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Williamson Group has reported its second-quarter earnings for 2025, revealing a net profit of $250 million. The earnings call highlighted the company’s focus on innovation in the New Energy sector and its strategic initiatives amidst challenging geopolitical conditions. The company’s stock, represented by Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding ASA B (WWIB), experienced a modest increase of 0.64%, closing at 468.
Key Takeaways
- Williamson Group reported a net profit of $250 million for Q2 2025.
- New Energy revenues reached $100 million, showcasing significant growth.
- The company paid its first dividend of DKK 12.
- Stock price increased by 0.64% following the earnings announcement.
- Strong contributions from associates, including Valena Zwilliamsson and Hyundai Glovis.
Company Performance
Williamson Group demonstrated resilience in Q2 2025, with a net profit of $250 million and comprehensive income totaling $377 million. The company continues to focus on its New Energy sector, particularly through the Nordsee Group operations along the Norwegian coast. Edda Wind, a market leader in offshore windmill services, contributed significantly with eight operational vessels and four under construction.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue from New Energy: $100 million
- Net profit: $250 million
- Total comprehensive income: $377 million
- EBITDA: SEK 48 million
- Dividend paid: DKK 12
Market Reaction
The stock price of Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding ASA B saw a slight increase of 0.64%, closing at 468. This movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s strategic direction and its strong performance in the New Energy sector. The stock is trading near its 52-week high, with InvestingPro data showing impressive returns of 23% over the past six months and 27% over the last year. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be undervalued at current levels.
Outlook & Guidance
Looking ahead, Williamson Group is focusing on strengthening its balance sheet and preparing to capitalize on potential future opportunities. The company is committed to a long-term industrial player approach, with continued efforts in debt reduction and strategic investments in the New Energy sector.
Executive Commentary
Thomas, a senior executive, emphasized the company’s commitment to being a long-term industrial player, stating, "We are a long-term industrial player, and we intend to continue to be a long-term industrial player." He also expressed optimism about the Nordsee Group, saying, "We have a positive view on Nordsee Group going forward."
Risks and Challenges
- Geopolitical challenges and global trade dynamics could impact financial performance.
- Tariff impacts are estimated at $2-3 million annually.
- Currency fluctuations remain a concern, although strong U.S. Dollar hedging strategies are in place.
- Margin pressures in Maritime Services need careful management.
- The company must navigate potential supply chain disruptions.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the North Sea Group’s strong performance and the margin pressures in Maritime Services. The potential impacts of tariffs were also a key topic of discussion, with executives providing insights into their strategic responses.
This earnings report underscores Williamson Group’s strategic focus on innovation and resilience in challenging market conditions, positioning it for future growth. For deeper insights into Williamson Group’s valuation and growth prospects, InvestingPro subscribers can access 14 additional ProTips and a comprehensive Pro Research Report, which provides detailed analysis of the company’s financial health, market position, and growth potential.
Full transcript - Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding ASA B (WWIB) Q2 2025:
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: morning, Christian. Hi. And welcome to everyone listening in to this webcast. It’s been an exciting quarter. The geopolitical backdrop is pretty challenging to say the least.
Everything that’s happening on the security front, on tariffs, etcetera, it’s a very, very difficult environment to navigate. But I must say, the Williamson Group has fared pretty well during the quarter. Do you agree?
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: Totally agree. Building sort of solid balance sheet, good performance from basically all our sort of different units. So I totally will agree that we have had a good quarter, second quarter in 2025.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: I must say it’s a little bit, say, challenging or interesting to operate with nearly record results with nearly one of the most difficult backdrops that we have, but that’s the situation we are in. And with that, I think we should move into the second quarter. As you can see, I will start off with the net profit for the quarter, $250,000,000 for the group, which is extremely strong. We had, I would say, satisfactory EBITA from the operating entities of New Energy and Maritime Services. We’ll come back to that a little bit later in the presentation.
We’ve had very strong contribution from associates in Valena Zwilliamsson and Hyundai Glovis amounting to SEK 197,000,000 for the quarter. We’ve also gotten an approval from the AGM to cancel some shares and also the mandate to acquire additional shares, which we also did during the second quarter, 300 close to 335,000 shares. We also increased the ownership in Edda. I’ll come back to that a little bit later, but we are now close to 38%. And we paid the first dividend of DKK 12, and the Board has the authority from the General Assembly to distribute up to additional DKK 8.
