Earnings call transcript: Akastor ASA Q2 2025 shows strong cash position

Akastor ASA reported its second-quarter financial results for 2025, highlighting a significant increase in its net cash position and a stable revenue stream. The company showcased a consolidated revenue of $79 million and an EBITDA of $9 million. Despite a slight stock price dip of 0.7%, the company remains optimistic about its future, especially in offshore markets. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company holds more cash than debt on its balance sheet and maintains a healthy current ratio of 2.19, indicating strong liquidity management. InvestingPro's Fair Value analysis suggests the stock may be undervalued at current levels.

Key Takeaways

• Akastor's net cash position rose by $126 million, reaching $145 million.
• Consolidated revenue stood at $79 million, with an EBITDA of $9 million.
• The company declared a cash dividend of NOK 0.35 per share.
• Offshore markets show optimism for 2026-2027, despite a decline in North American land markets.
• Akastor's stock closed at $11.44, down 0.7% from the previous session.

Company Performance

Akastor ASA reported a robust increase in its net cash position, climbing by $126 million to $145 million. The company maintained a steady revenue stream and EBITDA, reflecting its resilience in a challenging market environment. The offshore market's positive outlook for 2026-2027 offers a promising future, even as the North American land market faces headwinds.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $79 million
• EBITDA: $9 million
• Net cash position: $145 million
• Book equity value: NOK 20 per share
• Cash dividend: NOK 0.35 per share

Outlook & Guidance

Akastor is focused on developing its portfolio companies and executing value-enhancing exits. The company is exploring asset monetization opportunities and considering a potential share buyback program. The offshore market is expected to grow, with customers investing in rig upgrades, despite a current downturn in the North American land market.

Executive Commentary

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, emphasized the company's strong financial position, stating, "We are currently in a strong net cash position with no drawn corporate facilities, enabling us to time transactions when values are attractive." Thomas McGee, HMH CFO, noted the positive outlook for offshore investments, saying, "Our customers see a very bright future offshore and are continuing to invest in their rigs for the long run and upgrade technology."

Risks and Challenges

• Weakness in the North American land market could impact revenue.
• Potential peak in shale production may affect future growth.
• Offshore drilling activity remains reduced, posing a challenge for market expansion.
• Global economic uncertainties could influence investment decisions.
• Regulatory changes in key markets may affect operations.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about Akastor's shareholder distribution strategy and the flexibility in Akofs ownership. The company confirmed its adaptable approach and highlighted potential for future capital returns, reinforcing its commitment to shareholder value. InvestingPro analysis indicates the company's overall financial health score is "FAIR" at 2.44, with particularly strong momentum and relative value metrics. While currently not profitable over the last twelve months, analysts expect the company to return to profitability this year, according to InvestingPro forecasts.

Akastor ASA remains optimistic about its future, leveraging its strong financial position to navigate current market challenges and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the offshore sector.

Full transcript - Akastor ASA (AKAST) Q2 2025:

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the presentation of Akastor ASA's second quarter results. My name is Øyvind Paaske, CFO of Akastor ASA, and I'm here today together with our CEO Karl Erik Kjelstad. We're also pleased to have our colleagues from HMH joining us from Houston, Mr. Thomas McGee, CFO, and Mr. David Bratton, SVP Finance. We'll start with some key highlights from Karl, followed by an update on HMH from Thomas and David. After that, I'll walk you through Akastor ASA's consolidated financials before handing it back to Karl for some closing remarks. As always, we'll wrap it up with a Q&A session. Please feel free to submit your questions at any time during the presentation using our web-based Q&A tool. With that, I'll hand it over to Karl. Please.

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, Akastor ASA: Karl, thank you Øyvind, and good afternoon and good morning to our U.S. participants, and thank you to everyone for joining us this afternoon. Let us start with some key highlights for the second quarter. At slide number two, we are pleased to announce a cash distribution of NOK 0.25 per share to our shareholders, supported by strong cash flow in this quarter. This is aligned with our communicated strategy to return excess capital to shareholders while maintaining a sound capital structure. HMH continues to deliver robust financial performance despite reduced offshore drilling activity and softer demand for spare parts. HMH reported an adjusted EBITDA of $36 million and a margin of 17.7% in the quarter. HMH is continuing to keep its S-1 filing with the SEC updated, and timing of a potential launch continues to be dependent on market conditions and sentiment.

