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Q3 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptOctober 21, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DSV Q3 2026 conference call. I'm Moritz, the call operator.

I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0.

The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Jens Lund, Group CEO.

Please go ahead, sir.

Jens Lund

Good morning, and welcome to our Q3 call. We are, as usual, Michael and I to present the results.

I'll go through some of the first slides here, and then later on Michael, he will cover some of the other points on the agenda. Let's quickly go into it, and we can start basically by, I think, the most important topic for many of you during the quarter.

We can say that the service levels on Road, they're back on track, and the quality issues that we had, they are resolved. Of course, it has had the consequence that our synergies, they will be realized a little bit later on the Road side, because we've had to have focus on solving those issues.

In general, on group level, the GP is up 2.3%. When we made the business plan for acquiring Schenker, we said we're going to lose certain volume, our GP, at the end of the day.

Now, let's say, in the Q3, it's really great to see that we're back on the growth trajectory when it comes to GP. On the EBIT side, we've grown significantly more because, of course, the synergies that we realize drives a higher conversion.

At the end of the day, also the EPS has come up. We're right now at 11.5% growth.

We also see that it trickles all the way down to the bottom. This has led to a situation where we're now going into the fourth quarter, we've narrowed our guidance.

We've done this, of course, because normally you start the year with a broader guidance, and now we have more certainty when it comes to the result. The guidance is now between 24 and 25 billion DKK in EBIT.

If we look at the cash flow, we've delivered a solid cash flow here in the quarter, even if the freight rates are still elevated, not least on ocean freight, and we've started the first share buyback program since we acquired Schenker. All in all, that were some of the highlights from Q3.

Just wanted to say a few words on the integration as well. I think we are continuing as per plan.

There's only a few countries outstanding, no major countries left on the integration, and much of the customer integration also done. Good progress on that one.

Of course, then we just talked about the issues that we had on Road. That leads to a little delay in the realization of the synergies, so that will happen now and be finalized in 2027.

Basically, that the expected outcome and also the costs in relation thereto remain the same, but of course a little bit delayed also on the special items into '27. If we look at the financial highlights for the quarter for the group, I think the earnings growth we just talked about, and I think also that the GP has grown.

This is at least something that we're very focused on here in the headquarters, that we add more value to our customers, and of course then also that we convert that into a solid growth in the operational results. I would say that the Air & Sea division has delivered as expected, and CL has delivered a very solid result, I should say.

Then of course, the Road results, they are clearly affected by the quality issues that we've had. The cash flow for the quarter is 6.4 billion.

I had already talked about basically the narrowing of our guidance, so that's really the financial highlights. If we look at Air & Sea, I think one thing that is important, and we have also just added a slide on global products.

That used to be part of the results for the divisions. Therefore, if you look here now, you will say, well, the gross profit has grown 0.2%, but if we had adjusted for the GP that we've taken out on Air & Sea, actually we've grown 2.8% year-over-year.

That's always what happens when you move some of the volume round, that it's a little bit blurry, what's the baseline, and what's the actual figures, and are they fully comparable. We just added this information on the right side here.

If we look at basically the conversion ratio, it continues to increase, and we are aspiring to get up to the 50% target also during the next year, where that we will definitely see an impact of the continued work we do on productivity. Then of course, the EBIT margin also trending towards the 10%.

If we look at air freight, we grew the GP 4%. Actually, during the quarter, we did sweat still.

We'd had this where we sanitized the portfolio, and this actually continued a little bit into July. After July, basically we've finished this, and I would say the general trend on the air freight is that we've seen that the volumes into Europe still under pressure, and not least the volumes related to automotive.

On the other side, of course, we've seen progress on the technology vertical, where we've grown our volumes. As you can see, also the yield at a very solid level, almost 9,000 per ton.

Overall, as I said, the GP has increased by 4%, we're quite happy about that. If we look at the ocean freight, the GP has decreased by 4%, and yields are a little bit down, and volumes also slightly down on the ocean freight.

What we are working on right now is we're very much focused on the commercial activity in the ocean freight to make sure that we swing the trend round. I would say both for air and for ocean, we've seen that we are slowly getting into a situation where we've basically leveled out, and we should hopefully during the next quarter start to see the inflection point where we get growth.

Yield is at 4,100 kroner at the end of the quarter. Basically, if you look over the cycle, it's more or less the same as we had Q3 '25.

Basically, the composition of VAS and freight markup is also in the one-third, two-third range. One-third is the freight markup, and two-thirds is the VAS.

Then we come to Road. Here on Road, we can see, not least on the GP, what impact the issues that we've had has on the GP in our company.

I would say that the difference is probably, let's say, approximately one-third related to extra costs due to the quality issues, they should go, and then the remaining part is actually that we lack volume in the network. We need to have this commercial focus now that we've solved the operational issue.

We've put that behind us. It's very important to get that message across that the quality in the network is solid.

Now it's the commercial activities that we're looking into. When we look at the commercial activities, I think it's also important here to state that how this normally works is that you try to fix the quality issue first.

Now that's solved. Then what you want to work on is basically that you want to work on making then the sales calls.

