Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vistin Pharma quarterly report Q4 2025 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your question via the webcast. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Magnus Tolleshaug, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and, hello, everyone, and, welcome to this, fourth quarter and preliminary 2025 results presentation. My name is, Magnus Tolleshaug, CEO of the company, and with me today, I have our CFO, Mr. Alexander Karlsen, and I will now go through the highlights. The revenue for the fourth quarter ended at NOK 111 million, compared to NOK 140 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. We have had a record high sales volume of 1,520 metric tons in the quarter, which corresponds to a 9% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. This was offset by somewhat lower global metformin prices compared to the same quarter last year.
The 2025 full year revenue ended at NOK 452 million, compared to NOK 430 million last year, and the annual sales volume for 2025 increased by 12% compared to 2024. The EBITDA of the quarter ended at NOK 26 million versus NOK 28 million in Q4 2024. The EBITDA was positively affected by higher sales volume and offset by product mix compared to the same quarter last year. We deliver a 2025 full year, all-time high EBITDA of one hundred and fifteen million Norwegian kroners, compared to NOK 104 million last year, a 10% increase year-over-year. The earnings per share for 2025 ended at 1.69 NOK, compared to 1.42 NOK last year, an increase of 19%.
We have a strong balance sheet with an equity ratio over 75% and a net cash position of NOK 16 million as of year-end. The board of directors will propose for the annual general meeting to pay out an ordinary cash dividend of up to one point five NOK per share, to be paid partly with one NOK in May and up to zero point five NOK in November. Vistin Pharma, we are a pure play metformin company, supporting patients worldwide in a growing market. Diabetes is really one of the largest health emergencies in the twenty-first century, and metformin is still the gold standard treatment of Type two diabetes and is used as baseline treatments, alone or together with other combination treatments for diabetes Type two.
So Vistin Pharma has a growth opportunity being a leading global producer of premium, high-quality metformin. According to the Global Diabetes Federation, the global market demand for metformin is expected to continue to grow with approximately 4%-6% annually. At Vistin today, we have approximately 10%, uh, of the market share of the world, and it will continue to be approximately 10% as the new capacity expansion is fully utilized. This is because we are growing in a growing market. For those participants who have joined our quarterly presentations before, you have seen this slide before as well. It shows that about 590 million adults in the world today is living with diabetes, and this is expected to increase by 45% within 2050.
And if you take the figures, about 10% of the cases are type one diabetes, which is typically treated with insulin, and then 90% of these cases are type two diabetes, which is typically treated with metformin or metformin and combination drugs. I will take us through some key diabetes facts, which speaks to the magnitude of this disease. An estimated around 589 million adults between 20 and 79 years are living with diabetes. This represents actually 11% of the world's population in this age group. An estimated 252 million adults are living with diabetes. They are unaware they have the condition. And about 9.3% of the global deaths in the world are, of course, coming from diabetes. About 3.4 million people die every year.
Interestingly, an estimated around 635 million adults in the same age group are living with impaired glucose tolerance, which is a pre-state of diabetes, where typically also metformin can be used as the treatment. So diabetes is really a global health epidemic. At Vistin, we have a worldwide sales footprint. We're having direct sales all the way from Japan in the east to U.S. and LATAM in the west. The majority of sales is typically going to Europe, where we sell to reputable pharmaceutical companies, and we export globally, and our API is used, as we know of, at least more than 100 countries today. And our API, which is the active ingredient, is then transformed into drug products by our customers and then distributed around the world to patients.
In Vistin, we've had a long and successful growth track record. In this graph, you see the revenue development past years. And if you look at 2022, we invested in line, and in 2023, we can see the new volume materializing into sales. And with that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Mr. Alexander Karlsen, who will take us through the more details of the financial figures.
Thank you for that, Magnus. As Magnus already touched in on, we had some strong volume growth, both in the quarter with 1,520 tons sold, compared to 1,400 tons, same quarter last year, 120-ton increase in a quarter. And also for the years, we increased the sales volume by around 600 tons from 2024 and to 2025. Having a look at the revenue. The revenue in the quarter landed at NOK 111 million, compared to NOK 114 million in Q4 2024, 3% decline. This is driven by the ASP is lower both in the Q4 and the second half of 2025, compared to 2024, due to product mix.