The book value of our shareholding in HMH remains at around 70% of our total net capital employed, with a book value of NOK 3.4 billion per end of the quarter and NOK 12.3 per Akastor share, somewhat down from last quarter due to currency effects. Akofs Offshore, building on several years of strong operational performance, including this quarter, is steadily renewing its order book. This includes the previously announced new contract for Akofs Seafarer and, more recently, Akofs Santos, which has been nominated for an award for a four-year MPSV contract with Petrobras. Both these contracts will have a positive effect on 2026 results and reflect improved market conditions through stronger day rates than the current terms. Our book value of Akofs was around NOK 0.3 per Akastor share at the end of the quarter.

We consider this book value to be a conservative measure as it does not fully capture the company's underlying asset values. We continue to see meaningful upside potential and remain focused on ensuring that this is increasingly understood and reflected over time. DDW Offshore, unfortunately, the announced sale of Skandi Peregrino vessel was cancelled as the current charter did not agree to novate the associated charter contract. However, all three DDW Offshore vessels are on no long-term contracts in Australia and we see interesting opportunities for all vessels both when it comes to possible asset transactions and in terms of new charter contracts post existing solid backlog. The book value of our investment in DDW Offshore is NOK 1.3 per Akastor share based on an average book value per vessel of about $11 million.

As you might recall, we received about 3 million shares in Odfjell Drilling in May 2024 through the execution of a warranty agreement that we established with Odfjell Drilling back in 2018. In the second quarter and during some days of this third quarter, we completed a sale of 50% of our shares in Odfjell Drilling generating total proceeds of just over NOK 100 million. Following this sale, we now own 1.5 million shares in Odfjell Drilling. The divestment of parts of our Odfjell Drilling shares is in line with our strategy of realizing assets to enable distribution of capital to shareholders over time. We will continue to assess the holding strategy based on market developments and capital allocation priorities. Our total book equity value by the end of the period was NOK 20 per share and this is somewhat down from the first quarter mainly due to currency effects.

Akastor still continues to be in a very solid financial state which has enabled us to pay dividends. We have a positive net cash position and no draw on corporate facilities and LCF. With that, I'm pleased to introduce HMH CFO and EVP Thomas McGee and he will take us through the HMH second quarter result. Tom, the word is yours.

Thomas McGee, CFO and EVP, HMH: Thank you, thank you Karl Erik, going to the next slide. Order intake of $173 million in the quarter, EBITDA $36 million, down year on year, up quarter on quarter. Really impacted by the reduced pressure control spares volume due to current offshore rig market conditions. Talk a little bit about that for a second. Customer, you know, is being impacted by two things. One is a little bit of white space that we've heard them all talk about, all the drillers talk about, and we're a little bit of a tailing indicator on that. We'll talk a little bit about the future as we wrap up. These drillers are obviously very positive long term, but there's a pocket of weakness here where that slows their aftermarket and consumable purchase at the same time.

The macro uncertainty that's been introduced into the market weighs on order rates a little bit in a way that they'll try to say, I'll push this out a little bit longer before I buy, non-essential spending gets cut. Overall, pretty resilient quarter, but it is being impacted by that slowness. The good news is that is the pocket of weakness. While North America remains weak, it didn't impact us much, and we made some good solid progress this quarter on some land efforts outside of North America. Overall, you know, again, a little bit of weakness, but it's very specific.

In the past, when you look back at Covid, which is a much, much larger, you know, event of weakness, if you want to call it that, and you looked at what happened to the order rates, behaved in a similar manner, and post Covid they recovered fairly quickly in that environment. You know, we've kind of seen all this before, and we've just seen a little bit of air pocket here due to the white space with our customers. On the productivity and cost efficiency side, you know, we say we began yielding some results, really they just started. This is all the process of HMH 2.0 and integrating the company and becoming one HMH.