Of course, in the beginning, when you have quality issues, it takes a while before you start the sales calls, we've started that in September here. Really intensified the interaction with the customers, building up the pipeline.

Then once the customers, they accept our proposals, and here you have to remember that we have the strongest groupage network there is in Europe. It's not that we can't get appointments.

The customers, they do want to talk to us. Then basically we've converted some of that, and then we will have to make the integrations if it's a customer that needs an IT integration before we go live.

That cycle will probably take at least 90 days. What we sell right now will then come in, let's say, in three months.

It has a delay impact. We can look at all the KPIs.

NPS has improved. Just also, there's been some concern, was there a spillover on the NPS to other divisions.

It has not spilled over, they basically have a very solid NPS development in the other divisions. Of course, the Road net promoter score has declined.

Right now, it's had the trough, and now it's increasing again. That's really the status when it comes to Road.

We've just put some KPIs here, and I can tell you that normally, historically, the performance has probably been more in the 92% range, having 94% in D4 is very solid. As you can see, the trend line has been increasing all the time.

We were very happy in August when we saw the 92.4, but we were concerned when the volumes come back after the summer holiday whether it would be sustainable. Actually, it's proved that the initiatives we've taken have continued to improve the delivery quality.

That's really positive. Done to the Road division, I would say.

If we take the contract logistics, here you can see that we've actually grown the EBIT with 50%. If we exclude the properties, we've grown it with 42%.

A very, very solid performance. Two things have driven this performance.

One thing is that we've continued to sanitize our portfolio, and basically cleaning out business that don't deliver the desired outcomes. Then the other one is that we've seen that we've managed to compensate for all that volume we've taken out with new volume, in particular for the hyperscalers.

These two things in combination, they are really important. I think what is also important for you to notice is that we see that basically the pace that we grow with the hyperscalers is going to continue.

We can see the pipelines. They are very, very solid.

I think you should expect that the CL division will continue this journey that it's on. Of course, that's very positive, because one of the things that we were criticized for was the low return on invested capital.

Now you can see that there's a better connection. We are now at 10.9% on the return on invested capital, and the comparable figure was 6.9.

Of course, this growth in EBIT, but also the focus on the capital that we've deployed, it has really helped us a lot. I think that it wouldn't surprise me if we manage to take, what can I say, another step up at year-end, and it would make me very proud to trend towards the 15% that we've set as a target for the contract logistics division and take another step in the next quarter.

Done to contract logistics on that. Then I'll just say last call people, they were asking a few questions about this global products, and rightfully so.

We've just taken a slide and said, listen, what kind of activities is it that needs an enterprise approach so that it's not part of a country-based setup, and that should have a life on their own. Here are the products that we move to, what can I say, a separate structure.

It's called Fairs & Events. This is where you have to have specialty and knowledge for fairs, events, all these kind of things, and have to have this knowledge across countries.

This is very important. On the parcels, it's the same.

We are 3PL on parcels, and also here you need perhaps a more network approach in order to continue to develop that. Then of course, the customs, always quite important as well.

Normally it's part of a country-based setup, and we've decided to make an enterprise function out of that. This is then also so that we can serve the customer end-to-end, and also the technology we have allows us basically to produce on the same platform, kind of a single system file system for all of that.

These are some of the main services. Actually, we also have some supply chain engineering that we can do as well, add some value, and some 5PL capacity, but these activities are a little bit sort of smaller.

Now I've said a lot, and it's time for you, Michael, to go through some of the numbers and other stuff in detail, please have a go at it.

Michael Ebbe

Thanks a lot, Jens. I will immediately skip to the next slide here with an overview of our P&L for the first nine months of 2026.

A couple of highlights on that slide that I would like to elaborate a little bit on. Of course, you can see that the revenue has actually increased 10.5% as a consequence of the rate environment and also to a certain extent the activity level that's also have an impact on net working capital, which I'll come back to in a second.

Jens, you already touched upon the EBIT growth, which is also nice to see. Also, if you look at profit for the period has actually increased 900 million compared to same quarter last year, which is also good to see.

Also, the conversion ratio for the group, I think that's also worth highlighting, that we have increased from 27.9 to 32.6, driven by all the initiatives and the synergies that we have worked on. That's also nice to see that.

Of course, net interest costs is higher than last year due to the fact that now we have, you can say, the fully financing of the Schenker acquisition included for all the period, which we did not have last year, obviously. Then, Jens, you already touched a little bit on it, but the EPS, now we actually can see that we are growing on a 12-month rolling, our EPS has increased 11.5% compared to same period last year, and for many this is what it is about.

Then I will go to the cash flow statement that we have, also a little bit highlights on that one, starting out with the adjusted free cash flow, which amounted to 6.4 billion in Q3. Look at the cash conversion ratio, cannot promise that that will continue, but of course it's nice to see that we can collect some money here, with the cash conversion ratio of more than 128%.

Net working capital slightly increased due to the freight rates. If you look at the ratio a little bit further down on the slide, you'll see that the ratio is actually better than it was same, you can say, at the end of last quarter.

We are grinding our way through it. We promise to reduce the net working capital, but of course if we get more activity and higher rates, that will have an impact, clearly.

