Viking Holdings - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Speaker 5

Good morning. My name is Paul, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Viking's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star two. Thank you. I would now like to turn the program to your host for today's conference, Vice President of Investor Relations, Carola Mengolini.

Speaker 6

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Viking's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I am joined by Torstein Hagen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Leah Talactac, President and Chief Financial Officer. Also available during the Q&A session is Linh Banh, Executive Vice President of Finance. Before we get started, please note our cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information. During the call, management may discuss information that is forward-looking and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which may cause the actual results to be different than those expressed or implied. Please evaluate the forward-looking information in the context of these factors, which are detailed in today's press release as well as in our filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements are as of today, and we assume no obligation to update or supplement these statements.

We may also refer to certain non-IFRS financial metrics, which are reconciled and described in our press release posted on our investor relations website at ir.viking.com. Torstein and Leah will begin today's call with a strategic overview of the business, including a recap of our second quarter results and an update on the current booking environment. Following their remarks, we will open the call for your questions. To supplement today's discussion, an earnings presentation is available on our investor relations website. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Torstein.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Carola, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to have delivered another quarter of great results, which reaffirm once again the strength of our business model, of our brand, and our guest demographic. As you can see on slide three, in the second quarter of 2025, net yield increased 8%, which combined with an 8.8% capacity growth resulted in revenue increases of 18.5% year over year. I believe this is the result of disciplined execution and great demand for our cruises. In terms of the overall booking environment, we are seeing sustained strength in demand. 96% of the 2025 capacity for our core product is already booked, effectively selling out this year. As such, our attention remains on 2026 bookings, where we are seeing a very strong start.

As of August 10, 55% of the capacity of our core products for the 2026 season was already sold, which is in line with our booked position at the same point last year and at higher rates. If you look at the next slide, number four, you will see that since we last spoke, we have been quite busy, both expanding our fleet and strengthening our global presence. First, the Viking Vesta joined our ocean fleet in June and is spending her inaugural season in the Mediterranean. On the riverside, we continue to thoughtfully strengthen our presence with the additions of the Viking Amun on the Nile. Also this past July, we announced our first river voyages in India, starting in 2027. This region offers stunning scenery and rich cultural heritage.

We look forward to taking our guests to exclusive itineraries delivered the Viking way, that is, with a great level of comfort and cultural enrichment. The early response to this new product has been phenomenal, with all available itineraries already sold out. Earlier during the second quarter, we completed a secondary offering of 30.5 million ordinary shares, priced at $44.20 per share. We will now look at how these developments shape the bigger picture for Viking, starting on slide five. When you consider that we started with just four river ships in 1997, our growth over the years has been a remarkable achievement and one we are very proud of. A key reason behind our sustained success is that our vision has remained consistent: travel should focus on the destination.

We are also fortunate to have very loyal guests, travelers who return to Viking time and time again, and most importantly, our continued growth is a result of hard work and dedication of our teams around the world. Today, our river fleet consists of 85 vessels operating on rivers across the globe, from the Rhine to the Nile and from the Danube to the Mekong. Through years of strategic investments and partnerships, we now control or have priority access of 110 docking locations, giving us logical flexibility and the ability to deliver a consistent, high-quality guest experience. On the oceans, we now operate 12 small modern ships, all with 100% balcony staterooms and designed to be nearly identical. This uniformity allows us to scale efficiently, deliver a consistent product, and maintain tight operational control.

The same philosophy guides our two expedition vessels, which serve guests seeking deeper exploration in remote regions of the world. Overall, our fleet is designed with both efficiency and purpose, offering superior guest comfort and compelling economics. These efficiencies apply both to our ship design, where we optimize space utilization and energy solution, and our operations, enabling Viking to drive yields, enhance the guest experience, and build long-term growth. Now, moving to slide six, the recent ship deliveries and new itinerary offerings in India are a testament to the fact that our river business remains fundamental to our identity and continues to be a key growth engine and brand differentiator. Overall, we now operate 21 rivers worldwide, with an expanding footprint that reflects both demand from our loyal guests and the cultural richness of the regions we serve.

