Morning, Christian.
Hi.
Welcome to everyone listening in to this webcast. It's been an exciting quarter. The geopolitical backdrop is pretty challenging, to say the least. Everything that's happening on the security front, on tariffs, et cetera, it's a very, very difficult environment to navigate. I must say, the Wilhelmsen Group has fared pretty well during the quarter. Do you agree?
Totally agree. Building sort of solid in the balance sheet, good performance from basically all our different units. I totally will agree that we have had a good quarter, second quarter in 2025.
I must say it's a little bit challenging or interesting to operate with nearly record results, with nearly one of the most difficult backdrops that we had. That's the situation we are in. With that, I think we should move into the second quarter. As you can see, I will start off with the net profit for the quarter. $ 250 million for the group, which is extremely strong. We had, I would say, satisfactory EBITDA from the operating entities of New Energy and Maritime Services. We'll come back to that a little bit later in the presentation. We've had very strong contribution from associates in Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Hyundai Glovis , amounting to $197 million for the quarter.
We've also gotten an approval from the AGM to cancel some shares and also the mandate to acquire additional shares, which we also did during the second quarter, close to 335,000 shares. We also increased the ownership in Edda Wind. I'll come back to that a little bit later, but we are now close to 38%. We paid the first dividend of NOK 12.00, and the board has the authority from the General Assembly to distribute up to an additional NOK 8.00. All in all, just to make a quick summary, I think the second quarter has been strong for us as a group.
Totally agree.
Looking at Maritime Services, it's pretty flat quarter- on- quarter, down year- on- year. This is very much due to revenue recognition related to ship management and the acquisition of Zeaborn. I think we would have liked to see a little bit, say, upward pressure on both top line and also on margins and EBITDA, landing for this quarter at 13%. Overall, the operating side, operations of the business, is running pretty well. Moving ahead to New Energy, I would say it's a surprisingly strong quarter for New Energy. Very strong operations and activity level for NorSea Group and across all the bases along the Norwegian coast, landing then at revenues of $100 million for the quarter, and a strong EBITDA contribution from New Energy, again linked to NorSea Group. There's a small goodwill impairment during the quarter, and some pretty good contribution from associates within New Energy.
Just looking at that from a breakup point of view, it's roughly $2 million from NorSea, $3 million from Reach Subsea, and the remaining from Edda Wind. As I mentioned initially, we increased the shareholding in Edda Wind, and the company was then delisted in this third quarter, at the beginning of August. I think that process has been, say, according to expectations. Stopping briefly at Edda WInd, a market leader in its segment, supplying vessels to the offshore wind service industry. Eight vessels on water, four under construction, a pretty sound order backlog, but of course still open capacity. We invested initially in 2020, so five years ago, in this company, and it's been somewhat of a journey with different partners and also been listed on the stock exchange, now delisted, $156 million altogether from a book value perspective.
We have strong belief in this segment, and I think it's a pretty nice picture on screen here showing a little bit of what these ships are all about. It can accommodate quite a large number of technicians. It has workspace, a good strong crane, and of course the heave compensated gangway, which is important for this industry. It will be interesting to see how we can develop this company going forward. Holding and investments. As I mentioned, a very, very strong contribution from Wilhelmsens and Hyundai Glovis, $197 million in total for the quarter, $157 million from Wilhelmsens, of course, including the sales gain from the sale of this terminal MIRRAT in Australia, but still underlying performance and profitability is strong. Hyundai Glovis at $40 million, which is, I would assume, record results for Hyundai Glovis in a quarter, which is very positive from our point of view.
We have $6 million in gain from, say, financial assets. We have $18 million in other financials, which is including the investment management that we do have, which contributed with $6 million. We had pretty strong cash inflows during the quarter, with close to $200 million from Wilhelmsens. As we started off with, we have a market backdrop which is challenging. The performance for the group is strong. The cash flow from the group is strong. As you will come back to, we are using this momentum to strengthen our balance sheet, strengthen liquidity. We are a long-term industrial player, and we intend to continue to be a long-term industrial player. We believe it's the right time for us now to build that strength so that we can, say, grasp the potential opportunities and weather the storms that may come ahead of us.
I think that's a little bit also what's summed up in the outlook from the board. I will not labor further on that. I'll pass it on to you, Christian, to take it from here.
