Welcome everybody to the presentation from General Oceans for the second quarter of 2026. My name is Atle Lohrmann. We're going to give the presentation today. I am the President and originally founder of the company, and along with me today, we have Anton Van Heerden, who is our CFO and is going to give our financial overview a little later. We're going to divide this in two sections, where I'm going to be speaking a little bit first, and then Anton is going to take care of the numbers as we get to that point.
The big story this second quarter really is that we've had a good quarter. There are a lot of details to talk about, and we're going to address many of them, but I think the core story is that we are pleased with the second quarter. I think to some extent you can argue that we balanced a little bit the first quarter, and we can now start looking also at the numbers for the first six months of the year. Revenue, in the second quarter was NOK 385 million, and that is 22% increase from the second quarter of 2025.
That is in spite of what we consider to be a negative effects of FX, because especially since we're reporting in NOK, and a lot of our sales is in U.S. dollars through the different operating companies, there's obviously an effect when the relative rate between U.S. dollars and NOK changes. This year it has gone in a negative direction, and it's typically been around 7%- 8%. We can discuss sort of exactly how it goes into the P&L, but definitely there is an effect there. When we're looking at 22% growth of year -over- year, you would really have to add in the FX effect if you're looking at the underlying numbers. Adjusted EBITA is being NOK 85 million. That's an increase of about 18% compared to the second quarter of 2025.
The margin has been 22%, which is slightly down from the second quarter of 2025 at 23%. The underlying effects of the different operating companies is variable, meaning that the sensor companies, or the sensor segment in general, has slightly lower margin this quarter, whereas the robotic segment has higher quarter. There's a little bit of balancing going on between the different companies to arrive at the 22% overall margin. One of the biggest events of the second quarter in terms of the activity that we've had is we've fully integrated MRV, and we're going to get back to some of the details around that. But, it was consolidated into our accounting from the 9th of April in 2026, and it added effectively NOK 28 million to our second quarter revenue numbers. Order backlog is about NOK 548 million after the first half year, and that added a little bit.
So we are going to get back a little bit to the backlog numbers as well and talk about how that is reflected in the different types of company, because we have operating companies that are not all the same in terms of how we deal with backlog and what the expectations are in terms of how many months of visibility we have. Overall, the subsea segment in the defense area is growing quite rapidly right now, and you will see that when we get back to the numbers for our three different activity areas. The companies that are in the group have a very variable fraction of their sales into the defense, so it will affect each company slightly differently. But overall, it is very clear that there is a shift going on in the subsea sector right now where the defense is becoming quite dominant.
The thing there is that there is, well, we will get back to it again, but there is a mixture of money coming into that, and obviously, we all kind of associate ourself with the macro trends, but within the macro trends, there are a lot of details, and the different companies are being affected differently by this growth that we are seeing. Overall, a good second quarter. We are on track to meet our annual budget, which was NOK 1.5 billion in revenue. So we are looking at that as a very positive evolution for this quarter. And in terms of cash flow and how money does in the bank in the balance statement, we are working hard to keep our working capital within our targets as well as the CapEx, which is actually a little bit below the initial target for the year.
That is an overview, and then we will get into some of the details. In terms of the numbers, it is pretty straightforward. On the revenue side, we are looking at an increase from NOK 316 million to NOK 385 million for the quarter. For the first half year, which we have included here, you will see an increase from NOK 661 million to NOK 712 million, which is an 8% increase in the revenue for the first half. Again, both first quarter and second quarter have this FX effect, so it means that the underlying growth has roughly been 15% or so. So if you add those two numbers together, if you are really looking at what is going on internally.
Now, there are so many effects in different directions to these companies that we do, in many way, as a matter of principle, prefer to keep our eyes on the actual numbers, because otherwise, digging into all the variability that is underlying it can be a little tricky. On the adjusted EBITDA, again, from NOK 72 million to NOK 85 million, an 18% increase, and then on the first half, we have a 4% increase from NOK 139 million to NOK 144 million. And then if you go down to the adjusted EBITDA margins, you will see that it tracks very well with the revenue numbers, so there is not a huge variability. Second quarter has been good with 23%, 22%, and then for the first half, we are in the range of 20%, which is close to our overall targets, what we are working for, which is between 18% and 20%.