The initiatives that we're talking about here were the right long term initiatives for the company that we launched a year ago, has nothing to do with, you know, a little air pocket of weakness in the offshore market. Those just started to really kick in in the second quarter, and that included some facility optimization, heavy lifting by our team, and then finally, continue to take steps to mitigate the impact of tariffs. Those change, obviously, as we all know, rapidly and frequently. We think we have the situation under control. We have very good dialogue with our customers. We continue to negotiate the pricing impact of that with them in a very open and transparent way. We're confident we can mitigate a lot of that. The second and third order effects that I talk about in Q1 are still there, weighing on the general macro environment.

In terms of what we can control, we have a very good handle on that. Your team's done a great job, so I'll pass it on to David.

David Bratton, SVP Finance, HMH: Great, thanks Tom. I'll be with the total company results and then move into the segment details. Revenue for the quarter was $203 million, down 2% year on year primarily due to lower spares volume partly offset by growth in projects and aftermarket services, and up 3% quarter on quarter driven by stronger aftermarket service performance despite the softness in spares. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $36 million, down 14% year on year primarily due to lower spares volume partly offset by stronger aftermarket services and cost reductions, up 10% quarter on quarter driven by volume and indirect cost performance. The adjusted EBITDA rate was 17.7% in the quarter, down versus 2Q 2024 driven by mix. Orders for the quarter were $173 million, down 4% year on year driven by projects, product and other, and down 13% quarter on quarter driven by aftermarket services.

Finally, on cash flow, unlevered free cash flow in the quarter was negative $10 million due to the timing of annual employee incentive payments and back end weighted projects, mainly reported with $38 million cash and cash equivalents on hand. Next, I'll walk you through the product line results in more detail in aftermarket services. Revenue was $92 million in the quarter, up 6% year on year driven by an increase in overall repair activity and digital technology, and up 11% quarter on quarter driven by higher overhaul repair activity. Aftermarket service order intake was $79 million in the quarter, down 3% year on year driven by overhaul repair and field service, partially offset by digital technology orders, and down 22% quarter on quarter driven by the delayed offshore activity and repairs and field service.

Spares revenue was $52 million in the quarter, down 26% year on year and down 13% quarter on quarter mainly due to lower pressure control spares volumes reflecting the current offshore rig market condition. Spares order intake was $64 million in the quarter, down 3% year on year and up 5% quarter on quarter driven by continued spare mark purchasing rate from the offshore customers while they work through the white space in the quarter. Product and other revenue in the quarter was $59 million, up 17% year on year and up 8% quarter on quarter driven by our progress on projects. Lastly, moving to net interest bearing debt, we end the quarter with $38 million cash and cash equivalents and a net debt of $175 million overall.

Proud of the team's performance despite the macro environment this past quarter and with that we'll turn the call back over to Tom.

Thomas McGee, CFO and EVP, HMH: Okay, just to wrap up, talk about the market a little bit and really talk about it from our customer perspective so we can give you a view of what's happening in the North American land market where we do have some business there and we want to continue to grow that. Overall, it doesn't really impact the bottom line for us today much. Coming off some conferences this summer already, it's not a great sentiment. Rig count is down, there's a lot of talk about shale rolling over and reaching its peak. Overall, it's created a pretty negative environment on the land market here. On the complete other hand, despite the macro uncertainty that you see, which is very real, people talk about cost escalating due to metals prices and everything else over the last six to eight weeks.

Talking to offshore customers, they become more optimistic in this environment. We saw this from the beginning of the year. Today, despite the challenges that we're facing, in the face of that, they're improving their optimism on 2026 and 2027. You've seen some of that in the contracts that have been announced, right? You see a lot of contracts that are starting. Some of them will start this year, some of them not till halfway through next year. That obviously has an impact on us when you think about the timing of that. The good news is they are firming up their view of 2026 and 2027 and it's a very positive one. When you look at the equity research that's been coming out, I've noticed over the last week or two there's been some increased volume of, hey, this is looking good long term.

