Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DSV Q3 2026 conference call. I'm Moritz, your call's call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in the 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 one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. 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.
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 are back on track and the quality issues that we had, they are resolved. But of course, it has had the consequence that our synergies, they'll 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 or 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, and we're right now at 11.5% growth. So 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, so 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 DKK 24 billion and DKK 25 billion 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. We've started the first share buyback program since we acquired Schenker. So all in all, that was 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. So good progress on that one. Of course, then we just talked about the issues that we'd 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, 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 2027. 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 something that we are very focused on here in the headquarter, that we add more value to our customers. And of course, then also that we convert that into solid growth in the operational result. I would say that the Air & Sea division has delivered as expected, and Air & Sea 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 have had.
The cash flow for the quarter, DKK 6.4 billion, and I had already talked about the revision of all the, basically the narrowing of our guidance. So that is 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 adjust it for the GP that we have taken out on Air & Sea, actually, we have grown 2.8% year-over-year. But that is always what happens when you move some of the volumes around, that it is a little bit blurry. What is the baseline? Then what are the actual figures? Are they fully comparable? So 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 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 shed still.
We had had this where we sanitized the portfolio, and this actually continued a little bit into July. After July, basically, we have finished this. I would say the general trend on the air freight is that we have seen that the volumes into Europe are still under pressure, and not least the volumes related to automotive. On the other side, of course, we have seen progress on the technology vertical, where we have grown our volumes.
As you can see also the yield at a very solid level, almost DKK 9,000 per ton. Overall, as I said, the GP has increased by 4%, so we are quite happy about that. If we look at the ocean freight, the GP has decreased by 4% and yield is a little bit down and volumes are also slightly down on the ocean freight. What we are working on right now is we are 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 have seen that we are slowly getting into a situation where we have basically leveled out and we should hopefully, during the next quarter, start to see the inflection point where we get growth. Yield is at DKK 4,100 at the end of the quarter.
Basically, if you look over the cycle, it's more or less the same as we had Q3 2025, and basically, the composition of VAS and freight markup is also in the 1/3, 2/3 range, so 1/3 is the freight markup and 2/3 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 1/3 related to extra cost due to the quality issue, so they should go. 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 call, so 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 that is in Europe.
It's not that we can't get the 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. So what we sell right now will then come in, let's say, in three months. So 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, so they basically have a very solid NPS development, the other divisions. But of course, the Road Net Promoter Score has declined. But right now, it's had the trough, and now it's increasing again.
That's really the status when it comes to Road. We just put some KPIs here, and I can tell you that normally, historically, the performance has probably been more in the 92% range. So having 94% in DIFOT is very solid. But 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 proof that the initiatives we've taken have continued to improve the delivery quality. So that's really positive. So well 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%. So a 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. So these two things in combination, they're really important. I think what is also important for you to notice that we see that basically the pace that we grow with the hyperscalers is going to continue. We can see the pipelines, they're very, very solid. So 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%. So 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 managed to take, what can I say, another step up at year-end. It would make me very proud to trend towards the 15% that we'd set as a target for the Contract Logistics division and take another step in the next quarter. So well 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?" So 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 knowledge for fairs, events, all these kind of things, and to have this knowledge across countries. This is very important. On the Parcels, it's the same. We are 3PL on Parcels. 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. 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. Also the technology we have allows us basically to produce on the same platform, so kind of a single file system for all of that. So 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. So 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. So please have a go at it.
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 will come back to in a second. Jens, you already touched upon the EBIT growth, which is also nice to see. But also, if you look at profit for the period has actually increased DKK 900 million compared to same quarter last year, which is also good to see.
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. So that's also nice to see that. Of course, the net interest cost 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. 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 that's 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 DKK 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 will see that the ratio is actually better than it was same, you can say, at the end of last quarter. So 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 2.56. So 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 DKK 12.6 billion as well. So 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 DKK 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 journey, 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 2x 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.