We are well within the numbers as we have announced them previously, both during the IPO, which happened on the 26th of March, and after our first quarter results. Total backlog, as I mentioned before, is actually increasing a little bit. Part of that is because MRV, which was the new acquisition that came in April, actually came in with a pretty nice backlog as they entered into the system. Different companies go a little bit up, go a little bit down, but overall, the backlog structure is quite solid. On the revenue analysis portion of it, we do divide our market in three different application areas with defense, marine construction, which includes wind, oil and gas, and any kind of operational activity in the ocean, and then we have the science bit. If we are starting on the right-hand side, the ocean science bit has been pretty steady.
That is typically funded by governments. There has been a lot of talk about science funding in the United States. I would think sort of overall that the administration is not always happy with what the scientists are doing in the U.S., but in terms of its effect on the numbers, it gets mitigated by two things. First of all, there is a strong dispute between Congress and the administration about how this is going to be funded. So sometimes when you hear that the administration is defunding a certain project, the Congress is actually moving in and actually changing that. The effect, in many ways, on this look at the financial side is actually that things get pushed out in time.
Money that should have come in April is coming in in October instead, and that is also what we are hearing from the market in general is that a lot of things get pushed out in time. The other part that is happening, which is interesting, is that foundations, ideal organizations, are basically stepping in and filling in the gaps in the science bit. Our expectations for the future on the science is that it is still going to be growing, but at a fairly slow rate, but we are not seeing any catastrophes happening based upon the U.S. administration's influence on this particular area. On the marine construction, there is no doubt that the effect of the reduction in activity and specifically the startup phase of wind activity, has affected the numbers for Q2 quite significantly and also for the full first half year.
And we have seen that across the board in the companies that are engaged. We have seen numbers from the service companies, specifically. Basically, the people who actually conduct the surveys and go out there and collect all the data, and for which we supply sensors and systems that they use. That particular business area has had major layoffs, both in 2025 and 2026, and projects in the wind area, even in Southeast Asia, are getting pushed out in time. I think we are seeing a fairly, at least for now, persistent reduction in activity in the wind. Oil and gas is picking up some of that, and of course, there is a lot of other activity related to ports and harbors, and sort of more normal operational things that are happening.
Those projects are still going forward, but the specific reduction that you are looking at in the marine construction area really is mostly about the reduction in wind activity or early phase wind construction. What is not going down at all is the defense application area, which is growing quite rapidly. It is being pushed, I would say, predominantly by, for our companies, a lot of it has to do with mine countermeasures. Basically, the activity of trying to remove mines from the ocean or identify them and making sure that you can go into certain areas without getting blown up. We see that, of course, it got emphasized even more with the Strait of Hormuz and the things that are happening now in Iran and things like that. It puts a light on that particular activity, and there is a lot of engagement in it.
The other part on the defense sector that is of particular interest for us is the area of navigation, underwater navigation, which is also strengthening the companies that are providing sensors for underwater navigations. It is not like a one-to-one between robotic segments and the defense activity. The defense activity is also pulling along activities in the sensor companies. It is a little more complex than just looking at it from the point of view of looking at the sensor segment and the robotic segment as separate areas. That does not mean that the robotic segment is not becoming larger on a relative scale relative to what they have been before. There is definitely growth in that area, and the robotics companies as such are very healthy right now. They are contributing the larger margins, and they are also contributing the larger growth.
We are definitely seeing it, but there is also defense components in the sensor companies that is of significance. A few words about MRV and the integration of the company. We consider this to be quite a successful acquisition, and that is not just about the numbers as such. It really is the underlying structure of the organization and the way it has been handled and integrated into the General Oceans group has worked quite well. Again, we talked about previously that some of the funding for scientific activity and MRV is specifically associated with what is called the Argo program, which is an international program to collect data, physical data primarily, from the ocean and delivering that to meteorological services across the globe. That is one of the areas where we see how foundations have stepped up.
