DSV (OTC:DSDVY) reported third-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
DSV reported a 2.3% increase in gross profit for Q3 2026, with significant growth in EBIT at 11.5%, driven by synergies from the Schenker acquisition.
The company has narrowed its EBIT guidance to between 24 and 25 billion DKK, with a solid cash flow of 6.4 billion DKK despite elevated freight rates.
Integration of Schenker is progressing well, with most customer integration completed, though Road synergies are delayed to 2027 due to prior quality issues.
Air & Sea division saw a 4% GP increase in air freight and slight declines in ocean freight, while Contract Logistics achieved a 50% EBIT growth.
A new share buyback program of 1.5 billion DKK was initiated, and DSV aims to reduce its gearing ratio to two times by 2027.
Management expressed confidence in regaining lost volume in the Road division, emphasizing improved quality and increased commercial activity.
Full Transcript
Moritz (Conference Call Operator)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DSV Q3 2026 conference call. I’m Moritz, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference may not be recorded for publication or broadcast at this time.
It’s my pleasure to hand over to Jens Lund, Group CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
Good morning and welcome to our Q3 call. We are, as usual, Michael and I, to present the results and I’ll go through some of the first slides here and then later on Michael will cover some of the other points on the agenda. So let’s quickly go into it and we can start basically with, I think, the most important topic for many of you during the quarter. We can say that the service levels on Road are back on track and the quality issues that we had are resolved.
But of course it has had the consequence that our synergies will be realized a little bit later on the Road side because we’ve had to focus on solving those issues. In general, on group level the GP is up 2.3%. When we made the business plan for acquiring Schenker we said we were going to lose certain volume or GP at the end of the day, and now in Q3 it’s really great to see that we’re back on the growth trajectory when it comes to GP. On the EBIT side, we’ve grown significantly more because, of course, the synergies that we realize drive a higher conversion, and at the end of the day also the EBIT has come up; we are right now at 11.5% growth.
This has led to a situation where we are now going into the fourth quarter and we’ve narrowed our guidance. We’ve done this, of course, because normally you start the year with a broader guidance and now we have more certainty when it comes to the result. So the guidance is now between 24 and 25 billion DKK in EBIT. If we look at the cash flow, we’ve delivered a solid cash flow here in the quarter, even if the freight rates are still elevated, not least on ocean freight, and we’ve started the first share buyback program since we acquired Schenker.
So all in all, those were some of the highlights from Q3. I just wanted to say a few words on the integration as well. I think we are continuing as per plan. There’s only a few countries outstanding, no major countries left on the integration, and much of the customer integration is also done. So good progress on that one. Of course, we just talked about the issues that we had on Road that lead to a delay in the realization of the synergies. So that will happen now and be finalized in 2027. Basically, the expected outcome and also the costs in relation thereto remain the same, but of course a little bit delayed.
Also on the special items into 2027. If we look at the financial highlights for the quarter for the group, I think the earnings growth we just talked about and I think also that the GP has grown. This is something that we’re very focused on here in the headquarter: that we add more value to our customers and, of course, then also that we convert that into solid growth. The operational results, I would say that the Air & Sea division has delivered as expected and CL has delivered a very solid result, I should say.
And then, of course, the Road results are clearly affected by the quality issues that we’ve had. The cash flow for the quarter: 6.4 billion. And I’d already talked about the revision—basically the narrowing—of our guidance. So that’s really the financial highlights. If we look at Air & Sea, I think one thing that is important, and we have also just added a slide on Global Products that used to be part of the results for the divisions, and therefore if you look here now you will say, well, the gross profit has grown 0.2%, but if we’d adjusted for the GP that we’ve taken out of Air & Sea, actually we’ve grown 2.8% year over year. But that’s always what happens when you move some of the volumes around: that it’s a little bit blurry what’s the baseline and what’s the actual figures and are they fully comparable?
So we just added this information on the right side here. If we look at basically the conversion rate, it continues to increase and we are aspiring to get up to the 50% target also during the next year, where we will definitely see an impact of the continued work we do on productivity. And then, of course, the EBIT margin also trending towards the 10%. If we look at air freight, we grew the GP 4% actually during the quarter. We did still—we’d had this where we sanitized the portfolio, and this actually continued a little bit into July. After July, basically we’ve finished this and I would say the general trend on the air freight is that we’ve seen that the volumes into Europe are still under pressure, and not least the volumes related to automotive. On the other side, of course, we’ve seen progress on the technology vertical where we’ve grown our volumes and, as you can see, also the yield at a very solid level, almost 9,000 per tonne.
And overall, as I said, the GP has increased by 4%, so we are quite happy about that. If we look at the ocean freight, the GP has decreased by 4% and yields a little bit down, and volumes also slightly down on the ocean freight. What we are working on right now is we are very much focused on the commercial activity in the ocean freight to make sure that we swing the trend round. And I would say both for air and for ocean, we’ve seen that we are slowly getting into a situation where we’ve basically levelled out and we should hopefully during the next quarter start to see the inflection point where we get growth.
