. And this is quite obvious from this slide, but what is important to also note is that this does not include the bridge loan that we took on early Q4 to plug the CapEx needed for Adamselv facility in this quarter. Residual items include lease liabilities, interest costs and also the hybrid dividend.

Moving then to the net interest-bearing debt. So it's -- I think it's the first time that Grieg Seafood presents a negative net interest-bearing debt position. But what this can be translated to is that we have a cash positive position that go out of Q4. So starting on the net interest-bearing debt going out of our third quarter. We see that this has been positively impacted by the operational EBITDA across all 4 regions, negatively impacted by biomass buildup and gross investments as well as the hybrid dividend. But then there's a significant increase due to the reclassification of our hybrid bond. And just to pause there for one second is that this reclassification is due to the bondholders having a right to exercise their put until 28th of January, which means that going out of Q4, this had to be classified as short-term debt.

Now that we have exited this put option period, it will be once again reclassified as equity. And then it's also important to note that when we reclassified it to debt, it had to be reclassified at 105% and not 100%, but it will go back to equity as 100%. That's the technicalities that's important to note. And then you see that we have done the down payments of approximately NOK 4 billion, and we have other changes of around NOK 5 billion, which except some timing differences is purely with the NIBD going out of Q4 of negative NOK 2.4 billion, NOK 2.5 billion or alternatively a net cash positive position of NOK 2.5 billion.

Also moving to one -- I just want to highlight one thing is that in Q4, the Gardermoen facility entered our balance sheet with their leasing debt that we have entered into in terms of the construction of that facility. Moving then to a topic I received quite a lot of questions about in the past months. So overall, the Board will propose to an extraordinary general assembly that the company will distribute approximately -- or not approximately anymore, actually NOK 4 billion in shareholders meeting to shareholders. And the reason why we can't share all the details of ex-date and payment date, et cetera, is that we are still awaiting the finalization of the interim balance sheet and the audit of this balance sheet, which is formality criterias in order to pay out a dividend.

We do not expect this to be any issues, but it is a formality that we need to follow. However, we will say that you can expect the call for an extraordinary general assembly to be sent out by end of March, where all the details will be listed and hence, payment will be done shortly after the general assembly has been completed -- the extraordinary general assembly has been completed.

And with that, I will hand over to Nina, who will take us through the future building blocks.

Thank you, Magnus. As we wrap up the last quarter and under the previous Grieg Seafood structure of 4 regions, I want to highlight our key strategic building blocks going forward, strengthening, prioritizing and future-proofing our operations. Our focus in 2026 is strengthening the company and driving profitability, building the fundament for the future. Biological KPIs and performance remains the core benchmark of our success as fish farmers. Rogaland has in 2025, delivered high harvest weights, record volumes, optimal MAB utilization and an average operational EBIT of NOK 21 per kilo, if you look at the last 5 years, confirming our position as a top operator. Our goal is to further fine-tune and stabilize this.

Next, we will prioritize key initiatives for growth, both on land and at sea. Our progress towards 10,000 tonnes of land-based production demonstrates our ability to execute on our strategic choices. Through 2026, we will be evaluating the next phase of our land-based production. The ongoing expansion at Tytlandsvik and the pilot at Ardal for harvest sized fish are central to this part of our strategy. Looking ahead, future-proofing means preparing for opportunities with new technology and adapting to regulatory changes that we believe will come. Our partnership since 2019 with FishGlobe has provided valuable insights on closed containment and new technology, which we will leverage in the next steps.

So this fourth quarter represents a solid foundation for the future Grieg Seafood that we envision. We delivered good biological results, robust sales performance, made decisive decisions and ultimately achieved strong financial results.

And with that, I welcome Magnus back to the stage, and we open for questions.

Alexander Aukner, DNB Carnegie. So could you give an indication of how much of the hybrid bond has been recalled?

Yes. So it is obvious to us that many of the bondholders still believe that the bond should remain in our balance sheet given the financial position. So it was only one bondholder that exercised the right to put -- the put on 105, and we are in dialogue with many others. But we do expect -- we are keeping all options open when it comes to both redeeming the hybrid bond through replacement capital or tender offer. But as you can also see, it has been reclassified to debt this quarter. So we need to go into the dialogue with shareholders to the bondholders and find a solution with them how we can redeem this bond. But our intention is to redeem it indeed.