Our river strategy is built on selective expansion, focusing on destinations that align with the Viking brand and resonate with culturally curious travelers. This means going beyond our well-traveled European routes and deepening our presence in high-value, less explored regions like those shown on the slide. In Egypt, the Nile continues to be a strong performer. We now have seven ships in operation and plan to deliver five more by 2027, underscoring our confidence in the long-term demand for this iconic destination. On the Mekong River, through Vietnam and Cambodia, we currently operate one vessel, with another scheduled for delivery later this year. Our newest river offering in India will start with one vessel in 2027 and another one in 2028. These will be small vessels with a capacity of 80 guest seats.

We are regularly conducting extensive research to identify new itineraries that will fill gaps in the travel market for our core demographic, inspiring our past Viking guests to travel with us again while attracting new guests to the brand. India is one example of that. The India offering is not large in terms of a media scale, but this addition is not about volume, it's about providing our guests with culturally immersive, destination-focused travel that can enrich our portfolio and offer our loyal guests even more ways to explore the world with Viking. Now, if we move to slide seven, I will provide a quick update on our ownership structure. On May 29, 2025, we completed a secondary offering. An aggregate of 30.5 million ordinary shares were offered by TPG Capital and CPP Investments at the price of $44.20 per share.

As you can see on the slide, this transaction adjusted our ownership composition, increasing our institutional float and further diversifying our shareholder base. We appreciate all who participated in the offering and are grateful for the continued interest and support in Viking. With that, I'll turn to Leah to discuss our financials.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Tor, and good morning, everyone. I will start by reviewing our very strong second quarter results. On a consolidated basis, total revenue for the quarter increased 18.5% year over year to $1.9 billion. The year-over-year increase was mainly driven by increased capacity, higher occupancy, and higher revenue per PCD. Capacity increased 8.8% this quarter, driven by the delivery of two river vessels and one ocean ship in 2024, as well as an additional river vessel delivered in March 2025. Growth also reflects the Viking Yi Dun, which operates in China. As you might recall, at the end of last year, we celebrated our return to this region. While our product in Asia and for Asia is still in its early stages of development, we are very pleased to have added an ocean ship with unique itineraries for our Asian guests.

Adjusted gross margin increased 19.2% year over year to $1.2 billion, resulting in a net yield of $607, 8% higher than the second quarter of 2024. Vessel expenses, excluding fuel per capacity PCD, increased 8.2% this quarter compared to the same period last year. This year-over-year increase was driven by several factors. These include changes in itinerary mix that resulted in both higher yields and some higher expenses, such as port charges. We remain committed to optimizing our cost structure while continuously refining our deployment and itinerary planning. Regarding SG&A, following the year-over-year step-up in expenses in the second quarter, we continue to invest in our teams, as well as in sales and marketing, to support future growth and drive demand generation. Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $633 million, 28.5% higher than the same period last year.

This significant year-over-year increase was mainly driven by higher capacity, occupancy, and net yields in both the ocean and river segments. As we have mentioned in the past, the combination of capacity growth and yield growth translates into healthy EBITDA growth. Net income was $439 million, an improvement of almost $280 million when compared to the same period in 2024. I will note that the net income for the second quarter of 2024 includes a loss of $123 million from the revaluation warrants issued by the company due to stock price appreciation, and it also includes a loss of $66 million from the net impact of the private placement derivative loss and interest expense related to the company's Series C preference shares. Adjusted net income attributable to Viking Holdings Ltd. was $439 million, 25.8% higher than the same period in 2024.

The net income is also impacted by fluctuation in currency. To this end, we have hedged a significant portion of our euro exposure for 2025 and 2026 operating expenses. We have €470 million hedged for 2025 and €500 million hedged for 2026 at a weighted rate of $1.10 per euro. We also worked on opportunities to offset our currency exposure on the balance sheet, such as our euro-denominated loans. For example, we naturally hedged these loans by converting an equivalent amount of cash holdings into euros as of late Q2 2025. With this, on a forward basis, we have generally mitigated the unrealized currency fluctuations caused by the euro loans due to fluctuating euro rates. Adjusted EPS was $0.99 for the second quarter.