Let's look to 2026 and 2027 coming out of the Wall Street research community. Despite a little bit of air pocket, despite a little bit of weakness, our customers see a very bright future offshore and are continuing to invest in their rigs for the long run and upgrade technology. Once these contracts start, I think it's going to be a quite, quite positive environment. With that, I will wrap it up and pass it back to the team.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thank you very much Tom for that update. I will then take you through the Akastor financials starting on slide 9. With our net capital employed as mentioned, HMH remains our largest investment with our current net capital employed corresponding to 50% of the book equity value in HMH. The carrying value of our HMH investment decreased by $35 million compared to Q1, primarily then due to FX effects partly offset by positive net profit from HMH in the period. The net capital employed related to NES and DDW also declined somewhat in Q2 driven by FX. The net capital employed of Akofs as of Q2 was $79 million, down from $109 million in Q1, reflecting our 66.7% share of the net loss in the period. As noted, the current contract portfolio continues to generate losses in Akofs which reduces our book value.

That said, and as Karl Erik Kjelstad mentioned, we view this book value as conservative and not fully representative of the underlying asset values. The value of our listed holdings, which now include Odfjell Drilling, ABL Group and M&A Energy, decreased by a total of $3.57 million in the period. $3.7 million of this was related to a value decline in Avilco Drilling, broadly offsetting the cash dividend received from the company by Akastor during the period. Our holding in Odfjell Drilling was valued at $146 million at the end of Q2, down $16 million from Q1. This was driven by the sale of shares for $57 million in the quarter, of which $10 million was received as cash in Q3, partly offset by an increase in the share price. After quarter end we divested an additional portion of the holding in Odfjell bringing total cash proceeds to $104 million.

The negative value of other, which includes smaller financial investments, pension accruals and various other provisions, was reduced by $13 million in the quarter. The balance here mainly relates to pension obligations. In total our net capital employed decreased by $147 million in Q2, primarily then driven by FX effects. I'll then turn to the next page for an overview of our net debt movement or rather the net cash movement in Q2. Our total net cash position increased by $126 million to a net cash position of $145 million at the end of the period. This increase then was primarily driven by the divestment of Odfjell Drilling shares as well as cash proceeds from Akofs Offshore following their refinancing of Seafarer in April. The Q2 net cash position includes a net debt position of $228 million in DDW Offshore.

Total net interest bearing debt at the end of the quarter stood at a net cash position of $814 million including our interest bearing positions towards Akofs Offshore and HMH. Compared to the previous quarter, our position towards Akofs decreased following the refinancing and also half of the seller's credit to Mitsui related to the transaction that we closed in Q1 was paid out in cash in the second quarter, reducing the remaining outstanding seller's credit towards Mitsui to $39 million per June which are to be settled in Q4 this year. In Q3 the cash balance will be impacted by the receipt of the additional $57 million from the Odfjell Drilling shares sale completed in July as well as the approved dividend to be paid out in July. Also, our external financing facilities remained as per end of the last quarter.

The DDW term loan was reduced to about $26 million following one installment paid during the period. Our corporate bank RCF remained undrawn and fully available. Also per end of Q2, per end of the quarter, our total available liquidity was NOK 704 million including $30 million of cash through DDW, then our consolidated P&L. As a reminder, most of our holdings including HMH, NES Fircroft and Akofs Offshore are not consolidated and as such our consolidated revenue and EBITDA reflects only a very minor part of our total investments. DDW Offshore reported revenues of $79 million in the quarter with 2 out of 3 vessels on contract throughout the period, while Skandi Peregrino experienced low utilization as the startup of her new contract was delayed until June 21.

EBITDA in DDW came in at $28 million up year on year due to low utilization in Q2 last year and in line with the previous quarter. Looking ahead, we expect improved earnings from DDW Offshore as all three vessels are now on contract. Other revenues were zero while other EBITDA came in at a minus of $18 million. As a result, our consolidated revenue and EBITDA for the quarter ended at $79 million and $9 million respectively. A closer look at our net financials. Net financial items amounted to negative $11 million in the quarter. Financial investments contributed positively by $58 million, primarily driven by a value increase in Odfjell Drilling. The FX accounting effect was negative by $76 million reflecting the weaker dollar versus the NOK which impacted certain of our USD denominated holdings.