Thank you very much, Thomas. I think basically you have covered the total picture very well. Top line in total for the second quarter, somewhat sort of 5% quarter- on- quarter and 6% quarter- on- quarter, 5% year- over- year. EBITDA at $48 million, share profit from associates with the very good sort of results from Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Hyundai Glovis. Wallenius Wilhelmsen accounting for $157 million. You haven't covered the other financial income, which is sort of at $23 million. Mm-hmm. Looking a bit back, because it's sort of April, May, and June, where we had the USD/NOK challenges or the changes, this is the value of the hedges that we do have on the USD/NOK exposure. You will see that the $23+ million there on the weakening.
You will also see it when you go further down on the comprehensive income, where you see a total comprehensive income of $377 million, which is basically then converting Norwegian or other currency assets into U.S. dollars. There is quite some impact of the U.S. dollar fluctuations in the second quarter. If we can expect that to go on, you know, we will see. There is a financial hedge in place and rolling, as we have discussed in many years, and it's a very sort of normal procedure to cover the U.S. dollar specifically in our accounts and balance sheets.
It is probably fair to say, Christian, that we had anticipated the dollar to depreciate even further. It has stabilized a little bit at a relatively strong level.
Into the third quarter, it's basically stabilized, as we have seen it. Kicking off the year with, on the cash flow, kicking off the year with $155 million at the beginning. $42 million coming in from Maritime Services. I've had some discussions after the first quarter, what sort of happens. What happens is that we also build on the working capital when it comes to Maritime Services. You could add, we have sort of invested or invested in a working capital of $21 million in Maritime Services, building up storage towards the tariff situation so that we are able to support our customers and deliver for a longer period, not knowing exactly what the structure will look like.
Building up capacity will tie up also cash, but good cash flow from Maritime Services, good cash flow from NorSea, and obviously also very good cash flow from the dividends you just described from Wallenius Wilhelmsen at high levels of close to $200 million and close to $30 million coming from Hyundai Glovis. On the other investment activity side, you have said that we did, on the New Energy, investment in further investment in Edda Wind. Taking Edda Wind private, close to $20 million, $13 million into Reach Subsea converting warrants, and also then just short of $90 million is cash invested in very, very, very highly liquid, but low risk, cash funds in the market with the cash coming in.
You would expect that also to happen in the future as we see Wallenius Wilhelmsen have proposed, or they have decided, a dividend coming in just short of $180 million in this quarter as we are into, as they decided a couple of days ago. Dividend and pay and buyback at $80 million, where dividend is at $49 million and buyback is at the remaining. We've done two buybacks, one a bit larger in the first quarter, one a bit smaller as described by Thomas in the second quarter. Buyback is a part of our financial policy as obviously also then policy on where to be when it comes to the dividend side. Not so much to describe on the back end ending at $200 million at end of the first half year.
I might add that the $87 million being invested in the investment activity is at least for me, it's the same as cash. We could put that on top, but technically it's in that role when it comes to the cash flow structure. Balance sheet obviously also then as a response or an answer to the very good performing business units are increasing. Equity is increasing, the total assets is increasing, and balance sheet is strong. Equity is increasing in percentages, or 1 percentage , but also of course also in absolute numbers. The sort of really strong, good eye will see that we have changed the word in the top line from a long-term financial structure to a sound structure. The word is basically based on the fact that the debt structures have a tenor until 2027. A long-term might be sort of a bit sort of a wrong word.
As you will see also from the graph, more or less all debt in Maritime Services has been repaid. That's one of the measures when we are receiving cash that we are paying down debt. There is still substantial debt in NorSea and in New Energy, but we will continue to take down debt as a part of also the cash management structure going forward. We will at the same time invite banks and other institutions to discuss the future of the structures in the financing structures of the group.
I think it's also prudent to comment that the communication we have with the banks is very sound, strong, but they are positively inclined to support this group, which is very, very pleasing.
Definitely, definitely. Thomas said the first dividend of NOK 12.00 is paid out in the second quarter, and we did a buyback of 334,000 shares. With that, we are in line with the financial policy and even more in line with the policy. With the range, if the board decides to pay all the NOK 8.00, but that's a discussion at the board coming up in the third quarter. Good when it comes to buyback. As you can see on the right graph, basically at par with 2024. We are also in the process of, it takes a couple of months or so, in the process of canceling around 2.2 million shares, basically close to 5% of the outstanding shares, hoping that will sort of mature or end up in a couple of weeks or so.
