Bakkafrost P/F

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Q1 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 19, 2026

Høgni Jakobsen

:Good morning and welcome to the presentation of Bakkafrost results for the first quarter 2026. My name is Høgni Jakobsen, CFO of Bakkafrost.

First, I will point your attention to our disclaimer on forward-looking statements. I'll leave it for self-study, it's included in the published presentation.

This morning we will follow the usual agenda beginning with a summary of the quarter, before we move on to markets and sales, finances, operations, and finally outlook. The first quarter was a solid start to the new year for Bakkafrost.

Compared to the first quarter last year, our revenue increased by 11% to around 2.1 billion, and operational EBIT increased by 8% to 544 million. This was achieved in a market with significantly higher global supply and lower year-on-year prices.

The main operational driver was the Faroe Islands, where harvest volumes increased by 33% to around 25,100 ton, gutted weight. Scotland was broadly stable in volumes at around 6,200 ton.

Feed sales also increased by 13% in the quarter, reflecting a strong biological growth in the farming operation. At the same time, fishmeal sales and marine sourcing were lower, around 51,000 ton of marine raw material were sourced in the quarter.

Cash flow from operations declined to 453 million, down from 590 million the year before. At the AGM in end of April, the dividend payment of 3.45 was approved for payment around 21st of May.

The group delivered an all-inclusive margin or operational EBIT per kilo of 17.35 Danish kroner per kilo compared to 20.07 in the first quarter last year. Faroe Islands generated 22.76, slightly weaker than last year.

Scotland recorded minus 4.58 compared to a positive margin of 11.22 in the same quarter last year. Now with that regional margin picture established, we can move on to market and sales, starting with the supply side, how much salmon came onto the market and which regions drove the supply.

Global harvest volumes increased by 12% year-on-year, while total sold quantities increased nearly 15%. This was a substantial supply increase, and it came from both Europe and the Americas.

Europe grew by 10%, with Norway also up around 10%. Norway had good biology, harvest weights were up 11%, reduced mortality, and generally strong growth with feed sales increasing 5% in the quarter.

In the Faroe Islands, we grew almost 20% in harvest, the fish were large, we had 13% in increased feed sales, sorry, 19% in increased feed sales, which was driven by strong growth with large smolt. Iceland also showed a particularly strong percentage increase, but from a lower or smaller base.

In the Americas, the supply increased 19%, led by Chile, which grew more than 20%. Chile had a flat biomass development through the quarter though, it's the growth that has been harvested.

Feed sales were slightly down in Chile, minus 4%, and a slight increase in harvest weights. Overall, a strong extra supply coming to the market.

If we then move on to the sales and see where, in which regions, which part of the markets that extra volume was absorbed, demand was broadly stable across. Total sold volumes increased by 14.6%, and as the largest market, Europe and UK grew by 12%.

This was slightly above the European supply increase of 10%. The strongest growth was in Asia and Latin America.

Greater China increased by impressively 55%, ASEAN by 25, and Latin America by 30%. A large share of the extra supply that came from the Americas went into Asia and Latin America.

The US market was more moderate in growth, 4% increase, partly affected also by a weaker dollar, lower purchasing power for consumers. If you look at the Norwegian sale to the US, there was a drop of around 30%.

This demand and supply, of course, had impact on salmon prices. Average spot prices in the quarter for superior 4 to 5 kilo fish was 87.95 NOK per kilo, which was 5.2% lower than the same quarter last year, but 7% improved compared to the previous quarter.

Higher overall supply affected the prices, and in addition, there was more supply of large fish coming to the market, the price gap between small and large fish, or the large fish premium, it's also referred to as, shrunk quite significantly in the quarter. If we then move into finance, starting with profit and loss, revenues in the quarter increased from around 1.9 billion to 2 billion 140 million, an increase of 214 million.

Operational EBIT increased from 505 million to 544 million. Fair value adjustments were positive, with 30 million, 13 million compared to 300 and negative 376 million in the same quarter last year.

Profit after tax was 307 million compared to negative 6 in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings per share was 5.16 Danish kroner per share, and in that respect this quarter was the strongest since the first quarter of 2024 for Bakkafrost.

On the balance sheet, it remains strong at the end of the quarter. Total assets increased slightly to 19.2 billion, with equity increasing by 305 million to 11.3 billion.

Equity ratio improved from 58 to 59%. Property, plant, and equipment had a modest increase of 35 million.

