Welcome to today's earnings call of Havila Kystruten AS, following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2025. We are delighted to welcome the CEO, Bent Martini, and the CFO, Aleksander Røynesdal. The gentlemen will speak in a minute and guide us through the presentation and the results. After the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly to the gentlemen. We are looking forward to the results, and having said this, Bent, please, the stage is yours.
Thanks a lot, Ingmar. Welcome to our result presentation for the third quarter 2025. Next, please. We would like to start with this slide just to inform all of you that two days ago we started the voyage from the north in Norway, Hammerfest in Norway. We filled, bunkered the biogas and will sail the whole route, the 5,000 kilometers of the historical route on biogas and batteries, reducing the actual CO2 emissions by more than 92%. This has never been done before, which is such a big vessel. The first two days have been very successful, and we will continue southwards from Hammerfest and continue having some more biogas filled in Bergen and then sail northwards up to Kirkenes and back to Hammerfest. The first time in, yeah, it had never happened before that we actually have been able to do so.
This is one step closer to zero emission, and we will continue doing this going forward, blending in biogas. The target for the company is that in the end of 2028, we will have 100% of the bunker is biogas. We will deliver by the targets and ambitions we have put forward as a company. This is for us great and for the environment even better. Next, please. Yeah, I will take you through some general updates, and then Alexander will go more into the financial details. For those of you who have not seen this before, we are part of the concession with the Norwegian government sailing the historical route between Bergen and Kirkenes. There are in total 11 vessels operating in this route. We have four vessels, and our competitor has the seven vessels in the same route.
The company is part of the Havila Group, a family-owned company established in around Ålesund on the coast of Norway, founded by Per Sævik. He is the majority owner of the company. Next, please. We continue doing kind of a positive operation. We also in the third quarter this year, no operational downtime, meaning 100% operational uptime, and that is positive. The vessels are functioning and operating very good. This is very positive for the operations. Next, please. Yeah, some highlights. We continue to increase the revenues, the operational revenues grown by 13% year on year, and driven by a 17% increase in the average cabin revenues and a 5% increase in passenger nights. We reached an EBITDA of NOK 283 million positive, positive increase from the third quarter last year.
We have been able to continue to increase the onboard sales, not as much as we hoped to, but we are still focusing on that as a part of the growth of revenues. Operating costs increased by 9% due to growth in activity and general inflation. Happy to say that we continue to reduce emissions. Third quarter reduced by 38% CO2 reduction. Also the focus on food waste in the third quarter, 60 grams per passenger nights per guest, which is very, very low in this market. In total for 2025, we will have a total reduction of plus 75 tons for the four vessels, and that is great news. We have completed comprehensive refinancing, and Alexander will give you more details about that later on.
The same when it comes to the adjustments we have and the agreement we have reached with the Norwegian government related to the concession and the contract. Next, please. Yeah, we show this slide each time. We have focused on selling the tickets on our own channels. We have been able to grow it so that more than 50% of all sales are done through our own channels. This is very positive for the company when it comes to reducing the cost of commissions. It is positive when it comes to reduce the risk for cancellation. FIT bookings is very positive for us, very seldom cancellations. In addition to that, we have adjusted the contracts with the tour operators' agents so that we have longer lead time related to potential cancellations. This is very positive.
We have started or launched the campaigns for 2026, and the bookings are very solid for 2026. Next, please. When it comes to kind of the passengers traveling with us, we have been able to balance the differences between the northbound and the southbound voyages. This is a traditional challenge in this route, meaning that most of the travelers really would like to start in Bergen, but we have focused on shorter trips, enabling people to have more flexibility. For 2025, we've been able to balance the northbound and the southbound voyage, which is very positive when it comes to total occupancy, but also to optimizing the cost of operating the vessels. The U.S. market is growing, and the U.S. market is now the second largest market for us.
Still, the biggest market is the German-speaking countries, which is very, very good, but we see that the English-speaking market is also growing, which enables us to optimize also the product and the different segments of travelers. This is very positive also when it comes to what kind of spend each type of customers are giving back when they are traveling with us. Next, please. Yeah. More than 57% of our capacity is, and the target capacity or the bookings for next year are sold. When we speak today, more than 44% of the total capacity of the vessels are booked. This is more than 5% higher than we had at the same time last year, and the price is good. A lot of the kind of KPIs we are monitoring are very positive for going into 2026.