I also would like to highlight that we have actually on the gearing ratio, it's now 2.46, actually. Now we can only have one digit here, but it's 2.46.

During the quarter, since last quarter, we've actually reduced with 0.2 on the gearing ratio. Also worth mentioning is that since we started the integration, we have reduced net interest-bearing debt with 12.6 billion DKK as well.

All in all, I think it's nice to see these kind of numbers. Of course, we would like to have them even better, but it's positive.

The cash flow and the current state of our financial situation has also led to the fact that we have launched a share buyback this morning of 1.5 billion. It's good to be back on that.

I know that people are saying that we are still 2.5 on gearing ratio, but I would like to highlight that we have the path that we are on, where we have decreased our gearing ratio for the last couple of quarters. It's a positive trajectory that we are on.

We do stay committed to the capital allocation policy, heading towards two times in the gearing expectedly during 2027. Of course, the ambition is to do it in the first half of 2027, but that is our aim.

The reason also being for this start of the share buyback is that we have an obligation towards our share option program, and we have to buy back shares to be able to deliver on those obligations. That means that we have now, you can see on the slide here, that in 2025 there was not much share buyback, now we will see we have these columns again with the share buyback, hopefully.

I would also like to highlight that, like I've said also last quarter, we are now in a position where we every quarter assess according to our capital allocation policy. That we have started is not necessarily, you can say, that we will continue that journey, but of course we expect that we will have solid cash flow going forward as well.

Then, Jens, you already touched upon the next slide here on the guidance, where we have narrowed the outlook to between 24 and 25 billion DKK, giving the slightly delay due to the Road integration also have a spillover impact on the special items. We are slightly delayed on those as well.

That is the overall number. Some of the assumptions: of course, we have some synergies that we have already realized last year, and then on top this year 4 billion more.

Then we have the additional 1 billion that we postpone into the next year. It's still volatile world that we live in, highly uncertain about the, you can say, the macro environments and interest rates and so forth, so that's of course also worth bearing in mind.

In terms of Air & Sea and volume for the last quarter, we assume volume growth to be slightly below the market in Air & Sea, and also yield slightly below what we have in Q4. Our aim is still to deliver on GP growth, that's very important to bear in mind here.

For the Road, I think you touched upon it as well already, and contract logistics we also expect to continue the growth that we have seen so far. Of course, the tax rate will remain as 28 is still impacted by this integration that we have, and then we will be able to come back to a more normal tax rate later on.

Back to you, Jens, for the key takeaways.

Jens Lund

Yep. Thank you very much, Michael.

Just want to reiterate that Road operations are normalized, we basically now can focus on the commercial activities that we are having. Of course, we can also then focus on driving the productivity up as well.

These are the two key topics for the Road division, and for DSV also very important. Then of course, the guidance, we talked about that, and then the share buyback program that we've launched as well, I think we have confidence in what we're doing.

With that said, I think we should move on to the Q&A session, and then we can spend some time answering your questions. Please go ahead.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their telephone.

You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2.

Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question.

Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question comes from Jaime Rowbotham from Deutsche Bank.

Please go ahead.

Jaime Rowbotham

Morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions.

I was just after a few numbers, please. In Air & Sea, how much of the 3% volume decline is deliberate revenue dis-synergies or sanitizing the portfolio versus the SME activity levels declining and the Asia to Europe weakness?

In Road, could you quantify the amount of synergy shift to '27, the amount of customer volume losses you've been seeing, and the likely amount of gains on property disposals for next year, for 2027? Thank you very much.

Jens Lund

That was a little bit more than one question the way I count it, but we'll try to answer them anyway. I think on air freight, if we look at the development over the quarter, we actually saw the largest decline in July.

That's then more related to attrition. I would say it's been more round the 0 to 1% situation in August and September.

That was basically, what can I say, tapering off of this attrition. If I should say the 3%, I will probably say that the 2 percentage points, based on this sort of conversation that we're just having here, would be the remaining part of the sanitizing, and then now we are hovering about the 0 to 1% decline of business in the air freight right now.

That would be the answer to that one. I think on the Road side, we do see that it, what can I say, takes some time to regain that volume.

It will happen during next year. Also to realize the synergies will take a little bit extra time, approximately in the neighborhood of 1 billion will be pushed to next year, because not only Road is impacted, also the back office functions that have to support that journey, what can I say, will have to keep extra resources as long as it's not completed the integration.

Then when we look at the volume decline, we've probably seen a volume decline just shy of a two-digit figure on the groupage side in Road, it is something. When it comes to the properties, then we don't necessarily plan for any gains, but as you can see, there has been some this year as well, but we have none in the forecast.

Jaime Rowbotham

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Patrick Creuset from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Patrick Creuset

Hi, Jens, Michael. In Road, normally seasonality in Q3 heavily skews to September, I think.

Would that therefore be fair to assume that most of the underlying 300 million profit in Q3 in Road was made in September, and therefore when we're trying to look at an exit rate from the quarter to have an exit rate per month of somewhere north of 200 million EBIT, would that be a fair way of looking? Then, I don't know if it counts as a second question, but Michael, if you could just clarify your comments on Q4 Air & Sea yields, which I didn't fully get.

