Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DFDS Q3 Report 2023 conference call. Throughout, all participants will be in listen-only mode, and afterwards there will be a question-and-answer session. Today I'm pleased to announce Torben Carlsen, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to DFDS's Q3 2023 conference call. I am, as usual, joined by Karina Deacon, our CFO, and Søren Brønholt, our head of investor relations. I'm very pleased that DFDS delivers another quarter that was solid and that led us to firm up our outlook this morning to an EBITDA range of now DKK 4.9 billion-DKK 5.2 billion. Our combined ferry, road, and rail transport network, and our supplementary contract logistics solutions continue to show resilience. Let's turn to slide three for a brief overview of the quarter's key result drivers. We had a very good passenger season, especially on the Channel. We maintained the underlying freight/ferry result on level with last year despite a 5% lower volume situation. We continue to focus on adapting capacity to market demand using our expanded commercial muscle to fill our capacity and balance our flows.
We navigate the headwinds on the Channel from the overcapacity situation and in the politics due to the war in Ukraine. Turkish volumes are somewhat soft at the moment but showing signs of recovery. Oil price spreads normalized during Q3 with a negative impact to our income in Q3 as well. Transport markets are impacted by lower activity levels, particularly in building materials and meat volumes. But as mentioned, the resilient network are able to compensate for these elements. Our recent acquisitions are performing well, and we are looking forward to the closing of the FRS Iberia/Maroc transaction, which gives us access to a high-growth market area. Finally, our adjusted free cash flow is increasing and now trending last 12 months at DKK 1.7 billion as our CAPEX this year mainly comprises regular maintenance. So let's take a closer look at Q3 by turning to page four.
As mentioned, we are at EBITDA the same level as Q2 and Q3 in 2022. Our revenues are down 2% but up 7% when adjusted for bunker surcharges. The ferry freight EBITDA is down DKK 0.2 billion driven by the lower oil price spreads. On the other hand, passenger EBITDA is up DKK 0.2 billion with contributions from all markets as passenger recovery continued in this quarter. Logistics EBITDA is up 8% to DKK 0.3 billion, although the organic result is below 2022 driven by market slowdown and one-off costs. With this, I will pass over to Karina and turn to page five.
Yes. Let's have a closer look at the revenue. As you mentioned, it decreased 2% to reach DKK 7.2 billion, but it was significantly impacted by the lower surcharges as the fuel cost declined. So if we exclude these charges, the revenue was up by 7%. If we look at the waterfall to the right, the surcharges, they are evident when you look at the ferry revenue, so that's why we see the last decline there. If we exclude the BAF, freight/ferry was actually up 7% driven by higher revenue in the Mediterranean and then slightly offset by lower Channel and Baltics revenue. The passenger activities increased DKK 200 million after an increase in all business units carrying passengers. If we look at logistics, their total revenue was up, but the organic growth was -13% due to lower volumes in parts of the business and also lower surcharges in logistics.
The acquisitions, of course, added a significant amount to the logistics revenue. If we turn to slide six and look at the P&L, we've already discussed the EBITDA that was on level with last year due to the passenger activity and the logistics, which then offset the lower freight/ferry earnings. But given the lower revenue, that meant that we saw an increase in the EBITDA margin to 22.1%. Depreciation was up 12%. It is mainly due to the acquisitions in logistics but also due to the expansion of warehouse activities. Then finance costs, rather significant increase. The impact of the higher interest rates is visible compared to last year, so we now have an average interest rate which was almost three times higher than it was last year.
If we turn to page seven and look at the balance sheet and the cash flow, starting at ROIC, before acquisition intangibles the KPI we introduced earlier this year, we saw a decrease to 10.9% from 11.4% in Q3 last year. The same development was seen in ROIC, which was now at 8%, so in line with our target at the moment but a slight decrease from last year due to an increase in invested capital. If we look at the operating cash flow, we also saw a good development in Q2. It was DKK 1.1 billion here in Q3. It was slightly reduced by negative working capital development and higher interest payments. Operating CAPEX was DKK 400 million, and with that, it led to an adjusted free cash flow of around DKK 500 million.