Net interest and other financial income contributed positively by a total of $8 million, while share of net profit from equity accounted investments came in at a negative of $6 million, mainly reflecting our share of results from HMH and Akofs Offshore. Akofs contributed negatively by $43 million, while HMH contributed positively by $41 million. With that, I'll pass the word back to Kalle.

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, Akastor ASA: Thank you for that, Øyvind. Let me round off this presentation with some ownership agenda reflections of the portfolio. Let's start on slide 15. We have an overview of our portfolio of investments. As you see, we continue to have a portfolio of nine investments, of which four are listed holdings, and as mentioned already, we have reduced our ownership in Odfjell Drilling by 50%, and we now own 1.5 million shares in Odfjell Drilling. That is reflected on this slide. Let's move on to slide 16, HMH, where I think most has already been covered by Tom and David. As touched upon by Tom, we are somewhat cautious regarding the short-term outlook for the drilling market. That said, we see encouraging signs when we look further ahead.

HMH is continuing to keep its S-1 filing updated, and it's a preparation for a potential future listing, but the timing of public offering is subject to a variety of factors and therefore difficult to comment at this time. Let's move on to slide 17, NES Fircroft. NES Fircroft continues to deliver growth in revenues year on year despite the more challenging environment for recruitment and especially permanent placements given some turmoils in the market. As mentioned previously, the company is exit ready, and we are currently exploring several alternatives including a potential listing. Recently, we have observed some signs of improvement in the primary equity offering market, and we remain cautiously optimistic that it may be possible to achieve an attractive valuation of a quality company like NES Fircroft.

A key priority, in addition to making this investment liquid, is to continue to grow the company both organically and through M&A to enhance value for all shareholders. Down on slide 18, covering Akofs Offshore, we are happy to see that Akofs Offshore is delivering solid operations in yet another quarter. All three Akofs vessels remained on contract through the second quarter, and they all delivered solid operations for its clients. Akofs Seafarer delivered a revenue utilization of 94%, while Akofs Santos delivered a revenue utilization of 93% in the quarter. Akofs Seafarer delivered a technical uptime of above 95% with a revenue utilization of 92% due to weather conditions. Revenue utilization was also impacted by a planned yard stay in May to prepare the vessel for coil tubing operations.

The vessel is scheduled to return to the yard in August this year for demobilization of the coil tube equipment and to carry out its five year SPS Special Periodic Survey. The yard stay is expected to last approximately 40 days and will impact the financials for the Akofs Seafarer vessel in the third quarter. With this, the total revenues for Akofs Offshore ended up at $37 million and with an EBITDA of $10 million. In line with previous quarters, I would like to take the opportunity to highlight some positive Akofs milestones achieved so far in 2024. Contract renewal of Akofs Seafarer with Equinor with a gross value of $300 million. Contract is set to commence late this year and will run until ultimo at the end of 2028.

A non-recourse $110 million refinancing of the Akofs Seafarer completed in April this year and then also the contract award for Akofs Santos with Petrobras with a gross value of almost $250 million. This contract is planned to commence in 3Q 2026 and will last for four years. Also, the Akofs owners are well aligned. That is positive for the company post the new ownership structure with Mitsui and Akastor as owners. Through these achievements, Akofs is now in a stronger position both strategically and financially compared to years ago. We are encouraged by the outlook and as touched upon earlier, we continue our efforts to demonstrate underlying values of Akofs going forward. Let's move to slide 19 and DDW Offshore. We are, as mentioned, pleased to see Perdana commence its contract in the second quarter.

With this, all the vessels are on contract in Australia and looking ahead, DDW Offshore remains focused on maximizing fleet utilization supported by secured contract backlog that will provide a solid foundation for operational and financial visibility. Our target remains unchanged and we will continue to actively assess secondhand market opportunities for potential vessel sales. Let's move to slide 20. That sums up the key priorities for Akastor going forward. Akastor's strategy continues as before with our key target being to develop the companies in our portfolio and, when the time is right and values are attractive, execute value-enhancing exits. We are currently in a strong net cash position with no drawn corporate facilities, enabling us to time transactions when values are attractive.