Thanks.

Jens Lund

I think I'll answer the Road, Michael, he can answer the Air & Sea bit. I think normally on the Road side, we are of course always a little bit impacted by the summer holidays in July and August.

You have a lot of fixed cost. You're quite right that the result produced on the Road side is basically then produced in September.

Now we get two good months as well, October and November, and we've also regained a little bit of volume, so that should also help the figures a little bit there. Then December is going to be a weak month.

If I should model it, I would probably add, if you take the clean figure that we talk about, the 300 million that you also had mentioned, I would see a slight improvement in the next quarter, but not a lot based on this, where we're at, because the sales cycle is three months. Let's say we've had quality issues before the summer holidays, the customers, they come back from vacation on the 1st of September, we're now convinced it's good, then we start selling in September.

Then the first impact of these sales efforts, they are in reality going to come maybe in December, but also in January if you look at that kind of math. It'll take some time to fill the network up, but it's a strong network we have, we get the sales calls, and we can see from the pipeline and the work that is being done that it does pay off.

Then if to you, Michael.

Michael Ebbe

Yes, thank you, Patrick. What you have to bear in mind here is the normal seasonality on the yield side, which we do see on the sea side.

Then also, you can say we've had congestion which is being a little bit lower, and Suez is slowly opening up again, and that will in our world have an impact on the yield compared to Q3. On the air side, that might be less downside in air, also what Jens spoke about.

We have peak season and also of course tight capacity. That is kind of some of the underlying assumptions to the thing that we also have written here in the outlook.

Patrick Creuset

Thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Alex Irving

Good morning. Hope all is well.

I'd like to talk about the move from Cargowise to Tango, please, in Air & Sea, and understand that a little better. How much of the Air & Sea volume is currently flowing through each of those systems?

Especially, I noticed that your other external expenses in that division rose by 100 million kroner quarter-on-quarter from Q2 to Q3. Shouldn't they be falling as you move to your own IT infrastructure, or how else can you explain this, please?

Jens Lund

I think today we approximately produce in the region 20 to 25% of the volumes on Tango. It's predominantly the larger clients that we have on that platform, the more complex ones.

We've not started the move of any rollout yet. I think we've not indicated that to the market either, that that rollout would start.

We've said that we would want to improve Tango, and it will also coexist with Cargowise for quite a while, so that we de-risk, what can I say, the rollout. The two systems, they coexist today.

That's basically what I can say on that. Then of course, if you look at the cost, I think it's, what can I say, a development where we'd seen the Air & Sea division being a little bit underallocated beforehand in the Schenker times, and now we've changed the allocation model to the DSV allocation model, and this is basically what impacts the figures.

It can also be that now we've shifted a little bit more volume onto Cargowise, and as that comes also with, what can I say, a very solid cost per transaction, so that impacts it a little bit.

Operator

The next question comes from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Muneeba Kayani

Good morning. On Road, I just wanted to clarify your comment earlier, Jens, that one-third of the impact was additional costs and two-thirds related to volumes.

Is that from kind of a 1 billion normal, and does that mean it's about 300 million of a Can you help quantify what was the additional cost? Was it 300 million, and has that now totally gone away as we think about the 4Q performance?

Then into next year, the synergies, what is the impact on synergies that you were expecting earlier versus now? If that's the 4 billion would have been the full EBIT bridge for '27, and what has it come down to now if it's a mid '27 full run rate impact?

Thank you.

Jens Lund

I don't think we guide in full for '27 right now, that will come a little bit later. I can try to help you with some information so that you can perhaps do some work.

I would say if you look at the quarter, in particular July was still impacted by a lot of express deliveries, of course, when we got it cleaned up. There was still in August certain terminals that were not in what we call green.

This is when you are above 92. You also had additional cost in August and also some in September, but of course very little.

Now it's totally gone. There is no extra, what can I say, cost because of bad quality.

We would estimate that this number would probably be between 200 and 300 million DKK. If you then look at a quarter like this quarter, I would think that under normal circumstances, we should have made 1 billion where we were.

Then I think all the numbers, they add up if you strip out, what can I say, the property in this calculation. Then of course, going to next year, now we've had to have all this focus basically on the quality.

Then of course, all the productivity initiatives, they have been slowed down, because the first thing you want to make sure is you have to your delivery quality in place so that you have solid quality. There are two tracks now.

Now we drive productivity, what does it cost to produce a shipment, and then of course we need more volume into the system. These two things, they will be the main focus for next year.

Let's say to drive the productivity up, it's something that happens quarter-on-quarter. It's a lot of activities: what was my collection delivery cost, what's my productivity on the terminals, what's the utilization of the linehauls, etc.

These things you're working on with a very structured plan. It's the same team that solved the D4 that works with this.

I'm quite certain that they will be able also to deliver on those tasks. Then on the commercial side, as I said, it takes some time for the sales cycle, and I will probably presume that it takes to regain the volume that we've lost, it will probably take six to nine months into next year before we are at the same level as we were before we saw the attrition.