If we look at an LTM basis, we now have adjusted free cash flow of more than DKK 1.7 billion. That's also reflected in our leverage, which was 2.9 and unchanged both from last year but also from the previous quarter despite we had acquisitions in the period. Turning to page eight for the ferry division, reported freight/ferry revenue down 5% but up 10% adjusted for the lower BAF surcharge. That's also reflected in EBITDA, which was down 1% due to the strong pax result, which offset the decline in freight/ferry. But if we look at earnings on the freight/ferry side in isolation, we see a decline of 26%, but it was entirely driven by the changes in spreads where we saw a decline in the spread in Q3 this year compared to the high spread in Q3 last year.
So that means that the underlying result in ferry was in line with Q3 despite the fact that we saw lower volumes, and that was helped by both higher RPM, so rates, but also capacity adjustments done throughout the system. On the passenger side, we saw an increase in the result of 29%, and it was driven by 6% more passengers, which brought us to index 90 compared to the pre-COVID levels. We also benefited from higher spend, not least on the duty-free in the U.K., and then we had bunker savings within the passenger division. Finally, we saw a positive one-off effect from a reversal of a provision related to COVID-19. It's important to mention that that reversal was already included in our expectations when we earlier in the year have made our outlooks.
Turning to page nine on logistics, overall revenue slightly up, but as I mentioned before, down organically after lower activity and surcharges. That lower activity, of course, also impacted earnings, which was down 21% organically. It should be noted, though, that a significant part of the decrease, around half of it, was due to one-off costs mainly relating to a closure of one of our offices, this one in Bruges, and then we, unfortunately, saw a customer going bankrupt within the building construction industry. The underlying result was stable if we look at the contract logistics, but we did see lower activity and earnings, particularly in road transport to and from the U.K. and in the Baltics and also in certain industries like meat export but also building construction.
Q3 was generally a challenging quarter with the price pressure from customers who are looking to benefit from overcapacity in the wholesale market. With that, I'll pass the word back to you, Torben.
Thank you. So on the ESG front, we continue to decrease our emission intensity on the ferry side by 4% across our route network driven by our continuous schedule optimization and technical vessel upgrades. We have or had by the end of Q3 50 electric trucks in operation. Today, that's 61 out of the 125 trucks we have ordered. The remaining will be deployed over the next quarter or so. Our female-gender ratio improved 3 percentage points to 19% when measuring across all managers. The total gender ratio is negatively impacted by acquisitions in the short run. Safety, a high priority level for DFDS. The ratios improved for both sea and land operations in terms of number of incidents and number of related days off. So if we turn to the outlook on page 12, as we mentioned, it's firmed up.
We have narrowed the range from DKK 4.8 billion-DKK 5.2 billion to now DKK 4.9 billion-DKK 5.2 billion EBITDA. The ferry division outlook has been raised after the strong passenger high season. In Q4, we expect our freight volumes to be close to the level of 2022. Logistics, you've seen in Q3 with some challenges, and on the back of that, we have reduced the outlook for logistics, although we see the corrective actions taken to begin to have a positive impact. On revenue, the outlook is unchanged. On OpEx or CapEx, sorry, on CapEx, the outlook is reduced to DKK 0.1 billion on the back of the sale of the three freight ferries that took place in October. On page 13, we look the remaining 2023 and the key priorities. Capacity management continues to be a focus area to align with the demand in the markets.
We've done that relatively successfully in Q3 and expect to be able to continue that success. We adapt our costs through a number of initiatives. Then there is a strong focus on keeping the customers we have, doing more business with them, attract new volumes to the network that continue to be a very attractive network for our customers. Our green transformation projects continue to be moved forward. Especially on the social side, especially on the health side, we have a new health and safety system for the land-based employees that, as I mentioned before, is beginning to show good results. Then we expect approval of the FRS Iberia/Maroc acquisition either late Q4 or very early Q1. With this, we hand over for questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please leave the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Michael Vitfell-Rasmussen with Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much. I'll start up with three questions. First of all, looking at Q3, it looks like onboard sales were up by only 4% year-on-year, but ticket sales were up by 24% year-on-year. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what's going on on the I guess it's the tax-free driving that. So that's my first question. My second question is, are you seeing any risks of other customers moving into financial problems? And if you could just remind us of the share of revenues that you derive from building construction customers. And my last question is, if you could add a little bit of expectations on volume growth in the MED, when should we expect kind of the nearshoring case to unfold also given the political unrest in the area and the things we see in Turkey? Thank you very much.
