Lerøy Seafood Group Stock price
Compare with Peer Group
📊 Peer Group
📈 What is it?
The peer group consists of the companies with the most similar business model. They serve as a benchmark for putting a stock into context.
🧮 How is it selected?
Based on similarity of business model, meaning companies from the same industry with comparable products and a similar customer base. That's the only way to compare apples to apples.
🏛️ Why does it matter?
Whether a stock is cheap or expensive is best judged by comparison. A P/E of 18 or an EV/FCF of 20 can look cheap or expensive depending on the yardstick. The peer group gives you the most accurate one: companies with a similar business model that operate under the same conditions.
🎯 What does it mean for investors?
When a metric sits below the peer average, the stock is valued more cheaply relative to its competitors, and above the average more expensively. A discount to the peer group can be an opportunity, but it can also have a reason (for example lower growth). The comparison is a starting point, not a verdict.
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👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
👉 Clear answers to your questions
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👉 More detailed insights
👉 Exclusive perspectives on opportunities & risks
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Is Lerøy Seafood Group a Top Scorer Stock based on the Dividend, High-Growth-Investing or Leverman Strategy?
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Key metrics
📘 Market Capitalization
📈 What is it?
Market capitalization shows how much a company is currently worth on the stock market.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps classify companies by size (Large, Mid, Small Cap) and indicates their market presence and relative stability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Large-cap companies tend to be more stable, often pay dividends, but may grow more slowly.
- Smaller firms may offer higher growth potential but come with more volatility.
- Market capitalization is a useful indicator of company size — but not a measure of whether a stock is undervalued or overvalued.
📘 Enterprise Value (EV)
📈 What is it?
Enterprise Value represents the total cost to acquire a company — including its debt and excluding its cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(= Market Cap + Net Debt)
🏛️ Why is it important?
EV gives a more complete picture of a company's value than market cap alone and is used in key valuation ratios like EV/FCF or EV/Sales.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Enterprise Value shows the true cost of buying a company, including all financial obligations.
- It is more accurate than just looking at market cap, especially when comparing companies with different levels of debt or cash.
- Professional investors prefer EV-based multiples because they better reflect the company’s full financial footprint.
📘 Net Debt
📈 What is it?
Net Debt shows how much debt remains after subtracting a company’s available cash reserves.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It indicates how dependent a company is on borrowed money and how easily it can service its debt in the short term.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low or negative net debt signals financial strength and flexibility.
- Companies with strong cash positions are better positioned in crises.
- High net debt increases financial risk — especially in environments with rising interest rates or economic downturns.
📘 Cash
📈 What is it?
Cash represents all liquid assets a company can access immediately — including cash, bank deposits, and short-term investments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It reflects a company’s financial flexibility and resilience — enabling investments, buybacks, or buffer in downturns.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A strong cash position means greater room for maneuver and crisis resistance.
- Cash-rich companies can invest, pay down debt, or repurchase shares.
- But excess idle cash might indicate a lack of growth opportunities.
📘 Shares Outstanding
📈 What is it?
Shares outstanding represent the total number of a company’s shares currently held by investors — excluding treasury stock.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s the basis for key metrics like Earnings Per Share (EPS), Market Capitalization, or the Price/Earnings ratio (P/E).
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Fewer shares in circulation typically increase earnings per share — making each share more valuable.
- Share buybacks reduce the number of shares and boost per-share metrics.
- Issuing new shares does the opposite — diluting shareholder value and lowering per-share figures.
📘 Price-to-Earnings Ratio (P/E)
📈 What is it?
The P/E ratio shows how many times a company's earnings per share are reflected in its current share price — in other words, how "expensive" the stock appears relative to its profits.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The P/E ratio is one of the most widely used valuation metrics. It helps investors assess whether a stock appears cheap or expensive compared to its earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
📊 P/E (TTM) = Based on earnings from the last 12 months (Trailing Twelve Months):🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/E may indicate undervaluation — or signal underlying issues.
- A high P/E may reflect strong growth expectations — or an overvalued stock.
📘 Price-to-Sales Ratio (P/S)
📈 What is it?
The P/S ratio shows how much investors are paying for $1 of the company’s revenue – regardless of profitability.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/S is especially useful for evaluating growth companies or businesses not yet profitable. It reflects how the market values the company’s sales.
🧮 Calculation
Market Cap = kr25.47b | Revenue (TTM) = kr33.56b
Market Cap = kr25.47b | Estimated Revenue = kr34.52b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low P/S may indicate undervaluation — or low profitability.
- A high P/S can reflect strong growth expectations — or excessive optimism.
- Especially helpful when evaluating companies where profits are low, volatile, or negative.
📘 Enterprise Value to Sales (EV/Sales)
📈 What is it?
EV/Sales shows how much investors are paying for $1 of revenue — considering not just equity, but also debt and cash. It’s the capital structure–adjusted version of the P/S ratio.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It’s ideal for comparing companies with different levels of debt. It reflects a company's true cost relative to its revenue.
🧮 Calculation
Enterprise Value = kr35.95b | Revenue (TTM) = kr33.56b
Enterprise Value = kr35.95b | Forward Revenue = kr34.52b
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EV/Sales allows for capital structure–neutral company comparisons.
- A lower ratio may indicate undervaluation; a higher one may signal strong growth expectations or overvaluation.
- Especially helpful when evaluating high-growth companies with low or negative earnings.
📘 Enterprise Value to Free Cash Flow (EV/FCF)
📈 What is it?
EV/FCF shows how many years it would take for a company to "pay back" its enterprise value using its free cash flow.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It focuses on real cash generation, ignoring accounting noise — ideal for assessing profitability and value based on liquidity, not earnings.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low EV/FCF may signal undervaluation and strong cash generation.
- A high EV/FCF might reflect weak recent cash flow or aggressive growth expectations.
- Best suited for stable, mature businesses with predictable free cash flows.
📘 Price-to-Book Ratio (P/B)
📈 What is it?
The P/B ratio compares a company’s market value to its book value — showing how much investors are paying for each dollar of net assets.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
P/B is commonly used for asset-heavy industries like banks or industrials. It helps assess whether a stock is trading above or below its net asset value.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A P/B below 1 may signal undervaluation — or weak profitability.
- A P/B above 1 implies the market expects future value creation (e.g., brand, IP, growth).
- Best used for companies with tangible assets and strong balance sheets.
📘 Dividend per Share (DPS)
📈 What is it?
Dividend per Share shows how much cash a company pays out to shareholders for each share they own – usually on an annual or quarterly basis.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
DPS is the absolute value of the payout per share – crucial for income-focused investors and dividend strategies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable or growing DPS often signals a strong, shareholder-friendly business.
- DPS alone doesn’t tell you how attractive the payout is – the stock price also matters (→ see Dividend Yield).
- Long-term dividend growth is often a hallmark of high-quality companies – like the dividend aristocrats.
📘 Dividend Yield
📈 What is it?
Dividend yield shows how large a company’s dividend is in relation to its current share price.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It allows investors to compare dividend payouts across stocks, regardless of price or payout size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A stable yield can reflect reliable distributions.
- Comparing 1Y and 5Y yield shows whether dividend growth keeps pace with stock price appreciation.
- A low yield isn’t always negative – it can signal strong past performance or growth focus.
📘 Dividend Growth
📈 What is it?
Dividend growth shows how much a company has increased its dividend per share over time.
🧮 How is it calculated?
5Y: Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR)
🏛️ Why is it important?
Consistently rising dividends are often a sign of financial strength and shareholder orientation – especially relevant for long-term investors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stable dividend growth is a sign of sustainable earning power.
- High dividend growth can significantly boost your total return:
- If a company pays $1 in dividends and increases it by 15% annually over 5 years, you’ll receive $2 per share in year 5 – twice as much as at the start!
📘 Payout Ratio
📈 What is it?
The payout ratio shows what percentage of a company’s earnings (per share) is distributed to shareholders as dividends.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess whether the dividend is sustainable – especially in relation to the company’s profitability.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low payout ratio means the company retains more earnings for reinvestment – typical for growth companies.
- A moderate payout (e.g. 25–50%) indicates a healthy balance between returns and reinvestment.
- High payout ratios may seem attractive but can carry risk if earnings decline.
📘 Consecutive Dividend Increases
📈 What is it?
This metric shows how many consecutive years a company has raised its dividend per share – without any cuts or pauses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
(Special dividends are not considered.)
🏛️ Why is it important?
A long track record of increases reflects financial strength, consistency, and shareholder commitment.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A long dividend increase streak builds confidence – especially in volatile markets.
- Such companies are seen as reliable and income-friendly investments.
- The longer the streak, the stronger the company’s dividend discipline.
📘 Revenue
📈 What is it?
Revenue shows how much a company earns in total from selling its products and services – the gross income before any costs are deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Revenue is one of the key figures to assess a company’s size, market position, and growth potential.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing revenue indicates rising demand and can be an early signal of future earnings growth.
- Comparing actual and expected revenue reveals trends in the market environment and analyst sentiment.
- Note: Strong revenue alone isn’t enough – margins and profitability matter just as much.
📘 EBITDA
📈 What is it?
EBITDA stands for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.” It reflects a company’s operating profit before the effects of financing, taxes, and accounting depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBITDA is widely used to evaluate a company’s operating performance – especially across capital-intensive sectors or international comparisons.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high or growing EBITDA indicates strong operational profitability – independent of taxes, interest, or accounting methods.
- It’s especially useful for comparing companies across sectors or geographies.
- Important: EBITDA is not a net income figure – it excludes key costs like depreciation and interest.
📘 EBIT
📈 What is it?
EBIT stands for “Earnings Before Interest and Taxes.” It reflects a company’s operating profit after depreciation, but before interest and tax expenses.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT is a core profitability metric that shows how well the company performs in its main business operations – independent of capital structure and tax environment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT indicates strong profitability from the company’s core business – before financial and tax effects.
- It allows better comparison between companies with different debt levels or tax structures.
- Compared to EBITDA, EBIT already accounts for depreciation and reflects capital intensity more clearly.
📘 Net Income
📈 What is it?
Net income is the company’s total profit – the amount left after all expenses, taxes, interest, and depreciation have been deducted.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the most comprehensive measure of a company’s profitability – showing how much actual profit remains after all business and financing costs.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growing net income indicates that the company is managing all of its costs efficiently.
- It directly influences valuation metrics like P/E ratio and the company’s dividend capacity.
- Over time, net income trends reveal how resilient and profitable the business model really is.
📘 Free Cash Flow (FCF)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow shows how much actual cash remains after a company covers its operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF reflects a company’s real financial strength – regardless of accounting profits. It shows how much flexibility a company has for dividends, share buybacks, or debt reduction.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High free cash flow means the company generates real, usable cash – independent of reported net income.
- It’s often the most reliable base for sustainable dividends and buybacks.
- Declining FCF can be an early warning sign – even when profits appear stable.
📘 Revenue Growth
📈 What is it?
Revenue growth shows how much a company’s sales have changed compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on forward projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected revenue ÷ Revenue in prior year − 1) × 100
Forward growth is based on analyst estimates for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Rising revenue signals growing demand, business expansion, and market share gains – especially important for growth-oriented companies.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Growth is the engine of long-term value creation – especially in tech and growth sectors.
- What matters is not just current growth, but its sustainability.
- Forward projections reflect whether analysts expect continued momentum – or a slowdown.
📘 EBITDA Growth
📈 What is it?
EBITDA growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) has increased or decreased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBITDA ÷ EBITDA from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Growing EBITDA indicates improving operational profitability – regardless of financing or accounting effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Strong EBITDA growth signals operational efficiency and scalability – especially during growth phases.
- EBITDA growth can be an early indicator of margin and earnings expansion – but should be assessed alongside revenue and EBIT.
📘 EBIT Growth
📈 What is it?
EBIT growth shows how much a company’s operating profit (after depreciation, but before interest and taxes) has increased compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected EBIT ÷ EBIT from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate is based on analyst projections for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EBIT growth is a direct indicator of a company’s business performance – taking into account capital intensity through depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Rising EBIT signals improving operating profitability – even after accounting for depreciation.
- It’s especially important for evaluating companies with significant capital expenditures.
- Combined with revenue and EBITDA growth, EBIT growth provides a well-rounded view of operational progress.
📘 Net Income Growth
📈 What is it?
Net income growth shows how much a company’s bottom-line profit has increased or decreased compared to the previous year – both on a trailing basis (TTM) and based on analyst projections.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Forward = (Expected net income ÷ Net income from prior year − 1) × 100
The forward estimate reflects analysts’ expectations for the current fiscal year.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net income is the ultimate measure of profitability. Growing net income signals stronger efficiency, cost control, and sustainable earnings power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Stronger net income boosts valuation, dividend potential, and investor confidence.
- If profits stall while revenue grows, it may signal margin pressure.
📘 Free Cash Flow Growth
📈 What is it?
Free cash flow (FCF) growth shows how a company’s available cash – after covering operating expenses and capital expenditures – has changed compared to the previous year.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Free cash flow reflects real financial strength. Growing FCF indicates more flexibility for dividends, share buybacks, and reinvestment.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Declining FCF may point to rising investments, increasing costs, or weaker operating performance.
- Especially for dividend investors, FCF growth is critical – since dividends are paid from actual available cash.
- A negative trend isn't always bad, but it deserves closer attention.
📘 Gross Margin
📈 What is it?
Gross margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains after deducting the direct costs of goods sold (like materials and production). It represents the company’s “raw profit” before fixed costs, taxes, and interest.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Or simply: Gross Margin = Gross Profit ÷ Revenue × 100
🏛️ Why is it important?
Gross margin indicates how efficiently a company can produce or procure what it sells. It is a key measure of product-level profitability and pricing power.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high gross margin suggests strong pricing power and efficient production.
- Falling margins may signal rising input costs or competitive pressure.
- Compared to peers, gross margin offers insights into the quality of a business model.
📘 EBITDA Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBITDA margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as operating profit before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.It reflects operating efficiency without being distorted by financing or accounting factors.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBITDA margin reveals how much operating income a company generates per dollar of revenue – independent of capital structure and tax effects.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBITDA margin reflects strong core profitability – before accounting distortions.
- It allows for effective comparisons across companies and sectors.
- A stable or growing margin signals efficient cost control and business scalability.
📘 EBIT Margin
📈 What is it?
The EBIT margin shows what percentage of revenue remains as operating profit after depreciation but before interest and taxes.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
The EBIT margin reflects a company’s core profitability while accounting for capital intensity (e.g. machinery, infrastructure). It’s especially useful for comparing businesses with different levels of depreciation.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high EBIT margin shows that the company remains efficient even after factoring in depreciation.
- It’s especially relevant for capital-intensive industries.
- Stable or rising EBIT margins over time are a strong indicator of pricing power and business quality.
📘 Net margin
📈 What is it?
Net margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as bottom-line profit after deducting all costs, interest, taxes, and depreciation.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
Net margin reflects a company’s overall efficiency – across operations, financing, and taxation. It shows how much actual profit is generated from each dollar of revenue.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high net margin means the company is not only strong operationally but also manages financing and taxes efficiently.
- Peer comparisons reveal business quality and competitiveness.
- Declining margins despite revenue growth can be a red flag for rising costs or inefficiencies.
📘 Free cash flow margin
📈 What is it?
The free cash flow (FCF) margin shows how much of a company’s revenue remains as actual free cash after covering all operating expenses and capital expenditures.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This margin reflects the true liquidity generated by the business – independent of accounting rules or depreciation. It’s especially relevant for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment decisions.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high FCF margin means a company consistently generates strong cash flow.
- It’s a positive signal for financial stability and shareholder returns.
- The long-term trend is key – a declining margin may indicate rising investments or weakening operating efficiency.
📘 Equity Ratio
📈 What is it?
The equity ratio indicates what portion of a company’s total assets is financed by shareholders’ equity – in other words, how much it relies on its own capital.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
A high equity ratio reflects financial strength and stability, especially during downturns. It’s a key indicator of a company’s solvency and long-term risk profile.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Companies with high equity ratios are generally more resilient and less dependent on external debt.
- Low equity ratios can signal higher risk or aggressive financial strategies.
- Important: Always assess the equity ratio in combination with the return on equity (ROE). This shows not just how stable the company is – but also how efficiently it uses shareholder capital.
📘 Return on Equity (ROE)
📈 What is it?
Return on equity (ROE) shows how efficiently a company uses its shareholders’ equity to generate profit. In other words: how much net income is earned per dollar of equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROE is a core profitability metric. It helps investors understand whether a company delivers attractive returns on the capital provided by its shareholders.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROE indicates that the company is using its capital efficiently and profitably.
- It’s especially meaningful for capital-intensive businesses or firms with high equity bases.
- Important: A very high ROE can also result from high debt levels – always interpret it alongside the equity ratio to assess financial health.
📘 Return on Capital Employed (ROCE)
📈 What is it?
ROCE measures how efficiently a company generates profits from its total capital – including both equity and interest-bearing debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It evaluates the return on all capital employed, regardless of how it’s financed.
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROCE is ideal for comparing companies with different financing structures. It shows how well management uses capital to create value for both shareholders and creditors.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROCE means the company uses its capital efficiently – regardless of whether it's funded by debt or equity.
- The higher the ROCE compared to peers, the more value the company creates with its invested capital.
- Especially relevant for capital-intensive sectors like industrials, energy, or infrastructure.
📘 Return on Invested Capital (ROIC)
📈 What is it?
ROIC measures how efficiently a company generates returns from the capital invested in its core operations – regardless of whether the capital comes from equity or debt.
🧮 How is it calculated?
- NOPAT = Net Operating Profit After Taxes
- Invested Capital = Operating assets minus non-interest-bearing liabilities
🏛️ Why is it important?
ROIC is one of the most accurate indicators of capital efficiency. Unlike return on equity, it is not distorted by leverage and shows how much value is created for all capital providers.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high ROIC shows how effectively a company uses the capital that is truly invested in its core operations.
- Unlike ROCE, ROIC focuses only on the capital that is actively used to run the business – and that requires a return (i.e. interest-bearing).
- Especially useful when comparing companies with large amounts of excess cash or non-interest-bearing liabilities – giving a more realistic picture of capital efficiency.
📘 Leverage Ratio (Debt-to-Equity)
📈 What is it?
The leverage ratio indicates how much a company relies on interest-bearing debt (such as loans and bonds) relative to its shareholders’ equity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
This ratio helps assess a company’s financial structure and risk profile. High leverage can enhance returns – but also increases exposure to interest rate changes and financial stress.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A low leverage ratio signals financial strength and independence.
- A higher ratio can improve returns in good times but increases risk during downturns or rising interest rate periods.
- 👉 Always interpret in the context of industry, capital intensity, and interest rate environment.
📘 Earnings per share (EPS)
📈 What is it?
Earnings per Share (EPS) shows how much profit is attributable to a single share – and is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a company's performance.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The diluted share count reflects potential new shares that could be issued through options, convertible bonds, or other rights.
🏛️ Why is it important?
EPS is the basis for many key valuation metrics like P/E ratio, PEG ratio, or payout ratio. It enables comparisons of profitability across companies, regardless of their size.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- EPS captures per-share profitability and is especially useful for comparisons over time or with analyst estimates.
- Rising EPS may signal consistent growth or share buybacks.
- Important: Always use diluted EPS for more realistic valuations – especially in companies with stock-based compensation.
📘 Free cash flow per share (FCF per share)
📈 What is it?
Free Cash Flow per Share shows how much free cash flow a company generates per outstanding share – after investments, but before dividends or debt repayments.
🧮 How is it calculated?
Free cash flow is calculated as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures (CapEx).
🏛️ Why is it important?
FCF per Share reveals how much real cash is available per share – useful for dividends, buybacks, or reducing debt. Unlike net income, free cash flow is harder to manipulate and often seen as a more reliable metric.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- High FCF per share signals strong financial flexibility.
- It shows how much capital the company can effectively reinvest or return to shareholders.
- Particularly relevant for dividend payers and capital-efficient businesses.
📘 Short interest
📈 What is it?
Short interest indicates how many shares of a company are currently sold short – that is, borrowed and sold by investors who expect the price to decline.
