Good morning and welcome to Höegh Autoliners Second Quarter Presentation. My name is My Linh Vu, Head of Investor Relations, and with me today we have our CEO Andreas Enger and our CFO Espen Stubberud. We will present you with the last quarter business and financial update. As usual, we will have our Q and A session at the end of the presentation, and you can ask questions by sending an email to our Investor Relations mailbox iahope.com. Without further ado, I will leave the stage to you, Andreas.
Good. Thank you, My Linh, and welcome to our Second Quarter Presentation. We are pleased to present yet another strong quarter and yet another high, good, strong dividend payment, and also another vessel sale that was just concluded. Our quarter has an EBITDA of $166 million, which is up 7% on previous quarter, net income of $124 million. That's down, but adjusted for the gain on the sale of Höegh New York, which was completed in the first quarter, also net income is up. We have a flat gross rate. We have declared a dividend of $137 million. We have taken delivery of two more Aurora class vessels, Höegh Sunrise and Höegh Moonlight, and we have a continued strong equity ratio of 54%. Strong numbers across the board this quarter as well. I'm going to go through a little bit on the market.
We have this quarter, I think, seen a larger variation of estimates from analysts, and it seems like our monthly report is not fully delivering the picture. We believe that has something to do with fully understanding our capacity and market strategy, and we're going to go a little deeper into that to make sure that we get that fully communicated with the benefits, but also some of the associated costs. We have, for the last, all the time since or even before the IPO, had very, very strong focus on managing the cycle. It started with launching the newbuild program that actually triggered the IPO to basically serve the need for fleet renewal and also future-proof our fleet with fuel flexibility. We went on and captured the opportunity of doing very forceful repricing of cargo and improved contractual terms when the market became tight out of the pandemic.
We have built a duration and extended contract backlog to secure earnings through the cycle. We're going out of the cycle with a historically strong contract backlog that has further improved during the quarter. I think that is the important point. We've decided to actively divest non-core vessels during the peak to basically capture that value and also benefit from early deliveries of newbuilds, and we've also decided to go overweight cargo versus our carrying capacity in order to use this opportunity to create a strong backlog. As an implication of that, we've also taken on short-term capacity to balance out our system and in order to preserve the quality of our service to customers.
In this quarter that has added some costs because we're basically selling vessels that are fully depreciated and we are chartering in at short-term charter TCE rates that have come substantially down, but are still higher than the capacity cost in our own vessels. During this quarter, as a part of that, we have also had a fantastic growth in volume out of Asia, 47% since the second quarter of 2024, while the volumes out of the Atlantic are largely flat. We have made a conscious decision to serve that market and capture those cargo backlog opportunities in Asia, which over the cycle is normally the most attractive market in our business. As such, we are also accepting a larger imbalance, meaning that with more cargo coming out of Asia than out of the Atlantic, it's basically more ballast voyages that have some impact on the capacity side.
Looking at the charter market, we believe in many ways that the second quarter has, for us at least, confirmed our strategy. We expected the charter market to come down. It came from a level that was really almost twice, or was twice, the TC income in our system. We haven't chartered any vessels during that period. We did manage around our own capacity to maximize value. The charter market is normally the first to respond on the normalization of the capacity balance and has come down substantially. We expect that market to go further down. The second quarter has been the first quarter in this cycle where we can actually charter vessels and turn them around and cover the cost in our network.
It also means that some of our marginal capacity for the time being is basically served at a substantially lower margin that will, in our prediction, improve when we get first delivery of further newbuilds that come in with a substantially lower cash capacity cost than also the current charter market. Also, as the charter market will be hit first by further newbuild deliveries, this is, for us, a very conscious decision and some choices on what we believe is the right way for us as a company to play the market in order to maximize value to shareholders, but also to create a more robust backlog into a different market. It comes with some cost during a transition period until we get to newbuilds or until the time structure market fully responds to a new capacity situation.
Just also to reiterate the capacity strategy, we have sold four vessels previously and I commented before, you know, those vessels are sold at a price per capacity that is fairly similar to what we actually pay for newbuild. Much larger, much more efficient vessel with dual fuel capabilities and more than 50% lower carbon emissions, also substantially lower fuel emissions. We have therefore decided to continue that run and we have just decided, sale of, agreed the sale of Höegh Beijing, going to be delivered in September at the price of $43 million. That's a mid-sized vessel and that is a further step on that capacity management. If we summarize, we have now sold, you know, a total of five vessels, aggregated capacity a little less than 30,000 CEU, proceeds of almost $290 million. They have an average age of almost 18 years.
We have at the same time acquired, that's lease and purchase options on leases, a large number of vessels being substantially younger with an average age to 12 years with almost 60,000 CEU and a cost of $315 million, which we believe is a very good exchange. If you look at Höegh Beijing in particular, we acquired that vessel in 2022 at $22 million, almost five years younger at the time and we're selling it now at $43 million and obviously after having had a very good ride of revenue generation and profit generation with that vessel during that journey. In a way, just to summarize, this is a core part of our strategy, managing capacity. I believe it has given, you know, a substantial improvement of our fleet quality, also adding, you know, we now have taken delivery of six newbuilds. It's a dramatic modernization.
