Stolt-nielsen Stock

Good afternoon and welcome to Stolt-Nielsen's earnings call for the third quarter of 2026. As always, the earnings release and related materials are available on the Stolt-Nielsen website. We will also be recording this session, and the playback will be available on the website tomorrow. Included in this presentation are various forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the latest annual report for further details.

On the call today, we have Udo Lange, CEO; and Alex Ng, CFO. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session where we will take your questions. [Operator Instructions] Thank you, and over to you, Udo.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter 2026 earnings presentations. These are solid results in a generally difficult market. Global supply chains remain complex and the visibility window is short at the scale and the breadth of our portfolio allowed us to keep our customers' product moving and deliver a solid quarterly performance.

Group EBITDA before the fair value adjustment was $194 million in the third quarter, a steady performance versus the third quarter of last year. Store tankers navigated a difficult market. Revenues increased due to higher spot rates, although this was more than offset by higher bunker costs. Stolthaven Terminals delivered a strong year-on-year performance, and Stolt Tank containers built positive quarter-on-quarter momentum returning to profit as scale helped them performed well in a challenging market with a quarter-on-quarter swing of $13 million. For context, a [ $30 million ] improvement in the quarter is roughly equivalent to around $2,000 per day positive swing in TCE. Together, our nontanker businesses grew year-on-year and accounted for 50% of the group EBITDA in the third quarter, up from around 45% a year ago. This is the direct result of our strategic investments across our portfolio.

In the current environment, we continue to be focused on our customers and optimizing our balance sheet. Ongoing market disruption has shifted the conversation with our customers from talking about supply chain efficiency to focus on supply chain resilience. Our logistics portfolio, shipping, storage and tank container solution allows us to meet that need directly, offering stability and reliability, and we believe it is a real factor behind several key contract renewals we've secured with large customers this year. who value having the breadth of offering available to them by our liquid logistics portfolio.

During the quarter, we also completed the sale of a 50% interest in Avenir LNG to NYK line. This creates a strategic partnership to accelerate growth in small-scale LNG and LNG bunkering whilst releasing capital and reducing our consolidated debt. We continue to maintain a robust balance sheet with liquidity of $616 million and net debt-to-EBITDA of 2.86x. We are also continuing to optimize our financing as opportunities arise. During the quarter, we signed a new 10-year facility on competitive terms. And after quarter end, we replaced our existing $450 million revolving credit facility with a new $307 million facility across 9 banks on improved terms.

Let's now turn to the numbers in more detail. Taking to the third -- key third quarter metrics in turn. Operating revenue was $770.65 million, up 11% on the third quarter of last year, driven by higher tanker and tank container revenues. EBITDA before fair value was $194 million, up 1.3% year-over-year. Operating profit was around $100 million, down 8% year-over-year. This was impacted by increased fair value losses on Stolt sea farms biological assets and higher depreciation. Net profit was $84 million, up 32% compared to the prior year. The $84 million includes a $15.4 million one-off gain on the partial sale of LNG -- Avenir LNG. Free cash flow was strong at $292 million as we benefit from the cash proceeds from Avenir, which we have since used to pay down term debt. This had a positive impact on net debt to EBITDA, which improved to 2.86x from 2.94x a year ago and 3.6x in the second quarter.

Let's look at some of the key drivers of that performance. Average deep TCE per opening day was $24,121, down 3% year-over-year and up 3% quarter-on-quarter, with home average freight rates offset by lower volumes and higher bunker costs. Summer utilization improved to 93.6%, up 1.8% on the same quarter last year, driven by a stronger utilization in Singapore and Dagenham. At Stolt Tank container shipment volumes were 48,036 for the quarter, up 25.6% year-on-year, predominantly reflecting the consolidation of sudden. Rates to the period were stable year-over-year and meaningfully up quarter-on-quarter due to our ability to secure space on carriers despite supply chain constraints given our scale and market reach. Overall, nontankers contributed 50% of the total EBITDA this quarter, up from around 45% a year ago, again, underlying the importance of the diversification is in our portfolio.

Alex, I'll hand over to you for the financials.

Thank you, Udo. Good afternoon, and good morning to those of you joining us from the U.S. Over the next few slides, I'll run through the financial highlights comparing Q3 '26 against Q3 '25. As a reminder, our third quarter runs from beginning June to end August. Let's dive into the numbers. Revenue in the quarter was up 11% or $77 million over the same quarter last year. Whilst we saw revenue increase across all businesses, the change mainly came from STC which was up $52 million due to increased scale from M&A and stock tankers, which increased by $15 million, mostly due to higher average freight rates, partially offset by lower volumes.

Operating expense was up 18% or $78 million mainly due to the larger size of STC post Suttons and higher bunker costs installed tankers, partly offset by lower ship-own expenses due to vessel sales. Depreciation expense was $5.1 million higher than the quarter last year. This was due to lower residual values on our fleet following changes in steel prices and ship surveys as well as higher asset base in STC. Energy expense was up 13% or $9.7 million. driven by the addition of sudden staff in STC, integration costs and profit sharing accruals. These are expenses were partially offset by a gain sale of assets related to the sale of 2 ships during the quarter.

Operating profit for the quarter was $101 million, down $9 million versus Q3 last year, but up $7 million from last quarter. The biggest changes year-on-year were lower profitability in Stolt tankers and fair value adjustments in Stolt Sea Farm. Net interest expense was down $4.7 million compared to Q3 '23 at debt levels are now below some $300 million lower. We also booked again $15 million in the quarter on the sale of the 50% in Avenir LNG. And going forward, our remaining 50% stake will be recorded as an equity joint venture. Overall, the net profit and EBITDA for the quarter was up versus the same quarter last year.

Let's have a look at the cash flows. We saw strong cash flows during the period. Net cash flow generated from operations was broadly flat year-on-year at $181.5 million and nearly $80 million better than last quarter, reflecting positive changes in working capital. Net cash used in investing activities saw a cash inflow of $63 million versus a $95 million cash outflow last year due to lower capital expenditures and $140 million of proceeds from the sale of Avenir and vessel sales, as mentioned on the previous slide. Net cash used in financing activities was a negative $119 million, reflecting net repayments on debt and leases and no new issuance or drawdowns. As such, total cash flow for the quarter was a positive $121.9 million. And as you can see on the graph at the bottom right, we ended the third quarter with a healthy $616 million of liquidity.

Turning to our capital expenditures in more detail. CapEx during the quarter totaled $63 million, mainly consisting of terminal expansions, life extensions on existing tonnage as well as expansions in Stolt Sea Farm. Overall, for 2026, we expect to spend approximately $250 million, which is a lower level than 2025. This overall reduction is part related to timing of newbuild deliveries and also management of our balance sheet flexibility. We'll continue to invest strategically in our businesses and are completing meaningful investments in the coming months, including capacity expansions in Houston and New Orleans and the first of our 38,000 deadweight chemical tanker newbuilds, aiming to maximize long-term benefit for our customers and our shareholders.

We expect CapEx spend to increase again in 2027 as deliveries under the new building program for Tankers accelerates. However, given the current geopolitical uncertainties, we will continue to be disciplined for further capital commitments. From a debt perspective, we are well positioned with no significant maturity spikes, that matured in the next couple of years is mainly scheduled loan amortizations and our next bond matures in 2028. Our average long term interest rates for the third quarter was 5.47%. As we as we have sought to repay and refinance and continuing to reduce our debt during the quarter. Gross debt in the third quarter was reduced by $120 million and is now around $270 million less than our peak at the end of 2025.

We've been also active in the bank markets, capitalizing on strong bank market dynamics. We signed a new facility linked to our new buildings, and after the quarter, we also refinanced a $450 million RCF/term loan with a new $370 million 6-year loan facility at attractive returns. The continued steady performance of the company supports our covenants and a decrease in debt during the quarter helped reduce debt to tangible net worth to 0.89x. Net debt-to-EBITDA decreased during the quarter and sits at 2.86x. The biggest driver of that improvement being a $250 million reduction in net debt, which now sits at $2.1 billion. EBITDA to interest expense coverage moved slightly up to 5.37x. So overall, we have substantial headroom on all covenants.

And with that, I hand back to you, Udo.

We have some technical challenges here today. Apologies for that. Thank you so much, Alex. I will now take us through the highlights from each of our logistics divisions. Let's start with store tankers. Revenue was up 4%, driven by deep sea revenue, which was up $50 million, reflecting a 5% increase in freight rates overall, even as total volumes were down 3%. EBITDA was $97 million, down 8% year-over-year and operating profit was $52 million, down from $57 million a year ago. TCE was down 3% and edge bunker price consumed was higher on a relative basis. We have been screening we've seen increasing COA volumes and for the third quarter, our COA mix touched 60%. COAs renewed in the quarter at an average rate decrease of 8%, all by on low volumes, a continuation of the softer renewal trend we have been navigating.

Operating base declined 2%, partly reflecting the vessel sales and the off-hire of store magnesium following the attack of Oman in July. And I'm so pleased to confirm all seafarers we are accounted for with no physical injuries, and the cargo was retrieved safely. We have insurance coverage and expect minimal financial impact. I want to take a moment to recognize how well the team handled the Stolt magnesium incident this quarter as it really highlights our safest commitment to safety at all times. Our well-trained crew and highly responsive shore teams worked seamlessly together to bring the event to a safe conclusion. That is a true testament to the professional of our tankers team and Maren's leadership. My thanks to Maren and her team for continuing to execute strongly delivering the quality, reliability and flexibility our customers expect in a generally difficult operating environment.

Let's look at tanker rates in more detail. TCE for the quarter was just north of $24,000 per operating day, down 3% on the third quarter of last year, but up 3% on the second quarter. Since the reversal of the softening trend we had seen over the previous 3 quarters. For context, that remains above the [ 28 ] to [ 22 ], average of $19,825 per day and close to our longer run average since 2016 of $23,182 per day. When looking at this graph, it's worth noting that a $1,000 a day increase in the sale in rate equates to around a $6 million change in EBITDA per quarter. There's a lot of excitement about tanker markets as energy trade force are adjusting to a world focused and on resilience and security of supply. This dynamic is most prominent in the crude tanker market and, to a certain extent, the product tanker market. It would be easy to conclude that chemical tankers must be benefiting to a similar degree.

However, whilst some macro seems a market sentiment bleeds through into our markets, the specialized product tanker market has its own trade flow fundamentals. We will go into more detail on the key drivers in our market section. As ever in the market moving this quickly, what matters is not scale but adaptability, staying close to our customers, reading the market and reacting fast. Funding the Stolthaven Terminals, which had another excellent quarter. Revenue was $80 million, up 1.6% year-over-year, reflecting higher utilization in Singapore and Dagenham, as well as storage rate escalation, partly offset by lower ancillary revenue and utilization in the United States. Average utilization at wholly owned terminals was 93.6%, up from 91.9% a year ago.

We have seen utilization steadily climb over the last few quarters. Into Q4, we will see some of the capacity in Houston and Nola come on stream, but it's overall good for earnings, we may see some impact on utilization due to timing different shares between commissioning and utilization. EBITDA was $44 million, up 1% on last year and operating profit was $27 million, up 3%, driven by the revenue improvement with operating expenses broadly level and equity income from joint ventures also broadly flat year-on-year. Looking ahead, we expect the storage market to remain stable, with earnings supported by the expansion of our gas capacity later in the year as our used the New Orleans projects come on stream. My thanks to Guy and his team for these strong results.

Here, we can see store tank containers, which returned to profit this quarter as they outperformed a challenging market due to the scale and flexibility. Revenue was nearly $260 million, up 30% year-over-year, predominantly reflecting the ongoing consolidation of the sudden business. Shipment volumes were 48,000, up 26% year-over-year. Underlying volumes, excluding the impact of the additional sudden volume remained stable despite the disruption in the Middle East. Margins were stable year-on-year, but up meaningfully quarter-on-quarter as STC were able to benefit to secure space on carriers given our scale and market reach. The merge was elevated given the supply chain constraints.

EBITDA was $31 million, up 12% and operating profit was $13 million, including $300,000 of sudden integration costs this quarter. This is down from $4 million of integration costs in the second quarter as these costs are almost fully worked through. We expect margins and the merger revenue to remain broadly flat into the first quarter despite seasonally lower volumes. My thanks to Hans and his team for their continued work integrating sudden and building store tank container scale, which is helping us to ensure supply chain resilience for our customers despite the challenging market environment. I also want to thank John Sutton for his exemplary leadership and continued support for the integration. We wish him all the best for his retirement.

Let me pass you now to Alex to cover the market backdrop before I close with some final remarks and then move to the questions.

Thanks, Udo. In the current tanker markets, we see a growing divergence in earnings between crude and product tankers and chemical tankers. Crude tanker markets, in particular, have surged all-time highs on Turmalina businesses elevated risk premiums and market sentiment. Middle East crude exports are now moving through alternative routes via pipelines or by for new ship-to-ship transits often on to longer trades to Asia. And over the past week, it has been reported that over 70% of Arabian Gulf crude exports are now getting access to market. These factors are benefiting the conventional tanker markets, more than the chemical tanker market segments and expand strong performance in crude and product tanker earnings that can be seen on the top left-hand side chart.

Chemical tanker rates have improved only modestly versus prewar levels as you can see on the bottom chart. Whilst risk premiums and market sentiment is shared with the other tanker segments, chemical volumes remain subdued with relatively low Middle East chemical leakage and feedstock constraints impacting volumes. On a positive note, we are beginning to see signs of improvement as shown by the small uptick in the spot rates seen on the graph. We also observed sentiment in October loadings and observe a gradual pickup in production activity from the chemical producers. These early indicators should be supportive as we move into the winter contract renewal period. While chemical inventory data is imperfect, certain key commodity chemicals can be tracked and show inventory levels at multiyear lows. This reflects a period of inventory drawdown over the past 6 months to partially compensate for lost Middle East feedstocks and trade load gaps.

At the same time, elevated feedstock costs have constrained incremental production. And as a result, inventories have continued to decline as consumption has outpaced replenishment. With inventories approaching multiyear lows across many key products, there will be a need to have inventory restocking in the future. Timing for this remains uncertain. It is linked to transit normalization, increased availability of feedstocks. However, when restocking begins, trade volume should benefit, which may serve as a catalyst for chemical tanker demand and ton miles. So in summary, inventories and daring depleted levels and while the timing is uncertain, eventual restocking has the potential to drive the sustained recovery in chemical tanker demand and earnings.

Turning to the supply/demand fundamentals underpinning our tanker outlook. On the demand side, we expect a rebound in seaborne trade into 2027, as the trade decline we've seen for '26 reverses with volume normalization and in retreat restocking. As we just covered, wider product tanker market earnings and fundamentals remain strong, which is limiting swing tonnage availability to enter chemical trades. Furthermore, forward sentiment in product tanker markets remains firm and so we expect limited swing in environment well into 2027. On the supply side, we're forecasting net fleet growth of around 6% in 2026 and averaging 4% annually through '26 to '28. The current order book stand around 17% of the existing fleets. Balancing that 13% of the fleet will be 25 years old or older by 2028, which creates scrapping capacity should demand and earnings soften. If earnings do suffer, we'd expect that pickup in recycling to happen. So taken together, the fundamentals in the chemical tanker sector remain constructive for the medium term despite continued disruption and uncertainty.

Udo, back to you.