🧮 How is it calculated?
It reflects the percentage of a company’s shares that are being shorted relative to the total shares available.
🏛️ Why is it important?
Short interest serves as a sentiment indicator: A high value may signal skepticism or bearish expectations – but also increases the potential for a short squeeze if prices rise unexpectedly.
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- Low short interest usually indicates market confidence in the company.
- High short interest can be a warning sign – or an opportunity if sentiment shifts.
- Especially relevant in volatile markets or ahead of key earnings releases.
📘 Employees
📈 What is it?
The employee count shows how many people a company employs worldwide – offering insights into its size, structure, and business model.
🧮 How is it calculated?
🏛️ Why is it important?
It helps assess operational scale, labor intensity, and cost structure. Combined with revenue and profit, it enables key metrics like revenue per employee or productivity.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high headcount can signal operational complexity – but also significant growth capacity.
- Revenue per employee is a key indicator of efficiency.
- Especially useful for comparing tech, industrial, or service-heavy companies.
📘 Turnover per employee
📈 What is it?
Revenue per employee indicates how much revenue a company generates on average per employee – a key measure of efficiency and productivity.
🧮 How is it calculated?
The employee count is typically taken from the most recent annual report.
🏛️ Why is it important?
This metric helps compare business models – especially between labor-intensive and technology-driven companies. A high value suggests automation, operational efficiency, or strong value creation per head.
🧮 Calculation
🎯 What does this mean for investors?
- A high revenue per employee indicates a scalable and margin-strong business model.
- A low figure may reflect labor-intensive operations or lower value-add.
- Especially helpful when comparing tech companies to industrial or service sectors.
Lerøy Seafood Group Stock Analysis
Analyst Opinions
15 Analysts have issued a Lerøy Seafood Group forecast:
Analyst Opinions
15 Analysts have issued a Lerøy Seafood Group forecast:
Lerøy Seafood Group Events
Past Events
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AUG
19
Q2 2026 Earnings Call
29 days ago
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MAY
12
Q1 2026 Earnings Call
4 months ago
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MAR
2
Analyst/Investor Day - Lerøy Seafood Group ASA
7 months ago
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NOV
11
Q3 2025 Earnings Call
10 months ago
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AUG
19
Q2 2025 Earnings Call
about one year ago
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StocksGuide Free
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to Leroy Seafood Group's Second Quarter Presentation 2026. My name is Henning Beltestad, I'm CEO in Leroy Seafood Group. And with me today, I have Sjur Malm, CFO.
First of all, I will take you through some highlights in the quarter, then give a short target -- a strategy and target update then Sjur Malm will take you through the key financial highlights, and then I will come back and take a short outlook of what we expect going forward.
First of all, Leroy is a leading global provider of high-quality seafood. We have a history reaching back to 1899. Fully integrated value chain, diversified portfolio of healthy products and strong brands served across 80 countries listed in Euronext Oslo Bor since 2002 and have the values open on as responsible and creative. In total, we have 6,000 employees, a turnover last year of NOK 34 billion and operational EBIT of NOK 2.5 billion and a total processed volume of 340,000 tonnes and a harvest volume of 195,600 and a wild catch volume of 57,675.
So we are a seafood company. Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood and have a global presence in all major markets around the world. Also at the same time, we -- of course, our sources is mainly coming from the Norwegian coast. We are a fully integrated company and our value chain is our unique position in the seafood market. There is not many companies like Leroy globally today, supplying salmon and controlling the value chain from row to branded product in the shop and from fishing boats all the way out to our branded products in shops and restaurants.
Highlights of the quarter. Strong biological development with positive cost trend in farming. Harvest guidance reiterated at 195,000 tonnes, increased expectation for profitability in the wild catch. Lower margin in market operations compared to last year, tightening market for salmon and trout and the Board has proposed a dividend of NOK 2.5 per share for 2025 paid out during the quarter.
The operational EBIT in the quarter is NOK 574 million compared to NOK 680 million same quarter last year. A short strategy outlook. We had a Capital Market Day in February 2026. We will, every quarter, give an update on where we are towards these targets. We have the 220,000 tonnes target for 2030 in farming, the run rate is around 193,000 tonnes today. NOK 50 billion target 2030, we are around NOK 34 billion. The most important in the short-term is the NOK 1 billion reduction in cost. The run rate for the NOK 2 billion EBIT in market operation 2030, we have a 12-month rolling at NOK 1.2 billion.
But in the short-term, the most important is the cost reduction process. As of Q2, we see that we are going in the right direction. We have realized end of the quarter, NOK 402 million and identified and under execution is NOK 521 million. We have a gap to target of NOK 77 million. We are really working structured and motivated to achieve this hairy goal.
Then I will go in and look at the highlights for the different segments. We have 3 segments: Farming, Wild Catch, Market Operation, and we start with the Farming. It's been a quarter with continued strong biology, low mortality, high harvest weights of 4.8 kilo compared to 4.7 kilo last year, high quality, but some maturation on trout, which has affected the price achievement. The price is in line year-on-year. The SSI price second quarter '26 of -- yes, close to NOK 72 is about the same level as same quarter last year. There has been a quarter with high supply growth.
We see in this segment, we have had a significant cost -- quarter-on-quarter cost improvement in Farming, and we have -- we keep the harvest guidance on 195,000 tonnes.
If we go into the different regions, we start with Leroy Aurora. It's a continued strong biology development, strong growth rates, high survival rates, high superior share, high harvest rates. The cost is lower compared to second quarter last year and first quarter in 2026. It's been a good development, even though we expect a little bit higher cost going forward in the next quarter. The estimated harvest volume is increased to 55,000 tonnes. The earlier guiding was 49,000 tonnes.
The operational EBIT value chain is of close to NOK 20 and a little bit higher than what we achieved second quarter last year. Leroy Midt continued strong biological development, high survival rates, high superior share, high harvest weights, cost lower compared to second quarter '25 and also first quarter '26. Expect a little bit higher cost in third quarter, but the cost '26 is lower than -- is expected lower than '25. Estimated harvest volume unchanged at 73,000 tonnes.
Leroy Sjotroll, a very good development in this area in this region, good biological development also here in the second quarter, strong improvement in survival rates, low sea temperatures held back growth. Trout of 58% in the second quarter. The Farming cost is per kilo significantly down from first quarter '26. We expect a lower cost in third quarter and also for the whole year '26 compared to '25.
In this quarter, price achievement on trout has been influenced by some maturation. The estimated harvest volume is reduced to [ 7,000 ] tonnes, and the main reason for that is the extremely low sea temperature that we have seen through the summer.
Scottish Sea Farm. Been a difficult situation in Scottish Sea Farm the last couple of years, but we are really coming back low harvest volumes in second quarter and first half, but have a high volume in second half of the year. The next generation of fish is performing well, expect significantly higher volumes and a lower cost in coming quarters. The estimated harvest volume is unchanged at 43,000 tonnes. If we look at the year-to-date '26, we have harvested 13,500 tonnes compared to 20,000 tonnes last year.
We have for second half of the year, a volume of close to 30,000 tonnes. There is a huge potential of improvements in Scottish Sea Farms going forward. That's really good to see. So there, we've done a tremendous job turning this situation around from the last couple of years.
Farming volumes, the guiding, 52,000 tonnes in Leroy Midt, 73,000 tonnes on -- 52,000 tonnes in Leroy Aurora, 73,000 tonnes in Leroy Midt and 70,000 tonnes in Leroy Sjotroll which is 195,000 tonnes. Our 50% share of Scottish Sea Farm gives us around 22,000 tonnes and a total of 217,000 tonnes.
Market Operations. We have Market Operations in 18 countries developed the last 20, 25 years. We have sales to more than 80 markets and is the end part of our value chain. Market Operations has been impacted by lower harvest volume and strengthening NOK, less favorable contract positions than in '25. The operational EBIT is down to NOK 269 million versus NOK 351 million in second quarter '25. But a strong EBIT margin of 3.5% compared to 2.5% EBIT margin in first quarter '26 and we expect second half -- a good second half of 2026.
Wild Catch highlights, a strong performance in second quarter '26 considering quota. Catch volumes up 6% year-on-year, down 10% year-to-date. Prices significantly up year-on-year, clear operational and financial improvements in land-based industry and a significant inventory build in the quarter. We have increased profit expectation for '26 from NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million and NOK 400 million to NOK 450 million. So a very good performance in the Wild Catch segment and a positive outlook going forward.
The Wild Catch quotas and catch volumes, second quarter, 1,500 tonnes cod, 1,300 tonnes saithe, 3,000 tonnes haddock, 2,100 tonnes shrimps and 11,000 tonnes others, which is a total of close to 19,000 tonnes compared to 18,000 tonnes in second quarter last year. We have remaining quotas of 16,000 tonnes compared to 17,000 tonnes last year.
Then Sjur will take you through the key financial highlights.
Yes. Thank you, Henning. Then I will sum up what Henning said into our numbers. Looking at our P&L, we see the key value drivers on the latter line. On harvesting volume of salmon and trout, as explained, we've seen low water temperatures in Leroy Sjotroll impacting growth, and that is one factor behind the lower harvest volume. Still, as you know, there is no changes to guidance -- total guidance for the year. On margin in this part of our business, which is the sum of Farming and Market Operation, we can see that the margin is slightly down compared to last year.
Trying to decompose this, starting with Farming. We are pleased to see a significant cost reduction from first quarter to second quarter, around NOK 5 a kilo, and that is very positive. We are seeing the biggest positive contribution and cost reduction in Leroy Sjotroll and this quarter, the smallest in Leroy Midt. But also then when we guide costs in Q3 flattish to slightly up, it's also a reflection of the fact that cost level in Q2 was lower than what we expected going into the quarter.
Looking at price, we have an impact this quarter of the maturation on trout, which was around 10 million kilos of trout in the quarter. We said that the price impact in our report was around NOK 5 a kilo compared to salmon. Also on the margin side, which is off weighing then the cost reduction in Farming is the fact that we have slightly lower margins in value-added or Market Operation this year compared to last year. That was that part of the business decomposed.
Looking in the Wild Catch business, I think the key takeaway is the fact that we have a quota on the year. It will vary a bit, with time it is actually sold and recorded in our books. This quarter, we are increasing our guidance from NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million to NOK 400 million to NOK 450 million, which is then an indication that the business is going better than what we expected a quarter ago.
Looking at what was booked this quarter, it is a margin not too far from last year. But as written in our report, we have built significantly inventory, which poses well for profitability in this segment in Q3 and Q4. In sum then, operational revenue is down. Key driver there is the lower harvest volume in salmon and trout. We see our operational EBIT is slightly down, and I will then talk through the key drivers behind that.
At our Capital Markets Day in March this year, we talked a lot about capital efficiency and that focus we have with us every day. In that light, it is positive to see that our total asset has actually reduced a bit this quarter, together with activity being at least at the same level as last year and no big changes. Worth mentioning is on inventory and also some comments going into second half. As Henning have commented and will comment on outlook, we are seeing a tightening market that could increase together with higher volumes, will increase working capital in the Market Operation part.
Higher feed cost will potentially increase working capital built in Farming. But off weighing this is also the fact that we have a very high inventory of whitefish at the end of Q2, which will be sold in second half. That will limit the working capital effect of those factors.
This quarter, we would like to say we have a strong cash flow, released NOK 400 million in working capital. Despite paying out NOK 1.5 billion in dividends, the increase in debt is still at NOK 8.4 billion. CapEx, there are basically no changes to this slide compared to last quarter. This is developing according to plan. Key investment areas continues to be new technology in Farming and investment program for 2026, the Aquatas, and Henning will comment on that shortly.
We also like to include this slide to support the discussion in Norway, showing the ripple effects of our operations in Norway. This highlights that the ripple effects of Leroy is impacting the full country. We buy goods and services for 2025 of NOK 20 billion. We operate ourselves in 50 municipalities. We have employees which live in 190 municipalities and the impact, direct and indirect on taxes is close to NOK 2 billion in 2025. So this is important. This industry is very, very important for Norway.
Then on our Capital Markets Day, we shed some light on key drivers within Market Operation. Primary processing, which is the slaughtering and filleting, first step of processing of salmon and trout. Sales and distribution, which is basically where Leroy came from in Hallvard Leroy, which is sales and distribution of seafood globally, both then operations out of Norway, but also our sales offices in different part of the world.
Then we have the consumer product part, which is higher value-added processing of products. For those who would like more input, please see our CMD. I will just highlight some of the key drivers within the Market Operation this quarter. Starting with sales and distribution, we see up to the right, volumes are slightly down compared to last year. Profitability is slightly up. We have a healthy cost control, and we are seeing slightly higher margins this quarter than what we've seen in recent quarters. That was a good quarter.
In Consumer Products, as Henning has highlighted, we are not 100% pleased with the profitability this quarter, which is down from last year. This is driven by, firstly, the fact that we have less favorable contract positions this year, but also we have one unit which had a low profitability level this quarter, which will be significantly improved in coming quarter. We expect, as of today, significantly higher profitability in this part of our business in second half of 2026. Also fair to comment is the fact that you can see that the work on cost is continuing to lower the cost position, which is good.
Finally, within primary processing. As I said at the Capital Markets Day, we are then moving the -- all primary processing to be reported within Market Operation in one business unit, and we believe this will strengthen the competitiveness of our business over time. This is done with effect from 1st of January, which is explaining the higher volume. We see that this is a low-margin business, but it's still then a margin running and stable and good business.
In first half, the impact is around NOK 50 million, and we expect full year impact from this change to be around NOK 120 million, then moving the reported profit from Farming to Market Operation. Also, as said, within Wild Catch, we have the quota for the year. We showed this model on the Capital Markets Day. I would just like to give an update to back why are we now estimating NOK 400 million to NOK 450 million in operational EBIT this year. This is the model. This is development in key drivers and the core driver compared to previous quarter is the fact that volumes are slightly down, but also we have then reduced the fuel consumption and the fuel price.
These are key factors together with continued high prices to why we now estimate profitability between NOK 400 million and NOK 450 million on operational EBIT level, which is a significant increase from sub- NOK 300 million last year. Then we have a look forward, and I give the word to you, Henning.
Thank you, Sjur. Then I will take you through a short outlook at the end. We start with the Atlantic salmon supply side. I think the first thing we should look at is 2025 numbers and the increase in supply of 12% that year. We see in 2026, we see a global increase of about 3%. But I think most of this increase and already been taken out in 2026. I think going forward, we will see lower volume globally into the market. We also expect a 2.6% increase in supply growth for 2027. The extreme increase in supply is in a way over.
We also see that the major markets is demanding more Atlantic salmon and especially the overseas markets. We see running into the summer in July and in August, we also see that the demand is increasing with higher prices than last year.
If you look at the different segments of -- in Leroy, as I said, we have a very strong biological performance, and we believe that this will continue. The cost reduction program is progressing as planned. This will be significantly reduced the impact of higher feed price, which is expected in 2027. We expect a harvest volume of 195,000 tonnes this year. We believe that we have with the biological improvements that we're doing in the Farming value chain, we believe that we are on a good track to -- also for our long-term goals.
Wild Catch price development outweighed lower catch volumes and significantly higher fuel price, a positive operational development in land industry also starting to show in financial. It's really good to see. We believe that this improvement program that has been running in the industry of whitefish is really starting to show results. Market Operation, lower salmon and trout prices are building markets the last couple of years, increased demand for integrated sustainable value chain, strong demand in emerging markets. For second half of 2026, operational EBIT is expected to be in the same range as H2 2025.
In the long term -- yes, the guidance and long-term ambitions repeat in Farming, 195,000 tonnes. In the short-term, cost per kilo lower than 2025 for the whole year '26. And we keep -- we believe that we are on a track to 220,000 tonnes in volumes in 2030 and also the #1 relatively cost position in all regions. The Wild Catch price development outweigh lower quota and higher fuel cost and indicative operational EBIT of NOK 400 million to NOK 450 million. For 2030, profitability growth with the quota growth as we see that there will be a growth for -- the expectation for quota is 10% up for cod and about 17% for haddock.
Market Operations, '26 compared to 2025, continued growth at slightly lower margins. We believe that we also -- with the improvement programs in this segment, we also believe that we have a good direction towards the NOK 2 billion EBIT for this segment.
Then at the end, I want to dig a little bit into new technologies that we are doing in Farming. We are doing a lot. We have the shielded technology and the submerged farming, which we have been a pioneer in the development of this. We are doing laser technology. We are doing semi-closed systems. We are doing -- yes, the technology improvements and development is really going fast. Now we -- especially for this region, which has been historically the most challenging region, we are now investing into closed cages from end of this year.
We have made a small movie showing how this will look, and we have a great expectation that this technology would make great improvements and also will give us a better -- in a better position to increase the volume in the West region. Then thank you very much, and enjoy the movie.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q2 2026 Earnings Call
Q2 showed improving farming biology and cost cuts, operational EBIT down YoY, wild-catch guidance raised and a NOK 2.5/share dividend proposed.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Operational EBIT: NOK 574m in Q2 (−15.6% YoY vs NOK 680m)
- Market Ops EBIT: NOK 269m (−23.4% YoY vs NOK 351m)
- Harvest guidance: reiterating 195,000 tonnes for 2026
- Wild Catch guidance: raised to NOK 400–450m operational EBIT (from ~NOK 350–400m)
- Cost program: NOK 402m realized, NOK 521m identified, NOK 77m gap to the NOK 1bn near-term target
🎯 What Management Says
- Cost focus: priority is the NOK 1bn near-term cost reduction; Q2 shows progress and ~NOK 77m remaining
- Integrated value chain: leverage full control from farming to branded products to capture margins in Market Operations
- Technology push: continued investment in closed cages, submerged systems and automation to improve biology and lower unit cost long term
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- FY 2026: harvest guidance unchanged at 195,000 tonnes; full‑year cost per kilo expected lower than 2025
- H2 expectations: Market Operations EBIT expected in same range as H2 2025; Wild Catch NOK 400–450m
- Risks: tightening salmon/trout market, higher feed costs (noted for 2027), currency and working-capital pressure with increased volumes
⚡ Bottom Line
- Implication: Near-term pain: Q2 EBIT down and lower Market Ops margins; near-term positive: demonstrable cost progress, upgraded Wild Catch outlook, dividend and tech investments that support medium-term targets to 2030 (220k t and NOK 50bn revenue). Key risks remain supply/demand swings, feed costs and working capital.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's First Quarter Presentation 2026. My name is Henning Beltestad. I'm the CEO in Lerøy Seafood Group. And with me today, I have Sjur Malm, CFO.
First of all, I will take you through the highlights and also give you a short strategy and targets update. And then Sjur Malm will take you through the key financial highlights. And then I will come back and take you through some outlook for going forward.
First of all, Lerøy Seafood Group is a leading global provider of high-quality seafood with a long history, reaching back all to 1899. We have 6,000 employees. NOK 34 billion in turnover and had last year an operational EBIT of NOK 2.5 billion.
We catched close to 60,000 tonnes of white fish, 195,000 tonnes production of salmon and trout and had a processing volume of 340,000 tonnes. And we are a global company. Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. And we are continuing improving our value chain and getting into new markets around the world. Lerøy is a unique company, integrated both in redfish and in white fish, and we have invested heavily in the last 20 to 25 years. Our values are open, honest, responsible and creative.
And then highlights of the quarter. It's been a quarter with a strong biological development in farming. First quarter, we harvested close to 40,000 tonnes compared to 38,000 tonnes last year. We have increased expectation for profitability in Wildcatch after a good quarter.
There has been some pressure on gross margins in some units in VAP sales and distribution, and we harvest -- and we keep our harvest guidance of 195,000 tonnes in Norway, and the Board proposed NOK 2.5 per share as a dividend for 2025.
We achieved EBIT -- operational EBIT of NOK 858 million compared to NOK 1.050 billion in first quarter 2025. So a fairly good quarter for us so far. Then we -- on our Capital Market Day, we presented our updated strategy. We are at a good place at the moment.
We have a proven execution model of layaway and how we work with continuous improvements in the whole value chain. So we are at a good place there after 8 years of hard work. We updated the strategy framework with a strategic priority on growth, cost, simplify and leadership.