Michael, I'll answer your last question, and then Karina can comment on the two others. The volumes in Turkey are flat to negative at the moment. As you're sure aware, Turkey has now engaged in more traditional financial policies to curb inflation, and they have increased interest rates to 35%. This puts a damper on domestic demand. We have very balanced flows from Turkey to Europe and back, so that reduces our volumes. In addition, Germany is close to recession, and it is the biggest market of Turkey. So those two elements are what is causing the current flat to negative volume development. We believe that that will continue for a period, but that sometime during 2024, Turkey will be back in growth mode. They seem to be navigating the geopolitical tensions relatively skillfully. Of course, they continue to have a very important geographical location.
We'll see this China Plus One or thing. This is not something we can measure directly, but we can see customers moving production. Of course, the two other elements that I mentioned are more important factors right now. So Karina, onboard sales and tickets.
If we go to your question about the onboard sales, we've seen a good development here in the third quarter. We talk a lot about the duty-free in the U.K., and we've seen a very positive development there. If we look and compare to the same quarter last year, we've seen an uptake of around 20%, so very much in line with our expectations. So in this quarter, we have seen less of positive impact in terms of the sea fares, but the onboard spend has driven the revenue improvement significantly. Then to the building construction, we don't have, as you know, a full visibility about the percentage, but it's not a huge part of our business in the building construction. And of course, it's very, very bloody annoying to have to face a customer bankruptcy.
We had our eyes on the ball, I would say, and we are monitoring the development. In this case, it just really came overnight. We are in close dialogue with the customers we have in that space, and we are not, at this moment in time, concerned about any of our receivables in that area.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line from Ulrik Bak with SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, Torben and Karina. Also a couple of questions from my side. I'll take them one by one. The first one on your volume report out this morning as well. Channel volumes actually increased year-over-year for the first time for a long time. And comparing it to Eurotunnel truck volumes, which were down 14% in October, it seems quite striking. Can you perhaps just share some comments on the market dynamics in this segment and the competition between the tunnel and the other operators and how we should think about this volume growth going forward? Should it just be positive from now on?
Thank you, Ulrik. The market is still declining but relatively modest at this moment. We have done well in the quarter. We believe that it's a combination of our strong and reliable services, including the fact that we both serve Calais and Dunkirk. We also believe that the partnership that we launched to have a product that better can compete with the Channel is beginning to show its strength in the cooperation or the shared space with P&O. And this has led to us actually gaining volumes in a declining market this quarter. We believe that the Eurotunnel will respond to this. We've seen that they are removing some of their surcharges, electricity surcharges, for example. So I don't think you can just assume that we will grow from now on. But we think our strategy works.
With the volumes that exist on the Channel, we are clearly performing well. As Karina said, we've also seen very good development on our onboard spend from the passengers, which also contributed to the Channel success.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. And then perhaps currently, I guess there's a contracting season underway in most of your ferry segments. Also to your Channel segment, with Irish Ferries now having been operational for a full year and now perhaps will be able to attract some of the customers which may have been reluctant to shift to a new operator last year, how are you approaching this contracting season with that in mind?
Well, we, of course, focus on our own strength. We are a profitable operator, and therefore, customers will sign up with us knowing that we will be there for the full year. We have loyal customers that have been with us for many years. So it is a competitive market. We are quite confident in our ability to keep our customers. Then we'll see what goes on with prices over the next month. But we go into 2024 with confidence and with a profitable business. Not all competitors on the Channel are profitable.
Okay. But with your comment about Eurotunnel reducing some of its surcharges and the structural overcapacity, what impact do you reckon it will have on your revenue per lane meter on the Channel segment in 2024 versus 2023?
I cannot give you any answer to that. It would be better to first negotiate it with the customers.
Makes sense. Makes sense. Then a clarification question. On page eight of your slide deck, you state that ferry freight result is down DKK 0.2 billion-DKK 0.5 billion by higher net bunker cost. Why is there a range here in the quarter?
It's not a range. It's down DKK 0.2 billion to.
Oh, sorry.
DKK 0.5.
Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And so what is the projected trajectory over the coming quarters? I noticed that the spread peaked in Q3 last year. So should we assume this number to gradually decline over the coming quarters?
I think we've said all the time that we face tough comps in both Q3 and Q4. I expect that Q4's headwind be around the same level that we had in Q3 when we look at the negative impact.