So all in all, just to make a quick summary, I think the second quarter has been strong for us as a group. Totally agree. Then looking at Maritime Services, it’s pretty flat quarter on quarter, down year on year. This is very much due to revenue recognition in related to Ship Management and the acquisition of Seaborne. I think we would have liked to see a little bit, say, upward pressure on both top line and also on margins and EBITDA landing for this quarter at 13%.
But overall, the operating, say, side operations of the business is running pretty well. Then looking or moving ahead to New Energy. I would say it’s a surprisingly strong quarter for New Energy, very strong operations and activity level for Nordsee Group and across all the bases along the Norwegian Coast, landing then at revenues of $100,000,000 for the quarter and a strong also EBITA contribution from New Energy and then again linked to Nordsee Group. There’s a small goodwill impairment during the quarter and some pretty good contribution from associates within New Energy. Just looking at that from a breakup point of view, it’s roughly $2,000,000 from North Sea, 3,000,000 from Reach and the remaining from Edvard.
And again, as I mentioned initially, increased the shareholding in Edda Wind, and the company was then delisted in this third quarter at the August. And I think that process has been, say, according to expectations. Just stopping briefly at Edda, a market leader in its segment, supplying vessels to the offshore windmill service industry, eight vessels on water, four under construction, I would say, a pretty sound order backlog, but of course still open capacity. We invested initially in 2020, so five years ago in this company, and it’s been somewhat of a journey with the different partners and also been listed on the stock exchange now delisted, 156,000,000 altogether from a book value perspective. But we have strong belief in this segment.
And I think it’s a pretty nice picture on screen here showing a little bit of what these ships are all about. It can accommodate quite a large number of technicians. It has workspace, a good strong crane, and of course the heave compensated gangway, which is important for this industry. So it will be interesting to see how we can develop this company going forward. Holding and investments.
As I mentioned, very, very strong contribution from Valenes Willemsen and Hyundai Gloves, SEK 197,000,000 in total for the quarter, SEK 157,000,000 from Valenes Willemsen, of course, including the sales gain from the sale of this terminal, Mirat, in Australia, but still underlying performance and profitability is strong. Hyundai Gloves at SEK 40,000,000, which is, I would assume, record results for Hundag Globus in the quarter, which, of course, is very positive from our point of view. We have SEK 6,000,000 in gain from, say, financial assets. We have SEK 18,000,000 in other financials, which is including the investment management that we do have, which contributed with SEK 6,000,000. And then we had pretty strong cash inflows during the quarter with close to SEK 200,000,000 from Valen and Swilhelmsen.
And as we started off with, we have a market backdrop which is challenging. The performance for the group is strong. The cash flow from the group is strong. And as you will come back to, we are using, say, this momentum to strengthen our balance sheet, strengthen liquidity. We are a long term industrial player, and we intend to continue to be a long term industrial player.
And we believe it’s the right time for us now to build that strength so that we can, say, grasp the potential opportunities and weather the storms that may come ahead of us. And I think that’s a little bit also what’s summed up in the outlook from the Board. So I will not labor further on that. I will pass it on to you, Christian, to
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: take Thank it from you very much, Thomas. I think basically I’ve covered the total picture very well. Top line in total for the second quarter, somewhat sort of 5% quarter on quarter and then 6% quarter on quarter, five percent year over year. EBITDA at SEK 48,000,000. Share profit from associates with the very good sort of results from Valenus Wilhelmsen and Globus, Valenus Wilhelmsen accounting for 157,000,000.
What you haven’t covered is the all the financial income, which is sort of at 23. And looking a bit back because it’s sort of April, May and June, where we had the NOK 0 challenges or the changes, this is the value of the hedges that we do have on the NOK dollars exposure. So you will see that the NOK 23,000,000 positive there on the weakening. And you will also see it when you go further down on the comprehensive income, where you see a total comprehensive income of SEK $377,000,000, which is basically then converting Norwegian or other currency assets into U. S.
Dollars. So there is quite some impact of the U. S. Dollar fluctuations in the second quarter. If we can expect that to go on, we will see.
