Good morning, everyone. I'm Vidar Aspehaug, CEO of Kaldvik, and I'm pleased to welcome you to the presentation of our fourth quarter results for 2025. Joining me today is our new CFO, Hjalti Hvítklett, who will introduce himself shortly. Together, we'll walk you through the key highlights and developments from the past quarter. After the presentation, we'll open the floor for questions, and as before, you're welcome to submit them to email, by email to qa@kaldvik.is. First of all, you know this, so let's move on. Here is the updated management team with Hjalti Hvítklett stepping in as CFO, and I will leave the word to him to introduce himself.
Thank you, Vidar. My name is Hjalti Hvítklett. I started here in Kaldvik in the beginning of February. I live in the Faroe Islands and will be commuting to Iceland. I have my education in finance from Aarhus University in Denmark, and I worked within the fish and aquaculture most of my career. Most recently at Nordic Aqua Partners, operating in China. I'm very happy to join Kaldvik at an exciting time for the company, and I have already experienced a strong team with a clear ambition, and I'm looking forward to contributing going forward. I'll hand it back to you, Vidar, and I'll return later with the financials.
Thank you, Hjalti. Today, we'll begin with some key highlights from the last quarter, covering operational updates, financial results, and strategic updates. We'll look ahead with a brief outlook and summary before wrapping up with a Q&A session. As I said, if you have any questions, please send to qa@kaldvik.is. Throughout the presentation, we have put the respective 2024 numbers in brackets behind the 25 numbers to give you some reference. For the Q4 highlights, in the fourth quarter, we harvested 7,943 tons, with a group operational EBIT of negative EUR 10.6 million. The main reasons for the negative results are early harvest of the 24 generation due to winter wounds, resulting in lower average weight, a low superior share, combined with a challenging market situation.
I will comment further on this later. For the full year 2025, we harvested a total of 17,000 and 105 tons, compared to almost 15,000 tons in 2024. Looking ahead, in 2026, we will be harvesting 6,500 tons in Q1 this year, mainly from the 2024 generation, and we're maintaining our full year harvest guidance of 17,000 tons. As announced to the market, the company is in a challenging financial situation and has requested a waiver from its banking partners. As of today, we're in a constructive discussion with the banks, and we expect to conclude the issue within the end of Q1. Strategically, the government's published legislative agenda indicates that the new aquaculture bill is expected to be introduced shortly. We'll comment further on this later.
The license that we have been awaiting approval in Seyðisfjörður is still pending. The strategic review of our production model, aiming to reduce risk and improve stability in our operations, supporting our long-term goal of producing 30,000 tons, is still ongoing and expected to be concluded no later than May this year. To the 2024 generation within our farming operations. As already mentioned, we decided to initiate early harvest of the 2024 generation due to an unacceptable situation with winter wounds. We were very optimistic for the 2024 generation, as this was the first generation to receive the tailor-made vaccine towards winter ulcers. It's now clear that this has not been enough to solve our problems with wounds.
As previously communicated, part of the 24 generation had a challenging release in the late fall due to delays and a dramatic and early drop in sea temperature. On top of that, the winter 2024, 2025 was extreme, with an unusually early start of winter temperatures and significantly lower temperatures than normal throughout Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. The figure on the right illustrates this, showing the temperatures for these quarters for 2024, 2025, compared to the average temperature since 2010, shown in blue. Surprisingly, we saw wounds starting to develop in the growth season on rising temperatures in Q3, and the situation escalated in Q4 2025. As a result of this, we decided to harvest the 24 generation, starting with the most severe cages, aiming to harvest the complete generation as soon as possible.
By the end of Q4 in 2025, 62% of this generation had been harvested, and by the end of Q1 this year, we expect to have finalized the harvest of almost the complete 2024 generation. The consequence is that the 2024 generation will generate approximately 5,200 tons less harvest volume than anticipated, mainly due to lower average weight. Also, the superior share ended at 41%, affecting the price achievement. The disappointing results with the 2024 generation had a major impact on the financial situation of Kaldvik, and it's pretty much the main reason for the financial challenges we are in currently. Looking at the 2025 generation, things are looking better, and as of now, we are ahead of plan, and the fish it's with good health.
