CMB.TECH Q2 2025 Earnings Report

CMB.TECH EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.04
• Consensus EPS: $0.14
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.10
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

CMB.TECH Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $387.81 million
• Expected Revenue: $259.00 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$128.81 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

CMB.TECH Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 8/28/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 28, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

Euronav NV, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the transportation and storage of crude oil worldwide. The company offers floating, storage, and offloading (FSO) services. It also owns and operates a fleet of vessels. The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium. As of March 15, 2024, Euronav NV operates as subsidiary of CMB NV.

CMB.TECH Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Completed the CMB Tech and Golden Ocean merger on August 20 to form a leading diversified maritime group with a market cap > $2 billion and listings on NYSE, Euronext Brussels and Oslo.
• Positive Sentiment: Combined fleet now at 206 modern eco vessels (average age < 6 years) valued near $11 billion, with 44 ships on order and ~1/3 ammonia-/hydrogen-capable, enhancing decarbonization optionality.
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported a blended Q2 loss of $7.6 million (including $22 million FX/swaps and one-off costs) but generated €224 million EBITDA, held ~$400 million liquidity and declared a €0.05/share interim dividend.
• Negative Sentiment: Holds €1.86 billion in total CapEx commitments, of which €270 million remains unfunded, requiring funding via operational cash flow or vessel sales through 2029.
• Neutral Sentiment: Maintains a positive market outlook for tankers and dry bulk, stays cautious on containers and chemical tankers, and sees robust demand in its offshore wind and CTV divisions.

Presentation

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Good afternoon and welcome to the CMB Tech Earnings Release for the Second Quarter of this year. My name is Alexander Savariz, and I'm joined by my colleagues Ludovic, Joris and Emia. We would like to discuss the CMB Tech and Golden Ocean merger first to start, that is the news of last week. Then we will zoom in on the second quarter financials and highlights, conclude and have time for some questions and answers. Let me first start with the news of last week.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

On the August 20, we have completed the CMB Tech and Golden Ocean merger to create a leading diversified maritime group. For those of you who have followed us before, you will recognize this slide, but I do want to take you through the combined Golden Ocean CMB Tech fleet. We have today two zero six modern eco vessels on the water with another 44 on order. Of our two fifty ships, about one third will be powered or will be capable to be powered by ammonia and hydrogen. Our contract backlog stands at close to $3,000,000,000 and the average age of our fleet is a tick under six years.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

The total fair market value of the fleet is close to $11,000,000,000 We have $1,900,000,000 of CapEx commitments still outstanding. We are listed on NYC in New York, Euronext Brussels, and since last week as well on the Oslo Burrs. You can see the detailed breakdown of our fleet at the bottom of the slide with the major change being that Bossimar now has incorporated the fleet of Golden Ocean. We have added 89 vessels to the fleet. Our dryboat division now has 119 ships.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

After the merger with Golden Ocean, we are the largest listed diversified maritime group. You can see the comparison to some of our peers, the pure play peers and the more diversified peers. We have a market cap of over $2,000,000,000 Our free float is now a significant 38%. And recently, we have had a €3,500,000 turnover in shares, average daily turnover. Looking at our fleet and how it will evolve in the next quarters, we are adding new buildings nearly every month, every week.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

You can see that today, our fleet stands at two zero six ships. End of the fourth quarter twenty twenty five, we will be at two eighteen vessels, and we will add another 23 ships next year. So our fleet is growing and growing rapidly. Translated to available days, this is also an updated sheet after the integration of Golden Ocean into CMB Tech. You can see that we have about fifty four thousand days in 2025 going to sixty thousand days next year.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And you can also see the detailed breakdown between the different segments. The dry bulk division, Boscimar, has become our largest division. And what we are showing on this slide as well is the split between our spot days and time charter days. You can see that in our divisions, containers and chemical tankers, we are very well covered on the time charter side. And on dry bulk and tankers, crude oil tankers, we are very much spot oriented.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

The reason we're doing that has to do with many things, but primarily on our view on how we see the market in the next twelve to twenty four months. On the right side of this slide, you can see the order book to fleet ratio in segments like dry bulk and tankers where we see a low order book to fleet ratio. We're expecting better rates. We are more spot oriented. In segments where we believe there might be some oversupply in the months and years to come, we have taken more cover on the time charter side.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