And we also sharpened the financial framework. With a focus on return on investment, CapEx discipline, strategic alignment and portfolio thinking. So -- and this is the base for our direction going forward, and it's -- and this is communicated well out to the whole company.
On Capital Market Day, we presented the new targets for 2030 and also 2026. We will quarter-by-quarter give you an update on where we are. Of course, it's a little bit early after 1 quarter, but we keep our route to 220,000 tonnes in Norway. We are at 196,000 tonnes today and 197,000 tonnes rolling.
NOK 1 billion cost base reduction through initiatives in 2026. We realized NOK 173 million. We are on the track to NOK 50 billion in turnover, and we also have a good speed in VAP sales and distribution.
If we look at the cost reduction progress, we had a good start. We realized NOK 173 million through -- so far through first quarter. We identified and have an execution on NOK 586 million, and we have a gap to target of NOK 241 million. And we have a motivated organization that's step-by-step now and are implementing this cost culture in the whole value chain, and we believe that it's achievable to reach the goal of NOK 1 billion target.
Then I will go through the different segments. We start with the farming, then Wild Catch and then we take VAP sales and distribution. And farming highlights for the quarter. It's -- we have a continued strong biology, strong growth rates, low mortality, high harvest weight, 4.8% compared to 4.2% the same quarter last year and year-on-year improvement in quality, but some maturation on Trout, which have given a little bit downgrades in Lerøy Seafood.
The prices in the quarter is NOK 4 lower than the same quarter last year with reference to SSI price. yes. And as expected, quarter-on-quarter cost increase and lower share of volume from Lerøy Aurora and harvest guidance is reiterated at 195,000 tonnes.
Then we go into the different regions, and we start the North with Lerøy Aurora, continued strong biological development in first quarter, strong growth rates, high survival rates, high superior share and high harvest rates. And we see the harvest rates has going from 4 kilo to 5.3 kilo this quarter compared to first quarter last year.
Cost in Q1, lower than Q1 '25 and lower than fourth quarter if adjusting for utilization effects of infrastructure. So -- we expect the marginal cost increase in second quarter. Estimated harvest volume is 49,000 tonnes. The operational EBIT in the quarter is NOK 24 per kilo compared to NOK 29 per kilo last year.
Laremid also a strong biological development in the quarter, strong growth rates, high survival rates, high superior share and high harvest rates. And here, we have been going from 4.4 kilo to 4.9 kilo -- the cost in the first quarter is marginally higher than first quarter '25 and in line with fourth quarter '25.
And we expect marginal quarter-on-quarter cost reduction in second quarter. And the estimated harvest volume for the year is 73,000 tonnes compared to 71,000 tonnes '25 -- and we also need to take the operational EBIT, which is a strong performance in this quarter, close to NOK 23 per kilo compared to NOK 32 last year.
Lerøy Sjøtroll, also here, a strong biological development through the quarter, strong growth rates, high seal rates and higher harvest rates. And for the harvest rates, we go from 4.1 kilo to 4.4 kilo. Expect marginal cost reduction for second quarter and potential significant cost reduction for second half '26 if the biological trends continue like we see today.
Price achievement in is influenced by maturation in this quarter. Estimated harvest volume of 73,000 tonnes. Then Scottish Seafarm, weak quarter on low volumes and high-cost stock. It's been a challenging year of 2025. The volumes are down 36% to 5,400 tonnes.
Low volume impact unit costs, particularly on well boat and processing and harvested fish impacted by challenging situation in -- as I said, in 2025. But the next generation of fish is performing well.
We estimate volume of the year to be at 43,000 tonnes compared to 33,000 tonnes last year. So a strong improvement in volume in 2026. And then to update the farming volumes, we estimate 195,000 tonnes 2026, about the same level as 2025 and total with our 50% share of Scottish Seafarm of 217,000 tonnes.
And then if we go to sales and processing operation, we have sales and processing operation in 80 countries and sales to more than -- more than 80 markets, to have a good spread in markets it's good to have when you have a situation like today with a lot of unpredictability in globally at the moment.
But we see that to have -- a big spread on available market is a good thing to have both with operations, but also with branch offices in overseas markets.
And for this quarter, it's continued growth in volumes and in revenue, but the operational EBIT is reduced from NOK 212 million in the first quarter '25 to NOK 160 million in '26.
Many units increasing profitability, but a negative impact on gross margins in some units and also affected by increased logistic costs to some high-margin markets. But we believe we have a strong position. We have handled the situation in first quarter in a good way.
And everyone in this segment are really working hard to stabilize the end of the value chain, even though it's fluctuating exchange rates and changes in cost of especially transport to the overseas markets.
Wild Catch, a very good quarter, strong performance in light of the quota situation. The catch volumes are down, prices are significantly up. And we also see clear operational and financial improvements in land-based industry.
And -- but we also are affected by increased fuel costs toward end of the quarter and of course, especially for the fishery side for the strollers.
Challenging operation conditions, but operational EBIT increased from NOK 148 million to NOK 228 million. So very good and strong performance in this quarter. And we increased the profit expectations for the year as a whole.
Yes. And if we look at the catch volumes in the quarter, we catched 14,000 tonnes compared to 19,000 tonnes same quarter last year. And the remaining quarter for '26 is 20,000 tonnes compared to 21,000 tonnes in 2025.
So then Sjur Malm will take you through the key financial highlights.
Yes. Thank you, Henning. I'll sum up into our P&L and balance sheet, the comments already given by Henning. So if you look on our P&L, the key drivers are shown on the latter lines. We see that the profitability per kilo in salmon and trout, which includes the profitability downstream is lower per kilo than last year.
The key driver for this is lower price realization. We also have a slightly higher cost position and a lower margin per kilo downstream. I will return with more details on the latter. But we harvested also a slightly higher volume.
In Wild Catch, as commented, we have a low quarter, low volume, but price development has been very strong, which has given a high margin increase. And in sum, this makes our operational EBIT at NOK 858 million compared to NOK 1.050 billion last year, or lower price is the key driver.
We also see that the decline in EBITDA percentage is a bit smaller. And we are doing investments, particularly in farming. I'll comment on those later, which we yet have to realize the full potential of.
On the balance sheet, there are no big changes. We see that total asset is around the same level as last year. The investment, particularly in farming is increasing tangible fixed asset. Our biomass is a little bit lower in volume and in value. Other inventory is a bit lower than same time last year.
But in the quarter, we have built some working capital related to white fish inventory. And in general, we are investment-grade rated company. We have a strong balance sheet and equity ratio of 50%.
Looking into changes in interest-bearing debt. I think the key point to comment on this slide is the change in working capital, and that is majority driven by inventories in the white fish, which is seasonal.
CapEx, I will return to comment. And in general, we have reduced our debt from NOK 8 billion to NOK 7.7 billion in this quarter. This shows our historic CapEx and best estimate for 2026. There are no changes from -- on this slide from previous quarter. As I said then, we had guided for NOK 2 billion in CapEx in 2025.
There are some priorization effects moving some of that into 2026, which makes the best estimate as of today at around NOK 1.7 billion. On top of the maintenance level at around NOK 1 billion in Lerøy, we are investing in new technology. The biggest investment this year is the closed containment system, Aquatraz, where we are building three units and the first will be operational in 2027.
We're also making some investment in Wild Catch related to new and more efficient engines as well as capacity for cooking more prons, which has a higher price realization.
We're also making some investment in expansion to follow the growth that we see downstream. This slide is also then targeted a bit for Norway, where there are at times our discussion on the ripple effects from our industry. And we just want to highlight that Lerøy and this industry has very strong ripple effects in Norway.
The dots highlight where we operate and where we have suppliers. We have employees in 50 municipalities. We operate in 50 municipalities and have employees in 190 municipalities. We bought goods and services for NOK 20 billion in Norway last year.
Tax impact from our company and our employees was around NOK 2 billion in 2025. So this is a very important industry for Norway. Then at the Capital Markets Day, we gave some more insight into the drivers of profitability in our downstream segment.
For those who would like more details on that, please look into that presentation. We divided into three segments: primary processing, which is basically [ fills and Saufry ]. Sales and distribution, which is sales, distribution, logistics globally and the consumer products, which is a lot outside Norway, but we also have some units in Norway, which are processing raw materials then into finished products.
So this shows the overall profitability drivers for the segment, and Henning has already commented upon on them. We see down to the left that the 12 months rolling revenue is on a continued positive trend. That is good, we also see that the profitability trend is a little bit lower this quarter, which is a reflection of a lower operational EBIT this quarter compared to same quarter last year.
And I give some insight into that. So looking then at those three parts of this operation, starting with sales and distribution. We see that sold volumes shown up to the right is showing a healthy development, around 8% growth in volumes. Revenue is up 7%. So the lower profitability is not a reflection of poor demand or poor volumes.
If you look then into the drivers of the profitability shown down to the right, we also see that OpEx per kilo is reduced. But the key driver is the lower gross margin per kilo. That lower gross margin per kilo is basically driven by two things. One is the logistic cost into some of the higher-margin markets.
And the other part is related to the fact that this is not only Lerøy's volume, but we are a buyer of production grade volume in Norway. The availability of those volume has been significantly reduced in the first quarter, which is a reflection of the very strong biological development in also for Norwegian farming.
Looking then into consumer products. Also here, it's a healthy and positive volume and revenue growth. We also see a slightly lower profitability this year. That is mostly related to one unit and related to access to whitefish, which has been lower due to low catch volumes and having some impact on gross margins there, while other units are performing very well.
So we see also here OpEx per kilo is reduced. Gross profit per kilo is also reduced. And in some, the EBIT is marginally down from last year. Within the primary processing side, we see that the EBIT is at level with last year on a slightly higher volume, but no big changes there.
But during Q2, we will integrate also this activity from Lerøy Midt and Lerøy Aurora and that segment will then be -- that part of the segment will then be larger. Then also on Capital Markets Day, we give some insights into the driver of our Wild Catch segment.
And on the Wild Catch segment, it is challenging to estimate profitability from quarter-to-quarter basically because timing of the fishery and sales of fishery is challenging. But if you look at the year, it's much, much easier. So what we highlighted there, and again, I refer to the Capital Markets Day presentation for more details was a simple model on how to estimate profitability for the year.
And that profitability is basically a reflection of catch values, the cost of the tolling operation, the result in the land-based industry and depreciation and amortization. So at the Capital Markets Day, this model indicated an EBIT level of NOK 250 million to NOK 300 million in 2026.
And there has been some changes, and we just highlight these changes. So -- and our new estimate for the year is not NOK 250 million to NOK 300 million, but it's increased by NOK 100 million to NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million. The drivers for that is the increased catch values. So here, we have given some estimate on catch volume in 2026, and we highlighted what prices were in Q1 2026.
If you look, for example, on shrimp, to make one comment on that, the price level for the year will be lower because this is a quarter where we sold only consumer graded shrimp. And for the year, we will also sell industrial-grade shrimp, which has a lower price point. But still, it highlights that price level is vastly higher in the start of '26 than what we saw last year and that catch values are then significantly increased.
And estimate and indication then for the year is that catch values will be significantly up despite the lower quota. On the negative side, we know fuel prices have increased a lot. Havfisk is using MGO as fuel. And towards late quarter, we saw a significant increase in fuel price.
With what we've seen so far and forward prices for '26, we get to a best estimate as of today that fuel cost should be around NOK 1.50 per liter and that consumption should be around NOK 38 million liter.
That means that the fuel cost will be around NOK 130 million higher in '26 than in '25. But summing up these two factors into that model shown on the previous slide, the best indication today is that the EBIT in this segment will be in the range of NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million in 2026.
Then I give the word back to you, Henning, for our outlook.
Thank you very much, Sjur. Then I will summarize a little bit and to see a little bit forward going forward. And first of all, we start with the supply of Atlantic salmon globally. We -- we have had 2025 with strong growth in volumes of 12% globally. We've seen Norway was up 12%. Faroe Islands up 30%, Chile up 15%.
So -- and then we had a reduction in U.K., but a very strong growth in '25. And we passed 3 million tonnes of volume for the first time. For '26, it's a small increase we estimate or Con estimate a 2.4% increase and for 2027, a small increase of 1%.
So we believe that going forward for the farming side, we believe that with the development that we are doing in the markets, we believe that we can develop even more. We have a good momentum in the overseas markets and especially in China.
So for the demand of farm salmon, I see that that will increase going forward. But the most important thing is, of course, the strong biological performance that we see is continuous, and we are very happy for that. We also have a good speed now with the cost reduction program, gradually impact cost of harvest the fish with a lower cost from second half of '26 and then into 2027.
We keep our harvest volume at estimate of harvest volume of 195,000 tonnes. And even though there might be a little bit upside in these numbers if the biological situation continues in the strengthening like it's been so far. And the total volume is close to 270,000 tonnes, including our 50% share in Scottish Sea Farm, which also are showing great improvement in biology so far in this quarter and also into this quarter that we are in today.
And the Wild Catch, a very strong quarter, and we believe with the cost situation that will -- the prices will stay high. We see strong operational development in the Industry segment with nine factories and believe that, yes, there is still a huge potential of improvements going forward. And VAP sales and distribution are -- it's -- we have a good structure.
We have good setup in European markets with distribution and processing centers and in the overseas market with the branch offices and the increased demand for integrated sustainable value chain is strong, and we see a strong demand in emerging markets and some tailwind on lower-than-expected prices in '25.
For 2026, expectation of continued growth and slightly lower margins, but we will -- we have a good speed in that segment also. So this is just summarizing long and medium-term ambitions. And we believe, as I said, the farming, it's for the short term, we are on a good track for the long term also.
It is long term, 2030, but we really believe that with the hard work that we do in the value chain, it will drive us to reach the 220,000 tonne goal. The Wild catch, it depends, of course, of the quarter and -- but the indicative operational EBIT for '26, as Sjur said, it's adjusted to NOK 350 million to NOK 400 million.
So a good performance in this segment, and we will keep up a good speed. For up sales and distribution, a little bit down in '26, but we keep our goal and believe that this is possible to achieve.
And with the investments that we have done with the potential to improve all our units in Europe for distribution centers, we believe that also the long-term goal is really achievable.
So that was all, and thank you very much for spending time together with us.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q1 2026 Earnings Call
Q1: Strong biological performance and lifted Wild Catch margins, but lower salmon prices trimmed overall EBIT; targets and dividend maintained.
📊 Quarter at a Glance
- Operational EBIT: NOK 858m in Q1 2026 (down from NOK 1,050m a year ago, ~-18% YoY) due mainly to lower price realization on salmon.
- Wild Catch: Q1 EBIT NOK 228m (NOK 148m a year ago, ~+54%); full‑year guidance raised to NOK 350–400m.
- Harvests: ~40,000 tonnes in Q1 (vs 38,000 last year, +5%); Norway harvest guidance reiterated at 195,000 tonnes (combined group ~217,000 tonnes incl. 50% Scottish SeaFarm).
- Cost program: NOK 1bn 2026 target; NOK 173m realized, NOK 586m identified, NOK 241m gap remaining.
- Balance sheet: Net interest‑bearing debt down to NOK 7.7bn (from NOK 8.0bn); equity ratio ~50%; Board proposes NOK 2.5/share dividend for 2025.
🎯 What Management Says
- Strategy focus: Updated framework centered on growth, cost reduction, simplification and leadership with stronger emphasis on return on investment and CapEx discipline.
- Downstream priority: Push to improve value‑added product (VAP) margins via distribution/processing footprint and operational improvements; logistics and whitefish availability hit gross margins in Q1.
- Targeted investments: Continued farm investments including three Aquatraz closed‑containment units (first operational 2027) and efficiency upgrades in Wild Catch and processing.
🔭 Outlook & Guidance
- Harvest outlook: 195,000 tonnes Norway for 2026 maintained; long‑term target remains 220,000 tonnes by 2030 if biology continues.
- Segment outlook: Wild Catch EBIT now guided NOK 350–400m for 2026; VAP/sales expect volume growth but slightly lower margins in 2026.
- CapEx & costs: 2026 CapEx best estimate ~NOK 1.7bn; fuel cost headwind estimated ~NOK 130m higher vs 2025.
⚡ Bottom Line
- Investment view: Quarter confirms strong biological momentum and a meaningful Wild Catch recovery, but lower salmon prices and downstream margin pressure cut near‑term profitability; balance sheet and dividend signal financial resilience while management executes cost and efficiency programs to drive H2 improvement.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Analyst/Investor Day - Lerøy Seafood Group ASA
1. Management Discussion
Okay. Then I have the pleasure welcoming you all to Lerøy Seafood Group's Capital Markets Day in our hometown Bergen. And everything is prepared for you with a nice weather, beautiful rain and wind this afternoon. So I will take you through the strategy -- the overall strategy of Lerøy Seafood. Day 1, we will be here in Bergen. As I said, I will take you through the group strategy. Then Ivar Wulff will take us through up sales and distribution. And Bjarne Reinert will take us through the Farming. And Eldar and Borge will take us through the whitefish. And then Sjur will end this session by talking about capital efficiency for stronger returns. And then we will have some time for question and answer. And at the end, we will have a breakout session where you can meet CEO for Lerøy Spain, Basile Bonnemarie, our technical CTO in Farming and will give us insight into the Chile technology and then Jorgen Skeide, will answer questions about our feed strategy.
And then we go to Bekkjarvik later today. And tomorrow, we're going to have a site visit to Kjærelva, smolt facility. Gjengane submerged location, Hestabyneset submerged location and feed center in Austevoll and
Lerøy Austevoll, preliminary processing. And then we will be back in Bergen here in the afternoon. Today's presenters and the leadership group that will present and also be available for you today. I don't go in the details on everyone here, but they will be available during the day for you.
Then I will take you through the group strategy for the next period. But where are we? What is Lerøy today? We have a long, long history reaching back to 1899. And we have become a fully integrated value chain with a diversified portfolio of healthy products and strong brands serving more than 80 countries around the world. We were listed in 2002. We are 6,000 employees, have a turnover in 2025 of NOK 34 billion and operating EBIT of NOK 2.5 billion and VAP processing volume of 340,000 and harvest volume last year of close to 196,000 tonnes and Wild Catch volume of close to 58,000 tonnes. And we produced 5 million meals per day.
Lerøy has a long history and actually going all the way back to 1899, as I said. But the last 23 years, we have had a great development after the listing in Oslo Stock Exchange, a turnover of NOK 2.5 billion and today, NOK 34 billion and average growth of per year of 12%. And we want to continue that development. Lerøy is a global seafood company, of course, based in Norway, where we have the fishery and the salmon farming but have a global reach, like I said, to more than 80 countries. We have a fantastic cost in Norway with the best opportunities to and the best areas to farm salmon, but also the fisheries in -- and the other seafood from Norway has a fantastic quality, which gives us a fantastic opportunity going forward.
In Europe, we have invested a lot into sales and distribution and VAP units being close to the customer, developing categories and developing the seafood -- the demand for seafood. And in Asia, we're also expanding. We have a long history in Asia. We were the first to have a branch office in Japan in 1996. The first one to have a branch office in 1997 in China and now also opening other branch offices to be a part of the development in these overseas markets and Ivar Wulff will come back later, going more into detail in what we do.
We are a major contributor to Norwegian economy and a reliable supplier of healthy seafood across the world, serving 1.8 billion annually to 80 countries. Sales and processing operations in 18 countries and 1,800 employees in Europe, U.S. and in Asia. We are a company with 3 segments. We have the VAP Sales & Distribution, Farming and Wild Catch and yes, has developed these segments in a good way, the last period. We are about 2,600 people in VAP Sales & Distribution, 1,800 in Farming and 1,000 in Wild Catch, both on the industry part and in the fishery part.
We have a clear positive long-term trend for -- we are part of a positive long-term trend for seafood. And it's a growing population, a growing middle class. Awareness of health is getting more and more important. Sustainable produced food will -- yes, the sustainable produced food, Wild Catch at the peak and growth covered by aquaculture, and we'll also do that going forward. So salmon farming, it's been a great development all the way back to 2000 when we started to invest into salmon farming. And now we are around 3.2 billion tonne globally, and we see not a high increase going forward, and we also see that the strong underlying demand is driving the value.