At that point, we will give a note to the stock exchange when that's being done. That's in the process and all the decisions have been made. We are just waiting for the final decision on that. That's basically on the balance sheet, on the cash flow side. Back to you, Thomas, or back to you, Åge, on the question side.
Thank you, Christian. I think we like to finish off with this picture, trying to give a little bit of a snapshot of what we're doing and our vision that we labor on every time of shaping the maritime industry. Although, as we mentioned many times, a difficult backdrop, very difficult to navigate, to really understand how this is impacting the Maritime industry going forward. There are always opportunities. We are seeing organic opportunities within our profile or portfolio. Of course, there will be other opportunities that we are evaluating on an ongoing basis. I hope we will continue to fare well in the next quarters as well. If there are exciting news, we will make sure to share them with the market. Åge, do we have any questions?
Yes, Åge Sturtzel here, Investor Relations. We have one question from Helene Tingvold , analyst at Pareto. That relates to the very strong performance of NorSea. The question is if the activity level, which NorSea then seen in the second quarter, is particularly strong, or will it be lower in the second quarter? Is the second quarter particularly strong, or what will we see going forward?
It is hard to predict what is going into the next quarters, but I would say the second quarter was a very strong quarter. There have been, as we know, quite a few measures from the government incentivizing the industry to uphold high activity. This is no doubt at least partly a result of that. We find it somewhat hard to predict. There are also quite some seasonalities within the NorSea Group book of business. I think we have a positive view on NorSea Group going forward in general without quantifying where third or fourth quarter will be.
There are no long-term contracts supporting that level. This is based on the activity initiated by the operators and their suppliers. That's the momentum we are in, and we need to take that into consideration. This is a product of the others as well, even though we have contracts when it comes to some of the operations, but not at this level.
We are seeing strong contribution from north to south along the whole portfolio.
Thank you, Thomas and Christian. We have one question from one of our main shareholders. Just to bear in mind for those posting questions, there is a little time lag. When we answer this question, please post. If not, we will finish after that. The question from, as I said, one of the main shareholders: can you elaborate a bit more on the margin in Maritime Services this quarter?
Yeah, I can. Please feel free to fill in, Christian. When we have the top line, which we have already explained, haven't spoken too much about the margin, but with a flat top line and somewhat, call it, inflationary pressure on the cost side, I think there are two main elements. The one is increase in the, call it, the prices of cost of goods sold. The other one is related to increased labor or salaries. That would be the two main, say, issues of underlying negative inflationary pressure on the margins. I would say, dare to say, that we have proven for, say, a few decades actually that we are able to manage the cost structure to a certain extent.
When we do see some of these pressures, we often initiate processes to actually seek how we can take out costs in order to uphold, say, a relatively stable margin picture. Of course, there are certain time lags in this, and certain years it's easier to do than others, but that would be a general comment to the margin picture.
That's basically for the investor to sort of take back in the quarters to come. We could also add that we haven't said anything about tariffs. There will be some challenges with tariffs in the Maritime Services space. As far as we know, and all else equal, which is kind of a good way to start a discussion on that, we foresee that the annual number of tariff, or the cost of tariff, all else equal, will be in the area of $2 million - $3 million. Not a very high number, but obviously a negative number if all else is equal. That's the spreadsheet, technicalities, but it remains to be seen. That's again coming back to what Thomas says, that's a pressure that we need to discuss and find out how to sort of get back on when it comes to maintaining our margins.
To fill back on that and from the tariff discussion, because we haven't spent too much time on it, there's no doubt that the biggest direct impacts that we will see on tariffs will be within Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Hyundai Glovis. When it comes to the remaining part of our portfolio, it's more a question of the indirect effects that it would have on global trade growth or, to the contrary, except for some of the limited effects that Christian is mentioning, which is then very much related to ship services products in the United States.
Thank you, Thomas and Christian. That was the end of the Q&A. If there are more questions, they can be posted directly to the company. You can round off.
Thank you, Christian. Thank you, Åge. Most of all, thank you for everyone who's listening in. Looking forward to see you in six months' time. Take care.