Good morning. Welcome to the fourth quarter results for Wilh Wilhelmsen Holding. My name is Thomas Wilhelmsen. This is Christian Berg. I thought before we dive into the numbers, Christian will share a little bit or talk a little bit about what has happened in the last, say, couple of weeks or couple of months. A lot has happened since the last quarter, especially when it comes to, say, the volatility and uncertainty related to world trade. The Wilhelmsen Group, we are, as everyone following us, very much reliant on global trade, and of course, in more uncertain pockets of the company than others, but still, we are very much reliant on it.
The geopolitical scene and the, let's call it the macroeconomic and world trade scene in terms of tariffs, et cetera, has changed, or at least gotten certain elements to it, which has brought some excitement into us and our group.
Yes, definitely. Last quarter has sort of shown a lot of volatility, and I guess discussions on this volatility will continue in this year as well.
Yeah, I think so. And I think when we look into our portfolio of companies, there are certain areas where we are, say, watching this more carefully than others. Because when we look at the maritime services segment of the Wilhelmsen Group, of course, world trade is important, but we might not be as affected on the maritime services side as we, for example, would be in strategic holding and investment, and specifically towards Wallenius Wilhelmsen.
That's basically also what we have seen historically, that the maritime service group is kind of stable through different volatile periods of the year and different periods through the year. While specifically also Wallenius Wilhelmsen then has sort of more, and Wallenius has seen more of the effect of the different challenges coming in from the side.
And from a security perspective, of course, there's also been a lot that has happened in the last year, and especially in terms of the Red Sea, which is, say, taking significant capacity out from various shipping segments. And in many ways, of course, from a humanitarian perspective, we hope that this will, say, calm down and there will be not just a ceasefire, but that the various wars and disruptions will end. But the counter to that, of course, is that a lot of capacity is coming back into the market. So it will be an interesting period ahead.
As we have seen, the Red Sea is starting to open. We still see trade flowing a bit more than it did a quarter back. It will impact the global trade and specifically also the shipping trades. We don't know exactly where and how, but some impact it will have.
But all in all, I think the Wilhelmsen Group is well positioned. We want to continue to grow. But of course, we are very focused with all this uncertainty when it comes to the discipline that we have as a group. And for you later going deeper into the numbers, of course, this is very, very important for us.
Just to add on top of that, having a solid balance sheet and liquidity to handle whatever might happen is a very important sort of measure for us to have in place when, if, or what something happens that we need to take care of.
Yeah. Okay. We'll go a little bit further into the details for the quarter. We believe it's been a pretty strong quarter for the group. The EBITDA has increased 12% year over year when it comes to maritime services and new energy. The underlying, say, business sentiment is quite strong. Of course, we've had very strong contribution from Wallenius Wilhelmsen and from Hyundai Glovis, which is seriously impacting the numbers for the Wilhelmsen Group in positive terms. We have, unfortunately, I would say nearly always in the fourth quarter, certain one-offs. We try not to have fourth quarters with significant one-offs and that we do this prudently throughout the year, but still we've had a few. But that's the way it is. And this is ending up with a net profit of $91 million for the fourth quarter.
We increased the ownership in Treasure from 78 point something to a little bit more than 84%. So that's been, say, according to plan. And yesterday we had our board meeting and the board proposes a dividend of 12 NOK plus potential up to another eight. And this is within the dividend policy that we have as a group, so and up from last year. So looking into maritime services for the quarter, the numbers are somewhat, say, distorted, especially as a result of the Zeaborn acquisition. Christian will come back to that a little bit later. It's a little bit technical. It's not seriously technical, but at least it's distorting the numbers somewhat from the quarter. But underlyingly, the business is still performing. I believe we have a good position in the markets in which we operate.
We are working, say, strategically and steadily towards continued growth in this segment. We did also here have some, say, impairment losses or adjustments during the quarter. There has been, with all the uncertainty that has been going on in the world in the last couple of years, this is actually part of the results of this impairment as we have, say, exited certain areas or countries where we've had operations.