Before moving to our reportable segments, which are on slide 10, I would like to highlight that for the first half of the year, our consolidated adjusted gross margin increased 20.7% year over year to over $1.8 billion, and our net yield was $584, 7.6% higher than in the same period last year. Now, I will briefly discuss our two reportable segments, river and ocean. Unless noted, I will be referring to year-to-date metrics, or six months ended June 30, 2025. In the river segment, capacity PCDs increased 7.5% year over year, mainly driven by the addition of two new ships for Egypt delivered in 2024, and the Viking Nerthus, which began operating on the Seine River in March of 2025. Occupancy for the period was 95.6%, an increase of almost 100 basis points compared to the same period last year.

Adjusted gross margin grew 15.8% year over year, and net yield was $607, up 6.9% year over year, driven by strong demand for our European itineraries. As a reminder, the bulk of our river business begins in the second quarter. For ocean, capacity PCDs increased 11.2% year over year, mainly due to the addition of the Viking Vela in December of 2024. Occupancy for the period was 95.2%, about 25 basis points higher than last year. Adjusted gross margin increased 24.9% year over year to $888 million, while net yield increased 12% to $551. The increase in net yield was primarily driven by a favorable mix in deployment. I will particularly highlight the positive impact of operating one world cruise this year compared to two in 2024. Excluding this impact, net yield for the period would have increased by high single digits compared to 2024.

Now, moving to the balance sheet on slide 11, you can see that as of June 30, 2025, we had total cash and cash equivalents of $2.6 billion, and we also have an undrawn revolver facility of $375 million. Our net debt was $3.2 billion, and our net leverage was 2.1 times. As of June 30, 2025, deferred revenue was $4.4 billion. Also on slide 11, we show you our bond maturity outlook. As you can see, maturities are in 2027 and beyond. With this, I'd like to confirm our debt amortization for 2025 and 2026. As of June 30, 2025, the scheduled principal payments for the remainder of 2025 were $142 million and $258 million for the full year 2026. From a committed capital expenditure perspective and for full year 2025, the total expected committed ship capex is about $990 million, or $560 million net of financing.

For the full year 2026, the total expected committed ship capex is about $1.2 billion, or $70 million net of financing. The main drivers of the total committed ship capex for 2026 are two ocean ships, Viking Mira and Viking Vibra, which are scheduled for delivery in 2026. With that, I'll turn it back to Tor to review our business outlook, including our booking curves.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Leah. Let's now dive into the booking curves, which are all as of August 10, 2025. On slide 13, we show our consolidated metrics for our core products. As you can see, we are in very good shape, both for the 2025 and the 2026 seasons. The 2025 season already has 96% of our capacity PCDs booked. Advanced bookings equal $5.6 billion, which is 21% higher than the 2024 season at the same point in time, while the capacity is increasing by 12%. For 2026, we are already 55% booked with $3.9 billion of advanced bookings. These are 13% higher than the 2025 season at the same point in time in 2024. Capacity for our core products is increasing by 9%. Let us now talk about the advanced booking curves for the segments. On the next slide, you will see the curves for ocean cruises.

This is slide 14. I will start with the blue line, which shows the bookings for 2025. Overall, we have sold 95% of our capacity PCDs for the year and have $2.5 billion of advanced bookings, which is 29% higher than last year at this point in time. Capacity is increasing by 18%, and rates have remained strong as we finish selling the last quarter of the year. If you now look at the yellow line, you will see the booking trend for the 2026 season, which is in very good shape too. As of August 10, we had sold about 64% of the 2026 capacity for ocean, which is increasing by 9%. Advanced bookings are 19% higher than last year, with rates equal to $780 compared to $752 for the 2025 season at the same point in time.