I would like to hand over to our CFO, Ludovic, to talk a little bit about the financials and starting with the free cash flow of CMB Tech.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

Yes. Thanks, Alex. This slide is trying to show in connection with the operational strategy of being open on dry bulk and tankers, what the hypothetical one year free cash flow could be operationally. This is excluding the remaining CapEx to be paid, excluding the cash received from vessel sales. On the bottom right, we've made some assumptions.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

This is by no means a pure science, but we have presented three cases where you can see that all throughout the various segments, we would generate in a bare case, loss of €35,000,000 cash, a medium case €170,000,000 cash and on the upside €380,000,000 Just to highlight the bull case, the high case we're showing here is actually the market today. So, if the market would continue in the current state with our spot exposure, we would add roughly $380,000,000 of free cash in the next twelve months. Going then through an update of the contract backlog, we have stayed at roughly $2,900,000,000 compared to last quarter. This is thanks to the additional long term charges we have received from Golden Ocean, primarily on Camsamaxes and six Capesizes that they originally had in their fleets. Moving then to the financials of Q2.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

We have ended the quarter of this year with a loss of $7,500,000 which is $7,700,000 profit for the old CMB Tech and a $50,000,000 loss on the Golden Ocean exposure. The liquidity stands at roughly $400,000,000 as of today. The contract backlog we've discussed, the outstanding CapEx of $1,860,000,000 that is from August forward till the end, from which €1,600,000,000 we have already committed financing and $270,000,000 is unfunded. So when people ask on this big order book, how much will we need to use from operational cash flow or vessel sales? The answer is €270,000,000 which is broken down €30,000,000 remaining in this year of unfunded equity, 170,000,000 next year and then €70,000,000 in 2027, 2028 and 2029.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

If we focus a little bit more on the Q2 figures, on the left side, we show that our figures have indicated a higher revenue, higher OpEx, higher G and A and also higher depreciation. This is by the mere fact of putting the two companies together. On the right side, we are indicating that the figures have been impacted by some one offs. I think there was $22,000,000 on unrealized foreign exchange losses and interest rate swaps. We've had a loss on the sale of the Golden Zushan.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then obviously, when we merge, there's costs associated to audit, legal fees and financial advisories that have brought down the P and L in the second quarter. And on the highlights, we've mentioned the loss of €7,600,000 and EBITDA of €224,000,000 We've completed the merger, as Alex mentioned. The Board has decided to issue a dividend for the Q2 figures of €05 which will be payable as soon as practically possible beginning October. The contract backlog we have discussed. We have signed in the combined entity a new $2,000,000,000 facility from which $1,250,000,000 has been used to refinance the whole fleet of Golden Ocean, and we have $750,000,000 of undrawn revolvers that we can use for repaying some of the other debts. We are listed on three exchanges, which we're pretty proud to be a member of the OZO Stock Exchange as well. The deliveries of the newbuildings have continued to unabated. We have five Newcastle Maxes, one CSOV and two CPVs actually six Newcastle Maxes, apologies. The VLCC Iris has been sold.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

The Hakata and Hakone have been delivered to their new owners. I'm happy to report as well that we have sold the Sofia recently, where we will log a capital gain of $20,400,000 in the last quarter of this year. And the Golden Ocean team has delivered two CAMSAR MAXs and one Capesizes to their new owners last quarter and in the next quarter. This is, again, what we mentioned, whereas, ProMemory, you can see the P and L breakeven, etcetera, the divisions and what we have fixed on the quarter to date, but Alex will jump in those figures at a later stage.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Thank you very much. I will now zoom in on our Marine division and segment by segment to talk about a market update and what has happened in our various divisions. Starting with Euronav on the crude oil front, the picture you see here is our very first VLCC being built at Qingdao Beihai Shipyard in China, being launched. We will take delivery of the vessel in November. Starting with some highlights, some of which have already been mentioned.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Just reminding you that we have 10 VLCCs and 18 Suezmaxes on the water today. We have another five VLCCs on order and two Suezmaxes. The results time charter equivalent for the second quarter for our sat at $45,000 Q3 quarter to date, we are at $32,000 For the Suezmaxes, the number is 40,000 for Q2 and also 40,000 for Q3 to date. We have sold, as Ludwig just mentioned, four vessels. The Iris Hakata Hakone has been delivered to the new owners and the Sofia will deliver in the fourth quarter of this year.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