It takes some time, but we will grind our way to it. Basically you can look at the Road integration in a way, I would say, as if you've almost lost a year, because now we start selling, and it can be that only at this time next year we will be at the same place as we had originally planned for.

That should be the building blocks for your model.

Michael Ebbe

I think it's important to also, like you said, Jens, it's important to say that there's no changes in our commitment in terms of the plans and on delivery of the synergies, but as you rightfully stated, it's being delayed a little bit. The overall thing that we plan for is still going to happen and take place.

Jens Lund

Yep.

Operator

The next question comes from James Hollins from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

James Hollins

Thanks so much. Just a couple of clarifications.

I think there, Jens, appreciate your colour on the Road customer losses. If we go back to Michael's pre-close call, there seemed to be a suggestion that there may have been some bleed of customer losses elsewhere in the group outside of Road.

I think, Jens, you're saying today that didn't happen. Perhaps you could clarify that for me.

Thank you.

Jens Lund

I'm not really sure what exactly you're referring to. If we look at bleeder customers, the area where we normally would look at bleeder customers would be on contract logistics, where you would have, what can I say, activities in warehouses that you operate that basically operate, what can I say, at a very low margin and sometimes even at a minus margin.

This is basically also what we describe on the CL side, where we say all this loss-making business, all these things that are not delivering the returns that we require, this volume we basically terminating now. I think that's typically where we have that topic, and that's then part of the CL improvement that you take some business out that maybe loses money or has very low margin, and then you replace it with business that operates at a normal margin.

This is in reality what you can see in the CL figures, and look at what an impact it has.

Operator

The next question comes from Jacob Lacks from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Jacob Lacks

Hey, thanks for your time. On Air & Sea, when do you think the division can get back to market growth rates on volume now that we're largely through the integration?

Thanks.

Jens Lund

We're growing GP already, I think this is very important to state that we do that. This is the most important metrics.

Then of course, the growth in GP, at the end of the day, it comes from two things: it comes from volume and yield. I think we've finished sanitizing, what can I say, the business.

If you look at the yield uplift, it's been tremendous during the last year on the Air & Sea side, so that's a job well done. On the volume side, we are hovering round, what can I say, it's basically plateauing now, we've come out of the trough, and we're basically at the inflection point.

Whether that will then be in Q4 or as part of the normal tender season into Q1, I can't tell you, because we will have to see how it all pans out. This is basically how I would model it.

If you're a little bit conservative, model it into next year, and if you're more positive, you can maybe think about a slight increase this year.

Jacob Lacks

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please go ahead.

Cristian Nedelcu

Hi, thank you very much, and apologies to come back to some of these points, but I think most of us, in terms of synergies next year, we have around 5 billion year-over-year incremental, 4 out of Schenker and 1 the other one. It's not fully clear to me, how much do we take out of Schenker?

We take 1 billion out, aligned with the special items that you moved, or more or less, any type of colour you could give us there? The second one, the bear argument on Road is if you exclude the express cost that you've explained earlier, your run rate is somewhere around 500 million clean EBIT per quarter.

If I annualize that, I get to 2 billion. If I don't get too much synergies next year, I could be at 2.5 billion EBIT next year or 3.

Am I missing anything, any moving parts from this bridge? Apologies, just a short one.

You mentioned, Jens, Air & Sea conversion ratio 50% the target. Do you believe in some of the quarters next year you can already be at 50% conversion in Air & Sea, or that's something more for 2028, 2029?

Thank you.

Jens Lund

If we take the conversion ratio on Air & Sea first, I think if you look at how it's been sort of increasing, then there is also, what can I say, plans for productivity improvements into next year. Whether we will hit the 50% mark already, at the end of the day, we have a long-term 2030 target of 55, we will have, what can I say, to drive it past the 50%.

If we've not finished the rolling forecast in that detail and are 100% certain about it, but it will go towards the 50%, I can tell you that. Then I think on the Road side, you talk about, what can I say, the impact of what we're doing.

I think basically if you look at these two things that are outstanding, you will have the operational basically improvements that we need to make, so that's kind of like one track, and then basically also on the commercial side, what is the impact of the volumes that we are missing. I think if we look into that, then to get an impact out of those two initiatives of 500 million on top of what we have this year, that would be a bear argument.

I would agree to that, as you said, that's the bear argument. I think just as we fixed the D4, we can definitely improve the operational efficiency.

If I look at the impact on the sales side, I also see that we can get the volume back into the system. Then if you try to model that, I'm quite sure that using those assumptions, you will probably end somewhere else than the 2.5, but that's of course how you run your model that determines that.

Michael Ebbe

Yep. Then just to clarify, if needed, on the synergies, I think we've stated that last year, we had fully run rate of 800 million.

Then we have said that during this year, we expect at least 4 billion. Now we say 4 billion, and the remaining part would then come into 2027 as from January 1.

Now we say we delayed it with 1 billion, so that will of course come in later during the year in 2027.

Operator

The next question comes from Alexia Dogani from J.P. Morgan.

Please go ahead.

Alexia Dogani

Thank you for taking the question. Just again on synergies, you mentioned in the statement that you're committed to the 9 billion of synergies, but there is a kind of offset, partly offset by cost inflation and investment in contract logistics.