Unfortunately, say, with that comes a few adjustments. All in all, I would say WMS is performing quite well. We believe this will continue into the coming year. New Energy, a strong quarter, strong quarter driven largely by high activity within the NorSea Group. With all the bases we have, of course, there's changes from quarter to quarter and year to year in what parts of Norway where we have strong activity.
But all in all, the portfolio is delivering as we wanted to with an 11% increase year over year. And with an EBITDA of 16 million, which is significantly up from last year in terms of being 27%. And an EBITDA margin adjusted of 22%. Certain smaller adjustments there as well. I will not go into it because you're coming into the numbers later. But we have a $5 million gain, which is predominantly related to a small business up at Polarbase called Polar Algae. And also the transactions in Reach during the quarter.
Then strategic holding and investments, as I said at the outset, the performance of the Wilhelmsen Group is very much, at least in the latter quarters, driven by high profitability within this segment. Wilhelmsen had their quarterly presentation yesterday, a very strong result. And the market is continuing to be strong.
But of course, with the uncertainties that we are talking about, and it's very difficult to know what impact potential tariffs or other trade wars can have on this part of our portfolio. But underlyingly, the business is doing well. There's been a tremendous job done in terms of contract renegotiations during not just last quarter, but also throughout the year of 2024. So the book of business within Wallenius Wilhelmsen is as strong as it's ever been. So that's very, very pleasing for us to see.
There's been some minor adjustments in terms of the financial, sorry, the financial management we have of the financial portfolio. But all in all, I would say we are pretty pleased with that. And when it comes to cash flow, again, as a result of Wallenius Wilhelmsen's performance, there's been strong dividend contribution towards shareholders.
We received $171 million during the quarter and for the year, $282 million from Wallenius Wilhelmsen, so this is very positive for the Wilhelmsen Group, ensuring that we not only have a strong balance sheet, but also strong liquidity position. We're able to continue with our dividend policy. We continue to strengthen our balance sheet, and we're also able to actually continue to grow and strengthen the overall portfolio of the company. Just briefly on ESG, there's been, as I said in previous quarters, a lot of work done internally in order to both streamline and report on various ESG aspects.
It's extremely unfortunate. We've had two fatalities during last year, which is too many, and we feel with the families and the close ones to the deceased, so that's just work that we need to continue to have high focus on.
We're working in several parts of our operation in, I would call it, high-risk areas, and focus on health and safety is just paramount. On the other axis of the ESG element, the Wilhelmsen Group has developed according to, say, the plans and targets that we have set, so I'm pretty pleased with the way that's moving ahead, so then for the highlights of the year, from a shareholder perspective, there's been an 80%, 18% return for shareholders.
That's a combination of the increase in share price and dividends. We are pleased with that. We've had increased in total income and EBITDA for the group, which is also very pleasing, and as mentioned many times, the results from Wallenius Wilhelmsen is positively impacting our position as well, and it's been record results. We've increased our shareholding in Edda Wind and in Treasure ASA during the year.
We are continuing to grow, of course, the general portfolio, but also within ship management. With that, I thought I would also say a few words about ship management. Because in 2025, we will actually celebrate the ship management 50th anniversary. There is a bit of a long-standing history for ship management because this actually started back in close to the 1930s with the cooperation between the Wilhelmsen Group and Barber Steamship Lines in the U.S. This led on to a company being set up in Hong Kong, which eventually then became the platform for ship management for the partnership, but then also towards third-party ship management as we see it today. Third-party ship management for the Wilhelmsen Group is definitely not new. It is an important part of our portfolio and future strategy.
Within ship management, we have four main axes that we deliver towards our customers. Predominantly, or the most important, is on technical management, where we actually look after the asset or the ship on behalf of our customers, but in order to do that, we also need crew, and of course, people is the most important asset that we have in this company, and I'll come back to the numbers later, but crew management is a vital part of the overall ship management offering.