Yield is at 4,100 kroner at the end of the quarter. So basically, if you look over the cycle, it’s more or less the same as we had Q3 2025, and basically the composition of VAs and freight markup is also in the 1/3, 2/3 range—so 1/3 is the freight markup and 2/3 is the VAs. Then we come to Road. Here on Road we can see, not least on the GP, what impact the issues that we’ve had has on the GP in our company. I would say that the difference is probably approximately one-third related to extra cost due to the quality issues—so they should go—and then the remaining part is actually that we lack volume in the network. So we need to have this commercial focus. Now that we’ve solved the operational issue—we’ve put that behind us—it’s very important to get that message across that the quality in the network is solid.
So now it’s the commercial activities that we’re looking into. And when we look at the commercial activities, I think it’s also important here to state how this normally works is that you try to fix the quality issue first. Now that’s solved. Then what you want to work on is basically that you want to work on making the sales calls. Of course, in the beginning, when you have quality issues, it takes a while before you start the sales calls. So we started that in September, really intensified the interaction with the customers, building up the pipeline.
Then once the customers accept our proposals—and here you have to remember that we have the strongest groupage network in Europe, so it’s not that we can’t get the appointments; the customers do want to talk to us—then basically we’ve converted some of that and then we will have to make the integrations if it’s a customer that needs an IT integration before we go live. So that cycle will probably take at least 90 days. So what we sell right now will then come in, let’s say in three months.
So it has a delayed impact. We can look at all the KPIs. NPS has improved and there’s been some concern—was there a spillover on the NPS to other divisions? It has not spilled over. So they basically have a very solid NPS development, the other divisions. But, of course, the Road net promoter score has declined. But right now it’s actually had the trough and now it’s increasing again. So that’s really the status when it comes to Road. We just put some KPIs here and I can tell you that normally, historically, the performance has probably been more in the 92% range.
So having 94% in DIFOT is very solid. But as you can see the trend line has been increasing all the time. We were very happy in August when we saw the 92.4, but we were concerned when the volumes come back after the summer holiday whether it would be sustainable. And actually it’s proof that the initiatives we’ve taken have continued to improve the delivery quality. So that’s really positive. So well done to the Road division. If we take the Contract Logistics, here you can see that we’ve actually grown the EBIT by 50%. If we exclude the properties, we’ve grown it by 42%. So a very, very solid performance. Two things have driven this performance. One thing is that we’ve continued to sanitize our portfolio and basically clean out business that doesn’t deliver the desired outcomes. And then the other one is that we’ve managed to compensate for all that volume we’ve taken out with new volume, in particular for the hyperscalers.
So these two things in combination, they’re really important. I think what is also important for you to notice is that we see that basically the pace that we grow with the hyperscalers is going to continue. We can see the pipelines; they’re very, very solid. So I think you should expect that the CL division will continue this journey that it’s on. And of course that’s very positive because one of the things that we were criticized for was the low return on invested capital, and now you can see that there’s a better connection.
We are now at 10.9% on the return on invested capital and the comparable figure was 6.9. So, of course, this growth in EBIT, but also the focus on the capital that we’ve deployed, has really helped us a lot. And I think it wouldn’t surprise me if we managed to take, what can I say, another step up at year-end, and it would make me very proud to trend towards the 15% that we set as a target for the Contract Logistics division and take another step in the next quarter.
So well done to Contract Logistics on that. Then I’ll just say last call people were asking a few questions about this Global Products, and rightfully so. So we’ve just taken a slide and said, listen, what kind of activities is it that needs an enterprise approach so that it’s not part of a country-based setup and that should have a life on their own? So here are the products that we move to a separate structure. It’s called Fairs and Events. This is where you have to have specialty knowledge for fairs, events, all these kinds of things, and to have this knowledge across countries—this is very important.
On the Parcels, it’s the same: we are 3PL on parcels, and also here you need perhaps a more network approach in order to continue to develop that. And then, of course, the Customs—always quite important as well. Normally it’s part of a country-based setup and we’ve decided to make an enterprise function out of that. And this is then also so that we can serve the customer end to end. And also the technology we have allows us basically to produce on the same platform, so kind of a single-file system for all of that.
So these are some of the main services, actually. We also have some supply chain engineering that we can do as well to add some value, and some 5PL capacity. But these activities are a little bit smaller. So now I’ve said a lot and it’s time for you, Michael, to go through some of the numbers and other stuff in detail. So please have a go at it.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
Thanks a lot, Jens, and I will immediately skip to the next slide here with an overview of our P&L for the first nine months of 2026. A couple of highlights on that slide that I would like to elaborate a little bit on. Of course, you can see that the revenue has actually increased 10.5% as a consequence of the rate environment and also to a certain extent the activity level. That also has an impact on net working capital, which I will come back to in a second.
And Jens, you already touched upon the EBIT growth, which is also nice to see. But also if you look at profit for the period, it has actually increased 900 million compared to the same quarter last year, which is also good to see. And also the conversion ratio for the group — I think that’s also worth highlighting — that we have increased from 27.9 to 32.6, driven by all the initiatives and the synergies that we have worked on. So that’s also nice to see that.
And of course the net interest costs are higher than last year due to the fact that now we have, you can say, the full financing of the Schenker acquisition included for all the period, which we did not have last year obviously. And then, Jens, you already touched a little bit on it. But the EPS — now we actually can see that we are growing on a 12‑month rolling basis. Our EPS has increased 11.5% compared to the same period last year. And for many, this is what it is about.