So that means that we have now, you can see on the slide here, that in 2025, there was not much share buyback, so now we will see we have these columns again with the share buyback, hopefully. But I would also like to highlight that this is, like I've said also last quarter, we are now in a position where we every quarter assess according to our capital allocation policy, so 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 DKK 24 billion and DKK 25 billion. Given the slight delay due to the Road integration, also have a spillover impact on the special items.
We are slightly delay on those as well. So that is the overall number. And some of the assumptions, of course, we have some synergies that we have already realized last year, and then on top this year, DKK 4 billion more, and then we have the additional DKK 1 billion that we postpone into the next year. It's still a volatile world that we live in. It's highly uncertain about the, you can say, the macro environments and interest rates and so forth. So that's of course, also worth to bear in mind. In terms of Air & Sea and volume for the last quarter, we assume volume grows 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.
And for the Road, I think you touched upon it as well already. In Contract Logistics, we also expect to continue the growth that we have seen so far. And 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. Then back to you, Jens, for the key takeaways.
Yep. Thank you very much, Michael. Just want to reiterate that Road operations are normalized, so we basically now can focus on the commercial activities that we are having. And of course, we can also then focus on driving the productivity up as well. So 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. So I think we have confidence in what we are 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.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one 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 two. 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 one at this time. And the first question comes from Jaime Rowbotham from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I was just after a few numbers, please. So in Air & Sea, how much of the 3% volume decline is deliberate revenue dyssynergies or sanitizing the portfolio versus the SME activity levels declining and the Asia to Europe weakness? And in Road, could you quantify the amount of synergy shift to 2027, 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.
That was a little bit more than one question the way I counted, but we will 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, and that's then more related to attrition. I would say it's been more around the 0%- 1% situation in August and September. And that was basically, what can I say, tapering off of this attrition. So if I should say 3%, I would 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%- 1% decline of business in the air freight right now. So 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. But also to realize the synergies will take a little bit extra time. So approximately, in the neighborhood of DKK 1 billion will be pushed into 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. When we look at the volume decline, we've probably seen a volume decline just shy of a two-digit figure on the group side in Road. So 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.
Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Patrick Creuset from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jens, Michael. In Road, normally seasonality in Q3 heavily skews to September, I think. Would that be fair to assume that most of the underlying DKK 300 million profit in Q3 in Road was made in September? Therefore, when we are trying to look at an exit rate from the quarter to have an exit rate per month of somewhere north of DKK 200 million, would that be a fair way of looking at it? I do not know if it counts as a second question, but, Michael, if you could just clarify your comments on Q4 Air & Sea yields, which I did not fully get. Thanks.
I think I will answer the Road, Michael. You 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. So you are quite right that the result produced on the Road side is basically then produced in September. Now you get two good months as well, October and November.
We have also regained a little bit of volume, so that should also help the figures a little bit. Then December is going to be a weak month. So if I should model it, I would probably add, if you take the clean figure that we talk about, the DKK 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 are at, because the sales cycle is three months. Let us say we have had quality issues before the summer holidays. The customers, they come back from vacation on the 1st of September. We are now convinced it is 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. So it will take some time to fill the network up, but it is a strong network we have. So 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 a few, Michael.
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 have 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 yields 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. So, that is some of the underlying assumptions to the thing that we also have written here in the outlook.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Hope all is well. I'd like to talk about the move from CargoWise to Tango, please, in Air & Sea, to 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 DKK 100 million 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?
I think today, we approximately produce in the region 20%-25% of the volumes on Tango. It's predominantly the larger clients that we have on that platform, so 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 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. So 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 A&S division being a little bit under-allocated beforehand in the Schenker times.
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. As you know, that comes also with, what can I say, a very solid cost per transaction. So that impacts it a little bit.
Then the next question comes from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Good morning. On Road, I just wanted to clarify your comment earlier, Jens, that 1/3 of the impact was additional cost and two thirds related to volumes. Is that from a DKK 1 billion normal, and does that mean it's about DKK 300 million of Can you help quantify what was the additional cost? Was it DKK 300 million? 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 the DKK 4 billion would have been the full EBIT bridge for 2027, what has it come down to now if it's a mid 2027 full run rate impact? Thank you.