Biological assets were broadly stable at around 3.4 billion, while inventory increased slightly. Receivables increased by 224 million to around 1 billion.

On the cash flow side, from operations, we had a cash flow of 453 million compared to 590 million in the first quarter of 2025. This was a decline of 137 million, but still represents strong operating cash contributions.

Cash flow from investments improved from minus 304 million to 260 minus 260 16 million. Financing cash flow also improved significantly from 516 million to minus 160 7 million, from minus 516 to minus 167.

Together these movements resulted in a positive net change in cash of 17 million, which left us with 370 million in cash at the end of the period. This leads us to the development in our net interest-bearing debt, which decreased during the quarter from around 3.9 million billion to 3.8 billion, a reduction of 135 million.

Liquidity remains strong. Undrawn credit facilities were around 1.6 billion at the end of the quarter, and then we have an accordion option of €150 million in addition to that.

Then I will hand over to Regin to go through the operations and outlook.

Regin Jacobsen

Good morning. Bakkafrost has a value chain second to none in the international salmon farming environment, full control from feed production including fishmeal and oil, genetics, to sale.

The value chain gives Bakkafrost control, flexibility, efficiency, differentiation, best traceability, and resilience. When we move to the FOF segment in the first quarter, the most important is that our FOF operation supports the biological growth in our farming operations with healthy salmon.

Low marine sourcing in this quarter due to seasonal patterns affected the results. The feed sold increased 13% up to 35,421 ton.

100% of the feed was sold internally, and this is of course due to higher biomass and better growth. Marine raw materials sourced was 51,199 ton, down 53% from last year.

External fishmeal sold was only 1,200 ton, 67% down from last year. Operational EBIT for the FOF segment was 84 million Danish kroner, up 29% versus last year, and the margin was 15% versus 13 last year.

Feed sales are growing, which is directly linked to record biomass at sea and strong growth. Margin improvement up to 15%, good cost control, and of course related to high efficiency and capacity utilization.

Less external fishmeal sales, which means more are used in-house. Raw material sourcing is, of course, the big issue in feed in general.

Costs are going up going forward. Raw material prices have significantly down from 2023 when it peaked, but the trends are upwards going forward.

However, volumes are increasing, which are improving our efficiency, and we lift our target this year by 10,000 ton up to 175,000 ton for the full year. We will continue our focus on the best feed quality and the best feed composition for FCR and fish health.

However, we see better sourcing in April and May, year to date, until today, we have sourced 130,000 ton, a bit better in April and May, but we are still behind last year. The FOF segment remains a key competitive advantage for Bakkafrost, being self-supplied with increased flexibility in feed operation, especially with the new factory coming into operation from June.

The yearly international blue whiting spawning stock survey was conducted in April, a few weeks ago, in international waters and in Faroese waters by scientific research. This 2026 survey showed 32% biomass increase in stocks, whereof 83% of the whole stock is younger stocks, which supports continued growth in the stock, could be an early indicator of a healthy biomass, at least going forward.

We will see what that leads to for next year. Then moving to Freshwater Scotland, the key priority is a steady controlled ramp-up of Applecross.

We are prioritizing biological stability and smolt quality. In this quarter, or in this quarter we see 1 million smolt being transferred, 67% up from last year.

Average weight all smolt 218 g, 29% up. Average weight from Applecross was 269 g, and the operational EBIT was minus 28 million.

This reflects both an issue in operation in the quarter with electricity, causing some technical issues in the quarter related to the new operation, and also increased depreciation because of the size of the investment and only 30% utilization of of the new site yet. We are happy that volumes from Applecross are increasing quarter by quarter, and we see now a clear upward trend.

The Applecross biomass is now the highest ever, right now 9 million pieces in in the biomass. At peak we should see 18 million pieces, but also at higher average weight than we see right now.

Focus is steady ramp-up, not volume at the moment, but high quality. Applecross is set to produce 200 to 400 g smolt in 2026, which gives flexibility in the production planning.

The negative EBIT is expected to turn positive within the ramp-up phase. We expect improving biological outcome step by step, and we expect an average weight from Applecross about 200 g during this year.

We see that the share of large smolt is now increasing steadily in in Scotland. This is our cornerstone of the de-risking strategy in the Scottish farming operation: large smolt, shorter sea-phase cycles, less exposure to the risk, and once at full capacity, this will fundamentally change our risk picture in Scotland.

We see now the first batches of smolt coming out within 12 months, which means lower mortality, better average weights, and and better feed conversion rates. good growth, stable condition, low mortality, but in this quarter the issues are mainly low prices and low volume, no scale, so that's the big issue.

