Magnora ASA

Magnora ASA

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152.94MMarket Cap

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 25, 2026

Erik Sneve

Good morning, and welcome to Magnora's Q4 and combined annual results report for 2025. I'm very pleased to say that we have had the highest growth ever in terms of our origination, and we also entered the data center market, and we have some exciting news about the recent developments.

Highlights and portfolio update: we increase our portfolio of data center, onshore wind, and battery projects in attractive markets such as the Nordics, South Africa, Italy, and Germany. Our development portfolio reached 10.4 GW as of February 2026.

That's 60% year-over-year growth from 2024. We have over 2,500 MW of mature-stage development opportunities, which are sellable today.

We have done a strategic shift towards data centers in the Nordic, and secured net 210 MW of data center projects across Norway and Finland, and we're excited about developments also in Sweden, gross 350 MW. We established the strategy early 2025, and we executed on the strategy through the year.

Today, we own an operational data center in Halden, Norway. It's called Storspeed.

It's been running for 20 years. It gives us an excellent position in the market.

We established a partnership model, collaborating with real estate developers, industrial players, and other landowners. We've established a team and a development organization in Sweden with a serial entrepreneur, and we secured our first project in Finland, laying the foundation for further portfolio development in Finland.

Local and international advisors have been engaged on a handful of transactions in mature stage. We currently in advanced dialogues above the 500 to 800 MW guided range from last year.

Red Sands triggered a final milestone payment in 2025, and it became the largest, best project to date when it was awarded in 2023, and financial close was last year, and they started shoveling in the ground in November. We also divested all shares in Hermana Holding, optimizing the group's portfolio and capital allocation towards renewables and data centers.

We have a capital-light business model, and we're a profitable developer. We have zero debt, we have a relatively low burn, solid cash position, a credit line from Nordea in Norway, combined cash of 316 million at year end, 21% return on equity since 2020, and we've returned above 1 billion NOK to our shareholders in terms of cash and shares in Hermana over the years, 26% annual average shareholder return since 2020.

Currently listed on the main board of Oslo Stock Exchange with around 6,600 shareholders. Some update on the various markets: we initiated a structured process end of last year in Italy, and we currently have two projects in the market of 175 MW, and we added 470 MW to the portfolio in Q4 last year.

The first auction round last year in Italy, which we missed, offered 15-year fixed-price agreements for operators who wants to own the batteries. This is the market we develop for.

Next auction is expected mid-2026. 10 GW was awarded in 2025, and at least the same volume is expected in 2026.

South Africa: we have focus on cluster sales and high-premium wind in terms of new origination. We engaged an advisor last year for a sales process of a 500 MW cluster.

The interest for this created interest for more content, and we're now in more advanced discussions regarding this portfolio sale than we were in December. We're assessing opportunities also in South Africa for data center market.

Since year end, we've added 360 MW of new onshore wind projects in South Africa. The onshore wind market there is very exciting because it's rarer to find these good opportunities, and it has better premiums, much better.

At the State of the Nation in February 2026 this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa further unveiled the target of 50% of South Africa's electricity to come from renewables by 2030. That's a very ambitious target.

Magnora has one of the largest independent development portfolios in the market, with a high proportion of onshore wind assets. Our portfolio stood last week at 6,760 MW.

Some local players believe the market will need more than 100,000 MW of new renewable energy by 2040. Germany: we added 650 MW during the quarter, a 400% increase from 150 MW in Q3.

There is good discussions with clients and potential partners in Germany. We have engaged a very reputable advisor to help us with a structured sales process for our first BESS projects.

The regulatory environment has also been changed from first-come to first-served to a first-ready and first-served model. It favors our integrated model with local stakeholders.

During 2025, we established our data center strategy, with a focus on Norway, Sweden, and Finland. We're considering further growth in current and adjacent markets, together with partners and potential customers.