But there is a financial hedge in place and rolling as we have discussed in many years and it’s a very sort of normal procedure to cover the U. S. Dollar specifically in our accounts and balance sheets.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: But it is probably fair to say, Christian, that we had anticipated the dollar to depreciate even further. So it’s stabilized a little at a relatively strong
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: level. Into the third quarter, it’s basically stabilized as we have seen it. Kicking off the year with on the cash flow, kicking off the year with 155,000,000 on the beginning. Dollars 42,000,000 coming in from Maritime Services, and you could I’ve had some discussions after first quarter what sort of happens. And what happens is that we also build on the working capital when it comes to the maritime services.
So you could add we have sort of invested or invested in our working capital of $1,000,000 in maritime services, building up storage towards the tariff situation so that we are able to support our customers and deliver for a longer period, not knowing exactly what the structure will look like. So building up capacity will tie up also cash, but good cash flow from Matam Services, good cash flow from Nordsee and obviously also very good cash flow from the dividends you just described from Valensvillemsen at high levels of close to US200 million dollars and close to US30 million dollars coming from Hyundai Glauwis. On the other investment activity side, you have said that we did the new energy investment in further investment in Edavin. So taking Edavin private, close to US20 million dollars $13,000,000 into Reedsubsea converting warrants and also then just short of US90 million dollars is cash invested in very highly liquid, but low risk cash funds in the market with the cash coming in. And you would expect that also to happen in the future as we see Valens Wilhelmsen have proposed or they have decided a dividend coming in just short of US180 million dollars in this quarter as we are into as we decided a couple of days ago.
Dividend and pay and buyback at 80 some, where dividend is at $49,000,000 and buyback is at the remaining. So we’ve done two buybacks, one a bit larger in the first quarter, one a bit smaller as described by Thomas in the second quarter. And buyback is a part of our financial policy as obviously also then policy on where to be when it comes to the dividend side. Not so much to describe on the back end ending at 200 some at end of the first half year. And I might add that the $87,000,000 being invested in the investment activities, at least for me, it’s the same as cash, so we could put that on top.
But technically, it’s in that role when it comes to the cash flow structure. Balance sheet, obviously, also then as a response or an answer to very good performing business units are increasing. So equity is increasing, the total assets is increasing and balance sheet is strong. So equity is increasing in percentages or one percentage, but also of course also in absolute numbers. And the sort of really strong good eye will see that we have changed the word in the top line from a long term financial structure to a sound structure.
The word is basically based at the fact that there are some the debt structures are have a tender until 2027. And then long term might be sort of a bit sort of a wrong word. As you will see also from the graph, more or less all debt in WMS or in Maritime Services has been repaid, and that’s one of the measures when we are receiving cash that we are paying down debt. There is still substantial debt in the North Sea and in New Energy, but we will continue to take down debt as a part of also the cash management structure going forward. But we will at the same time invite banks and other institutions to discuss the future of the structures and then the financing structures of the group.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: I think it’s also prudent to comment that the communication we have with the banks is very sound, strong with, say, they are positively inclined to support this group, which is very, very pleasing.
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: Definitely, definitely. Thomas said the first dividend of NOK 12 is paid out in second quarter and we did a buyback of 334,000 shares. And with that, we are in line with the financial policy and even more in line with the policy, so with the range, if the Board decides to pay all the SEK 8, but that’s a discretion at the Board coming up in the third quarter. So good when it comes to buyback. And as you can see on the right graph, basically at par with 2024.
We are also in the process of takes a couple of months or so, in the process of canceling around 2,200,000.0 shares, basically close to 5% of the outstanding shares, hoping that will sort of mature or end up in a couple of weeks or so. So at that point, we will give a note to the stock exchange what’s when that’s being done. So that’s in the process and all the decisions have been made. So we are just waiting for the final decision on that. So that’s basically on the balance sheet and on the cash flow side.
Back to you, Thomas, or back to you, Roger, on the question side.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: Thank you, Christian. I think we like to finish off with this picture, trying to give a little bit of a snapshot of what we’re doing and our vision that we labor on every time of shaping the maritime industry. And although, as we mentioned many times, a difficult backdrop, very difficult to navigate to really understand how this is impacting the maritime industry going forward. But saying that, there are always opportunities. We are seeing organic opportunities within our profile or portfolio.
