Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for tuning in for this presentation of M Vest Water's results for the first quarter of 2024. My name is Stein Giljarhus. I am the CEO, and I'm joined here by our CFO, Morten Hilton Thomassen, who will take you through the financials a bit later. On the agenda today, we have a brief presentation of the company before we walk you through the most important developments during the first quarter of 2024. If you have any questions, use the Zoom chat function, and we will answer at the best as we can during the Q&A session at the end of this presentation. As a reminder, this meeting is recorded, and a recording will be available for replay at our website shortly after the meeting.
Vest Water is a developer of green and biodegradable water and wastewater treatment products, helping industries to solve their water pollution challenges. We are established with facilities in Norway and Germany, and we are in addition in operations in U.S.A and Middle East under partnerships in development. We target three large multibillion-dollar industries, which are all global, in strong demand, with solid annual growth and introducing a better result to the end user. Key products and services shown on the right-hand side are disruptive and unique technology, which has clear and documented advantages beyond known competing products. Advantages gives a win-win to clients, to society, to regulatory bodies, and of course, to M Vest Water. M Vest Water addresses many of the environmental and sustainability challenges the world faces today.
As we are all more and more aware of, clean water has become an increasingly scarce resource in most part of the world. Our technology also contributes to valuable reuse of the water and dry material and subsequently reduced emissions to the sea and nature. This is an important added value for the industries using our unique methods and products. Given the current situation, both new and stricter national and international regulations are being introduced and require changes in operations and significant investments. With our eco-friendly solution, M Vest Water supports industries in meeting these new requirements. We are proud that our products and technologies support eight of the United Nations' seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. Our intellectual property is at the core of M Vest Water's values and well-protected under patents in selected regions worldwide, as shown on the map.
We are now focused on a handful of large global industrial regions, as well as a few emerging markets. Our successful technology qualification in the U.S. has positioned M Vest Water in the arena of quality providers of valuable technologies within the international oil and gas markets in the U.S. and also in Middle East. Germany is being the largest market in Europe for municipal wastewater and sludge dewatering. Natural alliance with M Vest Water strategy for local establishment and efficient logistics in operations, also plan to serve Europe in the near future. Additionally, M Vest Water focuses on the aquaculture industries in Norway, which stands at the forefront of global salmon farming. We're coming to Q1 highlights. We have made more efforts into marketing and sales in the prioritized business areas and have by now also secured further sales of NOK 6 million in Q2.
During our marketing work and based upon successful results from oil and gas produced water activities in the U.S.A, we have experienced that this has attracted interest from several large operators in new regions, and we received last month an order from a major well-known oil company in the Middle East region. We continue to serve the interest in our technology and have today ongoing marketing and bidding activity towards potential new projects in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the Emirates. In line with our strategy, we are building supply chain by partnering with local and experienced players in Germany. In Q1, we formalized a cooperation agreement with a reputable local distributor of treatment chemicals, named Thielemann, to sewage treatment facilities in Northern Germany. Recurring revenue and long-term contracts are important elements to our business model.
We are therefore happy to see that we now receive more repeating NorwaFloc orders from satisfied clients within salmon farming, as we also continue winning contracts for delivery of process equipment to salmon slaughterhouses. This in cooperation with our partner, Downstream Marine. In April, we strengthened the capital by inviting existing owners and some new investors for a capital injection of NOK 28 million. The successful completion provided growth capital to our developing business in prioritized markets. Over the last years, we have built up a strong organization with high-level expertise to deliver on M Vest Water's project execution for new projects and contracts. It also utilizes our high operational leverage to strengthen sales, marketing, and services, laying the ground for realizing our long-term organic growth.
Our water treatment business requires a solid structure of support services and supply chain, handling all from procurement of a variety of raw material from Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, then storing, blending, mixing, transport, delivery, marketing, contracting, service, and quality control, just to mention a few. This is the capital light model, where we cooperate with local expertise in a combination of outsourcing, partnering, and production agreements, distribution, as well as marketing and sales to existing and new clients. Then we move on to the latest business updates. Firstly, let us look into our developments in oil and gas market. As most of you following us may recall, we successfully completed a long-term technology qualification program at one of the world's largest oil operators in late 2023. This enables us to bid on several projects coming from the same client.