Okay. And the CapEx and the working capital buildup for the discontinued operations, is that already netted out in the net proceeds? Or will that be adjusted in Q1?

That's already netted out in the -- it should already be netted out in the proceeds, yes.

[ Martin Kardal ] ABG Sundal Collier. Will the sites with the higher capitalized costs be emptied out -- fully emptied out in Q1? And how does it look on performance, cost performance on the sites from Q2 and onwards?

Yes. The most challenging site will be harvested out in Q1. And we had a challenging Q3 and it -- but it was mainly this and a part of a few other sites, but it is mainly this that -- so it will be out during Q1.

And then you reiterate your long-term target of NOK 60 per kilo in Rogaland. Would that be within reach during 2026 or for the full year, given that the level will likely be a little bit high in Q1?

I think we have shown that the biological incident or biological challenging conditions in 2025 still gave us a cost EBIT per kilo of NOK 61.7. And for 2025, we don't expect to be achieving the NOK 60 long-term target, but we are working on a positive trajectory towards that over time.

Christian Nordby, Arctic Securities. You have increased the smolt weight substantially in '25 versus '24. Do we see full impact of that on your harvest guidance for '26? Or should we think that there will be more growth to come in '27 based on that?

There will come some more growth in '27 based on that.

And maybe important to mention also when a smolt size increases, we have higher costs going to biomass from land. Hence, you will see higher cost in our biomass numbers as well.

All right. Anything on the web.

There's one question on the web regarding if you can say anything about the total amount presented in the claim from the minority shareholder in Grieg Seafood Newfoundland AS and if there will be any legal proceedings regarding that?

So this is a Canadian former minority. And our assessment is that this is a claim which is not substantial in amount or probability. And this specific owner had an ownership of 0.5% of the Newfoundland shares. And we do not see this as something that are -- we are not provisioned for anything of this, but we mentioned it due to the fact that it has been made a letter, but not any formal legal claim. Thank you.

All right. Based on that, thanks a lot.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

Good morning, and welcome to Grieg Seafood's third quarter presentation. My name is Nina Willumsen Grieg, and I am the CEO of Grieg Seafood. Together with me for presenting today is also our CFO, Magnus Johannesen. Our agenda today is quite standard. I will start by presenting operations and some details, and Magnus will follow an update on financial review and capital allocation. Summing up, I will restate a little bit what we said last time on our strategy going forward. So starting with the highlights of the quarter.

I am pleased to report that we have received full regulatory clearance for both U.S. and Norway. That was important for us. The progress in -- process in Canada is progressing, and we remain confident in closing the transaction during Q4. This will allow us to going into 2026, focusing on our core Norwegian operations and strengthening our financial position.

Harvest volume for the quarter was almost 7,000 tonnes for continued operations. Due to lower market prices and higher costs, the operational EBIT for our farming activities was NOK 3.2 per kilo and close to 0 for the group. Operationally, Q3 has seen strong Freshwater results, but the environment at sea has been challenging as for many others. However, by taking out our nonperforming fish groups at higher cost this quarter, we were able to ensure a maximum MAB into Q4 and keep our guidance for the year at 30,000 tons. I will get back to the details on this.

This quarter has also been a lot about setting up the structure for the new Grieg Seafood and getting started on cost reductions. As we emphasized last quarter, we are moving forward with a clear direction. We will go from global to regional and from growth to profitability. Our goal is simple: operational excellence. And we have made significant progress this quarter even before closing of the transaction.

We have defined a new operating model with operational capabilities centered in Rogaland. We have reduced or postponed NOK 110 million in 2025 CapEx and made significant headquarter cost cuts -- cost cuts, sorry. Cost discipline remains a top priority. The main change we have done is the reduction of 55% of our staff across sales and shared service functions. It has been a tough task and a tough quarter for us, having to say goodbye to talented and valued colleagues. But today, we have a rightsized and highly capable team ready to deliver.

Deep diving into operations and the quarterly performance all our Freshwater facilities, including our joint ventures and delivered solid production. At sea, however, this quarter has been challenging, as I mentioned, with high water temperature and sea lice pressure. As a result, some pens have had increased mortality and lower growth, and we decided to change our harvest plan to take them out.