I don't think we guide in full for 2027 right now. That will come a little bit later, but 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 were 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 DKK 200 million and DKK 300 million.
If you then look at a quarter like this quarter, I would think that under normal circumstances, we should have made DKK 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 into 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 your delivery quality in place so that you have solid quality. So there are two tracks now. Now we drive productivity, so what does it cost to produce a shipment? Then of course, we need more volume into the system. These two things, they will be the main focus for next year.
But I'd say to drive the productivity up, it's something that happens quarter on quarter. It's a lot of activity. So what was my collection delivery cost? What's my productivity on the terminals? What's the utilization of the line hauls, et cetera? So these things you're working on with a very structured plan. It's the same team that solved the DIFOT that works with this. So 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 would probably presume that to regain the volume that we've lost, it'll probably take six to nine months into next year before we're at the same level as we were before we saw the attrition. So it will take some time, but we'll grind our way through it.
So 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'd originally planned for. So that should be the building blocks for your model.
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. But the overall thing that we planned for is still going to happen and take place.
Yep.
Then the next question comes from James Hollins from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks so much. Just a couple of clarifications. I think, Jens, appreciate your color 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 are saying today that did not happen. Perhaps you could clarify that for me. Thank you.
I am not really sure what exactly you are 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 are basically terminating now. I think that is typically where we have that topic, and that is 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. Look at what an impact it has.
The next question comes from Jacob Lacks from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, thanks for your time. On A&S, when do you think the division can get back to market growth rates on volume now that we're largely through the integration? Thanks.
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 A&S side. That's a job well done. On the volume side, we are hovering around, what can I say? It's basically plateauing now, so 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 tendencies and into Q1, I can't tell you, because we will have to see how it all pans out.
But 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.
Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you very much. Apologies to come back to some of these points, but I think most of us in terms of synergies next year we have around DKK 5 billion year-over-year incremental, 4 out of Schenker and 1 the other ones. It's not fully clear to me, should we roughly how much do we take out of Schenker? We take DKK 1 billion out, align with the special items that you moved or more or less?
Any type of color you could give us there? The second one, the bear argument on Road is if you exclude the express cost that you explained earlier, your run rate is somewhere around DKK 500 million clean EBIT per quarter. If I annualize that, I get to DKK 2 billion. If I don't get too much synergies next year, I could be at DKK 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, A&S conversion ratio of 50% the target. Do you believe in some of the quarters next year you can already be at 50% conversion A&S, or that's something more for 2028, 2029? Thank you.
If we take the conversion ratio on A&S first, I think if you look at how it's been increasing, then there is also, what can I say, plans for productivity improvements into next year. Whether we will hit the 50% mark or at the end of the day, we have a long-term 2030 target of 55%. So we will have, what can I say, to drive it past the 50%. We've not finished the rolling forecast in that detail and are 100% certain about that. But it will go towards the 50%, I can tell you that. 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.
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 DKK 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 fix the DIFOT, 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. If you try to model that, I am quite sure that in using those assumptions, you will probably end somewhere else than the 2.5. That's of course how you run your model that determines that.
Yep. Just to clarify if needed on the synergies, I think we have stated that last year we had full year run rate of DKK 800 million. Then we have said that during this year we expect at least DKK 4 billion. Now we say DKK 4 billion, and the remaining part would then come into 2027 as from January 1. Now we say we delayed it with DKK 1 billion, so that will of course come in later during the year in 2027.
The next question comes from Alexia Dogani from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the question. Just, again, on synergies, you mentioned in the statement that you are committed to the DKK 9 billion of synergies, but there is a kind of partly offset by cost inflation and investment in Contract Logistics. Could you just clarify the magnitude of offsets that you see? I am sorry, to also, again, clarify on the financial impact in 2027. At the CMD, you helpfully gave a slide 136, giving the phasing. Obviously, now there is a delay. Are we basically saying the delay is DKK 1 billion, so DKK 1 billion moves from 2027 to 2028? Or is it a DKK 1 billion realization in 2027 and the remainder 3 is in 2028? I think that would help everyone make sure their model is aligned with your plan. Thanks.