Thank you so much, Alex. And to wrap up then. Our global logistics network has allowed us to keep supporting customers through a period of real disruption and I want to thank our teams across the businesses for the focus on the customer again this quarter. Our diversified earnings streams continue to provide cash flow stability. Non tankers represented around 50% of group EBITDA this quarter, which demonstrates real resilience built through the breadth of our business. This quarter, we are focused on cost efficiency, capital management and financial flexibility included the leverage reduction that followed the deconsolidation of our near debt this quarter.

Looking to the fourth quarter, we expect the financial performance in Q4 to be modestly behind this quarter, predominantly as a result of softer performance in Tankers. Stolthaven Terminals should remain in line with its average performance over the past 3 quarters, while the new capacity in the United States comes online and starts to build. Stolt Tank containers expect to maintain margins and demerge or by the seasonally lower volumes. The conflict in the Middle East continues to create complexity and uncertainty for our business. and it's worth repeating a point we make often. We are not simply a chemical tanker business. We are the world's largest chemicals logistics company, and that diversification is what allows us to navigate periods like this. Our focus remains on the things we can control. Supporting our customers across our logistics network, maintaining cost discipline, improving operational performance and preserving financial flexibility.

And now over to the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] The first question can tankers benefit from the strong MR market like opposite swing tonnage?

So Alex, do you want to take this first?

Yes, of course. So I think there's 2 elements that we are able to benefit from the MR market. I think the first one is the competing tonnage aspect, which we kind of touched upon in the market outlook and how typically, we're always well correlated historically with the earnings in the alternative markets as there's obviously an element of overlap and competing tonnage that we have for how we move the most commoditized products that we move within our chemical tanker fleet.

The second element is could we and should we sell into clean product trades. And I think this is something we are constantly evaluating, but I think it's really important to evaluate the time it takes for us to book our trades and select our cargoes, which is typically somewhat in a month in advance. We have the savings that we have the turnaround times, we were then also the cleaning aspects for changing our products between CBP and the chemicals that we typically move. So all these elements typically come together to evaluate where these decisions are made.

So in a period where rates spike very quickly, what we see both in swinging tonnage also the evaluation that the likes of ourselves have to think about is will it be a sustained arbitrage between the chemical tanker market and the MR markets to justify making that strategic move between one trade and another. Obviously, we're an industrial shipping company and say, supporting our chemical customers with our trade is a key priority for us. whilst also optimizing for rates. So as of today, we are not operating. I haven't heard us mention that we're operating in that trade, but it is something that we continuously evaluate.

Yes. Maybe adding to Alex's a very well-elaborated point there. I think what is also relevant is to look at what are the ship classes that we have. So if you take our larger deep sea ship class that we have, that is still then at the lower end of the MR market. So -- but of course, we are evaluating the -- is it then better to go, for example, in the Handy market and trade one of our ships. And you know we have 60% COA, which means there is, of course, always flexibility to do that. But we don't have the ship classes to really participate in the full MR market.

The next question then, of the approximately $300 million of investment commitments you have at your joint ventures and associates over the next 12 months, how much cash do you expect Stolt-Nielsen itself to contribute?

Yes. Thank you very much for the question. So the large proportion of that CapEx mentioned is in relation to newbuild deliveries, where we have a number of vessels being delivered into our 50-50 joint venture with NYK, which is called LST. And essentially, the way that we work with these is we typically are funding with equity for the initial deposits. And then at the back end, when the ship is delivered, then we are raising the debt in order to make the final payments, which are the large more substantial ones. So the short answer is we've put the majority of the equity requirements in already and then the back end of the of the CapEx spend will be done by debt raising. So it's relatively limited going forward. But as you have seen in last year, we made up in Q3 last year, some $35 million of joint venture investments. That's really reflective of the dynamic I just talked about.

With respect to Q4 earnings, can you give us a bit more color on what modestly behind Q3 means and also what the impact of Avenir LNG now being equity accounted for would be?

Yes. So I can cover that. So -- we obviously choose our words carefully when we are evaluating where -- how we are freezing things in the earnings releases, and we really want to comment more granularity on percentage wise, but we do expect it to be slightly softer due to the elements that we have communicated. When we are talking, we tend to talk more around the elements we have in our control, which is on an underlying business basis. So it's kind of the voyages that we booked the edition that we sold, there's the shipments and volumes that we have delivered, that is really -- and then the market outlook that we are booking for the future. Those are really driving it. A lot of the fair value adjustments that are made in the final reported numbers are things that are impacted by the year-end or the quarter end, the prices or the steel prices. So we're talking mainly on an underlying basis. And then if you quantify the EBITDA impact on Avenir LNG, we were already in Q3, had it as assets held for sale. So you will not see a material impact to EBITDA on that basis because of that.

Now the question here on Suttons. Is quarter-on-quarter improvement a result of an improved market or is there anything fundamentally changed following the first quarters of the Suttons integration?

Udo, do you want to comment on the certain integration and I can cover on financials?

Yes, of course. So the Suttons situation is going really, really well. So businesses are coming nicely together, we deliver on the synergies. You also saw that the integration costs are going down. And so -- but of course, there's still work to be done on the Suttons integration. The key driver for this improvement, however, is the improvement in the market. And they are both on a margin side as well as the elevated level on demurrage. But again, it shows there because we can deliver supply chain resilience, thanks to our steel during the time that we can actually deliver value for our customers, and we also see that in recent contract renewals. .

Another question here for you, I think. Could you please provide some more color on your view of the chemical tanker market going forward in a scenario of a prolonged Middle East conflict?

Of course, is challenging. So there are multiple scenarios that are possible. And so the key, I think, is really in a prolonged Middle East conflict, what will happen to restocking of supplies. So if you think about where we are right now, the part of the reason where we are where we are is because the supply basis have really been a good buffer and still keep supply chains of float. And -- but they are now really depleted. So the question is, what does the conflict do? And is it then enough supply going out to support that? And then there's multiple scenarios. There are scenarios where the supply drive can, of course, lead to an increase in tonne mileage. But on the other hand, if there should be a shortage on supply, then you also can result into more challenging economic environments, which can have a different outcome. So very, very early to tell. So we, of course, have different scenarios, but we are really, as mentioned previously, the visibility is very short right now. So what we are more focused on is how can we deliver value for our customers right now and how do we adapt to the other changing market conditions. Alex, anything to add there on your side?

Yes. You it well.

[Operator Instructions] I think we've got one more at the moment. And this one, I think, for Alex. Explained that the decline in average core rates largely reflects cargo mix. Looking at comparable businesses, how is the underlying pricing developing and what's the main driver of your software tanker outlook for Q4?

Thanks, Karstie. So as Udo just mentioned and the visibility that we have is relatively limited. So the main driver around the softer tanker outlook is essentially the voyages that we have already begun and the bookings that we have in our business overlapped with the discussions and what we can see in the market today. And that forms the core of how we evaluate and commented that it will be slightly softer into Q4. So I think that's really important to connect with the increases that we've seen in the spot markets in the last week or so and the chemical tanker spot rates that isn't necessarily reflective of bookings that we have booked a month prior and are already active in our fleet. They will then be reflecting in revenues that may be happening in the back end of this quarter, but maybe also flowing into Q1 also. So I think that's worth evaluating.

And then the second part to really -- to remind people of is that we are entering into the typical period where we are contracting the winter period where we're contracting a meaningful proportion of our contracts on a fragment. So this is the period where we are -- which will set then the contract rates, which will be impacting for the next 12 months or so. So in that regard, it will be a really important process and the sentiment that we have today and the discussions that we have with our customers in the coming months, we'll be setting that base of COA volumes that we'll be having for the following period as well. So I think it's more reflective of the dynamics that we've had historically in the last few months that's driving commentary and outlook rather than necessarily what we are seeing in the last week or 2.

Okay. That completes the questions. We will post a rewarding of the call on the website tomorrow. Udo, back to you for some final words.

Yes. Thank you so much for joining us today, and I look forward to talking to you all again when we present our results for the final quarter and full year results in early February. Again, thank you and wish you all a good day.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Stolt-Nielsen's earnings call for the second quarter of 2026. As always, the earnings release and related materials are available on our website.

We will be recording this session and playback will be available on the website tomorrow. Included in this presentation are various forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and we refer you to our latest annual report for further details.

I'm Alex Ng, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. Joining me today are Udo Lange, CEO; and Jens Gruner-Hegge, CFO.

At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session where we will take questions. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. And over to you Udo.

Thank you so much, Alex, and good afternoon, everyone. As usual, I will open with the group highlights for the quarter. Jens will then walk you through the financials, and I will come back to cover each of our divisions in turn, our view of the market and some closing thoughts before we move to questions.

With that, let's turn the page. We delivered a steady performance in the second quarter despite the market shock in the Middle East causing significant market disruption. Group EBITDA came in at $177 million, which is a strong performance in the context of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has reshaped global supply chains over the last 4 months.

The relative stability of the results are a testament of the diversification of risk within our business model. We are not a shipping company that does logistics. We are a logistic company that operates ships. Stolt Tankers delivered a stable quarter-on-quarter performance despite the volatile market and non-tanker activities contributed 45% of group EBITDA this quarter with Stolthaven Terminals achieving its highest ever quarterly operating profit.

The ceasefire framework announced in June allows for a period of increased shipping activity in the region. However, the situation remains volatile.

We are monitoring developments day by day. Near-term, market visibility remains unclear, and we remain cautious to have chosen not to reinstate earnings guidance at this time. That said, we do expect our performance to improve in the third quarter of the year.

We will say more on the market and outlook later. Two other points I want to highlight. During the quarter, we were happy to announce the launch of a new digital innovation center. Innovation is embedded in how we solve problems, improve performance and create long-term value. So the opening of our digital innovation center in Hyderabad is a meaningful step forward in how we use data and AI across the group.

And following approval at the AGM in April, we paid a final dividend of $1 per share in May, bringing the total dividend for 2025 to $2 per share. Let's move to our financial highlights on the next page. Taking the key Q2 performance metrics in turn. Revenue was $750 million, up around 5% on the same quarter last year. This is largely the effect of the Suttons acquisition by STC.

EBITDA was $177 million, down 16% year-over-year, reflecting softer tanker rates, tighter margins at STC and Suttons integration costs. Operating profit was $94 million, down $70.5 million year-over-year, impacted by lower contract freight rates as well as Suttons A&G and integration costs.

Net profit was $52 million, down 31%, driven by the same factors as well as FX losses in quarter 2 of '26 versus an FX gain in quarter 2 '25.

Free cash flow was strong at $100 million. This was impacted by higher capital expenditure in the comparator, largely due to newbuilding deposits in Stolt Tankers joint ventures.

Net debt-to-EBITDA stood at 3.16x. This increase principally reflects lower EBITDA as net debt has remained relatively stable. The underlying resilience of our business is clear from the cash generation and operating performance relative to the external environment. Over the page, let's look at some of the key drivers of performance.

At Stolt Tankers, deepsea TCE per operating day came in at $23,372 per operating day, a decline of 11% on the prior year. Despite the headline, we are pleased to have seen a reversal of the downward trend in TCE with increases month-on-month during the quarter. Solar terminals saw positive utilization development, which rose to 93.4%, up 1.3 percentage points versus last year, helped by new business.

Gross profit per shipment fell 16.5% year-over-year at STC, which reflects the margin pressure within that market, even as shipment volumes grew strongly on the integration of Suttons.

Looking at the EBITDA breakdown, non-tankers contributed 45% of the total, up from around 42% in the same quarter last year, showing the importance of our diversification. Jens, over to you for the financials.

Thank you, Udo. Good afternoon, and good morning to those of you joining us from the U.S. I will compare the second quarter of '26 against the second quarter of '25. And just as a reminder, our second quarter started March 1 and ended on May 31.

So let's dive into the numbers for this quarter. Revenue, as was mentioned, was up $37.4 million over the same quarter last year, predominantly driven by the acquisition of Suttons, which contributed $36.7 million in revenue this quarter. Stolthaven Terminals and Stolt Sea Farm increased by $2.5 million and $5.5 million, respectively, and that was offset by $11.4 million lower revenue in Stolt Tankers, as mentioned by Udo, mostly due to lower COA freight rates due to cargo mix and as rates have gradually come off the peaks that we saw in late 2024.

Operating expenses increased by $43 million, mainly due to the additional Suttons shipments and the related expenses, as well as the consolidation of Avenir and added shipowning expenses due to a larger wholly owned fleet, partly offset by lower time charter expense and lower bunker costs.

Depreciation expense was $3.2 million higher than the same quarter last year, and this was due to the reduction in the residual value of ships following a fall in steel prices towards the end of 2025, requiring an upwards revision in depreciation.

Also, the net asset base increased following the acquisition of Sutton and hence, also the depreciation. But note that we have recorded Avenir as a held-for-sale business and as such, we are no longer depreciating the Avenir assets on our books and the impact of that was $4.1 million, and you can see that in the reduction in depreciation from the first quarter of this year. JV equity income was lower due to the weakening of chemical tanker markets over the last 18 months.

And A&G expense was up $11.5 million, and that was predominantly driven by the addition of Suttons staff and the integration costs as well as last year's or 1 year worth of inflation and an increase in IT development costs.

This was partly offset by lower profit sharing accruals. Then gain on sale of assets related to the sale of 3 ships during the quarter. And with that, we end up with an operating profit for the quarter of $93.8 million, and that's down from $113.7 million in the second quarter last year, but up $12 million from the first quarter of this year.

Net interest expense was down $4.7 million compared to the second quarter of '25 as debt levels have come down from the peak seen last year following the acquisition of Suttons, Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir.

And note that we also had a negative swing in FX, as Udo mentioned, that swing was $11.2 million against us compared with the same quarter last year. And as such, the net profit for the quarter was $51.7 million with EBITDA of $177.3 million, down from $75.2 million and $210.1 million, respectively, in the same quarter last year. Let's go and take a look at the cash flow.

Net cash from operations was down this last quarter, predominantly reflecting the weaker earnings and higher working capital outflow as well as lower JV dividends. Net operating cash flow benefited from lower interest payments and lower income tax paid compared to the same quarter last year, and that was predominantly driven by the lower results in SDC.

Net cash used in investing activities was lower at $34.5 million, and that was down from $86.4 million last year, and that's due to lower capital expenditure and investments in JVs, partly offset by lower proceeds from sale of assets.

The sales proceeds predominantly relate to 3 ships sold during the quarter, as mentioned on the previous slide. Net cash used in financing activities of $97.9 million reflect the dividends paid in May this year and continued net repayments on debt and leases. And as such, total cash flow for the quarter was a negative $38.5 million. And as you can see on the graph at the bottom right, we ended the quarter with $495 million in available liquidity. Going over to the capital expenditures. During the quarter, this totaled $34 million, with mostly spent on terminal expansions, tankers life extensions of existing tonnage as well as Stolt Sea Farm expansion CapEx.

Overall, for '26, we expect to spend approximately $290 million. That will grow to $537 million in '27 as deliveries under the newbuilding program for tankers accelerate. You'll see that with a $372 million in '27. And I just want to note that most of this has or is close to already being financed. Note that this overview excludes tanker dry docking costs and Avenir's CapEx as Avenir is accounted for as held for sale, as I mentioned earlier.

We intend to continue to invest strategically in our businesses, but we also need to focus on integrating our added capacity into our operations for maximized long-term benefit for our customers and our shareholders. And with the current geopolitical uncertainties, we will be cautious with committing to further CapEx until we see the full effects of the current unrest. Going over to the debt profile. This is our debt maturity profile. Just to explain, the gray boxes represent normal principal repayments, while the black and orange reflect balloon payments on bank loans and bonds, respectively.