You can see our OpEx P and L breakevens on the right side of this slide. We also like to point out to some important indicators for the market. You can see on the right side of the slide that there are some indicators on the demand side that are positive in green, like world oil demand, which is growing slightly, supply from OPEC and non OPEC countries, OECD crude oil stocks, and then definitely the tanker fleet, which definitely in the short term is only going to grow by a very small amount. There are some negatives on U. S.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Crude oil exports, China oil imports and then the global crude oil floating storage, which are all down. Looking at the midterm tanker markets, I'd like to talk about the supply of oil and the supply of ships. Starting on this slide with the supply of oil. You have all been following the OPEC plus cuts since 2022. They started off with cutting 2,000,000 barrels per day, then 1,600,000 barrels per day, and then the last one was 2,200,000 barrels per day.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

In recent months, this has been turned around, and we are expecting by October that this voluntary second cut of 2,200,000 barrels will be totally reversed. If that happens as per plan, and we are seeing some signs already of increased volumes, this will obviously be positive for the tanker markets, more oil coming out, more oil on VLCCs should support our markets. Looking forward to the next couple of years, if we take the IEA forecasts, you will see that the gap between supply and demand will be in favor of supply. So there will be more oil. More oil means more storage.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

More oil should mean also lower prices, which could be very supportive for our tanker markets. If we're looking at the vessel side, so the supply side of the ships, it's becoming a bit of a mixed story, whereas the last two, three years, we didn't see any new building orders for crude oil tankers and the order book was very low. We have seen an uptick in the order book over the last six months, also a little bit last year. And the Suezmax order book to fleet now stands at 19%, the VLCC order book to fleet at 14%. In the short term, we still see that there's very few ships coming to the market.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

But as from the second half of next year, we will see a pickup and more vessels coming to the market. That contrasts a bit with a more fundamental analysis of the age of the fleet and the scrapping and recycling potential. When we look at the age of the fleet by 02/1930, 40% of VLCCs and 40% of existing Suezmaxes will be older than twenty years. So there's a lot of potential to scrap and recycle vessels. So it will be interesting to see in the next couple of months on how the slightly increased order book will match with potential recycling and whether that will be in balance.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Of course, we need to talk about dry bulk as well. Bossimar, our dry bulk division has become our biggest division. The picture you see on this slide is not a picture of a ship, but a picture of the very first ammonia engine that will be installed on one of our Newcastle MAXs beginning of next year. So in Bossimar, we've split it for this quarter in two between CMB Tech and Golden Ocean because it was, of course, a transition quarter. On the CMB Tech side, we have 17 Supereco Newcastle MAXs on the water, another 11 that needs to deliver.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We achieved a time charter equivalent through our fleet of $23,000 net, And Q3 TCE to date stands at $28,000 net. On the Golden Ocean side, we're talking about 89 vessels on the water. It's 18 Nukes, 41 Capes and the rest are Kazamaks and Panamaxes. We achieved in second quarter for the Newcastle MAXs $18,500 a day. Q3 to date sits at $23,500 And for the Kazamaks and Panamaxes, the number is $10,500 and $13,500 Golden Ocean sold three vessels recently, the Golden Keene and Golden Yunari, as Ludovic said already, were delivered to their new owners and the Golden Zushan will deliver in Q4.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Indicators on dry bulk on the right side of the slide, a lot of green indicators. On the demand side, we see the China steel mill utilization, which is good. Steel inventories have come off tremendously, which is usually a good sign for extra demand. Iron ore inventories are down as well. Iron ore imports, on the other hand, are starting to increase.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then Brazil and Australia, and I'll talk about that in a second, exports of iron ore are also up. The only negative, and then specifically for China, is that the coal imports are down by 8%. Fleet supply, we are looking at a number of fleet increasing Looking at the long term dry bulk market attractiveness, you can see on the supply side, the left side of the slide, that we are way below historical averages in terms of deliveries today, but also in the next couple of years. Average age of the fleet is high, we're at close to twelve years.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Order book of 9.4% is low. And when we look at the fleet composition, you see that there are already 113 Capes that are older than twenty years. Another 500 will turn twenty years in five years from now versus 150 Capes on orders. So this is all very supportive. There are some extra elements that are supporting the supply story.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