In addition, MRV has gotten their first contract for defense applications, so defense is now going to be playing a larger role in their evolution, and we are looking at that company very positively going forward. We are organizing, reorganizing, working with them, integrating them in. On the sales side, they are getting integrated with Nortek's worldwide distribution system. We are also looking at integrating them with SRS, which is our San Diego company, and we are actually now opening a second facility next door to SRS in San Diego, which is going to be a collaborative facility between MRV and SRS. We are trying to find the synergies and how we can work together very actively as we are embracing MRV as part of the group. Management is now part of the reporting structure, and supply chain is something that we are working on because this was an extremely American-focused company.
This is one of the areas where we are benefiting from the larger group structure by being able to introduce them into the worldwide scheme of General Oceans on distribution and sales. On the segments, talked a little bit about the downturn in offshore wind, we talked a little bit about the FX effects that obviously had an effect on both Q1 and Q2. The other elements that is very important for the long-term success of the sensor segment is our new products. They have been lagging a little bit, so we should see the effect of the newer products, we are going to see that primarily in 2027. All of the companies in that segment actually have new products lined up for introduction later this year, and then more commercial introduction in 2027.
On the robotics side, again, all of those companies are at least partially serving the defense market, some of them 100%, some of them 60%, 70%. We are now refocusing our resources, especially on the sales side, from segment sensors into the robotics, because that is where we see the larger growth. In terms of the evolution of the business that we are in, there is a clear need right now to reorganize a little bit with the refocusing things in the areas where we see the largest growth. Which is then on the robotics and the segment side, and the defense application areas on the application area. We are really working very actively to sort of make sure we are taking advantage of the evolution that is happening. We are also then trying to establish relationship.
We have decided on the organizational focus, and sort of as a philosophy, we are going to be providing sensors and systems and subsystems for the primes, which means the larger defense organizations. Those are the neo-primes, which are all the cool things that are privately funded right now, and to make sort of large autonomous submarines and those kinds of things that we are working with. There is a whole change going on in terms of subsea warfare, and I think we are looking a little bit at the kind of things that happen on the drone side in Ukraine. We are now seeing a parallel activity going on in the subsea space and for navies around the world. Our job now is to make sure that we are set up to serve that change that is actually going down. Okay.
On the outlook side, target of the year, still NOK 1.5 billion in revenue. We have not changed our outlook for that. Everything sort of fits with what we have seen from the first half. So we are as confident as we can be, or at least this is what we are working at. We are on the M&A side, which obviously is of interest. There is a lot of activity right now. There has been some very, very big acquisitions, the multi-billion dollar acquisitions going on. So that part, the space that we do not play in, but the fact that there is a lot of activity means that the larger companies are really looking at how the space is changing and are making sure that they can adapt to the new changes by acquiring the smaller companies that are out there.
There is also PE funds that have been messing around in this area and looking to sort of see what they can acquire. There is competition, is really the big story. We have had an attitude about it where we try to be disciplined. We are trying to make sure that we are not buying things that are not going to give us long-term value creation, in general. We are active, so we are talking to companies. We will, at some point, see new companies getting integrated, but we are careful about not overpaying and making sure that these companies that are coming into the group are relevant for our strategic targets. As I mentioned, we are shifting resources. We are improving the relationships we have with the defense industry in general because we were not originally a defense company, so we are kind of doing a pivot here.
On the AI side, which everybody is talking about these days, we are really looking at the major benefit of AI into the areas of product development. We are running multiple prototype projects right now where we are looking at how we can use AI to actually facilitate and improve the speed at which we can develop new products. This is the area where we are spending a lot of resources, a lot of money is going into R&D. If we can be more effective in that area, we think that can contribute to the long-term success of General Oceans. With that, I am going to leave the word to my colleague, Anton Van Heerden, who is going to talk about the numbers.
Good morning. Thank you, Atle . I am just going to touch on the financial highlights in our report. This slide, just to reiterate, it is just to give a flavor of the movement by quarter over time. As you can see, quarter two 2026 at NOK 385 million versus NOK 316 million in 2025 is quite significant, and also it appears to be the highest quarter, but if you take out MRV, it is actually the second highest quarter we have had. Margins is still good at 22%-23%. We are on track. We are still looking into improving our margins in all entities, but we are happy with our performance up to date. Moving on. Cash flow and working capital. We started the year with NOK 341 million. We generated, on an EBITDA basis, NOK 155 million. We spent money in our working capital CapEx and income taxes.