The harvest in this quarter was 6,198 ton, flat from last year. The average weight is pretty high, 6.4 kg, however minus 63 million in EBIT.

This is due to low prices and low scale, half and half on both, I would say. Mortality improved year-on-year, tracking well below recent years.

We are happy about the development in biology. It was a good quarter across most sites, strong harvest weights, sea temperatures are normal, but the big issue was the lower prices and low volumes.

We have two sites right now where they were both stocked in July last year. One of them is now 3.5 kg in average, will be harvested out in July this year.

This was 250 g smolt from Applecross. Then we have another stock which were stocked at the same time at 90 g external smolt, now 1.6 kg.

The Applecross stock is 4% losses, the other one is 11.6% losses right now. Both will be harvested at or are planned to be harvested at 6 kg.

As said, Applecross stock will be harvested in July this year, means that there should be a low risk for those fish. The other one will be harvested from December to February next year, but they were both stocked in July, so that illustrates a bit the difference with larger smolt.

We see that with 250 g, we see that we should be able to harvest the fish within 12 to 14 months, at least in this case it's 12 months. We are still positive on the case, but still need to improve that we can deliver.

better, larger, and cheaper in this quarter. This is the engine behind our strong biological performance at sea.

In this quarter we transferred 3.9 million smolt, 22% up. Average weight 527 g, 25% up.

Operational EBIT from the segment was 90 million, 61% up. The smolt cost, despite larger, 10% down.

We are particularly happy that we are hitting on all three dimensions: larger smolt, higher volumes, and lower cost. The 90-day post-transfer survivability improved, clear evidence of better smolt quality and robustness.

2026 survivability tracking above 21 to 24 range. All hatcheries are performing well.

We are working on reaching our goal for this year on 20 million of internal transferred smolt to our farms in the Faroes. We are increasing capacity utilization across all the hatcheries in Faroes.

This is also the key of low cost, continuous focusing on smolt quality, not just about size, but robustness and post-transfer performance. The new Skálavík hatchery is progressing well, planning to start the eggs now in June, and then first transfer by the end of next year, in 2027.

That will bring our total capacity up to 24.4 million at 500 g. The trend has been clear: we have gone from 300 g average in 2023 up to 527 g in this quarter.

We see clearly that larger smolt gives much shorter time in sea, less exposure to risk, and better cost profile in the sea. This is a structural competitive advantage that will continue to improve, and this is the foundation for us to reach 107,000 ton in the company this year, also Faroes and Scotland combined, yeah.

Coming to farming Faroe Islands, farming delivered an excellent quarter, significantly reduced costs and strong biological performance. The investments in freshwater smolt quality are clearly paying off at sea.

Harvest volumes 25,139 ton, 33% up from last year. Average weight 5.8 kg, 14% up.

Operational EBIT 386 million, up 2%, the margin 28%, ring-side cost 13% down. This quarter we harvested around half of the fish was from Fuglafjørður, where many of you have been.

Half of the fish, 13,500 out of 25, and then around 10% was from A-71, that's Funningsfjørður, and same from Haraldssund and Hvannasund Norður and Kunoyarnes, and then 5% from Undir Gøtueiði. Six sites harvested in this quarter, all performing well.

I am very happy to see that costs came down 13% in this quarter, driven by larger smolt, better growth, operational efficiency. Ring-side cost now down at 26.95, down from 31.15 one year ago.

Volume growth 33%, harvested from record-high biomass built through 2025. Very strong growth at sea.

The combination of low cost and high volume is, of course, a good combination. This capacity utilization, that's also really important.

This is also key for our biological discipline and cost discipline, not compromising on fish health for volume. We will continue to optimize stocking patterns and harvest planning.

Further cost improvement expected as smolt size continues to increase. However, we see a strong foundation for the coming quarters, with 57,000 ton biomass at sea, feeding volumes up 30%, which indicates a continued strong growth ahead.

Structural cost advantage from integrated value chain and large smolt is now delivering, and we are well on track in 2026 to target our delivery on volume, and that's why we increase our target from 92 to 97,000 ton for Faroe Islands. transports, farming supports, harvest packaging, biogas, etc.

We have a solid underlying performance in this segment, but in this quarter we have a one-off cost which is taken out of the EBIT. The EBIT was 41 million, 8% up.

One-off was 17 million, which is write-off of delousing equipment which was made obsolete by dual freshwater treatment. This works well, and therefore we have written this old equipment off.