The 25 generation was a milestone output for Kaldvik, reaching 8.25 million smolt, and we had a successful transfer with acceptable mortality. Even though the 25 generation has the same vaccine as the 24 generation, we have had much more favorable temperatures this winter, closer to normal temperatures for the East Fjords of Iceland. The red line in the figure at the right illustrates this, showing that the temperatures above, that we had temperatures above average in Q3 last year, and significantly higher temperatures than 24 throughout the period. As of now, we are seeing good performance with good growth and an overall good health status. At year-end, we had a cumulative mortality in the 25 generation of 9.3%. In 26, 61% of the total harvest volume will be from the 25 generation.
To elucidate a bit further on the importance of the temperature we are seeing at 25 compared to the unnormal 24 temperatures, I have included an illustration to show the difference in growth, given a starting weight of 500 grams and six months growth at the respective temperature profiles for these two years. The specific growth rate is highly dependent on temperature, and as illustrated in the figure on the right, the specific growth rate in 25 has been higher than in 24 throughout the last two quarters. With an average specific growth rate of 0.58% in 24 and 0.82% in 25, we get 330 grams more growth in 25 compared to 2024.
Given a 5 million fish scenario, this would result in a total difference of 1,655 tons production. On top of this, the fish is in better condition. Some information on harvesting and sales. In Q4, we harvested almost 8,000 tons with a record volume, which is a record volume for Kaldvik and for our harvest facilities. We had single-day harvest volumes up to 245 tons, which is the highest we have had, the increased harvesting capacity was partly achieved by the addition of stun and bleed capacity and partly through operational optimization at the harvest site.
As we're all aware, there have been, and still is, a volatile market situation with respect to salmon prices, and, despite the low superior share of 42% and early harvest of the 24 generation, the overall price achievement ended at EUR 6.01 per kilo for the quarter. That concludes the operational update. Now, I'll pass the word to Hjalti, who will walk you through the financial updates.
Thank you, Vidar Aspehaug. First, we have the highlights from the quarter marked by relatively high harvest volumes, but low prices and low superior share. As Vidar Aspehaug already mentioned, operational EBIT for the group was negative by EUR 10.6 million, and EBIT per kilo amounted to negative EUR 1.33 during the fourth quarter. This is driven by different factors, mainly lower market prices, high costs due to early harvest, and low superior rate. Revenues reached approximately EUR 48 million. Despite the low superior share of 41% and the early harvest of the 24 generation, the overall price achievement ended at EUR 6 per kilo for the quarter. Total assets lowered by EUR 22 million during the quarter. This was primarily driven by higher harvest and therefore lower biological assets. Total liabilities decreased by EUR 10 million in the quarter.
This was primarily driven by a significant decrease in trade and other payables. Equity ratio is still 55%, and it's the same as we had in Q3. Net interest-bearing debt increased by EUR 6 million during the quarter. EBITDA was negative by EUR 7.2 million. The change in working capital amounted to EUR 11 million, primarily due to lower biomass at the end of the quarter. CapEx investment during the quarter amounted to EUR 2.1 million, and financial items amounted to EUR 4.4 million. As we have announced, the company has requested a waiver from its banking partner. As of today, we are in a constructive discussion with the banks, and we expect to conclude the issues within end of Q1. We will provide quarterly company updates, while financial reports are issued semi-annually with half-year and full-year reports.
Next company update for the first quarter is scheduled for May 21st, and the next financial report will be issued for full financial year 2025 on April 30th. For further information about the financials for the fourth quarter and year-to-date numbers, please refer to the appendix section. In October 2025, Trøndelag District Court rejected the minority shareholders' request for a special investigation regarding the acquisition of certain strategic assets completed in March 2025. The decision was not appealed, and the matter is concluded. Thank you, and I will hand it back to you, Vidar.
Thank you, Hjalti. A short status on strategic updates. Regarding the ongoing process with the new aquaculture bill in Iceland, the government's published legislative agenda indicates that the bill is expected to be introduced shortly. While consultation drafts have circulated, the final text has not been yet formally presented. We're monitoring developments closely, and once the final framework is publicly available, we'll assess its implication carefully and communicate further once we have completed that evaluation. The new license in Seyðisfjörður is still pending, and regarding the ongoing strategic review of our production model, we expect to conclude no later than May this year. The review will give us a clearer basis for long-term decisions and support a more robust and predictable production model going forward, lowering risk and lowering cost. A bit about what to expect going forward.