Also, looking at OPEX management, how can we on behalf of the owners ensure that the procurement processes, et cetera, are as optimal as possible? And there's a lot of ancillary services related to dry docking, ship inspections, et cetera. If we look at this slide, we can see that we've had quite a bit of growth in ship management over the last couple of years.
This has been highly intentional. We have, as we have presented previously, done various acquisitions within this segment in the last couple of years. Today, we have 10 manning offices around the world. We run from a technical perspective out of eight offices. We have the head office in Singapore. We have close to 15,000 seafarers on our books, which is a sizable amount. We run from a management perspective approximately 450 ships. And 320-330 are on full technical management. It's quite a sizable operation, which we are very proud of and which represents a very important competence base within the maritime sector. For Wilhelmsen Group, as a major supplier in general towards the maritime sector, we believe the competence within ship management is extremely important for the overall understanding of this industry. Outlook, we've touched on many of it.
We have a strong platform within the group. We believe both the segments and the businesses that we have have very sound footings. And we are very well placed within the marketplace. But there are, of course, certain uncertainties that we have seen increasing over the last couple of weeks or months. So that will be something to watch. But in general, we have a relatively positive outlook on where we stand and how this should move into the coming periods. So with that, Christian, I'll leave it to you to go through the numbers in a little bit more detail.
Thank you very much, Thomas. I'll dive into some of the technicalities that Thomas mentioned earlier, starting with the first point, actually, on the top line. So top line for the quarter, growth, even if I'm sort of diving into the first one-off.
The first sort of technical change that we made is on the top line from the purchase of Zeaborn. There are two ways of accounting for manning ships. Either you do it on a gross level or you do it on having a fee for doing the service level. On the gross level, you gross up the top line and you gross the cost line. Or you do it net with a fee. The Zeaborn company had sort of a combination. And after a sort of thorough run through the last half year, we've seen that they sort of do not match exactly with the way we account for the contracts. We have made the changes, taking down the top line with sort of NOK 15 million for the two quarters that's been in second and third quarter.
On the continuous path, we will continue on the same sort of logic. We've gone through the sort of fine-tuning of this, as also mentioned in the second quarter when we did the same presentation as here. Some technicalities doesn't really do anything to the cash flow from the business or anything to the business itself. It is either a net logic or a gross logic when it comes to the numbers. EBITDA for the quarter, 12% up, as Thomas alluded to earlier. On the EBIT side, we do have a NOK 11 million impairment. Thomas basically said the words. There are three countries which are sort of smaller parts in the big picture of Wilhelmsen. There is a brand name called NorLines with approximately $4 million. We have sort of discontinued selling the brand name.
So, brand name is taken away, being sold under a different name. So, no cash flow effects, no effects going forward, but a cleanup of the balance sheet going forward. Other to mention is probably also that if it's the volatility in the world, but it's also a volatility in the currency market. So, weakening of the krone towards the dollar specifically. And as alluded to several times, we do have a rolling currency or currency basket hedge. And the mark-to-market of that and mostly unrealized currency losses or then the unrealized losses comes from that rolling hedge. As you can also see on the bottom line under the earnings per share on the comprehensive income, that the balance sheet is also affected by this.
When we have NOK assets being accounted for in US dollars, we will see a negative impact on the asset base, in fact, of the weakening of the krone or the strengthening of the US dollar. So again, for the quarter, as Thomas said, quite okay, and definitely okay from the two associates or the larger associates being Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Hyundai Glovis with NOK 116 million for the quarter.
For the full year, again, positive on the EBITDA, 8% up from last year. Major contributor being maritime services with NOK 109 million, probably at record levels if we compare to at least the last 10 years. Same goes also for new energy and specifically then NorSea base or NorSea that we are on very high and good levels for both the major activities. On the associates side, NOK 472 million coming from Wallenius Wilhelmsen.
and Hyundai Glovis, $372 from Wallenius Wilhelmsen and $90 from Hyundai Glovis. So they are big contributors, not only for the quarter, but definitely also for the year. And as I will come back to a couple of seconds, also obviously for the cash flow with the dividends being paid out. On the other side, on the other points to mention might be that again, for the year, for the full year, the currency valuation, negative valuation will account for approximately $27 million in the financial income expenses. Coming to the cash flow and starting off the year with $224 million in cash. And remembering the just above $100 million from Maritime Services EBITDA turning into $46 million of cash. Cash being then used to grow the business. So increase in working capital through the year has been continuous.