A big spend was purchasing MRV at NOK 176 million on a net cash basis. This column over here at NOK 420 million is the net effect of the IPO, where we generated NOK 500 million on new shares. We issued some treasury shares. We paid back our treasury share debt. We had about NOK 30 million in transaction costs, ending at a net cash inflow of NOK 420 million. Ending currently at NOK 546 million, which still gives us a good cash reserve for our future M&A activities. We also have NOK 325 million in undrawn facilities on top of this, which gives us quite a nice pool for M&A activity. On this side of the slide, it is our working capital, net working capital graphs. As you can see, we are trending around 15%. Our target is actually 15%-20%, so quite pleased that we are actually beating that target up to date.
This slide is our backlog. You can see our backlog is at NOK 548 million. The order intake is fairly steady the last couple of quarters. These spikes you see is when we get the large contracts, like defense contracts. The order intake in 2026 is sensors and robotics, is 32% robotics and 68% for sensors on the current year. Our backlog profile as of June is about 50/50 between sensors and robotics. Here is our P&L profile. Atle already talked about it, so I will just touch on the main highlights for us on the P&L. Half year, we are on NOK 712 million versus NOK 661 million in 2025. Our gross margin is trending at 70% range, 70% versus 69%. Trending in both in the quarter and half year on that.
Adjusted EBITDA, Q2 was quite good at 22% versus 23%, but on the year it is averaging at 20%-21%. Breaking it up into our segments. This is our sensor segment. As you can see, just to highlight, if you look over here, our gross margin is 65%, 67%, and on the half year at 65%, 64%, so very stable. It is lower than the group as a whole because robotics has lifted us up on the gross margin. As you can see at the bottom again, when you get to an EBITDA range, we are now 20%, 22%. Robotics. You can look at our changes. You can see it was quite a significant increase half year to half year on the revenue basis. It is really not very comparable. We have increased our robotic segment significantly this year compared to the same period last year.
If you look at a comparable on the percentage basis, you can see the gross margin is 80%. That is to do with product mix, very favorable for us at this stage, versus 55% in the first half of 2025. The EBITDA contribution is 41% from the robotics side, which helped us achieve 22% for the half year and the quarter. On balance sheet, we had some movements in the balance sheet. Of interest is the increase in the fixed asset component, which is NOK 188 million, which is driven by goodwill and the intangibles with the acquisition of MRV. Our CapEx spend is at NOK 17 million, which equates to 2% of our year-to-date revenue, and that is our target range between 3% and 4%. So we are well within our target range on our CapEx spend.
We are not behind on CapEx spend versus according to budget, so we are spending where we need to spend on our CapEx. Our investments increased to NOK 20 million. It is another NOK 10 million increase in Q2 where we invested another NOK 1 million into the ReynKo investment we have. The net working capital, as mentioned before in the previous slide, it ended at NOK 194 million, which was 14% of our LTM revenue. So overall, our capital management is quite still within our parameters we are aiming for. This was a slide we presented on IPO. It has not changed. Our target is still NOK 1.5 billion for revenue. As Atle mentioned, our EBITDA target revenues, we are still 2% - 4%, as we are still within that. Other than that, we are tracking to our trends and quite pleased with our financial performance to date. We have now reached the Q&A session.
I can see we have some Q&As. I'll read them out. Sorry, I'm just moving back to visibility. Okay. I'll read them out so everyone can honestly hear them. The first question we received is, What are the key growth drivers in the defense sector?
The key growth driver is the increase in production of underwater Remotely Operated Vehicles, what we call ROVs, and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, which is usually referred to as AUVs, or some people call them UUVs. But it's the vehicle, the increase in the volume of vehicles that is driving the growth for our companies.
Thank you. The next question is, I'll read it out. On July 21st, you flagged that Fidelity Investments, one of the largest financial services and asset management groups in the world, had become a major shareholder through seven of their investment funds. They are now our third largest shareholder. Have you been in dialogue with them, and do you expect them to increase their shareholding further?