Now, if you move to slide 15, you will see the curves for the river cruises. I will start with advanced bookings for 2025, which is the blue line. As you can see, we are having a great year, with 97% of the 2025 capacity already sold as of August 10. We have over $2.7 billion in advanced bookings, which is 16% higher than last year at this point in time. As you can tell, we have continued to book our remaining inventory at very attractive rates. Capacity for the river segment is expected to grow approximately 6%, a slight decrease from the 7% reported last quarter. The most notable update is related to two vessels previously scheduled for delivery at the end of 2025, which are now expected at the beginning of 2026.

The impact of these changes to the advanced booking curves and our metrics for 2025 and 2026, for that matter, is immaterial. Now, looking at the yellow line, these are the advanced bookings for the 2026 season. As you can see, we have sold about $1.6 billion in advanced bookings, which is 5% higher than the 2025 season at the same point in time. Our operating capacity for river is up 9% year over year. This number is slightly higher than what we reported last year, driven by the changes in delivery dates previously mentioned. These are good trends for 2026, with rates equal to $940 compared to $887 in 2025. Overall, advanced booking for our core products are doing very well. Moreover, rates for the 2026 season remain steady, currently 4% higher than the 2025 season at the same point in time, along with a 9% increase in capacity.

To this end, we are very pleased with how the curves are now trending. Now, Leah will add some color to our order book and capacity.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Tor. Now, turning to our order book on slide 16, the chart has been updated to reflect the ship deliveries mentioned by Tor. It also includes the two river vessels that we will operate in India with deliveries planned for 2027 and 2028. Lastly, the chart reflects a shift in the delivery timeline of two river vessels previously scheduled for 2025, which are now expected in 2026. As you can see, we remain committed to adding new capacity and expanding our itinerary offerings in exciting destinations. At Viking, we believe that if we remain focused on offering and delivering meaningful experiences, strong results will follow. With this, I conclude our prepared remarks. I'll now turn it back to the operator to take questions.

Speaker 5

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. In the interest of time, we ask that participants limit themselves to one question and one follow-up on today's call. If you would like to ask your question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from Steven Moyer Wieczynski from Stifel Nicolaus & Company Incorporated. Steven, your line is live.

Yeah, hey guys, good morning. Congratulations on a solid quarter here. Tor, Leah, I'm wondering if maybe you could just walk us through the last couple of months in terms of booking progress for 2026. I guess what I'm trying to understand here, or understand a little bit more here, is obviously there was some slowdown in bookings. If we go back and think about February, March, around Liberation Day stuff, and just general macro uneasiness. When we heard from you guys last April and May, it seemed like it improved. I'm wondering if you could just walk us through maybe what you have seen in June, July, and so far in August in terms of how bookings have trended across both river and ocean, and maybe if your core customer has become more selective with how and when they are booking. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Hi Steve, good morning. Thanks for the question. It's a great question. Since we last spoke, we have continued to see really strong demand from our consumers. In fact, we had an outstanding June and July, and we continue to see that booking strength continue into August. That's reflected in the fact that we're 55% sold for 2026. From our perspective, the consumer behavior is pretty much consistent with what we have seen in the past. We've seen our guests start to really engage and start to book their holidays for the 2026 season. Tor, I don't know if you want to provide any color. You're on mute, Tor. Go ahead, Steve. Do you have another question?

I'll move on. You mentioned marketing spend and a little bit of uptick in terms of marketing spend. Just wondering, is that broad-based or are you having to market more aggressively to certain itineraries or certain cabin classes and stuff like that? Just trying to understand that commentary there around the uplift in marketing spend. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. In the past, we have spoken to the fact that if we see a little bit of softening in demand, our first lever that we pull is marketing, not necessarily pricing. You've spoken to this little bit of a softer demand around Liberation Day. That's where we turned on our marketing machine and just promoted more, not necessarily discount, but just got the word out and got the consumers focusing on Viking and stimulating that demand. That's what you see there. It's something that we do as part of our business strategy of consumer, direct-to-consumer interface.

Okay, gotcha. Understood. Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Matthew Robert Boss from JPMorgan Chase & Co. Matthew, your line is live.