Okay. Then my final question. In your passenger result, you mentioned that there's some impact from bunker cost savings and the provision reversal. Can you quantify these two factors in Q3?
Yeah. The provision is around DKK 50 million. The positive is also it's not the same amount, but it is double-digit from the bunker.
Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Lars Heindorff with Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Morning. Thank you for taking my questions. So the first is on the bunker. It's quite a bit of a gap between the reported decline of 5% in the ferry division. And you said that if you adjust above surcharges, you'll actually be up by 10%. Now, will we see same level of discrepancy going into the fourth quarter? And also maybe just a few words on those bunker surcharges and the potential headline sorry, headwind as we head also maybe into the early parts of next year as this is a quite significant move?
I think you've got to split the two because there's this revenue impact, which is clearly just a reflection of the level of the oil price, which was very high last year. So there we have this DKK 5,600 million impact on the revenue line. Then you have the spread, which is what impacts our bottom line. And that's where I just said to Ulrik that in Q4, we will also have a negative impact from the spread compared to relatively high spread levels in Q4 2022. Then when we go into first quarter and continuing into 2024, we are at more, if I may use the word, normal levels compared to sort of historical levels. So there, we don't expect to see the same volatility, certainly not as it looks now. But I don't dare to predict about the oil price.
You have probably colleagues who are better at that.
Thank you. Then on logistics, the 13% decline in organic revenue, can you give us a split between cold and dry? And also to what extent is this driven by again, is it impact from diesel and bunker surcharges, or is this driven by volumes?
It is driven by both. The diesel surcharges have come down significantly, and volumes have also reduced. As I think we said in the introduction, the meat markets have been relatively severely hit across Europe. Also, construction is hit. So it is a combination of a number of factors across the businesses.
Can I push you to try to put some numbers on the volume decline?
No. I don't think we no. We don't think so.
Worth a try.
Yeah.
And then you mentioned in the presentation also, you talked about the, and also it's in your report about the automotive backlog, which I gather to some extent is securing you at least some kind of a volume, at least also here in the third quarter. I mean, how far are we into that? What's your impression on that part?
It's definitely easing. We still see relatively long delivery times in the truck market. So there, we still have very predictable volumes, you can say. Depending on the car manufacturer, it's beginning to ease the backlogs.
Okay. And you mentioned I think Karina mentioned that you were at index 90 compared to pre-pandemic levels in the passenger division. What is your expectations as we head into next year? And do you actually believe that we will see, given the macroeconomic backdrop, that we will see that passenger volumes will continue to grow also into next year?
I think our thinking is that the passenger levels will hold up also in 2024. So we are probably more confident about the passenger business than the freight business where we just have to look at the environment and see that there is some softness. On the passenger side, I think we can work our way through even if the recessionary trends continue.
Okay. And then maybe another question on the net financials for you, Karina. As far as I can see, there's quite an increase in the interest cost here in the third quarter also compared to the previous quarters. What sort of runway should we expect as we head into the coming quarters here, given the interest rate levels that we have?
Well, the quarter we have here in Q3, there were no exceptional items impacting that. So best guidance at the moment would be something similar, with a little caveat that in Q4, this is very technical. But when we sold the King's Lynn, then there were some swap agreements associated with that. So that will bring the Q4 down. So there, we will be not on 195 like in Q3, maybe more like 150-ish expectedly. But looking into 2024, we are at a little higher level than we'll be in Q4.
Okay. And then the last one, then I'll stop, which is going back to the freight division, utilization levels. You actually managed to hold up utilization, I would say, fairly well given the market that you talked about and difficulties out there. I mean, will you be able to uphold the utilization levels above the 50% mark as we head into a normal, more maybe tough Q4?
I think we don't look at it on a consolidated basis. It is very much route by route. And in every market, we try to adjust capacity to demand. So we don't expect very much different utilization factors in Q4 2023 versus Q4 2022. We will be able to compensate, we believe, for adjustments in the market.
But in Q4 last year, it was 57, actually even higher than you had here in Q3.
Okay. But again, we don't look at it like this. We look at it, how can we adjust the demand? It depends a little bit how many ferries we have in dock and what we've done on the with one or two vessels added in Turkey or vice versa. So we expect to be able to keep the profitability, if I then put it like that, at the same level by adjustment.
Okay. If I can try and ask in a different way, then do you expect to have any significant changes in the offered lane meters?