Yeah. If I start with the last one first, the DKK 1 billion, which is delayed, that 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 DKK 1 billion.
And did that answer the question? Because I was
Was that the answer? Or was there another one? Sorry.
Yeah, it was the net effect. Basically, you've added a statement
Yeah
that says-
Okay. Yes.
you're committed to the DKK 9 billion-
Yeah
but there's an offset.
Yeah.
What is the offset?
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 say, "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. If you look at, I think it's the run rate is DKK 100 million on staff cost alone for this quarter. Secondly, that we do see inflation also on the other elements of the cost base. If you, for instance, take 3% into that, I think then you have the building blocks to do it.
Okay. Thank you. Just to clarify one last point, Air & Sea and Contract Logistics at the end of 2026 will have delivered your plan in terms of the financial impact. Is that right? For the synergies.
Yes. You can assume that.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I've got a follow-up on these synergy figures, because we're saying that in 2026, you guys are still planning to achieve DKK 4 billion synergies, so guidance isn't changed, but Road is clearly lagging already in 2026. How are you going to get to DKK 4 billion despite Road being below? Does that imply Air & Sea or CL ahead of the plan, or how do we get the DKK 4 billion with weaker roads? Still related to that, I think this quarter is the first quarter where your total FTE number is now coming down quarter-over-quarter. I understand Contract Logistics 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 the FTE number basically not coming down anymore in Air & Sea?
Thank you.
No, 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 the Air & Sea, we also explained a little bit about the Global Products. During the quarter, we have also had, you could say, a move for some of those into that area.
Okay. On the DKK 4 billion 2026, despite Road being quite weaker than expected at the start of the year?
Sorry? Again, it's a little bit difficult to hear.
I understand this. The DKK 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 DKK 4 billion. Let's say that it might be a little bit less, which could also be the case, because, as you say, 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.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Lars Heindorff from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Morning. Thank you. On the Road division, to get back to that, I understand that you appear as quite confident regaining some of that volume that you lost. This is a fairly fiercely competitive market that you are operating in. Will you be able to regain that volume without any kind of impact on your GP per consignment, price or maybe payment terms which will impact the cash flow. Maybe just a few comments on what exactly the path back to getting those and regaining those volumes. Then as a follow-up on that also, the customer consignment as we enter into Q4, where is that compared to what you want it to be?
If we look at basically regaining the volumes, our sales activities, the pipeline that we have, it is basically how we normally would conduct business within the various segments. I should say 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. We 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. One of the major topics is also our line haul setup, where we can drive the efficiency somewhat up so that we can deliver on those outcomes. Let's say on the line haul, for example, I would believe that the average utilization we have is maybe around index 90, and we should definitely be able to drive that, let's say 5% up. If you look at that, it can be other topics as well that we talk about. The number of stops per route, et cetera, 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 solve the DIFOT.
They are now working actively on this, and we can already see some of the first things being executed. I am quite confident on that.
Can I just, as a follow-up, maybe on the cost side in Road, there is a sequential decline in staff cost into the third quarter, which is, I think, is that just caused by normal seasonality? It tends to be lower in Q3 or into the holiday season. We should expect the staff cost to increase again into the fourth quarter?
I think basically, I am not 100% certain on that because the holiday accrual makes it very difficult to be 100% certain. I would more want the team to get back to you on that. 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. But 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.
All right. Thank you.
Then the next question comes from Kristian Godiksen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Also a question on the Road part. Obviously there is quite a bit of a delta to the DKK 2.5 billion on for the Road EBIT in 2027, which was Cristian's question, and then to your own DKK 6 billion that you communicated on the back of the Q2 numbers. I guess as you pointed out, the main moving part is the trajectory on winning back volume. Just wanted to get some more feel on how comfortable you are on winning back the volume and at what potential discount and a pricing discount to win that back volume. It is just, I guess on the basis on the operating leverage being very high in the group, which part of the business, which I guess based on the underlying numbers for Q3 must have been loss-making as the FTL/LTL distance has been marginally less impacted.