So we believe we are in a good place also when it comes to other protein products and it's a resource effective and sustainable protein. For feed commercial rate, it's #1. For edible meat #1, carbon footprint, #1, and also water consumption #1. So fantastic opportunities in the market, and we believe that this is the healthy superfood going forward. Lerøy comes from the sales and distribution part. This has been important part of our development being a global leader, driving demand through category development and market penetration. We will see more of that when Ivar is going to that segment. We have a diversified portfolio, a global reach, high capacity in VAP factories, access to resource and integrate the value chain.
And our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. And -- but we are not there yet, but we believe that we are on the right track to be #1 and to be a leading and efficient, sustainable value chain for seafood. If we look at the targets presented in 2022 on the Capital Market Day at that time. We are on track of most of our goals that were set at that time. The turnover goal is we are on track. VAP Sales & Distribution done a fantastic job and managed to reach their goal and also the farming side being close to reaching 200,000 tonnes in 2025. And also, we are working steadily and with -- in a structural way.
Also, for the reduction in emission we have the target of 2030 under review. But like I said, we are step-by-step working in the good direction to reduce our emissions and we have increased the revenue by 70% and reduced reduction in greenhouse gas emission from 2019 to 2025 by 15%. And then, of course, we had a goal of being #1 in 2025, and we didn't achieve that. But we don't to give up, we believe that we are on the right track when it comes to that. Our biological performances has been our #1 priority for us. I will not go into detail on all this. Bjarne will come back later and go through that. But we see for most of our KPIs is going -- we are improving the right direction for growth rate to valuate quality, superior share and also our MAB efficiency. And yes, with a good performance in 2025.
And we worked in a structural way for a long time. We are reporting every quarter on where we are -- and we see also the underlying biology in Lerøy Seafood Group is really improving, and we are at a good place at the moment and which also gives confidence in what's in the future and what will happen going forward. And then the new strategy period from 2025 to 2030 we have a proven execution model with the way that we work with Lerøy Way with continuous improvements and consistently -- which is consistently applied.
We have updated strategic framework with 4 key priorities, which is growth, cost, simplifying and leadership. And these strategic priorities is the same for the whole group, the segment, the company and all the units. So it's easy to understand and all our initiatives should be connected to these strategic initiatives. And then we sharpen the financial framework. Sjur will take us through that later. It's a focus on return on investment focus. CapEx discipline, strategic alignment and portfolio thinking.
When it comes to reduction in cost, we have set a target of reducing the cost base through initiatives in 2026 by NOK 1 billion, NOK 850 million in farming, NOK 100 million in Lerøy Seafood Group, a group -- on a group level. NOK 80 million in VAP Sales & Distribution and NOK 10 million in Wild Catch. And action connected to this is stronger cost management, improved operational efficiency, feed partnership with [ Cargill ], which also will be covered later today and increased production per FTE and procurement review. And the key enablers are the Lerøy Way, strategic framework and financial framework.
Driving growth. We have a growth history. We want to continue that. We have ambitions, like I said, for NOK 50 billion. We have a target of 420,000 tonnes sold in VAP Sales & Distribution in 2030 220,000 tonnes in Farming and NOK EBIT of VAP Sales & Distribution of NOK 2 billion. And action connected to this is increased volume throughput, improved capacity utilization, identified strategic partnership and identify acquisition opportunities.
Simplifying our business and strengthening leadership action to simplify. 25 years ago, it was one company in Lerøy. In the beginning of 2020, we were about 70 companies. And of course, that's also a challenge with so many units. And for us to simplify the business system that we have, the way we work with the integrated value chain, implementing -- I say, implementation of Lerøy Way will be crucial here. primary processing going over to VAP Sales & Distribution, optimize group structure, reduced number of legal entities and review business portfolio. And promoting leadership. If we want to achieve our goals, leadership is crucial. The way to lead that we have the power in the leadership, align leadership standardizing onboarding program and training, strategy and recruitment retainment and future work on the future workforce and leadership development.
So to summarize our goals, for 2030, 200,000 -- 220,000 tonne volume in farming, NOK 50 billion in turnover, NOK 1 billion in a reduced cost base through initiatives in 2026 and EBIT of NOK 2 billion in VAP Sales & Distribution, and we have a long-term objective of having a return on capital employed of 15%. Then a little bit about Lerøy Way, which is continuously improving and improving our business system. It's, I will say, one of the most challenging task I had in Lerøy. We started in 2018. And to date, we are seeing great results with the implementation of Lerøy Way. And we almost reached our target for 2025 of 100% of the units should have started the implementation of Lerøy Way. We are at 96% and we are also doing assessments to evaluate how we work with the Lerøy Way implementations, and we have a Lerøy Way score. And we started this scorecard reporting in 2023, and we see we are improving year by year.
And this is continuously work. We need to be patient, step-by-step, but good to see it's improving and someone is improving and also started earlier than the others, and that is [ Lerøy Sjotroll ], which is a great example of how this is done, and you will see it to more also which has a score of 83% in the Lerøy Way assessment. And it was the best Norwegian lean company in 2024. So a fantastic job of what they have done here. And you will see it tomorrow.
And then leadership. Without strong leadership, we will not manage to reach our goal. And I will say also, as with Lerøy Way, the development that we had with Lerøy Way the last 8 years, we also started with the leadership programs in Lerøy. And we've had more than 600 leaders through this program. And we also see that this is connected with a Great Place to Work where we also have seen a great development from 64% in 2020, all the way to 26%, now 71% in 2026. And Lerøy is a Great Place to Work certified company.
And when it comes to leadership, we are doing some changes or adding one resource into Lerøy, the group management -- and that is Håvard Klafstad, been Head of Procurement in Lerøy and will, from 1st of April, be as Chief Procurement Officer, great background, worked in Lerøy since 2019 and has experience from oil and gas industry and also as consultancy. And procurement is a key lever for cost reduction. And in 2025, we have a purchase of goods and services of NOK 25 billion. And with the direction that we have going forward to 2030, we will be around NOK 35 billion, but we believe that we -- this can be much lower going forward. And procurement and purchase is a significant potential for cost reduction and with a high cost focus that's in Lerøy today, we -- this is a crucial resource for us. So good luck to Håvard Klafstad when he starts with this job, and we have a great belief in that you will really make a difference going forward.
Then some investment highlights. We are a global integrated seafood leader. There is a sustained structural demand growth. There is a significant efficiency and margin upside for Lerøy and harvesting stronger returns from long-term investments will need to come. So yes, thank you very much for the introduction. So then I think we give the world to Ivar.
Thank you very much, Henning. My name is Ivar Wulff, I'm the CEO of value-added processing, sales and distribution, and I'm going to talk around half an hour and give you hopefully, a bit of a deep dive into the segment and what we are up to.
And as Henning mentioned, our target is to become the world's most efficient value chain for seafood. And that is what we aim for every day, and we work very hard for. We have this core value chain of salmon and trout integrated all the way to the end consumer in a way through distribution. We have the same thing on wild caught fish from the northern part of Norway. And we are also integrating external suppliers into this value chain as we are going to show you later on. And in total, building an extremely strong and wide package to customers around the globe. We believe that we are the engine in Lerøy's journey. And as Henning mentioned, we had the 340,000 tonnes through our system last year. We have, in core primary processing in Norway, and we have value-added processing in Europe. We have a global sales organization. And it's enhanced by regional strategic customers and partnerships. And we are around 2,600 employees. And I cannot emphasize this enough because it is our employees, my colleagues that create the value together with our strategic partners around the world.
And the segment of value-added processing sales and distribution, it is basically divided into 3 different business units. We have the primary processing, it's basically slaughtering and packing of whole fish processing of [indiscernible] of salmon and trout. And this is an area where we are in the process of transferring it from the Farming sector into the value-added processing sector or segment. And yes, I think Bjarne is going to mention that a little bit more, but the whole idea is that in the farming, we are using 22,000 hours producing a fish from brute stock egg until we take it out of the sea to slaughter the fish. And in sales and distribution, we have around 300, 350 hours to capitalize on the same fish that the farmers have done have used 22,000 hours to produce. So it's something about the focus of leadership and management in this, and that is crucial. So that's why we are doing this change.
The second part is the sales and distribution. That's basically operational planning, purchase, sale and distribution of mainly the primary processed seafood. That's the whole fish, that's the prurigo fillets with global sales to large retail, foodservice, industrial customers. And then the third business unit is the value-added processing, consumer products. And that's basically the industry we have in Europe, mainly close to the end consumers, close to the key customers in Europe, processing of raw materials into finished consumer products. And that's including wholesale, direct sales to local retail, foodservice and so on.
We are serving more than 80 countries around the world. The ones that are in a darker shade of blue here is the countries where we sell our food -- our seafood today. And most of our business is in Europe, 75% of our sales in '25 was to Europe, where we have had an 11% of yearly growth the last 5 years. To the Asia Pacific region, stood for 18% of our sales last year and have a significant growth, 12% is kind of not telling the whole truth about the real underlying growth potential in the Asian market because we sold in the beginning of this period, we sold quite a lot of volumes to whitefish to China for reprocessing and that was sold further on into the U.S. and Europe. But now that is a much smaller operation. And so the underlying growth for the consumption in China, in particular, is huge.
And then we have the Americas, where Lerøy have been -- have quite a light footprint for many years, not been a very big part of our operation. But even though we have had some very good strategic partners in the Americas for many, many years. So it's an important area for us. But quite a smaller part of our operation. But even though we have had quite good growth in the last period, it has kind of stagnated the last year and imagine why.
And yes, demand is built through market and category development. We are kind of combining strong in-house brands, and we have a lot of externally selected sourced regional specialties. We have a very close cooperation with our strategic customers. We are developing the category, developing products and always aiming to fit the need for the local consumers because not all markets are the same. We need to be close to the consumers and the markets in each region to be able to develop it in the right way. And we have great people working with product development, as you met earlier today, a fantastic crew and the bottom line is that we thrive when our customers gain market share. So we succeed when our strategic customers succeed in their markets. And that's why we are going into this direction to build the category and the demand from the consumers.
And Henning mentioned Lerøy Way quite a few times, and I will do that as well because this is the very basis of how we operate today. It's our common business system. It's our culture. And the way we have kind of tried to visualize this in the illustration on your left is through this Lerøy way house, right? So the house is basically resting on the foundation built on our values, honest, open, responsible, creative and our commitment to food safety, to fish welfare to safety for our people, our employees and sustainability. And further on, we have a method of how we're going to approach problems and how we're going to solve our issues through understanding our business case, organizing our people, standardize and improve what we do every single day. And it's true people matching it with technology, we want to create stability improvements and innovation in all our business units. So the aim is, of course, creating a perfect flow with goods through our system, 0 defects and at the top a perfect customer satisfaction. So let's just to understand how this is built.
And to show some numbers on what we are doing also, we have some -- we are measuring completed improvement initiatives through our own format. We call it an [ A3 ]. And we have an increase of that every year since 2023, and going forward. We have an increase in Lerøy Way score, and it is kind of combined or it is as a result of what the actions that we really are taking we get improvements. And then our downstream partnerships, that's what is driving our market penetration. So we are trying to create shared value through partnerships with retail and foodservice players. Our partners, they get benefits with the broad access to quality seafood, stable supply chain, reliability.
Our focus is to always make sure that their shelves in their shops are full with seafood because if they are empty, you can't really capitalize on an empty shelf. So it is extremely important to have reliability of supply all the time. And of course, as also [ Fredrik Hal ] mentioned earlier and during the lunch, the cross-market innovation is also extremely important to learn from each other. So we kind of bring our partners on a learning journey so they can learn what other are doing in other markets. And of course, we provide a growth capacity.
And when it comes to our benefits of it all. Of course, we get a deeper market penetration. We get a broadening of our product assortment. We get more value-added products. We create more value out of our own value chain, on our own raw material. We -- in that way, we kind of create a more robust business model which is designed to support a stable long-term growth. And when it comes to the potential here, we have a lot. We have, of course, a lot of more value-added consumer products, we want to take this journey into new markets to expand and growing with even more partners. And we have an ambition to increase our strategic clients to 70% of our revenue by 2030 and today, it's around 60%.
And to achieve all this, also our upstream partnerships are key to volume growth. So today, we have partnerships with independent seafood farmers in Norway. And we have partnerships with providers of local species in regional markets. And in this way, we are kind of for our partners, we are creating a predictability and cost-efficient offtake due to our volume. We are always trying to optimize the price achievement, of course. We are sharing with our partners, our price achievement. They will benefit from Lerøy's scale and platform and, of course, get a long-term reliability. And in other case, our benefit, of course, we get a more predictability of sourcing of scarce volumes. And through higher volume, we reduced cost in the total operation. We get more of a capacity utilization in our operation. And in that way also, we can have an even deeper customer partnership around the globe.
So we are kind of adapting our value chain to the regional markets where we operate. In Europe, we are trying to adapt very closely to the end consumer. We have local downstream processing and sales offices. We adapt the product mix to local preferences. We have partnerships with strategic customers, of course. And we have some core products sourced from Norway and specialties and local species sourced locally or regionally. And on the overseas markets, that's more of a B2B, business-to-business focus, where we have our core products sourced from Norway, we try to have feet on the ground in our key markets to be close to the customers and understanding what's going on and facilitating our growing business and we have partnerships with strategic customers.
And going into Europe, of course, our integrated value chain and our local presence is what is driving growth for us. So we have an 11% annual growth in Europe in the last 5 years. And you see that mainly our markets is within the European Union, 68% of our revenues there. And Norway is a substantial part of our business with 23%. And then the rest of Europe outside of the European Union and outside of Norway is around 10%. And I can say that, of course, that will be most of Eastern Europe. Maybe the largest market for us outside of the European Union today is Ukraine where we provided last year around 16,000 tons of seafood into the -- into Ukraine. And that is actually something that we are quite proud of because it's kind of our way of supporting them in a way with the ongoing crisis that we are in.
And when it comes to positioning and drivers of these markets, of course, I have already mentioned service reliability and a high share of value-added consumer products. We have a lot of innovations with strategic customers. We have a wide sourcing network of a variety of seafood, and we basically sell to all core European markets. So for an example, even though we have not an operation in Germany, we are serving the German markets from Netherlands, where we have a big operation and from Denmark, where we have also a huge operation.
And to highlight Asia, because that's a very important and strong or a high-growth market for us. To say it like that, is this actually Japanese cuisine, that is driving the demand for high-quality seafood in the Asian market today. The large or the extreme increase of demand in China, for instance, would not happen without the Japanese cuisine and the Japanese restaurants basically that is established everywhere or Japanese-style restaurants. It's not Japanese driven restaurants. And that's the same thing in the whole of Southeast Asia. Basically, it is spreading a lot. It's always been there, kind of, but it's a huge underlying demand for that.
So yes, we have had a quite strong revenue growth in the last years. And again, we have a focus on our core value chain portfolio. And we are adding offices in new growth markets. So the last 2 years, we have started up in Korea, South Korea, in Vietnam, in Thailand and in India now lately. And of course, China is the largest and fastest growing. And quickly developing consumer market probably in the world at the moment, they are for salmon and trout in particularly. We see all flood gates have been opened into the Chinese market now, even though there was all the restrictions were kind of opened in 2018. On paper, there has been a lot of gatekeepers on the way to maybe slow down the free trade and the development of that market for Norwegian products.
But now we see last year, all the kind of stops or gates were removed, and it's now a very open and free trade that way. Japan and South Korea are mature markets for the high-quality products that we serve, very important markets for us. And as I said, Thailand and Vietnam. There is definitely a rising middle class in all of Southeast Asia. And they also have a large and active seafood processing industry. And India is maybe the country in the world or the seafood market in the world with the highest potential in the next 10 years, I would say because it has been held back, okay, you can see a lot of cultural stuff and how much seafood consumption they have had, but the tariff situation in India has been holding that market back for many, many, many years. So after the free trade agreement came in place now recently, that 30% tariff that has been on Norwegian seafood will be gradually removed over the next 5 years. And that is definitely something that is catching on, on the -- for the Indian industry and the Indian seafood players basically. So this is a very interesting market going forward.
And then going into the -- more of the value drivers and the product flow -- we have the sourcing on top here, if you go to the right illustration, while catch is around 15% of our volume today. Our own Farming production is standing for around 55% of our total volume. And then we have external volume, all kinds of species, including salmon of around 30%. We have the operation of primary processing, as I showed, sales and distribution and consumer products. And we have sales of -- we're around 60% of our sales are primary processed. That means either whole fish or fillet. And we have value-added products where we do more to them than that of around 35%. And our sales are basically retail foodservice and industry. And the first 2, of course, is larger than the latter.
And the value drivers into this operation is, of course, volume, as I mentioned, the total sourced volume is important. The sales price that we achieve, which creates our gross profits it's around -- it's about the allocation of -- with the right product to the right customers. How we are optimization of our product mix and, of course, the processing yield of our operation. And then we have the cost, which is extremely important. And that is driven by the capacity utilization, how efficient we are going back to Lerøy Way and our focus around that and the scale effects of our operation. And then we have the capital employed, which is basically resting on our ability to turn our working capital how much fixed assets we have and the goodwill in our operation.
So scaling profitability with global seafood demand. We have a growth journey in this segment as well, 8% the last 10 years annually. And it's really -- the last years, we have -- when we really have implemented working in a different way with the Lerøy Way, with improving our operation all the time and introducing a new method and a clear strategy. We have achieved quite a good jump in 2025. And hopefully, we will continue that journey on even better levels. So yes, we have segmented the distribution in the segments where we have sales and distribution as the largest contributor to both turnover and EBIT. And I'll go more into that here.
So on the right, you will see the numbers for the sales and distribution where we have a solid volume growth last year and particularly where we sell our core products to European and overseas markets. And the issue here is to have a capital-light operating model and binding as little capital as possible and have a quite okay you could say, a cash situation out of that operation. And then you have the value-added processing consumer products, where we also had a quite significant volume increase to last year. And we also are increasing our profitability going forward. But of course, that's a much more cost-heavy operation. But even though we are working very hard with the capital on that one.
We are a growth engine, amplifying value for Lerøy's integrated value chain. So if we start in the upper right corner, we have our upstream volume from whitefish, from salmon and trout farming, which gives us quality, reliability and service. And that is our strength and our proposition to our strategic partnerships on the customer side where we aim for value-driven market leadership. We have a focused portfolio of customers, and we are searching for a culture that is aligned with ours. So it is -- the customers and us are on the same frequency in a way of how we are working. And that again gives us shared a growth.
Through our work, we are aiming to create category winners through stronger consumer demand. So when our customers gain market share in their respective markets, then we succeed. And when we succeed with that, we can integrate more external volume into our value chain, and we can share the value with our partners. And in that way, we are creating a wheel of success. And the value amplifier on the illustration on the left -- on the right, you can see the last 5 years, we have an upstream volume from farming and wild caught of around 1.3 million tonnes. And that has generated directly around NOK 12.4 billion the last 5 years. But it's amplified by the operation that we have in Value-Added Processing Sales & Distribution, with about NOK 3.6 billion. And so its uplift the whole group with around 30% in EBIT. And hopefully, we are through the process we are now. We are not -- we're going to fight for those 30% and hopefully increase them going forward.
So as Henning mentioned, we are raising the bar again. We have some ambitious targets. We are coming from NOK 1.29 billion in '25 we are aiming for volume growth, which is going to give us as we have in our prognosis, around NOK 300 million more. We have a cost program, both in our processing industry and in our sales and distribution operations, which is going to give us some more. And then we have other possibilities through yes, acquisitions and so on that might help us a little bit more to reach our new target of NOK 2 billion. So that's it. Thank you very much.
Very good. Welcome to the Farming section of the Capital Markets Day. My name is Bjarne Reinert, I'm Chief Operating Officer of Farming, and will spend the next 30 minutes to walk you through how we're building responsible and cost-efficient farming, the progress that we've made and the steps that we are taking to further strengthen our competitive position.