Yeah. We are constantly looking two to three weeks ahead and seeing, do we need five departures here per week? Do we need six departures? Can we take out a departure here on the Channel? Can we? So that's a constant adjustment to demand.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
You're welcome.
As a reminder, if you wish to register again for questions, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from the line of Chris Lewis with Freight Business Journal. Please go ahead.
Hello. Can you hear me?
I can hear you.
Okay. I was wondering whether you have allowed in your spending projections for your investment in electric vessels on the Channel or indeed on other routes. And what effect do you think this is going to have on your revenue and costs going forward? And when would you expect electric vessels to start having such effect?
Well, in order to deploy the electric vessels, we need green power to the ports in Dover, Dunkirk, and Calais. Predictions are that, depending a little bit on the port, that that would be ready by 2028, 2029. And then we need to develop the vessels, which has never been constructed, electric vessels in that size. So there's no impact, which means that they will also be ready about that timeframe where the electricity will be ready. So there's no immediate impact to our costs from this initiative.
All right. Okay. When would you expect this to be an impact from 2029 onwards?
Well, we would start seeing CAPEX cost in 2025, 2026, probably with the first vessels. And then we would expect the first vessels to have one or two battery vessels in operation before 2030.
Okay. And would you be expecting to do similar projects in other parts of the world, or would you just concentrate on Dover, Calais, Dover, Dunkirk?
Well, if you look towards the 2050 and zero emissions, then the other routes where we could deploy electric vessels would be on the Strait of Gibraltar, which also have fairly short crossings.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Ruairi Cullinane with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning. My first question is, to what extent have Asian passengers on the Oslo-Copenhagen route recovered? And you commented on the call that you expect sort of passengers perhaps in line with 2023 levels in 2024. So perhaps you could talk us through what may be growth drivers into 2024, as I was thinking, and Asian passenger recovery may be one of them. And then perhaps finally, you could just talk us through the rationale for the sale and lease back that you announced in October. Thank you.
Yeah. If we start with the passengers, I think before COVID, we probably had upwards towards 125,000 international passengers on the Oslo-Copenhagen route. And there's probably still a recovery potential of some 60,000-70,000 Asians, North Americans, in those numbers. Whether they will all come in 2024 remains to be seen, of course. As China is opening, that's where some of the push should come from. On the sale lease back, historically, we have owned 50%-60% of our vessels and chartered in others in connection with our new building programs during the 2015-2022. We have acquired vessels. So we thought it was a good time to reduce a little bit the balance sheet. As interest rates have been towards zero, it has made good sense for us to own it.
We can see that the negative impact to us from charter and lease back now has almost disappeared as interest rates have increased and charterers have not correspondingly increased their demands. So that's why we have made this transaction, which then in addition helps a little bit our leverage and our ROIC numbers. So we'll probably see more of that during 2024 with a handful more vessels or so. Yeah.
We have a follow-up from Ulrik Bak with SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my follow-up question. Just on your revenue per passenger, which increased 9% year-over-year, you already alluded to that it was driven in part by duty free. But how much more potential do you think there is to further increase this, yeah, going into 2024, please?
I think the level of spend per person is relatively high. So I would not dare to just project that it will go further. Of course, what would be nice if we got more passengers back on the Channel. But as you know, that is a more complicated thing at the moment. So I'm not overly optimistic about predicting further improvement than compared to what we have now.
That's very clear. And then a question about the status of the potential acquisition of Ekol. Can you provide any color of what's the latest development there's been?
Yeah. There's no new development. As you know, the competition authorities approved the transaction in July. It means that we're doing due diligence at the moment. We'll come back to the market if there's any positive outcome from that.
Okay. And then my final question on the EU ETS and how it will affect your revenue and potentially earnings in 2024 versus 2023, and also how you will handle it. Because as far as I understand, you need to charge your customers upfront, but you won't know the exact amount before a later date. How does that work and flow into your P&L?
Well, I think there's no rules about how we charge our customers. We do intend to pass on the ETS cost. We will do that as customers consume the lane meters and the CO2. We expect that in general, the industry will pass it on to customers. We don't see any P&L impact from this.
Okay. I've seen from some container carriers who have provided information to their clients, which are showing very different levels of these surcharges. So I was just wondering, I mean, there must be some confusion at least as to how large these surcharges should be. And also, I understand that you need to buy these certificates at an auction at a future date where you won't know the exact price. So how do you determine the potential surcharge from this?
