Okay, then I think we'll stop, Bjørn.
Thank you, Edvin, and thank you all for taking time to watch this quarter four presentation for Icelandic Salmon. My name is Bjørn Hembre, and with me today I have our CFO, Edvin Aspli . After the presentation there will be a Q&A session where you can ask questions by raising your hand, whichever hand in Teams, or you can type your questions in the chat. First, a brief overview of Icelandic Salmon. We are a company that is listed on the Euronext Growth market in Oslo and the Nasdaq First North in Reykjavík. The company is the sole owner and parent company of Arnarlax ehf., and all operational activities in the group are performed in Arnarlax ehf. We are present throughout the value chain, from smolt to sales, and we have four smolt facilities with a capacity to supply us with up to 25,000-30,000 tonnes of harvested volume.
We have our farming operations in the Westfjords of Iceland with a total maximum allowed biomass of 23,700 tonnes. All our production is ASC certified. We have our harvesting facility in Bíldudalur in the Westfjords with a capacity of 30,000 tonnes per year, and the harvesting facility itself is BRCGS certified, which is a food safety standard. And then we have our own sales team located in Reykjavík that sells all our products out into the markets. Now let's take a look at the highlights from quarter four 2024. It was a positive biological and financial development at the end of 2025. Sorry, I said, yeah, 2025. This was driven by several things. First of all, that we started harvesting on the spring 2024 generation, which have had a good biological development and a significant lower cost level than the 2023 generation.
Secondly, the temperature in sea have been above normal and given a good growth on the biomass, which at the end of the quarter was all-time high. This means the utilization of the MAB is increasing, and that gives positive scale effects on general cost levels. The biomass at the end of quarter four was at 18,000 tonnes, which is 40% higher than year-end 2024. The temperature in Q4 2025 was 1.3 degrees above Q4 in 2024. Sorry. Harvested volume in the quarter ended at 3,800 tonnes and 12,700 tonnes for the full year. For the full year, that's 300 tonnes below guiding, and that is due to movement of volumes into quarter one. The harvest volume was from finalizing the 2023 generation, but mainly from the spring 2024 generation. The operational EBIT for the quarter ended at EUR 2.6 million and minus EUR 18.1 million for the full year.
Operational EBIT per kilo ended for the quarter at EUR 0.70 per kilo. There was a positive effect of non-operational character in the quarter. First of all, there was a ruling in the National Tax Committee where we had claimed a refund of paid tax of EUR 2.5 million plus interest, and the committee supported our claim. Secondly, a write-down on biomass from quarter three was partly reversed based on new data points with a positive effect of EUR 600,000. I will then give the word to our CFO, Edvin Aspli , so. Take the screen a bit.
Thank you, Bjørn, and good morning, everyone. When it comes to the group's balance, the total assets increased by EUR 10 million to EUR 278 million in the fourth quarter. This was mainly driven by a stronger equity position with the equity ratio increasing to 45%. A key contributor there was the fair value adjustment of EUR 7.5 million, but more importantly, a long-awaited positive net result for the quarter. The net interest bearing debt, including leasing, ended at EUR 129 million. Finally, the available liquidity amounted to EUR 43 million at the end of the fourth quarter. As mentioned in our last presentation under the updated loan agreement, both the interest coverage ratio and the leverage covenants are waived throughout the fourth quarter of 2026. In addition, a new minimum liquidity covenant was introduced, set at EUR 10 million, including cash revolving facilities and overdraft.
The equity ratio covenant remained unchanged at 35%. Overall, the positive end to the year with a strengthened equity position reduced the short-term pressure related to the covenant compliance into 2026. On the next slide, we have the development in the net interest bearing debt during the quarter. It increased by EUR 5.9 million, while the isolated increase in net debt was EUR 7.5 million. This was mainly driven by a considerable increase in working capital following a very strong production due to the higher temperatures that Bjørn mentioned, combined with a record high biomass level. The positive operational result of EUR 7 million in the quarter partly offset this increase. In addition, we recognize this positive effect from the federal court ruling related to the earlier tax case following the Fjarðalax merger that also Bjørn mentioned in the introduction.