We are happy about the strong development in the quarter. The dual freshwater treatment works really well, and therefore we don't need the other equipment.

The high activity across all services: transports, treatments, harvest packaging, biogas. Actually biogas delivered 61% more green energy in this quarter, 3.3 GWh of electricity and district heating to the people in Tórshavn versus 2.1 GWh last year.

We are working on scaling the service capacity in line with the growing harvest volumes, continued efficiency in the dual freshwater treatment, reducing need for chemical mechanical delousing, waste to biogas production, circular value from the processing by-products, and focusing on the service fleet and infrastructure to keep the pace up to our goal of 117,000 ton in 2030. We see a stable, good operation, enable strong survivability in our farms and competitive assets to protect and sustainable growth strategy.

Coming to sales and other segment, and this includes our VAP operation. Market conditions improved through the quarter, high volumes have been sold.

We are actively diversifying our operations into US and Asia. In this quarter we sold totally 31,337 ton gutted weight, 24% up from last year.

Head-on gutted 25,432, VAP 5,905, 34% up. Operational EBIT was 47 million, which is 12% up.

2.37 NOK per kilo EBIT margin, I would say pressured from high supply. We are happy to have been able to sell this volume, especially of very large fish, which was a bit complicated.

We had a lot of impacts of bad weather in the quarter, and that impacted our ability to reach our premium markets and our premium prices, because we had to replan in many, many weeks in the quarter. That was an issue.

Our VAP share is stable, around 23%, maintaining premium positioning. We see strong developments in all markets, but challenged by the global supply growth.

Increased global supply put pressure on premium prices, especially in some markets. We are working on increase our share to high-value markets, product development, new products, focusing on new markets also, balance the flow across markets to reduce exposure on any single region.

The market seems tight looking forward, and that will support stronger prices. Coming to the outlook, the supply picture seem more tight, more limited growth expected now when we look forward.

The biomass is tight, as Høgni mentioned, around the globe, and after a period with elevated supply, the market is tightening up. Low supply expected the remaining part of the year.

We have around 14% supply growth behind us, in a market where we expect around 2% for the full year. As we see on this graph, the last half of the H2 2026 is flat or zero growth.

In Americas actually negative, there will be tighter supply in front of us. In the first quarter we saw 680,000 ton supply, coming up from 590 to last year, so that was a big volume increase in the first quarter in a year where it should be relatively flat.

It will be very low going forward. For Bakkafrost, we see our clear growth trajectory, 117,000 ton harvest target for this year versus 107 last year, well on track after a strong Q1 delivery.

Faroe Islands lifted up to 97 from 92, and Scotland remains on 20, where we have delivered 31 in the first quarter. The quarterly profile relatively even in the Faroes between 23 and 25 per quarter.

Scotland lower in second quarter, and in the third quarter and then ramping up in the fourth quarter. Freshwater plan in 2026 remains at 30 million, Faroes 20 and Scotland 10, which is 15% up from last year when it was 26.

That supports also a continued growth and biomass built up. It's not only the numbers, it's also the average weight of the smolt, because they will be larger, meaning that the cycle will be shorter.

On contracts, we intend to contract between 15 and 25% of expected harvest volume, but in general the contracts are shorter than they used to be. Fishmeal, oil, and feed: we expect lower production volumes of fishmeal, oil, and feed in 2026.

We expect feed production up to 175,000 ton, up from 165, which was our previous target, we lift our target 10,000 ton. This is all based on internal consumption.

The long-term targets from our CMD in June last year remains intact: CapEx around 5 billion for the period 2026 to 2030, harvest target in 2030 on 162,000 ton. This year 117 and investment of around 5 billion in this period to reach our target in 2030.

We will focus on our disciplined execution, growing at pace, biology and market support, and we will of course focus very much on cost discipline, and especially now when we see the feed costs going up, and our ability to balance our feed operation. That balance will improve with our new feed plant coming into operation now in June.

That was everything from this presentation, and we are open to take some questions if there are any.

Alex Aukner

Hi, Alexander Aukner from DNB Carnegie. Just on Scotland, you seem fairly content with the biological performance, and you say costs will be lower at scale.

How much lower at scale and what is your definition of scale?

Regin Jacobsen

At the moment we have an operation in Scotland we have made some improvements, but we have not scaled the whole operation down to 20,000 ton. We have an operation that in many areas are built for 40,000, but are producing 20,000.

