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Höegh Autoliners reported its Q3 2025 earnings, revealing a net profit of $132 million and a slight decrease in EBITDA to $155 million from $166 million in Q2. Despite strong performance in Asian markets, the company’s stock fell by 8.95% following the announcement, closing at $96.6. The results come as the company faces new U.S. port fees and a slightly lower expected operational performance in Q4.
Key Takeaways
- Net profit for Q3 2025 reached $132 million.
- EBITDA decreased to $155 million from $166 million in the previous quarter.
- Asian market volumes increased by 48% year-over-year.
- Stock price declined by 8.95% post-earnings announcement.
- Company anticipates Q4 operational performance slightly below Q3.
Company Performance
Höegh Autoliners demonstrated robust performance in Q3 2025, with a notable 17% year-over-year increase in volumes and a significant 48% rise in Asian volumes. Despite these gains, the company reported a decrease in EBITDA to $155 million, down from $166 million in the previous quarter. The company’s equity ratio remains strong at 54%, supported by a cash balance of $230 million at the quarter’s end.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: Not disclosed
- EBITDA: $155 million, down from $166 million in Q2 2025
- Net Profit: $132 million
- Dividend: $30 million
- Cash from Operating Activities: $173 million
- Cash Balance: $230 million at quarter-end
Earnings vs. Forecast
Höegh Autoliners did not disclose specific EPS or revenue figures for the quarter, making a direct comparison to forecasts challenging. However, the company’s performance in the Asian market and its strong contract backlog suggest resilience despite the EBITDA decline.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings release, Höegh Autoliners’ stock price experienced a significant drop of 8.95%, closing at $96.6. This decline comes amid broader market concerns and the company’s announcement of anticipated lower operational performance in Q4. The stock is currently trading between its 52-week high of $136.8 and low of $57.56.
Outlook & Guidance
For Q4 2025, Höegh Autoliners expects operational performance to be slightly below Q3’s EBITDA, with U.S. port fees projected to impact the quarter by $20 million. The company is actively working to mitigate and recover these costs from customers. No additional vessel capital expenditures are planned beyond current commitments.
Executive Commentary
CEO Andreas Enger emphasized the company’s commitment to distributing excess cash flow as dividends and highlighted the robust growth in the Asian market. Enger also reiterated the goal of achieving zero-carbon transportation by 2040. CFO Espen Stubberud noted the challenge of having more cargo than the company can carry, underscoring the strong demand in Asia.
Risks and Challenges
- New U.S. port fees could impact profitability, with an estimated annual cost of $60-70 million.
- Potential geopolitical risks, such as the Suez Canal closure, may affect operations.
- Competitive pressures in the shipping industry could influence pricing and demand.
- Economic fluctuations in key markets may impact future revenue growth.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts focused on the company’s dividend policy and strategies to minimize the impact of U.S. port fees. Executives confirmed the commitment to maintaining the dividend policy and discussed ongoing efforts to mitigate cost increases. No immediate plans for additional vessel sales were disclosed, and the company is closely monitoring geopolitical developments.
Full transcript - Hoegh Autoliners ASA (HAUTO) Q3 2025:
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Good morning and welcome to Höegh Autoliners’ third quarter presentation. My name is My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, and with me today we have our CEO Andreas Enger and our CFO Espen Stubberud. We’ll walk you through the last quarter performance. We have a Q&A session at the end of the presentation, and you can ask questions by sending email to our investor relations mailbox at ir@hoegh.com. With that, I will leave the stage to you, Andreas.
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you. Opening this presentation with a photo of beautiful Höegh Moonlight at the quay in Gothenburg where we had a naming ceremony while loading cargo together with valued customers in Gothenburg this quarter, we are once again presenting a strong result. We have good underlying earnings and profitability driven by our strong contract backlog and an operation. As previously noted, we have some more imbalances than others, but fundamentally we’re running full vessels out of Asia and are basically serving customers to the full and executing our backlog. I will open this presentation to basically respond to an issue of a slight change in the payment schedule for dividends that may require some explanation. I want to do that by starting with reiterating how we operate as a company.
We have focused a lot on creating value through the cycle by building backlog, focusing on a cargo strategy, being overweight cargo, we have basically operated in the market. Now there are persisting market imbalances with strong growth in Asia, not so much opportunities elsewhere in the world. Charter market is starting to provide opportunities for short term capacity which we are using at the cost to develop and be able to maintain a strong backlog. We are now faced with, I think, a totally new level of geopolitical uncertainty coming from things like U.S. port fees and taxes and whatever. While we are fully committed to remain, keep our dividend policy of distributing excess cash flow, we have found that the unusual geopolitical situation is requiring a slight modification.