Great, thanks, and congrats on a nice quarter.

Speaker 7

Thanks, Pat.

Tor, with 2026 bookings off to a very strong start, as you cited, how do you see the current 2026 booked position at over 50% today, allowing you to optimize pricing on capacity for 2026 at this point?

Speaker 4

Yeah, this is always a tricky game. You know, at the prices we get, we have a reasonably good return, and we also want to make sure that our guests get good value for money. We should be careful that we don't get overly excited also. It is a balance we strike, and I think we are in a good spot now where we are. Might possibly, when you look at things backwards, might possibly have pushed the price a little bit higher, but I think we're quite satisfied where we are.

That's great. For a follow-up, Leah, maybe could you provide some perspective on the 4% advanced bookings per PCD growth to date? Is mid-single-digit yield growth for 2026 the right baseline, or just any puts and takes to consider as we move further down the booking curve?

Speaker 7

Sure. I think, you know, we don't provide guidance, but we have, you know, that is our goal is to mid-single-digit price growth. You talked a little bit about average price per day. We are averaging $800 to $900 per day, and that's 4% on top of already 7% that we've achieved in 2025. The pricing increase, in addition to our capacity increase, we believe will lead to great revenue and EBITDA growth, not just in 2025, but also in 2026. At the end of the day, we are building long-term. We want our guests to repeat. We want good value for money, and our payback on our ships reflects that our pricing is also quite strong. Our payback for ocean vessels is five to six years.

Payback for rivers is four to five years, and that's even before the negative working capital with the fact that our guests book and pay seven, eight months prior to departure. Overall, I would say that the consumer is showing signs that it's healthy. They're engaged, they're booking, and we are able to demonstrate that our goals of mid-single-digit price increases are achievable.

Great, Carla.

Speaker 4

If I may add, we are, of course, fortunate because we believe we are somewhat contrarian. We have been able to contract ships at very good prices. We are also a good negotiator when it comes to shipyards. You can say the ships that we now have on the books have been acquired at fairly attractive prices, which gives advantage relative to anybody who might want to expand their position or even enter this market. I think we want to make sure that we give good value to our loyal guests.

It's really helpful, Carola. Best of luck.

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Robin Margaret Farley from UBS Investment Bank. Robin, your line is live.

Great, thank you. Just looking at your booked revenue per cruise day for 2026, and that up 4%, it had sounded last quarter like you had maybe expected that would tick up over the course of this year. It sounds like it is maybe the expectation that it won't tick up, that it maybe will sort of stay at this level. Maybe a little bit of a different view than you had last quarter, or how should we think about, you know, the commentary that you're giving us today? Thanks.

Speaker 7

Hi, Robin.

Sorry, go ahead, Linh.

No, please go ahead, Leah.

Yeah, I can start, and then you can kind of give your perspective. You know, we have said mid-single digits, and we didn't give any guidance that we thought it would tick up. I just wanted to clarify that. Go ahead, Linh.

No, I agree with what Leah just said. I think in our last call, we said as, you know, if market conditions remain, we do feel that we would get to our mid-single digit goal. We'll just reiterate what Tor and Leah both just said, that we feel our capacity increase plus our yield increase would lead to good, healthy EBITDA growth. As Tor said, and we'll reiterate, we feel we're in a great position for 2026. We're 55% sold. Rates are higher, and given that our average revenue per day is $800 to $900, we feel we are in a good spot.

Okay, thank you. Just as a follow-up question, on the expense side, you mentioned there were some things having to do with port charges, some more marketing, different things that were contributing to that higher expense uptick. Can you give us a sense of how much of that do you think is the new base for, in other words, should we expect this expense increase to continue, or were there kind of one-time items or non-recurring factors in the quarter? I'm just thinking about that rate of expense growth relative to next year's revenue growth, if it stays at the 4% level, just to get some comfort that expenses wouldn't be up that much more than revenue. Anything about maybe sort of non-recurring from this quarter? Thanks.