The repayment profile peaks in 2028. And you can see with the orange box there, we have the first significant maturity, and that's one of our maturing bonds out of the 2 bond issues outstanding. Looking at the bottom left graph, gross debt reduced in the second quarter due to the Avenir being accounted for as held for sale. So $143 million in Avenir debt is no longer included in this overview.

Our average long-term interest rate in the second quarter was 5.58%, a continued reduction from the previous quarter as our corporate finance team led by Julian Villar, continued to refinance our debt at improved rates. And finally, the continued steady performance of the company supports our covenants. The decrease in debt during the second quarter helped reduce debt to tangible net worth to 0.97.

The reduction in EBITDA over the last year have brought the rolling last 12 months EBITDA down to $745 million, down from $825 million in the second quarter of 2025. And this has had a slight negative impact on the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, which increased to 3.16, whilst EBITDA to interest expense was down to 5.25. That said, overall, we have substantial headroom on all covenants. And with that, Udo, I would like to hand it back to you.

Yes. Thank you so much, Jens. I'll now take us through the highlights from each of our divisions. Let's start with Stolt Tankers. Revenue was $409 million, down 3% year-over-year.

The decline reflects softer contract rates, partially offset by higher volumes and stronger spot pricing due to rising bunker costs and a strong U.S. spot market. EBITDA was $98 million and operating profit $52.5 million. The year-over-year decline in operating profit reflects lower freight rates and higher bunker costs, partly offset by $4 million of gains on the disposal of 3 vessels and slightly lower owning expenses.

Operating days were marginally up, reflecting the net addition of 1 ship to the fleet. Within our volume mix, COO share increased to 54%. It's worth noting that the rate and volume picture breaks down quite differently between contract and spot business this quarter. COA volumes were up 10%, but COA rates were down a little over 20% as we have been seeing an increase in commodity chemicals, which typically have a lower freight rate. The rate renewal trend has improved somewhat. COAs renewed in the second quarter at an average rate decrease of 4%, a smaller decline than we have seen in recent quarters.

My thanks to Maren and her team who continue to navigate a generally difficult operating environment with real focus on delivering the quality, reliability and flexibility our customers expect from us.

Looking more closely at tanker rate trends. TCE for the quarter was $23,372 per operating day. This was down 11% on last year, but still comfortably above the 2018 to '22 average of $19,825 per day and broadly in line with the 10-year average of $23,303.

During the quarter, we saw a reversal of the downward TCE trend we have been seeing for the last few quarters. We saw an increase every month in the second quarter with May TCE climbing above $24,500 per day.

The chart to the left reflects just how sharp the move has been since March. The Deep Sea Chemical index is up around 80% since the conflict in the Middle East began driving volatility in freight markets. The effect comes both ways. Some routes are seeing upward pressure on rates and ton-mile demand and others downward pressure, and we are watching this closely as it evolves.

In a market moving this quickly, what matters most is not scale, but adaptability. We are staying close to our customers, reading the ecosystem and reacting fast. Again, the diversification point is worth repeating. This is where our model delivers. We are more than a chemical tanker business. We are the world's largest chemicals logistics company.

Stolthaven Terminals had an excellent quarter, achieving steady performance across the financial KPIs and delivering a record quarterly operating profit. I'd like to thank Guy and his team for these exceptional results. Revenue was $82 million, up 3% year-over-year, driven by improved utilization as well as storage rate escalation on existing contracts, new business and a favorable foreign exchange effect.

We are delighted that our strategy on improving utilization is bearing fruits as utilization reached 93.4%, up from 92.1% a year ago. Operating profit of $29 million was the highest quarterly performance on record, marginally up year-on-year. The revenue improvement and a slight decline in operating expenses more than offset a lower contribution from joint ventures, mainly due to weaker performance at Antwerp and start-up costs at our new terminal in Taiwan.

Looking forward, we expect the storage market to continue to remain stable, utilization to continue to gradually improve through the year and costs to remain well controlled. U.S. capacity additions in Houston and New Orleans remain on track. These are a good example of the disciplined selective investment approach we apply across the group, and these expansions should support earnings growth from Q2, Q4 on.

SDC results were impacted by the tough market conditions. Revenue was up significantly 23% year-over-year. This was driven by the acquisition of the Suttons business, which pushed total shipments up 21% to just over 48,000 shipments in the quarter. Underlying volume, excluding Suttons were broadly flat.

Adjusting for the $4 million of Suttons integration costs incurred in the quarter, STC's underlying profit was $3.7 million, reflecting tighter transportation margins and lower demurrage and ancillary revenue. Including Suttons results, STC overall had an operating loss of $0.3 million. Of course, we are disappointed with this performance, and the STC team is already implementing performance improvement measures to counter this trend.

The Suttons integration is going on as planned with the bulk of the costs now recognized. In addition, we were seeing an improved margin trend during the quarter. Gross profit per shipment was up versus the first quarter, and we have seen month-on-month operational improvements building out through the quarter.

I want to thank Hans and his team for their agile response in turning the business around with visible improvement back to a profit towards quarter end. We continue to take a prudent view in the short term and manage the business tightly as visibility in this market is limited and margins remain constrained. Let me pass you to Alex now to cover the market backdrop before I close with some final remarks, and then we move to questions.

Thank you, Udo. I'll start with the chemical and feedstock market backdrop since the closure of the strait.

Overall, chemical supply chains proved more resilient than expected as countries and producers adjusted utilization, maintenance schedules and sourcing strategies. The Hormuz closure has been a significant supply chain shock given its position as a key source of chemical and chemical feedstocks.

We saw an 80% reduction in tanker transits in the region and a 15% drop in global chemical trade volumes versus pre-war levels. That volatility and the resulting regional imbalances pushed chemical spot freight rates up by 20% to 30%.

Two export regions helped fill part of that gap. In the U.S., producers benefited from a feedstock advantage with continued crude and ethane availability, supporting a 40% increase in exports to Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.

Asia Pacific also proved more resilient. Chemical production in the region largely continued, albeit at low utilization levels as China used its strategic chemical feedstock reserves to increase exports by 20% and support regional supply. We're seeing early signs of activity returning, but uncertainty remains elevated and conditions change daily.

The [indiscernible] framework announced last month was a positive development for global energy trade flows, but it remains an evolving situation and the outlook for a full resumption of safe and reliable transit through this trade remains uncertain.

We expect gradual normalization to play out in 3 phases. First, transit assumption following a safe and orderly reopening. Before the closure, around 130 vessels move through the strait each day. At the low point, that fell to around 10 to 15 vessels.

Whilst we have seen recent positive development to around 40 ships per day, we still sit well below pre-conflict levels. Given events in the last couple of days, we have seen something of a slowdown in activity, but it's too soon to tell whether this is short-lived or not. The second phase is vessel repositioning. Inbound traffic should build as ships reenter the region to support cargo flows. Such a development will require greater clarity on security, insurance and operating conditions through the strait.

The third phase is a durable cargo recovery and the restoration of energy flows, assuming a safe reopening of the strait. Current estimates suggest crude and energy flows could take up to 4 months to recover to 80% of pre-war levels. Chemical export normalization may lag crude and CPP given the upstream feedstock constraints built up during the closure.

Beyond the immediate recovery, we expect inventory restocking across crude, product and chemical feedstocks to continue through 2027, but should support activity across shipping, terminals and logistics. Whilst the path to normalization is unclear, the broader macroeconomic environment could also impact demand for chemicals.

As such, we will remain cautious overall until we see a sustained normal operation through the strait. Turning now to Stolt Tanker supply and demand fundamentals. On the demand side, seaborne trade volumes reflect the impact of the Hormuz closure with volumes expected to decline in 2026.

The scale of that decline will depend on the timing of normalization. A recovery of similar magnitude is also expected in 2027 as trade normalizes and inventory restocking takes hold. That should support our demand outlook into next year, subject to a full resumption of activity in the Strait, which is difficult to predict. The MR market is also an important supply chain factor. MR rates saw a sharp spike following the Hormuz closure, reaching about $50,000 per day, but has since moderated to the mid-20,000s. MRA at current levels limit the availability of swing tonnage that might otherwise absorb chemical tanker demand, and we expect this dynamic to continue.

On the supply side, stainless steel net fleet growth is forecast to 4% in 2026 with a total order book stable at 18% of the current fleet and new orders are likely to be available before 2029. This is balanced by the age profile of the fleet. 14% of stainless steel tankers will be 25 years or older by 2028, creating potential scrapping capacity if demand softens. Taken together, the fundamentals remain constructive for the medium term, even if the near term continues to be affected by disruption and uncertainty. Udo, back to you.

Yes. Thank you so much, Alex. So to wrap this up, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has created a level of disruption and uncertainty that has been unprecedented, and that has tested our people and our network. I'm generally proud of how our business and how our people have responded.

We are staying close to customers, keeping product moving, maintaining discipline and are fully focused on safety. The overall result, $177.3 million of EBITDA with terminals delivering a record operating profit and the group holding broadly stable reflects a business that is built to absorb shocks rather than just simply ride the good times.

The 45% of EBITDA that came from outside Stolt Tankers this quarter is not a footnote. It is a proof point that our strategy is working. Looking ahead, a resumption of normal trading through the Strait of Hormuz remains highly uncertain, and we are mindful of that.

Once we see a safe and orderly normalization of trade through the straits sustained over time, we will reconsider the provision of earnings guidance when the evidence supports it. In the meantime, I want to leave you with 4 things. First, we are fully focused on safety and in storing very close to our customers across our global network.

That remains the foundation of who we are and what we do. Second, leveraging the diversification of our portfolio will continue to provide earnings stability. The results this quarter demonstrate again why that matters. Third, for the third quarter, we expect positive TCE sentiment seen through Q2 to continue into Q3 for Stolt Tankers. A turnaround in STC performance with the Suttons integration costs largely accounted for. And Stolthaven will remain steady with the benefit of capacity expansions starting to impact positively later in the year.

Overall, the third quarter should see an improvement in earnings compared to recent quarters. And fourth, finally, we will continue to maintain discipline in cost and capital. We have and will continue to manage our balance sheet carefully through this period, and we are preserving the financial flexibility to act on opportunities as they arise.

We remain focused on what we can control and remain committed to delivering long-term value, aspiring to be simply the best for our shareholders, our customers and our people who make this business work every day. That is and will remain our goal. One last thing before we go to Q&A. This is Jens's final earnings presentation before he takes his well-earned retirement. Jens joined Stolt-Nielsen in July 1992 and over the 34 years that followed, he has served this company in virtually every corner of the world, from Connecticut to Germany, from Singapore to Rotterdam and ultimately to London, where he has been for the past 19 years, first as a VP, Corporate Finance and since 2018 as CFO.

Jens is a true embodiment of the Stolt-Nielsen culture. We have an average tenure of over 9 years across our people, which tells you something meaningful about the kind of company we are. Jens has not just lived as part of that culture, he has helped to shape it.

On behalf of everyone across the Stolt-Nielsen Group, I want to thank Jens for his extraordinary contribution for being a valued partner and friend to me personally over the past 3 years. Jens, we wish you and your family all the very best for the next chapter. And of course, we are very delighted to welcome you also on the Stolt-Nielsen Board. I'm delighted to have Alex step into the CFO role with his broad knowledge of the company and strong financial acumen. And Alex will be presenting the financials next time we meet. Alex, over to you for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] So our first question is in relation to something you mentioned, Udo, around STC. And you made reference to a turnaround and a sudden integration process is heading towards an end. Please be able to give some more color around what involves in that STC turnaround process?

Yes. Well, of course, you see, as I said, we are not satisfied with the performance that we are seeing. And the market, as you have seen, was already competitive before we became even more competitive and the good thing is we have a very, very strong team in our Tank Container business under the leadership of Hans Augusteijn.

And Hans and the team, they really [indiscernible] together quite nicely, and they've put profit improvement plan together, which, of course, covers how do we go about the commercial side, how do we drive improved utilization, how do we bring out more cost? How do we work with our suppliers to have better and improved rates there and all of that is coming together.

As I mentioned in my commentary already, the last month of this quarter was already back in the black. And so we are seeing the results of this improvement approach already taking hold. And the good thing is also we are from a one-off cost perspective through the lion's share of the Suttons integration.

And yes, that is actually going quite nicely and where we're really driving out the cost of the business as well. So I think we are seeing a nice upward trajectory on the tank container business.

Thank you, Udo. The next question is in relation to shareholder distributions and the viability of when we would consider pursuing share buybacks. Maybe a question relating to shareholder distributions to you, Jens.

Thank you, Alex. Any such buyback is discussed with the Board if and when that should happen. We do have a program in place that was approved by the AGM back in 2025, I believe it was. And we do have ample room on that. And this is something that we do consider, of course, on an ongoing basis together with the Board. And when we are making any such decisions, there will be proper announcements made to the market that will lay out any details of such buybacks.

Thank you, Jens. Udo, you talked about Stolt Tanker rates growing month-on-month with May above $25,500 per day. Do you expect that momentum and trajectory to continue into Q3 and Q4?

So of course, line of sight for Q3 is better than Q4. So let's start with that one. So as I said, so the last month was around $24,500. I don't think we expect that this will increase significantly from there, but probably will be in this range for Q3 and then for Q4, it just unfortunately becomes too foggy overall, and that is related to the situation in the Middle East and unfortunately, the unclarity around is the ceasefire really holding up because that, of course, can have significant impact on demand.

So I think we have a good performance right now. We expect that to continue strong into Q3, but we have no visibility how Q4 will fall out.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is relating to Avenir. And a question, if we can give an update as to when the Avenir transaction will close.

Maybe I can cover that. So we announced that we signed an agreement to sell 50% of Avenir to NYK in former joint venture in March and the timing of that completion was subject to relevant closings, including competition and other factors.

Those are still underway. And we expect, as we've already guided that the completion should happen within the middle part of the year. So we will make an announcement once that has been concluded. And that is the last question that we have in the Q&A today. So I thank you. We'll post a recording of the call on our website tomorrow. Udo, back to you.

Yes. Thank you so much for joining us today, and I wish you all a great rest of your day.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Stolt-Nielsen's earnings call for the first quarter of 2026. As always, the earnings release and related materials are available on our website. We will also be recording this session and playback will be available on the website from tomorrow. Included in this presentation are various forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and we refer you to our latest annual report for further details.

I'm Alex Ng, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. Joining me today are Udo Lange, CEO; and Jens Gruner-Hegge, CFO. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session where we'll be taking questions online. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. And over to you, Udo.

Yes. Thank you, Alex. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our first quarter 2026 results. The presentation will follow our usual format. I will begin with an overview of the group's results for the first quarter and share some key highlights. Jens will then take us through the financial detail before handing back to me to cover the performance of each of our divisions, our view of the market outlook and some concluding remarks.

Let's get started. In the backdrop of elevated market disruption and considerable global uncertainty, I'm pleased to report that Stolt-Nielsen has delivered a solid first quarter, achieving group EBITDA of just over $180 million. This result reflects the strength of our diversified business model and the resilience it brings to our earnings. Our non-tanker portfolio contributed 44% of group EBITDA in the quarter, a clear demonstration that Stolt-Nielsen is not simply a shipping company.