It’s really triggered by the fact that the implementation of the tripling of the USTR fees that came a couple of weeks ago has resulted in the biggest change in our short term cash forecast as long as I’ve ever been to the company. That period includes the shutdown during the pandemic where we lost a large part of our cargo share. Adapting to a world where governments choose to introduce or increase cash payable taxes with, in reality, two day notice is really putting an extra requirement for securing a cash balance that made us conclude it is prudent to do a small change. Without going into too much detail, the U.S.
port fees, and we don’t know exactly what’s happening with them, and the tripling and the retaliation from China is creating a situation where we suddenly get an additional cost of $60 to $70 million per year effective immediately. That is totally unprecedented. We can have all kinds of ideas and theories of what will happen. In our financial and liquidity management, I think we’ll have to work on a worst case scenario and basically say that we have to be prepared for these kinds of shocks in a situation where our business is drawn into a geopolitical space where we don’t think we belong, but we are still pulled in. I also want to emphasize that this is not reflecting a fundamental change in our business operations. I mean, coming to that when we have the guiding for the next quarter.
It is to make us make sure that we are resilient to types of shocks that we haven’t seen before, not because we have any expectations that there will be further shocks, but we think it’s prudent to be capable or make sure that we can handle it comfortably. What we’re doing is that we are reiterating, reconfirming our dividend policy of paying out excess cash. We are adjusting the calculation method that basically results in a one-off and nonrecurrable impact to the Q3 distribution. The way we do it is simply that instead of paying the dividends based on the running outlook of cash, we are changing it to actually do it on the cash balance we are reporting at the end of the quarter, in this case the end of Q3. That creates in many ways a one quarter gap in the dividend payments.
Just to remind, we have a track record of paying out dividends. We paid out NOK 1.5 billion in cash dividends since our IPO. That is more than three times the equity value of the company at the IPO. It is quite substantial. Again, we are committed and we have reviewed our financial resilience requirements. We have concluded that the current strategy, the current cash balance is sufficient and that we intend to continue to pay all excess cash in dividends. We have changed the liquidity policy from a forward looking one to ensuring that we actually have that cash balance at any time in order to be robust against those types of shocks. That then leaves us to the headline figures, $155 million EBITDA, slightly down. Espen will come into more detail.
Mostly, a result of a combination of the imbalances in the system and charter costs to keep up the volume. We have two further newbuilds at the end of the year and due to our vessel sales have a capacity gap to fill that is creating some charter costs in the near term. $132 million profit after tax, $92.3 million of in gross rate. What we talked about, the $30 million dividend, which is then not related to this quarter’s free cash but produced out of this one-time change in the timing of payouts. We have taken delivery of one purchased, previously bareboat chartered vessel, Höegh Copenhagen. It’s the last one. I think now we have exercised all the purchase options, and we have a strong equity ratio of 54% if you take into going into the market.
One very important thing is that shipments from Asia continue to grow and expand despite U.S. tariffs and despite the kind of environment I said, increased geopolitical risks. We have a very, very strong activity. It’s mostly driven out of China, and as we see it, Chinese growth and Chinese exports of vehicles and equipment is basically continuing to grow. That is a trend that has been driving this industry for a while, continues to drive it, and Chinese share of exports from Asia or even actually even the world is strengthening. High and heavy market is also, after some flat years, going into a good growth pattern. We have a stronger market out of Asia and then we have out of the U.S. and Europe. The market is generally strong and supportive. We have, as we said, a strong contract backlog being fully booked in 2026.
We are continuing to add contracts, although I think many, both capacity and the market cycle. The big contract renewals for the next couple of years or next year is behind us. We have signed a long-term significant contract during September with substantial value and a 15-year duration. Actually, we have a contract share that is now up at 81% and a duration of the backlog of approximately three years. We do have rate agreements, mostly one-year fixed pricing but non-committed. That is a product that is mostly towards freight forwarders and second-hand vehicles. We do have sort of long-standing relationships also in that area. That basically creates stability. Also reiterating that when it comes to what we call spot, it’s not the kind of same cargo in a spot contract.
New vehicles, OEM business is almost entirely on contract, and 60% of the spot volume is high and heavy and breakbulk, which is cargo that has more variability in volumes and trades. Espen, should you take over on the capacity side?