One is that 500 Capes need to dry dock in 'twenty five, 'twenty six and 'twenty seven. That's basically, on an annualized basis, 2% of capacity that is taken out of the markets in these years. And then a recurring theme, the environmental legislation, which is becoming more stringent, will definitely impact Capesize and new customer speed and availability. When we look at the demand side, we see that iron ore in China, domestically, the production is going down, meaning that the Chinese are importing more iron ore. We see extra supply of iron ore coming on stream in areas in Australia, Brazil and of course, Guinea, which we have discussed in previous calls already, with an iron ore price, which is still very much supported.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

So if we look at that, there is still a positive sentiment for the global mining of iron ore. Adding to the demand side, we have the bauxite story, and I have a slide on that in a second, and also the grain, which are positive and show very healthy growth numbers. Here you see a slide on the Brazilian iron ore trade. What we wanted to highlight here is showing that the seasonality with the bad weather, of course, always impacts iron ore exports out of the Atlantic. But now that the bad weather should be behind us, we will see an uptick in iron ore volumes coming out of Brazil.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Even with the bad weather, we did see numbers that are at five year highs. So that's definitely supporting our markets. Same thing can be said on the Pacific iron ore. We have shown some more data on specific producers like BHP and FNG. When we look at what they have already produced and what they have as targets for the year, this should definitely be supportive for our market and has already supported the market in recent months, as you have seen with rates increasing.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then on Gimi, I think this will definitely be a theme that we will discuss in every quarterly call, because we had the bauxite trade, which was already very important for the Capesize and Newcastle Max market. And we will add to that hopefully end of this year and definitely next year, all the iron ore volumes coming from Simandou. So, also very supportive. And this, as you know, from a ton mile perspective, is definitely supportive for the Capesize story. Coal and grain, so negative on coal, positive on grain.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

You can see that the stock inventories in China are at record highs for the last five years. The Chinese are producing more coal domestically, also more coal coming from Mongolia. And so there's less Chinese coal being imported as we speak today. The story globally is a little bit more positive. But overall, coal trade, seaborne coal this year will have a contraction.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

On the grain trade, we are seeing positive numbers. And even though technically it does not affect our Capes and Newcastle MAXs directly, it does affect them indirectly through the Kazamaks and Panamax markets. And of course, very important for our Kazamaks and Panamaxes that we have from Golden Ocean. I want to move to the container division. Not a lot to be said on the container division in terms of the activities of Delphys because, as you know, our fleet is fully fixed.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We are waiting for the delivery of one more new building next year in July. What I can say about the market is that we see a clear softening trend on the spot freight rates, even though the time charter market is still very well supported. What we like a little bit less about the container market is the high order book, but that doesn't mean that we will not look at new projects with some of our close customers because there is still demand for certain sizes, specifically the feeder sizes. On the chemical tanker side, we have a fleet today of six vessels on the water. We have another two chemical tankers delivering to us in the next couple of weeks and months.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then in 2026, we take delivery of two bitumen tankers. And in 'twenty eight and 'twenty nine, we will take delivery of our ready and ammonia fitted chemical tankers with our long term time charters. As you know, most of our chemical tankers are fixed long term. We have only two ships that are operating on the spot market through the pool. And you can see the results in the pool in the second quarter were very satisfactory.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We're at $22,000 The number you see for the third quarter was for the month of July. But meanwhile, rates have been ticking up a little bit higher. So we're expecting Q3 to come in higher than that number. The big elements on the chemical tanker markets will be what the MRs will do and how the MR and chemical tanker markets will relate to each other. Ending with our offshore wind division and WindCat, you see a beautiful picture of our WindCat Rotterdam.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

For some of you who are dialing in who were in Singapore yesterday, we have officially introduced and presented the WindCat Rotterdam to the broader public. That is our very first COV on the water with another five to come. Activities in Windcat, we have 56 CTVs on the water, another seven are on order. Our CISO visa, I just said, we have one delivered and five that are coming. We see the market on offshore wind, oil and gas as healthy.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We haven't seen the typical decline towards the end of the summer. The market is still very much okay as we speak. Our utilizations were very good. And you can see the numbers that we have achieved both on time charters and what our breakeven rates are. On the CSOVs, we are seeing interest both from offshore wind projects, but also of oil and gas projects that needs goods and modern vessels to support their operations, and we are expecting these trends to continue in the following months.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