We have a diversified set of projects, different sizes, locations, operational readiness, and timing. Our value offering should save clients for up to 2 to 3% 2 to 3 years of development and reduce risk.

We're harvesting on our role as a data center operator. I'll get back to that later in the presentation.

We work in collaboration with landowners, real estate players, and industrial players. Back to the strategy: we initiated the strategy by launching a Swedish development team in Q3, then making an acquisition of Storspeed early Q4, and a partnership with Blix Solutions, who's a part owner in Storspeed.

Then we announced our first large-scale project in Norway at the end of the year, and early in January, we announced a 120 MW project in Helsinki, Finland. We've also added another project in Norway recently, and we have a weekly deal flow with new land from all over the Nordics and Nord Pool area, above 1,500 MW of leads.

Update on other markets: new wind and hydropower struggle with permitting in Norway. No new wind permits basically since 2019.

We cost-consciously maturing our 2 GW portfolio of solar PV projects in Norway. We currently have ongoing commercial discussions with a few clients.

The production profile for solar PV fits really well with data center peak demand, which is typically in the summer when the temperature is above 15°. In England, we have 156 MW of fully permitted projects, which have been designated protected and passed Gate 2 in the grid reform.

According to the local grid company, we should have a grid connection around 2028. We have engaged a financial advisor to manage the interest with multiple parties.

In Scotland and ScotWind, we're advancing commercial discussions on the Talisker wind project. This has come and been ignited by the recent order of the 1.8 GW connection link to the Western Isles, a very big investment by National Grid.

Most recent government auction, AR7, resulted in 20 years contract as opposed to 15-year contracts before, at the price around 2.8 Norwegian krone per kilowatt-hour, quite attractive price. Looking back at 2025, we see 60% portfolio growth over the year, it's the highest absolute numbers we've added ever in the history of the company, and this has come on the back of reduced cost over 2025.

It shows we have a platform and that we're able to create more stuff for less money. Here you see our portfolio across data centers, solar PV, battery system, wind, and remember we also have the earnouts from Helios and Evolar.

Why work with Magnora, and what do we do in the value chain? This is an example of data centers, but it's quite similar to onshore wind and solar PV.

The most critical items is the building permit, the zoning for the data center, and the grid connection reservation date. For end clients, it's also important to understand that the overall concept design fits with the site, and that we also work with sales and clients.

For many local landowners who come from a different background, we have a complete value chain where we can handle all these issues, and we also understand regulatory compliance well. Being a listed Norwegian public company helps when you work with grid companies and municipalities, because they want to know who the counterparty is that will own the project in the development stage.

Typically, it's also an advantage for a buyer to know that a Norwegian company with a strong track record has developed this project. How do we do it?

We work a lot with partnering with municipalities, industrial and real estate players, local landowners, or unfunded smaller development teams. What we can offer is the complete suite of workflow streams that's needed to secure the timeline of the project.

The client typically buys a timeline they believe in. Our focus is on projects around the capitals, of around 10 MW and above, but typically 50 MW plus.

If we go too big, it's hard to manage the projects and get the grid connection in due time at least. To showcase a little bit about our ecosystem and our competence, Peter Nygren is the founder of Arise Windpower.

He worked at NCC with cooling systems and district heating systems, key processes to know when you're going to get permit for a project in Sweden and Finland, and it's increasingly important also in Norway to handle waste heat. Bjørn Drangsland, he's the former senior advisor for Google and Statkraft.

He worked on the 800 MW hyperscale center in Skien in Norway, also very key. John Amundsen, the founder of Storspeed, is very well recognized in the Norwegian data and telecoms industry, worked for DigiPlex, NATO, TETRA, Skagerak Fiber, and has very good reputation in the market.

As a co-investor in Storspeed, we have Einar Blix, a self-made, very successful data center operator with two data centers in Oslo and a broadband business. This is part of the ecosystem working with Magnora and our network of advisors to manage and develop data center sites in the Nordics.