I am of the strong belief that success in fish farming is flexibility and robustness in our plants. Incidents will happen, but the higher average weight from post-smolt improves our risk profile and flexibility. The nonperforming fish we harvested was put to see as late as this year in March but was already at an average weight of 2.8 kilos. So while it's still small, it was ready for harvesting.

Having this flexibility to harvest, our actions ensured optimal MAB utilization for Q4 as well as fish welfare. As a result, the farming cost for the quarter was high at NOK 70.4 per kilo, mainly due to this harvesting of small fish and also write-downs of biomass in general. We expect farming costs to decrease in Q4, but it will still be somewhat above our long-term target of NOK 60.

So summing up, the key figures for this quarter, our cost level is not satisfying, but due to our high contract share, we are still profitable in Rogaland, with an operational EBIT of NOK 21.7 million. Post-Smolt is increasingly becoming the strategy for Norwegian salmon farmers, whether in closed containment or on land. However, few have advanced as far as we have in Rogaland. Our post-smolt is gradually increasing in average size, and we are seeing real economies of scale as both Tytlandsvik and Årdal Aqua are putting large smolt to sea.

Årdal is expected to increase fish sizing significantly in Q4, with one batch already above 2.6 kilos. The post-smolt we put to sea now is significantly higher than any of our peers. The distribution of smolt size has shifted dramatically over the last few years, as you can see on the middle chart, with more than 50% being above 1 kilo.

Our main objective for 2025 have been to minimize the lower-sized groups. And this year only our Broodstock smolt is below 500 grams. Finding the right sized smolt for each site is a key part of our production planning. And the benefits are clear, and we have presented them many times. We are seeing improved survival rates, reduced sea lice treatments and less time in sea per generation. This means that we can utilize our best farming sites more efficiently, and it is changing how we plan and how we optimize and how we harvest.

Turning to the opposite side of our value chain with some comments on sales and processing with high price volatility and changing consumer trends, maximizing the value of our fish is a key success factor. So even with lower volumes, we will retain an internal sales team as we see several positive effects.

While we are not focused on building brands, our packing station and sales team have a good standing within strong markets, and we have consistently outperformed the price benchmark. We also as we have tried to illustrate in the right chart here, we also see the value of strong collaboration between our farming and sales team.

While difficult to achieve, we strive to plan harvest timing, responding to price changes from week to week. Value-added processing will also be part of increasing the value of our fish. The new facility at Gardermoen will ramp up through next year towards 10,000 tonne capacity, 8,500 tonnes next year, utilizing both internal and external raw material. We are actively seeking partners for external fish. Constructions will be finalized in December, and we expect production to begin in early January with organization and training already underway.

And with that, I give the word to Magnus and finance.

Thank you very much, Nina, and good morning, everyone. My name is Magnus Johannesen. I'm the CFO of Grieg Seafood. As last quarter, these financial numbers have been prepared in accordance with IFRS 5, which means that we are splitting between discontinued and continued operations in our financial reporting. This makes the figures somewhat difficult to interpret when going through slide by slide, but I will make sure that we try to stay on the right path.

Starting with profit and loss for the continued operations. We see a decline in our sales revenues due to lower prices and lower average weights in combination with the lower volumes due to advanced harvesting. This is, however, offset by our very high share of contracts as well as very high superior share of the fish that we did harvest. All in all, we did come in with an operational EBIT of negative NOK 1 million, corresponding to a EBIT NOK 0.2 per kilo. However, it's important to note that this is heavily influenced by transitional cost increases coming from the changes that we are in. Hence, we do expect this to come down significantly moving forward quarter-by-quarter.

There's also some tax effects from the transaction that we are now doing. We have reversed a deferred tax benefit as we no longer see the Canadian loans being in a loss position. This is the reason why we have an increased cost in our taxes this quarter.

Moving on to cash flow. This is prepared for the continued and discontinued operations. Starting with the operational cash flow. We see net cash flow from operations coming in at negative NOK 304 million. It's driven -- it's positively contributing that we have a positive EBITDA of NOK 101 million. But at the same time, we have a significant biomass buildup in all regions, including the discontinued and continued.