Then I will go to the cash flow statement, where we have also a little bit of highlights. Starting out with the adjusted free cash flow, which amounted to 6.4 billion in Q3. Looking at the cash conversion ratio — and I promise that will continue — it’s nice to see that we can collect some money here with a cash conversion ratio of more than 128%. Net working capital slightly increased due to the freight rates. If you look at the ratio a little bit further down on the slide, you will see that the ratio is actually better than it was at the end of last quarter.
So we are grinding our way through it. We promised to reduce the net working capital, but of course if we get more activity and higher rates, that will have an impact clearly. I also would like to highlight that on the gearing ratio it’s now 2.46 — actually, we can only have one digit here, but it’s 2.56. So during the quarter since last quarter, we’ve actually reduced by 0.2 on the gearing ratio. And also worth mentioning is that since we started the integration, we have reduced net interest-bearing debt by 12.6 billion DKK as well. All in all, I think it’s nice to see these kind of numbers. Of course we would like to have them even better, but it’s positive.
The cash flow and the current state of our financial situation has also led to the fact that we have started and launched a share buyback this morning of 1.5 billion. It’s good to be back on that. What I would like to highlight is the journey, the path that we are on, where we have decreased our gearing ratio for the last couple of quarters. It’s a positive trajectory that we are on. We do stay committed to the capital allocation policy, heading towards two times in the gearing, expectedly during 2027.
Of course, the ambition is to do it in the first half of 2027, but that is our aim. The reason also for this start of the share buyback is that we have an obligation towards our share option program, and we have to buy back shares to be able to deliver on those obligations. So that means that we have now — you can see on the slide here — that in 2025 there was not much share buyback, so now we will see we have these columns again with the share buyback, hopefully.
But I would also like to highlight that, like I’ve said also last quarter, we are now in a position where we every quarter assess according to our capital allocation policy. So that we have started is not necessarily, you can say, that we will continue that journey, but of course we expect that we will have solid cash flow going forward as well. Then, Jens, you already touched upon the next slide here on the guidance, where we have narrowed the outlook to between 24 and 25 billion DKK. Given the slight delay due to the Road integration, we also have a spillover impact on the special items — we are slightly delayed on those as well — so that is the overall number. And some of the assumptions: of course we have some synergies that we have already realized last year, and then on top this year 4 billion more, and then we have the additional 1 billion that we postpone into next year.
It’s still a volatile world that we live in, highly uncertain about the macro environment and interest rates and so forth. So that’s of course also worth bearing in mind. In terms of Air & Sea, on volume for the last quarter we assume volume growth to be slightly below the market in Air & Sea and also yields slightly below what we have in Q4. Our aim is still to deliver on GDP growth — that’s very important to bear in mind here — and for Road, I think you touched upon it as well already, and Contract Logistics we also expect to continue the growth that we have seen so far. And of course the tax rate will remain at 28%, and is still impacted by this integration that we have, and then we will be able to come back to a more normal tax rate later on.
And back to you, Jens, for the key takeaways.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
Yep, thank you very much, Michael. Just want to reiterate that Road operations are normalized, so we basically now can focus on the commercial activities that we are having. And of course we can also then focus on driving the productivity up as well. So these are the two key topics for the Road division and for DSV, also very important. And then of course the guidance, we talked about that, and then the share buyback program that we’ve launched as well.
So I think we have confidence in what we’re doing. So with that said, I think we should move on to the Q&A session and then we can spend some time answering your questions. Please go ahead.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to one question.
Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. And the first question comes from Jamie Robotham from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Jamie Robotham (Analyst)
Morning gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I was just after a few numbers, please. So in Air and Sea, how much of the 3% volume decline is deliberate revenue dis-synergies or sanitizing the portfolio versus the SME activity levels declining and the Asia to Europe weakness? And in Road, could you quantify the amount of synergy shift to ’27, the amount of customer volume losses you’ve been seeing, and the likely amount of gains on property disposals for next year, for 2027?
Thank you very much.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
That was a little bit more than one question the way I counted. But we will try to answer them anyway. I think on air freight, if we look at the development over the quarter, we actually saw the largest decline in July and that’s then more related to attrition. I would say it’s been more around the 0 to 1% situation in August and September, and that was basically, what can I say, tapering off of this attrition. So if I should say 3%, I would probably say that the 2 percentage points — based on this sort of conversation that we’re just having here — would be the remaining part of the sanitizing.
And then now we are hovering about the 0 to 1% decline of business in the air freight right now. So that would be the answer to that one. I think on the Road side we do see that it, what can I say, takes some time to regain that volume. It will happen during next year, but also to realize the synergies will take a little bit extra time. So approximately in the neighbourhood of 1 billion will be pushed into next year, because not only Road is impacted — also the back-office functions that have to support that journey will have to keep extra resources as long as the integration is not completed.
Then when we look at the volume decline, we’ve probably seen a volume decline just shy of a two‑digit figure on the group side in Road. So it is something. When it comes to the properties, then we don’t necessarily plan for any gains, but as you can see there have been some this year as well, but we have none in the forecast.