Here's a case example of our projects in the Helsinki area, in the city of Hämeenlinna. Here you see a very attractive site at hard rock, 120 MW project, less than 1 km from the substation, excellent connectivity with multiple players providing fiber, and also district heating system well developed in the city of Hämeenlinna.

All these items are important to reduce the development time for a project. We were approved by the Finnish local government in December as a developer of this project, and it was very convenient for them and easy to approve us, being a listed Norwegian company with proper ESG and good governance.

Strategy has simple rules: we always try to stay with good people, we insist on early sales. When we go into new business, we may have the opportunity to sell a project within the data center industry already in 2025, and we remain agile and adaptable on the market opportunities that arise.

As I mentioned, in adjacent markets and markets we're currently in, we're constantly looking at new, good opportunities that fit our risk strategy model. Financial review: you see cost came a little down in 2025.

Profit and loss impacted by the Hermana revenue that flowed through Magnora after the divestment, and profit before tax ended at 12.2 million, down from 269 in 2024. We have accumulated carry loss forward from the previous business, Sevan Marine, of 3 billion, and paid-in capital of 6.9 billion.

Remember, Magnora has been profitable since day one, and very low cost of origination. As I mentioned, we had 60% portfolio growth at stable or a little lower operating cost, and we're very proud of that.

If you look at the cash flow, the ending cash balance at 166.4 million. The net financing activities impacted by the Hermana flow-through, and we had net investment activities of 52.6 million.

Here's a slide about how we consolidate the portfolio companies. It's IFRS that's used, and we typically convert sales to full revenue over a 0 to 24 month period, depending on the project, the risk, and the ready-to-build status.

A little bit about the outlook: Magnora shifts financing and management attention to the segments where we get the highest return. We've done that throughout the history.

We see that there are lower prices than expected in the Nordic markets. It's a safe markets where a lot of international companies like to do business.

On the back of this and the competence we have, we have focus on the data center market in the Nordics, Norway, Sweden, and Finland in particular. We have a high focus on growth in Germany and Italy on battery storage, and onshore wind in South Africa.

As I mentioned, we're also in the early days of looking into data center development in South Africa, being 300 MW market today already, and expected to be around 2,000 MW by 2030. Previously, we've guided on exact megawatt number for the year.

We've been asked to provide the table for early stage and mature stage projects. Consenting stage is where you get all the permits, and mature stage is when the consenting is sorted out.

Basically, we've come to a number around 2,500 MW is currently for sale or under marketing, or we have already engaged advisors to sell. That's a number you can look at, 2,500 MW out of the 10,400 MW.

It doesn't necessarily mean that we will close all 2,500 this year, but this is a potential. The factors that will determine what we will do is the achieved price, the risk on a milestone payments, and various factors.

Focus ahead: we believe that we can reach 12,000 MW, 12 GW, by end of year 2026. We're prioritizing data centers in the Nordics, BESS in Southern Europe, Central Europe, and onshore wind in South Africa.

As we mentioned in the press release in our numbers this morning, we consider strategic alternatives for further data center growth, and this has come on back of interest from market players, investors, and advisors. We maintain strict project development and cost discipline in everything we do, and we execute on our mature development portfolio within renewables.

Our range achieved sales price in South Africa for combined wind, solar, and BESS in the clusters is within the guided range historically from 0.5 to 1.5 million NOK per megawatt, but introducing data centers, we can see that we can have an even higher price for our development projects, as data centers has much higher capex, and it's a very good interest for data center projects currently, as many people have taken notice of. We're moving from harvesting our renewable projects, moving our growth towards higher-margin areas, faster-growing areas.

With that, I would like to thank you very much for your attention. I'll be at the SB1 Markets conference later today, and if you see me, take the opportunity to chat.

I'll also be holding a short presentation there. With that, I would like to thank you very much for your patience and time.

We look forward to a very exciting 2026. Thank you.