Welcome to this presentation of the financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025 for SED Energy Holdings. My name is Kurt M. Waldeland, and I'm the CEO of SED Energy Holdings. I am joined today by Viggo Pedersen and Sveinung Alvestad. Before we begin, I kindly ask you to review the disclaimer slide regarding forward-looking statements. SED Energy Holdings is an industrial holding company focused on the offshore energy service industry, uniquely positioned with a robust backlog and a conservative capital structure. Our two subsidiaries, Energy Drilling and SeaBird Exploration, are both leaders in their respective segments, operating in highly attractive niches of the oil and gas service industry, with primary exposure to brownfield development. Since the establishment of the company last year, a key priority for us has been to distribute available liquidity to our shareholders.
This commitment remains unchanged, we are very pleased to announce our fourth consecutive quarterly distribution for the fourth quarter of 2025. The fourth quarter represented a solid finish to a transformational year for the company. Both subsidiaries achieved strong operational performance, with technical utilization of 97% for Energy Drilling and 92% for SeaBird. Revenue for the quarter came in at $61 million, with full-year revenues totaling $212 million. EBITDA for the quarter was $30 million, driving a full-year EBITDA of $115 million. Our firm revenue backlog remains very strong and currently stands at $466 million. During the quarter, EDrill-2 and GHTH completed contract preparations on time and on budget and started their multiyear contract.
This is a significant milestone for the company, as all rigs are now on contract and with no significant CapEx investment scheduled in the near term. This, in turn, further improves the company's cash flow visibility. During February, SeaBird Exploration has secured contract extensions for both vessels, ensuring employment for the vessels and positive cash flow contribution from this vertical towards the second half of 2026. We are very happy to announce that we have reached an agreement with our lenders to reduce the fixed annual amortization on our debt facility from approximately $20 million to approximately $8 million, representing a roughly 60% reduction in annual fixed debt repayment. This will strengthen the liquidity position of the company and improve flexibility. Our balance sheet remains strong.
Net debt to last twelve months EBITDA stood at just 0.4 at quarter end, still among the lowest in the industry. We are also very pleased to be able to announce that the board has proposed a distribution of twenty-two and a half million dollars for the fourth quarter, as we continue to deliver on our strategy and commitment to distribute available liquidity to our shareholders. In sum, SED Energy Holdings ended the year on a strong note. We remain optimistic on the outlook for our businesses, we are seeing signs that the markets have started to improve. Based on the current backlog, we have a solid foundation to increase distributions substantially in 2026 compared to 2025.
As mentioned, we remain committed to distributing available liquidity to shareholders. We are happy to announce that the board has proposed a distribution of twenty-two and a half million dollars for the fourth quarter of 2025. To date, we have distributed $60 billion for 2025, and with the proposed distribution for Q4, total distribution for the year will reach eighty-two and a half million dollars. Including the proposed distribution for the fourth quarter, more than 20% of the pro forma capitalization at the time of the announcement of the merger between Energy Drilling and Seabird Exploration has been distributed to shareholders in cash, confirming our commitment to stay focused on shareholder distribution.
As with previous distributions, the proposed distribution for the fourth quarter will be done as repayment of previously paid-in capital and is subject to EGM approval. We expect payment in the second quarter of 2026. I will hand it over to Viggo to give some more color on the improvement in debt repayment terms and cover the highlights for Energy Drilling.
Thank you, Kurt. As Kurt alluded to, after quarter close, we did sign an amendment with our lenders to align the cash flows that we have from our rigs better with the repayment profile on our debt facility. The amendment still remains subject to signing of customary final documentation, which we expect in the next couple of days. This amendment again demonstrates that we continue to unlock financial synergies from the merger, and this amendment enhances the financial flexibility of the group and our ability to pursue accretive transactions in the future. The group maintains a very close dialogue and relationship with a diverse group of international banks, and they are ready to support the group's further ambitions, as is demonstrated with this amendment. Now turning on to an update on Energy Drilling and the quarter just passed.