Jamie Robotham (Analyst)
Thank you very much.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Patrick from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Patrick (Analyst)
Hi Jens. Michael, in Road, normally seasonality in Q3 heavily skews to September, I think. And would it therefore be fair to assume that most of the underlying 300 million profit in Q3 in Road was made in September and therefore, when we’re trying to look at an exit rate from the quarter, to have an exit rate per month of somewhere north of 200 million EBIT — would that be a fair way of looking at it? I don’t know if it counts as a second question, but Michael, if you could just clarify your comments on Q4 Air & Sea yields, which I didn’t fully get. Thanks.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
I think I’ll answer the Road, and Michael can enter the Air & Sea business. I think normally on the Road side we are, of course, always a little bit impacted by the summer holidays. In July and August you have a lot of fixed cost, so you’re quite right that the result produced on the Road side is especially then produced in September. Now you get two good months as well, October and November, and we’ve also regained a little bit of volume, so that should also help the figures a little bit there.
And then December is going to be a weak month. So if I should model it, I would probably add, if you take the clean figure that we talk about — the 300 million that you also had mentioned — I would see a slight improvement in the next quarter, but not a lot, based on this. Where we add, because the sales cycle is three months. So let’s say we’ve had quality issues before the summer holidays. The customers, they come back from vacation on the 1st of September. We are now convinced it’s good.
Then we start selling in September. Then the first impact of these sales efforts — they are in reality going to come maybe in December, but also in January, if you look at that kind of math. So it will take some time to fill the network up, but it’s a strong network we have. So we get the sales calls and we can see from the pipeline and the work that is being done that it does pay off.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you, Patrick. What you have to bear in mind here is the normal seasonality on the yield side, which we do see on the Sea side. And then also, you can say, we have had congestion which is being a little bit lower, and Suez is slowly opening up again, and that will, in our world, have an impact on the yield compared to Q3. And on the Air side there might be less downside in Air. Also what Jens spoke about — we have peak season and also, of course, tight capacity.
So that is kind of some of the underlying assumptions to the thing that we also have written here in the outlook.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Alex Irving from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Alex Irving (Analyst)
Good morning. Hope all is well. I’d like to talk about the move from CargoWise to Tango, please, in Air and Sea, understand that a little better — how much of the Air and Sea volume is currently flowing through each of those systems? Especially, I noticed that your other external expenses in that division rose by 100 million krona quarter on quarter from Q2 to Q3. Shouldn’t they be falling as you move to your own IT infrastructure? Or how else can you explain this, please?
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
I think to approximately produce in the region of 20 to 25% of the volumes on Tango. It’s predominantly the more complex ones. We’ve not started the move of any rollout yet. I think we’ve not indicated that to the market either, that rollout would start. So we’ve said that we would want to improve Tango and it will also coexist with CargoWise for quite a while so that we de-risk, what can I say, the rollout, and the two systems, they coexist today.
So that’s basically what I can say on that. Then of course, if you look at the cost, I think it’s, what can I say, a development where we’d seen the division being a little bit under-allocated beforehand in the Schenker times, and now we’ve changed the allocation model to the DSV allocation model and this is basically what impacts the figures. It can also be that now we’ve shifted a little bit more volume onto CargoWise and, as you know, that comes also with, what can I say, a very solid cost per transaction.
So that impacts it a little bit.
OPERATOR
Then the next question comes from Muneeba Khayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Muneeba Khayani (Analyst)
Good morning. On Road, I just wanted to clarify your comment earlier, Jens: that one third of the impact was additional costs and two thirds related to volumes. So is that from kind of a 1 billion normal? And does that mean it’s about 300 million? Can you help quantify what was the additional cost? Was it 300 million? And has that now totally gone away as we think about the 4Q performance and then into next year? The synergies: what is the impact on synergies that you were expecting earlier versus now? If the 4 billion would have been the full EBIT bridge for ’27, what does it come down to now if it’s a mid-’27 full run-rate impact? Thank you.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
I don’t think we guide in full for ’27 right now; you know, that will come a little bit later. But I can try to help you with some information so that you can perhaps do some work. So I would say, if you look at the quarter in particular, July was still impacted by a lot of express deliveries. Of course, when we got it cleaned up, there were still in August certain terminals that were not, you know, in what we call green. This is when you are above 92.
So you also had additional cost in August and also some in September, but of course very little. And now it’s totally gone; there is no extra, what can I say, cost because of, you know, bad quality. So we would estimate that this number would probably be between 200 and 300 million DKK. If you then look at a quarter like this quarter, I would think that, you know, under normal circumstances we should have made 1 billion where we were then. I think all the numbers, they add up. If you strip out, what can I say, the property in this calculation, then of course going into next year, now we had to have all this focus basically on the quality. Then of course all the productivity initiatives, they have been slowed down, because the first thing you want to make sure is you have your delivery quality in place so that you have solid quality.
So there are two tracks now: now we drive productivity—so what does it cost to produce a shipment—and then of course we need more volume into the system, and these two things, they will be the main focus for next year. But I’d say to drive the productivity up, it’s something that happens quarter on quarter. It’s a lot of activities. So what was my collection/delivery cost, what’s my productivity on the terminals, what’s the utilization of the linehauls, etc. So these things you’re working on with a very structured plan; it’s the same team that solved the default that works with this. So I’m quite certain that they will be able also to deliver on those tasks.