Could you just clarify the kind of magnitude of offset that you see? Then, I'm sorry to also again clarify on the financial impact in '27.

At the CMD, you helpfully gave a slide, slide 136, giving kind of the phasing. Obviously, now there is a delay.

Are we basically saying the delay is 1 billion, 1 billion moves from '27 to '28, or is it that 1 billion realization in '27 and the remainder 3 is in '28? I think that would help everyone make sure their model is aligned with your plan.

Thanks.

Michael Ebbe

If I start with the last one first, the 1 billion which is delayed, that is of course have fully impact from 2028, but we do expect that we will start, you can say, earlier, but the full run rate would be in 2028, that is clear, for the 1 billion.

Jens Lund

Did that answer the question, because I was

Michael Ebbe

Was that the answer, or was there another one? Sorry.

Alexia Dogani

Yes, it was the net effect basically. You've added a statement that says you're committed to the 9 billion, but there's an offset.

What is the offset? Yeah.

Michael Ebbe

If you look at contract logistics for a start, then you'd see that they have increased the EBIT of 50%, right? They've also had a staff cost which is higher.

I think you can look at that and then see this is what we do see. The expected synergies in the beginning when we made the plan from CL, we have taken them out because the CL has grown the business.

That will take that one out. I think the run rate is 100 million on staff cost alone for this quarter.

Secondly, that we do see inflation also on the other elements of the cost base, and if you for instance take 3% into that, I think then you have the building blocks to do it.

Alexia Dogani

Thank you. Just to clarify one last point: Air & Sea and contract logistics, at the end of '26, we'll have delivered your plan in terms of the financial impact.

Is that right, for the synergies?

Michael Ebbe

Yes, you can assume that.

Alexia Dogani

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Marco Limite

Hi, good morning, thanks for taking my question. I've got a follow-up on these synergy figures, because we're saying that in '26, you guys are still planning to achieve 4 billion synergies, guidance isn't changed.

Road is clearly lagging already in '26. How are you going to get to 4 billion despite Road being below?

Does that imply Air & Sea or CL ahead of the plan, or how do we get to 4 billion with a weaker Road? Then still related to that, I think this quarter is the first quarter where your total FTE number is not coming down quarter-over-quarter.

I understand contract logistics is up, nice to see organic growth is good, but why FTE is not coming down in Air & Sea, for instance? Therefore, yeah, shall we expect FTE number basically not coming down anymore in Air & Sea?

Thank you.

Michael Ebbe

Now, if you look at it from a total level, then you would see that we have reduced the number of FTEs with around 800 during the quarter, white collar. I think that's at least what you need to look into.

Then of course, if you look at Air & Sea, we also explained a little bit about the global products. During the quarter, we have also had, you can say, a move for some of those into that area.

Marco Limite

On the 4 billion '26, despite Road being quite weaker than expected at the start of the year?

Michael Ebbe

Sorry, it's a little bit difficult to hear.

Jens Lund

The 4 billion figure that was in the guidance was probably a little bit, what can I say, on the low side. Now you can say it's more accurate.

It might be that we say approximately 4 billion, let's say that it might be a little bit less, which could also be the case, because as you say that the Road has been delayed slightly. I think we then decided to keep, what can I say, the same number instead of, let's say, writing 3.750 or whatever the number could be.

That's really how we've come to the guidance.

Marco Limite

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Lars Heindorff from Nordea. Please go ahead.

Lars Heindorff

Yes, good morning, thank you. On the Road division, to get back to that, I understand that you appear as quite confident in getting, or regaining some of that volume that you've lost.

Hey, this is a fairly fiercely competitive market that you're operating in, and will you be able to regain that volume without any kind of impact on your GP per consignment, i.e., price, or maybe payment terms, which will impact the cash flow? Maybe just a few comments on what is the path back to getting those and regaining those volumes.

Then as a follow-up on that also, the cost per consignment, as we enter into Q4, where is that compared to what you want it to be?

Jens Lund

If we look at basically regaining the volumes, our sales activities, the pipeline that we have, it's basically how we normally would conduct business within the various segments. I should say that that is not like we go out, what can I say, with terms and conditions that are materially different, because then it has, what can I say, a longer-term impact.

You really have to go out and basically increase your sales activities, then that would normally lead to a certain conversion of your pipeline. That would be that topic.

If you look at production cost, at least what we have planned for in our rolling forecast is that we should be able to lower our production cost between 5 and 10% on what we have due to inefficiencies in the network. It can be on collection delivery, it can be also, what can I say, the activities in the terminal, and then one of the major topics is also our linehaul setup, where we can drive the efficiency somewhat up so that we can deliver on those outcomes.

Let's say on the linehaul, for example, I would believe that the average utilization we have is maybe round index 90, and we should definitely be able to drive that, let's say, 5% up if you look at that. Can be other topics as well that we talk about, the number of stops per route, etc., on the collection delivery bit.

I would say these plans, they are all, what can I say, committed by the team, as I said, that solved the D4, and they are now working actively on this. We can already see some of the first things being executed, I'm quite confident on that.

