Good morning, and welcome to Grieg Seafood's fourth quarter presentation. My name is Nina Willumsen Grieg, and I'm the CEO of Grieg Seafood. Together with me today is also our CFO, Magnus Johannesen. Today's agenda will cover a current status on our strategic turnaround, and updates on our operational and market performance. As always, Magnus will walk us through our financial review and also share some information on the dividend after the transaction. Starting with the highlights of the quarter. This is our final presentation covering discontinued operations, and I'm pleased that the closing occurred as scheduled in Q4. It has required quite some resources and focus from our organization, and we look forward to focusing solely on Rogaland going forward.
Q4 represents a solid quarter, harvesting just below 7,400 tons and delivering a farming EBIT of NOK 20.7 per kilo, a result we are very pleased with. I will get back to details on this in our operational review. A high priority for the management team continues to be restructuring of the company. We are continuously doing changes and improvements in our balance sheet, structure, and operating model. As a result of the closing of the transaction, we have used the proceeds to repay debt, taking up a new syndicate with Nordea and SEB, and the board has taken the principal decision to advise the general assembly to pay NOK 4 billion in distribution to shareholders. I will continue to repeat this slide and our new focus strategy.
We will go from global growth to regional profitability. This shift requires disciplined execution, and we have maintained momentum also in Q4. A key operational focus for us continues to be how to best utilize the strong position we have on post-smolt and land-based. During the quarter, we announced the planned expansion at Tytlandsvik of 2 new buildings, and we are also planning to build an in-house smolt facility at Årdal. These projects have been in development for a long time and will support improved performance and fish welfare throughout our value chain. We will give you more details on this in our Q1 presentation. Capital discipline is key to our new direction, and investments in Grieg Seafood is kept at the minimum level during Q4 and until new strategic plans are reviewed and implemented.
Having completed downsizing, we have turned our focus to absolute cost and reducing complexity. As part of that, we have defined additional cost reduction of a conservative estimate of NOK 50 million for 2026, as we target below NOK 3 in overhead cost on average. These actions are all key for us to achieve our targets. Deep diving into operations and quarterly performance in Rogaland. All our freshwater facilities, including joint ventures, delivered solid production with an average smolt weight of 1.2 kilo. Following a challenging Q3 for us, we have to say, we had a slow start for production at sea, with elevated mortality into this quarter as well. However, the performance improved as lice and gill challenges eased, and production was strong in the quarter overall.
This allowed us to recover the lost growth and enter into 2026 with high average weights in sea and maximum MAB. Actually, 98% for the year on total, on MAB utilization. Harvest volumes increased from Q3, resulting in all-time high harvest volume of almost 30.5 tons for Rogaland. Our guidance for 2026 is 31,000 tons for the full year and 6,600 tons for Q1, slightly skewed towards the end of the quarter. The farming cost for the quarter was NOK 63.6, still higher than we like, but lower than Q3. We still have our long-term target of NOK 60. Summing up the key figures for Q4, it has been a strong quarter, with an operational EBIT of NOK 152.8 million.
The post-smolt we put to sea is now significantly higher than any of our peers. The distribution of smolt size has shifted dramatically over the last few years, as you can see in this chart, with more than 50% being above 1 kilo. As noted in Q3, our main objective going from 2024 to 2025 was to minimize the lower sized groups, and only our brood stock smolt, 7% of our smolt, was below 500 grams in 2025. Finding the right sized smolt for each site is key part of our production planning. The smolt put to sea in Q4 was 900 grams from Tytlandsvik and 1.4 kilo from Årdal on average. In 2026, we also plan to harvest 500 tons of fully grown fish from Årdal. This is a pilot.
The fish is performing well, and it is providing valuable insights into the potential of full cycle land-based production. Turning to some comments on sales and processing, we were very happy with our achievements in this quarter. Our achieved sales price was NOK 84.3, a solid beat on the index, driven by high harvest weights, 55% contract share, and strong sales performance on spot. The price experienced an upward trend during the quarter, as illustrated in the middle chart. Looking at the details of it, the chart, it reveals that we benefited from optimal harvest timing, both for the entire quarter and on a weekly basis. We believe we are able to achieve this over time through close collaboration between production and sales. At Gardermoen, Oslo Salmon Processing, it's called, construction was finalized in December, and we successfully started production in January.
Initial ramp-up shows high demand for filets, and access to external raw material is expected to be sufficient to maintain high production utilization in 2026, but we expect Q1 to be a ramp-up period. We are guiding a volume of 8,500 tons of raw material for value-added products in 2026. To ensure high utilization of this facility, we are currently seeking partners to supply external fish and also exploring partnership models for the facility itself. With that, I leave the floor to Magnus.