Moving to investment activities. The net cash flow for investment activities is negative NOK 168 million. However, out of this NOK 130 million is relating to the continued financing of constructing the postman facility in Finmark. And this shows how much we need to do until closing despite being a locked-box transaction. To compensate, we have a positive contribution from our net cash flow from financing activities of NOK 340 million. This is due to the continued financing, both for operational losses but also the CapEx commitments that we have in our divested regions.

Isolating the discontinued operations, we have a net change in cash and cash equivalents of negative NOK 437 million, if were only looking at Finmark and Canada.

Moving then to net interest-bearing debt, which is prepared for the continued operations but have elements from a discontinued operations within the bridge. I will try to walk through those numbers. So we started with the continued operations having a net interest-bearing debt level of approximately NOK 3.7 billion. However, going through the quarter, we still have to finance the discontinued operations, both in terms of operations but also in terms of investments.

As such, we have an increase of net interest-bearing debt of a bit above NOK 700 million. But out of this, almost NOK 400 million is directly attributed to financing of ADAMSELV, Finmark operations as well as the Canadian operations. This shows how much pressure we still have on our liquidity and net debt levels from the discontinued regions but it's still a box transaction, and we do expect some of this to be repaid at closing.

Focusing then on capital allocation. We wanted to clarify the numbers that we communicated that we prioritized dividend last quarter. As such, we have a preliminary estimate of NOK 4 billion in dividend distribution to our shareholders following the closing of annual accounts next year. As such, this is both through the 2 important elements. Grieg Seafood will have a very strong liquidity position despite this dividend. But we do have to ensure that we do have to comply with the equity ratio constructions as we start new Grieg Seafood.

As such, we are focusing on 2 key aspects: we are still optimizing and reviewing our balance sheet. And as part of this, we are in the final phase of negotiating a new bank syndicate backed by Nordea and SEB. This will provide sufficient liquidity, sufficient financial partners as well as a very strong margin. As part of this exercise, we are optimizing our balance sheet as we move forward. And hence, we are -- we have every intention to redeem the hybrid bond either through a tender offer or through replacement capital.

Secondly, we are focusing on liquidity. We need to make sure that Grieg Seafood going forward have sufficient liquidity to be a strong player in the aquaculture industry. We stand firm on our estimate of our operational liquidity buffer of NOK 250 million, but we have yet to determine the amount of liquidity needed to account for other risk. But we have intention to comply with paying further dividend as we move along in line with our dividend policy.

And with that, I will give back the word to Nina to go through the future building blocks.

Thank you, Magnus. One slide to sum it up. I will restate our strategic building blocks because they are becoming important for us. Strengthening, prioritizing and future proofing our operations. To strengthen Rogaland and enhance profitability is our main focus going into 2026. As we have started, we will do this through post-smolt development, MAB optimization, aligning our cost base with a new scale and ensuring a strong sales performance. This will form the basis for any new future development.

Going along, we will consider potential growth opportunities. However, future investments will focus on projects that truly strengthen Rogaland, prioritizing the regional synergies that we can see there, not just increasing volume. And as our third building block, we will look into how we will position Grieg Seafood for the future. We are seeing a lot of regulatory uncertainties in our industry at the moment and our ambitions and plans remain flexible, but we are -- we will establish a structured process to expand the use of new technology also at sea.

The Q3 results have not met our expectations. However, looking at the underlying fundamentals of our production, the organizational changes we have implemented and a positive market outlook for 2026, I am optimistic ahead to next year.

Thank you. And I can open for questions.

Henrik Knutsen, Pareto Securities. You have quite a lot more biomass on your balance sheet. You're going to harvest out less volumes year-over-year in Q4. And still, you're only guiding 1,000 tonnes of growth into 2026. Is that conservative? Or should we think that you have a very tilt towards the first half of the year in 2026 in terms of harvest profile?

I think we -- for now, we stick with our -- what we have said, and we will get back with an updated trading update, but I think it is a -- I at least believe in that prognosis that we have set. So call it realistic.

On the harvest profile.

It's always naturally is good towards second half, of course, but we have a lot of big fish at sea.

Herman Dahl, can you say something about the size you're harvesting out in Q4 and compared to more challenging sites you've taken out in Q3?