This is a summary.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We are positive on tankers and dry bulk. This is also where our biggest spot exposure stands. We are cautious. That has not changed compared to the last quarter on containers and chemicals. That does not mean that we will not look at projects, but we will make sure that these projects then are secured with time charters.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then on offshore wind, we are still very positive. There's still a lot of capacity being built. We see healthy demand in that market. To conclude, we discussed our numbers. Our loss in the second quarter, the blended loss between CMBTech and Golden Ocean was $7,600,000 very important and very happy and satisfied that we could complete the Golden Ocean merger last week.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We have all three listings, so very happy that we now have more and more reason to go to Oslo. And we have declared an interim dividend of €05 Our portfolio stands, as you know, with our contract backlog, with our modern fleet, and very important with our decarbonization optionality, providing additional upside potential for our earnings. Looking ahead, we are positive for tankers and dry. We have our long term contracts and future proof tonnage that is gaining further traction. And then on the chemical and container markets, as you know, we have covered most of our exposure.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

We've added a slide with our newbuild delivery fleet list, 44 or 45 vessels with all the delivery dates. You can go through that at your leisure, but it's still a significant fleet to be delivered in the following quarters. And with that, I would like to end this part and hand it over to Inja for the Q and A.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

Yes. Thank you, Alexandre. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand. Maybe you can be asked to introduce yourself and unmute before asking your question. If you can't unmute, you can also use the Q and A section to ask your question.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

If you are dialing in with a telephone, then you can type 5 to raise your hand and 6 to unmute. And if you still have any follow-up questions, you can always send an e mail to Joris with his contact details on the slides. Then we will now open the floor for questions. I see Evan wants to ask a question. You can now unmute and ask your question, please.

[Analyst]

Thank you. So Evan Goldsgaard, Trucks and Securities. So starting with the dividend, I think someone was quite surprised that you're reinitiating dividends. So how should we interpret that dividend payment? Is it primarily intended to satisfy the Golden Ocean shareholders? Or is it something that we could see more of in the next coming quarters, like a recurring dividend of $05 per share?

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

Thanks, Evan. I'll take that question, Alex. I think this is the Board has decided that we wanted to pay dividends. We will do that every quarter, analyze basically our balance sheets, our P and L, our cash flow needs, and then decide how we can reward our shareholders or also continue to invest in new buildings or other opportunities. So it is not that we have now a fixed €05 payout initiated.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

We have a full discretionary policy. But as previously said on earnings calls, we like dividends. We have paid them quite a lot in the previous quarters. And now we believe after the merger that we can pay this $05 dividends for the Q2 results.

[Analyst]

Okay, thanks. Over to more of a strategic question. So you've finished the Golden Ocean merger. So what do you think will be the focus for the company in the next few quarters because you've gotten a large tanker fleet and a dry bulk fleet? Are there other any of the other segments that are looking to do some things about?

[Analyst]

Or is it just business as usual, selling assets and ordering new ones if you find great opportunities?

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Well, it's going to be indeed business as usual. We have five divisions that we like a lot. If we see opportunities in the five divisions, we will take them. Of course, the focus will also be to integrate this fleet properly. A lot of work needs to be done now operationally, technically, making sure that all our platforms can be put together.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

But even with the size that we have and the scope that we have, if there are any good large opportunities that we see, we will definitely investigate it.

[Analyst]

Okay. Thank you. That's all for me.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

Then moving on to Christophe You may now unmute and ask your question, please.

[Kristof Samoy, Associate Director Equity Research at KBC Securities]

Yeah. Good afternoon. Christoph Sama, KBC Securities. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe first for Ludovic.

[Kristof Samoy, Associate Director Equity Research at KBC Securities]

Is there something you can share, some more detail you can share regarding the timing of the ongoing refinancing post merger with Golden Ocean. Any insights there you could share regarding target LTVs and potential change covenant structure? And then the second question maybe for Alexander. What's your take? How do you gauge The U.