In fact, our Stolthaven Terminals business had its second highest ever quarter in terms of operating profit achieved. We are a global liquid logistics business and our diversification continues to support earnings through periods of market dislocation. We are, of course, closely monitoring the conflict in the Middle East and in particular, the effect on transit through the Strait of Hormuz. This introduces new complexities to global energy and chemical supply chains, which we are working through with our customers to keep products moving.

We are thankful that our people remain safe, that none of our vessels are currently stuck in the Arabian Gulf and that our assets are not impacted thus far as our network continues to adapt to a rapidly changing situation. Our priorities at this time are to keep our people safe, leverage our global logistics network to best support our customers through the disruption and to maintain strict cost discipline and capital allocation for flexibility and long-term value creation while maintaining robust liquidity management.

We have limited visibility on how the conflict in the Middle East will play out and a range of outcomes are possible, which makes giving meaningful EBITDA guidance very challenging. Hence, we have withdrawn our previously issued EBITDA guidance for 2026. I would also like to highlight a number of strategic developments during the quarter. In Taiwan, our Stolthaven Terminals joint venture in Kaohsiung commenced operations, adding more than 60,000 cubic meters of new storage capacity.

And we recently announced the planned sale of a 50% equity stake in Avenir LNG, which will be achieved through a strategic joint venture with Japanese shipping company, NYK Line. Consistent with our strategy of building the Avenir business for the future while preserving our own balance sheet flexibility. From a financial standpoint, we maintain robust liquidity of $546 million, and our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio stands at 3.02x. And in February, the Board recommended a final dividend for 2025 of $1 per share, bringing the total for the full year to $2 per share, subject to shareholder approval at the AGM later this month.

Let us now turn to our financial highlights. I'm satisfied with the results the company has achieved in the quarter against a complex and challenging market backdrop. Looking across the key metrics. Operating revenue for the quarter was $717 million, up 6% compared to the same period last year, predominantly driven by the inclusion of SUS. EBITDA before the fair value adjustment came in at just over $180 million. This represents a modest decline of 4% year-over-year, driven principally by weaker freight rates in Stolt Tankers, lower margins within STC and additional costs associated with integrating Suttons.

Operating profit was $82 million, down 24% versus last year, mainly to the performance in Stolt Tankers and Stolt Tank Containers, plus additional depreciation from lower residual values and the consolidation of the Hassel 4 ships, Avenir and Suttons.

Net profit was $47.5 million, driven by the same factors as well as higher interest expense due to the consolidation of Avenir and Hassel Shipping 4's debt. Free cash flow was nearly $120 million this quarter, which was significantly higher than the same period last year, which included the cash outflows for Avenir and Hassel Shipping 4. And our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio has improved slightly from 3.12 last quarter to 3.02x. These results demonstrate the underlying resilience of our business even as we navigate a period of heightened market complexity.

Over the page, we look at some of the key drivers of performance. Stolt Tankers enjoyed increased volumes this quarter, but due to ongoing weaker freight rates, the average deepsea TCE revenue for the quarter was approximately $23,600 per operating day, a decline of 14.5% year-on-year. At Stolthaven Terminals, performance has been strong and steady. Utilization was stable at 91.2% in the first quarter versus 91.9% in the same period last year, and we saw some positive impact from storage rate increases.

At Stolt Tank Containers, gross profit per shipment declined by 33% year-over-year. Stolt Tank Containers is navigating a very challenging market environment where margins are squeezed and is focused on integrating Suttons. That is all from me now. Jens, I will hand over to you for the financials.

Thank you, Udo. Good afternoon, everyone, and good morning to those of you joining us from the U.S. I will compare the first quarter of '26 against the first quarter of 2025. And as a reminder, our first quarter runs from December 1 through February '28. And as such, the closure of Strait of Hormuz did not impact the first quarter results. Also, the company recently published its annual report for 2025 and this year, including the CSRD environmental report for the first time, and you can find this on the company's website, www.stolt-nielsen.com/investors.

Let's dive into the financials. Revenue for the quarter was up $41.2 million over the same quarter last year due to the following main factors: this is the first full quarter with Suttons included, and they contributed $38 million in revenue this quarter. S&G saw a $16 million increase over the first quarter last year due to the acquisition of 100% of Avenir at the end of January 2025. And Stolt Sea Farm had a $10 million increase in revenue on the back of firm prices. This was partly offset by lower revenue in Stolt Tankers, which declined by $22.5 million, mostly due to lower freight rates, lower demurrage revenue and lower bunker surcharge revenue due to falling bunker prices. However, volume was up by 20%, but mostly due to somewhat shorter voyages and higher share of commodity chemicals versus specialty chemicals.

Moving to operating expense. This increased by $33 million, mainly due to the additional Suttons shipments and related expenses as well as the consolidation of Avenir and added ship owning expenses due to a larger wholly owned fleet, partly offset by lower time charter expenses and lower bunker cost. Depreciation and amortization expense was $17 million higher than the same quarter last year, and this was due to a reduction in the residual value of ships following a fall in steel prices, requiring us to increase depreciation of ships.

Also, the 100% acquisition of the 2 businesses towards the end of the first quarter last year as well as the acquisition of the Suttons assets in November increased our asset base and hence also increased our depreciation. JV equity income was lower in part due to the purchase and consolidation of 100% of Hassel Shipping 4 last year and the weaker tanker markets in general, partly offset by a lower loss in Higas, our LNG terminal in Sardinia, Italy.

So as a consequence, operating profit for the quarter was $81.8 million, down from $107.9 million in the fourth quarter last year. The finance expense was up $6 million compared to the first quarter of '25, and that's due to the additional debt related to the acquisition and consolidation of Hassel Shipping 4, Avenir and as well as Suttons. And as such, the net profit for the quarter was $47.5 million with EBITDA of $180.8 million.

Net profit is down from $151.4 million in the same quarter last year, but please note that in the first quarter '25, we had a one-off gain on the step-up in value related to the acquisition of Avenir and Hassel Shipping 4 of $75 million. And also, as EBITDA excludes the impact of interest and depreciation, both of which increased year-over-year, the swing in EBITDA is significantly less than the swing in net profit.

Now let's have a look at the cash flow statement. Net cash from operations was down this last quarter, predominantly reflecting $50 million in weaker earnings and working capital outflows, $7 million lower dividends from joint ventures, $3.8 million higher interest payments and $2.4 million lower interest receipts, partly offset by lower tax payments.

Net cash used in investing activities was significantly down at $44.1 million from $232 million due to last year's business acquisitions. In the current year, cash spent on capital expenditures related mostly to tankers and terminal investments. The sales proceeds of $11 million that you can see there as well relate to the sale of a ship during the quarter. And then net cash used in financing activities of $66.1 million reflect the dividends paid in December 2025, while the debt proceeds and repayments reflect refinancings concluded during the quarter.

As such, total cash flow for the quarter was a positive $10.1 million. And if you look at the graph on the bottom right, you can see we ended the fourth quarter with $546 million in available liquidity, as Udo has pointed out. So let's go over and look at the capital expenditures. Capital expenditures during the quarter totaled $42 million, with mostly spent on tankers progress payments for new buildings as well as terminals and Stolt Sea Farm expansion CapEx.

Overall, for 2026, we expect to spend around $300 million, significantly down from the $511 million we spent on CapEx in 2025. And this is to a large part driven by the sale of 50% of Avenir, removing CapEx of $112 million across '26 and '27 related to 2 new LNG carriers. And in 2027, we expect to see capital expenditures increase again due to the significant progress and delivery payments on the newbuilding program for tankers.

We intend to continue to invest strategically in our businesses, but we also need to focus on integrating our added capacity into our operations for maximized long-term benefit for our customers and our shareholders. And with the current geopolitical uncertainties, we will be cautious with committing to further CapEx until we see the full effect of the current unrest. So this is our debt maturity profile, which is relatively smooth over the 5-year horizon shown here. The debt profile reflects the recently refinanced debt for Hassel Shipping 4 and the deconsolidation of Avenir's debt.

The gray boxes represent normal repayments, while the black and orange boxes reflect balloon payments on bank loans and bonds, respectively. If you look at the bottom left graph, gross debt reduced in the first quarter due to Avenir being accounted for as held for sale. So $120 million in Avenir debt is no longer included in this overview. And our average long-term interest rate in the fourth quarter was 5.65%, an increase from the previous quarter, driven by temporary drawdowns on more expensive revolving credit facilities and the full quarter of the bond issued in October 2025.

This is our -- shows our financial KPIs and the continued steady performance of the company has supported our covenants. The decrease in debt during the first quarter supported a decrease in net debt to tangible net worth on the top left quadrant and net debt to EBITDA on the bottom left quadrant. Debt to tangible net worth is now at 0.98 as well below our covenant limit of 2.25x. With the lower EBITDA for the quarter, the last 12 months, EBITDA fell slightly to $777 million. EBITDA to interest expense on the top right quadrant was down to 5.31, whilst the net debt-to-EBITDA decreased from 312 to 3.02, as Udo mentioned. So overall, we are well within compliance on all covenants.

And finally, before handing back to Udo, let me finish up with a snapshot of our main sustainability metric, the annual efficiency rating for Stolt Tankers, which finished 2025 at 9.34, just over 40% reduction from 2008. Also in 2025, we held gold ratings from EcoVadis for our 3 logistics businesses. And just to inform you, a gold rating indicates that the business is in the top 5% of companies in the industry. And then again, to point out that the recently issued annual report for 2025 contains our first CSRD report in case you want to read more about the company's ESG performance, and you can find the report on our website, as I mentioned.

And with that, I would like to pass it back to you, Udo.

Yes. Thank you so much, Jens. I will now take us through the highlights from each of our operating divisions. Let's start with Stolt Tankers. Operating revenue at Stolt Tankers was $386 million for the quarter, down 5.5% on the year. This decline reflects the rate environment, which was only partially offset by a modest increase in operating days, driven by additions to the fleet. The rate decline is driven by a change in the mix of speciality versus commodity cargo as a result of near-term market conditions, which also drove up volumes.

COA rates were renewed in the first quarter at an average rate decrease of 5.3%. This has improved versus the 9.6% decrease in Q4. EBITDA was $102 million, down 7%. Operating profit was just over $50 million, down 24% year-on-year. This reflects the lower freight rates on both regional and deepsea spot trades. We remember that previously, Hassel Shipping 4 was a joint venture and so was included as equity income. And as a result of the Hassel Shipping transaction within this quarter's results, we also saw higher owning expenses, additional depreciation and lower equity income from joint ventures versus the prior year.

Depreciation was further impacted by changes in residual value. Maren and her team continue to work diligently to navigate this highly complex and unpredictable macro environment with a clear focus on delivering for our customers. I commend them for all their efforts during what continues to be a very challenging period. Looking now more closely at tanker rate trends. Whilst the TCE rate for the quarter declined to approximately $23,600 per operating day, down around 15% year-on-year, we continue to trade well above the 2018 to 2022 down cycle average of $19,825 per day and a level marginally above the long-term 10-year average of $23,300 per day.

The early signs of rate softening that we saw last quarter have continued with a quarter-on-quarter change of under 4%. The effects of the conflict in the Middle East and the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz are introducing new complexities for global trade flows, and we are keeping a watchful eye on developments. This global disruption has the potential to create additional upward movement in rates and ton mileage in certain routes and downward movement in others.

I also want to reiterate a point we have made before. We are not simply a chemical tanker business. We encourage investors and analysts to evaluate our performance across our diverse portfolio as a whole. I'm pleased to report a strong consistent performance from Stolthaven Terminals, and I would like to thank Guy and his team for achieving the second best operating profit in the company's history.

Operating revenue was $79 million in the quarter, up 4% year-over-year. This improvement was driven by storage rate increases on existing contracts as well as new business secured at improved rates and favorable foreign exchange impacts, partially offset by softer utilization in certain areas. Utilization remained essentially stable at 91.2% from Q4 to Q1, but declined versus the prior year's 91.9%. EBITDA was $45 million, up 4%. Operating profit was $28.6 million, broadly level year-over-year as improvement in revenue was offset by inflationary cost increases and the impact of foreign exchange.

We continue to progress adding storage capacity at existing U.S. sites. Projects in Houston and New Orleans are expected to come online in a staggered fashion, and we expect this incremental U.S. capacity to provide a contribution to earnings growth over the medium term. Stolt Tank Containers saw a strong increase in revenue this quarter, driven by the addition of the Suttons tanks to the fleet. Operating revenue was $184 million, up 20% year-over-year. Overall shipments totaled nearly 48,000 in the quarter, up 31% year-on-year, reflecting the addition of the Suttons volumes, while underlying volume was also slightly improved.

Stolt Tank Containers recorded an operating loss of $5 million in the quarter, predominantly driven by weaker transportation margins and reduced demurrage in a highly competitive market. Suttons related integration costs and the typical seasonal softness in the first quarter. The integration of Suttons into our platform is going as planned, and we expect the positive EBITDA impact from the Suttons business to materialize from 2027 onwards once integration is more substantially complete.

In the near term, Jens and his team are focused firmly on cost discipline, margin improvement and executing the integration effectively, and I thank them for their efforts. I now want to cover our view of the market and concluding remarks before we open for Q&A.

Let me first give you some important context for understanding the operating environment we are navigating today. The Strait of Hormuz handles approximately 20% of global seaborne oil and CPP volumes, around 15% of global chemicals, 20% of LNG and 40% of LPG. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz represents the largest supply shock to global energy markets since 1973. The disruption to trade flows is already creating tangible effects in the chemical markets with volatile energy prices, shifting demand patterns and increased activity in the U.S. Gulf contrasting with a slowdown in other regions.

We are also seeing spillover effects, including elevated bunker prices and availability constraints east of Suez, which are adding to the operational complexity for all participants in the market. This is not just a temporary disruption. It is a structural dislocation and the downstream consequences for chemical and industrial supply chains are already being felt.

Firstly, the supply shock itself. Approximately 20 million barrels per day have been effectively removed from global seaborne flows due to the Hormuz closure. Middle East exports are down around 60% from around 25 million barrels per day to a net negative position when you account for the coordinated attacks across Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Iraq. Critical infrastructure has also been impacted. The Saudi East-West pipeline bypass with a capacity of approximately 7 million per day is already operating at a maximum. And even at full utilization, it can only reroute around 35% of Saudi Arabia's export volumes.

There's simply insufficient physical replacement for what has been lost. In the center here on the chart, we begin to see system breakdown. Storage infrastructure is now approaching saturation, what the industry refers to as tank tops, and this is beginning to force production shut-ins. We are seeing force majeure declarations across LNG, LPG and chemical cargoes. The physical constraints on rerouting storing and processing volumes are compounding the supply loss.

The third shock is demand rebalancing with Asia firmly at the epicenter. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and Singapore collectively import more than 70% of the crude from the Arabian Gulf. The feedstock consequences are severe. Naphtha supply is down approximately 1.2 million barrels per day, and LPG prices have risen sharply since late February. This could potentially translate into a feedstock crisis with shutdowns of crackers, PDH plants, methanol facilities and aromatics units resulting in lower volumes.

China, Korea and India have begun implementing export controls and rationing measures. The conclusion is clear. This is not a market we expect to normalize quickly. We are planning for a range of potential scenarios, spanning from a stabilized transit environment where trade flows largely normalize through to most restricted or even a closed transit regime. Across these scenarios, we have a clear set of operational and financial levers available to us. These include deploying our tanker fleet to optimize utilization and our COO and spot mix, leveraging the diversification of liquid logistics and aquaculture portfolio, providing some resilience to our earnings, adjusting capital allocation by deferring nonessential CapEx and drawing on our strong liquidity and balance sheet capacity to absorb volatility.