We are pleased to announce a dividend of NOK 0.35 per share today, and this is an important step towards delivering on our ultimate goal of returning proceeds to our shareholders. With that, Øyvind, we are through the presentation, and we will move over to the Q&A session. I guess we take a short break before we continue.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thank you, Karl. Yeah, we'll just pause for a couple of seconds in order to coordinate the Q and A session. Thank you. Thank you. We'll start with a question for HMH and I'll direct this to you then. Tom, can you elaborate on the key growth drivers for HMH going forward and any specific markets or technologies that you are focusing on?

Thomas McGee, CFO and EVP, HMH: Yeah, I think that we can talk about that in our presentation that you can reference that we filed in the past, and I think you've got offshore. The way to think about it would be within the core would be offshore equipment, offshore aftermarket, land equipment, land aftermarket, mining equipment, mining aftermarket. These are areas that we're pursuing. There's technology development offshore like the electric BOP that our team has done a good job of bringing forward, and you know the drill form technology where we buy and bring to other markets. That's an example of a land technology. Continue to try to expand our riser services aftermarket, continue to expand our parts and service businesses on land, and we've got a significant cost out initiative on mining right now to be able to make our core products more competitive in broader markets.

I think thinking about scaling that core is really how we think about growth, and then you have the parts you can't control, which is what we talked about this morning, which is, you know, as rigs are reactivated and as you see more rigs operating globally. That's obviously good for us.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thanks, Tom. A question that we have received in some different shapes and versions, but I'll direct this one to you, Karl. Given the recently approved cash dividend and Akastor's strategy to realize assets, what is the company's long-term strategy for shareholder distributions, and are there any specific targets or timelines for potential future capital returns?

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, Akastor ASA: Yeah, first of all, as we have touched upon, our customers are now in a strong financial position with no debt at the corporate level and a solid net cash position, and the recently approved dividend of NOK 0.35 represents a milestone for our cost of working with first ever cash distribution. I think it also reflects our strong commitment to return value to our shareholder through asset realizations. Looking ahead, we remain committed to this strategy. While we do not operate with a fixed payout ratio or distribution timeline, our intention is to return a significant portion of net proceeds from future realizations to our shareholders. The level and timing of further distribution will, of course, depend on factors like future divestment activity, capital requirements, and also, of course, overall market conditions.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thanks, K. Then a last question, I believe, regarding Akofs, and you touched upon this, Kalle, but let me read the question for you. Akastor increased its ownership in Akofs in the first quarter, and Akofs Santos was recently nominated for a new contract. Could you provide some more insight into the strategic direction and how you are thinking of our customers' ownership strategy on Akofs?

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, Akastor ASA: Yeah, as we touch upon, we have significant strength in the backlog and earning visibility from 2026 and onwards. That is always positive when it comes to developed values. Looking ahead, we will continue to assess the potential to realize values from this, our investment in Akofs. There's no fixed plan at this stage, but a range of options that could be actual, whether that is through sale, partnership, or other structures. The key focus for us is to ensure that we maximize and manage the long-term value, and we will remain flexible around how and when this might happen.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thanks, Carlo. A last question, which I guess goes back to the previous question, but I'll ask it anyway. Are there any plans to initiate a share buyback program given the significant discount to underlying value?

Karl Erik Kjelstad, CEO, Akastor ASA: Colin, I think when we are saying that we are committed to return proceeds to shareholders, it can be done either through dividends or through buyback programs. This is up to the board to assess as we go along. A buyback program is also something that can be on the menu going forward.

Øyvind Paaske, CFO, Akastor ASA: Thank you very much, Karl. I do believe we are through all the questions, and we would just like to thank you all for your attention and thank Tom and David in Houston for participating, and welcome you all back for our presentation of the third quarter results on October 2030. Thank you very much.

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