The case concerned whether Arnarlax could utilize the tax losses from the Fjarðalax merger. As a result of the ruling, the group received a refund of EUR 2.5 million in previously paid taxes in December plus interest. For other cash movements, investments were in line with expectations at EUR 0.7 million, and leasing assets continue to decline with a reduction of EUR 1.6 million. We also recognize some additional financing costs in the quarter related to the updated loan agreement. With that, I think we conclude the group's financials, and I will hand the word back to you, Bjørn.
Thank you, Jónas. Take a brief update on sales and market. There was a positive development in the market price from quarter three to quarter four. For the sold volume within the company, the price was up EUR 0.76 per kilo between quarters. There is still a good price achievement by our sales team compared to the market price under building the strategic move to sell all our fish ourselves. The volume sold to North America decreased from 21% in quarter three to 15% in quarter four. This was partly driven by tariffs into the U.S. market, but also the fact that we had a lower share of 6 kilos plus fish in the harvested volume.
It seems like the general low price in Q3 compensated for the harvest, not for the tariffs, but with increasing prices, we could see a more effect of the tariffs into the U.S. market. The access to 6kg plus fish also reduced volumes into the Asian market, which went from 23% in quarter three to 16% in quarter four. So this means that approximately 70% of our volumes go into the European market in quarter four. For full year 2025, 15% of the sold volume went to North America, which is the same as 2024. And into the Asian market, we sold 14% in 2025, and that is up 1% compared to 2024. The contract share for quarter four ended at 2%, which was also the number for the full year 2025.
So if we look a bit into the future as we see it, there is still a satisfying trend when it comes to both operational and financial performance. What has been positive for the biology is, of course, the mentioned high temperatures in sea. And we see that is continuing into quarter one. This has given a good growth on the before-mentioned all-time high biomass. Other positive things to mention are that we have strong signals that the winter wound vaccine that was implemented on the 2024 generation has a good effect. Implementation of our smolt strategy also seemed to have a good effect. And the main item there is to secure that we have a good weight on the fish the first winter in sea. Historical data shows a significant correlation between the size of fish going into first winter in sea and the survival ratio that winter.
This means that the focus is not to have as big smolt as possible early in the season of the output, but more to secure a sufficient weight on the smolts that we put out later in the smolt season. The operational organization has worked hard to improve operational procedures that we now start to see a positive effect on both biologically and financially. This includes a cost-saving project that was implemented in quarter three and is a continuous work going forward with a changed cost culture. It can be observed material effects of this cost-saving program already. Sorry. The winter season is the most challenging time of the year in Iceland. But we see a satisfying biology, even though we have to do some selective cage harvesting to manage performance and mitigate winter risk.
This means that part of the harvested volume in quarter one will be relatively small fish from the autumn fish output of 2024. This will have a negative cost effect in quarter one. But we expect a general cost decrease for 2026 compared to 2025. The CapEx of 2026 is expected to be EUR 4.77 million, and this is mainly related to maintenance CapEx. It is expected that it will also be a buildup of biomass for the full year 2026 due to better MAB utilization. And expect part of 2026 for the first time to reach full MAB utilization for the first time in our operational history. The contract share for quarter one is expected to be 10% and also 10% for the full year, 2026. The harvest profile will be a bit backloaded, and the contract is expected to give a positive contribution to general price achievement.
There is still a strong demand for Icelandic Salmon in the market, and the market prices have been quite low in the beginning of 2026. But we expect them to strengthen in February and March and also into quarter two. The new aquaculture law has been put out for hearing, and the hearing period is over. The Ministry received over 900 comments to the law. But a big part of that is sent in as a part of campaigns against the salmon farming, where the comments have exactly the same wording. And it has been pointed out by the Minister of Industry that surprisingly many of the comments are of foreign origin. There were many positive proposals in the new law and from an industry positive proposals in the new law from an industry perspective.
The companies have been able to unify on common comments on most of the content in the law. So the big picture is that there will be a potential to grow the industry within a sustainable framework and that tax levels should be at a compatible level to other salmon farming nations. The plan further on the new aquaculture law is that the ministry will send the law proposal, revised law proposal, over to Alþingi this month in February 2026. I didn't mention the volume guidance for 2026 specifically, but that is 21,300 tons with an increase of the 300 tons from previous guiding with the volume we moved into quarter one.