As mentioned, the high bookings from free independent travelers, FITs, the high bookings are very positive for the company and contribute to much higher margins. Of course, the risk of cancellations is reduced. Next, please. I will pass the word to Aleksander that will give you more flavor on the financial highlights. Please.
Thank you, Bent. Yeah, next slide. Overall, positive trend in financial operational performance for the quarter. We had, as you can see from the bar chart, operational revenues grew from NOK 367 million- NOK 422 million compared to last year. That is about 13% growth. If you look at the contractual revenues, increased substantially from around NOK 100 million- NOK 227 million. That includes one-off adjustment of both 2025 revenues from the government contract, but also about NOK 100 million related to previous years. Just a short comment on this adjustment. You know that the contract with the government is indexated every year, with a base year starting the year of signing of the contract in 2018. It is indexated to give the operators as correct as possible compensation for the services that are provided.
The indexation is published by the Bureau of Statistics each quarter, and it is consisted of different components, but among other, fuel. In 2022, a new index was introduced containing energy as fuel, which was not published prior to that. What we have seen through this revision is that it should have been constructed in a different way, the energy component of the indexation. We have done a thorough review with both the Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Transport. It has been going on for some time, but this was finally concluded now in the third quarter, which is positive. It also lifts the expected revenues for next year from the government contract. Originally estimated at NOK 365 million, and now it is revised upwards to NOK 426 million for next year.
On the operational revenue side, the focus is now on increasing the margins and getting into that plus 30% EBITDA margin level. I'll go through a bit more detail on the targets for next year, but it's comprised of ACR growth, that's the growth in the average cabin rate. We have targeted initiatives to grow onboard sales. We have signed a new or revised supply contract for LNG, and we do expect about NOK 30 million in cost savings on LNG compared to this year. We are also working on doing what we do better in terms of fine-tuning and optimizing operations now that the operations have matured somewhat. Next slide, please. Yeah. Key performance indicators. I think all of these are moving in the right direction. The occupancy, going back to 2023 at 65%, we've had two years of around now 73%.
We do expect around 73% for this year. That reflects also a huge growth in the ACR of about 20% compared to last year. Occupancy is trending upwards. The cabin factor is a measurement of how many guests we have per cabin per night. The more guests we have, the more onboard spend we have. It is a positive sign to see that that is slowly trending upwards as the company matures, as the product is more known, etc. Cabin revenue up as well. Highest ACR recorded in the company's history of NOK 6,100 per cabin. The onboard spend ended at about NOK 60 for the quarter. I'll go into that on some of the next slides, kind of the focus on onboard sales going forward. Next slide, please. On the cost side, as you can see, costs move with occupancy.
I'm showing on the left-hand side the cost per category and charted against occupancy. You can see that it moves somewhat with occupancy. I'll give you some details on the next slide on the variability on occupancy. In terms of share of OPEX, crewing and manning is certainly a large cost component of about 30%. LNG this quarter was about 20%. Cost of goods is also a large component, but very dependent on the occupancy and also the number of people onboard the ships. Next slide, please. Yeah. Going into the details of the cost side, on the left-hand side, you can see the different quarters charted in each category. On the COG side, we had a large cost increase, but that also reflects a high number of passengers in the third quarter.
Going from 78% occupancy to 80% occupancy, combined with a higher number of people onboard the vessel in each cabin, as well as somewhat higher sales per guest, leads to a higher cost of goods sold. The crew, the payroll crew, is also adjusted as we adjust manning according to occupancy. OPEX vessel is more trending with inflation, so it's more fixed, and it's not easy to do anything with the underlying operating cost, maintenance, etc., of the vessel. For the LNG side and the power, the cost is also very dependent on the fuel price, but there's also some fixed components in the LNG costs, such as supply margins and especially CO2 tax, which is becoming a rather large component of the fuel costs. The CO2 tax compared to last year is about 20% higher.