This manifests our NorwaPol technology to be both highly competitive in this market, also providing additional advantages in technical and environmental performance. We are now in discussions with several large oil companies and participate in bidding processes on projects in the U.S.A, as well as in Middle East. Middle East is moving in parallel, as it has been our strategy to apply our well-proven and applicable technology in both these regions, also known as the two largest oil-producing regions in the world. In Q1, together with our US-based partner, we were awarded a contract, including both of our two top technologies, NorwaFloc and the NorwaPol. Looking at our activities within municipal waste treatment market, for now, mainly focused on in Germany. Several offers are now being prepared and delivered to potential clients in cooperation with our partner, Thielemann.
There is increased tightening of regulatory bodies to have industries comply to natural products and stop using synthetic polymers. The use of valuable byproducts are then also coming into the value chain and becomes an attractive element in the operators' budgets and financial results. Within the dredging market, a new milestone is achieved, replacing 100% polyacrylamide with our green chemicals. This will be a key priority in 2024. This market is large, both in Europe and globally, as there is a need to keep shipping lanes and large ports and river intact, while it is a high priority today to reduce pollution to lakes and rivers. The work related to aquaculture alliance we formed with two more specialist and technology partners, Downstream Marine and Bioretur, has been successful and very well received by the markets.
We experience now a boost in both interest and sales, attracting the largest salmon fish farm companies in the world to procure our solutions. This is a proud and very welcome event, rewarding our organization, working hard on this the last year. Our access to this market is both directly to clients, but also through Downstream existing client portfolio, which represents about 70% of the total market in Norway. We continue our forecast for growth in delivering process equipment sales and our eco-friendly product, NorwaFloc, to make the industry comply to incoming regulations in force from last December. With this, I will hand it over to Morten, who will give you an update on the financials.
Thank you, Stein, and good afternoon, everyone. First and foremost, I am delighted with the confidence from our shareholders and their support to the company's strategy by strengthening the company's capital by NOK 28 million. To summarize the key figures for the first quarter, revenues ended at NOK 2.7 million. Please note that the company has won contracts in the recent quarter and the order backlog, secure and income for the coming quarter of NOK 6 million. Loss before tax was NOK 6.5 million. CapEx in the low end, around NOK 1 million, related to R&D and IP. A few more details on the share capital increase. It consists of two elements. The first, a conversion of shareholder loan of NOK 8 million. The second, a private placement of NOK 20 million. The net proceeds will be used to position M Vest Water for expansion and future growth.
Please note that the private placement was supported by our main shareholders, including the financial institutions, DNB and Nordea, and also some new quality investors. Looking ahead, we are confident with how we have positioned ourselves. We have built up crucial expertise to deliver on M Vest Water's project execution for new contracts, and our technology has consistently proven its competitiveness and quality in our targeted industries. With the successful completion of the mentioned private placement, we are prepared for future growth and expansion. This utilizes our high operational leverage to strengthen sales, marketing, and services, laying the ground for realizing our long-term organic growth as our resources are now strategically allocated towards full-scale qualifications and ramping up sales activities, aiming for more contract signings. With this, we have been through our presentation, and we'll now move on to the Q&A session.
Very good. Then we go to Q&A. I'd just like to remind everyone that you can submit questions using the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen. My name is Nils Thommessen. I'm representing Fearnley Securities, and will moderate the Q&A. So we can start with the first question we have received, and it's a question on partnerships. Can you elaborate on how the business model and the partnership strategies for M Vest Water differ across the oil and gas, aquaculture, and wastewater segments? Specifically, what unique challenges and opportunities do you face in each of these sectors from a partnership perspective?
Yes, I, I can answer that. I also elaborated some on this in the recent presentation here now. But we have formed partnerships, which gives us a capital light model with several professionals already present in this market that mentioned. For Norway, it is the aquaculture and in particular, the slaughterhouse processes, but also wastewater from the MUrCS. And this model is that we got full access to most present players, and we're able to directly sell into to them. We do this either individually, where the fraction of the requested delivery is more M Vest Water than it is Downstream Marine. But we work very well together with them and also Bioretur, who is taking care of the sludge part of this model.
So, like I said, also in the presentation, we have seen a boost in this, so we regard this alliance cooperation ship with the two other professional partners to be quite successful now in the beginning, and we hope that will continue to grow. On the oil and gas, it's a little bit different, but still same, and a professional, well-reputed player in the markets. Access to the U.S. onshore produced water market and working very well together with them. Also they have their arms into Middle East area, where we also now have seen several contracts coming up, like we also reported this quarter.