Turning to slide 9. Q4 was another good quarter for Energy Drilling as we then got all our rigs back onto contract. We saw high utilization during the quarter. Of course, the economic utilization of 86% was slightly lower than our technical. That's driven by the two rigs, EDrill-2 and GHTH, commencing operation during the quarter. Overall, economically, Q4 was a good quarter for Energy Drilling. Revenue for the period rose to about $53 million a year for the quarter, with an adjustment EBIT, adjusted EBITDA of about $30 million. This corresponds to an EBITDA margin of approximately 55%, and this is despite not having all rigs in full operation for the entire quarter. During the quarter, we had some minor CapEx to close out the year.
However, for the full year of 2025, we were significantly below what we called normalized CapEx. Going forward, we expect that to revert to its normal levels at around $16 million for the group. This lower CapEx is primarily driven by optimizing the use of our equipment and timing of changing out parts. We will continue to work closely with our rig crews to maintain high operational and technical utilization, while maximizing the use of our equipment. Overall, the drilling market in Asia Pacific looks healthy, and there are several new programs coming to market. We've noted that several jack-up have found new work during the quarter and also into Q1. I'll come back to that in a later slide. Moving on to slide number 10, which illustrates the backlog of Energy Drilling.
We currently have a firm backlog of $451 million. No additional time charters were signed during the quarter. However, as I mentioned, all rigs came back in to operation. With the fleet now pretty much fully contracted for 2026, management is now fully focused on securing work for 2027 and beyond. Post quarter end, PTTEP launched its tender for the renewals of EDrill-1 and T-15. During the next couple of months, we will be fully focused on responding to this call for tender. Startup on these new contracts are in Q1 and Q3 2027, respectively. In addition, CPOC also launched its market survey for a 30-month firm job against T-16, and we expect this to formalize into a tender during Q1 2026.
We remain confident in our ability to continue to secure work for our rigs and expect the main competitors for the work that we're looking at to be Premium jack-up in the region. Overall, our backlog stretches well into 2027, and that secures our revenue and our dividends going forward and creates a stable platform for the group. Now, moving on to slide number 10 and a bit of a macro backdrop of what's going on in Southeast Asia. Over the last couple of presentations, we have alluded to the fact that Southeast Asia remains the main driver in the global economy, with a young and aspiring population. The increased electrification and digitalization is creating a massive energy demand in the region, which we expect will contribute significant demand for natural gas.
As illustrated by this graph, we expect offshore activity to increase significantly over the next two years, compared to 2025 levels. To meet the growing demand for energy, NOCs, super majors, independents, are investing substantial amounts of money in existing and new fields. With that in mind, we do expect 2027 to be about 22% higher in terms of offshore spending compared to 2025 levels. This is driven both by new developments, but also maintaining output from existing fields, which is the core for Energy Drilling. We do expect several large-scale FIDs in the region over the next coming quarters and years, particularly in both the shallow and the deepwater sector. Notable areas are Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which all have large-scale existing fields that have been discovered, that are entering the FID phase.
This bodes well for offshore drilling in the years to come. Turning to slide 12 for a bit more details on the market. As I said, the shallow water market in Southeast Asia is still a very healthy market. During the quarter, we had about 76 rigs operating. This is largely flat quarter-over-quarter. However, there's quite a lot of new tenders coming in towards the end of Q4 and into Q1 of 2026, with startup both in 2026 and 2027. The market for tender assist rigs is very good at the moment, with all active rigs working, and contracts are being signed for multi-year work in most regions. We see high activity, as I said before, in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia over the years to come.
For Malaysia, 2025 was actually the lowest number of contracting days in more than a decade. PETRONAS is now expecting a 15% year-on-year growth in the number of wells to be drilled in the country. While Q4 remained a bit slow on the contracting and tendering activity, we do see an uptick coming into Q1 2026. In sum, we see improving market conditions across the shallow water space that should lead to higher day rates over time. With that, I will hand it over to Sveinung for SeaBird and some details on the financials.