[Kristof Samoy, Associate Director Equity Research at KBC Securities]

S. Presidential action against the expected stricter greenhouse gas rules of the IMO? And do you see already impacts on your pipeline for potential long term charter conclusions, in particular for drybulk? And then finally, on SG and A, could you give like a normal quarterly run rate excluding dealer merger fees going forward for the pro form a group? Thank you.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

Yes. Great. Thanks, Christophe. I'll start with the refinancing. So we have refinanced the whole Golden Ocean fleets.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

We had refinanced the former tanker fleet when we did the last M and A on Euronav. All the new building files and the modern vessels, we have roughly eight to 10 facilities on bilateral club deals, smaller sizes. So all of these have been concluded. And as I mentioned, on the remaining CapEx of the 1.86 actually €1,600,000,000 has been signed or is being implemented on the ships. So the heavy lifting on the financing and the refinancing of our fleet has been done.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

So that is good. We have aligned a new set of covenants together with our banks, where we are stepping away from the book equity on total assets, which was relatively sharp, as you've seen in the last earnings releases, to a value adjusted equity. So, that has been implemented already throughout all the facilities, except for the Norwegian bonds for the moment. That is on the financings. We're all set there.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

On the SG and A, just to pick up on the last question you asked to Alexander. Obviously, our SG and A has grown by the growth of the sheer size of the company. But there is obviously some exceptional costs that we have had with the prolonged M and A activity in the last three years due to legal fees, financial advisory fees, refinancing fees as well play in there. To give an actual run rate, the only sensible question answer I can give is it's going be lower than what we see today in the second quarter. But as Alex mentioned, let us take the time now in the next six months to put all the platforms together, not just run them operationally as a well run platform, sorry, but also see where we can optimize the costs on SG and A.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And then on President Trump, thank you very much, Christophe, for asking easy questions. Look, you read in the press, what I read is that apparently U. S. Interests will try to pressure people to vote against what we call the IMO 2028 regulations of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is very, very difficult to analyze today or to say something sensible about what the impact is going to be in October, Because this is, of course, a political game, but there's more than 170 countries that can vote in the IMO.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Last time around, it was voted with a small group of countries because a lot of people did not attend the vote. This time, they all need to attend. The jury's out. It could go both ways. But I would not interpret the resistance by The U.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

S. As it is not going to go through. There's a lot of different interests at play in the IMO. So, we still think there's a very good chance that this regulation will indeed pass, but we'll know beginning October whether it did or did not. Impact on our customers, I have to say that people that we are talking to about ammonia and hydrogen powered chips have not changed their view since President Trump came out in opposition of the IMO regulations. So that has not changed.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

It would actually be the opposite, where if the IMO will go through in October, this will be a catalyst for us to have renewed and higher interest for long term charging opportunities.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

Okay. Thank you. No further questions? Thanks.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

Then Timon Mullens, you can unmute and ask your question now, please.

[Analyst]

Hi, good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. Following up on Ivan's question, I also wanted to ask a bit about your fleet composition. Golden Ocean had a generally modern fleet, but the merger has also added some middle aged Panamaxes and Capesizes. Could you talk a bit about your stance towards those vessels as well as to the older tankers already in your fleet? Should we expect the sale of a significant number of those assets over the coming quarters?

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Well, as you know, we want to operate a modern fleet. So, fleet rejuvenation will always be part of our strategy. If we see a good price for an older vessel, we will sell it. If we see interesting new building opportunities, we will go for it. If we see good modern secondhand tonnage, we will go for it as well.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

The thing I always say when we talk about this, this will not be done at any cost at any time. We will look at the price. We will look at where we are in the cycle. We will look at the counterparts. You saw that we just recently sold the Suezmax of fifteen years old at $40,000,000 That is for us a very sound deal to do because it rejuvenates our fleets, but we're also getting a very interesting amount of money for that vessel.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

In short, Clemens, if I can say, we like to operate a modern fleet. The older vessels in the Golden Ocean fleet could be for sale, but not at any price and we are not going to set a target or a timeline on that.

[Analyst]

Makes sense. Thanks for the color. And I also wanted to ask about the contract you signed with Fortescue for an ammonia powered Newcastle MAX. Should we expect the vessel to burn ammonia since the get go? To what extent is the infrastructure for bunkering already there?