It is certainly a part of the cost of fuel for us, which also is kind of leading us into a future where we will start blending in biogas as and when we see that that makes both economic sense and also fits with our strategy of becoming climate neutral. Admin OPEX is pretty fixed, and it follows inflation more or less. On the right-hand side, you can see the occupancy charted against total operating costs. You can see that we are moving along this line, which means that the operating cost is quite linked to the occupancy that we have onboard the ships. Next slide, please. Yeah. Going into the outlook and the targets for the next years, we do have a target of NOK 600 million in next year, NOK 600 million in EBITDA, and we are maintaining that target from previous indications.
The NOK 600 million, how are we going to achieve that? It is comprised of somewhat higher occupancy. If we grow occupancy by, say, a percentage point, that is net approximately NOK 10 million in EBITDA. We do have a target, as Bent mentioned, we are 5% higher on the occupancy compared to last year. We have a target of increasing occupancy by 45% next year, which will then mean close to NOK 50 million net in EBITDA growth. If you look at the average cabin revenue, the lease price has been increased throughout the different cabin categories by 10-15%. That hits directly on the EBITDA line, and 10% is about NOK 100 million plus in EBITDA for a full year. We are expecting between NOK 100 million-NOK 150 million from just price growth.
We have, as I mentioned earlier, expectations of savings on LNG fuel compared to this year. There is a large focus on growing onboard sales. We have initiated a lot of new activities and focus on this onboard. We have not seen the full effect of these initiatives yet, but we do expect them to come to fruition in 2026. If you say NOK 100 per guest per night, it is not a lot. NOK 100 per guest per night is about NOK 35 million in increased revenues, where we have a very high margin on onboard sales. For 2027, we do expect that there is a potential to grow the ACR further and more than inflation. We have a target of 5-10% ACR growth.
We do think that as the brand and the product is more recognized, there is a potential to achieve a higher growth than the underlying inflation. We are still in a ramp-up build-up process where we have effects of better brand recognition for each year. We do expect EBITDA margins to trend into 30%-40% from 2027 onwards, bringing us into kind of a range of NOK 600 million-NOK 800 million in EBITDA. Some of the additional revenues are also expected to come from what we call pre and post-activities or additional revenue streams.
That is offering full package deals to our customers, including flights, combining it with train, combining it with hotel stays onshore, giving a full package deal to our customers, and really trying to develop the route to more than just a round-trip or half-trip product to a more specialized product where we utilize the benefits of each leg of the route. For 2025, we have previously indicated about NOK 400 million. We have revised that slightly to more than NOK 400 million following the verification and the final verdict from this compensation adjustment from the Norwegian government. Next slide, please. The debt overview. This is really the picture for the third quarter, which is prior to the refinancing that we published earlier and completed earlier this week.
In the third quarter, in July, we did an amendment on the existing bond financing, extending maturity to 2027, and also settling the call premium on the bond. The old bond was structured in a way where there was a call premium at the end on maturity of 6-8%. There was also a make-whole provision that made it kind of expensive to refinance early. I think to wait further was not in the company's interest. I think this transaction of doing an amendment with the existing bond, it positioned us to do a refinancing, and it made it possible for us to utilize a window of opportunity. The credit markets have been extremely supportive and open for the last 12 months, barring a few periods with some volatility. I think we have utilized a window of opportunity.
This was kind of the first stage to get to that refinancing that I'll discuss more in the next slide. The accounting effects of this amendment, you can see on interest costs. It's really a reflection of call premium and May call provisions that were settled in the third quarter. Next slide, please. We announced on the 24 November that we had closed a EUR 56 million debt facility structured as a financial lease with our majority shareholder, Havila Holding. It refinances all of the company's debt, secured debt, and unsecured shareholder debt with a very long maturity of 15 years. The maturity of the new facility is in 2040. It gives us stability, but it's also structured in a flexible way that we can refinance once we have kind of achieved the targets that we went through on the previous slides.