As most of you know, we harvested close to 196,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout in 2026. This represents a sustainable and extensive food production along the coastline of Norway. And I'm proud of the work that my colleagues whom there are 1,800 of in Farming who've been working effortlessly, and hard with solving problems and managing continuous improvements. Our license capacity remains quite stable at 117,500 tonnes. We are still operating in 3 regions, separated to reduce both biological and financial risk. Our primary value chain is more or less unchanged. We are doing some improvements at the moment. We are restructuring by consolidating the processing activities and one unified leadership, repositioning it to the VAP Sales & Distribution segment. And we believe this reorganization will create synergies. It will give us more leadership capacity to the biological part of our farming value chain, supporting improved performance, supporting scalability and long-term value creation.
Over the last 10 years, our volume has increased from 150,000 tonnes back in 2016 to 196,000 tonnes in 2025. However, the volume has fluctuated throughout this period and that is mainly due to biological risk. And the biological challenges that faces our value chain. '25 represents an all-time high harvest volume achieved organically through operational improvements. And if you look at the right on a regional level, we have had the strongest increase in harvested volumes from North and West. Lerøy Aurora has delivered strong performance and strong biological KPIs. In Lerøy Midt, we have had more marginal growth and still untapped potential. And in Lerøy Sjotroll, I would say we have had a more biological turnaround with positive growth and strong trends on key biological KPIs.
Despite record volumes, our earnings per kilo has declined, reinforcing the need of both cost performance and further improvements on the biology. On the Capital Markets Day back in '22, I was clear about our main focus, and that was to strengthen the core through operational efficiency. And I'm really happy to see that this work has gained results. We've increased our efficiency on key biological performance indicators like growth rate, the survival rate and the quality of the fish. The growth rate has increased with more than 10%, obviously, important for the volume that we are able to produce but also important because it reduces the exposure time in the more challenging grow phase.
The survival rate has increased from 83% to 88%. That's a 30% decrease of mortalities. Obviously, very happy to see that we are gaining such improvements on the survival of the fish and fish welfare is at the core of what we care about. And the quality has increased from 89% to 91%. It gives us a better price achievement in the markets, and it's an indirect KPI on the fish welfare and fish health. And these KPIs are important to increase our utilization of one of the most scarce resources that we have, the maximum allowed biomass. It's increased from 1.6 to 1.82 tonnes, a ton of capacity. That's higher efficiency and that's an efficiency rate that is well above the benchmark of the industry.
So these key indicators are all prerequisites for an efficient farming operation and has provided us with a solid foundation for further improvements and further growth. If I said it takes approximately 22,000 hours to produce a salmon. There are a few biological value chains that has that long production time. I think it's on the forestry that maybe beats us. And that's 22,000 hours where we cannot afford material mistakes. In Farming, I've got 1,800 colleagues. They show up every day, sometimes at night working effortlessly to solve problems, to gain results. And the sum of our improvements are the sum of both small and large measures.
In addition to the daily operations, we've done some step changes at key areas. Henning was mentioning this in his presentation. The genetics lays the foundation for what's biologically possible to achieve in our value chain. And we've been working hard with our partner to select the strongest possible material tailor made for our operational needs. To protect this foundation, we've optimized our row incubation protocols. That might seem quite operationally detailed, but it's of critical importance for full cycle biological performance. Our smolt production has been strength to stricter operating protocols and to target the investments in infrastructure capacity to ensure consistent execution. And tomorrow, you will at least be able to visit Kjærelva, it's one of our large [indiscernible] facilities, delivering all the Atlantic salmon that we need for overproduction in this Western region.
And the reason why we have done so much work on the land phase of our cycle is because a lot of the determinants for a successful full cycle production is laid onshore. So working to control the factors that we can influence and manage making them systematically has been crucial to gain biological improvements. In the grow-out phase, we've worked and primarily through preventing the needs of sea lice treatment is key. And we've invested significantly in shielding technology. I will get more into the details on that later on. And we are also having a breakout session with Basile, where we go more into the details on the shielding technology in broad. But that measures taken to improve fish welfare and its measures to improve our performance in the challenging rollout phase.
Finally, over the past years, we have been worked thoroughly with our methodology, the Lerøy Way, a common way of working. That's based on a disciplined KPI structure, accountability and consistent execution across the segment. Although biology is key to our efficient value chain, it must, at the same time, be cost efficient. And while we are delivering strong biological performance or cost performance compared to the best cost performing peers regionally is not competitive. We are, therefore, having structural cost disadvantages. And closing this gap and restoring cost competitiveness is our most important priority going forward.
Nevertheless, I believe operational improvements that we have delivered are positioning us well to take further steps going forward. We will continue to work systematically with our ability to deliver both stable and robust biological performance. Fish welfare is our license to operate, and we are ambitious in defining what best practice should look like. Sea lice is the key regulator must be maintained at low levels and mainly through prevention. And we will optimize the returns on the significant investments that we have been making in shielding technology. And within these boundaries, cost competitiveness is a prerequisite for a profitable operation and for future growth. And this is where we see the greatest potential.
So looking ahead to 2030, there are 4 priorities. We will increase the harvested volumes from 196,000 tonnes back in 2025 to 220,000 tonnes in 2030. And that's a 25,000 tonnes increase and will mainly be delivered through increased operational efficiency, so mainly organically. We have initiated a comprehensive cost program targeting NOK 850 million in reductions in 2026. That's equivalent to approximately NOK 4 a kilo and we'll first be seen in our cost to stock, then on the harvest costs from late '26 and later on. We aim at reducing the biological feed conversion ratio from 1.2 to 1.12 and improvements in shielding technology and enhanced biological control will be a key levers.
And most importantly, we are ambitious, and we will aim at establishing a cost leadership in all the regions where we operate. I believe these targets are realistic, but they are, at the same time, demanding. And they will require systematic improvements across every part of the Farming value chain. Over biological performance is not driven by luck or by short-term factors. It's a result of hard work. It's a result of the competence that we have in the organization. It's a result of the capabilities that we have and structure and discipline. And I believe what truly has made a difference is our governance model, Lerøy Way with clear and defined KPIs at all leadership levels with the fine meeting structure with fixed follow-up cadence, with setting immediate actions when we have deviations and by continuously improve through structured problem solving.
This engine has taken years to build. And what we are not changing is to elevate the cost KPIs at our performance agenda. At the same time, we're enhancing our performance on 3 key areas: that's feed cost, biological conversion ratio and our fixed cost base. I will come a bit more into the details on that. Feed is our single largest cost components and therefore, one of the most powerful levers in our cost program. And our strategic partnership with [ Cargill ] is the key enabler. That was established back in 2024 and covers approximately 70% of oversourced feed volume. We've implemented a performance-based incentive model to align our partner with our continuous cost-reducing initiatives. And through collaboration, through optimized formulations, the increase of the use of poultry by products, we are targeting structural savings of NOK 1.4 per kilo of feed in 2026.
Today, it's approximately NOK 0.3 a kilo has been realized and the full financial effect of this measure will be seen gradually through 2026. Given the scale of feed in our cost base, improvements translates directly into material impact on our harvest costs and our competitiveness. Since '23, we've invested more than NOK 1.2 billion in shielding technology. And by the end of '25 approximately 40% of our stocked biomass was shielded. The biological impact has been tangible. We have reduced the needs of sea life treatments. Significantly, we have improved fish welfare, and we have gained a higher superior share. We have also strengthened our regulatory position and improved our growth potential.
However, these investments has also brought us some challenges. And the main challenge is that the biological FCR has not met our expectations. We have therefore, initiated a targeted improvement program to increase our feed conversion efficiency. And this program includes equipment upgrades, it includes site portfolio optimization and scaling of the best practices across submerged sites. Over time, we expect these measures to be effectful. We expect improved biological FCR and lower unit costs as we fully optimize on the shielding platform. So the main priority now is to fully capitalize on the investments that we have been making. And therefore, investment levels in new shielding technology will be lower in 2026 compared to '24 and 2025. In the breakout session, Basile will go more into the details with regards to our shielding technology.
To sum up on cost, addressing our cost position is being executed through a structural and ambitious cost program. Our target is NOK 850 million in reductions in '26 and that's driven by 3 main levers. The feed price effect is secured through the partnership with [ Cargill ], the FCR improvements is secured through optimization of the shielding technology and through optimizing both smolt quality and biological control. And operational efficiency measures or cost base efficiency includes higher FTE productivity. It includes reduced reliance on external services and a more disciplined procurement process across regions and across categories.
Over the coming months, we will reach out to all our suppliers and expect them to take part an effort to identify cost reducing initiatives and to improve cost position. And by doing so, they can position themselves to be part in securing a role to supply Lerøy and our future growth. We are targeting 220,000 tonnes of slaughter volumes towards 2030. That will primary be driven by increased biological performance through higher survival rates, through faster growth cycles and through improved quality and improved harvest weight. That will enable profitable organic growth. It will increase the utilization rate of our MAB capacity. It will improve -- be improved by sea lice control. to reduce regulatory constraints and to enhance our operational efficiency.
In addition, there is an upside potential in license acquisitions and in selective M&As. But however, organic growth remains our priority as it delivers the highest returns on our invested capital. And the growth will come on a lower and more competitive cost base. So to conclude, we have a clear strategy for both responsible growth and cost-efficient farming, growth by delivering industry-leading biology performance, cost by establishing cost leadership in all the regions where we operate through structural improvements, through optimization of technology and through strict operational and financial discipline. Simplification by reducing complexity, increasing our speed and focusing on the things that creates the most value. And leadership because our people are the most important resource that we have and the key to consistent execution. With this strategy, we believe we are reducing the risk. We are strengthening our competitiveness and we are positioning ourselves to capture on the opportunities that lies ahead of us. Thank you.
We will have a short break, so we'll start again quarter to 3.
[Break]
Yes. Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Wild Catch season section. My name is Eldar Farstad, I am CEO in Lerøy Havfisk, [ Controller ] Company.
And I'm Borge Soleng, CEO of Lerøy Norway Seafoods. The Wild Catch segment is based on the [ troller ] company, Lerøy Havfisk and Lerøy Norway Seafood, which operates the land-based industry. Lerøy Havfisk is the largest fishing company in Norway. We have approximately 8% of the whitefish quotas. And while the most important species in whitefish is called saithe and haddock. And we also fish [ radfish and black halibut ]. And we have 7 licenses for shrimps fishery in the [ Barents ] Sea and 1 license for streams in [ Greenland ].
As for Norway Seafoods, we have 10 sites spread along the coast of Northern Norway. In total, we are about 1,000 employees, 400 in Havfisk and 600 in Lerøy Norway Seafoods. When Lerøy took over Norway Seafoods, this was more or less only about fillet production and whole fish. Since then, we have tried to diversify the production. So we have made significant changes to some of the plants. If you take a short trip through the coast, we can start in [ Lofoten in Stanson ]. That was a big fillet plant. It has been transformed to ready-to-eat production. So Norway are producing fish burgers, fish cakes and so on in that plant. And then that also makes it a very sustainable plan for using the rest of the raw material from the fillet production.
Then we have [indiscernible], still a big fillet producer, but focusing on frozen products and mainly from frozen raw material. Going north, we come up to the blue ring with the 2 dots in [ Hammerfest ], where we have 2 plants [indiscernible], mainly a purchasing station for buying fish, but also a small fillet production. And then we have [indiscernible] focusing on right and salted cold and safe. We have [indiscernible] the next [ being ], which is a quite diversified plant, but our crab center. So crab has been more and more important for [indiscernible]. And the last [indiscernible], which is the last big fillet factory, focusing on fresh products and producing from fresh raw material. Then we have [indiscernible], which are both purchasing station, buying a lot of fish, but also have the capacity to produce fillet, if needed. Both of them have been shut down for the last years because of the fillet market. So we are mainly focusing on purchase there. And last, [indiscernible], 2 small purchasing stations.
Lerøy Havfisk and Lerøy Norway Seafood are linked together through political regulation linked to all quotas. We have delivery obligation and we also have activity obligation to specific places in the north. The fisheries in Norway are subjected to strict political regulation. You must be what we call an active fisherman to be qualified to own fishing licenses. That means that you have -- must have your main income from fishery and you also have to participate actively in the fishing to be qualified. But Lerøy Havfisk as a part of our listed company, we have exception from this legal requirement. And therefore, we have obligation towards the land industry. We have delivery obligation on 80% of our card and 60% of our haddock. That means that we have to give these -- who are on sorry.
Those who are entitled under the delivery of obligation. The first right to buy the fish based on a price that is an average for the last 14 days. And we also have the activity obligation to specific places, there are 6 production plants in 4 [indiscernible] and 2 in [indiscernible]. And that means that we have to maintain a certain level of activity regardless of how the quotas and framework changes. And that is taken care of the activity obligation is taken care of by Lerøy Norway Seafood in everyday business. But this obligation ties us together and mean that we must operate in 1 unit in the value chain and especially when it comes to catch and production of cod.
The graph on the left shows when and from what region Lerøy Norway Seafood buys their cod. And the red area shows deliveries from the own troller fleet. And also shows a normal operational pattern for the toller fleet over the year when it comes to catch a cod. We start at the beginning of the year, delivering fresh cod to the factories in Norway Seafood. And when the coastal fleet season starts in February, we are focusing on fishing other species like saithe and haddock. And we also fish some card, but that is frozen. And Norway Seafood are also buying some of that catch for production in the second half year.
And as you can see in the costal season from February till May, there are large volumes delivered from the coastal fleet. And in the second half of the year, there are a few deliveries from external fleet and the production plans are totally dependent on delivery from the troller fleet. On the right, you can see where we operate the troller fleet during the year. And in the second half year of second half year, the card fishery takes place far north in the [ Barents ] Sea. Normally South of [indiscernible] and the area around [ Bear Island ]. And from the fishing ground to the factory in [indiscernible], it takes 20 hours. And that is challenging when we are delivering fresh fish, of course.
From the fishing ground to the production plant 20 hours, then we have to unload the vessel 20 hours back to the fishing ground. And that result ineffective fisheries and high fuel consumption. So what we are doing in our operation is that we freeze the catch at the beginning of the trip and ice it on tubes in the last part of the trip normally the last 4 days, depends on the need for raw material on the production plant. And of course, that makes the fishery more profitable. The cod [indiscernible] task has been reduced, as you can see here year-by-year. And especially the last 5 years has been challenging and especially for the land-based industry. We are now at the lowest level since 1990. But the troller fleet has compensated for much of the decline by changing the catch mix.
This, combined with significantly higher prices, has meant that catch revenues has been maintained and even increased. The catch value and also the profitability has been increased. And regarding the outlook for the quotas, the scientists don't give any specific forecast or advise for more than 1 year ahead. That is normally given at the end of June for the coming year. But the final decision about the quotas are settled at the end of the year by the primary of fishing and it is settled after negotiation with the Russians because we share the quotas of cod and haddock in the Barents Sea with Russians.
And what I have said, they have not given any specific advise, but I have said that we think that we have reached a button and they expected to be a slight increase in -- for 2027 when it comes to cod. For haddock, we expect a more stable situation. The haddock quotas has increased by 18% this year, and we expect a more stable situation for going forward. And the prices, all the whitefish prices have had a strong development, as you can see here, and especially in 2025. Cod prices has increased a bit more than 30% last year. And also the haddock and the sale price has increased even more. I think all the whitefish species had a record high prices last year. The only species with a more flattened price development is shrimps. But we are now experiencing increased demand for shrimps. So we think that this year, the shrimp prices will be much higher than last year.
And the catch mix and the catch composition for Lerøy Havfisk has changed as a result of the reduction in cod and haddock quotas. The cod quotas has been reduced by as much as 74% during the last 5 years, 74% in 5 years. And if you go back 10 years, 50% our catch was cod. And for -- sorry, for 2025 is down to 15%. But we have managed to compensate for much of this reduction by increasing the catch of other species. Such as we have increased the catch of saith. We have increased the catch of radfish, and we have increased the catch of shrimps. And investments in new vessel has also improved efficiency and increased value creation, especially in shrimps where we have consumers packaging on board. The increase in price, together with the change in mix has compensated for much of the reduction and it also -- we also managed to increase the catch value and the profitability in the troller fleet, but this has been much more challenging for the land-based industry and for Norway Seafood because they are more dependent on cod than we are.
While the prices has helped Havfisk, it's been a huge challenge for Lerøy Norway Seafood. Both the prices and the availability of raw material has been a real challenge since 2021. And we can see the product volume development, declining by 54% since 2017. So this is the obvious consequence of the quota development. But this means that there is a significant spare capacity. So when the quotas come up again, we have a huge potential for profitability growth by utilizing that capacity. While the product volumes have declined, we have managed to retain the product values. And much of the reason for that is the reduction of fillet volume. We see that instead of only producing fillets, we have added new categories like VAP, value-added products, crab, ready-to-eat products and salted and ripe cod and saithe. So this means that all the eggs are still not in the same basket, which is a good thing.
So we have done a lot of investments and spent a lot of time and effort to achieve this. But this means that we are now ready for quota recovery in a much better way than we was before. But as Eldar said, we need to see this as one unit. So when the prices rise, the result at the EBITDA level in half is offsetting the losses in the land industry. So we can see that over time, EBITDA is quite stable for the segment. When it comes to EBIT, it's a bit different, and that is due to all the investments done. Havfisk has done significant upgrade of the troller fleet for more efficient fishery and higher-value products. And when Lerøy took over the land industry, there was a huge maintenance backlog so we have spent a lot of money on getting the plans to a level that is more or less a license to play. But we have also spent a lot of money on upgrading factory to be able to produce new categories.
Bjarne and Ivar and Henning has already talked a lot about Lerøy Way. The fish industry in general is immature and kind of old fashioned. Since we took over Lerøy Norway Seafoods or Norway Seafoods, the way the plants are being run, organized and managed is completely different, it's completely changed by the introduction of Lerøy Way. Inspired by the [ Toyota ] Production System, our lean thinking, Lerøy Way has completely transformed the way these plants are running. Even though the billings are pretty much the same, entering a plant in Lerøy Norway Seafoods now is like entering a completely different plant than it was in 2017. The level of understanding and control of the process here are at a completely different level, and continuous improvement is now a natural part of daily work.
And this has led to significant improvements in underlying KPIs. But the full potential of this will not come to effect before the volume comes up again. So when the quota comes up, we will really see or realize the potential that we now have worked on because this has not been a quick fix. Improving an operation in a way like this is not a low-hanging fruit. It's incredibly hard work over time. So we have spent years to achieve this. But when we measure the underlying KPIs in our plants, we can see how we have improved the different part of the operation. So we think we will harvest this when volume raises again.
Variation is kind of the name of the game in the wild fish industry and especially raw material and industry activity is mainly based on raw material. If you don't have any raw material, you can't do anything. And in this business, the variations are severe. We have the quota variations over year that Eldar showed on the graph. We have the seasonal variations, a lot of fish in some short months and then very little fish the rest of the year. And we have the variation from day-to-day based on weather and wind and fisheries. And this makes it incredibly hard to predict the results. The clearest indication of the effect of volume rates, I think we can see, if we look back at the only year during Lerøy's ownership where the quota has raised, and that was from 2020 to 2021.
And the increase in profitability over these years, I think, clearly indicates the potential in these segments. From '20 to '21, we had a 20% increase in quota, and Havfisk improved their EBIT by NOK 66 million and Lerøy Norway Seafoods improved EBIT by NOK 69 million. So this is a clear indication what will happen when the quota hopefully turns back again and starts to increase. And during this time, we can also see the way the raw material costs have increased while the operational cost has decreased.
As Eldar said, no one can guarantee how the quota will develop. But history in this business has been running for thousands of years, and we have always seen these variations. So we hope and expect that we, once again, will see the same trend as we have seen earlier. It will come up again to high levels. And with the operational efficiency, both on sea and on land, we should be well positioned to utilize the potential in the years to come.
A little bit about modeling, Eldar.
Yes. Trying to make a simple model for how to calculate the operational EBIT in the segment. And if we start with the most important value driver in the troller fleet, that's the catch value for operating day. And we have some costs that are 100% correlated to the catch value. And that is personnel cost and freight packaging. They are always 36% on the catch value. And we use approximately 40 million liters of marine gas oil in a normal year. And other operating costs are NOK 320 million. The fuel costs and the fishing equipment and maintenance are more or less linked to the number of operating days in a year.