Espen Stubberud, CFO, Höegh Autoliners: On the capacity side, there is still a significant orderbook in the industry. Net fleet growth is up 12% in 2025, and another 8% is expected in 2026. As we’ve talked to a few times, we have expected the charter market to normalize in terms of pricing, and we are using that market to a larger extent than we have in the past. With five actually short-term charters in the third quarter, we see pricing is stabilizing around $40,000 to $45,000 for a large ship at the moment.
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: If I take in a short word on sustainability, you know I showed, we showed you Höegh Moonlight. We have six newbuilds now in operation. We have had an intense docking schedule, which is sort of somewhat variable, but we had a large amount of dockings of all the vessels in the five-year cycle in 2025. We do have a committed program to use every dry docking to upgrade existing vessels for better fuel economy and efficiency. We have then taken delivery of now in total 6 vessels in operation of, I think, the most both carbon and fuel and cargo efficient vessels on the water. That is now also materializing in a clear downward trend on our carbon intensity. We’re also continuing to use 100% biofuel and have 100% biofuel available as a product to our customers, and we have 3,000 tons bunkered in the quarter.
We have a continued effort on decarbonization both in improvement of our existing fleet, in taking delivery on modern efficient fleets, and obviously also in our path to zero looking at future fuel options. That drives us into a carbon intensity, clear carbon intensity roadmap. Just reiterating, from 2008 to 2024 we have improved our carbon intensity more than 40%, and we do have a clear path to zero where, you know, half of the remaining voyage is on improvements to, you know, non-zero carbon fuel related improvements. The last half of this in our plans will basically have to be covered by clean ammonia and E-fuels. We believe we are with that on track to be able to deliver zero-carbon transportation by 2040, with kind of the uncertainties created by the delay of the IMO framework and others.
I think it’s also prudent to reiterate that in all our decarbonization efforts we are ensuring dual-fuel, multi-fuel capabilities, and we are 100% committed to be able to offer our customers zero-carbon transportation by 2040. We are also committed to offering the option to billing customers on zero-carbon transportation before 2030. We are not underwriting the decarbonization cost of our customers, so it has to be aligned with regulations and the customer demand, and we have the ability to deliver. We will obviously run our vessels in a manner that is economic and profitable in whatever regulatory market that exists. Back to financials.
Espen Stubberud, CFO, Höegh Autoliners: Yeah. Turning to the financials, the fourth quarter volume came in at 4 million CBM. That’s up 4% from the second quarter, but up 17% year over year. We are particularly pleased with our volume development out of Asia. The first three quarters this year is up 48% on last year, so very strong volumes. The volume we loaded out of Asia in the third quarter is the highest volume we loaded since we IPO’d back in 2021. We’ve talked to it a couple of times that we took on a couple of large contracts at the end of last year at somewhat lower rates to add to our contract backlog that lowered the rates that came into 2025. We’ve seen very stable rates in 2025 with a net rate drop of 2% from second quarter to the third quarter, mainly related to changes to cargo and trade mix.
Revenues are moving flat on higher volume quarter on quarter. EBITDA is down about 6% from $166 million to $155 million as our operating margin is being reduced and as Andreas already mentioned, we talked to the increased imbalance this year basically reduced network efficiency. We also see somewhat lower utilization of our fleet in the third quarter. That’s not so unusual, particularly in August when production is closing down, which is reducing the efficiency somewhat in the third quarter. Also using some more charter costs. As we talked to, net profit before tax came in at $132 million in the third quarter. That includes the $20 million book gain of selling Hoegh Beijing.
Turning to the EBITDA bridge from the first to the second quarter, we added revenues of $38 million, and with that revenue followed the increased voyage costs and charter costs, but we increased EBITDA to $166 million in the second quarter. We also added volume from the second to third quarter, $15 million in revenue. However, that was fully offset by increased voyage costs and charter costs, and with the net rate dropping about 2%, we come in at $155 million for the third quarter. Our balance sheet is robust with healthy ratios. We have seen net interest bearing debt being increased over the last few quarters as our newbuilds have been delivered.
No newbuilds delivered in the third quarter, so moving flat quarter on quarter and as Andreas said, we’re looking forward to number seven, newbuild number seven being delivered now in a few weeks in December and newbuild number eight to be delivered in January, which will reduce our capacity costs going forward. Cash balance and undrawn liquidity from our revolver is moving basically flat over the last few quarters. It’s another strong quarter with strong cash generation with somewhat improved working capital. We have $173 million in cash from operating activities. We have $27 million in dry docks and CapEx, which includes $10 million newbuild installments on vessel number seven. We have $42 million in proceeds from selling Höegh Beijing in the quarter, and we’ve drawn $46 million in debt. That’s the $10 million for the newbuild installment, and it’s $36 million for the purchase of Höegh Copenhagen.
