Orkla As A S/Adr (ORKLY) Q1 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of Orkla's first quarter results. My name is Annie Bursagel, and I'm the head of Investor Relations and Communications. So due to previously planned travel, our president and CEO, Neil Selta, is unable to join us this morning. So instead, EVP and CFO, Arvind A. Gawande, will be holding the presentation today. So after his presentation, we're going to be holding a video Q&A with our analyst community. And after that, we'll be opening up for questions from the web. So during the presentation, you are all welcome to send in questions via a web link. And this is open for everybody. And we'll take those after the video Q&A with the analysts. So with that underway, I'll leave the floor to you now, Arve. Thank you, Anne. And good morning to everyone. or close development for the quarter remained solid. Our portfolio companies continued to deliver according to the targets communicated at the Capital Markets Day in November 23. At the same time, isolated elements in the individual portfolio companies affected the comparison year over year, both positively and negatively, as I will outline later in the presentation. It lost positive results overall, underlying the benefits of a diversified portfolio. Organic growth was 1.2% for the quarter, mainly from price increases for the consolidated portfolio companies. Underlying EBITDA just growth was 7.6%, with a margin improvement of 60 basis points year over year. Profit before tax increased 28% year-over-year to 2.2 billion. And adjusted earnings per share improved by 19% to NOK 1.68. We continued to simplify the portfolio and closed the divestment of Pierre Robert Group in March and the hydropower portfolio in April. Lastly, given the current geopolitical situation, we have done a thor...