Sure. At the end of the day, quarterly variances may occur due to a variety of things, like timing of repairs and maintenance, ship deliveries, itinerary mix. Like we noted in the past, we are long-term, and we do not manage our business quarterly. We do manage at most on an annual basis. We try to be prudent with expenses while not compromising quality. What we can say is for the first half of 2025, compared to the same period in 2024, operating expenses, excluding fuel, was up 3.9%. Our capacity was up 11% for the same period, and yields were up 7.6%. The overall revenue growth grew 20.5%, and adjusted EBITDA grew 45%. I think for the first half of the year, even given the slight tick-up in operating expenses, we were able to yield really strong revenue growth and EBITDA growth.

Thanks. The Q2 expenses, that's not the level that you're saying, you know, there are quarterly fluctuations in there. Is that the right way to think about it?

Correct. There will be quarterly fluctuations. Agreed. There will be quarterly fluctuations.

Okay, thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Andrew George Didora from BofA Securities. Andrew, your line is live.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Tor, Leah, I just wanted to ask one more just on 2026 pricing. Obviously, across the portfolio, it held steady from your last update. Just digging into the presentation, it looked like river pricing did accelerate from your last update while ocean was decelerated modestly. Can you maybe speak to some of the differences you're seeing in consumer behavior across the two segments, if any at all?

Speaker 7

Yeah, sure. Hi, Andrew. You know, we've talked a lot about how we operate as one brand, and we feel that really differentiates us. From our perspective, whether our guests travel with us on rivers or oceans or expeditions, as long as they book and travel with Viking, that remains our goal. Year over year, price changes will always be dependent on what is sold. In the last call, Linh has talked a little bit about how the river curve is slightly different in shape of when the curves develop because of the seasonality of the product itself. You're starting to see that in the curves that we presented today where the river curves have picked up. At the end of the day, we price to demand.

We feel, again, with the $800 to $900 per day in revenue achieved across all our products, we feel we are well positioned in how our curves look for the 2026 year.

Got it. Thank you. I know you get this question a lot, but as one looks out to next year, net debt is likely headed below, you know, maybe a turn of net leverage. I guess what metrics in your mind do you have to get to in order to consider capital returns to shareholders? I ask just because another cruise company started to return capital with net leverage above where you are today. Just curious how we should think about that. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. We're committed to a balanced capital allocation framework. At the end of the day, we have said that we feel that the large cash reserve we have on hand at the balance sheet provides a great buffer against unpredictability. We've seen it in years past and even in this year. It gives us that stability and flexibility to be able to be contrarian. We believe the strategy reflects our long-term perspective and readiness to deploy capital when market conditions are favorable or take advantage of when things arise. Currently, we're not contemplating a dividend or share buyback, but they are an option to return capital to shareholders in the longer term. Given that we're just past our one-year mark, I think there are better uses of our cash in terms of generating return to investors.

Thank you.

Yep.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from James Lloyd Hardiman from Citigroup Inc. James, your line is live.

Good morning. I wanted to actually follow up on that last question, I guess two questions ago. The idea that as we think about 2026 advanced bookings per PCD, that river is accelerating a little bit and ocean is decelerating a little bit. Are those trends that we should anticipate moving forward? Maybe you can speak, I'm curious how capacity growth impacts pricing growth. Obviously, you know, the ocean segment growing at a much faster pace, does that put downward pressure on pricing relative to what we're seeing in river? Thanks.

Speaker 4

I wouldn't say that the growth has much to do with the pricing on the ocean segment, quite frankly. I'd probably almost flip it around a little bit. The growth that we see in our ocean business is really a clear manifestation of the outstanding product that we have on the oceans. I go from time to time on board our vessels and talk to our guests, and they are very enthusiastic about what they experience. I think we see good, very good growth opportunities on the ocean. We see it on the rivers too, but I see no signs of a slowdown in the ocean. Maybe we could have had a little bit higher price on the ocean in the last couple of quarters.