Lars Heindorff

Can I just, as a follow-up maybe, on the cost side in Road, there's a sequential decline in staff cost into the third quarter, I think is that just caused by normal seasonality? It tends to be lower in Q3 owing to the holiday season.

Should we expect to the staff cost to increase again into the fourth quarter?

Jens Lund

I think basically, I'm not 100% certain on that, because the holiday accrual makes it very difficult for us to be 100% certain. I would more want the team to get back to you on that, but we take people out as part of realizing the synergies, I can tell you that, on the FTE side.

We continue that journey now on Road. How the holiday accruals have sort of impacted Q3, it has a significant impact on it.

I would not want you to make a mistake in your model, please reach out to the team, then they will be able to give you the exact number.

Lars Heindorff

All right, thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Kristian Godiksen from SEB. Please go ahead.

Kristian Godiksen

Yes, thank you. Also question on, on the Road part.

Obviously, there's quite a big of a delta to the 2.5 billion on, for the Road EBIT in '27, which was Cristian's question, and then to, to your own 6 billion that you communicated on the back of the Q2, the Q2 numbers. I guess as you, as you pointed out, I guess the main moving part is the trajectory on, on winning back volumes.

Just wanted to, to, to get some more feel on, on how comfortable you are on winning back the volume, and, and at what potential discount in, in, in yeah, pricing discount to win that back volume, and just I guess on the basis on the operating leverage being very high in the group, in the groupage part of the business, which I guess based on the underlying numbers for Q3 must have been loss-making, as the FTL, LTL business has been marginally less impacted.

Jens Lund

I think I've said it a couple of times now. What you do when you do sales is that basically you want to have, what can I say, basically the visits.

You want to have the appointments with the customers. We can get those appointments so that we get the meetings.

Then what we do when we speak to the customers, we can now explain them how the quality is. The quality is very high in the network, have very good product.

It's the strongest network in Europe. In a market, for example, like Germany, we have less than 5% of the market, of course there's a lot of volume you can go after that we are not in contact with.

Then there's the existing customers that maybe have downgraded a little bit with us, they can now see the quality is back. Then of course, there's the customers that have switched provider.

We can see that on the segmentation, all the larger customers, they've stayed with us. All the complex volume, they stay with us.

It tells us something about the quality of the network and the service that we provide. It is more, what can I say, smaller customers that perhaps can operate in one or two markets that has a great opportunity to choose another provider.

Of course, this is a focus area for us, that we now go and see those customers and in those markets, and make sure that we basically deliver on them. Then the sales cycle, I explained, it takes three months.

When you follow it in the pipeline, how it's going, and you see the conversion on it, and then also some of these things, they lead to IT integrations so that we need to be ready to exchange data with the customers in a digital format in an efficient way. That's in reality sort of how we're doing, and when I speak to the team, I see a lot of energy, I see a lot of activity in the pipelines and all these things.

Yes, I think that we have the right product, and yes, I think that we can deliver, basically, on regaining the volume. I think that's what we're all working on.

Yep, I think that was

Kristian Godiksen

Thank you. Just to follow up on that, I guess.

To your 6 billion, if I wanted to make a bridge for that for next year, I guess it's the loss of volume in terms of the sales cycle on that, and then the delay of synergies, that's basically the two parts I need to deduct from the 6 billion numbers. Is that the right way to think about it?

Jens Lund

I would do it like this. I would say, listen, there's some less volume going in, and then basically the GP is a little bit too low in the beginning, and maybe also a little bit on the conversion, because of course we've been delayed in harvesting the synergies.

There are two types of synergies in Road, you have to remember that. It is basically that we then merge the networks, close down the terminals, and take out the overlap.

We already very advanced on that, but of course that has been slowed down due to the quality issues that we've had. We are now, I can just tell you to give a bit of confidence, we've gone live in Poland, merged the two networks, for example, on that big networks.

There's been no issue at all. We've merged some of the big terminals in the network, and I think we've solved all those things.

We were approximately 450 terminals when we were two companies, and of course we have to go down now to 280 right now. I think we are right now somewhat over 300, we've definitely done a lot of the work, and I think we've taken learnings from the things we've done, and make sure that we don't see quality issues.

Kristian Godiksen

Perfect. Thank you.

Just maybe on the incremental margins, too, when I model the volume part, is it fair to assume that an incremental EBIT margin would be around 50% for the groupage part of the business due to the operating leverage?

Jens Lund

That depends a little bit where you stand. Right now, of course, if you lack volume in the system, it's very high the margin, but of course over time that will ease out.

I would say that additional volume in a groupage network definitely drives a superior conversion compared to what you're used to see. Yep.

Kristian Godiksen

Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Jens Lund

You're welcome.

Operator

The next question comes from Ulrik Bak from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Ulrik Bak

Yes, thank you for taking my question. In terms of the targets that you presented at your Capital Markets Day of another 9 billion in savings from IT and network optimization, how should we think about that, given your comments about cost inflation partially offsetting the Schenker cost synergies and the delayed integration of Road?

Should we also subtract cost inflation here, and how much should these targets be delayed? Thank you.