In last year, the fuel cost was NOK 280 million. And if you -- and the other cost of NOK 320 million. And if you deduct the minus EBITDA in the land industry and the depreciation and amortization and NOK 275 million, you got NOK 270 million, which was the EBIT for last year. But if you look at the cost categories in the troller fleet and Lerøy Norway Seafoods is shown as a combined EBITDA. As I said, the most important value driver and the engine in our profitability is catch value per operating day. If we take 1 year and an average for our [ draw ] loss, petrol has approximately 300,000, they must have a catch value for 300,000 per day to break even on an EBITDA level, 300,000 to break even. And if you increase the catch value higher than 300,000, then the company has a profit of 64%. And that's because we still have a crew cost on 30% and freight packaging on 6%. As on 36%, they are following the catch value 100%, and the profit is 64%.
So as we -- and all the other costs are already covered when we are at 300,000. So catch value over 300,000 gives 64% of profit. So if we try to link that to the figures for 2025, we had NOK 674 per vessel per operating day. And that's approximately 370,000 higher than breakeven, 370,000 per day. And if you take 64% of that 370,000, that's for one vessel and you divide that figure with all our operational day was approximately 3,100 , then you got the EBITDA for the troller fleet. Simple as that, and that's also difficult. But the thing is that the 300,000 will be a variation in that and especially when the oil prices is going high, like they are doing now. So -- but this is a simple way to calculate on an annual basis.
And as you can see here, we have maintained -- we have been able to maintain the catch value and also the profitability despite the reduction in quotas. We had a little down here in 2024, but we are now back on track in '25. And the best guess for this year is the same level as we achieved in 2025.
A quick look at initiatives for profitability recovery. If we look at the targets for 2030, continued increase in operational efficiency is obviously a main focus. Operational excellence is what it's all about when it comes to making this segment profitable. So we will continue that journey. And then, of course, the quota coming up again, we expect will give us a much better framework for achieving profitability. [ HSE ] is a strong focus both in Lerøy Seafoods Group and also in our companies. And we are proud to be able to tell that we run in an entire year without any lost and injuries last year. So we reached the milestone of H1 at 0, which was good. And we will continue to have that focus.
And then we will continue to try to source more raw material from Havfisk into the land industry. And the key drivers to achieve this is cost discipline, catch volume utilization, throughput, fleet capabilities and of course, at last Lerøy Way. Wild Catch is an important part of Lerøy's value chain because it makes Lerøy a complete supplier of seafoods. We can offer a bigger range of products, making Lerøy more attractive to strategic customers globally. And we can offer predictable and stable access to even whitefish. So as Ivar said, Wild Catch segment contributes now to 15% sold downstream, and there is more potential.
So to sum up then, strategic access to high-quality whitefish resources. We secured long-term access to scarce and regulated whitefish resources through our rights at sea. We have proven flexibility in utilizing a wide range of species in Havfisk. We now have a highly efficient trailing operation, our plants are trimmed and diversified and ready for volume increase. And we are a key contributor to Lerøy's integrated value chain. So we are well rig for quarter recovery. I think that's it.
Yes. Thank you.
So this is a fantastic picture, and it shows a lot on where we are. So we are in an industry with structural demand growth because our products are healthy. But more than anything, they are extremely tasty. And that's a good place to be, and we are very proud of our products. Still, demand itself does not create value. So I'm Sjur Malm, I'm CFO in Lerøy and I'm here, and my job today is actually quite simple. That is to show how our strategy execution transfer into increased free cash flow generation and increased returns. So that's what I'm going to do over the next 25 minutes.
Firstly, some more comments on where we are. So looking at the last 5 years, we have continued our structural revenue growth. That growth has been present for decades, and that's quite unique across any industry. That growth is driven by structural demand. but it's also driven by Lerøy's strategy and our strategic choices. As has been highlighted previously today, our upstream volumes, they secure access to volumes, guarantee quality, traceability, and they open the opportunity for strategic partnerships and the opportunity to sell more volumes, penetrating market with more value-added products. So growth opportunity in Lerøy remains very strong.
Then if you look at the profitability, the picture is a bit more mixed and also highlight on the lateral bullet point, we see returns, and this payout is lower than what is our ambition. And we have room to improve on cost I think it's also fair to say that turn in the last 3 years is not due to poor execution. Key reasons for lower returns last year is a lower salmon price and also that we have invested a lot, which I will return to. And why does that matter? Because it shows also the opportunity ahead. Summing up in a simplified chart, what has been presented today. This is then the sum of operational EBIT across all segments. So Ivar has shown us the impressive downstream development, which has been very strong recent years. Borgen, Eldar just talked us through the resilience in the Wild Catch segment. despite extremely challenging quarters. And Bjarne has shown us that the biological improvements in Farming are vast and very strong and that we are excellently positioned for cost reduction.
So from this picture, we can also see one point out of this integrated value chain, and that is stability. So our integrated value chain beyond growth opportunities, adds stability. And it adds stability without taking away the upside, which comes from lower cost in Farming from -- in a tight salmon market without taking away the potential upside from a quota recovery, we're taking away any upside when it comes to continued growth downstream. So I also have to make some comments on the salmon market. But it's fair to say before I do that, that our cost -- our strategy for coming years is not based on some optimistic market scenario. It's based on what we can control. Growth cost capital discipline. But it is fair to say that the fundamentals also in the salmon market are attractive.
So I've spent now 15 to 20 years in the seafood industry, also analyzing a bit. And the overarching team looking on salmon in recent years has been the lack of new license capacity and a lack of opportunity to grow. And that has not changed. But what we are seeing, and I'll first add then is this chart is showing the last decade, a 12-month rolling supply growth of salmon, last decade. We can see some years in '22, '23 with extremely challenging biology and no growth. And we can see recently the significant uptick in 12-month rolling supply growth. And just now, here we stand is actually the highest supply growth in a decade. So it's extremely high supply growth, now highest in a decade.
That is due to catching up some of the challenges we saw in '22, '23 and through the biological vast improvements that Lerøy has seen and that the Norwegian industry have seen. And it's also, as this is global volumes, we will also see improvements in other places. I am 100% certain that such improvements cannot last. And if you look on external analysts' view on that supply growth, it's impossible to say which day it will happen or which week it will happen, but we are talking months and not years before that 12-month supply growth will decline.
Then I've added here and this one is inverted. So it's a little bit technical, but I'm a [ hearty ] guy. So when this one goes down, it actually goes up and this is inverted price development, 12-month rolling. And I added it that way just to show you the high correlation. So this market is strong. Demand is strong. We are currently at the highest 12-month rolling supply growth in a decade. That is about to come down. And at least from our point of view, the market fundamentals looks strong.
Then obviously, the key task today is how to connect business strategy into our financial strategy. And that is actually quite simple. And so our aim out of this strategy is to grow free cash flow, simple as that. Because cost reduction, which we're talking about, they will support cash generation. Cash generation will support growth. Disciplined capital allocation will convert cash into higher returns. And from this higher free cash flow generation, our priority is clear, we would like to see stable and growing dividends. It's very important for us to remain investment grade, and we will look into selective high-return investment opportunities. We also have some enablers which have already been covered today, and I will cover a bit more on Lerøy Way on capital allocation.
So if you look into Lerøy Way, built here like a house, as already described by Ivar and others. So beyond the basis of our values, beyond the basis, including the food safety, fish welfare, security for employees and sustainability. Make no mistake. The reason to why we are doing this is to increase profitability and to increase return, that is the core objective of this work. We can do that through 5 levers. And obvious one is increasing demand. So if we are god in quality, if you are reliable, if we see customer satisfaction, it is obvious that, that will increase demand. And Ivar shown some examples of that already.
When it comes to increased capacity, this is a toolbox for how do we operate more efficiently, both with our people and our assets. So we have plenty of examples already of increased capacity. As Borge highlighted, some of the increased capacity is not yet being used. So there is more growth opportunity in our capacity. Another lever is increased gross profit, and we have so many examples of how we, through this Lerøy Way toolbox can increase yield which is as simple as how much high-quality product you get out of 1 kilo raw material. And finally, we can reduce cost and we can reduce capital by it.
So what does this mean? It means that this work on Lerøy Way is helping our P&L., it is reducing our balance sheet and it's increasing our free cash flow. And that means that Lerøy way is actually perhaps the most important enabler also for our financial strategy. A key component of Lerøy Way is understanding which problems should be solved and how should we solve them in a way that they don't occur again. So one KPI for this is just looking into how many of these problem-solving initiatives have we done. So in 2021, it was 38. You can see in 2025, which was almost one every day. So that's a big change over the last year. We made some calculations down to left because all these initiatives have an estimate on profitability generation. And these are making a significant impact to increase our profitability. But also, as has been highlighted, among others by Bjarne, we are now moving the focus on this system more on cost and capital but, and it will work. So that's the key focus for coming years.
And then before we move on a bit on capital allocation. This is also a bit of a complex slide but I get to it. I think the key point of what you are seeing and hearing today is that what we are talking about is not 1 initiative or 10 initiatives. What we are building is a system, a business model, which compounds over time. That is our aim. So when 4 strategic key focus areas, combined with Lerøy Way into thousand of problem solving, increasing our capacity utilization, lowering our cost, that is a strategy that will enhance financial performance. And that, together with a strict discipline on the use of capital, will enhance returns. And this is a system that over time, which will compound.
Some comments on our capital base today. This shows the distribution between the different segments. So we have around NOK 28 billion in book values employed. Farming is the most important. We have around NOK 4 billion to NOK 5 billion in each and value-added processing in Wild Catch and NOK 18 billion in Farming. And obviously, we need to make this capital work harder because we are not happy with the return we've seen in recent years. In Farming, we have highlighted the potential for cost reduction and growth and there is high return opportunities in new technology, which one example is [ Apadaz ]. In value-added sales and processing, we believe there are potential for higher capacity utilization of what we have, there is potential for incremental smaller investments in a factory we have, and there is potential for smaller acquisitions. We have good returns, and we would like to continue to grow that business. In Wild catch, that's well covered in previous section, but obviously, we have a lot of spare capacity. So this will be a lot about how can we utilize our capacity even better.
And then some comment on associated companies. And we have more than what's shown here, but in particular, we own 2 assets, which we have 50% of. One is [ Scottish Seafarms ], that is U.K.'s second largest farming company. It's well positioned in U.K. It's through the full value chain. 2025 was a particularly challenging year. And we have clear and Scottish Seafarm has clear targets for growing in the coming years. Guidance for next year is 43,000 tonnes and the potential beyond that is even higher. And we expect Scottish Seafarms to contribute significantly more to [ Audetel ] in the coming years. Also, we have [ sales stock ], which is a large well board company over 7 mostly very new wellboat, nice operation, around NOK 200 million a year in EBITDA, a good company.
Giving some more comments then on CapEx. So we have invested a lot in the last 30 years in developing the value chain that's been covered, and we have invested even more in the last decade. This goes particularly into Farming. In Farming today, we have 3 modern processing facilities along the Norwegian coast line. You will visit one of them tomorrow at Austevoll. In Farming, we have 3 state-of-the-art modern recycling facilities for smolt, 1 in each region, and you will visit one of them tomorrow. And we have also invested significantly in new technology. And we have not taken fully out the potential of these investments yet.
In Wild Catch was just covered. We have made investment in new boats to increase efficiency of the fisheries. And also, there was a massive maintenance backlog in the land-based industry, which is now filled. And while doing that, we've also opened 4 new products. So we are will also in the future make growth investment as long as they have high return. We have NOK 1 billion in maintenance CapEx, but we are shifting a bit from building capacity to harvesting returns.
So what are the drivers then? What have you learned today on value driver in Lerøy and led and there are quite a few, and I will not repeat all of them. But I think it's important to know that we are exposed to the salmon market and the development there. In addition to that, we have value amplification opportunities, as Ivar has highlighted in the downstream segment, and we are exposed to Wild catch.
And I think some key points from this is that it offers growth opportunities, greater stability and capital allocation opportunities. And this stability is key also to our financial strategy. For two of our objectives is one of them is stable and increasing dividend and the stability in business model is a perfect match with that strategy. We will also, going forward, aim to have a stable and growing dividend.
Secondly, it's important for us to remain investment grade. And obviously, this stability reduces risk significantly. And over time, that should lower cost of capital, and that matters. So a bit more on how will this translate into growing free cash flow because that's the main message today. Beyond stability, our strategy will convert into growing free cash flow. And this has been well covered. In farming, we will see volume growth together with cost reduction in a tight market. That should increase free cash flow generation.
Value-added sales and processing, Ivar has highlighted his focus on a capital-light model. It generated significant cash in 2025 and the continued growth should continue to do so. In Wild Catch, we are at relatively stable EBITDA, but we are very well positioned for a quota recovery. We do not know when it comes, but if its history repeats itself, it is a matter of time. And this increased free cash flow gives the opportunity then to increase our dividends and look into investment opportunities, if it's CapEx or acquisition, which have high returns.
This sums up a bit guidance and our long-term ambitions. And just to repeat, farming, we will cut costs significantly in 2026. We will, through that cost focus and growth, be #1 cost player in all the regions we operate by 2030. In value-added sales and distribution, we will grow our volumes by 25%, growth driven by interaction with our strategic customers downstream, but also by sourcing upstream. That has the potential to reach our EBIT target of NOK 2 billion by 2030. And on Wild Catch, we are very well positioned to grow when the quota returns. Across all our segments, we will have efficient capital allocation to higher return opportunities.
And this sums up to this. And I would say this is actually not the optimistic scenario. It's just a mechanical calculation of executing our strategy. So this shows our return on capital employed last 3 years. It is obvious that NOK 1 billion cost cut, which is targeted here today will increase cash generation and will enhance return. It is obvious that if we reach our NOK 2 billion target downstream, it will enhance our return. Increased volume in farming on existing licenses will enhance return. And beyond that, we are exposed to other drivers, which includes quota recovery. It includes also the fact that NOK 1 billion is not the end of our work with cost. We will continue that work going forward. And it includes the exposure to a very tight salmon and truck market for coming years.
So trying then to sum up before we open for Q&A. So Ler�y today is a global integrated seafood leader. We have a value chain from -- in both redfish and whitefish all the way to the consumer. That gives us good growth opportunities with key strategic customers. It gives us stability and it gives us opportunity to allocate capital at high return opportunities across the value chain. That value chain is in a market which is positioned for strong demand growth. That's been like that for decades. It will continue. Our strategy is obviously to utilize that.
And then we have highlighted that there is upside to our operation. We will reduce cost. We have seen massive improvements in biologic in farming. We are focusing on keeping that, obviously, while reducing cost. We will continue to grow downstream, and there is a potential in Wild Catch. So we are very well positioned to see significant efficiency gain and margin expansion.
Lastly, I've highlighted our focus on capital discipline. And obviously, the key here is to grow, to generate increased free cash flow, increase return, and that should give sustainable also shareholder returns over time.
So thank you for your attention, and then we open for questions in a couple of minutes.
There is opportunity for questions also online. But of course, we will start with you guys joining us today. So are there any questions in the audience?
2. Question Answer
Henrik Knutsen, Pareto Securities. You mentioned 220,000 tonnes in 2030. Could you give a split per region?
You like to answer that, Bjarne?
No.
Well, I think we will return to that. But I think if you look at license capacity utilization in different regions, you will get some indication. So -- but overall, we expect to grow then to 220,000 towards 2030.
What are the sort of lowest hanging fruits to add 25,000 tonnes to where you were in 2025?
I can answer that. But to late last question, we have the highest utilization rate of our capacity in North in Ler�y Aurora, well above 2 tonnes, a tonne of capacity. And the rate or efficiency ratio is a bit lower in mid and in West, but they are quite equal. So the largest growth will come from mid and western part of our operations. The improvements will come mainly from two levers. First one is the growth rate that will increase from the level that we have today of 108 to 120. And we are also aiming at increasing the survival rate of the fish, so that will be the second lever. And of course, harvest weights are crucial to deliver volumes. So that will also contribute to the volumes added.
And you didn't speak too much about closed containment systems, but could you elaborate on how much of this growth that you expect to come from these types of investments?
It depends on how we perform. But of course, it will make us able to utilize some of the capacity that has been withdrawn in production Area 3 and 4. So that's a part of the volume that will be gained through a closed containment system. The other part is increased biological performance of the rest of our growth portfolio by stocking larger smolts, by turning the production cycle and increasing the production from the sites that are best performing.
And one last question for Ivar. You mentioned the importance of the Japanese cuisine driving growth in Asia, but you also mentioned India having the highest potential. How is the Japanese cuisine sort of trend in India?
Yes. For now, it is not very large or not close to what we see in the rest of the Asian market. So you can see that is also what is a huge potential for further growth for the -- especially for the salmon and trout industry. We have a huge potential market in India that is not utilized at the moment, and it is underdeveloped. And that's also where we can see a substantial growth potential for the coming years.
Wilhelm Dahl R�e, Danske Bank. Just a question on the -- maybe for Ivar as well. The 25% increase in volumes through sales, of course, higher than volume growth in that sense. Just how contingent is that on quota recoveries and external volumes? And yes, where do you are on capacity utilization now?
Well, the capacity utilization in the segment of value-added processing sales and distribution is kind of not my favorable topic, to be honest, because it all depends on what kind of product mix you take through our facilities and so on. It's all about value creation, what kind of value do you create per kilo you take through our operations. And if you can say that Bjarne and the farming segment is going to contribute with 20,000 tonnes and hopefully, some from Wild Catch. We think that the business model that we have will make us able to get more volume from more external suppliers, basically, both from the farming site in Norway and from external suppliers of other species in our core markets. So that will drive the volumes upwards.
Alex from DNB Carnegie. So just a question on the primary processing being moved from farming to the sales and distribution bit. You say NOK 50 million in savings. Is that a net incremental savings? And also what's the effect going to be on the farming numbers? Will that segment now be a cleaner farming segment with, let's call it, a lower sales revenue per kilo and also a lower cost?
Yes. I think those NOK 50 million is basically that will be reduced in farming. So that there will be symmetry between them. It would mean that the farming segment would be cleaner in a way, meaning that the processing will not happen there. But they will pay then the farming, the value-added sales and processing for the processing fees kind of like to get the job done.
And just on the CapEx, it seems NOK 1.5 billion in annual CapEx, and that's enough to reach the 2030 targets?
I think the -- yes, so our targets are based on those assumptions, yes. So -- and I think it should not be read as an exact NOK 1.5 billion CapEx guidance. So we have NOK 1 billion in maintenance CapEx. Overall, we are working hard to reduce CapEx. And I can say that everything that we do should have high return. So if there are very good opportunities, it could be higher. If it's not, it will be lower than the NOK 1.5 billion.
Christian Arctic Securities. You say that in terms of feed price development or improvement should be around NOK 270 million. How much of that is driven by raw material and currency and how much is other factors?
Yes, I can answer. So the idea behind this figure is no and with the same raw material price. So it's excluding any change in raw material price.
And in terms of your volume growth in farming segment ahead, you say that you want to have faster cycles. How exactly are you going to get faster cycles from current level, which is already at pretty good levels?
Well, there are improvements gained by genetics and by the continuous development of the operations, and that's what we have shown during the latest year since '22. So partly by improved genetics and partly by improved operations and the quality of the way we farm fish.
First question on smolt. What was the average smolt weight in 2025? And are you planning to increase this going forward?
I guess I have to answer that. The average weight of our smolt was approximately 230 grams. The most important thing is to produce a smolt that has the quality to perform both on growth and on the robustness. So it's not a goal that we have to increase the average weight of the smolt. It's more important for us to produce a smolt that has the right quality. But we are increasing the throughput in our RAS facilities, and that throughput could be gained through either increasing the number of smolt released or the average weights of the smolt that we will release. And we've been reducing the intensity in the smolt production. We've also done some investments during the latest years that has reduced the capacity and the throughput from our smolt facilities, and that throughput will eventually increase now by having these investments in place and up and running.
And second question on the volume growth. Should I expect it to be linear or will it be more back-end loaded?
Well, sure, I guess you've communicated the growth in 2026 already.
Yes. So '26, we said guidance. But I think in general, none of the targets that are shown today are hockey stick goals in general. So most of this, we are going to do step by step, not necessarily every year, but step by step.