At this stage in time, it is unclear whether the disruption will create more complexity or opportunity for our business. From a supply perspective, the stainless steel tanker order book stands at approximately 18% of the existing fleet with net supply growth of around 4% expected in 2026. However, a significant feature of the current fleet is its age profile. Approximately 14% of the stainless steel tanker fleet is aged 25 years or older and eligible for retirement.

And this proportion increases to around 30% when you consider vessels aged 20 years and above. The potential for fleet retirements to absorb new supply is considerable and also acts as a buffer in case of potentially prolonged demand contraction. We expect these supply dynamics to continue to provide underlying structural support to the chemical tanker market over the medium term. To wrap this up, we are operating in an exceptionally uncertain global environment. The geopolitical pressures we face, particularly from the conflict in the Middle East and the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz introduce real complexity and market risk.

Our immediate priority is to protect our people, our assets and our earnings. And we are maintaining a clear focus on what we can control. In that context, I want to leave you with 4 key themes. Firstly, we are safeguarding earnings and maintaining our focus on customers. Our ships are not currently directly affected, and our fleet is adapting swiftly to the changing situation. Our global network is agile and well positioned to support customers through the current period of supply chain disruption, and we're working closely with customers to find solution with them.

Secondly, we are leveraging our diversification. The resilience of our non-tanker portfolio provides 44% of group EBITDA, providing earnings and support at a time when the tanker market faces headwinds. Thirdly, we are maintaining disciplined management of our costs and capital allocation. We have a clear set of financial levers available to us, and we will deploy them appropriately as the situation evolves. And fourth, we enter this period of uncertainty from a position of financial strength. We have robust liquidity of $546 million, a well-structured balance sheet and the capacity to absorb volatility while still pursuing strategic opportunities.

Despite the challenges ahead, our strategic foundations are strong. Our portfolio is resilient and our team is focused. We continue to navigate this complex environment, delivering long-term value for our shareholders, our customers and all of our stakeholders. Thank you for your attention. I will now pass you back to Alex for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] So we will start with the first question. First one for you, Jens, in relation to EBITDA guidance. Could you provide a bit more comment around the rationale for removing the EBITDA guidance? And then any information about when you would expect to resume that guidance?

Thank you, Alex, and thank you for the question. As Udo talked about, we're living in a situation which is rather unpredictable. And this could go either way up or down. And therefore, we feel that there is no real foundation to provide an EBITDA guidance at this stage. I think once we start seeing things normalize, which would mean a number of the factors that are currently causing disruptions coming back to normal, then we can reconsider providing an earnings guidance at that point.

Yes. Maybe let me add. So what is really the value of guidance? The value of guidance is that we see more in the business than you as an outsider and that we provide basically guardrails with the lower level or an upper level. And when you have a situation like this, if the guidance range becomes ridiculously large or it's so foggy, then it's a little bit like the COVID time. So nobody was surprised when companies stopped providing guidance during COVID. So this is not a decision that we take lightly. So we really had long conversations around this. And we just came to the conclusion. What we are seeing right now is not good enough to provide reasonable guidance. Exactly what Jens said, it can go up and it can go down, and we will come back when we have more clarity.

Thank you. Next question is in relation to tank containers. Would you be able to provide some guidance, Jens, in relation to where the integration costs sit in the line items? Are they entirely booked in SG&A as a starting point? And maybe just another comment around Stolt Tank Containers SG&A more broadly. Apologies, I think you're on mute.

I am indeed. Thank you. To the first part of the question, yes, the integration cost is in SG&A. And as I mentioned in my speaker notes, it was about $5 million that we incurred in the first -- during the first quarter. As for SG&A in general, as we compare the first quarter of '26 with the first quarter of '25, you have pretty much 1 year of inflationary expenses that have come in and that impacts the results. Other than that, I think for STC, I think it's fair to say they are in a tough market. And when you are in a tough market, you're always having a close eye on your expenses, and that is also the case with STC at the moment. So when this then will normalize, it's hard to say again because they are in the midst of a significant integration following the acquisition, plus we also have the market disruptions that we have to consider as we look forward.

Thank you, Jens. Also continuing on STC, Udo, would you be able to provide a bit more color into the current state of the market and any potential views on outlook in relation to potential improvements in the underlying markets there?

Yes. So the market, as you see, continues to be very challenging. And so when you look at what is really the underlying driver, it is an oversupply. As you know, during COVID, there's a long tail of competitors that got added. This is starting to shake out with our acquisition of Suttons and some other consolidations that are happening in the market. There is consolidation going on, but this is, of course, not changing overnight. And then you take a Middle East situation and that, of course, added extra pressure to the whole situation.

So I think what we are really focused on is, of course, working with our customers, delivering value there, but also being focused on margins. So we are very clear on looking at how do we do margin management overall in the business. And in addition, of course, we have a fantastic digital platform and a strong best shore center. And so we just need to deliver even more value on productivity and operational efficiency, and we are fast tracking also on the Suttons integration.

So we do everything that is in our control to improve the situation. So we know that this was an exceptionally weak quarter, and Hans' his team are fully focused on that. But of course, there's also a market piece in there. And it's too early for me to tell when the market will change.

Thank you. Next is an accounting question. For tankers, you mentioned that there was an uptick in depreciation quarter-on-quarter due to a change in residual values driven by steel prices. How should we think about the Q1 level? Would it be a new run rate for the tankers depreciation? Or is there an element of one-off effects here?

So typically, what we do is we adjust steel price or we do an assessment of the residual value once per year, and this is done basis steel prices. Steel prices reflect the recycling value of older tonnage. And that sets the target depreciation when the ship reaches its fully depreciated age. And so once a year, we reset this value unless there are any demand shocks. And then that sets really the level of depreciation for the following year. So yes, there was a significant increase this time around, but you should expect that other than changing in our asset base due to acquisitions or sales of assets that it should remain steady accordingly.

And next question is in relation to Avenir and the sell-down there. Are you able to provide a sense for the proceeds both in cash and more broadly relating to the balance sheet you received from this? And how will you allocate those proceeds?

So we are not allowed to talk about the actual sales price of this is unfortunately confidential and as often as the case in such transactions. But as I mentioned, we have removed the debt from our balance sheet now, and we also removed future CapEx, future CapEx being approximately $120 million impacting '26 and '27 and the debt being reduced by $112 million. So hence, you see that reduction now already in our balance sheet.

Yes. And let me add what Jens says. So we are super excited about this deal because it's really a double whammy. So on the one hand, we can accelerate our strategic ambitions in this space because we have a strong partner with NYK, who can also bring offtake for the business, and we can jointly grow. But then on the other hand, it also helps us both on our balance sheet side. And as you saw, it has a significant impact on reducing our CapEx exposure, and that is quite relevant during a time like this.

A question relating to the results and how they presented, Jens. Last quarter, there was a like-for-like income statement, which was very helpful. Is it possible to get something like that for this quarter, particularly given the number of moving items that have been occurring during the period? And also, do you expect similar in the coming periods?

Yes. I think previously, there were a lot of movements related to acquisitions of Suttons and also with the 2 acquisitions we did in the beginning of the year. We haven't presented that at the moment. Going forward, when we compare next quarter, it will be on a like-for-like basis because you will have had a stable second quarter of '25 and a stable second quarter of '26, you'll probably see a little bit less volatility other than, of course, Avenir. And we can put that in when we present the next quarter's earnings so that you get a like-for-like, and then we can share it broadly with the whole market at the same time.

Thank you. Next question is in relation to the performance of Stolt Sea Farm. Stolt Sea Farm performance looked particularly strong. Q1 is typically strong, but is it primarily volumes or price driven this development? And how do you expect this to continue? Jens, maybe that's one for yourself around the Q1.

Yes. I think, first of all, Q1, we have this typically seasonally strong Christmas season, where you have good volumes that are being sold, particularly in December, after which it tapers off a little bit in the beginning of the new year typically. But this quarter, we saw good movement in prices, favorable movements in prices, and that is reflected in the improvement in the results. That's really the main driver. I think we've elected to not report in detail on Stolt Sea Farm, but there is -- there are sections in the interim financials that were issued together with the earnings release that have more detail on Stolt Sea Farm.

It remains strategic. It is important to us, and we will continue to invest in it. And -- but you can find more details about Stolt Sea Farm in the interims. In the presentations itself, we want to focus on the liquid logistics, which is really the bulk of the company's assets and what drives the performance of the company, particularly in times like this when you have disruptions in the global supply chains. That said, under such circumstances, it's nice to have a business like Stolt Sea Farm contributing steadily to the performance overall of the group.

Very good. That concludes all the questions that we have. So thank you very much. Just as a reminder, we'll be posting a recording of our call on our website tomorrow. And Udo, back to you.

Yes. Thank you so much, everybody. I really appreciate you joining us today, and I look forward to talking to you again when we present our results for the second quarter of 2026 in July. And of course, like all of us, I hope that by then, the world has come to a more peaceful landing than where we are right now. With that, all the best for today.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Stolt-Nielsen's earnings call for the final quarter of 2025. As always, the earnings release and related materials are available on our website. We'll be recording this session and playback will be available on our website from tomorrow.

Included in this presentation are various forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and we refer you to our latest annual report for further details. I'm Alex Ng, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. Joining me today are Udo Lange, our CEO, and Jens Gruner-Hegge, our CFO. At the end of our presentation, there will be a Q&A session where we'll be taking questions in the room and online.

[Operator Instructions] Thank you, and over to you, Udo.

Yes. Thank you so much, Alex, and welcome, everyone, here in London and of course, on the call as well, and thanks for joining us today for our fourth quarter results. The presentation will follow the usual format. I will begin with an overview of the group's results for the quarter and the full year, and then Jens will cover the financials before handing back to me to run through the performance of our divisions, our view of the market outlook and a few concluding remarks.

In an unpredictable and challenging market context, I'm really pleased that overall, Stolt-Nielsen has delivered a solid finish to 2025, achieving EBITDA of $186 million for Q4. This completes the year with $776 million in EBITDA, which was at the upper end of our guidance and the second highest EBITDA result achieved in our history. We continue to communicate that Stolt-Nielsen is not a shipping company, but a logistics business. Non-Stolt Tanker operations account for 57% of our asset base and 45% of our EBITDA. We are building our non-tankers earnings base through our capital investment program to continue to grow long-term sustainable cash flow for our shareholders.

For this quarter, while Stolt Tankers EBITDA fell 18% from the same quarter last year, the resilience of the other areas of our business resulted in a 13% drop for the group overall. Optimizing value creation from our portfolio is the driver of our M&A activities. In the period, we acquired 100% of Suttons, a U.K.-based ISO tank operator through which we can leverage the scale and flexibility of Stolt Tank Containers' global platform to expand our service offering for our customers. Aligned to our strategy to grow Avenir whilst preserving balance sheet flexibility, we have also very recently announced that we are in discussions to sell down a portion of our equity in Avenir.

We also issued a new Norwegian bond. It was one of the tightest spreads for a logistics company achieved in the Norwegian bond market, showing our good access to markets and the credit investors appreciate our portfolio, and the master of the bond is in the room, Julian, thanks for the outstanding work there.

You'll remember that last year, we evolved how we communicate our earnings potential, aligning our EBITDA guidance with our business model for the full year. In 2025, we came in towards the top of our range, and we hope you find our transparency in this regard helpful, and we are committed to continuing with this approach. Based on what we know today, we expect that our 2026 EBITDA will be in a range of $600 million to $750 million. Jens will elaborate on this more a bit later, but I wanted to flag a couple of key points here.

We are excited about integrating Suttons into our core business. However, there will be some integration costs this year and positive EBITDA impact from the Suttons business is not expected until 2027. This also assumes that the de-consolidation of EMEA is completed in line with our announcement on Monday, and that is, of course, relevant for the like-for-like year-over-year comparison. And we expect to be able to refine this range as the year progresses.

Let's now turn the page to review our financial highlights. I'm really pleased with the results achieved in the quarter in a complex market backdrop. Operating revenue was down 4% or $29 million year-on-year, which is predominantly on account of weaker freight rates in Stolt Tankers. EBITDA before the adjustment for fair value came in at $186 million, down $27 million on last year due to lower rates in Stolt Tanker and in Tank Containers, partially offset by performance in our Gas operations. Operating profit was down year-over-year by $35 million, mainly due to the performance in Tankers and Tank Containers, plus additional depreciation from the consolidation of the Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir. Net profit was also down, driven by the same factors as well as higher interest expenses. Free cash flow was down EUR 38 million year-over-year, driven by higher CapEx, including from the acquisition of Suttons International and new building deposits in our NST joint venture.

Net debt-to-EBITDA has increased to 3.12x as a result of the investments we have made over the year. I will talk more about how we are investing for long-term growth a bit more later. Over the page, we look at some of the key drivers of performance. Looking at the snapshot of the whole year, we have delivered a solid performance with the second highest EBITDA result in the company's history despite demand headwinds from a weak global chemical market as well as geopolitical uncertainty and tariffs impacting sentiment. We have remained focused on our strategy and on supporting our businesses to maintain their leading market positions. Stolt Tankers earnings were impacted by ongoing geopolitical uncertainty with lower freight rates weighing on performance whilst volumes remained stable.

Over the last 18 months at Stolthaven, we are focused on optimizing for higher-margin business. This strategy has delivered success in certain markets, and we end the year with average utilization for the year up slightly, a positive outcome in a difficult market. Tank Containers have also been navigating a highly competitive market and performance here has been impacted mainly by lower transport margins. For the year overall, the mix of EBITDA generated outside of Stolt Tankers increased to 43% from 35% last year. This is $40 million more than last year as investments across our portfolio, help diversify our earnings.

Our global teams are doing a fantastic job of working together to help our customers keep their supply chains moving in a safe and reliable way. And I want to thank all our people for their dedication across the year. They truly live our purpose of moving today's products for tomorrow's possibilities.

In November, we announced the acquisition of Suttons International, a U.K.-based ISO tank operator. I wanted to give you a bit of additional color on the rationale for the acquisition and how it supports the Tank-Container strategy. We acquired Suttons in November, adding over 11,000 ISO tank containers to the fleet, growing our fleet by around 20%. The acquisition is aligned with our corporate strategy to accelerate growth in one of our asset-light businesses, leveraging Stolt Tank Containers' global platform to support customers with efficiency, reliability and flexibility across their supply chains. We have been investing in creating a scalable global platform for Stolt Tank Containers, driven by a strong focus on digitalization and efficiency, and we aim to drive sustainable growth, operational consistency and improve customer outcomes by leveraging this platform to successfully embed Suttons within our business. Suttons not only brings tank capacity, but also enhances our customer offering as we bring in specific expertise in gas distribution, domestic short sea and China domestic services. With an expanded fleet, global reach, a more comprehensive service offering and an improved digital experience, customers will benefit from our scale, efficiency and global network.

As we talked about it on our Capital Markets Day, the ISO tank container market is highly fragmented. As you can see here on the chart, this transaction cements Stolt Tank Containers' position as a leading ISO tank operator and gives us potential for further profit margin growth. As well in this market, we see low levels of new tank production and ongoing capacity rationalization, which we expect to lay the foundation for an eventual market recovery and Stolt Tank Containers will be well positioned to take advantage of a potential upturn.