So basically just about half of the EBITDA is being added into the working capital. On the other side, in the new energy side, you can see that cash flow is actually increasing from the EBITDA. And that's more than it's around $24-$25 million in release of working capital in specifically then NorSea. The big sort of cash contributor again coming into the year is Wallenius Wilhelmsen contributing with $280 million. Glovis with some $20, taking out with some smaller other points as well, but then taking the cash flow into $311 million from dividends from JVs and associates. Being spent basically into roughly $40 million in the WMS group and $50 million into the new energy group.
The most sort of known one in the New Energy group is close to $24 million being invested in the increase in Edda Wind through the year. Through the year, having paid $121 million in dividend and also adding on to buybacks with that. We have spent cash, what we think is wisely, and sort of paid back on our debt structure and specifically on the WMS debt structure, which is the most flexible one. Really decreasing the debt into that. On the other financing activities, it's basically split in thirds. One third, approximately $30 million being invested in treasury shares, one third being financial cost, and one third being actually then leases being repaid. Taking us back to from the start 224 down to 155, but with a healthy profile, I think.
I hope you agree on the year 2024. Still, or not even still, but we are a solid company, 72% equity ratio. For the ones that can sort of see the, this is also where you see the approximately $200 million of loss in the balance sheet, where being the comprehensive income, taking the valuation of the NOK exposure down with approximately 200 million, but still keeping us at 72% of equity ratio, which is a very sound and healthy level. When you go to the right-hand graph, you see the debt maturity profile. Then basically the two major debt packages that we do have, having a sort of 2027 tenor.
I thought I'd also use this moment, hopefully that someone is listening in from banks and the financial society, that obviously with the sort of momentum in the different markets, specifically now, for instance, the bond market, we are also always interested in discussing with all the relevant potential providers. Might be that I get a couple of phones now into sort of how to take a dive into other sources or funding possibilities for the future in the structure that we do have. Again, working sort of really prudent on paying down debt and being good at handling the cash at hand. As Thomas said, the board has proposed a first dividend of NOK 12 and a potential dividend of NOK 8. In aggregate, that makes it sort of potentially then NOK 20 in total.
That 20 potentially in total will end up at 4.97 in the 3%-5% target. So at the very high end of the target rate. But the only one that's sort of being proposed to the General Assembly now is the NOK 12. And the NOK 12 will take us into the territory of the target, just about 3% for the first dividend. So happy to share this with the audience. If you go to the right-hand graph, it shows that the first dividend will be just about $40 million in total and potentially then in total $76 million.
And on the 24, 23 lines, you will also see that the thick blue line is then the potential of buybacks through the year, which we will continue on a regular basis to evaluate if it's good for the shareholders and the best for the company going forward.
So on that, Thomas, as we try to save lots of time, we're still continuing and continuing and continuing to shaping the maritime industry.
Yeah, we are. And that's, say, being a continuous effort by 25,000 people every single day within the Wilhelmsen Group. We try to use our vision statement as much as we can. And I dare to say there are a few companies around the world that have a vision which is so highly embedded into a large international organization as we have. There might be some questions. We'll give some time for the questions to come through. If there's no questions, then there are questions already. There are some questions.
Yes, Åge Sturtzel , Investor Relations. There are quite a few questions related to capital and both capital coming in and how we use it and investments. It's from Jørgen Lian in DNB and investor.
I split it in two. I think I'll take the first questions to you, Christian, related to more on the capital allocation part. Then Thomas, the others related to what to invest in. I think I pass it to you. It's not getting too many questions in one go. The first one is, or the first three is related to its coming like NOK 100 per share in dividend from Wilhelmsen. How to use it? It's a question about will we use a buyback as a tool going forward? Also from Jørgen about what if we have a target for net leverage and the balance sheet. If you can take those.