Once we have reached this 600-800 million in EBITDA, we should be in a position to refinance and improve the cost of our financing. This transaction effectively reduces interest cost from including cold premiums and May cold provisions from high-digit, double-digit figures to approximately 10% blended cost for the whole facility. It is structured in a way that is tailored to our ramp-up in terms of cash debt service. The estimated debt service for the first year is about NOK 395 million. It slightly increases in year two as we do expect operational revenues to be a lot higher at that point. The covenants are kind of customary for these types of transactions, but I can briefly go through them. It is a debt service coverage ratio of 1.0. There is a liquidity covenant of EUR 10 million, which is below kind of market for these types of facilities.
There is a value-adjusted leverage covenant of 65%. That is a value-adjusted covenant, which means it takes into account the broker value of the vessels, market value of the vessels, but also excludes the junior portion of the financial lease. I think we are very happy with having secured this refinancing now, being able to take advantage of the window that was there and kind of cutting the effective interest cost by half to half. It positions us to achieve operational, to focus on the operations, but also participate in the next concession round, which is expected to be announced next year. Next slide, yeah. The equity side.
The book equity is, of course, impacted by the settlement of the old bond in the third quarter, but also currency effects from incorporation of the company where the company has had asset and balance sheet in kroner, but debt in EUR, which is a large part of the negative book equity. If you adjust for market value of the vessels, which is quoted in EUR, and at the third quarter, we had an average valuation of EUR 683 million for the four vessels, which is substantially higher than the book value of the ships in kroner. Taking into account that market value, the value-adjusted equity is about just below NOK 3 billion. It is also supported by a positive stock valuation of about NOK 1 billion. Next slide, please. Yeah. A few words on the share.
As previously announced earlier this year, we completed a reverse share split where 50 shares were consolidated into one share. It was completed in November. This exercise was done to kind of achieve a more robust pricing for the shares. We do have a fairly large number of international investors which get quotes for the share in EUR and USD. I think for these investors, the reverse share split was well received. There is substantial asset value in the four vessels. With the refinancing, the vessels are still recorded on our balance sheet. It is structured as a financial lease where there are options to repurchase the ships at certain pre-agreed pricing. There is a lot of upside to the value of the company built in the value of the ships.
We secured a refinancing now in November that we think is a good platform for taking the company into the next stage. It can be optimized or refinanced when the company is in a position to do that. We do have a high focus on the environment and achieving the sustainability goals that we have set forth. The completion or the start of the historic voyage that Bent mentioned, fueling the ship with biogas for a full round trip, is part of that. We are well positioned to take on stricter environment requirements in the next concession round. We do expect that the requirements will be tighter. Our ships are compliant without any modifications to comply with these requirements. Okay. I think that next slide, KPIs, I think we have been through. This is more for the analysts. I think that, Ingmar, concludes the company presentation.
I think we'll open up for a Q&A from those who would like to post questions or ask questions.
Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation. We will now move on to the Q&A session. Please, participants for Dynamic Conversation, we kindly ask you to ask your questions via the audio line. To do so, please raise your hand. If you dialed in by phone, please use the key combination * 9 followed by * 6. If you're not able to speak freely, you can place your question in our chat box. We have a participant with a question. Mr. Kuser, you should be able to speak now.
Hi. Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Excellent. I'll ask my questions all in one. First of all, congrats on reaching the 80% occupancy level on Q3. I think that's great news.
Shows the performance of your product. I do have a few questions. The first one would be, was the contract revenue, the revising contract revenue within your initial guidance for 2025? Because without those adjustments, the NOK 400 million would have been very challenging, I think. The second question is in respect to the other revenue in your reporting. Could you please comment what that was and, yeah, how we can look at that going forward? Was that maybe these hotel deals or things like that already? My third question would be, you mentioned some accounting effects relating to operational revenue in Q3. Could you also comment on that?
Then the final question, if we look at the ACR increase for 2026, I know this is comparing apples to pears, but where do you see your ACR in relation to your main competitor then in the next period? Thank you. Thank you. A lot of questions. I think we need to—I will get back to you if I forget some of them. I think for the first question, as I mentioned, we have been working with Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications for quite some time on this adjustment. It has been first a big job internally to understand it and to take this forward. It has been, as people probably recognize, dealing with government contracts and kind of institutions like Statistics Norway. It takes time. It has been included, but not to the full extent.