Thank you, Nina, and good morning, everyone. I think, as you might have seen already, this quarter is presented with the implications from several of the processes that we have completed, but also initiated in Q4. This includes the closing of the transaction, which causes a significant inflow of cash. It's also about the hybrid bond, which has been temporarily reclassified to debt, and also discontinued operations, which are still included in both our NIBD structure, as well as our cash flow that we present today. We're also happy to report that we have completed what we promised in Q3, both in terms of dividend, but also in terms of closing the negotiations with Nordea and SEB, which we are very pleased to have entered into a new financial syndicate with very few days ago.
With that, I will go into the profit and loss statement. Starting on the top, we see that our sales revenue have increased 10% year-over-year. This is mainly due to higher price achievements, both from our composition of higher average weight, but also our financial contracts and physical contracts. However, it's drawn slightly below, slightly down again from lower superior share and lower volume compared to Q4 last year. Moving to EBIT, we see that our costs have increased slightly from what we have guided, from what we have achieved earlier, and this is due to we have continued harvesting from a site in Q3 that had a higher capitalized cost to that inventory. This results in a higher farming cost that will also continue in Q1, as we will continue harvesting from this specific site.
We do see this as temporarily until this site is fully harvested out. Despite this, solid price performance ensures the group EBIT of NOK 142.9, corresponding to a 19.4 EBIT per kilo. Moving my attention to some special items in the profit and loss statements, which includes the reversal of a previous write-down on one of our licenses in Rogaland. This is done due to the de-merger of our group company that kept the licenses, Grieg Seafood Norway, where we now reversed that write-down in this quarter. Moving my attention to the net profit for the period from discontinued operations, and this number includes a gain of approximately NOK 900 million on the sale of Grieg Seafood Canada, or Canada operations and our Finnmark operations.
Many might wonder why this is so much further below than NOK 10.2 billion equity value. That is simply that the assets we sold also had an outgoing value from our balance sheet, but that we still have received the cash as stated in our cash flow statement. This is basically the sold price or the price of what we have sold minus the asset value of what we have sold. Moving on to cash flow. As you might see, we don't have the cut function as things still have in our reporting formats. Overall, our net cash flow from operations came in at NOK 173 million for all four regions.
This is positively impacted by our operational EBITDA of NOK 408 million, negatively impacted by changes in working capital of slightly above NOK 400 million, which includes a biomass buildup of NOK 220 million across all four regions. That also represents that both the regions that we have sold and Rogaland regions that we are maintaining have had good quarters in C. Looking at the net cash flow from investment activities, this is also significantly impacted by the transaction. Not surprisingly, this is mainly due to the net proceeds related to the sale of around NOK 9.1 billion. If we isolate the net CapEx investments, this came in around NOK 170 million.
Out of this, NOK 140 million is related to the discontinued operations, which is, of course, mainly driven continued construction of the Adamselv facility in Finnmark. This also shows that the Rogaland region have a very well-invested value chain and has no need for significant CapEx lifts in the year to come. For 2026, we are doing the share issue in Årdal Aqua to build the on-site smolt facility of around NOK 45 million, which is NOK 15 million lower than what we guided on previous quarter. If we then look our eyes on 2027, we see that there's no significant CapEx plans except replacement and maintenance CapEx, which included here on the slide, which are conservative estimates. Going then down to net cash flow from financing, which is also heavily impacted by the inflow of cash from the transaction.
All in all, when we receive the settlement, the proceeds in Q4, we distributed significant portions of this to repaying all our debt and credit lines in the previous bank syndicate. This is quite obvious from this slide, but what is important to also note is that this does not include the bridge loan that we took on early Q4 to plug the CapEx need for Adamselv facility in this quarter. Residual items include lease liabilities, interest cost, and also the hybrid dividend. Moving down to the net interest-bearing debt. It's I think it's the first time that the Grieg Seafood presents a negative net interest-bearing debt position.
What this can be translated to is that we have a cash positive position that going to go out of Q4. Starting on the net interest-bearing debt going out of our third quarter, we see that this has been positively impacted by the operational EBITDA across all 4 regions, negatively impacted by biomass buildup and gross investments, as well as the hybrid dividend. There's a significant increase due to the reclassification of our hybrid bond. Just to pause there for 1 second, is that this reclassification is due to the bondholders having a right to exercise their put until 28 of January, which means that going out of Q4, this had to be classified as short-term debt. Now that we have exited this put option period, it will be once again reclassified as equity.
It's also important to note that when we reclassify it to debt, it had to be reclassified at 105% and not 100%, but it will go back to equity as 100%. That's a bit technicalities, but it's important to note. You see that we have done the down payments of approximately NOK 4 billion, and we have other changes of around NOK 5 billion, which, except some timing differences, is purely. With the NIBD as, with the NIBD going out of Q4 of negative NOK 2.4 billion, NOK 2.5 billion, or alternatively, a net cash positive position of NOK 2.5 billion.