Do you have the average size for Q4? I don't have that on the back of my head. But as I said, we -- of course, since we changed our harvest plan, we kept bigger fish, so some increase from this quarter.

And one more, if I may. The price achievement in Q3 was very good. What should we think about price achievement going into Q4 with regards to contract, particularly?

We still have a very strong contract position also in Q4, similar to the contract position we have had in Q3.

Christian Nordby, Arctic Securities. In terms of the hybrid bond, you talk about the tender offer or replacement capital. Can you elaborate what you mean by replacement capital?

Yes. So in accordance with the term sheet of our bond, we can replace the hybrid with subordinate capital to the hybrid and pay out the hybrid at [indiscernible] But we do -- we are important for us to maintain a good dialogue with the hybrid owners. So we will both see -- we have a dialogue with them in terms of a tender offer. And if a tender offer is not successful, we do have progressing discussions on our replacement capital facility.

[indiscernible]. Could you say something about the health of the fish groups expected to be harvested into 2026 and how that could compare to your long-term target of NOK 60 per kilo?

We are done harvesting out the challenging groups early and end up Q3, early Q4. So the health now is good. Of course, we don't know what will happen with downwards and winter wounds this year, but I'm positive with the trend we saw last year. So all in all, it looks much better now than it did during Q3.

Tore Andreas Tonseth, SB1 Markets. A follow-up first on the question. You state that you see a normalization of the cost in Q4, so that means that you're looking at around NOK 60 in Q1?

We don't guide specifically on that level, but towards our...

We -- so the cost for the full year is expected to slightly above NOK 60, around NOK 62.5 and that gives you the estimate for Q4 as well.

He asked for Q1.

Q1, that will be a very strong quarter.

And also a follow-up with the locked-box, you are allowed to have a minus NOK 100 million EBITDA. The locked-box ended in October. So what's the -- are you within that?

We are well within that yes. I would say, basically, it's -- there's no impact as of 30th September in terms of the EBITDA losses -- excess losses.

Maybe open questions from the web.

There are currently no questions from the web.

Good. With no other questions, thank you very much for coming.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

Good morning, and welcome to our presentation of Grieg Seafood Second Quarter Results for 2025. My name is Nina Willumsen Grieg. It was announced this morning that I will assume the role of CEO on a permanent basis from today. I'm honored to have earned the Board's trust, and I'm excited to lead Grieg Seafood into this new chapter. Together with me on stage today is our CFO, Magnus Johannesen. Grieg Seafood entered the second quarter of 2025 with a continued focus on executing our transformational journey, finalizing the divestment of our regions in Finmark to Newfoundland and British Columbia to Cermaq in July. As a result of the sale, this update will have a new structure, focusing on Rogaland and separating the financial performance of Grieg Seafood's continuing operations from the discontinued operations.

We will also use the opportunity to give you some thoughts on what Grieg Seafood will be going forward. Starting with the highlights of the quarter. The primary highlight was, of course, the sales agreement with Cermaq. Achieving NOK 10.2 billion for our operations not only reflects the quality of our assets, but also provides us with substantial capital in line with our transformation program. Biological conditions remained robust across the company in Q2. While I will not elaborate on the discontinued regions, I would like to state that they were all on or exceeding budget expectations for both production and mortality.

For Rogaland, a total of almost 9,000 tonnes were harvested, representing a return to normalized levels compared to the previous year's -- last year's lower volume. Operational EBIT for the quarter amounted to NOK 91 million or NOK 10.3 per kilo, NOK 16.5 looking only on Rogaland. We expect 8,000 tonnes for Q3 and 30,000 tonnes for the year, consistent with previous guidance for Rogaland. Our operational EBIT for the quarter reflects increased headquarter costs due to a transition from 4 to 1 region. To maintain competitiveness, we have begun streamlining our business model to prioritize Rogaland and implement a more efficient headquarter and sales structure.

Looking at the operational review, we will focus on Rogaland. And presenting the numbers for Q2, we have not experienced such a strong production environment in many years as many others. This has positively impacted both freshwater and seawater results. And as mentioned, Rogaland achieved an operational EBIT of NOK 145 million, translating to NOK 16.5 per kilo, a result we are very happy with, with the lower price environment. A total of 1.2 million smolt were released to sea, marking the first delivery from our newest facility, Årdal Aqua. All 4 buildings are now in production and the fish performs well on both on land and at sea.