We also see that the spot price of Metformin fluctuates with the global raw material prices, so it has some corresponding revenue and purchases effects. Gross margin is that those are very important measure that I come back to when it comes to how we kind of control our pricing. If you look at the production volume compared to the sales volume in 2025, you can see that we have increased our safety stock by around 100 tons, and this is to secure high service level to our Tier One customers, which also pay for this increased safety stock. For the total year, our revenue ended at NOK 452 million, which is a 5% increase from NOK 430 million in 2024.
Gross margin in the quarter ended at around 64%, and approximately 65% total for 2025, which is well above our long-term vision. As mentioned in the revenue slide, the gross margin is our key measure on how we succeed on pricing, as this can be looked at as our margin between sales and the raw material costs, which do fluctuate during the year. Going more to the earnings and EBITDA. EBITDA of NOK 26 million in the fourth quarter, compared to NOK 28 million in Q4 2024. We had the higher sales volume effect, as I mentioned, offset by the product mix. It's also something I'd like to mention that we booked NOK 800,000 in cost in the quarter in relating to the weather storm Amy.
I would emphasize that the storm was much heavier in the south of Norway compared to Oslo, and we had some shorter power outages that caused some constraints over a few production days in October. We also had a couple of batches that needed to be scrapped. So that's the background for the close to NOK one million costs booked in the quarter. EBITDA margin of around 24%, satisfied with that. And also the net FX effect on the EBITDA versus the same quarter last year is insignificant. A stronger NOK compared to U.S. dollar is positive for our raw material purchases, which is mainly in dollars. But we also had quite some dollar sales in the second half, meaning that those two offset each other. The euro was rather stable in the period.
Looking at the full year EBITDA of record high NOK 115 million, an increase of around NOK 11 million compared to 2024, and we continue to show some very nice EBITDA growth. A high 25% EBIT margin, which is a new all-time high for a full year, continue to represent good commercial execution and back to the gross margin where we kind of how we measure our sales prices compared to raw material prices. Similar for the Q4, the net FX effect on the EBITDA is insignificant compared to last year.
Diving some more into the details in the P&L, we've touched on some of the numbers, but looking below the EBITDA, depreciations came in at NOK 5.5 million, an increase around one million from the same quarter last year, and that's driven that we have capitalized some more of the beach project, for example, the recycling water project, et cetera, late 2024, that has an effect in 2025. For the full year depreciation, a number of NOK 22.5 million compared to NOK 19 million last year, there was a one-time effect in the Q3, where we wrote down an asset of NOK 1.4 million. Earnings before interest ended at close to NOK 21 million compared to NOK 23 million last year, while full year NOK 22.4 compared to NOK 85.3 in 2024.
Looking at the bottom, net profit, NOK 16 million in the Q4 compared to NOK 19 million last year or in 2024. Emphasize on the full year ended at close to NOK 75 million, compared to almost NOK 63 million in 2024. So the 19% increase in earnings is a very important enable for the solid deal that the board has proposed. Quick look at the balance sheet. Let's start on the asset side. NOK 236 million in assets compared to NOK 242 million last year, and the long-term asset is mainly the building and machine at the plant in Kragerø. Looking at the current assets, somewhat increase in inventory, as mentioned, while on the receivables there is a significant increase. That is mainly driven by the higher volume and sales late in 2025.
Also, as we mentioned in the previous quarter, we see that there are still very volatile and longer payment, sorry, longer sailing times to Asia, and most of the Asian customers will not kind of pay until their goods has been received. On the cash side, NOK 16 million and a net cash position. That gives us total assets of close to NOK 440 million, compared to NOK 385 million last year. Looking at the liabilities side, total equity close to NOK 329 million, compared to close to NOK 310 million in 2024. Strong balance sheet, 75% liabilities, no interest-bearing debt as of end December, and a net cash position. We do have credit facilities available if that is needed.
So bringing also the equity liabilities to close to NOK 440 million. I think that was all from me, Magnus, and I'll give the word back to you.
Thank you, Alexander. I will now take you through a summary. We've had a solid quarter with an EBITDA of NOK 26 million. We had a record high quarterly sales volume of 1,520 metric tons, +9% compared to same quarter last year. We had a strong full year sales volume of 5,800 metric tons, +12% increase compared to last year. We deliver an all-time high full EBITDA, full year EBITDA of 115 million Norwegian kroners, which is 10% increase compared to last year, where our continued focus on costs and good commercial execution is, is showing positive effect. The market spot price of Metformin fluctuates with the global raw material prices and with corresponding revenue and purchasing effects, as also Alexander mentioned.