And of course, there will be other opportunities that we are evaluating on an ongoing basis. So I hope we will continue to fare well in the next quarters as well. And if there are exciting news, we will make sure to share them with the market. Do we have any questions?
August Dusselaer, Investor Relations, Williamson Group: August Dusselaer, Investor Relations. We have one question from Helene Thingmull, analyst at Pareto. And that relates to the very strong performance of North Sea. The question is if the activity level, which North Sea have then seen in the second quarter is particularly strong or will it be lower in the second quarter? So yes, it’s the no, sorry, the second So half of the is the second quarter particularly strong?
Or what will we see going forward?
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: Well, it’s hard to predict what’s going into the next quarters. But I would say the second quarter was a very strong quarter. There’s been, as we know, quite a few measures from the government of, say, incentivizing the industry to uphold high activity. This is no doubt, at least partly a result from that. But we find that somewhat hard to predict.
There are also quite some seasonalities within the North Sea Group book business. But I think we have a I would say, it’s we have a positive view on Nordsee Group going forward in general without, say, quantifying where third or fourth quarter will be.
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: But then just to add some sort of flavor on it, there are no long term contracts supporting that level. This is sort of based on the activity initiated by the operators and their suppliers. So that’s the sort of momentum we are in. That we need to sort of take into consideration. So this is a product of the others as well, even though we have contracts when it comes to some of the operations, but not at this level.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: But we are seeing strong contribution from north to south, so along the whole portfolio.
August Dusselaer, Investor Relations, Williamson Group: Thank you, Thomas and Christian. Then we have one question for one of our main shareholders. And just bear in mind for those posting questions, there is a little time lag. So when we answer this question, please post. If not, we will finish after that.
But then the question from, as I said, one of the main shareholders. Can you elaborate a bit more on the margin in Maritime Services this quarter?
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: Yes, I can. And you please feel free to fill in, Christian. Well, one, we have the top line, which we have already explained. I haven’t spoken too much about the margin. With a flat top line and somewhat, call it, inflationary pressure on the cost side, I think there are two main elements.
The one is increased in, call it, the prices of cost of goods sold and the other one is related to increased labor or salaries. So that would be the two main, say, issues of underlying negative inflationary pressure on the margins. I would say dare to say that we have proven for, say, few decades actually that we are able to manage the cost structure to a certain extent. So when we do see some of these pressures, we often, say, initiate processes to actually seek how we can take out costs in order to uphold, say, a relatively stable margin picture. But of course, there are certain time lags in this and certain years, it’s easier to do than others, but that will be a general comment to the margin picture.
Christian, CFO/Financial Executive, Williamson Group: So that’s basically for investor to sort of take back in the next quarters to come. And we could also add that we haven’t said anything about tariffs. And there will be some challenges with tariffs in the maritime service space. As far as we know and all else equal, which is kind of a good way to start a discussion on that, we foresee that the annual number of tariff or the cost of tariff, all else equal, will be in the area of US2 million dollars to US3 million dollars So not a very high number, but obviously a negative number if all else is equal. So that’s the spreadsheet technicalities, but it remains to be seen.
But that’s again, coming back to what Thomas said, that’s a pressure that we need to discuss and find out how to sort of get back on when it comes to maintaining our margins.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: So just to feel back on that and from the tariff discussion, because we haven’t spent too much time on it. There’s no doubt that the, say, biggest direct impacts that we will see on tariffs will be within Valenus Willemsen and Hyundai Glovis. When it comes to the remaining part of our portfolio, it’s more a question of the indirect effects that it would have on global, say, trade growth or to the contrary, except for some of the, call it, the limited effects that Christian is mentioning, which is then very much related to ship services products in The United States.
August Dusselaer, Investor Relations, Williamson Group: Thank you, Thomas and Christian. And then that was the end of the Q and A. If there are more questions, they can be posted directly to the company. So then you can round off.
Thomas, Senior Executive/CEO, Williamson Group: Well, you, Christian. Thank you, And most of all, thank you for everyone who’s listening in. I’m looking forward to see you in six months’ time. Take care.
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