Thank you, Viggo. Now turning to SeaBird and the SeaBird vertical. In short, for new investors, SeaBird Exploration is a global provider of maritime seismic acquisition. The company specializes in operation within the high-end source vessel market. The company owns and operate 2 vessels, both built in 2009, with substantial upgrades during the later years. More detailed information about SeaBird is available on our webpage. For the quarter, SeaBird Exploration reported Q4 revenue of $7.9 million, which takes the revenue for the full year of 2025 to $32.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.7 million and $10.7 million for the full year 2025. The reduced margin in Q4 was mainly due to Eagle Explorer being off hire in preparation for a new contract that commenced 1st of November.
The technical utilization for the fleet was 92% in the fourth quarter, and it's somewhat lower than targeted. Following this, certain initiatives have been implemented that we now see the effect of, and looking forward, we believe this figure will improve. Turning to the backlog. SeaBird's firm backlog currently stands at $15 million, when including the contract extension awarded after quarter end to Fulmar Explorer and Eagle Explorer. The Eagle Explorer has been working with a repeat client from November 2025 and was recently awarded an extension that brings the firm contract duration until middle of May this year. The Fulmar Explorer has been working in the Gulf of Mexico since mid of September 2025. Yesterday, we announced that her firm commitment has been extended by three months until mid-June this year.
Both vessels are currently being marketed for new work in the Western Hemisphere, and we are fairly convinced to have more work lined up for our vessel in due time. A bit on the markets. The short-term market fundamentals have been impacted by increased geopolitical volatility for the seismic market, which has resulted in delayed investment decision from our end clients and cash flow preservation from our clients. This has impacted the overall exploration spending and consequently, delayed contracting activity. As for the supply side, the active fleet currently counts 12 vessels, whereas 10 are currently contracted. We continue to see a low risk of new vessels coming to the market, as the contract duration and the rate environment does not provide sufficient economics to justify acquisition and/or conversion cost.
Despite the near-term turbulence, we remain confident in the structural growth of the OBN market the coming year, years. In dialogues with clients, it is apparent that securing critical resources, such as source vessel, is high on the agenda, especially for high-end tonnages. We believe these dynamics supports a tighter market and, in turn, will strengthen the pricing environment and longer contract durations, especially for the high-end tonnage like ours. Now, turning to the group financials. Before I'm going, digging into the numbers, I want to repeat the basis of the accounts in the report and this presentation. In this presentation, we have applied a management reporting approach, where we are presenting the figures as if the merger took place first of January, meaning that Energy Drilling and SeaBird Exploration figures are combined on a line-by-line basis, both in the current and in the comparison period.
We believe this gives a good understanding for the reader of how the combined company is performing. The fourth quarter report is prepared in accordance with IAS 34 and IFRS 3, which implies that the merger has been recognized as a reversed acquisition. As a result of this, the financial information presented in the periods prior to the transaction reflects Energy Drilling only, meaning SeaBird Exploration has only been included in the financial report from the transaction date, which was 26th of May 2025. Reconciliation between the management reporting and the consolidated financial statement is provided in the appendix of this presentation. Tuning in on the numbers. Energy Holdings reported Q4 revenue of $61 million, which is an approximately 20% increase from the prior year quarter. The full year revenue was $225 million, an increase of 33%.
The growth is mainly driven by more rigs in operation at, and higher day rates. The SG&A for the full year was $24.4 million. This is, however, negatively impacted by non-recurring merger and legal cost. When adjusting for these one-off costs, the underlying SG&A for 2025 was $16 million. Going forward, we expect SG&A to be around $4 million per quarter for the group. Q4 EBITDA adjusted for non-year, non-recurring items was $30 million and $150 million for the full year. This represents 11% and 37% increase, respectively. The strong year-over-year growth is driven by higher activity at higher day rates. Underlying net profit for the full year 2025 was $49 million after adjusting for the non-recurring merger cost as discussed and the tax settlement from Q2.
We see this positive earnings development to continue in the coming quarter as all eight of the company's assets are on contract and generating healthy cash flow on good day rates. Now, turning to the balance sheet. The group's interest-bearing liability stood at $83 million as of the year-end, and it consists of a $75 million bank facility, whereof $65 million is currently outstanding. As discussed earlier, we recently amended the repayment profile of this facility, and it is now amortizing $2 million per quarter. The lease liability recognized on the balance sheet is a back-to-back bareboat agreement for the GHTH that mimics the current contract for the rig. It's a typical pay-as-you-go agreement. 1.6 million dollars relates to equipment financing in SeaBird Exploration. The group's cash balance at year-end was $36 million.