The strong production we are experiencing has put the pressure on prices far more than we expected for the quarter. We still had a realized price of almost NOK 75 per kilo, down 12% from last year. We expect prices to remain at low levels, increasing into next year as production normalizes. Farming cost is up from last quarter as we harvest for more cost-intensive sites, but still below the long-term target of NOK 60 per kilo. Year-on-year, the farming cost is down as much as NOK 7 from improved capacity utilization and strong biology.

I'll spend some time outlining why Grieg Seafood remains committed to operations in Rogaland. By focusing on our top-performing region in recent years, Grieg Seafood can build on a strong foundation. We manage the entire value chain from row to harvest, both internally and with partners. Our long-term investments have fully equipped the value chain, and we do not have immediate needs for substantial upgrades. Our harvest plant is old, but efficient, and we have access to additional regional harvest capacity when required.

A key strength is our early investment in post-smolt, both internally and with partners. These investments have significantly increased our harvest volume over the past 5 years, achieving a hog per MAB ratio of 1.7, demonstrating the benefits of reduced time at sea. And when the cost of land-based capacity is increasing, we are happy that Grieg Seafood is already well positioned. After harvesting several generations of big smolt, we are confident in that strategy and its outcomes. We see significant biological improvements from lower time at sea. The chart to the right is comparing groups of smaller and bigger fish, and it contains all groups harvested from 2019.

Feed ratio is reduced and the number of treatments is dramatically down. And as the ultimate result, survival rate has increased from 84% to 89%, a strong figure in this region. And that is results we are incredibly proud of. And with growing emphasis on fish welfare and survival, we are confident that this represents a competitive advantage for the future.

And before I give it to Magnus, I see I skipped a slide. So I will go back to that because it's an important one. Because following this transaction, we will take Grieg Seafood in a new direction. Our main goal is to position the company as a highly profitable and stable salmon farmer prepared for the future. We will do this with 4 main changes to our strategy. We will go from global to regional. We will go from supporting several large CapEx projects to prioritizing local opportunities and initiatives. We will go from growth to profitability. And from an operating perspective, we will streamline our organization. The biggest change you will notice is the shift from growth to profitability. While industry trends point towards consolidation, we still believe there are advantages of being small and focused.

We still center -- we will center our efforts on being close to our fish and excelling at core operations. Investment opportunities will be considered if they support regional synergies rather than volume expansion itself.

And with that, I'll leave it to Magnus.

Thank you very much, Nina. We have to skip through. I will not say it one more time. I just have to go to the right page. So good morning. My name is Magnus Johannesen. I'm the CFO of Grieg Seafood. Before I will start going through the financial review, I just want to highlight that we are presenting these financial numbers in accordance with IFRS 5 for discontinued operations, which means that we are splitting the financial figures for Rogaland, sales, VAP and our headquarter from the disposal group, which is Finmark, British Columbia and Newfoundland.

And going into the profit and loss, I think these figures are quite similar to what Nina just presented, but there's one very big difference. We still have sales. We still have value-added processing, and we still have our headquarter cost. Therefore, there are some different figures on this page than for the region itself and isolated. Looking back at Q2, we had a NOK 6.4 EBIT per kilo -- NOK 6. 4 per kilo in EBIT, and we have been operating in a very low price environment. This will have a negative impact on the NOK EBIT per kilo of NOK 10.5. However, we have had significant cost efficiency and also better operations and biology, which have a positive contribution of NOK 7.1 per kilo. And also due to having a much higher volume than Q2 '24, we also have higher volume to distribute our cost on and therefore, also having a positive impact on the other cost in our group.

This brings us down to this year's operational EBIT -- this quarter's operational EBIT of NOK 91 million, representing slightly above NOK 10 EBIT per kilo. Secondly, there is a quite important topic on this slide, and that is the net financial items, which carry the full financial cost of our group as a whole. And this will -- this is expected to be drastically reduced once we revise and optimize our financial structure and balance sheet. But as of now, it will be carried fully by the smaller volume coming from Rogaland.