The global metformin market is expected to continue to grow by 4%-6% on an annual basis. The long-term renewable energy supply agreements, which we signed with Statkraft, last until 2032, provides us predictable power prices, irrespective of market volatility and secures 100% green, renewable hydropower long term, and also ensures priority on power. We have an attractive long-term growth potential as the remaining manufacturing capacity becomes fully available and optimized. Vistin is strategically well positioned as many European clients prefer high-quality supplies, nearshore production, and an attractive ESG profile. The board of directors will propose for the annual general meeting to pay out an ordinary cash dividend of up to one point five NOK per share.
to be paid partly with one NOK in May and up to zero point five NOK in November. And with that, I think we're done with the fourth quarter presentation, and we can open up for questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Alternatively, you may submit your question via the webcast. There are no questions at the phone at this time. I would like to hand back over for the webcast questions.
Yes, thank you. We have some questions coming in here. There is a question whether competition from Asia represents a threat to the business model of Vistin, is the question. Well, to answer that question, not really. I think metformin is a commodity drug. It's a high volume, relatively low margin product, which is sold globally. There are global manufacturers, both in Asia and we are in Europe. So we have been competing in this market ever since we started. We're used to competing in this market, and I also think it's fair to say that the pricing segment is also different when it comes to the different quality of the metformin in the market.
So, Vistin Pharma, we are positioned as a premium, high quality supplier, where normally the pricing is a bit higher, and then you have the other side of things, where you have somewhat cheaper metformin with other quality attributes. So I think the general competition in... from Asia to our metformin business is stable. It is as it's always been, and we're used to operating in this, and I think it's fair to say we are, the figures shows that we're able to operate in a good and healthy manner, I think, with our business. There's another question here, which is about, that Vistin Pharma is often described as a pure-play metformin producer, and how this investment in CF Pharma align with this long-term strategy. I think that's a good question.
As we grow the metformin business, our aim is to get to 7,000 metric tons and optimize the manufacturing and sales of the current metformin business. As management, as we have communicated before, also at the capital market stage some years back, that we also have an ambition to look for other business opportunities and grow the business. And we have an ambition also to add more products to the portfolio over time. And that's also why we purchased, let's say, a listening post in C.F. Pharma in 2024, to give us access to look actively into opportunities to explore other products to the portfolio than only metformin. So I think it aligns well with the long-term strategy and ambition that we have.
Then, there's. I'll take the next one, Magnus. There's a question about CapEx. What CapEx do you expect in 2026? What I can say is that historically, we kind of the maintenance CapEx to keep the building and machine in the current stand is around 10-12 million NOK per year. In addition, we do generally have some productivity projects. For example, the recycling of water, which we had in 2024 and partly 2025. That was around 15 million NOK investment. I believe we are looking at similar projects also in the future. So the CapEx will vary on what kind of interesting productivity projects we have. But the baseline is around 10-12 million NOK per year.
Then there's a question about contracts and spot sales versus long-term sales, among this. Maybe you answer that one.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a question here: What is the typical contract length with our customers? Typically, we have long-term customers and also portion of the long-term customers with longer contracts. Typically, the contract length for those tier one and tier two customers is rolling, so it just is—it continues after five years, and for another five years. Then we have some customers with yearly contracts, but of course, our aim is to have, let's say, the majority of contracts are long-term contracts with reputable pharmaceutical companies, and that's our business model, to work long-term with a partnership with our customers. The pricing just to speak about that as well is typically done once a year for most of the contracts.
Some very few customers have a half-yearly adjustment, but the majority is every year. There's another question here about the Metformin DC 95% grade. Now, that's a good question. We have been working the last, I would say, one point five years, to develop a new formulation with the DC grade 95%, which is, let's say the grade where the majority of DC sales is in the world today. That formulation is relatively close to being commercially ready. I think during 2026, at least we will be able to ship samples and test material to potential new customers.
And of course, we are working on with existing customer base, and we also work a lot with a very high activity on new leads and new customers to also fill the remaining part of the manufacturing capacity to get to the 7,000 metric tons. So DC 95 is an interesting new product for us.
Yeah. And I think then the next question about utilization and what you will be happy with in 2026. I think as previously, we will not kind of guide on volume, but I think as always, we are working on to continue to ramp up production and produce and sell as much as possible. So that's also something we will work on in 2026. There's also a question about, or the question there, but the questions says that the equity markets are not rewarding your strong performance. If that continues, would you consider initiating a sales process? I think that's not something that the management can comment on. I think that's more a question for the board.
Okay.
I think that was all of the questions.
Yeah, it looks like we have answered the questions here. Yeah.
So I think we can now close the call.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.