And then on the commercial side, as I said, it takes some time for the sales cycle, and I would probably presume that to regain the volume that we’ve lost, it will probably take six to nine months into next year before we are at the same level as we were before we saw the attrition. So it will take some time, but we will grind our way through it. So basically you can look at the Road integration in a way, I would say, as if you’ve almost lost a year—because now we start selling and it can be that only at this time next year we will be at the same place as we’d originally planned for.
So that should be the building blocks for your model.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
I think it’s important to also, like you said, it’s important to say that there’s no changes in our commitment in terms of the plans and on delivery of the synergies. But as you rightfully stated, it’s being delayed a little bit. But the overall thing that we planned for is still going to happen, I think.
OPERATOR
Then the next question comes from James Hollands from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
James Hollands (Analyst at BNP Paribas)
Yeah, thanks very much. Just a couple of clarifications, I think. Jens, appreciate your color on the Road customer losses. If we go back to Michael’s pre-close call, there seems to be a suggestion that there may have been some bleed of customer losses elsewhere in the group outside of Road. And I think, Jens, you’re saying today that didn’t happen. Perhaps you could clarify that for me. Thank you.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
I’m not really sure what exactly you’re referring to. If we look at bleeder customers, the area where we normally would look at bleeder customers would be on Contract Logistics, where you would have, what can I say, activities in warehouses that you operate that basically operate, what can I say, at a very low margin and sometimes even at a minus margin. So this is basically also what we describe on the CL side where we say all this loss-making business, all these things that are not delivering the returns that we require, this volume we’re basically terminating now.
So I think that’s typically where we have that topic, and that’s then part of the CL improvement, that you take some business out that maybe loses money or has very low margin and then you replace it with business—and the CL figures—and look at what an impact it has.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Jacob Lax from Volvo Research. Please go ahead.
Jacob Lax (Analyst)
Hey, thanks for your time. So on Air & Sea, when do you think the division can get back to market growth rates on volume, now that we’re largely through the integration? Thanks.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
We’re growing GP already. I think this is very important to state that we do that. This is the most important metric. Then of course, the growth in GP at the end of the day comes from two things: it comes from volume and yield. So I think we’ve finished sanitizing, what can I say, the business. If you look at the yield uplift, it’s been tremendous during the last year on the Air & Sea side. So that’s a job well done. On the volume side we are hovering around, what can I say, it’s basically plateauing now.
So we’ve come out of the trough and we’re basically at the inflection point. And whether that will then be in Q4 or as part of the normal tender season into Q1, I can’t tell you because we will have to see how it all pans out. But this is basically how I would model it. So if you’re a little bit conservative, model it into next year, and if you’re more positive you can maybe think about, you know, a slight increase this year.
Jacob Lax (Analyst)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Then the next question comes from Christiane Delcio from UBS. Please go ahead.
Christiane Delcio (Analyst)
Hi. Thank you very much, and apologies to come back to some of these points, but I think most of us, in terms of synergies next year, we have around 5 billion year-over-year incremental—4 out of Schenker and 1 the other ones—and it’s not fully clear to me. Should we roughly, how much do we take out of Schenker? We take 1 billion out aligned with the special items that you moved, or more or less—any type of color you could give us there? The second one: the bear argument on Road is if you exclude the express cost that you’ve explained earlier, the run-rate is somewhere around 500 million clean EBIT per quarter. If I annualize that, I get to 2 billion. If I don’t get too much synergies next year I could be at 2½ billion EBIT next year, or 3. Am I missing anything? Any moving parts from this bridge?
And, Polly, just a short one: you mentioned, Jens, A&S conversion ratio, 50% the target. Do you believe in some of the quarters next year you can already be at 50% conversion in A&S, or is that something more for 2028–29? Thank you.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
If we take the conversion ratio on A&S first, I think it’s—if you look at how it’s been sort of increasing—then there is also, what can I say, plans for productivity improvements into next year. Whether we will hit the 50% mark, I mean at the end of the day we have a long-term 2030 target of 55. So we will have, what can I say, to drive it past 50%. And we’ve not finished the rolling forecast in that detail and are 100% certain about it, but it will go towards the 50%, I can tell you that.
Then I think on the Road side you talk about, what can I say, the impact of what we’re doing. I think basically if you look at these two things that are outstanding, you will have the operational basically improvements that we need to make—so that’s kind of like one track—and then basically also on the commercial side, what is the impact of the volumes that we are missing. I think if we look into that, then to get an impact out of those two initiatives of 500 million on top of what we have this year, that would be a bear argument.