Moving then into cash flow. On cash flow, we have a net cash flow from operations at NOK 351 million, looking at both continued and discontinued operations. If I were to isolate only the continued operations, which is Rogaland sales and VAP and our headquarter, it's an operational cash flow of NOK 356 million, which shows how important this region is both today and also into the future, providing profitable operations. Within this operational cash flow, we also have a positive contribution from changes in working capital of NOK 84 million, of which NOK 43 million is related to changes in biomass.

Moving then to investments. The net cash flow from investments is -- come in at negative NOK 212 million, positively driven down by dividends from our associated companies in Tytlandsvik, but also mainly relating to our Adamselv facility, which we are continuing to invest at -- until closing of the transaction. But overall, it also shows that the CapEx that we have today is mainly related to the regions that we are divesting and not the region that we are continuing operating, which also shows how well positioned and strong the investments we already made in Rogaland is.

Going then to net cash flow from financing. This is a quite large number of almost NOK 1.3 billion. But at the same time, this is natural as we issued the hybrid bond classified as equity. We have then reallocated this hybrid bond towards repaying the green bond and also doing other allocations within our financial structure. All in all, as expected.

Moving then to net interest-bearing debt, which is quite an untypical setup for our NIBD slide. And I will go through this as good as I can. We're starting in Q1 going out of Q1 with the NIBD for the full group. All regions, all operations, both continued and discontinued. Throughout this quarter, we have had a positive contribution from EBIT, EBITDA, as already mentioned, and then other elements [Audio Gap] At the same time, we are -- we're also classifying this as held for sale, which means that we have taken out almost NOK 300 million from the net interest-bearing debt. And the reason for this is that this is relating to leasing and debt only associated with the Canadian operations.

But looking at this from a liquidity perspective, NOK 10.2 billion in free liquidity, out of which the credit facility we have available and the cash is sufficient to operate both the continued operations going forward, but also the discontinued operations until closing, which is a very important topic to raise. But also, I think the topic for today is capital allocation. So I will go into that now. And before going through this slide, I just want to take you back to the fourth quarter '24. In Q4, we said that we will prioritize financial stability. In Q1, we said that we will assess all options that we have available for us. And today, I think it's safe to say that we did exactly that. In Q4, we issued the hybrid bond. In Q1, we secured the financial stability. And today, we show that we actually did assess all possibilities when it came to Grieg Seafood, concluding on a divestment of 3 out of 4 regions.

And with that proceeds, we will -- we have advised the Board to favor dividends to shareholders. But we still need to go through a process of ensuring that the dividends provided to the shareholders are both sufficient to yield good results, but also reasonable to ensure that we have a robust balance sheet and also liquidity operationally and also non-operationally in terms of the legal processes that we are in. Therefore, we are still -- we are still very clear. We are advising dividends to be distributed to shareholders, but we still want to maintain a strong financial position of it. But those 2 can be combined very well. I'm very sure about that.

Looking at this in sum, we're aiming at 50% equity ratio. We're looking at approximately NOK 250 million in operational tax buffer. And then of course, this is not -- this will not affect our prioritization of paying dividends to shareholders. And once -- there's one very important enabler for this is that, of course, the transaction is subject to competition clearance. And therefore, I will spend some time on the key elements in that transaction.

Overall, the enterprise value of the transaction is NOK 10.2 billion. And this is on a cash and debt-free basis. Looking at the net debt, we are doing this transaction in accordance with the locked box structure, which is from end of May in Finmark and end of April for the rest of -- of the other 2 regions. Also, we will have a subtraction or adjustment of net working capital totaling to NOK 340 million, which is set in accordance with the locked box date, and this will be in favor of Cermaq. However, given the times we are in, we are -- we also have a compensation element on the EBITDA. This compensation means that all losses that we -- that exceeds NOK 100 million will be compensated by the buyer by Cermaq. And then we have the CapEx. All the CapEx projects that we have done and started and performing now will not impact or affect the proceeds from the transaction. But however, we, of course, will have to maintain the control of the project and not go all crazy and build other new things without asking them first, of course.

