Accelerated organic growth expected for AKVA group

Expected 1-2 million tons increase¹ in global consumption of Atlantic salmon by 2030 drives growth expectations

The expected demand growth is in line with the increase in salmon consumption over the last 10 years, and the outlook is strongly supported by global megatrends where consumers focus on healthy and sustainable food produced close to where they live.

On the supply side, a major part of the increased volume is likely to come from conventional cage based farming, supported by improved fish health and technology innovations. The remaining part is expected to be supplied from land based farming and other unconventional technologies. Farming salmon closer to consumers in Asia and US would eliminate the environmental footprint of air transport and is expected to be cost competitive. AKVA is already involved in several such projects as reported lately.

“For AKVA group, as a leading global supplier of technology to the salmon industry, the expected increase in both cage based and land based salmon farming will represent two growth engines for our business”, CEO Knut Nesse states.

AKVA group will from 2021 ramp up our spending on our innovation agenda and digital solutions to continue to be in the forefront supporting the farmers in sustainable production of healthy fish and realizing the significant growth potential for the industry.

The market outlook reflected above forms the basis for the group’s strategy for the period 2021-2023 as supported by the Board of directors earlier this month. “I am pleased that we all concurred on the ambition to deliver minimum 25% annual EBIT-increase”, says CFO Ronny Meinkøhn. “We are also confident that AKVA group already has the financial capacity to realize our organic growth strategy, and at the same time pay an attractive and gradually increasing dividend to our shareholders”, he adds.

To summarize, the AKVA strategy includes the following key elements:

• Topline growth is primarily expected to be organic. Strong focus on operational excellence.
• Deliver minimum 25% EBIT-increase year-on-year.
• Step by step improve return on average capital employed (ROACE) to minimum 15% by 2023.
• At least 50% increase in innovation spending to support new product development and organic growth.
• Ramp up the spending on our 3 digital platforms AKVA connect, AKVA observe and Fishtalk.

Our capital markets day starts at 13.00 (CET) today 24.November 2020, and an extensive presentation package will be made available on our web-pages and at www.newspoint.no at the same time.