I am not going to speculate about what they buy and sell. I think that's beyond my competency level. But we have been speaking to them. We've had the meetings with them, as we have with many different investors. It is a very interesting dialogue. They're clearly digging into what we do in a very organized and professional way, and we obviously appreciate their entry into our cap table, and are looking at that as a very positive development in terms of our overall cap structure.
Thank you. Next question. What are determining factors for SRS and Klein being able to grow from high base in 2026? It jumped again. Can you give any flavor of potential upcoming tenders that you are planning to participate in?
Well, the activity in those two companies is a complex question and is a complex answer, and I am going to make it simple. Basically, the Klein area is driven by MCM activity around the world, so it really is about how the different countries' navies are trying to find and eliminate mine. Klein is typically engaged in the process of finding mines, whereas SRS is involved in the process of eliminating mines. So as long as the focus continues on that activity, there will be growth in those two companies. Now, underlying that, there is a lot of geography, what geographies we are involved in, and how that thing is on a larger scale behaving. Both of those companies were originally a little bit of a turnaround companies, and SRS specifically is no longer in that category, and that has obviously contributed very positively to our numbers in 2026.
We expect them, through our reallocation of resources, both on the technology side, on the sales side, for that to continue going forward. On the Klein, we have different type of strategies. They are more oriented towards the sensing side of it and have different programs to evolve new types of sensors or better sensors. So their success long term is going to be dependent on their ability to deliver on their product roadmap.
Yep. Next question is similar, I think you just answered that one. How are negotiations and contracting discussions progressing for SRS and Klein for 2027 deliveries, and when should we expect these opportunities to start converting into order backlog?
I think in terms of 2027, the typical delays on those types of products is actually, there's not a single answer to that question, but the typical timelines may be 6-12 months on delivery. I would say that if there's no backlog in any one of those company by the end of the year, we would get a little nervous. However, there are different programs going on right now. People are bidding on contracts, and there's also a lot of upgrade programs going on. At this point, I'm pretty calm about the situations and the reduction in backlog we've seen because they've been working on very large contracts, but we're not at the stage yet where their situation is particularly precarious in any way. I expect that we will see something both now in Q3 and Q4.
All right. Thank you. Next question. You mentioned that the development of drones is increasingly moving into the subsea domain. Could you elaborate on the trends you are seeing, particularly across smaller versus larger AUVs, and highlight some of the most interesting platforms your technologies are already deployed on today?
When you have a subsea vehicle, whether it is remote operated or it's an autonomous vehicle, you do need to navigate it, so the navigation portion of it is partially assisted by one of our operating companies here in Norway, who is providing navigation equipment for these type of devices. In terms of the purpose that these devices have, as I said, there's a lot of MCM work on it. It could be you using autonomous vehicles to find mines, and then you could use an ROV to eliminate them once you know where they are, as an example. But there are a lot of other application areas as well. Remote operated vehicles and also autonomous vehicles is now also being used by special forces.
Expeditionary type of activity where you're looking at what's going on in a certain area, and you want a clandestine operation where you're sort of sneaking in across a river. There's sort of a lot of different areas where these things are being used right now. On the AUV side, especially when you're seeing the larger constructions of autonomous vehicles or underwater vehicles, some of them are actually carrying torpedoes. I saw the Australians, for instance, which are in the midst of their AUKUS programs and are waiting for nuclear submarines that are coming in in a decade, have now diverted a lot of their resources into developing large autonomous underwater vehicles. And they're filling them up potentially with other payloads, and one of those payloads is a torpedo.
That means that you are now having underwater vehicles autonomously delivering large numbers of torpedoes into a battle space as a fleet approaches, for example. This whole scenario is changing radically right now, just like the drone changed everything, both the land-based warfare in Ukraine as well as the air-based warfare.
Okay. Another question on AUVs. There appears to be a large number of autonomous maritime projects, but many remain at relatively low volumes. Are you seeing evidence that customers are moving from demonstrations and initial deployments to fleet scale procurements?
