AKVA sees revenue and profits up for first quarter

Aquaculture technology group AKVA has reported revenue for Q1 of 2022 up 18% year on year to NOK 849m (£70.7m) and earnings up 23% to NOK 103m (£8.6m), excluding the cost of the cyber-attack the company suffered at the start of 2021.

Net profits for Q1 were up from NOK 14m (£1.2m) in Q1 of 2021 to NOK 40m (£3.3m) in Q1 of this year, also excluding cyber-attack costs.

The company said, however: “During Q4 2021 AKVA group experienced challenging profit margins due to cost inflations and global supply chain restrictions. This has been further intensified in Q1 2022 due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.”

AKVA estimates that supply chain restrictions and cost inflation amounted to NOK 30m (£2.5m) for the most recent quarter.

The group made a one-off profit of NOK 33m (£2.7m) from the sale of its shares in Atlantis Subsea Farming AS to joint venture partner SinkabergHansen, which was completed in Q1 2022.

The results from the group’s segments were:

• Sea Based Technology (SBT) revenue for Q1 2022 ended at NOK 676m (£56.3m) (2021: NOK 590m [£49.1m]). EBITDA and EBIT for the segment in Q1 ended at NOK 94m (£7.8m) (2021: NOK 69m [£5.7m]) and NOK 58m (£4.8m) (2021: NOK 27m [£2.2m]), respectively. Order intake in Q1 2022 was NOK 759m (£63.2m) compared to NOK 569 (£47.3m) in Q1 2021. SBT saw revenue growth in all regions except Europe and the Middle East, which reported a decline of just over 7%.
• Land Based Technology (LBT) revenues for the first quarter were NOK 151m (£12.6m) (2021: NOK 115m [£9.6m]). EBITDA was NOK 4m (£333,137) (2021: NOK 9m [£749,662]) and EBIT was NOK 0 (2021: NOK 7m [£583,187]). Order intake in Q1 2022 was NOK 254m (£21.2m) compared to NOK 69m (£5.7m) in Q1 2021.
• For the Digital segment, revenue in the segment was NOK 21m (£1.7m) compared with NOK 14m (£1.2m) in Q1 of 2021. EBITDA and EBIT ended at NOK 4 (£333,047) (2021: NOK 5m [£416,138) and NOK 0 (2021: NOK 2m (£166,406), respectively.

Sea Based Technology continues to report higher margins, with an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) margin of 13.9% compared with 2.8% for Land Based Technology.

The company concluded: “The order backlog and the financial profile remains strong and forms a good foundation to execute on the organic growth strategy.

“Long term fundamentals remain unchanged as presented in the Capital Markets Day in November 2020. On the other hand, the global instability and uncertainty related to supply chain restrictions and cost inflations may continue to impact the profitability on short term.”