Jens Lund

I think we still shoot for completing what we need to do in 2030, I would say that that's definitely still the aspiration. I think if we look at now completing the Schenker, what can I say, integration till next year, we should be, what can I say, delivering a solid number that we then can build on with, what can I say, the 9 billion that we are talking about.

We've already start some of the initiatives next year, and we are in POC in many of them, and we will then drive the productivity up. Then of course, you're quite right, over time we should see a little bit less cost inflation.

We have actually seen quite a bit going in to the Schenker transaction, and normally we should try to offset some of that with productivity gains. I would really not want to now dilute the target of 9 billion, so that's kind of the feedback you can get on that.

Ulrik Bak

Much appreciated. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Cedar Ekblom

Thanks very much. Hi, guys.

Just two quick questions from me. It seems that the recovery of profitability in the Road business is now very dependent on these customer wins, getting the volumes back with those express costs out of the system.

I appreciate that you're talking about a sales cycle of sort of three months and needing six to nine months to sort of fully recover those volumes, I get it takes time. Is there anything that you can give us in terms of how those sales conversations are going now to help us understand how that sort of minus 9, high single-digit volume decline is tracking as we move into January?

I know that that won't help your Q4 volumes, but it would be good to just get a little bit of colour on what those conversations sound like. Then can you just talk about the year-on-year progression or lack of progression in your sea freight GP yield?

You talk about a third being rate, two-thirds being value add. Rates are higher year-over-year, and that yield number hasn't really moved, just a bit of colour for what's going on in the underlying mix maybe would be helpful.

Thank you.

Jens Lund

Yes. I think very good questions on that.

You have different things you look at when you look at sales. The first thing is the NPS, what's the customer perception of us.

The NPS has bottomed out, and it's increasing. Just want to make sure there was a spillover concern also on the NPS whether it had impacted our CL and our Air & Sea business.

I would say they've more or less stayed the same, slightly down, I would say not really an impact. On the Road side, of course, the NPS has been declining quite a bit.

Now it's troughed, and it's coming up again, and we don't see any escalations from the customer. I would say on the customer satisfaction, we're now coming back again towards the normal levels.

This is the first thing. The next thing you want to do is you want to have leads, and you want to have sales calls.

Right now we can see that the number of sales calls is 2 to 3x up on what we normally do, we have much more commercial activity when we go and see the customers. Then this normally feeds into a pipeline where you have different stages of the conversation.

Then of course, the closer you get to a contract, what can I say, the more value it has in the pipeline. We can see that the pipeline now is much more solid than it's been before, also that is going well.

Then of course, at the end of the day, you want to do an IT integration, and you want to get the volume in and see what is the actual volume that we get based on those efforts here. That's sort of the KPIs that we are following.

As I said, we are 2 to 3x up, depending on which number of countries it is that we have on visits. I would also say that the pipeline is definitely showing that we have the largest pipeline that we've had since we acquired Schenker, the value of it, the qualified value of the pipeline.

Yes, that would normally then convert into volume that you can see into the figures. This is how we steer it if you look at under the hood.

Then I think on the ocean freight, I think that basically we had 4,100 in the same quarter last year, now we have also 4,100, I believe, this quarter. What we monitor is basically the VAS and basically the freight markup.

Normally we say one-third freight markup and two-thirds VAS. Right now it might be that the freight markup is 35 or 36%, but it's in this ballpark that we're talking about.

It of course means a lot of money when you round the 4,000 mark there. I would say that we still see now the rates are fairly elevated, and I think they're definitely going to also provide for a good yield in the fourth quarter.

We will then see what happens in the market. There's been so many speculations about the rates coming off, and I think the carriers have done an exceptionally good job at keeping them elevated, I think that's what I can say right now on the rates.

Cedar Ekblom

Jens, sorry, just to come back on your point on the customer points. All of those qualitative comments are very helpful.

Is there any way to put quantitative metrics around that? Because I think that that's really the key to recovering profitability, the base pipelines since we closed Schenker, that that's good to hear, but I don't know what that actually means in quantum, and two to three times more customer sort of leads, etc.

Is there any way to think about what volumes do in Q1, or is it just way too early to answer that question? Sorry to harp

Jens Lund

on the point,

Cedar Ekblom

but it's an important part.

Jens Lund

No, that's fine. It's fine.

I'll try to make it just in some index numbers. Let's say we had index 100 in volumes, now we have index 92.

This is where we're at. It might be that that will go to index 93, or if we're lucky, 93 and a half in Q4, and then the rest will have to be recovered in two to three quarters.

This is what the value of all the words that I said means. Does that make sense?

Cedar Ekblom

That.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question for today's Q&A. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Group CEO Jens Lund for any closing remarks.

Jens Lund

Thank you very much, all, for listening in. I think that we've had good conversation about some of the important topics and good questions as well, thank you very much for that.

We will now focus on delivering the results for the fourth quarter. In relation to that, I would really also to extend gratitude to our staff that have worked exceptionally hard in a very difficult period, not least in the Road division, really well done to them.

I'm quite sure that the whole team is very eager to deliver the outcome that we all look for in Q4. Thank you very much, and have a good day.