The purchase option was exercised in the first quarter, but the delivery took place in August. We had normal mortgage repayment and interest of $31 million, and we paid leases of $43 million, which includes the purchase of Copenhagen, and we paid dividend of $137 million, ending the third quarter with cash of $230 million.
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: That only leaves us with the outlook, and I think we need to put in the cautionary note that tariffs may over time lower volumes transported. I think it’s fair to say that that has so far not really happened in the sense that the Asian market has continued to grow and remains strong. Clearly, it is a friction, and we’ll have to look carefully at that over time. The changes to the U.S. port fees that were announced on October 10 with implementation from October 14 were, as I mentioned in the beginning, quite a substantial shock, adding cost of $60 to $70 million. We are working diligently to mitigate the impact. We have close dialogues with all affected customers. We basically have strong beliefs that we will both be able to get, unlikely full but substantial, compensation of the U.S. port fees from customers.
We will also change our trade pattern in the U.S. to optimize versus the portfolio. We are continuously working on mitigating, but given the kind of erratic decision making in this field, it’s basically hard for us to provide much guiding beyond the fact that we are clearly working to optimize around it. We are working with customers to recover the cost, and we have, as we said, chosen to have a slightly more conservative cash retention policy by changing not the amounts over time but the timing of paying dividends to make sure that we are resilient against these types of shocks. When it comes to the Q4 performance, we expect the operational performance to be slightly below the Q3 EBITDA level and that the U.S. TR fees are expected to be around $20 million for the quarter.
The last one I would also say is that we are intending to, through our mitigating actions, do everything we can to avoid that number being multiplied by four for next year. Given that it was introduced as a surprise on a four-day notice, we obviously had cargo on the water and vessels on the way into the U.S. That strongly, significantly reduces our mitigation options during the fourth quarter. We are working on adjusting and seeking recovery to reduce the impact going into 2026. That concludes our presentation. We have open for questions, and My Linh, is there anything to answer? A few.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Questions for the Q and A sessions and the first question coming from analyst Yeogan Lian, DNB Kanoji, the first one on the dividend policy with a quarter-end cash balance which is similarly around $200 million, based on the declared dividend in this quarter via constant or a function of certain assumptions.
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: Basically, we have said again that we will distribute excess cash, and with that, I think you can, and we have said we’re going to be on the reporting quarter. I think using that number as an anchor point is useful, and we have reconfirmed in the board both that we consider that cash level to give us sufficient resilience, and we have reconfirmed our commitment to pay out excess cash in dividends. I think we should also remind that we do have, obviously, and the board has the responsibility to make a complete assessment of the total situation at any quarter, and that will obviously be the basis. In the current environment, we have reconfirmed our dividend policy, but we are using the last reported quarter as reference for what is surplus.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you, Andreas, for the clarifications. The next question is about port fees. I think we already briefly touched upon that during the outlook sessions, but we mentioned the guided impact for U.S. port fees around $60 to $70 million for yearly annually impact for Höegh. How does this relate to the last quarter guide, USD around $30 million for a full year impact, given that now the modified port fee is now 3.3 times higher. Espen, you want to.
Espen Stubberud, CFO, Höegh Autoliners: Yeah. Now we guided on $30 million earlier, and then the increase in fees now is 3.3 times. When we’re saying $60 to $70 million, this is based on us optimizing our voyages into the U.S., and that’s basically about minimizing number of voyages into the U.S. and looking at how we can do that from various angles. We have deep sea vessels going into the U.S., and we try to consolidate as much cargo to the U.S. as possible on those vessels. We also have activity in the Caribbean with smaller feeder vessels that are calling on the U.S. that we will look differently upon and reroute. Of course, we also need to avoid any marginal calls to the U.S. that we have done in the past.
The $60 to $70 million is an estimate on the cost for the company after we have optimized the voyages into the U.S.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Since we also got $20 million impact for Q4 out of the $60-70 million for gross impact for the full year, I guess for Q4 I guess is also take into consideration the shorter lead time and between the modification.
Espen Stubberud, CFO, Höegh Autoliners: Basically, we had no time to optimize. The impact will be lower going into next year, is what you’re saying. Yeah.
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Yes. The next question is asked by a few analysts as well. Another clarification on the Q4 guidance. Is it correct to assume that the underlying operational result is slightly below Q3 and that the additional $20 million U.S. port fee will be added on top of that?