I would agree to that—as you said, that’s the bear argument. I think just as we fixed the default, we can definitely improve the operational efficiency. And if I look at the impact on the sales side, I also see that we can get the volume back into the system. Then if you try to model that, I’m quite sure that using those assumptions you will probably end somewhere else than the 2.5. But that’s of course how you run your model that determines that.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
And then just to clarify, if needed, on the synergies: I think we’ve stated that last year we had full-year run-rate of 800 million. Then we have said that during this year we expect at least 4 billion. Now we say 4 billion, and the remaining part would then come into 2027 as from January 1. Now we say we delayed it with 1 billion. So that will of course come in later during the year in 2027.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Alexia Dogani from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Alexia Dogani (Analyst at JP Morgan)
Thank you for taking the question. Just again on synergies, you mentioned in the statement that you’re committed to the 9 billion but there is a kind of offset, partly offset by cost inflation and investment in Contract Logistics. Could you just clarify the kind of magnitude of offset that you see? And then I’m sorry to also again clarify on the financial impact in ’27: at the CMD you helpfully gave a slide—slide 136—giving kind of the phasing. Obviously now there is a delay. Are we basically saying the delay is 1 billion, so 1 billion moves from ’27 to ’28, or is it a 1 billion realization in ’27 and the remainder 3 is in ’28? I think that would help everyone make sure their model is aligned with your plan. Thanks.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
If I start with the last one first: the 1 billion which is delayed, that is of course a fully impact from 2028, but we do expect that we will start, you can say, earlier, but the full run-rate would be in 2028. That is clear for the 1 billion. And did that answer the question? Or was there another one?
Alexia Dogani (Analyst at JP Morgan)
Sorry, yeah, it was the net effect. Basically, you’ve added a statement that says, but there is an offset. What is the offset?
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
If you look at Contract Logistics for a start, then you would see that they have increased EBIT by 50%. Right. And they’ve also had a staff cost which is higher. So I think you can look at that and then see this is what we do see. So the expected synergies in the beginning when we made the plan from CL, we have taken them out because the CL has grown the business. So that will take that one out. And if you look at, I think it’s the run rate is 100 million on staff cost alone for this quarter.
Secondly, we do see inflation also on the other elements of the cost base. And if you, for instance, take 3% into that, I think then you have the building blocks to do it. Yes, you can assume that.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Marco Limite (Analyst at Barclays)
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I’ve got a follow-up on these synergy figures because we’re saying that in ’26 you guys are still planning to achieve 4 billion synergies. So guidance isn’t changed, but Road is clearly lagging already in ’26. So how are we going to get to 4 billion despite Road being below? Does that imply RNC or CL ahead of the plan? Or how do we get the 4 billion with weaker Road? And then still related to that, I think this quarter is the first quarter where your total FTE number is now coming down for the quarter. I understand Contract Logistics up. Nice to see organic growth is good. But why are FTEs not coming down in RNC, for instance? And therefore, yeah, shall we expect the FTE number basically not coming down anymore in RNC? Thank you.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
If you look at it from a total level, then you would see that we have reduced the number of FTEs by around 800 during the quarter. So white collar. So I think that at least what you need to look into. Then of course there is. If you look at the Air & Sea, we also explain a little bit about the growable products during the quarter. We have also had a, you could say, a move for some of those into that area.
Marco Limite (Analyst at Barclays)
Okay. And on the 4 billion in ’26, despite Road being quite weaker than expected at the start of the year.
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
Sorry. So the 4 billion figure that was in there in the guidance was probably a little bit, what can I say, on the low side. Now you can say it’s more accurate. It might be that we say approximately 4 billion. So let’s say that it might be a little bit less, which could also be the case because, as you say, Road has been delayed slightly. So I think we then decided to keep, what can I say, the same number instead of, let’s say, writing 3.750 or whatever the number could be.
So that’s really how we’ve come to the guidance.
OPERATOR
Okay, thank you. And the next question comes from Lars Heindorff from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Lars Heindorff (Analyst)
Yes, morning. Thank you. On the Road division, to get back to that, I understand that you appear quite confident getting or regaining some of that volume that you lost. But I mean, hey, this is a fairly fiercely competitive market that you’re operating in. I mean, will you be able to regain that volume without any kind of impact on your GP per consignment, i.e., price, or maybe payment terms which will impact the cash flow? Maybe just a few comments on, you know, what exactly the path back to getting those and regaining those volumes.
And then as a follow-up on that also, I mean, the cost per consignment as we enter into Q4, where is that compared to what you want it to be?
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
If we look at basically regaining the volumes, our sales activities, the pipeline that we have, it’s basically how we normally would conduct business within the various segments. So I should say that it’s not like we go out, what can I say, with terms and conditions that are materially different because then it has, what can I say, a longer-term impact. So you really have to go out and basically increase your sales activities. Then that would normally lead to a certain conversion of your pipeline.
So that would be that topic. If you look at the production cost, at least what we have planned for in our rolling forecast is that we should be able to lower our production cost between 5 and 10% on what we have due to inefficiencies in the network. So it can be on collection delivery, it can be also, what can I say, the activities in the terminal, and then one of the major topics is also our line-haul setup where we can drive the efficiency somewhat up so that we can deliver on those outcomes.
So let’s say on the line-haul, for example, I would believe that the average utilization we have is maybe around index 90 and we should definitely be able to drive that, let’s say, 5% up, if you look at that. And it can be other topics as well that we talk about. So the number of stops per route, etc., on the collection delivery bit. So I would say these plans, they are all, what can I say, committed by the team. As I said, that solved the default, and they are now working actively on this and we can already see some of the first things being executed.