We have freed up lots of capital and it has allowed us to continue to pay extraordinary strong dividends. In that context I think we should also reiterate that we have a dividend policy of paying out free cash flow that has included and will continue to include paying out net proceeds from asset sales. That strategy is based on the fact that we are fully invested for the cycle. With newbuilds, we have established a very strong balance sheet. We have a very competitive capacity cost going into the next stage of the cycle and we believe it is prudent to basically return surplus cash to shareholders in this stage of the cycle. Just to sort of clarify that whole thing, again that strategy comes with higher dividends. It also comes with some added costs until, as I said, we either get more further newbuilds.
We get two more newbuilds delivered at the end of the year with cash capacity costs substantially below the current TC rates. As I said, we do expect TC rates to come down as more newbuilds are delivered in the months and years to come. Another was, I think at our last quarter we were at a time of maximum uncertainty in terms of tariffs and port fees. In our previous presentation, we basically said that this was unclear and it was hard to make any firm decisions based on, you know, a fairly transparent and non process. That process has settled in many ways. Tariffs have been negotiated down and for most of our products, most of our trades is now down to 15%, substantially lower than what was announced at the time of our previous presentation. Port fees have also come down to a level.
That has in many ways stabilized the market. It has created a situation where we believe the disruption of sort of near term trade flows is going to be small or to some extent almost non-existent. I also think it is naive to believe that higher tariffs and higher fees, higher cost of transportation will not impact the market longer term. Right now we are in a situation where things have stabilized and we have a strong current performance, we have a strong outlook and the system seems to be working well. We will look closely at it. Probably going to be changes, probably going to be deals done. That is one item that I don't think we are particularly well positioned to guide on. It is a much more uncertain environment. We are working carefully on adapting our business at any time.
As we speak, the biggest change or biggest imbalances and biggest challenges to our system is that the fact that the growth in volumes out of Asia is not fully matched with return trades out of Atlantic creates some more imbalances in the system that we have decided to absorb in order to be able to continue to grow our contract backlog. USTR again started with some very dramatic, very dramatic proposal, particularly for car carriers being harder hit than any other segments. There's been lots of discussions, lobbying, we have support from authorities, international industry organizations, customers and others. The fees have come substantially down, but it's still a substantial fee that we believe is not in the best interest of our American customers and the American consumers. We will find a way to deal with it.
We are working closely with customers on ways to mitigate and reduce the impact for us on those charges. Reiterating the contract backlog, we have further increased our contract share during this quarter. We have added additional contracts and we have again a very strong backlog for the remainder of this year and also into next year. The average duration in our current backlog is 3.3 years. That's a bit on our business and capacity and where we are in the cycle and how we respond. Talking about sustainability, we also see big changes. The whole range of initiatives we have on reducing our carbon footprint has led to substantial improvements this year. It is a combination of a very focused program on upgrading, improving performance on our older vessels. It is about actually letting go of some of the weaker fuel performers. It's about using biofuel.
I think also very importantly it is about having taken delivery of six of the most fuel and carbon and also cargo efficient vessels in the industry with the Aurora class, which has been a big contributor. We are now seeing after some fairly stable periods the needle starting to move on our carbon intensity, which we are very pleased with. Two more of those vessels were delivered. We had a fantastic naming ceremony with customers in Japan for Höegh Sunrise in May. We took delivery of Höegh Moonlight in June and that vessel has been on a fully loaded voyage from Asia to Europe. We will have a naming ceremony again with customers in Gothenburg in a couple of weeks. We are very pleased with the program. It's ahead of schedule.
We have two more vessels coming towards the end of the year and we are then starting to dive into the dual fuel ammonia capabilities from 2027 onwards on the last four vessels. We are also working on the entire value chain and during the quarter at new shipping we have introduced the intention to support Nordic Circles on a concept to upcycle vessels rather than melting them down. The aspiration is that it is going to give economics comparable to scrapping. It is a 97% reduction of the emissions compared to normal steel production. We are working, as I said, closely with Nordic Circles to get together the conditions to be able to take the first vessel through that new and innovative recycling process during next year. That's an interesting thing also dealing with, you know, the end of life issues on vessels.
As you know, there will be more vessels and there will be more scrapping and there will be higher demand on scrapping yards in the time to come when newbuilds come and the legacy fleet grows older. That was my introduction and I'll leave it to Espen to take you through. Take us through the financial updates and financials for the quarter. Espen.