Well, there is a market price for the ETSs. We will be very transparent with our customers and show, "Here's the price, and here's the surcharge per route." I think it will be very, very similar to what they're used to from us on the bunker surcharges. We don't foresee confusion. We've spent also the better part of this year explaining and discussing with customers so that they also understand the mechanism. We then have different options for when we buy the ETSs. We would obviously make sure that we don't keep open positions here.
Understood. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from the line of Dan Togo Jensen with Carnegie Investment Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for letting me in here. It seems like I was kicked out of the Q&A queue. So I have a few questions left here. But it seems like that you, through this quarter, have mitigated a 5% decline in volumes and freight through prices and fleet adjustments, as you say. How sticky are these initiatives? And are there room for more so to say if we see volumes take another hit in coming quarters? That would be the first question. Thanks.
We do expect that the volumes will or the volume decline will level off going into Q4. So that's what we are preparing for. I think we are pleased that we, through Q3 and also previous quarters, have shown that we can mitigate the loss in volumes. And our belief is we can continue to do so. Of course, there's a limit if volumes drop significantly. But with the current outlook, that's at least what we are aiming for.
Then on the bunker spread again, Karina, you alluded to that the net impact here is negative by some DKK 180 million compared to last year. You expect a more or less similar effect in Q4. But when I look at the spread last year, it did decline in Q4. And we are actually now seeing that this bunker is and the spread is increasing again, suggesting that the spread effect should be less in Q4 compared to what it was in Q3, at least. But are there any hedging effects, etc., we should be aware of here? Thanks.
Well, we have hedged as we move forward. But it's not that I'm facing a big negative on the hedging. So this is really the numbers that we get when we compare on a like-for-like basis. So there's nothing strange in that has a different impact.
No, no. But it's just what you, first of all, also apply as an assumption for the bunker spread, I guess, and the development here in Q4. But I guess you already include whatever projection we've seen so far in bunker spreads.
Yeah. And for Q4, we have hedged a large portion of our spend. So we sort of know where we're going to end more or less.
Totally. Okay. Good. Thanks a lot.
We now have a follow-up from Lars Heindorff with Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. It's a follow-up on the sale and lease back transaction. And also, Torben, you mentioned that you're likely to do more of this going into next year. What is the primary purpose of these transactions? I mean, if I read the statement that you came out with in October when you did the first one, you mentioned that it lowers your leverage only marginally. So I'm just curious to get my head around exactly. I mean, what's the point of these things here? And also, the lease back period, how long is that?
It's a five-year lease. Well, some of the effects are hidden a little bit by the accounting treatment of IFRS 16. So the future lease payments are treated as debt. In reality, though, it was a transaction that gave us DKK 1.5 billion in, which means that we reduce our bank debt, our real debt, by DKK 1.5 billion in doing such a transaction. So we thought both it helps our leverage, it helps our ROIC. And we also thought, actually, that maybe it could be useful for the market to see that we can control the assets without owning them. And therefore, there is no need to be too worried about leverage, for example. But for now, again, it's back to how we used to have the balance between owned and chartered vessels.
We will now gradually build that up so that there will be a portion of our vessels that are not owned by us. I think that's also usual across other shipping segments, for that matter.
Yeah, yeah. I'm aware of that. And the five-year period, why five? And what will happen when the five-year period expires? Will you then need to go out and secure or prolong the leases? Or do you need to then go out and buy something new? I don't know.
We have a construction that means that we can decide at that point. So we have a right to buy the vessels back.
Okay. And then lastly, on these things here, the impact from the transition, what will that do to your depreciation line?
The impact of the transaction? It's about DKK 20 million more depreciation per quarter. So very quick, that must be DKK 80 million per year-ish.
And that's all right-of-use, of course, I assume?
Yeah. Exactly.
Okay. Thank you.
Good.
There are no more questions. I will hand back over to Torben Carlsen.
Thank you very much. Thank you for joining the call. Thank you for the questions. We are very excited about the launch of our new strategy or adjusted strategy and new set of financial and operating targets at our Capital Markets Day, the 13th of December. We hope to see many of you in person in Copenhagen for that event. You can, of course, also attend virtually. But we hope to see you or many of you in person. Look forward to speaking to all of you again soon.