So I’m quite confident on that.
Lars Heindorff (Analyst)
Can I just, as a follow-up, maybe on the cost side in Road, there’s a sequential decline in staff cost into the third quarter, which is, I think, is that just caused by normal seasonality? I mean, it tends to be lower in Q3 going to the holiday season, and should we expect the staff cost to increase again into the fourth quarter?
Michael (Chief Financial Officer)
I think basically I’m not 100% certain on that because the holiday accrual makes it very difficult, Lars, to be 100% certain. I would more want the team to get back to you on that because we take people out as part of realizing the synergies. I can tell you that on the FTE side. So we continue that journey now on Road. But how the holiday accruals have sort of impacted Q3, it has a significant impact on it. So I would not want you to make a mistake in your model.
So please reach out to the team, then they will be able to give you the exact number. All right, thank you.
OPERATOR
Then the next question comes from Christian Godigsen from SCP. Please go ahead.
Christian Godigsen (Analyst)
Yes, thank you. Also a question on the Road part. So obviously there is quite a big delta to the 2.5 billion for the Road A&P in ’27, which was Christian’s question, and then to your own 6 billion that you communicated on the back of the Q2 numbers. I guess, as you pointed out, I guess the main moving part is the trajectory on winning back volume. So just wanted to get some more feel on how comfortable you are in winning back the volume and at what potential discount in pricing.
Discount to win that back volume, I guess on the basis of the operating leverage being very high in the groupage part of the business, which I guess based on the underlying numbers for Q3 must have been loss-making, as the FTL/LTL business has been marginally less impacted.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
Yeah, I think I’ve said it a couple of times now. What you do when you do sales is that basically you want to have, what can I say, the visits, you want to have the appointments with the customers. We can get those appointments so that we get the meetings. Then what we do when we speak to the customers, we can now explain to them how the quality is. The quality is very high in the network, so we have a very good product. It’s the strongest network in Europe.
So in a market, for example, like Germany, we have less than 5% of the market. So of course there’s a lot of volume you can go after that we are not in contact with. Then there’s the existing customers that maybe have downtrodden a little bit with us. They can now see the quality is back. And then of course there’s the customers that have, you know, switched provider. We can see that on the segmentation: all the larger customers, they have stayed with us. So all the complex volume, they stay with us. So it tells us something about the quality of the network and the service that we provide. It is more, let me say, small customers that perhaps operate in one or two markets that have a great opportunity to choose another provider.
So of course this is a focus area for us that we now go and see those customers in those markets and make sure that we basically deliver on them. Then the sales cycle, I explained, it takes three months, but then you follow it in the pipeline, how it’s going, and you see the conversion on it. And then also some of these things, they lead to IT integration so that we need to be ready to exchange data with the customers in a digital format in an efficient way. So that’s, in reality, sort of how we’re doing. And when I speak to the team, I see a lot of energy, I see a lot of activity in the pipelines and all these things.
So yes, I think that we have the right product and yes, I think that we can deliver basically on regaining the volume. I think that’s what we’re all working on. Yeah, so I think that was.
Christian Godigsen (Analyst)
Thank you. So, just to follow up on that, I guess, so to your 6 billion. If I wanted to make a bridge for that for next year, I guess it’s the loss of volume in terms of the sales cycle on that, and then the delay of synergies. That’s basically the two parts I need to deduct from the 6 billion numbers. Is that the right way to think about it?
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
Yeah, I would do it like this. I would say, listen, there’s some less volume going in, and then basically the GP is a little bit too low in the beginning and maybe also a little bit on the conversion because, of course, we’ve been delayed in harvesting the synergies. But there are two types of synergies. You have to remember that it is basically that we then merge the networks, close down the terminals, and take out the overlap. We are already very advanced on that, but of course that has been slowed down due to the quality issues that we’ve had.
We are now, I can just tell you to give a bit of confidence, we’ve gone live in Poland, merged the two networks, for example, down there. Big networks. There’s been no issue at all. We’ve merged some of the big terminals in the network and I think we’ve solved all those things. We were approximately 450 terminals when we were two companies and, of course, we have to go down now to 280 right now. So I think we are right now somewhat over 300. So we’ve definitely done a lot of the work and I think we’ve taken learnings from the things we’ve done and made sure that we don’t see quality issues.
Christian Godigsen (Analyst)
Thank you. And just maybe on the incremental margins, when I model the volume part, is it fair to assume that an incremental EBIT margin would be around 50% for the groupage part of the business due to the operating leverage?
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
That depends a little bit where you stand right now. Of course, if you lack volume in the system, it’s very high, the margin. But of course over time that will ease out. But I would say that additional volume in a groupage network definitely drives a superior conversion compared to what you’re used to see.
Christian Godigsen (Analyst)
Yep. Okay, perfect. Thanks a lot.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
You’re welcome.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Ulrich Bak from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Ulrich Bak (Analyst)
Yes, thank you for taking my question. So in terms of the targets that you presented at your capital markets day of another 9 billion in savings from IT and network optimization, how should we think about that, given your comments about cost inflation partially offsetting the Schenker cost synergies and the delayed integration of Road? Should we also subtract cost inflation here, and how much should these targets be delayed? Thank you.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
I think we still shoot for completing what we need to do in 2030. So I would say that that’s definitely still the aspiration. I think if we look at now completing the Schenker integration until next year, we should be, what can I say, delivering what kind of solid number that we then can build on with, what can I say, the 9 billion that we are talking about. We will already start some of the initiatives next year and we are in POC in many of them and we will then drive the productivity up.