And when it comes to transaction costs, we will pay our own transaction costs and so will the Cermaq on their side. And in terms of guiding on the process, the process is proceeding very well, and we are still expecting the transaction to close during Q4. However, more close to the middle than in the beginning.

And on that note, I will leave it back to Nina to go through the outlook for Grieg Seafood going forward.

Thank you. Summarizing what we've been through today, we have a clear direction. Our main priority now is to conclude the transaction, as Magnus said, follow through on capital allocation and finalize future objectives. We recognize the importance of providing clarity and we will address these questions as we progress towards closing, maintaining dialogue with all stakeholders. Going from global to regional and from growth to profitability, we have defined 3 key strategic building blocks going forward. We will strengthen, prioritize and future-proof our operations. Our first and main focus is to strengthen Rogaland and ensure continued profitability. We will do this through post-smolt development, MAB optimization and aligning our cost base with our new scale.

Looking ahead, it is natural that we will consider potential growth opportunities. However, future investments will focus on projects that truly strengthen Rogaland, prioritizing regional synergies, not just increasing volume. And third, we will also look into how we will position Grieg Seafood for the future. Given regulatory uncertainties, our ambitions and plans remain flexible. The intention is, however, to establish a position that is robust against changing political changes.

So with that, I look forward to leading Grieg Seafood into this chapter. And I will end this presentation thanking all our colleagues for their contributions so far. I wish everyone the best for the future, whether with Grieg Seafood or beyond. No results would or will be achieved without you.

And with that, I open for questions.

You mentioned consolidation. Do you see potential for further consolidation in Rogaland or collaborations with other farmers in the region?

As I said, I think our main focus now is to just position ourselves as a really strong producer as we are. But of course, it's natural for us to look into potential opportunities that might arise.

[indiscernible] here. On costs and Rogaland, you have been below your longer-term target of NOK 60 kg now for the first half, guide for NOK 60 kg on average for the year, which means that you are above in the second half. How fast will you come down again to your targets? And what's the main driver?

I think in Rogaland, we are very -- the cost is very dependent on what harvest sites we are -- sites we're harvesting in the quarter. So it will go a little bit up and down. But we are looking into a stable long term. So a little bit up towards the end and then stabilizing towards our target.

And maybe just to add to that, we were very clear in the first quarter that we will maintain and also implement a very rigorous disciplined cost focus, and that will not change regardless of this transaction. It's cost that we're working on. Prices goes up and down, and we need to be the best on cost in this synergy.

And on the impact from lower feed prices, where are you currently with post-smolt perhaps a little bit earlier or we should have expected cost to perhaps come down driven by the lower feed prices. How much left is it from -- when you look at current feed price and what you realize now through the -- in the P&L?

I think we're seeing a reduction in feed prices. But as I said, it's -- and that's part of what we're seeing going forward. But I think we will just state our target for production on NOK 60 kg long term.

Anyone else before moving to the web? Okay. If there are any questions from the web?

Then we'll do some questions from the web. First question is, based on the wording, should we expect a onetime dividend of NOK 40 to NOK 45?

I think it's up to the Board to decide on the dividend amounts, and then it's up to the general assembly to approve that. But as we have said, is that we will advise them on prioritizing dividends, which means that we will, of course, make sure that we go through the process until closing. So it's too early to conclude on any exact numbers, but we are working very hard together with the Board on these things.

Then we have a question regarding if you want to become completely debt-free or have a lower debt ratio going forward?

I can answer that. So we mentioned today that we are targeting a 50% equity ratio. And naturally, that means that the other 50% needs to be debt. So we will, of course, have a more robust balance sheet, but it will still be debt in the balance sheet. I think that's important.

Can you comment any more regarding the expected cash payment from the transaction or how many -- much cash Grieg Seafood will have after the transaction?

I think anything can happen going forward to closing. I don't want to pre-conclude or say exact numbers, but of course, we will be in a substantial positive net cash position as we also communicated on the 17th of July.

Is the CapEx level you alluded to fair going forward, including maintenance needs?

So the CapEx that we have on growth investments have been mainly due to -- mainly in the regions that we are divesting. So what will go forward is a maintenance investment in Rogaland, which is not as significant as they've been in the group before.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much for coming. I was afraid that Bakkafrost will take the attention, but it looks like we took that one. Very good.

Thank you.