Yeah, I think I have 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.
So we have very good product. It is the strongest network in Europe. So in a market, for example, like Germany, we have less than 5% of the market. So of course, there is a lot of volume you can go after that we are not in contact with. Then there is the existing customers that maybe have downtraded a little bit with us. They can now see the quality is back.
And then, of course, there's the customers that have switched provider. We can see that on the segmentation, on the larger customers, they've stayed with us. So on the complex volume, they stay with us. So it tells us something about the quality of the network and the service that we provide. It is more, let can I say, smaller customers that perhaps can operate in one or two markets that has a great opportunity to choose another provider. So 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. But then 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 integration so that we need to be ready to exchange data with the customers in a digital format in an efficient way. So 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. So 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. So I think that was-
So thank you. So just to follow up on that, I guess, to your DKK 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 and that, and then the delay of synergies that's basically the two paths I need to deduct from the DKK 6 billion number. Is that the right way to think about it?
Yeah, 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.
Yeah.
But there are two types of synergies in Road, you have to remember that. It is basically that we then merge the networks, we 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, down there, 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. So I think we are right now somewhat over 300. So we've definitely done a lot of the work.
I think we've taken learnings from the things we've done and made sure that we don't see quality issues.
Perfect. Thank you. And just maybe on the incremental margin 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?
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. But I would say that additional volume in a groupage network definitely drives a superior conversion compared to what you're used to seeing. Yep.
Okay, perfect. Thank you a lot.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Ulrik Bak from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my question. In terms of the targets that you presented at your Capital Markets Day of another DKK 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? How much should these targets be delayed? Thank you.
I think we still shoot for completing what we need to do in 2030. I would say 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 DKK 9 billion that we are talking about. We will 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 are quite right. Over time, we should see a little bit less cost inflation. We have actually seen quite a bit going into 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 DKK 9 billion. So that's kind of the feedback you can get on that.
Much appreciated. Thank you.
The next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
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 three months and needing six to nine months to fully recover those volumes. I get it takes time, but is there anything that you can give us in terms of how those sales conversations are going now to help us understand how that - 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 color on what those conversations sound like.
Can you just talk about the year-on-year progression or lack of progression in your sea freight GP yield? You talk about 1/3 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 color for what's going on in the underlying mix, maybe, would be helpful. Thank you.
Yes. I think very good questions on that. What we look about ourself is, of course, 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 A&S 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 are 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 say that the number of sales calls is 2x 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 is sort of the KPIs that we are following. As I said, we are 2x 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 have 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 under the hood.
Then I think on the ocean freight, I think that you 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, and right now it might be normally we say 1/3 freight markup and 2/3 VAS. Right now it might be that the freight markup is 35% or 36%, but it is in this ballpark that we are talking about. It of course means a lot of money, when you are around the 4,000 mark there. I would say that we still see now the rates are fairly elevated, and I think they are definitely going to also provide for good yields in the fourth quarter. We will then see what happens in the market.
There has 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 is what I can say right now on the rates.
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 is really the key to recovering profitability, like the best pipeline since we closed Schenker. That is good to hear, but I do not know what that actually means in quantum and 2x to 3x more customer sort of leads, et cetera. 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 pause.
No, that's fine.
It feels like that's an important part.
Yeah, but let's say we had index. 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 at. Then it might be that that will go to index 93 or if we are lucky, 93.5 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?
It does.
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.
Thank you very much all for listening in. I think that we've had a good conversation about some of the important topics, and good questions as well, so thank you very much for that. We will now focus on delivering the results for the fourth quarter. In relation to that, I want really also to extend gratitude to our staff that have worked exceptionally hard in a very difficult period, not least in the Road division. So really well done to them, and 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.