I'll try to do a sum up of all. It's good to get a lot of questions in the same. I'll try to answer in the same way.
But we do not have a target specifically. But we do have a, let's say, a target of having a healthy balance sheet, being able to, as we started the presentation today, being able to take care of our business or our businesses and to support our businesses. That's the most important. But our sort of three legs is being able to have a solidity, being able to have cash at hand to support, and being able to grow the business. And then, of course, obviously paying out a dividend according to the policy. And we do have a history of buying back shares. And it's natural for us to utilize that vehicle as a payback vehicle towards all the shareholders that we do have in the group. So that's the logic.
I'm sorry, I can't be too sort of specific on it, but that's the way we are thinking of the capital coming in. But that's sort of a split between the three logistics. I don't know, Thomas.
No, I think you answered it well. So if they are happy with the answer, then that's fine.
Then it's more on what to invest in and how to invest.
Yes. And then I can take it. It's concrete from Jørgen Lian. One is about the strategic importance of the stake in Glovis. You can maybe take that first, Thomas.
Yeah. Hyundai Glovis is a position that we've had now for more than 20 years. It's a, say, a platform in Korea for the Wilhelmsen Group, which is, say, providing us a strategic access, which is second to none.
Hyundai Glovis is an exciting company with, in our view, priced attractively from a future, say, potential gain perspective, and within an area where we feel that we have won something to contribute, but also sectors that we say look upon as both interesting and strategic going forward, so the Hyundai Glovis shareholding is deemed strategic from the Treasure ASA board, but it's also deemed very strategic from a Wilhelmsen Holding perspective
and we might also add on to Thomas's rant on the relation with Glovis. The Glovis is sort of a global company, and we do also have different industrial angles towards both Korea as a nation, but also then specifically towards Hyundai and the Glovis company. At arm's length, obviously, is that sort of ship management, different sort of digital initiatives and other initiatives on the new energy side towards Korea and the Hyundai Group.
All areas of WMS have, say, interfaces in various sorts. Wilhelmsen, of course, has significant interfaces towards the Hyundai Group. So all in all, it's, as I said, it's deemed a very strategic position for the Wilhelmsen Group.
And then one looking more forward on also from Jørgen is, are there any specific business areas where you see interesting potentials and are looking for tangible investments or acquisitions?
I wish I could be very specific, but within the three segments that we do have, we are continuously looking at how we can first and foremost be, say, continuing support the businesses that we have, how we can continue to be, say, the most efficient operators within the areas that we operate, but also how we could either deepen or widen the segments through various offerings. So we are looking, I would say, across the three segments for opportunities.
And I think it's fair to say that we believed that there would be more opportunities in the aftermath of COVID and everything that has happened, also from an overall disruption perspective in the last couple of years. So there's been lesser attractive opportunities than what we thought there would be. But we'll see in the period ahead what's coming towards us.
I should probably put on my glasses, but of course, with the cash flow coming in, being extremely disciplined on sort of how to evaluate and how to go forward is one of our key tasks, actually, in the period to come when we are having this solidity and the cash at hand. So we need to be extremely good at being efficient and disciplined in our behavior.
We have a bit of an internal slogan saying strategic growth, but disciplined implementation.
Yes.
Discipline is both in terms of capital, but also in terms of how we run the businesses from an efficiency perspective is high on the agenda.
There is a final one from an investor, which I can answer. It's about potential merger of A and B shares. This is for shareholders to consider. It's been addressed at the general meeting before, and the board has responded to it and has not been supported. I feel it's outside the quarterly presentations.
That rounds up the Q&A session. Thomas and Christian, if you want to wrap up the session.
Thank you very much. Thank you for the questions. We like questions, so we appreciate that. Thank you. And thank you very much to everyone that's listening in. And thank you, Christian, for participating.
So looking forward to an exciting 2025 and to see all of you for the next presentation. Exciting and disciplined.
Exactly. Thank you.
Thank you.