Our strategy puts our three most important stakeholders at the heart of everything we do, our shareholders, our customers and our people. We focus on developing our people to continuously improve our customer experience and on value creation for shareholders through our unique market leadership across liquid logistics and other business investments. We paid an interim dividend of $1 per share in December, which takes shareholder distributions since 2005 to over $1.4 billion. Our commitment to balancing distributions, conservative balance sheet and investing into our business is key to delivering long-term shareholder returns.

Our unique position in liquid logistics benefits customers as they build and optimize robust supply chains in uncertain and demanding markets. 70% of our top 50 customers use more than one of our service, and we continue to outperform industry norms with respect to Net Promoter Scores. This year, the average Net Promoter Score of our Logistics businesses was 52, up from 40 in 2024. Our people are the beating heart of our business and their passion and commitment drive our success. This year, employee engagement remains strong. Our employee engagement survey showed a sustainable engagement score of 86%, outperforming industry's peers in all benchmark categories with also a record response rate of 91%. We have created a workplace where our people want to stay and the average tenure for Stolt-Nielsen employee is over 9 years.

To support our strategy, we have been making targeted investments to position our business for long-term growth and to ensure our Liquids Logistics Solutions remain compelling for the future. We spent approximately $500 million in 2025 and increased our asset base to $5.8 billion. In 2026, we have plans to extend this further by around $380 million investments. We strengthened our market position and customer value proposition in all 3 logistics businesses. In Stolt Tank Containers, we continue to invest in assets to maintain our network, acquiring the remaining 50% in the Hassel Shipping 4 joint venture and ordering 2 additional modern fuel-efficient 38,000 deadweight new-builds with our joint venture partner, NYK.

At Stolthaven terminals, we started construction of a new terminal in Turkey, while our terminal in Taiwan advanced towards operational status. And we invested to expand capacity in the U.S., Korea and New Zealand. I touched upon the rationale for the Suttons acquisition and that investment sits in the FY '25 Tank Container figures in addition to new tanks in our core business. We also acquired the remaining shares of Avenir in 2025, reflecting our excitement in continuing to capitalize on the growing need for LNG bunkering as announced this week. We are now exploring a partial sell-down of this holding for an additional value creation opportunity while still having commitment to grow Avenir's fleet in the future. Based on project approved to-date, we will reduce our CapEx spend by around $130 million year-on-year while both sustaining our current operations and driving future growth opportunities and innovations. We will see the full impact of these investments over the coming months and years.

And I'll now pass on to Jens for the financials.

Thank you, Udo. And great to see everyone. Good morning to those of you calling in from the United States, and good afternoon to everyone here. As Udo did, I will compare fourth quarter of '25 with fourth quarter of 2024. And just as a reminder, our fourth quarter runs from September 1 through November 30, every year.

To reiterate what Udo has talked about, the company's performance is resilient in a challenging environment. But let's dive into the numbers. Now we talked about a lot of transactions that happened in the last 12 months. So since I'm comparing fourth quarter of '24 with fourth quarter '25, we have added a column here to take out the impact or to normalize the impact of the three major transactions, which was the acquisition of 100% of Hassel Shipping 4, 100% of Avenir and now lately also the Suttons acquisition.

So comparing those to the normalized with the current -- with the last quarter last year, the drop in revenue was driven by Tankers, reflecting the lower freight rates, which were partly offset by a 6.9% increase in volume following additions to the fleet over the last 12 months. Terminals revenue was flat and STCs was down by about $5 million, excluding the Suttons impact, while Stolt Sea Farms revenue was marginally up. The reduction in operating expenses partly offset the reduction in revenue and was driven by lower TCE hire costs and lower owning costs in tankers. Excluding the impact of Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir, depreciation expense was only marginally up, and that was reflecting really additional leases that we've taken on and additional terminal capacity that has been delivered and become operational.

The equity income from our joint ventures was up substantially, and that was driven by a prior year impairment that we took at HIGAS of about $5 million and past operating losses at Avenir that has since now seen a significant improvement in the operations in the last quarter. A&G expense was up compared to last year, mostly reflecting annual inflation adjustments as well as a consequence of the weaker U.S. dollar because a lot of our A&G expenses are in non-dollar, Euros, Pounds and Asian currencies. Also, last year, we reversed an over accrual for profit sharing in the fourth quarter of last year, which had a negative impact of about $11 million. So you normalize for that, the increase is more normal.

Adjusted operating profit for the quarter was, therefore, $88.5 million. That's down from $130.4 million in the fourth quarter last year. And as you can see from the difference between the reported numbers and the adjusted numbers, the acquisition that we talked about contributed about $7 million to that operating profit. And as you can also see, about 40% of the increase in the reported net interest expense was due to an increase in the net debt related to the acquisitions and other capital expenditures that we had during the year. While the rest was due to lower interest income as we reduced the holding of cash on hand compared to last year, and you will see that on the subsequent slide.

Other relates to dividends from our equity instruments, so dividends that we have received on investments. And income tax was down, reflecting an insurance-related tax provision taken in the fourth quarter of '24 as well as prior year tax adjustment at terminals, offset by higher taxes at corporate due to improved profitability that we've seen at Avenir and Stolt Sea Farm. And consequently, the net profit for the quarter ended up at $59.6 million, as Udo said, with EBITDA of $186 million.

Let's take a look at the cash flow. So cash from operations was down this last quarter, predominantly reflecting the weaker earnings, but still at healthy levels. If you compare to previous years, still a very strong cash-generating quarter. Dividends from JVs were down, but this was offset by positive working capital from the prior year and cash spent -- if we move to capital expenditure, cash spent on capital expenditure was substantially up, reflecting the acquisition of Suttons as well as increased progress payments on our new buildings and as well terminal capital expenditures for the ongoing expansions that we have. Offsetting this was the net cash receipts for repayments of advances from our joint ventures, as you can see.

There was a lot of debt activity -- funding activity, and Julian has done a tremendous job in keeping the company with a very strong liquidity position. During the fourth quarter, we raised $297 million in new debt, and that was to refinance expiring facilities and as well to fund the capital expenditures that we have ongoing. And I'm tremendously grateful both to Julian and his team, to the rest of the company has been working hard on making this possible as well as to all our banks and financiers. After adjusting for FX, we had a reduction in cash of $16.1 million, and we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $144.6 million. If you look at the bottom right of this slide, you see our total liquidity position, which at the end of the fourth quarter was $477 million, that includes revolving credit lines of $332 million, committed lines that is and slightly up from last quarter.

I mentioned the significant reduction in cash on hand last -- of the fourth quarter of '24, we had $335 million in cash, which, of course, generated a lot of interest income, and that's why you see that sort of half of the interest expense increase that we saw in the last 12 months.

Talking about capital expenditures. During the quarter, it totaled $138 million. That was of course, led by the STC acquisition of Suttons also the ongoing terminal expansions and as well progress payments that we have ongoing on the new-buildings that we have. And therefore, overall, for '25, we spent $511 million on CapEx, slightly below what we had indicated at the previous quarterly earnings release as some of it has been pushed out to 2026. For this year, we expect to spend $383 million with the focus being on tanker new-buildings, terminal expansions, Avenir new-buildings and Stolt Sea Farm expansions. Now expect this to probably change somewhat as the year progresses as it normally does as we commit to new projects, but this should be a good indication of what we expect to spend. And it's slightly down from last year, but we're also coming out of 2 years, '24 and '25, where we had significant capital expenditures. And whereas we intend to continue to invest strategically in our businesses, we also need to focus on integrating our added capacity into our operations for maximized long-term benefit, not only for our shareholders, but also for our customers.

Moving over to our debt profile. It here reflects the refinanced debt that is mentioned in the bullet at the bottom right. So there was about $86 million that we have repaid since the end of the fourth quarter. So our current balance for 2026 remains at $351 million. As part of this financing, we also -- since quarter end, since what I showed here in the financials, we also added $145 million in additional liquidity, which is available for further debt reductions, progress payments and other capital expenditures. So we continue having a very strong liquidity position going forward.

You see the two orange blocks. Those are the 2 bonds that we have, one maturing in '28 and $150 million, the one that we just did in September maturing in 2030. And if you look at the bottom left of this slide, you can see the increase in gross debt in the first quarter reflects the consolidation of Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir and then again, a slight increase in the fourth quarter of '25, reflecting the Suttons acquisition, and on average, our interest rates have come slightly down from 5.6% in the previous quarter to 5.39% in this quarter, reflecting general interest movements as well as tightening of margins that we have achieved on new financing.

The continued steady performance of the company supports our covenants and covenant compliance. The increase in debt and therefore, net debt to tangible net worth as well as a net debt to EBITDA seen in the first quarter was really -- in the fourth quarter was really due to Hassel Shipping 4 sorry, in the first quarter was due to the Hassel Shipping 4 acquisition, and Avenir. And in the fourth quarter, you can see that same impact from the Sutton's acquisition. Debt to tangible net worth is now at 1.04x. That's well below our covenant limit, which is 2.25x. So we have plenty of headroom, slightly up from the prior quarter where we were at 1.01x. I mean with the lower EBITDA that we have seen in this last quarter compared to previous quarters, the EBITDA fell slightly to $788 million, and with that, we have seen the EBITDA to interest expense go slightly up to 5.6x and the net debt to EBITDA increased from 2.94x to 3.12x, as you can see at the bottom left graph here.

So overall, we're in a very comfortable position relative to our covenants, a good liquidity position, a good balance sheet position. So the company is well prepared for what lies ahead. We gave today guidance of $600 million to $750 million and wanted to talk a little bit more about what that entails. So why are we doing this?

Firstly, we want to offer insight into our outlook for the year, what we see ahead. We believe it is aligned to the nature of our businesses and our business model to promote a longer-term view of the company, not a short-term quarter-to-quarter, but really give you the longer-term view that we work towards. We also want to facilitate fair pricing of the company as a diverse logistics business rather than as a shipping company.

So taking into account everything that we know today, what we believe will happen over the next 12 months, we expect EBITDA for the full year 2026 to be within a range of $600 million to $750 million. Now this guidance is underpinned by a number of key assumptions. As you can see some of them here on the slide, relating both to global macroeconomic picture generally and specific factors affecting the liquid logistics market. And particularly, that there are no substantial geopolitical changes versus what we see today. So we are expecting this to continue.

More specifically, the guidance is before fair value of the biological assets, before any gains or losses on sales of assets and other onetime noncash items. And it also excludes any 2026 EBITDA contribution from Avenir LNG. We've taken that out because of the announcement that we made earlier in the week and the consequential de-consolidation that, that will have. So I just want to make sure that everybody understands the basis for our guidance. It does include, however, the potential Suttons integration costs that will be incurred during '26. As such, the guidance is provided -- that we have provided is subject to some uncertainty beyond our control due to the current operating environment that we're in. And with that, I would like to hand it over to Udo, and he will cover the segment highlights as well as the market outlook. Many thanks.

Let's first start with Stolt Tankers. The chemical tanker markets have continued to soften this quarter as the market uncertainty around geopolitics and tariffs continues unabated. Demand is there and spot volumes, in particular, are elevated, but freight rates are weaker than the prior year. Operating revenue declined by 14% as the rate decline was only partially offset by a 4% increase in operating days due to additions to the fleet. COA renewal rates were down in line with our expectation. And we expect to see the COA ratio increase over the coming quarters.

Operating profit was likewise down, predominantly driven by the decline in spot freight rates for regional and Deep Sea, which was largely offset by lower trading expenses and lower time charter expense. However, further impacting the operating profit was higher owning expenses and depreciation and lower joint venture equity income. Maren and her team continue to work hard to navigate this highly complex and unpredictable macro environment with a laser focus on delivering for our customers, and I really want to thank them for all their efforts.

Looking more closely at Tanker rates. We are seeing some early signs of rates beginning to stabilize. While the TCE for the quarter was around $24,500 per operating day, showing a decline of 19% year-over-year, on a quarterly basis, the gradient of decline has flattened and TCE was just 1% down versus Q3. As things stand today, we are seeing the usual winter strengthening in crude and product tanker markets, which could be supportive for spot rates within the chemical segments as well. However, at the risk of being repetitive, we are not just a chemical tanker business. We encourage the market to consider our performance across all the areas of our diversified portfolio. And I want to remind you that we have moved to full year EBITDA guidance for the business as a whole.

Thanks to Guy and the Stolthaven team who have maintained steady utilization and kept operating revenue stable year-on-year in an uncertain market. EBITDA saw a modest decline of 4% with operating profit down 8% with these declines driven by investments in IT alongside some inflationary impacts and slightly less equity income from our joint ventures. Looking ahead, we expect the storage markets to remain stable, notwithstanding some caution and delayed decision-making on tank rental commitments from our customers. And so Stolthaven Terminals will continue to focus on optimizing margins and utilization. In response to the challenging demand drivers for storage, we are actively adopting our approach to specific market dynamics to better adapt to local conditions, and our investments in additional capacity at existing sites in the U.S. will start to come into play towards the end of the year. We expect to benefit from additional capacity in Houston and New Orleans coming online in a staggered fashion during Q3 ramping up and reaching full effect in 2027.

The tank container market continues to be challenging. And in this context, Hans and his team have done a great job to drive revenue at Stolt Tank Containers up $5 million or 3%. This result has been driven by stronger shipment volumes, which offset the impact of lower ocean carrier freight rates. EBITDA and operating profit declined due to lower transportation margins and cost inflation. I now want to cover our view of the market and concluding remarks before we open for Q&A.

This time last year, we spoke about the impact of geopolitical events on global trade flows. We highlighted a number of areas of macro uncertainty and discussed how these might play out through 2025. Today, the list of macro factors driving global uncertainty remains similar with the addition of two factors affecting our underlying markets. Geopolitical risk has not abated. Whilst we see some international players starting to selectively transit the Red Sea, there appears to be no clear resolution on events in the area, and we see new risks in international relations, especially in the Middle East. Risks and opportunities related to global tariffs and sanctions remain with trade policy changes impacting customer sentiment. The shadow fleet continues to impact around the edges of our markets and fluctuations in the crude oil market continue.

We also continue to face a subdued global chemical market, which is struggling from production-underutilization. The timing of new build deliveries will also have a supply side impact over the next 2 to 3 years. In the face of these risks, we are well positioned to continue to deliver our value proposition for our customers across the supply chain. We are laser-focused on this, planning strategically and operationally so that we can be flexible and react with agility to macro events. We have strong relationships with our customers, and we are working closely with them to navigate these challenges and keep liquid chemicals moving around the world. Despite these market risks, supply and demand fundamentals are currently supported by a tight MR market. GDP growth is expected to be around 3%. Seaborne trade growth is expected to be muted this year with a return to growth expected in 2027. We are watching developments carefully with some caution, but we expect volumes to remain relatively stable year-on-year.

MR rates have been trending gently upwards through 2025 and are predicted to remain at a high level, which has typically kept them operating in the CPP market, limiting the potential for swing tonnage in our market. As mentioned previously, we do expect some new-builds to enter the market in 2026 and 2027, and this creates some uncertainty on the supply side. However, the aging global fleet means that there remains high potential for retirements of vessels to manage global supply if necessary, with around 30% of tankers aged 20 years and older by 2027.