That is why we kind of raised the guidance for the year somewhat after the last confirmation that we just received, confirming the full completion of the review. Second question, I think it was related to the 6 million.
Yes, the other revenue for
The 6 million is a settlement with the yard for the guarantee for the ships. We have had some repairs that we have incurred costs for since delivery, which were now confirmed refunded by the yard. It is really a reduction in operating costs, but it is recorded as a revenue.
Okay. The accounting effect?
The accounting effect goes back to what I think if you look back at the KPIs for the third quarter. ACR growth was 70%, and the occupancy increased from 78% to 80%.
I think isolated, you would have expected operational revenues to have grown by more than 13%. In the third quarter last year, there were some accounting effects related to currency where some currency effects were recorded in the third quarter last year. I think the underlying operational revenue growth is higher than the 13% that the figures show. If you look at the KPIs, I think that's the most relevant measurement. It's closer to 20%.
Excellent. Yeah, that's helpful. I stumbled across that. Maybe just one question sort of looking forward. If you do these kind of package deals, what would be the effect on the P&L? Would you get a commission, or would that be complete sales through your P&L and then cost item below sales?
Yeah, it will be recorded in operational revenues.
I think one thing is the margin you can achieve on kind of selling the flight or the hotel stay. Another thing is kind of the premium you can charge on the package as a whole, where this gives real value to a customer. Guests traveling from far abroad are willing to pay more in terms of probably cabin revenue as well if they get the full package structured by the company. It is both in kind of pure margin on selling flights and hotel stays in combination with the voyage. It is also the possibility to achieve a higher margin on the voyage itself.
Understood. Attracting demand, obviously, also making these bookings easier, I guess. Yeah. Okay. The final question would be on ACR level to compare to hotel equipment.
I think, I mean, the last we do benchmarking to be written on the online pricing, which is available to everyone. I think looking at the online pricing, we are quite similar for the comparable cabin categories. Then taking into account that our cabins are, I don't know, 50% larger on average than the cabins, we certainly think that there's a, combined with the fact that the ships are brand new, it gives a totally different experience on board. We certainly think that there's a potential for further ACR growth as people recognize the product and the brand. I think that that's part of the reason why we do expect us to achieve a higher ACR growth compared to inflation. Hurtigruten is selling a lot higher share through agents and travel operators, where we have a higher portion through own channels.
Okay m aybe just final follow-up on that, Bent. You mentioned that you wanted to re-equip some of the cabins to higher pricing category or sort of these luxury cabins. Has that been concluded, or is there something still we can expect for next year also?
We are in the process of doing that. Two of the vessels are finished. The two last one will be done during the year. That we will start, we have started marketing it for next year. It is a part of the assessments for increased income next year.
Okay. Thank you, guys. Thanks a lot. Congratulations.
Yes. Thank you very much for your question. We received one question in the chat. Can you please explain the financial cost in Q3?
The financial cost in Q3, first of all, it is underlying interest on the old facility that we just refinanced.
It is 6.5% interest plus Euribor of 2.5% on EUR 26 million of debt. There is a recognition of the coal premium and the May coal that was included in the old facility. It is really a large settlement of coal cost to the old facility. Each quarter, there is a portion of currency, that currency effect, which is unrealized. I mean, we have euro denominated in debt denominated in euro. With the exchange rate, the debt recorded in NOK on the balance sheet moves up and down and creates unrealized currency effects. I mean, if needed, feel free to send us a question. We can try to respond in more detail if there are certain lines i n the P&L that you would like to have explained.
Thank you very much. Yes.
I'll wait a few seconds because in the meantime, we have received no further questions. Everything seems to be clear. We come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining and showing your interest in Havila Kystruten. Thank you, Bent and Alexander, for the presentation and answering the questions from my side. I wish you all a lovely weekend. With this, I hand over to you, Bent and Alexander, for some final remarks.
Thanks a lot, Ingmar. Thanks to everyone. If any more questions should arise, please just send us a message. We will do our utmost to answer you. Thanks a lot and have a nice weekend. Thank you.