When you compare the cost difference between Faroes and Scotland, you see maybe, yeah in this quarter it was really high, but over a longer picture maybe 20 kroner in difference. I believe that there will be some difference also in the future, but maybe three-quarters of that should be eliminated when we are producing at scale.

Half of that will be improved with lower cost, and half of it will be improved with better biology in Scotland. There are many examples if you go through the breakdown of costs, but for example, a lot of fixed costs means today that per kilo they are four times higher than for example in Faroe, or five times higher than Faroe Islands, because we have a lot of assets that we need, but the volumes does not reflect them at the moment.

Alex Aukner

That's very clear. Thanks.

One other question on the raw material price, which you say will mitigate some of the good cost positions. When will the higher raw materials hit your P&L?

It's

Regin Jacobsen

on the feed?

Alex Aukner

Now, on the guidance, you basically say that going forward higher raw material prices will impact cost.

Regin Jacobsen

Yes, higher raw material prices on the feed.

Alex Aukner

Yeah.

Regin Jacobsen

Yes. We have a cycle of around 12 months in the sea now, where maybe the latter six months will is is is So what we harvest in the first quarter this year is a result of the feed that we used over the last 12 months in the sea.

That means that if the price if the feed prices are going to to increase in in the second half of of 2026, that will especially impact 2027, early 2027, late 2026, but especially 2027. We we will of course need to see what we can do to to mitigate some of the increase, but there will be an increase of feed cost as it stands at the moment.

Especially marine ingredients have increased significantly lately.

Alex Aukner

Thank you.

Henrik Knutsen

Henrik Knutsen, Pareto Securities. You mentioned six sites in the Faroes being harvested and doing well.

Can you say something about the sites you plan to harvest from in Q2?

Regin Jacobsen

First quarter was very, very low in cost, and these are average sites, I would say. Maybe Fuglafjørður, which had 50% of the cost in this quarter was good, but there were no bad sites, and there are no bad sites.

We will see when we go forward, as Alex asked about, that especially at the end of this year we expect that cost will come up. We also expect that during this year the cost will be higher than in the first quarter.

I think the first quarter was lower than we will see going forward in 2026 in the next quarters. There will be a few kroner higher costs going forward, a few kroner.

Henrik Knutsen

Thank you. Also you mentioned Freshwater Scotland breaking even when you ramp up.

When do you see that inflection point?

Regin Jacobsen

We had some extra costs in this quarter. We should not see that in the future, or at least much lower.

Then as we gradually during 2026 will come from 30% capacity utilization maybe up to maybe 80% at the end of the year, I would say that we should expect later in 2026 to see positive margins from freshwater.

Henrik Knutsen

Thank you.

Christian Nordby

Christian Nordby, Arctic Securities. You say you're today at 9 million smolt in Applecross, and you should peak around 18 million.

When do you expect that to hit?

Regin Jacobsen

I believe that full biomass at Applecross will be around second quarter 2027.

Christian Nordby

Thank you.

Martin Kaland

Martin Kaland, ABG Sundal Collier. Could you mention how much feed prices have increased or based on the current raw material prices that you now see?

Regin Jacobsen

In the second quarter they increased slightly from the first quarter, but the marine ingredients have increased significantly now because of the low quotas in Peru, so that's in front of us. We have not seen yet a very, very big increase in feed prices.

Martin Kaland

How could that also impact your feed operations, feed segment, for example? Do you have inventories of fishmeal, fish oil at lower raw material cost that will be sold to the farming segment so that you expect increased margins in the feed operations, although lower in the farming segment?

Regin Jacobsen

Yes, of course, in our FOF segment, the way we calculate is that we do a internal pricing at market from the fishmeal and oil to the feed. There will be a margin on the internal meal and oil segment into the FOF, but that's within the FOF segment.

In between there is a margin, but that goes out on the eliminations. We have a internal inventory which reflects much of the use that we have in 2026, which means that there will be an internal margin in the FOF segment if prices go up, huh?

That goes on the eliminations, and that means that the balance sheet is not affected by that most of the year, huh? Then at some later point there will be an increase if raw materials are going more up.

Martin Kaland

Does that mean that the EBIT margin you now have in the FOF segment is what you expect also for the coming quarters?

Regin Jacobsen

That's a difficult one. I believe that there is a risk that the margins can come down, especially if the raw material situation is challenged, which looks to be the case this year, there's a risk that it could be a lower margin.

Martin Kaland

Thank you.

Regin Jacobsen

Very good. Thank you very much.