Espen Stubberud, CFO, Höegh Autoliners: Yes. What we’re saying is that the performance is continuing strong, third quarter is strong, and we’re seeing also good volumes into the fourth quarter. We can repeat what we said earlier. We basically have more cargo than we can carry. Very strong growth in Asia. The underlying performance is strong also into the fourth quarter, but slightly below the third. On top of that, all of a sudden we’ve had this extra $20 million that is reducing the performance in the fourth quarter.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you, Sven. The next question is about capacity management. Höegh Autoliners is chartering in more capacity. What is the future consideration requirement? Do we have for additional vessels? Additional vessels at this point?
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: I think first we just said we have two vessels coming in in the next couple of months, which are welcome additions to the fleet. These are, you know, large vessels, 9,100 cu. They’re much more effective, and with our, you know, attractive both cost and financing on those vessels, they will come in at a capacity cost for us that is substantially lower than the charter market. We welcome that. Beyond that, I think it’s fair to say that, you know, looking at the charter rates that Espen showed, without speculating too much, we were selling vessels to, you know, leverage and utilize a tight charter market and, you know, high asset valuation. That asset valuation is coming down, and I think that is probably reducing the likelihood of future vessel sales. You know, we are in a kind of fleet renewal.
We have a fleet renewal strategy, and we have a decarbonization strategy. This is something we will always look at, but they will be done based on specific opportunities rather than any kind of pre-decided thing. When it comes to investments in new capacity, yeah, our program is fixed. We are getting those two vessels now, and then there is a gap until mid-2027, where we will then from mid-2027 into 2028 get the last four of the Aurora class vessels, then coming as dual-fuel ammonia vessels that will have the option of running zero-carbon fuels. It will also have the possibility to run entirely on traditional fuels if the sort of worst things should happen with the IMO process.
I think I also want to reiterate it’s our belief that even without delays in the IMO process, we believe a system will come in place, and in the absence of an IMO system, I think it’s also likely that the EU’s scheme will continue. It’s likely that other regions will copy that and have similar, so carbon taxes in our scenario will come in the years to come. We would have preferred to get them in the level playing field in a uniformed IMO structure. We still hope that that will get in place. Even if it is further delayed, it doesn’t mean that there will not be taxes and fees and costs of emitting carbon in our trade system. We believe that trajectory is still in place. For capex, we don’t have any additional vessel capex plans that are not already announced and financed and handled.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you so much, Andreas. I guess part of your answer already addressed a question from one of our audience regarding the plan if we have any plan to sell further vessels next year. The next question is back to the topic of U.S. port fees, and this is asked by several analysts and other investors that follow the webcast as well. How do we plan to handle the U.S. port fee or possible similar future tax with our customer, and how much do we expect to recover or pass on these costs to customers?
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: I don’t think we can answer that specifically, but clearly we are introducing those fees in full for our sort of liner business, and we are in dialogues and we will get substantial compensation from our existing customers. I think it’s also quite clear that this is now a cost that we expect to be embedded in all future contracting in and out of the U.S., and our expectation is that these fees will gravitate to basically become an additional cost for American consumers and American exporters. There will be a transition period where we will get some compensation, but not full compensation for those fees.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you, Andreas. Yes, I see this question coming in just now. Yes, this next question is about the Suez Canal and the opening of Red Sea. When do we expect the reopening of Red Sea and how will that affect our operations and earnings?
Andreas Enger, CEO, Höegh Autoliners: I think it is, I don’t think it makes sense for us to speculate about opening. It’s again a geopolitical issue. It’s a disturbance that we believe will have to come to an end. Clearly, a reopening will allow us a more efficient trade system. It will also add capacity into our system. I think we are, with our sales of vessels, with the newbuilds, with the current short term charters, fairly well placed in terms of also optimizing that situation, and it gives us more carrying capacity. In that sense, I think that is an optimization that we are fully prepared for. I think we have created some things in our solid structure in order to deal with it, and we will deal with it when it comes. I don’t think we will try to speculate or provide any guiding on the timing. It doesn’t seem to be imminent.
When you look half year out, lots of things can happen, and if you look a couple of years out, we are assuming that the Red Sea will eventually open. More than that, I think we will refrain from providing. There will not be any valid insight into our speculations in that timing because that’s driven by total external factors.
My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, Höegh Autoliners: Thank you for the detailed answers, Andreas. I think that’s the last question we have for now. We can give around 15 to 30 seconds more to see if we have more questions coming in. I guess that’s the last question we have for now. Of course, if you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to us at the Investor Relations mailbox at iadhurb.com. Thank you for watching and we look forward to seeing you. Next question.
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