There is a lot of controversy in how this is happening and how this works, but basically what is happening right now is there is a lot of private money going into new companies that are developing what they consider to be relevant solutions for how underwater warfare is going to happen in the future. Some of these are competing, and a lot of this is money that actually comes from private equity and VC-funded organizations. The money is pouring in, and not all of them are going to win, but some of them are. The programs that are expected to be realized for the ones who win are in the hundreds and in the thousands.
I think the number of inquiries that have come in over the last six months where people are asking, "Can you deliver 400 in six months if we need it?" Those are numbers and questions that we have never seen before. Whether or not this is being realized depends really about that is the next step, which just means that the military or the Navy is going to adopt the solutions. I think we have seen some really nice results actually here in Norway, where I see both Kongsberg's HUGIN has been part of a large program. I think Oceaneering has had some programs as well, where they are getting adopted. Actually, kind of interesting that Norwegian underwater robotics technology is actually doing very well right now in terms of the adoption in the U.S. Navy.
That is a testament to how much time and how much effort Norway's organizations have spent in developing these products and also tested them in real-world applications. It's a very positive evolution, and that's another job that we have is to attach ourself to the activities that are happening here, and we already have a good relationship with some of these companies. We're expecting that when the navies sort of kick off the actual spending, we will be hanging after them and taking advantage of it.
Okay. Thank you. This slide I think is answered already, but I'll repeat the question. Robotics is growing strongly driven by defense deliveries. In your current backlog, have you secured new orders that make you confident for continued growth in robotics in 2027?
No. The backlog that we have today is a combination of multiple of the operating companies, so we don't have the visibility to say exactly what's going to happen in 2027. All we can say is that there's a lot of activity, there's a lot of projects, and there's a lot of navies that are interested in the products that General Oceans operating companies are making. Then we will see sort of what the-- There are budget numbers there, or budget processes. A lot of these things are being ordered towards the end of the year, towards the end of the fiscal year, which may be in October in United States , it may be in April in Japan, so it's kind of spread out all over the place.
A lot of this comes as very lumpy orders and it is hard to predict sometimes exactly what and when they are coming, because many of these processes are a little bit hidden. They are not necessarily very open where people are saying that we are going to order something exactly by this date. Instead, they are getting in the bids, and then suddenly things happen very quickly.
Okay. There is another question on the backlog. Can you give some flavor on the order intake in the quarter, given you have a split between robotics and sensors, and how much is defense? I think I can just push you to the slide we had. It is broken up there by percentages. Yeah.
Yeah. I think we will just refer to the presentation in terms of the backlog evolution.
Yeah. Last question coming in. Can you give examples of how synergy effects are achieved across the group through cooperation between the brands?
It's happening primarily in two areas. One is on the sales side, where we have both as General Oceans, we have initiated, for instance, we set up an office in Singapore last year. We're now working on other geographies to have offices that are jointly working with all the operating companies. General Oceans is starting to play a bigger role in terms of gathering the resources that are required in order to penetrate or enter and penetrate the new markets. There's collaboration across informal collaborations where people are talking about events or things that are happening that they hear about, and then they're delivering to another one. But it's not sort of super organizationally structured in such a way that people are selling multiple products from different companies. We're still retaining, on the sales side, the structure where one salesperson is basically representing one operating company.
This is a long tradition, and we can have a discussion about that some other time. But that's how we do it right now. On the development side, we are bringing engineers and engineering capability in from one company to other companies as we see it's required and as people are better suited to do a certain task in one company, we will bring them into the other company in order to fill out the competency profile that may be required for development. So it's fairly light at this point, I would say. This is sort of a process of governance and the governance structure of this group is continuously under discussion, and we're actually running several projects right now where we're looking at how we can do this in the best possible way and how we generate the best possible value.
But we're very careful because the organizations we're dealing with are far apart. They're not in the same neighborhood. Sometimes it's an eight-hour flight from one company to another. So you have to be a little careful about sort of forcing too much collaboration because it's not always practical to do it. We want to make sure that the autonomy, which is a very strong driver in the individual organization, is preserved.
Thank you. That was the last question.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.