Moving to one, I just want to highlight one thing, is that in Q4, the Gardermoen facility entered our balance sheet with the releasing debt that we have entered into in terms of the construction of that facility. Moving then to a topic I received quite a lot of questions about in the past months. Overall, the board will propose to an extraordinary general assembly that the company should distribute approximately, or not approximately anymore, actually, NOK 4 billion in shareholders to shareholders.
The reason why we can't share all the details of X date and payment date, et cetera, is that we are still awaiting the finalization of the interim balance sheet and the audit of this balance sheet, which is formality criteria in order to pay out a dividend. We do not expect this to be any issues, but it is a formality that we need to follow. However, we will say that you can expect the call for an extraordinary general assembly to be sent out by end of March, where all the details will be listed, and hence, payment will be done shortly after the general assembly has been completed. The extraordinary general assembly has been completed. With that, I will hand over to Nina, who will take us through the future building blocks.
Thank you, Magnus. As we wrap up the last quarter and under the previous Grieg Seafood structure of 4 regions, I want to highlight our key strategic building blocks going forward: strengthening, prioritizing, and future-proofing our operations. Our focus in 2026 is strengthening the company and driving profitability, building the fundament for the future. Biological KPIs and performance remains the core benchmark of our success as fish farmers. Rogaland has in 2025 delivered high harvest weights, record volumes, optimal MAB utilization, and an average operational EBIT of 21 NOK per kilo if you look at the last 5 years, confirming our position as a top operator. We will prioritize key initiatives for growth, both on land and at sea.
Our progress towards 10,000 tons of land-based production demonstrates our ability to execute on our strategic choices. Through 2026, we will be evaluating the next phase of our land-based production. The ongoing expansion at Tytlandsvik and the pilot at Årdal for harvest-sized fish are central to this part of our strategy. Looking ahead, future-proofing means preparing for opportunities with new technology and adapting to regulatory changes that we believe will come. Our partnership since 2019 with FishGLOBE has provided valuable insights on closed containment and new technology, which we will leverage in the next steps. This fourth quarter represents a solid foundation for the future Grieg Seafood that we envision. We delivered good biological results, robust sales performance, made decisive decisions, and ultimately achieved strong financial results.
With that, I welcome Magnus back to the stage, and we open for questions.
Hi. Alexander Aukner, DNB Carnegie. Could you give an indication of how much of the hybrid bond has been recalled?
Yes, it is obvious to us that many of the bondholders still believe that the bond should remain in our balance sheet, given the financial position. It was only one bondholder that exercised the right to put their put on 105, and we are in dialogue with many others. We do expect we are keeping all options open when it comes to the both redeeming the hybrid bond through replacement capital or tender offer. As you can also see, it has been reclassified to debt this quarter, so we need to go into the dialogue with shareholder, to the bondholders and find a solution with them, how we can redeem this bond. Our intention is to redeem it in the, indeed.
Okay. The CapEx and the working capital build-up for the discontinued operations, is that already netted out in the net proceeds, or will that be adjusted in Q1?
It should already be netted out in the proceeds, yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Will the site with the higher capitalized cost be emptied out, fully emptied out in Q1? How does it look on performance, cost, performance on then the sites from Q2 and onwards?
Yes. The most challenging site will be harvested out in Q1. We had a challenge in Q3, and it meant... It was mainly this and a part of a few other sites. It is mainly this, that. It will be out during Q1.
You reiterate your long-term target of NOK 60 per kilo in Rogaland.
Mm-hmm.
Would that be within reach then during 2026 or for the full year, given that the level will likely be a little bit high in Q1?
I think we have shown that the biological challenging conditions in 2025 still gave us a cost EBIT per kilo of 61.7. For 2025, we don't expect to be achieving the NOK 60 long-term target, but we are working on a positive trajectory towards that over time.
Thank you.
Christian Orre, Arctic Securities. You have increased the smolt weight substantially in 2025 versus 2024. Do we see full impact of that on your harvest guidance for 2026, or should we think that there will be more growth to come in 2027 based on that?
There will become some more growth in 2027 based on that.
Okay. Thank you.
Good. Another maybe important to mention, also when a smolt size increases, we have higher cost going through biomass from land, hence you will see higher cost in our biomass numbers as well. Mm. All right. Anything on the web?
There's one question on the web regarding, if you can say anything about the total amount presented in the claim from the minority shareholder in Grieg Seafood Newfoundland AS, and if there will be any legal proceedings regarding that.
This is a Canadian former minority, and our assessment is that this is a claim which is not substantial in amount or probability. This specific owner had an ownership of 0.5% of the Newfoundland shares. We do not see this as something that We have not provisioned for anything of this, but we mention it due to the fact that it has been made a letter, not any formal legal claim. Thank you. All right, based on that, thanks a lot.
Thank you. Have a nice day.