As already mentioned, and as you're aware, the market situation for salmon is volatile and hard to predict. Still, forward prices indicate a promising market in Q2 and Q3 of 2026 compared to 2025. For Q1 in 2026, we expect to harvest 6,500 tons. The majority of the harvest this quarter will be from the 2024 generation. We expect to finish the rest of the 2023 generation and the majority of the 2024 generation this quarter. In Q2, we will start the first harvest from the 2025 generation, which is performing well with good health. The total harvest volume for 2026 is expected to be 17,000 tons. From Q2 onwards, we will be mainly harvesting from the 2025 generation. To summarize, I will conclude with the outlook and key points going forward.
We've had we have had challenges with winter wounds in our 24 generation and have initiated early harvests that we are looking forward to put behind us by the end of this quarter. The 25 generation looks much more promising and is ahead of plan with regards to growth, and harvest from Q2 onwards will be mainly from this generation. We harvested and sold a total of 17,105 tons last year and ended with a record high harvest volume of almost 8,000 tons in Q4. As a result of the challenging biology in the 24 generation, the company has requested a waiver from our banking partners, and constructive discussions are ongoing, expected to be concluded within Q1.
On the strategic side, we are still awaiting approval of the licenses in Seyðisfjörður. The strategic review of our production strategy is ongoing and expected to be concluded in May this year. We are still seeing volatility in the market. Forward prices for Q2 and Q3 are promising compared to 2025. We maintain our guiding of 17,000 tons for 2026, with a harvest volume of 6,500 tons for Q1. We will conclude our presentation here. We're now open for questions. As mentioned initially, please send questions to qa@kaldvik.is.
We have received a question here, Vidar: What measures are you taking to improve the winter wound situation? What is the root cause in your view?
Well, of course, we are in the process of doing a strategic review, where we are evaluating all production parameters, but also specifically, we are evaluating the vaccination strategy. Saying that, we have not finally concluded that it's the lack of effect of the vaccine, that's the only cause of the problems with the wounds. We did have a very rough winter, the 2024-2025, with extremely low temperatures, the lowest we've seen in Iceland on the East Coast for the last 25 years. We are not certain of the impact of that cold winter temperatures at sea, compared to the effect or lack of effect of the vaccine. We are looking into, well, adjusting production strategy, but also vaccine strategy, and of course, evaluating the situation as we go.
We received another question, similar question: You say that the 25 generation is with good health. Does this mean that there are no wounds and other health issues with this generation?
The 25 generation is looking good, yes, of course, we do see normal mortality, and we do have incidents or cages with increased challenges. Also, we do see wounds, especially after mechanical challenges like storms, where we do see an increased development of wounds. All over, the 25 generation is looking good.
This question is also within this same area with the vaccine. It seems that the vaccine has not given the protections towards winter wounds that you expected. What is the likelihood that the 25 generation will get similar problems with wounds as the 24 generation?
Related to the previous question on vaccine, of course, as I said, we're not certain about the cold winters that the 2024 generation went through. It was an extreme winter with very low temperatures. In the 2025 generation, we are ahead of plan, and growth has been good, health is looking good, and we are optimistic that with the much calmer winter that we have, we are currently still at 3 degrees, and that will take the 2025 generation through the winter in a much smoother way, and that we will have significantly better performance over the 2025 generation than we've seen in the 2024.
Another question here from... When do you expect the company to remain sustainably profitable? Can you provide multi-year guidance and/or a business plan?
Well, as we are now in the middle of a strategic review of the production plan, as we have communicated, I think it's difficult to comment on this concretely right now. We are planning to finalize the strategic review in May this year. I think we will be more able then to give some indication of the plan going forward after that.
This was also on this. I think this will be the last question, but this is also in the same areas as we have been before: Could you elaborate on the vaccine situation? I think we have covered that.
Yes, I think we've been on that. We can say we have used the tailor-made vaccine for the 24 generation and for the 25 generation, the first group of 26 received the same vaccine, we are now testing out alternative vaccination strategies, we'll come back with more information later on this.
As of now, there are no further questions. We have not received any more questions, so.
I guess if you have any further questions, just feel free to send them to the same email, and we'll address them directly afterwards or later. Thank you very much.
Thank you.