Thank you Andreas. Turning then to the financials, our volumes in the second quarter came in at 3.9 million. That's the highest quarterly volumes we've had since we stopped sailing through the Red Sea at the end of 2023. As Andreas already mentioned, we've had strong growth from Asia over the last year. We had weaker volumes from the Atlantic in the trades loading back to Asia in the first quarter, and we're pleased to see volumes in return trades rebounding nicely in the second quarter. As we've communicated earlier, we took on some new contracts at the end of last year that started in January, and we saw our rates coming down as a consequence in the first quarter. We are pleased to see that rates are stabilizing and marginally up quarter -on -quarter. In the second quarter, our second quarter EBITDA came in at $166 million.
That's up 7%. On the back of the increased volume, our EBITDA margin is slightly down to 45%. There are two main reasons. One is the imbalance mentioned by Andreas. We have somewhat more imbalance in our network causing slightly lower efficiency and some more balanced. The second reason is that the relative cost of the added short term capacity is higher for parts of the volume growth. Net profit before tax came in at $124 million. That's also up 6% quarter -on -quarter, adjusting for the net gain of Höegh New York in the first quarter. Looking at the EBITDA, as mentioned, we had lower rates affecting the first quarter performance going into the second quarter. We have an increase in the top line of $38 million, and the increased activity comes with higher costs related to fuel, voyage, and charter expenses. We end at $166 million.
I think just emphasizing as Andreas also covered in the beginning, the short term capacity that we've taken on is creating value for the long term agreements that we have taken on. All the short term capacity that we have taken on can be redelivered before Christmas and serves as a bridge capacity up to two more newbuilds that will be delivered at the year end. We have a robust balance sheet. We saw net interest bearing debt increase up $167 million in the quarter as we took delivery of 2 newbuilds in the second quarter and also paid installments onto subsequent vessels. Our equity ratio reduced to 54% but is still very solid. We ended the quarter with $204 million in cash and also have undrawn facilities of $219 million. That's another strong quarter for us in terms of cash generation. We had $153 million from operating activities.
Seemingly, we have an increase in working capital. This is not correct. It's related to the fact that we don't have any short-term liabilities for withholding tax at the end of the quarter. All the first quarter dividends were paid in the second quarter. We also had $16 million related to dry docks and other CapEx. We had $26 million net proceeds from the two newbuilds delivered in the second quarter, and then we had normal payments for debt and leases and paid out $158 million in dividends, ending then at $204 million. We are pleased with the start to the year. We are particularly happy with the growth we see now into the second quarter and very happy to declare a payment of $137 million to be paid in September. We have now paid $84 million over the past three years. Give it back to Andreas for the outlook.
Yes, I think there are two things to mention on the outlook. One is that, you know, we are still in an environment where tariffs and port fees are key. It's come into much more manageable territory, but it's still, you know, not good for business over time. We are looking carefully. Although we don't see much short-term effects, tariffs and additional fees, you know, could result in lower volumes transported and we're watching that very carefully. U.S. port fees will be introduced as of October 14. The gross annual cost for us would be about $30 million. We are working, you know, both on our capacity planning and management of the trades and with customers to mitigate that impact without exactly knowing the outcome of that. We expect a Q3 EBITDA.
Actually, I think we've said this is in line with the first half, not the first second quarter, but we are continuing. We basically believe in a continued strong performance driven by a continued good market and a very attractive contract backlog. There will be, due to our capacity management strategy that I previously said, you know, some additional charter costs in order to serve that volume and to deal with the imbalances that we need. We basically will try to wash away as we can get more attractive charters and, more importantly, very efficient newbuilds that are continuing to come on stream. That ends our presentation. I guess we're open for questions.
Mailed a few questions from our online audience, and the first question is from an online audience. What would be the prospect for dividend given that now market is entering a n ew cycle
And the prospects for dividends is I think we had carefully assessed. We did a thorough analysis, resilience analysis actually in the first quarter when market uncertainty, I think, was at a very, very high level. At that point we confirmed, reconfirmed our dividend policy of paying out free cash flow. We have once again, during our discussion now, I think I said it initially, are reconfirming that our dividend policy is to pay out 100% of free cash flow and it will include proceeds from sales of vessels. We do then expect the sale of Höegh Beijing to complete during the third quarter. There is no change to our dividend policy. It's basically reconfirmed and will continue.
The second question from analyst Frodo McAdalm is that volume growth in Q2 came stronger than anticipated. What are the key drivers and how do you see the trajectory for volumes in the second half of 2025? For the first part of the question, I just echo what Espen already mentioned. We have seen good support of cargo ex Asia and then we see a nice rebound cargo ex Atlantic as well. It is reflecting our strategy to go long on cargo. For the second part, for cargo trajectory for the second half of 2025, do you want to comment?
I think we've said that. We have taken on additional contracts. We are going long cargo. We expect, you know, cargo availability to be strong. We expect the regional imbalances to continue. We are basically working on converting our backlog and capturing additional opportunities in what we can continue to see as a strong market.
Thank you, Andreas. I think that's all the questions we have for now. Everything is loud and clear from the presentations, but thank you for watching. If you have more questions, feel free to reach out to us and to send email to our Investor Relations mailbox at iithope.com. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next time.