Finally, hopefully, a more short-term question. But of course, salmon farmers, you are dynamic, but can you comment on how much of your exports to Asia is going through the Middle East hubs?
I was kind of expecting that question, to be honest. Yes. Right now, on an average week, we have maybe around 700 metric tons through the Middle East or through Dubai as a logistical hub. That, of course, now is rerouted and is on its way through a narrow passage in -- through Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and into the Kazakhstan and that area into China and Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea. So the routing is going, yes, I would say, quite smoothly at the moment. The air freighters have been very helpful with rerouting their planes. But of course, it is a lot of, let's say, work on an operational level during this weekend and today to make that happen. And on the percentage level you are asking for, I would say that on a normal week, somewhere between 50% and 70% of our volume moves through the Middle East on its eastward journey. So -- but so far, it is working quite okay on the operational.
I guess some of the improvements in feed conversion ratio that you target is driven by improvements also for the submerged cages and also this could help reducing the production cycle. What are the key -- is it possible to say something about the key initiatives to get those feed conversion ratios down? And what are the current spread, for example, among the best-performing submerge sites? Is that close to the conventional sites?
Yes. We will dig more deep into this in the breakout session. The spread is quite large. The best performing close to 1.15 and the worst performing above 1.3. So the best performing are close to what we reach in traditional farming and the worst performing is not good performers. And I think it's fair to say that we have selected sites with subsea technology, sites that did not perform with traditional technology. So the data that we are gathering are sort of biased because we are farming with subsea on the lowest performing sites. And the measures, it's about technology optimization, both large and smaller steps taken there. It's about utilization of our site portfolio. And that was the thing I mentioned about site portfolio optimization using the subsea technology on the sites that are suitable for such technology. We will gain a lot of data with regards to what criteria needs to be in place to perform on subsea farming. And it's about developing best practice throughout the sites that are operated with subsea farming. So it's a sum of many things, but it's a structured way of solving it, and we believe that this will reduce the feed conversion ratio down to a number that is competitive.
And does the change portfolio -- site portfolio mix, does that also mean that you can change back to the conventional from where you have sub...
Yes, yes. So we can switch almost whenever we need to switch, use equipment that we have invested in on sites that never has used subsea technology and the other way around. So it's flexible because we are using a lot of the same infrastructure that we have for traditional farming in subsea.
Thank you very much for the good presentations. I have a question on capital allocation. For the acquisition targets, do you target companies in Norway? Or would you look elsewhere also? And regarding the Wild Catch segment, do you guide on any specific EBIT target?
I can comment a bit on that. When it comes to acquisition targets, farming, we mainly look in Norway. If you look downstream, we look outside Norway. And I guess it's fair to say, particularly in Europe as the strategy is today. When it comes to Wild Catch, I think in general, yes, it could potentially at some time make sense to do acquisition in Wild Catch. But I think in general, if you look on valuation of Wild Catch assets outside our own, valuation is extremely, extremely high at very, very low yields. So that's not an alternative today.
And then your second question related to -- sorry for forgetting.
Any estimates on the Wild Catch segment going forward? The last Capital Markets Day, you had a target of EBIT NOK 500 million. I don't know if you have dropped this at some time.
Yes, we dropped it. And the key reason to why we dropped it was that quota was down 70%. So learning from that, we are not making any EBIT estimate in 2030 in Wild Catch. But what we have done is to provide a model. So if you use that model, you can put in what you think and then you'll get to the answer. So what we believe is that from what we know today is that 2026 is likely the trough when it comes to quota. At what rate it will recover, we don't know is the honest answer. So we can look at historic graph as well as you can.
Yes, that was a very good model. Last question on capital allocation. You expect to increase dividends. And this could be a question for the Board, but what about share buybacks? And if there is a scenario of extreme undervaluation, is that something you rule out?
No. So we have -- or the Board has a mandate to do share buybacks. We haven't done that for some time. So it's not top of the list, but I will not rule out anything.
[indiscernible] So you presented a good case for becoming #1 on cost in farming, right? And you have these measures like cost reductions, feed, feed conversion, biology, et cetera, and survival and growth rates, if I sort of got that picture right. So your ambition, to what extent are these components sufficient to get to the #1 position? And secondly, do you include the improvements your competitors probably also will do? And thirdly, the cost element, does that include depreciation?
You could answer the last question. But of course, we are benchmarking all the time. We are benchmarking against the competitors that we have are able to gain any numbers from. We have in-depth waterfalls that explains the differences, both with quantity and sometimes with quality. We really believe that we are able to produce with the estimates of NOK 850 million in '26, and we obviously know that the best performers will also perform better. So we think it's possible. It will be demanding. We need to work with structure, and we need to make disciplined decisions throughout the years ahead of us, but we think that's possible to reach best performance on a regional level.
And I forgot if there were any questions between that and the depreciations.
No, I think that was it. If you could just add on the growth and survival rate, the improvements you've seen over the last year, how would that sort of quantify into millions of EBIT? Are you able to give an illustration on that, please?
As of '25?
Yes, you showed the pickup in survival and growth. Let's say, for not necessarily '26, but perhaps '27 is more representative.
There should be or there are scale advantages in the operations that we are managing, but we are not happy with the achieved scale advantage of the increased volume. So that's something that we are working on and to increase through better utilization of the resources that we have in action. But of course, increased volume will be a part of being more efficient at least for the fixed cost base that should be scalable with higher volumes and a part of our cost disadvantage is related to the resource efficiency, both onshore and the resources that are involved in the sea phase operations. So increased survival and increased volumes will be part of our -- reaching our target of being the cost leader on a regional basis.
And depreciation should -- it's included.
Great. It's been a long day. So for those on the webcast, thank you very, very much for joining. For those here, we will now go into the breakout sessions. You should have all received an e-mail or SMS on where to be. So I just make sure that you -- so those who are in group #2, you can just stay put. Those who are in group #1, and then just one more on group.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Analyst/Investor Day - Lerøy Seafood Group ASA
Lerøy Seafood Group — Analyst/Investor Day - Lerøy Seafood Group ASA
🎯 Key Message
- Summary: Lerøy Capital Markets Day outlines a growth- and cost-led plan to become the world’s most efficient, integrated seafood value chain. Four priorities—growth, cost, simplifying, leadership—guide a disciplined capital framework to lift free cash flow and dividends, supported by targeted 2030 ambitions.
🏗️ Strategic Highlights
- Strategy framework: 2030 targets include NOK50 billion turnover, 220,000 tonnes farming, NOK2 billion EBIT in Value-Added Processing & Distribution, and 15% return on capital employed, backed by a NOK850 million cost program in 2026 and opportunities for acquisitions.
- Lerøy Way & leadership: 96% of units started Lerøy Way; leadership programs, Great Place to Work at 71%; new Chief Procurement Officer to drive cost efficiencies across the group.
- Biology & technology: Aggressive farming improvements (survival, growth, quality), shielding technology with ~40% biomass shielded by 2025, and a feed-partner program with Cargill to structural savings; downstream growth targets toward 70% strategic customers by 2030.
🆕 New Information
- New details: Confirmed 2030 targets (220,000 t farming; NOK50 billion turnover; NOK2 billion EBIT in VAP by 2030) and a 2026 cost-reduction path of NOK850 million. Reorganization moves primary processing from Farming to VAP Sales & Distribution; new procurement leadership reinforces cost discipline. Lerøy Way progress and shielding breakout sessions are highlighted.
❓ Analyst Q&A
- Topics: (1) Feasibility of reaching 220,000 tonnes by 2030—regional split, growth drivers in Mid/West, higher growth rate, improved survival, and effect of closed containment; (2) Wild Catch guidance—no fixed 2030 EBIT target, modeled scenarios; (3) Capital allocation: acquisitions, dividends versus buybacks, and CapEx guidance tied to high-return opportunities.
⚡ Bottom Line
Lerøy frames a disciplined, capital-light path to growth and margin expansion across its integrated seafood platform. If quota cycles recover, downstream expansion and cost leadership could lift free cash flow and dividends. Key risks remain salmon market dynamics and regulatory quotas, which could affect timing and scale of upside.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's Third Quarter Presentation of 2025. My name is Henning Beltestad. I'm the CEO, Lerøy Seafood Group. And with me today, I have Sjur Malm, CFO.
First of all, I will take you through the highlights of the quarter, and then Sjur Malm will take you through the key financial highlights, and then I will come back and talk about the outlook.
First of all, we -- I want to share this slide and which I always do on my quarterly presentation or is our fantastic value chain. Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. We believe that our value chain is providing what our customers are seeking. And we really see that our development in markets together with strategic customer is developing the right direction.
Highlights of the quarter. It's been a quarter with low profitability on low spot prices for salmon and trout. It's been a challenging quarter in farming, but year-to-date development remains strong. Record earnings in the VAP sales and Distribution segments, low quotas in wild catch offset by significant price increase. The harvest guidance for Norway in 2025 is rated at 195,000 tonnes. We see a positive working capital development and net interest-bearing debt reduced from NOK 8.5 billion to NOK 8.1 billion.
Then I will go through the different segments, where we report. So we start performing then wild catch and then at the end, VAP sales and distribution. We start with the farming. The spot price is NOK 8 lower in third quarter compared to same quarter last year, which, of course, have had a negative effect on our operational EBIT.
As guided in Q2, costs are up quarter-on-quarter in third quarter following 4 consecutive quarters with cost reduction. It's a challenging biological development in this quarter, but biological performance year-to-date, remains strong. And we -- as I said, we keep our guiding for 2025 at 195,000 tonnes.
But if we look historically on the development, we see that the 12 months rolling down at the right is developed from 159,000 tonnes fourth quarter '23 and till up to 203,000 tonnes end of this quarter. So that's a significant improvement in the volumes the last couple of years.
Then we will go into the different regions. We start with Lerøy Aurora, a strong biological development in the third quarter, a record net growth, high survival rate, high superior share and continued high license utilization. As expected, cost third quarter, in line with the second quarter. It's been high sea water temperatures, which also continued into Q4, which has been a little bit more challenging than earlier year.
And then we had one incident with ISA at site that will impact timing of harvest volume in the fourth quarter with a higher share of volume in October. The estimated harvest volume is increased to 54,000 tonnes for 2025, and the guidance for 2026 is at 49,000 tonnes. The harvested volume in the quarter is 20,000 tonnes compared to 17,600 tonnes in third quarter 2024, and the average size of 4.4 compared to 4.8 kilos. The operational EBIT in the quarter is NOK 9.5.
Then we go to Lerøy Midt, the mid-region. It's been a more challenging quarter with high sea lice pressure. The harvesting weight is below planned. And also the timing of the harvest has been negative due to the price is higher in September than earlier in the quarter where we took out most of -- a high share of the volume. But year-to-date development in line with the recent year, costs in third quarter increased quarter-on-quarter, and we expect for flat cost quarter-on-quarter into fourth quarter.
The estimated harvest volume reduced to 71,000 tonnes in 2025. And for 2026, we're estimating 73,000 tonnes. If we look at the volume in the quarter, we have about 21,450 tonnes in third quarter '25 compared to 16,931 tonnes in 2024. And the average weight is 4.1 compared to 4.0 in '24. And if we look at third quarter '25, we have a negative operational EBIT per kilo value chain of 3.1.
Then we take the South region, the West region, Lerøy Sjøtroll. It's been a significant year-on-year improvement. Biomass production slightly up year-on-year, high survival rate, high superior share, continued high license utilization and the year-to-date harvest volume is up 14,000 tonnes. And trout stands for 59% of the harvest in the quarter.
Cost as expected, up quarter-on-quarter for fourth quarter and basis of new generation of trout expectation up slightly quarter-on-quarter cost increase into fourth quarter. Estimated harvest volume is about 70,000 tonnes for '25 and increased to 73,000 tonnes in 2026. And the harvest volume in the quarter is 17,500 tonnes compared to 16,800 tonnes last year and the average -- the harvest weight is 4.3 compared to 4.0 last year. And the operational EBIT per kilo value chain is minus 1.5 same as we had the same quarter in 2024, but a great improvement when it comes -- when we look at a negative price trend of NOK 8 in the same quarter compared to last year. So good perform -- direction on the performance in Lerøy Sjøtroll.
Then Scottish Seafarm, strong biological development with the next generation of fish performing well. Lower price return impact result in the quarter. The volume in '25 impacted by reorganizing site structure, long-term potential is significantly higher. And we also see that with the guiding. The estimate for this year, 33,500 tonnes. And for next year, we increased the guiding to 45,000 tonnes. So a great improvement going forward in Scottish Seafarm. I'm very happy to see this development and the way we build the biomass going forward.
When it comes to the volumes in the third quarter, it's 7,200 tonnes compared to close to 12,000 tonnes same quarter last year and operational EBIT of NOK 1.2. And yes -- so -- which is improvement compared to second quarter in 2025.
Then the Farming -- the Guiding summarized. We -- for 2025, we start with Lerøy Aurora 54,000 tonnes, Lerøy Midt 71,000 tonnes, Lerøy Sjøtroll 70,000 tonnes and a total of 195,000 tonnes in Norway and 16,800 tonnes in Scottish Seafarm is a total of 212,000 tonnes.
When it comes to 2026, we guide Lerøy Aurora a little bit down to 49,000 tonnes but still at a higher level than '22 and '23 and '24. So -- and for Lerøy Midt, we increased the guiding to 73,000 tonnes, Lerøy Sjøtroll, 73,000 tonnes and a total of 195,000 and total per share of Scottish Seafarm, 22,500 tonnes, a total of close to 218,000 tonnes.
Now Wild Catch highlights. It's been a seasonally low quarter. It's been an okay performance, catch volume, the quota in -- the quota in 2025 is down 32% year-on-year, impacting cash volumes for the trawling fleet and a higher raw material price and volume in the land industry. Challenging operation conditions for 2025, but positive to see that the price increase more than offset the impact from lower quota. Further quota reduction expected in 2026, but potentially increasing again from 2027.
And if we look at the price for the key species, we see there it's been an extremely positive development in the price increase quarter by quarter the last couple of years. For the catch volumes in the quarter, a total of 13,500 tonnes this quarter compared to -- and the same level as we had the third quarter last year, and the remaining quota for 2025 is 2,900 tonnes for cod, 9,200 tonnes for saithe and -- yes, taken most of the haddock quota. So around 13,000 tonnes remaining quota compared to 9,600 tonnes 2024.
Then the sales processing, the VAP Sales and Distribution segment. We will go look at the -- the key performance in the quarter, it's been a record quarter. Structural improvement continued to yield results in almost all units that we have out in the market. It's a record 12 months rolling operational EBIT, effects of structural improvement and the reason for that is effects of structural improvements work, strong demand in the end markets, positive development in emerging markets and a strong positioning with strategic customer globally.
And we also see that the new branch offices in Asia are starting to show results and we expect continued positive profitability trend in 2022 and also into 2024. We see the EBIT margin in third quarter is of close to 5%, which is at a very good level. And we see that the 12-month rolling now are up at where we set the target some years ago, and we are going towards NOK 1,250 million in EBIT in this segment. So a fantastic job. What they do in this segment, and we believe that we will see further improvement going forward, and I'll come back to that afterwards.
So then Sjur will take you through the key financial highlights.
Yes, Henning. Thank you. So if you look at farming last 4 quarters, we've seen production higher than expected and costs lower than expected this quarter. We said at Q2 that we saw increased risk due to a very warm summer in Norway. And we have seen production in Q3, which was basically in line with recent years, but not showing the same improvements that we've seen in recent years. As Henning as highlighted, the improvements in downstream segment has continued.
And in sum, this translate to this P&L. We can see the key value drivers on the latter lines. First of all, we see that harvest volume is up 15% compared to last year, that is then a reflection of the significant improvement in production year-to-date in farming. And we're happy with the volume. But obviously, we are not happy with the profitability on that volume where we see that profits through value chain is down from NOK 10 last year to NOK 2 this year.
Looking at the drivers for that reduction in profitability, the spot prices for salmon and trout was down NOK 8 a kilo. Our price realization for farming is down NOK 10 a kilo this compared to last year, which is a reflection of timing of harvest volume.
Secondly, we can say then looking at the development and EBIT kilo in farming that our cost is NOK 1 a kilo higher this year compared to last year. The cost in this quarter in farming is higher than in Q2.
If you look at the Wild Catch segment, volumes are in line with last year. It's positive to see price development, which is helping profitability. And it's also positive to see that the land industry is performing well in a very, very challenging conditions.
In sum, this translates to operational EBIT at NOK 15 million, which we obviously are not pleased with. But there are positive signs, and we see that in revenue, we see the impact from the increase in production in farming as well as the increase in volumes in value-added sales and processing.
Looking at our balance sheet. The bigger change is related to right-of-use assets, which is basically well boats, and we have more well boats on contracts this year than last year. Secondly, it's related to CapEx and fixed asset, which is -- I'll come back to on the next slide. Other than that, I think the key development and balance sheet items is the quarter-on-quarter development in working capital, where we're through high focus are able to reduce working capital in our downstream segment.
And a reflection of that is, as shown here, a significant reduction in working capital. So in a challenging quarter when it comes to earnings, we are pleased to see that cash flow generation is healthy in the quarter with high CapEx and we're able to reduce our net interest-bearing debt.
This shows our CapEx for 2025. There are no changes to this. We will get back to CapEx for 2026 at the later stage. But as these highlights, we have invested through the value chain, in particular, in new shielding technology in farming.
This slide is important in Norway with the current discussion on to which degree this industry is impacting and making ripple effects, and we just want to highlight that our activity in Norway, which is [ vast ] has massive ripple effects in Norway. We have done purchases from 5,000 suppliers of NOK 18 billion in 2024. We have our own employees around 4,000. And the impact in total in Norway is around 10,000 jobs, and we contribute significantly, both through value creation and through taxes.
With that, Henning, I give the words back to you.
Okay. Thank you, Sjur. Then I will take you through the outlook. And yes, regarding targets, this is showing lights on where we are. We use these targets internally in the organization and it's very important for us to have this and also to show these targets external. But we will come back and evaluate on the targets in the end of -- yes, in the beginning of -- our next quarter presentation, and then we will have a summarize of where we ended in 2025.
If we look at the VAP sales and distribution, we are trending in line with the EBIT target of NOK 1.25 billion following another record quarter and it's fantastic to see this development and how the whole segments and the units out in the market are working structured in the direction of achieving these targets through short-term actions and also long-term actions. So a fantastic performance the last couple of years in this development.
When it comes to farming, also the same long-term strategic direction, and we see improvements in row and smolt expected yield results from harvest in 2025. This showed -- when we will take out the result from the earlier changes that we have done in genetics, row, smolt shielding technology and also the implementation of Lerøy Way. And we see the second half of this year, we expect and we are taking out improvements, even though we also see that we have external factors that can affect our production like higher temperatures or a higher pressure of sea lice.
But on the quality of the fish that we have in the sea, we see that we have improved in the directions or the steps that we see in this map. So that's really good to see. And we have a strong, robust fish going into 2026.
When it comes to development in biology in farming year-to-date, we -- it shows clear improvement. We see a net growth rate compared to the last 5 years' average of a 10% increase, a superior share of 5% increase, mortality, down 15% and biomass at sea plus 5%, although third quarter was more challenging.
And in this quarter, we see a net growth down 3% compared to the last 5 years' average superior share, a little bit up, 1%, mortality up 7% and biomass at the sea at the same level. And high seawater temperature resulted in a more challenging biological situation which affect -- which have the -- which -- yes, the effect of this is a higher sea lice level, which has made it more challenging to -- and more treatment on the fish.
Improvement is still visible in growth speed, average days in sea for fish harvested in third quarter is at 383 days compared to 444 days in third quarter 2024. So that's a very good development. For the shielding technology, we see continued reduction in treatments from submersed technology. We see a reduction of 50% compared to traditional, superior share is a little bit down, mortality is a little bit up in this quarter. And we have faced some challenges, especially with higher temperatures in the surface.
Continued reduction in treatments from -- in the third quarter also, we see year-to-date, it's down 65%, superior share up 7% and mortality is down 2%. And for the shielding technology, the key focus areas in deep sea farming and where do we put the effort is on locations where there's been historically a very high number of lice treatments. And we see that we really have had a great effect of the implementation of shielding technology and deep sea farming.