Of this, $12 million is restricted performance bonds and debt service accounts. The rest is free liquidity, $25 million. In sum, net interest bearing debt at year-end was $47 million, which corresponds to a continued strong leverage ratio of 0.4 to last 12 months adjusted EBITDA. When looking at the cash flow, I just want to highlight that the cash position and the cash flow from SeaBird Exploration has been included from the merger point at 26th of May 2025. The company's cash balance as of 31st of December, 2025, sorry, 2024, was $32 million. During the full year of 2025, the company generated $83 million in operational cash flow before a $15 million working capital build. The full year CapEx was $7 million, which is lower than the normalized CapEx for the group.
Looking forward, we expect 2026 CapEx to be around $18 million for the group. The net debt amortization for the year was $8 million, while interest payments amounts to $5 million. In total, we maintain a strong liquidity position for the group with a cash position of $36 million as of year-end. With that, I will pass the word back to Kurt.
Thank you, Sveinung. Going forward, we are well positioned to continue to deliver strong results for our shareholders. The chart on the left-hand side illustrates how cost-efficient tender drilling rigs are compared to conventional jack-up units. With a cash cost 25%-35% below jack-ups, the tender drilling rigs will always be in the low end of the cost curve, and as such, able to generate healthy cash flows, even at rates that are below the cash breakeven of most jack-up players. As illustrated on the table on the right-hand side, the EBITDA and distribution potential for the company is significant, even at current day rates, with, of course, a significant upside as market rates improve. As already mentioned, our balance sheet remains very strong.
At the end of the quarter, we had a net debt of $47 million and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.4, which is among the lowest in the industry. Three rigs and both seismic vessels are currently unencumbered, giving us significant financial flexibility. The conservative leverage profile ensures resilience and distribution capacity in all market conditions and gives us significant optionality to pursue value-enhancing initiatives. Going forward, our strong backlog provides robust visibility and a solid foundation for continued significant shareholder distributions. Based on existing firm contracts, we expect an increase in revenue in 2026, creating a solid foundation for a significant step up in distributions from 2025 to 2026, assuming continued strong operational performance.
For 2025, as mentioned earlier, we have completed distributions of $60 million, and with today's announcement of 22 and a half for the 4th quarter, total distribution for the full year will reach 82 and a half million. This represents, as mentioned, more than 20% of the pro forma market cap at the time the merger between Energy Drilling and SeaBird was announced last year. This underlines our strong commitment to distributing available liquidity to shareholders, which will remain unchanged as we move into 2026. To summarize, a strong backlog, high cash conversion from operations, and a robust balance sheet will enable significant shareholder distributions for 2026. This is further supported by an encouraging market outlook for both our subsidiaries.
The announced improvement in debt repayment terms will improve liquidity and flexibility, and we will continue to optimize the balance sheet and realize financial synergies to further increase flexibility and distribution capacity. In parallel, we are assessing accretive strategic opportunities within the broader oil and gas service value chain. As always, we will remain disciplined and focused on opportunities that support our distribution capacity. With that, we will open up for Q&A and go through the questions that have been submitted. I think we'll just start from the top, from first question from Clarksons. Could you share your views on the expected timeline for PTTEP's tender and the likelihood of awards in the third quarter of 2026? Viggo, maybe you.
Yeah, I can take that. Look, we expect the tender to actually close in Q1 of this year, and then with results coming out in Q2, end of Q2 this year. Hopefully we will have some good color on that already coming into Q2. I can see there's a second question again from Børge Clarkson's. When the updates on the marketing agreement with RigCo, I can continue on with that. Look, we continue to bid that rig on several opportunities in Southeast Asia. There are at least 3 or 4 multi-year campaigns that we are currently assessing, of which 2, we're currently in the process of submitting bids. Beyond that, there's no real updates on the situation with RigCo.