That has actually been a success that we, in, at least in the beginning, to receive more work and contracts. Yeah, the last area is the municipal sewage, wastewater, and sludge treatment in Germany. We announced a partnership with the Thielemann, which is, well established for more than 35 years in, North Germany. And it's, again, the capital light model, less investment for us, but also all the services and the supply chain, activities are there for us, and we work well together. So I think that is, the elaboration of our, business models on, in, these, three segments.
Thank you. The next question, if management could provide a detailed breakdown of the current order backlog according to each segment, how much of the backlog is attributed to the sectors you've been discussing now?
Yes, we prefer not to go into the details, but the backlog we're talking about here is the backlog for the second quarter, and that is revenues expected from oil and gas and aquaculture. Aquaculture is a dominating position where we have deliveries of process equipment to salmon slaughterhouses in the Norwegian region.
All right. And a question on that backlog. Is the NOK 6 million figure what you expect to record in revenue, or could you see more sales in Q2 as the quarter progresses?
Yes. That's a good question. We have the NOK 6 million as a secured booked income for Q2, and then, of course, any less should not occur, any more can occur.
Okay. And a question on when you expect to be cash flow positive or cash flow neutral?
Yeah, I think, Morten, we have the prognosis, but these are changes all the time, and we believe for sure to be that in this year. Later part of it is the new prognosis. I think maybe, Morten, you could also give a little bit more guidance on that.
It's... I think we should, we have touched upon this, before earlier, and, and for now, we have the business plan, the growth plans, and, it's, you know, it's, difficult to say if it's whether in the end of the year or if it's in the beginning of next year. But, but, of course, it depends on, on the how many contracts we, we manage to sign during the year, but, we are at least within the coming year. That is the plans we could... That's we can state.
Very good.
Following the capital raise, will you be taking on more staff, and if so, in which functions?
For now, we are very comfortable with what we have done on the capital side, and we are able to accelerate our activities in marketing and sales in the three mentioned segments, and that will be, for us, sufficient by now to be able to fulfill our business strategy and the budgets for 2024. So we don't foresee any further capital increases at this foreseeable time, at least.
Yeah. I think the question was more if, you know, now that you have raised the capital, if you were gonna, you know, hire more people and then, you know, what functions-
Yeah
... that would be? Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you. That, that is, that is also part of it. Yes. So more, a few more, not too many, but a few more resources, vital resources, that is, bringing us in, us into the more commercial part. As you know, we have worked on different phases, and we have now moved into commercial phase of several of these activities, and that is required more competence and more capacity on, on people as well.
Yeah. All right, and a question on PFAS. Are you still working on projects regarding removal of PFAS, or is this less prioritized for now?
It is a sort of a priority on it. That's because it's very exciting, both the market, but also the recent results that we have achieved. So we hope very soon to be able to announce something there, but it's not put up as a, you know, one of the high prioritized areas right now, but it may take place there. For now, we are... has not taken that out. It is giving us very interesting results, and we believe in our methods for that big world challenge, and I hope to come back on something positive soon on that as well.
All right. So there's no further questions on the Q&A, but I have one last question, if I may. And feel free to submit more questions if the audience wants to add some questions. But you mentioned that you had a project replacing polyacrylamide in the dredging sand and gravel industry. But can you comment a bit on how, for the client, the cost development is using your product versus the polyacrylamide based products?
It is competing fairly well on that, and there are several aspects of course. It's the cost element that you mentioned, which we compete on. It is, of course, the environmental issue, which is the main driver here, and it's also a technical result, which is the end result that you come out with when you have treated this water and sludge. So yes, we are doing good there, and we are quite compatible on this area as well.
I could also add to that, that since we started this project qualifications on that area, dredging, which is mud on the sea floor or harbor floor, or bottom of the lakes and rivers, we have really been able to go from just a synthetic polymer reduction to a total removal of that harmful element. So that is very welcome by companies and also by authorities in different regions.
All right. Thank you for that, Stein. There are no further questions on the web, so I will leave the floor to you for some concluding remarks.
Okay, thank you. In closing, I would like to say that we are very well now positioned in our prioritized areas, and we are working on boosting capacity, increased marketing and sales in these areas. We feel more and more confident on our solutions and products, and we see a increased response and interest from the players on the other side, our clients. And we think this put the direction for us to a very interesting few quarters forward, to be able to gain more presence in the markets that we are working in. Additionally, I would like to thank Fearnley for hosting us on this and to be a solid, good support on what we are doing and following up towards the market on financial investors. Thank you.