We still see a potential of harvesting 26,000 tons on our existing licenses as there are today and take a big step towards that with reaching 21,300 tons in 2026, which is an increase of 67% from 2025. Most CapEx is made to reach the goal of 26,000 tons. I will then thank you all for listening to our presentation, and we will now move directly into the Q&A session. Please raise your virtual hand if you want to ask a question, or you can send the question in the chat. Thank you so far.
All right. So as Bjørn mentioned, you could either raise your hand and I will unmute you if you want to ask questions, or you can just type them in the chat. And I see that we have already a question here from Kristoffer Haugland. And the first one is, "You guide on significantly higher volumes in quarter one, 2026, versus quarter one, 2025, which was 1,100 tons. Does that mean 2,000 tons of harvest or 3,000 tons of harvest?
Yeah, we haven't maybe guided specifically on the quarter, but it means higher volume in quarter one this year. Yeah. But we haven't specified that number.
And next one, "How should we think about quarter two harvest and the total distribution of first half versus second half? Every year has been around 40%-60%, 40%-60%, except 2024, which was like 30%-70%.
Let me do a quick calculation. Also, it will be quite similar between 35%-40% in the first half and, yeah, the rest in the second half.
A final question from Kristoffer. "How do you see the risk of PKD in 2026 versus recent years?
I can comment very specifically on that. That is the risk mitigating measure we are doing now with our early harvest on the autumn 2024 for generation so that we take out the PKD-infected fish we have as we speak.
On to the next one, one question from Yngve. "The new aquaculture law, implications for your tax expectations going forward. Will it imply effect of tax costs in 2026?" I can comment on that. It's still too early to say, but the indications are that there will be a reduction in taxes. But I don't think we should conclude anything now as nothing is confirmed yet.
But we could say that the Ministry has stated that the taxes should be at a compatible level to other nations. Yeah.
Next one, a question from Ola Trovatn. "Will you release 6 million smolts or more in 2026? If not, how many will be released?
We will not release 6 million smolts in 2026. We will be at approximately 5.4 million.
Next question from Bjarni. "Are you seeing significant improvements in market pricing, or is it quarter four versus quarter three improvement more of a seasonal origin?
Of course, there were high expectations for prices going into 2026. Then this high temperature that we see in Iceland was also the same situation for basically the rest of Europe and Norway, which gave a good production and higher volumes into the market. But we expect when temperatures now are normalized more in Norway with long periods of cold weather that the supply to the market will decrease and that we will see an increased price, especially the rest of the first half of the year, maybe more uncertain about the second half of the year.
Another question from Ola Trovatn. "How do you see contract prices for 2026 compared to 2025?
Of course, the kind of general guidance for a contract price is, of course, the forward prices. We see that we have better expectations for 2026 than we had at this time in 2025. That also means higher contract prices.
One final question maybe from Hjalti. "You mentioned the importance of having larger smolts released to sea for the first winter. How large do you estimate to have the smolts once released? Will you need to invest in a new smolt facility, or are you capable of raising the smolts to your preferred size in your current facilities?
It is something that we can do within our existing facilities. So it's basically we are taking down the average weight on the biggest smolts in the start of the smolt season from maybe 700 grams to 500 grams to be able to reach approximately 200 grams or, say, 180-200 grams at the end of the season because we need to get this fish up to 600 grams before we reach January. We see that there is a kind of a breakpoint. If you reach 600 grams, the survival ratio is significantly higher than if the fish is smaller. But we do it within the existing facility, and it doesn't affect the number of smolts. It's more that it's a movement of size between early and late opened.
Another question from Yngve. "Are you expecting any new licenses granted in 2026?
Yeah, we usually used to mention the licenses in the presentation. We have still the two applications for 4,500 tons in Arnarfjörður in the system. And we also have the 10,000-ton application in Ísafjarðardjúp. And it is still in progress. And we hope that we will see a result, especially the 10,000 ton in Ísafjörður this year, which is, of course, a signal that it probably will be a sterile license. But we hope that this will be sorted out in relation to when the new law is launched. But since we have been trying to give dates for this for so many years, we have decided not to kind of mention it specifically in the presentation. But since you're asking, that is the answer.
All right. We still have a couple of minutes left. Any more questions at the end? No, I don't see any more questions. Then I think we conclude there, Bjørn.
Yeah. Thank you all for showing up and have a great day. Take care.