Thank you. Then, there's a question again from Clarksons. With the lower amortization going forward, if the additional cash will be earmarked for distributions. I think what we can say on that is that we have been quite clear that our distribution policy is to distribute available free liquidity to shareholders. That is unchanged going forward and also into 2026. Again, a question on Seabird. Are you seeing any shift towards frontier exploration, or does OBN continue to hold its share of overall activity?
No, I can, I can start on that. So I think the OBN market is quite robust, even if we see start to see frontier exploration bouncing from the very low levels. The OBN work is very often linked to producing assets, so the budgets there are not necessarily eating out of the exploration budget of the oil companies. That said, if and when we see more frontier exploration coming to the market as well, we have a good equipment pool we can utilize in order to take advantage of this market as well. Just mind that a couple of years ago, we had quite a few large projects in India and Malaysia being to the seismic exploration.
We are well positioned to serve our clients in both of these markets.
Very good. There's a question from Jonathan Abigeh.
Yep. The question is, start up windows on EDrill-1 and T-15 for the tenders and whether or not it will use the options. The call for tender that came out stipulates a latest start opening windows or starting windows on those particular contracts. When I was talking about Q1 and Q3 2027, that's what I was alluding to. Basically, what PTT is saying is that you need to be ready to start by Q1 2027 and Q3 2027 for respective contracts. Does that mean that PTTEP will not use options for the unit? Highly likely. They are tendering long at the moment, the contracts that they have issued a tender for is for 5 plus 3 years. There's a follow-up question here: Who are the main competitors?
Again, I think the premium jack-up space would be the main competitors for us on those two particular contracts. These are tender barges and operate in the shallower parts of Gulf of Thailand. That's kind of, you know, overall, if you, if you track the jack-up market, those are the guys that we're mostly concerned about. Again, these are long-term, 5 plus 3 year contracts, which will keep the units busy way into the 2030s.
Another question from Jonas Løvseth at ABG: Could you give some guidance on CapEx for 2026, Sveinung?
I think we touched upon this in the presentation as well. For 2026, we expect the CapEx to be $18 million for the group in total. This is a tad higher than what we view as normalized CapEx and really a reflection that the 2025 CapEx came in below call it normalized CapEx. 2026, around $18 million is current expectations.
There's a question on acquisition opportunities, comments on preferred asset type leverage, geographic focus, et cetera. I think generally, you know, we are in continuous discussions with advisors and owners of assets in the broader oil and gas service space. You know, we have been looking at a wide range of opportunities, both in the verticals where we are already active, but also in adjacent subsegments of the oil and gas service industry. I think, as we have stated several times and on a point that we try to be very clear, is that acquisition or growth will not be done at the expense of both the distribution capacity currently in the company and on the current risk profile of the company.
That, of course, narrows things down. We are continuing to monitor the market for potential opportunities. Then one question on if we see a risk of new build tender rigs coming out. Viggo, do you want to touch on that?
Sure. I think, look, the current cost of building a tender rig at yards in Asia, you're looking at $180 million at least to get something ready, and you've got financing issues. You know, for that to happen, you need to see long term, and I'm looking like 5-10 year kind of contracts in the $100,000-$120,000 at least before people make it economically viable. Do we see people building tender rigs? No, is the short answer. But over time, with an aging fleet, you probably have to, if you're gonna maintain this asset class and be the sort of cost leader in the drilling space.
Look, you know, with the increased activity in the Middle East, the way we look at that is most likely if there's any incremental demand for jack-up and premium jack-up in the Middle East, those rigs will likely have to come from Southeast Asia. You'll have a migration of rigs from Southeast Asia into the Middle East to respond to sort of that incremental demand, and obviously that could potentially lead to a tightening market across the board. I think, you know, short term, absolutely, no one's gonna go and order anything new at the odds. Even if you did, you're so far behind in the slots that you're into the 30s anyways before we get anything out of the shipyards.
I think that was the last question that has been submitted and concludes today's presentation. Thank you everyone for dialing in, and we look forward to speaking to you again in the next quarter. Thank you.