To wrap up, we are focused on leveraging our diversified logistics businesses to steer them through global supply chain complexity and delight our customers by executing our liquid logistics strategy. To support both our core liquid logistics businesses and explore new opportunities and innovations, we are positioning ourselves for long-term growth through targeted strategic investments. We invested strategically through 2025 and will continue to do so through 2026. This disciplined capital allocation strategy translates into balance sheet flexibility and headroom to meet all our obligations. Our investments will convert into EBITDA-generating assets given time. And despite the market turmoil continuing, we expect the full year EBITDA to fall within a range of $600 million to $750 million. As we look to the year ahead and beyond, our strong strategic foundations position us well to navigate future challenges and opportunities. Our people, clear purpose and diverse portfolio provides the resilience and quality required to deliver long-term value for our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders. Thank you for your attention, and I will now pass you back to Alex for Q&A.

Thank you very much, Jo. So we will start Q&A with questions in the room. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you very much. And then we'll take questions from the Internet as well. Please?

Just on the guidance, you did mention on the '25 results, the split between tankers, non-tankers. You have a bit of a range in your '26 guidance. Can you give some color on your expected split and also perhaps on the sort of which segment is going to cause that variance in the range?

Okay. So if you look at the other businesses, the non-tanker businesses, they tend to be more stable. We know that there's a cyclicality in the tanker markets. Now looking at the performance that we've seen so far through the year, the third and the fourth quarter of 2025, we saw that was pretty stable from quarter-to-quarter. The reduction was really early in the year. Going forward, we mentioned also that we see that there is a certain short-term floor because we've seen the strengthening in the MR markets recently, which is lending some support. But I think it's worthwhile noting that as we get into the second half of 2026, you will see more of that order book that we showed being delivered. So we see more of a risk in the tanker market as you get into the second half than in the first half.

And we know that these new-buildings will be delivered sort of second half '26 into first half of '27. So if you take that into consideration of what we saw in the fourth quarter, I would expect for the next few quarters that mix to be relatively stable with the exception of capital expenditures becoming operational. And that will be gradual. Again, I think most of that we expect to happen also towards the second half of the year when we're looking at the terminals business. So you'll probably start seeing more of a non-tanker growth in EBITDA in the second half of the year and potential challenges for the Tanker segment in the second half of the year. So you will start seeing that balance shifting towards more non-tanker business. Did that answer your question?

Yes, that's really good color. Also on the Red Sea, sort of -- this is a tricky one, but at what point do you expect to return? I mean there's a lot of talks about Maersk now entering the Red Sea again. What's sort of your point of action on entering the Red Sea?

Yes. So I can take that. So of course, chemical tankers is among the most risky vessel-type that you can navigate through the Red Sea, because a drone attack on that hitting the wrong tank has a significant bigger impact than when you have a conventional ship. So we are really very, very cautious, and we monitor that. So of course, it's good to see that Maersk is taking that effort, but we normally look really more towards the tail-end. And of course, what's currently going on in the Middle East and the U.S. fleet coming in. So we don't expect this to happen anytime soon.

Any additional questions in the room? Okay. Then we will move to the questions coming from those online. There's a couple of themes that maybe we can club together.

I think the first one really goes to our liquid logistics strategy. So maybe one for you, Udo. How successful has the liquid logistics strategy been so far with customers?

Yes, I would say I'm really excited about how it latches more and more on. And that, of course, has to do with the increasing complexity globally. So if I take the amount of strategy sessions that we have now with customers versus 2 years ago, it's a complete different ballpark. But it has also to do with the capability that we are building in our own team. So of course, this -- remember, we come from very strong three divisions and now they need to collaborate more together, more and more people need to understand how do I really position all of Stolt-Nielsen in front of the customer. And that is really remarkable to see how deep that actually goes.

So we have now not only sessions where we look at large customers, we also look at sessions that we have with medium, with small customers, and we do this around the whole world. So it's pretty exciting. The development is really exciting. And we are getting better and better at it and the customers appreciate it actually more and more. And we see most important, of course, it's not the activity, and we see business out of it.

So we have met a customer that didn't have Tank Container business with us before talked about the whole portfolio, and we got Tank Container business. Met another customer we were very small on the tank container side. So the beauty is because we are market leading really in all 3 segments, each of the businesses is actually strong also with different customers. Sometimes it's the same, sometimes it's different ones. And it allows us to take our strong relationship and then introduce the other businesses as well. And don't forget what is also unique is, we are the only player who has end-to-end shipping where we have a deep sea fleet, we have regional fleets and we have barging fleets. And then we have terminals and then we have tank containers. And now the Suttons, we even have gas and short sea and China domestic. So that's just really beautiful because you just we have one page now where we put this all together and you sit in front of sea level. And they, of course, not necessarily know Stolt-Nielsen, but then they are like, "oh, that's really interesting. You're building a terminal right now in Taiwan, and we need to talk about our Southeast Asia logistics strategy". Maybe how can that all come into a hub-and-spoke system. And so that's really nice how the capability that we have, A, add value for the customer, gives us more business, but also how our organization is more and more capable to position this.

Questions for you, Jens, related to how we triangulated the EBITDA guidance. And the first one was, can you share any information from what the EBITDA contribution was from Avenir in 2025?

Yes. If you look at -- it's related to the guidance, it might be more relevant to us what we're expecting there. But '25 was a transition year for Avenir. As you will have seen in the comparison with '24 was that it was a -- 2024 was a drag. We've seen that turn into an improvement, a positive contribution. For '26, you're looking at about mid-$20 million EBITDA contribution that would be expected. And with this separation out, we are actually looking to be able to grow that faster than what possibly could have done on our own. So it is a -- it's about mid- $20 million in 2026 in the number if you want to have that in the back of your mind when you look at the guidance.

Thank you, Jens. And then another question related to guidance. You mentioned that Sutton won't contribute EBITDA until 2027. But do you expect it to be EBITDA-negative during '26 or just close to breakeven?

If we look at the year overall, our expectation is it won't be a drag. It will -- the benefit that we get from the additional volume, the additional tanks, there will be some integration costs as we -- as there always is with an M&A. But we expect a neutral impact in '26, and then we should see that really start taking off in '27.

Yes. I think on the base business, but of course, the integration cost year-over-year, it is a drag.

The cost is there, so yes.

A question related to strategy. Avenir is you announced the partial sale of that asset. Can there be any read across to whether Stolt Sea Farm will be on the table in order to clarify the strategy around liquid logistics?

No, these are completely two different strategic conversations. So you know we are since more than 50 years in agriculture. We are the market leader in the premium segment. And the business is developing quite nicely. We are investing. We are super happy with the returns that we are seeing. What is different on Avenir, remember, we had a joint venture and -- but we also realized that while we believe in the strong future of that market, that the other partners were -- for them, it was less strategic. So we then remember, we acquired 100% for Avenir, but well knowing that, that, of course, would have a significant capital expenditure exposure for us.

So -- but we felt we believe we can grow in this market. But then at the same time, of course, we also looked at, well, now let's look for strategic partners where we then really can join forces and actually stronger lean into that market without actually dragging down our balance sheet too much. And so one of the key reasons, of course, you see also that our CapEx goes down year-over-year by $130 million is, well, we will benefit from the growth in the LNG market, but we are not as heavy exposed anymore in this segment. So two very, very different strategies. So Sea Farm is core to us and Avenir is an opportunity for us to capture a nice market together with a strategic partner.

And then the final questions we have on the -- for now relate to the CapEx that you talked about and the expansions, Udo.

First question is related to Stolthaven. How should we quantify the investments in terminals in relation to added capacity and how it evolves over the year?

Jens, why don't you take the Stolthaven?

Yes. So we talked a bit about the different investments that we have ongoing in Stolthaven. We have the terminal in Taiwan, which is about to become operational, and that will have a positive impact as we go into 2026. We have the expansions that are ongoing in Houston and New Orleans, where we're adding about 170,000 cubic meters combined, and that will start coming on as we get into the third and fourth quarter of 2026.

So you probably won't see much of an impact in this year, but it will come and be fully operational and have a full impact as we get into 2027. The other projects that we have sort of like the Turkey project, that's a long-term investment that will come in later years. It's a joint venture structure. So you will see that not necessarily in consolidated fashion, but more in an equity income from a joint venture in future years.

Thank you, Jens. And then the final question is, if we could share the delivery schedule for the new-builds in Tankers. Maybe I can just add a comment there.

So we expect the first vessel to be delivered towards the end of this year. It's kind of on the edge of this year or next year, but it gives you an idea on that delivery. And then during the course of 2027, there will be a further additional 9 ships. And then in '28, there will be approximately 3 ships, and then the final one is due for delivery in 2029. So hopefully, good for your models.

That concludes all of the questions. So thank you very much. We'll post a recording of this call on the website tomorrow. Udo, back to you.

Thank you very much for joining us today, and I look forward to talking to you again when we present our results in the first quarter of 2026 in April. We continue to be very excited about the business. We launched our strategy 2.5 years ago. We are executing nicely on the strategy. And I think you can see the benefits for our shareholders, our customers and our people as well. So thanks for all your support, and wish you a nice day.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Stolt-Nielsen's Earnings Call for the Third Quarter of 2025. As always, the earnings release and related materials are available on our website. We will also be recording the session, and playback will be available on the website from tomorrow.

Included in this presentation are various forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and we refer you to our latest annual report for such details.

I'm Alex Ng, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. Joining me today are Udo Lange, CEO; and Jens Gruner-Hegge, our CFO. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session where we will be taking questions from online. [Operator Instructions]

Thank you, and over to you, Udo.

Thanks, Alex. Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us today for our third quarter results. The presentation will follow the usual format. I will begin with an overview of the Group's results for the quarter and share key highlights. Then Jens will cover the financials, before handing back to me to run through the performance of our divisions, our view of the market outlook and a few concluding remarks.

Despite a challenging macro backdrop of ongoing global trade and geopolitical uncertainty, our businesses enjoyed a resilient performance, delivering a quarterly EBITDA of over $190 million and a last 12 months EBITDA above $800 million for the sixth quarter in a row.

The company has delivered consistent performance again this quarter. This has been achieved through the dedication, professionalism and spirit of our 7,000 people around the world working tirelessly in pursuit of being simply the best for our shareholders, customers and people.

Our portfolio also builds in resilience to market fluctuation with 45% of our EBITDA this quarter achieved outside of Stolt Tankers. While Stolt Tankers' EBITDA fell 27% from the same quarter last year, the other areas of our operations delivered an increase in EBITDA of 13%, diluting the impact of softer shipping markets. These results demonstrate that the company is a liquid logistics solutions provider and show the impact of our diversified portfolio.

Last week saw the annual EPCA conference in Berlin. That's the European Petrochemical Association event that brings together some of our largest global petrochemical customers. We met many of our customers and heard from them the challenges they are facing as they navigate the current uncertain market conditions. We also heard directly how our suite of liquid logistics solutions across the supply chain is more relevant than ever. Our value proposition delivering quality, reliability and flexibility is meeting our customers' needs and has supported another resilient quarterly performance.

I want to reiterate the message we first communicated at our Capital Markets Day last year. We are not a shipping business, but a logistics business. To help our investors and analysts, we have focused our commentary on our liquid logistics operations, which contribute nearly 90% of our EBITDA. And so you will notice that we have scaled back our commentary on Stolt Sea Farm and Gas operations.

You may also remember that at the time of our Q2 report in July, we evolved how we communicate our earnings potential, aligning our guidance approach with our business model by providing EBITDA guidance for the full year 2025. Today we have refined our range, with 2025 EBITDA now expected to be in a range of $750 million to $700 million (sic) [ $790 million ]. Of course, this range is based on what we know today, assumes no substantial geopolitical changes and is subject to a number of uncertainties in the current operating environment. As always, we continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet benefiting from robust liquidity and well-spread debt maturities.

Let's now turn the page to review our financial highlights. I've already said we have delivered another consistent result despite a challenging operating environment. Moving along the top row. Operating revenue was down nearly 5% or $33 million, predominantly driven by weaker freight rates and Stolt Tankers. EBITDA before the fair value adjustment was $192 million, down $23.5 million on the record levels from last year.

Operating profit was down year-over-year by $30 million, partly due to the additional depreciation applicable to the HS4 ships and Avenir. Net profit was also down, driven by the same factors, as well as higher interest expenses due to the consolidation of acquisition debt.

Free cash flow was down $77 million year-over-year, driven by higher CapEx, including the NST newbuilding deposits, higher interest expense and sale of 2 vessels in the third quarter last year. Net debt-to-EBITDA has increased to 2.94x as a result of an increase in consolidated debt from HS4 and Avenir.

Over the page, we look at some of the key drivers of performance. Looking at our performance metrics. Average deepsea TCE revenue per operating day for the quarter was just under $25,000, down versus last quarter. This is due -- down versus last year's record highs. This is due to softer sentiment impacting freight rates, particularly in the spot market. However, TCE for the quarter remains at an attractive level versus the long-term cycle average.

Utilization remains on an upward trajectory at Stolthaven Terminals at almost 92%. We expect utilization to be stable over the coming quarters going into 2026.

Gross profit per shipment declined 5% at STC, predominantly driven by lower ocean freight rates and the wait-and-see mode of customers in this complex supply chain environment. Our portfolio continues to demonstrate resilience to market fluctuations as around 45% of EBITDA achieved outside Stolt Tankers is nontanker operations producing a 13% EBITDA growth year-over-year.

That's all from me now. Jens, over to you for the financials.

Thank you, Udo. Good afternoon, everyone, and good morning to those of you joining us from the United States. I will compare the third quarter of 2025 against the third quarter of 2024. And just to remind you, our third quarter runs from June 1 through August 31.

And to reiterate what Udo talked about, the company's performance is resilient, and with the growth in EBITDA contributions from the nontanker segments, we're able to maintain a strong EBITDA at $192 million for the quarter before the fair value adjustment of biomass.

If we move to the next, let's dive into the numbers for this quarter. So the drop in revenue was predominantly driven by tankers reflecting the lower spot rates. This was partly offset by a 6.6% increase in volume following additions to the fleet over the last 12 months. STC's revenue was marginally down, but offset by an equal increase in Stolthaven Terminals.

Operating expenses were down in line with the reduction in revenue, but also due to the acquisition of 100% of Hassel Shipping 4, resulting in the business no longer being accounted for as a JV but being fully consolidated. And this caused the decrease in the TC expense or the pullout expense, and that was partly offset by an increase in owning expenses which forms a big part of their operating expense.

Depreciation expense was also up as a consequence of the consolidation of Avenir and Hassel Shipping 4 as well as due to the capitalization of additional time-charter ships as per IFRS 16. And the equity income from joint ventures was down, driven by the same consolidation of the joint ventures.

So A&G expense was up compared to last year, mostly reflecting annual inflation adjustments as well as a consequence of the weaker U.S. dollar, partly offset by lower profit sharing accruals related to lower net income.

Operating profit for the quarter was $109.4 million, that's down from the $139.3 million, as Udo mentioned. But that was a record quarter last year. And that's driven predominantly by the weaker tanker results. And net interest expense was up $4.9 million due to an increase in net debt following the 2 acquisitions and other capital expenditures.

FX gains on hedges were up, also driven by the weakening of the U.S. dollar. And income tax was up, reflecting the improved earnings in the nontanker businesses.

And consequently, net profit for the quarter ended up at $64 million, with EBITDA of $191.7 million, and this is down from the same period last year and slightly weaker than the previous quarter this year.

So if we move over to the next, we can have a look at the cash flow. So cash from operations was strong this last quarter, almost as high as the peak third quarter of last year. Net cash was down due to an increase in interest payments during the quarter. And note that the cash interest payments differ from the interest expense shown on the previous slide due to the timing of payments, with the first and third quarters normally having higher payments.