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Question, which I cannot answer right now. We are working very hard to make sure that we can bunker the first vessels that are coming out of the yard. As soon as we have news on that, we will make that public. But it is our aim to have that ship powered by ammonia. It's also FMG's or Fortiscue's aim to have the vessel powered by ammonia.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

A lot will depend whether the molecules will be available and whether the bunkering operation can work. We think it can, but it's a little bit too early to confirm that already set in stone today. Then

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

Axel Steerman, you can now unmute and ask your question please.

[Axel Styrman, Head of Research at Kepler Cheuvreux]

Thank you. Axel Steerman from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have two questions regarding the growth in the iron ore volumes from Africa, in particular during 2026 and 2027. Do you expect these volumes to replace existing volumes and if so from where? Second question relates to potential share buybacks given that the stock is trading at significant discount to the net asset value? Is this something you consider? Thank you.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Okay. I'll take your first question. I'll hand it over to Ludwig for the second one. So, do we think the iron ore volumes will replace other volumes? The answer is the market is not good, probably yes.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

If the market is supportive, I think all the volumes that we have sketched in our presentation can live next to one another. So, the price of iron ore will be an interesting element to follow, whether the Guinea volumes will push out, for instance, Brazilian volumes or will compete with Australian volumes. So far, what we are expecting, and it's not only us, also the analysts, that this will be a net positive for our market.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

Yes. And on the share buyback question, Axel, share buybacks are one tool to reward shareholders and are a different way of distribution. However, we have to say, in every big merger, there is a natural rotation of capital, where you had maybe previous Golden Ocean shareholders, previous CME shareholders, Semitec shareholders that take a position and rotate their share register. So, will always analyze this, but for us, the most important is that we have closed the merger. We have given certainty to all our shareholders now of the way to go.

[Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV]

And we will let now, a couple of quarters, let the number do the talking, see what operational leverage that we have as a company, how we can integrate all the fleets, enjoy the positioning that we have on the tanker and dry bulk markets. And then, like always, the value will start floating up. But share buyback is always one of the possibilities.

[Axel Styrman, Head of Research at Kepler Cheuvreux]

Thank you. No further questions.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

I don't see anyone raising their hands anymore. And there are also no questions in the Q and A. Daniella DeLorenzo, you can now unmute and ask your question.

[Analyst]

Hi, Aloha. Daniella DeLorenzo from Shipping Watch. Happy to see you coming to Oslo then next time. I have a question in regards of the shuttle fleets in relation to the slide on the midterm tanker markets. I just wanted to know how do you factor the shadow fleet when it comes to the scrapping?

[Analyst]

What do you think is gonna what do you think is going to to be the the results on the supply side demand and demand? Thank you.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Thanks, Daniela. The short answer is, we would like to see this shadow fleet disappear from the market as soon as possible. First, they are involved in an illegal trade. Second, they are very old and questions can be asked about the maintenance and the insurance of these vessels. So, clearly, the sooner this shadow fleet disappears from the market, the better for us.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

But we have to be realistic. We know about the shadow fleet since many, many years, even before the Russia Ukraine war. You see that it is very difficult to push these ships out of our market. They are there. They have actually, over the last couple of years, cannibalized the white market or the official market.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

And so, I think it would be naive to think that these ships will disappear overnight. One thing which is working to our advantage, I would say, is that these ships have been under sanctions now for a very long time, and will become increasingly more difficult to operate just because of out of maintenance reasons, insurance reasons and breakdowns that will eventually happen. Are we counting on it? No. Are we hoping for them to disappear quickly? Yes. I hope that answers your question.

[Analyst]

Yes. Thank you.

[Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV]

I don't see any hints at the moment.

[Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV]

Okay. Well, then this closes our call. Thank you very much for joining us. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to us and to my colleague, Joris Dahmann. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

Participants

Analysts

• Alexander Saverys, CEO & Management Board Member at Cmb.Tech NV
• Ludovic Saverys, CFO at Cmb.Tech NV
• Enya Derkinderen, Brand Manager at Cmb.Tech NV
• Analyst
• Kristof Samoy, Associate Director Equity Research at KBC Securities
• Axel Styrman, Head of Research at Kepler Cheuvreux