The key challenging -- challenges that we have, we work in a structured way how to do problem solving. And one challenge has been the conditions in the temperature layering in summer -- in summer with different -- with water stratification. And that we see that on -- down in -- at 35 meters, it's been 12 -- around 10 degrees and at the surface between 20 to 25 degrees. And this has affected when we take up the cases, it's been some incidents with mortality. But this will be changed going forward when -- for next summer when we go into the season.
And then we also need to continue to improve how we work with planning, streamlining operations, and that work has already started. And we also need to improve the feeding with potential to reduce feed factors. And then also to evaluate and analyzing all site based on new data and all the learning that we have done for the 2.5 years that's after the first output of shielding technology. And we still have a strong belief in this concept, and we believe that this is really a part of the future of Lerøy in location where these technologies are suitable.
And we are investing heavily into shielding technology. There is mainly now 4 shielding technology in Lerøy, it's submersed farming, semi-contained farming, laser delousing and closed contained farming system, where we decided to invest in 3 units, which will be ready from first quarter 2027. So we invest in new solution also and trying to be innovative to -- yes, to have an even more sustainable production and to increase the performance in sea.
When it comes to supply, we see that this year, global supply of 10%, in Norway, around 11%. But if we look into next year, we see negative growth in Norway, minus 2% and a global at -- yes, globally at the same level as last year.
So to summarize, for farming, while third quarter was more challenging, the trends year-to-date are still positive, contract share for value chain of 24% with positive impact on both farming and VAP sales and distribution. I expect high share of fourth quarter harvest volume in October and contract share of 35%. I expect a lower cost in '26 compared to 2025. And we keep our guidance for 2025 at 195,000 tonnes -- and we, yes, keep the same guidance also into 2026. So a total, including Scottish Seafarm, 50% of Scottish Seafarm of 217,500 -- 217,000 tonnes in total.
Wild catch, challenging quota situation, but price development is positive, quota 25%, down 32% for cod, haddock 2%, saithe north unchanged, saithe south plus 40% and indications for '26 is 20 -- a reduction of 21% of cod, 18% of Haddock, 15% of saithe north and minus 24% of saithe south.
And as I said, for VAP sales and distribution progressing toward profitability target of 2025, also supported by contract position, lower salmon and trout prices are building markets, increased demand for integrated sustainable value chain and improved market share in some key market utilizing potential of our value chain. So a positive outlook for actually all the segments, even though there is a negative trend on a quota for wild catch.
And then we want to inform that we will have a Capital Market Day, 2nd and 3rd March 2026 in Bergen and Oslo. So there will be a limited number of spots available and the invitation will be sent out early next year.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q3 2025 Earnings Call
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q2 2025 Earnings Call
1. Management Discussion
Welcome to Lerøy Seafood Group's Second Quarter Presentation 2025. My name is Henning Beltestad, I'm CEO in the company. And with me today, I have Sjur Malm, CFO.
First of all, I will take you through the highlights in the quarter, and then Sjur will take you through the key financial highlights, and then I will come back and talk a little bit about the outlook going forward.
Our goal is to create the world's most efficient and sustainable value chain for seafood. And we are very proud of the value chain that we have developed, and this gives us great opportunities going forward.
Our fully integrated value chain is our competitive advantage. We mean that we deliver value for our customers, which are seeking sustainability, health, quality, traceability, stability, availability and convenience. And our value position is speed and cost efficiency, reliability and trust, product and category innovation and traceability and quality assurance and clear ESG commitments.
Highlights of the quarter. Strong biological performance, spot prices for salmon and trout well below last year. Group contract share of 30% supporting both Farming and VAP, Sales & Distribution. A record high earnings in VAP, Sales & Distribution segment, low quotas in Wild Catch offset by significant price increase and positive cost development in Farming. And in the quarter, we have paid out a dividend of NOK 2.5 per share paid in the quarter. And we have had an operational EBIT of NOK 680 million compared to NOK 906 million same quarter last year.
We are reporting in three segments: Farming, Wild Catch, VAP, Sales & Distribution. And we will go into some details of the quarter in the different segments.
And we start with the Farming highlights. And the spot prices for salmon is about NOK 30 lower compared to same quarter last year, which, of course, has affected us in this quarter. But we still have managed to keep a good profit in this segment with -- especially in with some contract shares.
Improvement in biology showing results, the highest net production in sea in a second quarter, high survival rates, higher superior share, higher average harvest weights, and declining costs. So that's on a positive side.
The biological development in start of Q3 is a little bit more challenging following high sea water temperatures. And we keep our guidance of 195,000 tonnes.
Shielding technology continue to show good results. And in this quarter, we harvested about 49,000 tonnes compared to 36,000 tonnes last year. So a good increase in volume.
If we go into the different regions or companies, we start with Lerøy Aurora, North, a very strong biological development, both in growth, survival rates, superior share and continued high license utilization. We see a significant cost decrease compared to the quarter before and expect a slight decrease going forward into -- versus expectation of a slight decrease. And the cost expected for third quarter is at the same level as second quarter.
Also here, we see high seawater temperatures in especially beginning of third quarter. But so far, the measures against sea lice appear to improve situation versus last year. And the estimated harvest volume is 50,000 tonnes. The volume harvested in second quarter is 11,000 tonnes 2025 compared to 5,000 tonnes in '24. And operational EBIT is NOK 18.9 million compared to NOK 37 million in second quarter '24.
Lerøy Midt, also a strong biological performance in this quarter, record net growth, high survival rates, continued high license utilization and also, we see improvement in superior share compared to same quarter in '24. As expected, a quarter increase in cost. Also here, high seawater temperatures and a challenge at the start of Q3, expect cost at the same level in quarter-on-quarter in third quarter. Estimated harvest volume is 75,000 tonnes.
If we look at the harvest volumes, it's close to 17,000 tonnes compared to about 16,000 tonnes last year. EBIT per kilo of NOK 11.5 compared to NOK 37.5 last year.
Lerøy Sjøtroll, also here a strong biological improvement, record net growth, high survival rate, high superior share and continued high license utilization. In this quarter, 47% of the volume is trout, where we had a realized trout price for group of less NOK 2 lower than salmon in the quarter. It's been a decrease in cost compared to first quarter and we expect the cost at the same level. So that's a good thing.
And then, we will see going forward, we expect a cost increase compared to second quarter. And also here, we had some risk in, when it comes to temperatures, the increase in July and August. Estimated harvest volume of 70,000 tonnes 2025.
Harvested volume 21,000 tonnes compared to about 16,000 tonnes in second quarter last year. And EBIT value chain of NOK 9.7 compared to NOK 13.5 last year. So it's a strong development in Lerøy Sjøtroll.
And if we also look at the numbers in second quarter last year, we see there is also always only a small decrease, and we also -- and when it comes to the price reduction, this is a good improvement in performance compared to last year.
Scottish Seafarms, strong biologic development with next generation of fish performing very well. Lower price return impact result in the quarter. The volume in 2025 is impacted by reorganizing site structure, long-term potential is significantly higher. And the smolt input to sea in H1 '25 of 6.5 million compared to 3.5 million in first half '24. So great expectation for especially next year in Scottish Seafarm.
Estimated harvest this year is 32,000 tonnes. The harvested volume in Q2 is 11,600 tonnes compared to 12,000 tonnes last year. And unfortunately, this second quarter is a negative EBIT of minus NOK 2.4 compared to NOK 19.1 same quarter 2024.
When it comes to Farming and Guiding, we keep our 195,000 tonnes guiding in Norway, 50,000 tonnes in Lerøy Aurora, 75,000 tonnes in Lerøy Midt, and 70,000 tonnes in Lerøy Sjøtroll. And our share of Scottish Seafarm is 16,000 tonnes, so a total of 211,000 tonnes.
Wild Catch, I will say a good quarter and a good first half. The cod quota is down 32% impacting catch volumes for the trawling fleet and of course, also the raw material price and volume in the land industry.
I will say that it's done a great performance on both sides, handling the quota situation in a good way. So a very good performance H1 and with the EBIT NOK 114 million higher than first half '24.
And we see the key species, the prices, it's extremely high cod prices, close to NOK 80. The Haddock prices is still very high and the Saithe prices is up to NOK 30. So yes.
If we look at the Wild Catch quotas and catch volumes, we have the same volumes as second quarter last year, about close to 18,000 tonnes. But on a positive side, we see that the remaining quarter for 2025 is 3,000 tonnes higher. 17,000 tonnes this year compared to 14,000 tonnes last year, same period.
Sales and Processing. We have operation in 17 countries and sales to more than 80 markets. It's been here a record quarter, really good performance. Structural improvement continue to yield results. It's a strong half with the first half with a record 12-month rolling operation EBIT, effects of -- and this is an effect of a structural improvement work, strong demand in end markets, positive development in emerging markets and strong positioning with strategic customers globally.
And also new branch offices in Asia is starting to show results, the expectation for continued positive profitability trend in 2025. So we are on a good trend in this segment, and we are really satisfied with the development and are positive for the future.
Thank you. Sjur will take you through the key financial highlights.
Yes. Thank you, Henning. So this quarter has seen excellent development in a lot of the factors we control ourselves. And then, we are obviously impacted by a significant fall in spot prices for salmon and trout.
Starting then with our profit and loss sheet. We can see the result this year compared to last year. Key drivers on the latter lines. And so, spot prices are down NOK 30 a kilo. So a full impact of that on the close to 50 million kilos of salmon and trout we harvested, would mean a result drop of NOK 1.5 billion.
We are seeing a significantly lower fall in our operational EBIT, and that's also then highlighting the balanced business model we have.
So looking at the profitability on the salmon and trout, we are seeing good cost development. We are seeing good development in superior shares and excellent biological development. We are -- and this also includes the profitability downstream, where we see high and increased activity, better capacity utilization and an increased profitability.
Still with the significant fall in spot price, we see that the overall EBIT per kilo in that value chain is down from NOK 27 a kilo to NOK 12.5. But we are satisfied with the development in key operational KPIs in the quarter.
Looking at the Wild Catch segment, we know quarters are down. We can see that the catch volumes are relatively equal to last year. There are some timing effects when comparing this quarter to last year. But the core impact if looking at numbers year-to-date this year compared to last year is that price achievement is higher, because price development has developed more positively than the quota reduction.
And year-to-date quota is down NOK 114 million -- our operational EBIT year-to-date is up NOK 114 million, and we see that this quarter, the operational EBIT per kilo is up from basically 0 last year to NOK 8 per kilo. In sum, with these value drivers, we see operational EBIT is NOK 680 million compared to NOK 906 million last year. And we see that we have a healthy revenue development, much helped by volumes, both upstream and downstream and of weight somewhat by lower prices on salmon and trout.
Turning to our balance sheet. The long-term non-current asset, we see is up close to NOK 2 billion. This is a reflection of CapEx, which I will return to in the next slide, but includes, among others, new farming technology. And there's also some leasing agreements on right-of-use assets, which predominantly relates to new agreements on well boats.
If you look on the current asset, our standing biomass fish is up from around basically 100,000 tonnes last year to 110,000 tonnes this year, and that is the driver for the increase in biological asset at cost.
I would say we have good control on working capital and a healthy development on key working capital items. And we have a healthy and strong balance sheet, and we are investment grade rated and equity ratio of 49%. Net interest-bearing debt rose from -- comparing with -- from NOK 7 billion to NOK 8.5 billion in this quarter. And the key driver for that is the payment of dividend.
Looking beyond that, we saw that working capital was developing relatively healthy with small changes. We have an EBITDA of NOK 1 billion, and we see that CapEx has increased NOK 600 million. It's fair to say that this debt level -- net interest-bearing debt level is a bit higher than what we expected it to be at this point of the year, and that is due to lower profitability in the Farming side and a lower salmon price than expected. But we believe we have a healthy balance sheet and a strong balance sheet.
On CapEx, we have not made any changes to this slide compared to previous quarter, and we expect to invest NOK 2 billion. You can see the split. It's maintenance in CapEx, smaller growth CapEx, which is in the area of NOK 1 billion. And then the core of our investment strategy and where we allocate capital is new technology in Farming and in particular, then in submerge farming, but also on smolts, also on lasers. And then in addition, we are investing in smolts.
And Henning will highlight in a later slide when we expect to see the impact of these investments in operation, but we believe we already are seeing the impact of them in our numbers this first half of '25.
There is a discussion, particularly in Norway on what are the ripple effects of our activity. So this slide is included to highlight those. So what we see here is in the light blue lines where we and Lerøy operate and the dark blue dots is where Lerøy has bought from suppliers, and this is for 2024.
And what we can see is that, there's vast ripple effects in all of Norway, in particular in the coastline in addition to our 6,000 employees, which is a global number and 4,000 employees in Norway. We have significant effects when it comes to creating jobs all along the coastline. And all of these, we are proud to be part of producing the most sustainable food protein that's available out there today.
Value creation estimated to NOK 15 billion and a substantial tax contribution.
So with that, Henning, I give the word back to you.
Okay. Then we're going to go for outlook. And yes, we have set some ambition targets going back 3 years back. And I will say that we can start with the targets for volume, 200,000 tonnes. We have a guiding at 195,000 now. We were last year at 171,000 tonnes, and we believe that it's achievable to get to 200,000 tonnes. So -- and we believe that it will be possible, and we keep the direction towards the 200,000 tonnes, even though we had a guidance of 195,000 tonnes.
The target for VAP Sales & Distribution, it's -- of course, it's a high target, but we see on a 12 months rolling, we are at close to the target end of second quarter. And we believe that we will also have a strong performance going forward. So this is within reach. And I think the whole segment are working extremely hard to achieve this goal.
For the EBIT for Farming to be #1. It's a hard competition. It's still 5 months left of the year, and we will see end of the year where we end. But we strongly believe that we are in the right direction to achieve this also.
And the 2030 target is NOK 50 billion. And we also have that -- we believe that this is within reach going forward the next 5 years. But okay, VAP Sales & Distribution, yet another quarter of earnings record, reaching for ambitious targets, as I mentioned. And -- we see a strong improvement from -- in the 12 months rolling from second quarter '24 to '25. And we will have an 18% increase in EBIT up to NOK 1.250 billion.
And this is done through short-term actions and long-term actions. And we really believe that we see structural improvement initiatives in all units in Europe. We see continued improvement in VAP factories and expect through 2025 based on higher capacity utilization and increased operational efficiency.
And we work hard with also the long-term actions. So -- but I have to say, I'm really impressed by the job that is done in this segment and to see all the improvement and that we are going in the direction to achieve our goal.
For the Farming, as I said, we have a target of 200,000 tonnes. We were at 171,000 tonnes last year, and we will increase by close to 30,000 tonnes. And how are we going to do this? It's through a long-term improvement program, focusing on roe, smolt production, and new technology.
And this is showing where we are. This improvement program started 4, 5 years ago, focusing on improving genetics, roe, smolt, shielding technology, and the Lerøy way implementation.
And we see that, step-by-step we see that this will give effect on harvested volume. And we see now for second half of the year, we see that we take out benefits from this program at a higher level than first half '25.
So -- and I will come back to some improvements afterwards. Yes. And yes, like I said, we see the improvement in second quarter, it's -- we see a strong biological performance in Farming. If we look at the growth rate, we see that we increased 16% in second quarter compared to the last 5 years.
For superior share, we see a 9% improvement. For mortality, a 50% reduction, and biomass at sea is 9% higher end of second quarter compared to the average of the last 5 years. So yes, this strategy is showing results and the improvements that has been done.
And if we dive into the new technology and submerged technology, we see great results. When it comes to lice treatment, traditional cages compared to submerged, it's a reduction of 71%, superior share plus 3% and mortality is down 24%. So that's good to see.
And shielding technology, we are increasing share of harvest volume from shielding technology. Plan for '25 is that 35% share of total harvest volume from shielding technology in end of '25. And it's three different technology: submerged farming, semi-contained farming, and laser delousing.
And then, we need to look at why have we seen a decrease in prices, especially second quarter of the year. And we see that the main reason for that is the supply increase. And we see in July also, we had a 21% increase in supply. But expectations for the rest of the year is that it will be 0 increase in supply compared to last year. And we believe that we will see a positive price development going forward and also into 2026.
And let's hope that the low price level that we've seen in the last couple of months, it's been the bottom on the price level, that we've had.
So to summarize. Farming, positive biological development in H2 '25, while higher temperatures are challenging at start of Q3. Contracts share for value chain in second quarter of 30% and for 2025 at around 25%, which will have a positive impact on both Farming and VAP, Sales & Distribution.
Structural improvement initiatives expected to continue gradually show in results. Spot prices and price realization quota to date in Q3 is below production cost and of course, will impact profitability, but we need that -- we believe that there will be a positive price trend going forward.
Wild Catch, if we look into 2026, there will be a further reduction of 21%, Haddock plus 18%, and Saithe down 15%, and Saithe South 24%.
And VAP, Sales & Distribution progressing towards profitability target in '25, also supported by contract positions, lower salmon and trout prices are building markets, increased demand for integrated sustainable value chain and improved market share in some key markets, utilizing the potential of our value chain.
And then please, we want to show you this fantastic product, the trout and the presentation with this fantastic product and which we really believe has a great future and Lerøy produce about 40,000 tonnes of trout from Norway.
Thank you very much.
Lerøy Seafood Group — Q2 2025 Earnings Call
Financial data from Lerøy Seafood Group
Revenue
Revenue is the sum of all sales generated by a company, e.g. for its products or services.
Revenue (TTM) metric explainedDirect Costs
Direct costs are the costs incurred directly in connection with the manufacture of the product or service.
Gross Profit
Gross Profit indicates how much of the revenue remains in the company after deducting direct production costs. If the percentage share of sales is calculated, this is referred to as the gross margin.
Gross Profit metric explainedSelling and Administrative Expenses
Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) include all expenses for marketing and sales as well as the general administration of the company.
Research and Development Expense
Research and development costs (R&D) provide information on how much the company invests in the research and development of its products. The costs are particularly interesting as a percentage of revenue and in comparison to direct competitors.
EBITDA
EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) is the company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The EBITDA margin is calculated as a percentage of sales.
Depreciation and Amortization
Depreciation represents reductions in the value of the company's assets (e.g. due to wear and tear on machinery).
EBIT (Operating Income)
EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Taxes) is the company's profit before interest and taxes, also known as the operating income. The EBIT Margin is calculated as a percentage of sales at
.
Net Profit
Net Profit represents the profit or loss after deduction of all costs.
Net Profit metric explainedStocksGuide Premium
| Jun '26 |
+/-
%
|
||
| Revenue | 33,564 33,564 |
1%
1%
100%
|
|
| - Direct Costs | 19,172 19,172 |
5%
5%
57%
|
|
| Gross Profit | 14,391 14,391 |
3%
3%
43%
|
|
| - Selling and Administrative Expenses | 5,296 5,296 |
8%
8%
16%
|
|
| - Research and Development Expense | - - |
-
-
|
|
| EBITDA | 4,003 4,003 |
11%
11%
12%
|
|
| - Depreciation and Amortization | 1,981 1,981 |
12%
12%
6%
|
|
| EBIT (Operating Income) EBIT | 2,022 2,022 |
25%
25%
6%
|
|
| Net Profit | 711 711 |
45%
45%
2%
|
|
In millions NOK.
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Lerøy Seafood Group Stock News
Company Profile
Lerøy Seafood Group ASA is a holding company, which engages in the distribution, sale, and marketing of seafood products. It operates through the following business segments: Wildcatch; Farming; and Value-added Processing, Sales, and Distribution (VAPS&D). The Wildcatch segment refers to the management of Havfisk AS is a ship owning company, with trawlers involved in wild catches; and Lerøy Norway Seafoods AS, which involves in the receipt and processing of wild caught whitefish. The Farming segment includes the production, harvesting, and filleting of salmon and trout. The VAPS&D segment processes, sells, and markets salmon, trout, other species, and raw materials. The company was founded on April 7, 1995 and is headquartered in Bergen, Norway.
StocksGuide Premium
| Head office | Norway |
| CEO | Mr. Beltestad |
| Employees | 6,000 |
| Founded | 1995 |
| Website | www.leroyseafood.com |