Cash spent on capital expenditures was substantially up, reflecting in part increased progress payments on newbuildings and terminal CapEx as well as a reduction in gain on sale of assets as we sold 2 ships in the third quarter of last year. And then during the quarter, we also repaid a net $59.6 million of debt and capital leases.

FX had a minor positive impact on our cash balance as we consequently ended up with an increase in cash from prior quarter of $30.8 million, but a decrease compared to the same quarter last year of about $170 million when we sat on cash in order to effect the acquisition of 100% of Hassel Shipping 4. Also last year, we had just completed the U.S. private placement of $450 million that was concluded during the same quarter last year.

At the bottom right, you see our total liquidity position, which at the end of the third quarter was at $466 million, and that's also slightly up from the last quarter.

So let's have a look at the capital expenditures on the next slide. Capital expenditures during the quarter, you will see total $75 million, in line with the previous quarter, and it brings our total so far this year to $372 million. Remaining for the year, we have approximately $200 million, with $42 million for tankers, reflecting progress payments on newbuildings, $36 million for Stolthaven Terminals, reflecting additional organic growth and maintenance CapEx, $102 million in STC on the purchase of additional tanks and approved expansion of depot capacity, and $20 million for the rest, including progress payments on Avenir's newbuildings program and computer systems development expenditures. So overall for 2025, we now expect to spend around $500 million on capital expenditures.

If we go to the next one, we can have a look at the debt maturities. So this is the debt maturity profile. And that, of course, includes the consolidation of the debt of Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir.

If you look at the balance for '25, there's 3 portions there: $126 million, $83 million and $53 million. We have already repaid during September $126 million as it related to a sale leaseback facility and we have already secured a financing needed to repay the remaining maturing facilities during the fourth quarter, although we may roll forward the $83 million credit line to the next year as we have the option to do.

If you look at the bottom-left graph, the increase in gross debt in the first quarter reflects the consolidation of the Avenir and Hassel Shipping 4 debt. And in the third quarter, we saw a slight decrease. But I would expect this to increase again with the significant capital expenditures we have planned going forward.

The average interest rate remains flat at about 5.6%, and we don't expect any material swings in the average interest rate over the next quarter as the bulk of our debt is fixed.

And then moving over to the next slide, a quick look at the financial KPIs. Our continued steady performance supports our covenants. And the increase in debt and, therefore, net debt to tangible net worth and net debt to EBITDA seen in the previous quarter was due to the acquisition of Hassel Shipping 4 and Avenir, and we have seen it stabilize since.

Debt to tangible net worth is now at 1.01, as you see in the top-left graph, well below our covenant limit of 2.25 and slightly down from the prior quarter as well. With the lower EBITDA for the quarter, the last 12 months EBITDA fell slightly to $814 million, but as Udo mentioned, still well above $800 million.

And EBITDA to interest expense was marginally down at 5.86, as you see in the top right quadrant, due to the increase in interest expense, whilst net debt to EBITDA, which is a key measure of our liquidity position, decreased from 2.96 down to 2.94, so very marginal, really remaining flat. So overall, we are well within compliance on all our covenants.

And with this, I would like to hand it back to Udo for the segmental analysis of our business, our view of the market outlook and a few closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, Jens. I'll now take us through the divisional highlights, and beginning with Stolt Tankers. As I mentioned earlier, tanker markets have softened as elevated supply chain complexity has resulted in softer volumes, which has had a direct impact on spot rates and performance in Stolt Tankers.

Operating revenue saw a decline of 13%. This is predominantly due to a 90% decline in freight rates driven by reduced specialty cargo volume. The rate decline was only partly offset by an increase in operating days due to additions to the fleet over the past 12 months. As usual, Q3 saw seasonally low COA renewals, which year-over-year were at a rate decrease of 14.6% versus the peak last year.

Operating profit was impacted by the decline in revenue as well as an increase in port expenses due to the opening of the Panama Canal. I want to thank Maren and the tankers team for their unwavering efforts to support the customers to navigate this highly complex environment, and they're really doing a great job.

We now look closer at tanker rate development. The Q3 TCE per operating day was just under $25,000 per day, down from $33,355 in the same quarter prior year, which marked the most recent peak in the cycle. As a reminder, we typically fix cargo bookings 30 days in advance of the start of a voyage, with voyages being renewed on a rolling basis, which results in a lag effect of around 90 to 120 days between changes in rates and the full impact on earnings. You can see, for example, on the chart that both TCE peaks lagged versus spot index rate.

Near term, we are not expecting to see signs of the current uncertainty abating. But we are seeing the adjacent MR and [ VL ] markets strengthen into the winter, which should be supportive to the chemical tanker market as we head into the winter contracting period. And we have seen some stabilizing of spot rates.

That said, we are not just a chemical tanker business. We encourage the market to consider our performance across all the areas of our diversified portfolio. And I want to remind you that we have moved to full year EBITDA guidance for the business as a whole.

Stolthaven Terminals positioned as an owner and operator of infrastructure servicing the chemical and energy industry results in stable and steady performance, relatively insulated from the volatility elsewhere. Utilization trended upwards in Q3 and is at 92%, which is expected to be stable over the coming quarters.

EBITDA was flat year-over-year. Whilst revenues increased due to utilization, we saw some impact from inflationary cost increases and higher depreciation. We expect the storage markets to remain stable, notwithstanding market headwinds, which could result in delayed decision-making on tanker rental commitments. I commend Guy and his team. Delivering increased revenue and stable EBITDA performance is an achievement given the market backdrop.

Revenue and EBITDA were slightly down in STC as the impact of the macro environment dampened market demand and transportation rates as customers took a wait-and-see approach to moving products. STC have been working to increase shipment volumes, but this could not fully offset lower gross profit per shipment versus last year. We saw a slightly larger impact on operating profit as higher A&G costs and expenses related to fleet growth contributed to larger decline in operating profit.

Continuously changing trade flows require an agile approach, which suits our global platform well. Stolt Tank Containers will therefore continue its focus on stabilizing margins while maintaining volumes. Despite a challenging environment, Stolt Tank Containers contributes meaningful to the Group's return on investment and aligns with our strategy to leverage our market-leading scalable platform. Big thanks to Hans and his team for the global platform they have built. This helps us to be agile for customers and balance volumes and margins on short notice.

I now want to cover our view of the market and concluding remarks, before we open for Q&A. Despite the ongoing elevated uncertainty, we see market fundamentals that remain well-balanced between supply and demand. In a world of elevated trade flow and supply chain complexity, some weakening sentiment is likely to result in 2025 volumes being flat year-over-year. However, industry expectations for the seaborne chemicals trade continue to be for modest growth in 2026, which could be supported by stability and trade policies. We continue to closely monitor GDP development as we see some macro downside risks based on market indicators and analyst expectations.

On the supply side, MR rates seem to be stabilizing at a level that would typically keep them operating in the CPP market, limiting the potential to swing into our market. In addition, effective October 14, USTR 301 is expected to come into force. Whilst our chemical tanker segment is exempt from the port fees, there will be port-related fees for Chinese-owned tonnage in our segment. Whilst this will not remove supply from the global fleet, we may see some supply impact on U.S.-related trade routes as Chinese owners retrench from that trade.

On the ordering side, we have seen limited growth in the newbuild order book, which has remained stable this quarter at around 18.5% of the global fleet due to the macro environment and high newbuild prices. We expect modest net growth of around 3% into 2026 and continue to closely monitor developments on risk and the resulting impact on rate supply.

One important lever our industry has is the opportunity for asset owners to pull back supply in case of a market downturn. We see around 26% of stainless steel tankers aged 20 years and older in 2027, meaning that a significant percentage of the global fleet could be retired if necessary to manage supply.

To sum up then, I talked to you earlier about how our chemical industry customers are being impacted by market volatility from global trade policies and geopolitics, with the resulting ripple effect into demand for our liquid logistics services. We are hearing from our customers that in the midst of this deep supply chain complexity, they really value our quality, reliability and flexibility.

We are therefore focused on executing our liquid logistics strategy as a compelling value proposition that is even more important in these uncertain times. We are pursuing targeted investments, planning to spend some $500 million in 2025, positioning the business for long-term growth and making our liquid logistics solutions even more relevant for the future.

This would not be possible without a strong balance sheet, and we will continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet with significant flexibility. Finally, despite the uncertain conditions, our business portfolio supports a steady EBITDA performance, achieving over $190 million this quarter. And we expect the full year EBITDA to fall within a range of between $750 million and $790 million.

So to summarize, we are well positioned for the long term with the right people, the right strategy and a robust balance sheet to support the targeted investments that will facilitate our future growth. Thank you for your attention, and I will now pass you back to Alex for Q&A.

Thank you, Udo. [Operator Instructions]

So our first question is for you, Jens, and it relates to EBITDA guidance. Your full year EBITDA guidance now implies a rather large range, between $160 million and $200 million. Could you shed some light on what the key uncertainties are here?

Thank you very much, Alex. And thank you for your question. It's a good question. I'll first like to reiterate what we have talked about the resilient business model that we do have, which is really building on multiple legs that we have to stand on. And we expect that that will help us as we go into what continues to be an uncertain environment.

Udo has already touched on a number of the aspects where we are sort of building in, call it, a little bit of room for the uncertainty. We mentioned the MR market and the development of that. And our financial performance could be impacted by swing tonnage, really dependent on what we see as in terms of MR market development.

We have talked about the USTR, and we think we're in a very good position there now because our entire fleet is compliant with USTR, and that means we can trade in and out of the United States without incurring any fees. But you have other operators who are not in such a position, and therefore, we could see volatility in other areas and other trades not related to the U.S.

And then we have talked about the tariffs. There's still a lot of uncertainty around tariffs with U.S. recently announcing a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports and Indian imports and China retaliating. And we feel that it's warranted to have a little bit of a headroom for those kind of uncertainties.

Just like to remind you that when we talk about sort of the volatility in net profit or in EBITDA related to a swing in time-charter equivalent, typically, we have said that a $1,000 swing in TCE related earnings equates to about $6 million to $7 million in EBITDA. So that's for you to keep in mind when you look at -- do your own sensitivity testing.

Thank you, Jens. A question for you, Udo, again, relating to trade policies. Do you expect any positive effects from the tariffs in the longer term?

So of course, this has puts and takes. So at the end, if you look at our business, in particular, when it comes to the tankers, that probably you have the biggest impact, it's all about ton-mileage growth. And so depending on where the tariffs are on which products, but then also what that may open up as other trading opportunities, this can also fall into the positive way. So it really depends what are the specific tariffs, what is then the impact on that trade, and is there then an attractive alternative trade which potentially could even drive more ton-mileage growth? So it's really the devil is in the detail on this one.

Thanks, Udo. And next question relates to CapEx, so one for you, Jens. I'll just combine a couple of questions. But the first element is, we've noticed an increase in CapEx for the end of the quarter for 2025, particularly in relation to STC. Could you provide some insight into what types of projects they are and when they could be expected to improve earnings there?

So related to the STC CapEx, sort of consistent with our ongoing desire to build on that scalable platform that STC has built by increasing our tank size, our number of tanks as well as expanding on our depot capacity. So this is consistent with our strategy.

I'm sorry, Alex, the other -- when we expect to get the -- well, the nice thing about investing in tank containers is that typically the lead time is significantly shorter than it is when you invest in the more longer-term, capital-intensive businesses like tankers, terminals, et cetera. So what we are spending now, you will start seeing the benefit of in 2026.

Thank you, Jens. And then a follow-on from CapEx. Could you elaborate on what the CapEx spends are in 2026? And how is it phased throughout the year?

Absolutely. Again, thank you for the question. So there's 3 big buckets for 2026. It's tankers, it's terminals and it's what we have grouped under corporate.

For tankers, the bulk of it, say, 80%, 90% of it is related to the newbuilding program that we have, so that's about $120 million of the total and a little bit to be spent on barges. For terminals, about $80 million relates to our ongoing investments at our Houston and New Orleans terminals, the organic growth that we have previously announced there, that will come on in 2026. And the rest is sort of steady maintenance CapEx that we have ongoing every year.

And then for corporate, you can split sort of 80% with Avenir and 40% related to Stolt Sea Farm. For Avenir, it's related to our newbuilding program there.

We have a question on the USTR and managing uncertainties around the enforcement of this. Do we have any exposure in relation to the Chinese built, owned or operated vessels? A question for you, Jens.

Can you please repeat the question?

Yes. It's relating to the U.S. restrictions around Chinese-built vessels. Do we have any exposures there?

Sorry. As I mentioned in the previous question, we have made sure that we have no Chinese-owned ships in our fleet. And therefore, we are at full liberty to trade in and out of the U.S. without any additional port charges.

I just want to add there and really applaud the teams. So a particular big shout out to Maren and Bjarke from the tanker side, and then Nick, our General Counsel, and then Jens and the team as well. Because I think 2 key things that we have done extremely well is, one, really advocating the position on with our customers as well as with the administration in the U.S., which was key for getting the exemption. But then really, Jens and the team looking at where do we have any exposure from a financing side and then cost-correcting there as well.

So we can proudly say at this point in time, thanks to the agile leadership of the team, there's zero exposure for Stolt-Nielsen on USTR when it gets into effect.

Next question is in relation to Stolt Sea Farm and the performance there. So one for you, Jens. There appears to be a large fair value adjustment in that segment. Can you explain what it's in relation to? And any other comments around the strong performance and how that's being driven in Stolt Sea Farm?

So dealing with the fair value, as those of you who have followed us for a while will know that that's always something that fluctuates up and down. It's more noise than anything going through our results, which is why we also report our EBITDA excluding the fair value effects when we talk to you in these presentations. The magnitude of it is -- was between $6 million and $7 million this year, but there is a negative one in the prior, the same quarter last year, which is why it causes a big swing.

And the driver of results at Stolt Sea Farm is similar to what we talked about before, it's volume and price-driven and really a sound operation that we have built there. But normally -- so we changed to not talk about it because it is very small in comparison to the overall balance sheet. If you look at Stolt Sea Farm, this comprises less than 10% of the asset base. I think it's actually down to around 3% to 4%, Alex. So that's why we have now elected to really focus on what truly drives the results of the Group, and that is our logistics businesses.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Next one is relating to the debt profile. Can you give more insight on that $93 million debt repayment during the quarter? Was it primarily paydown or early repayments? If you can remark on that.

Yes. So some of it was early repayments related to ships that we previously had on sale leaseback. And that's partly also what -- that's partly what has allowed us to now sit with a fleet that is non-Chinese owned. And in conjunction with that, we have also taken on a few additional refinancings to help position the company for '26 and the capital expenditures that will come in the future, putting us in a very good liquidity position.

But our debt balance, as you have seen, then continues to evolve with every quarter. And that is so that we can make sure that we get the best rate structure and the best profile structure for our asset base as we move forward.

And the final question that we have on the list is, can you provide any guidance in relation to dividends expectations for -- payout for the year? For Jens.

No, the dividends are really something that is determined by the Board and determined by -- eventually approved by the Annual General Meeting. They take into consideration our financial -- the markets that we operate in, our financial position, our commitments going forward. And this is a holistic evaluation that the Board makes. So beyond that, I think all we say is we've typically been rather steady in what we have been doing, but those are considerations for the Board to make and not for me to comment on.

Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. That completes our questions. We'll post a recording of the call on our website tomorrow. Udo, back to you.

Yes, thank you for joining us today. I look forward to talking to you again when we present our results for the full year. Again, thank you, and I wish you all a great day.