Then of course you are quite right, over time we should see a little bit less cost inflation. We have actually seen quite a bit going into the Schenker transaction and normally we should try to offset some of that with productivity gains. So I would really not want to now dilute the target of 9 billion. So that’s kind of the feedback you can get on that. Thank you.
OPERATOR
And the next question comes from Sita Ikblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Sita Ikblom (Analyst)
Thanks very much. Hi guys, just two quick questions from me. So it seems that the recovery of profitability in the road business is now very dependent on these customer wins getting the volumes back with those express costs out of the system. I appreciate that you’re talking about a sales cycle of sort of three months and needing six to nine months to sort of fully recover those volumes. So I get it takes time, but is there anything that you can give us in terms of how those sales conversations are going now to help us understand how that sort of -9 high single digit volume decline is tracking as we move into January?
I know that that won’t help your Q4 volumes, but it would be good to just get a little bit of color on what those conversations sound like and then can you just talk about the year on year progression or lack of progression in your sea freight GP yield. You talk about a third being rate, 2/3 being value add, rates are higher year over year and that yield number hasn’t really moved. So just a bit of colour for what’s going on in the underlying mix maybe would be helpful.
Thank you.
Ian
Yes, I think very good questions on that. What we look about ourselves is, of course, the… You have different things you look at when you look at sales. The first thing is the NPS. So what’s the customer perception of us? The NPS has bottomed out and it’s increasing. Just want to make sure there was a spillover concern also on the NPS, whether it had impacted our CL and our ANC business. I would say they’ve more or less stayed the same, slightly down.
So I would say not really an impact on the road side. Of course, the NPS has been declining quite a bit. So now it’s troughed, it’s coming up again and we don’t see any escalations from the customer. So I would say under customer satisfaction, we’re now coming back again towards the normal levels. This is the first thing. The next thing you want to do is you want to have leads and you want to have sales calls. So right now we can say that the number of sales calls is 2 to 3x up on what we normally do. So we have much more commercial activity when we go and see the customers. Then this normally feeds into a pipeline where you have different stages of the conversation. And then of course, the closer you get to a contract, what can I say, the more value it has in the pipeline.
So we can see that the pipeline now is much more solid than it’s been before. So also that is going well. Then, of course, at the end of the day, you want to do an IT integration and you want to get the volume in and see what is the actual volume that we get based on those efforts here. And that’s sort of the KPIs that we are following. And as I said, we are 2 to 3x, depending on which number of countries it is that we have on visits. And I would also say that the pipeline is definitely showing that we have the largest pipeline that we’ve had since we acquired Schenker.
The value of it, the qualified value of the pipeline. So, yes, that would normally then convert into volume that you can see into the figures. This is how we steered. If you look at under the hood, then I think on the ocean freight, I think that basically we had 4,100 in the same quarter last year. Now we have also 4,100, I believe this quarter. What we monitor is basically the VAS and basically the freight markup and right now it might be… Normally we say one third freight markup and two thirds VAS. Right now it might be that the freight markup is 35 or 36%. But it’s in this ballpark that we’re talking about.
It of course means a lot of money when you round the 4,000 mark there. So I would say that we still see now the rates are fairly elevated and I think they’re definitely going to also provide for good yield in the fourth quarter. We will then see what happens in the market. There’s been so many speculations about the rates coming off and I think the carriers have done an exceptionally good job at keeping them elevated. So I think that’s what I can say right now on the rates.
Sita Ikblom (Analyst)
Ian, sorry, just to come back on your point on the customer points, all of those qualitative comments are very helpful. Is there any way to put quantitative metrics around that? Because I think that that’s really the key to recovering profitability. Like the best pipeline since we closed Schenker. I mean, that’s good to hear, but I don’t know what that actually means in quantum and like two to three times more customer sort of leads, et cetera. Is there any way to think about what volumes do in Q1 or is it just way too early to answer that question?
Sorry to pause.
Ian
No, that’s fine. It’s fine. Yeah. But let’s say we had index 100 in volumes, now we have index 92. This is where we are. Then it might be that that will go to index 93 or if we are locking 93 and a half in Q4 and then the rest will have to be recovered in two to three quarters. This is what the value of all the words that are set me means. Does that make sense?
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, this was the last question for today’s Q and A. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Group CEO Jens Lund for any closing remarks.
Jens Lund (Group CEO)
Thank you very much all for listening in. I think that we’ve had good conversation about some of the important topics and good questions as well. So thank you very much for that. We will now focus on delivering the results for the fourth quarter. And in relation to that, I would really also extend gratitude to our staff that have worked exceptionally hard in a very difficult period, not least in the road division. So really well done to them and I’m quite sure that the whole team is very eager to deliver the outcome that we all look for in Q4.
Thank you very much and have a great day.
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