MHGVY - Mowi ASA (MHGVY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-02-14 13:49:09 ET

Mowi ASA (MHGVY)

Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call

February 14, 2024 2:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Ivan Vindheim – Chief Executive Officer

Kristian Ellingsen – Chief Financial Officer

Kim Dosvig – Investor Relations Officer

Conference Call Participants

Wilhelm Røe – Danske Bank

Presentation

Ivan Vindheim

[Video Presentation]

So there is an opening vignette. It's, of course, a particular pleasure for me this time around to wish you all both in the room and online. Welcome to the presentation of Mowi's Fourth Quarter Results of 2023. As you just saw, 60 years after our humble beginnings in a closed-off bay outside Bergen, where we have our head office. My name is Ivan Vindheim, and I'm the CEO of Mowi and together with our CFO, Kristian Ellingsen. I will walk you through our operations, financial figures and fundamentals for the quarter. And after the presentation, our IRO, Kim Dosvig will routinely host a Q&A session. For those of you who are following the presentation online, can submit your questions or comments in advance, or as we go along by e-mail. Please refer to our website at mowi.com for necessary details.

Disclaimer, I think we leave for a self-study. So then we are ready for the highlights of the quarter. The release of the fourth quarter results also means it's time to take stock of the year we have just left behind us. And by extension, I don't think I can think of a better way to start off Mowi's 60 year's jubilee than rounding off another record-breaking year because turnover of €5.5 billion or NOK63 billion is all-time high and so is our operation profit of €1,028 million or NOK11.7 billion. And our harvest volumes of 475,000 tons are also record high, although I think it's fair to say that we lost some speed on the home stretch in Scotland due to biological issues there. And we maintained our farming volume guidance for this year of record high 500,000 tons, which is a milestone for us as it will be the first time in Mowi's 60 year's history, we crossed the magic 500,000 tons mark and – which means we have grown our farming volumes as we [Audio Dip] years, which is equivalent to a CAGR of 4.9%, but that's surpassing that of the wider industry by a large margin.

Speaking of growth, as you may remember, at the Capital Markets Day in March 2021, we launched a venture into postsmolt in Mowi from which we are only now at last beginning to reap the fruits because by close of play this year, almost 40 million smolts or a quarter of smolt produced in Mowi will be postsmolt, which I think makes us the largest postsmolt producer in the world from a range of negligible 1 to 30. So this marks a new era for us, and then hopefully it provides the basis for continued organic growth in Mowi Farming in the coming years in addition to improved biological and financial metrics.

Otherwise, it's not only Mowi Farming that is growing, our two other divisions, Consumer Products, which is our downstream business and Feed, they both delivered volumes at record high levels last year, which resulted in record high turnover and profit for daypart. As we said repeatedly, at Mowi we are working along three main pillars, which are volume growth, cost and sustainability. So we are now true to tradition, some of the years we have just left behind us, I think in all fairness can say we have delivered on all three of them. Because in addition to volume growth, we have also been competitive on margins and that despite our major currency handicap last year by virtue of being a euro company in the wake of the unprecedented weakening of the NOK, which cost us as much as €133 million last year of NOK1.5 billion.

And finally, we continue to win sustainability awards, of which being ranked as the world's most sustainable animal protein producer by the prestigious Coller FAIRR initiative for the fifth consecutive year is perhaps the one that stands out and we value most internally. So once again, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my 11,500 colleagues in the 26 countries that we operate for invaluable efforts in making this happen. It's, of course, much appreciated....

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