At these rates, we get a reasonably good return to shareholders as it is, and it gives us a good chance to deliver a good product and good results. Some interesting things when we look at what's going on is that the people in our travel on our ocean business are, to a large extent, people who have been on other ocean cruise lines before. I'll not mention names of some of them, but we have it in some of our presentation material from earlier, where they've been on ocean cruises. I call them more floating theme parks with their children, and then they grow up. I guess that is, they get into their 50s and say, "We really want to have a different experience than this stuff where we go with our kids and do all the fun stuff.

We want to have a quiet, serene experience." I think they don't have much choice, and they're so enthusiastic about what we have. I think our ocean product has very much demand coming, and we are very fortunate to have the large order book that we have at very attractive prices for the ships. We can talk about the fine-tuning of the fares. As I said, we might could have done a little bit better. Looking backward is always easier. I think the ocean business is in great shape. I'd say the river business is also in very good shape. We have 50% of that market, 52%, I think, latest count. I think we're in an excellent position on both of the products.

Got it. That's helpful. I wanted to ask about mix a little bit. Obviously, the 4% for 2026 is getting a lot of focus this morning. It's the same number as last time around. One takeaway might just be that nothing's changed, right, since May, whatever, May 11. I guess, are there any mix offsets that we should be aware of? I don't know if there's this concept of sort of like for like. Has that gotten any better? Maybe that's offset. We've talked a lot in the past about sort of the premium rooms booking first. Obviously, there's a lot of different parts of the world. Curious about how mix impacts that 2026 number. Maybe a way too early question for 2027, but you know, how do we think about mix there? It looks like your Egyptian capacity is almost doubling.

I think you get some real good prices for those rooms. Should we be thinking about that as a tailwind to pricing in 2027? Thanks.

Of course, Egypt, when you see how quickly it sold out, and similarly, India has sold out very shortly after we launched it. You can say should we have pushed prices higher on that? They're not such big components of our business, so they won't have a big impact on the average, as you can well realize. I think it shows the great desire our guests have to go to new places and how easy it is for us to introduce new products. The way we introduce the expedition product is another example. Our guests want to have more experiences. I was on board, as I said, one of our two of our ships this weekend, and there are people who quoted from my commercial, I said my commercial, where I talk about time, time being the only truly scarce resource.

I said, "Heck, you know, we don't have so much time left. We have to do something useful and nice with our time." What other thing is there to do than travel with Viking? They knew I was, of course, so that probably buttered me up. I think this is very, very key, how we can find new experiences for them. We have had a long debate, how much of a luxury product are we? We are about, you know, other people define luxury one way or another. I don't think our guests necessarily like to have butlers roaming around their luggage and whether it's dirty or clean laundry. We are really a very, we are an understated, elegant product, peaceful, quiet. We give a product to people who have worked hard and who now deserve to spend some time doing interesting things.

The promises we have, no children, no casinos, no nickel and diming, I think that just hit right at the heart of who the people, what people want when they travel on. We shouldn't almost call it cruise because we are so different from the others. I think we're in a good spot.

Interesting color. Thanks, Tor.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Stephen White Grambling from Morgan Stanley. Stephen, your line is live.

Hi, thanks. I think I caught that you said that you were getting good pricing on ships. I was wondering if you could double-click on that comment. Is that relative to peers, history, or both? What do you think is driving some of the improved capital and efficiency on the order book?

Speaker 4

If I may, I think we have taken a lot of care when we first designed both the ocean ships and the river ships. We like to get it right in the first place. As you know, we don't vary things much. We don't have new designers come in and mess things around. Our ships are virtually identical. That makes it better for the yard, so we get a better price as such. It costs them less to repeat. I dare say we have the people on our side who negotiate are quite hard-nosed when it comes to dealing with the yard. We don't use brokers in between, which some of the other cruise lines do. We are quite efficient, I would say. The comparison is really both with our prices of the past because, of course, with inflation, we have had to pay somewhat more.

Certainly, compared to anybody out there now contracting ships, we get much better prices than they because we are quite efficient and we don't waste space or things on the ships. That is a key tenet of what we're doing.

That's helpful. Maybe changing gears as a follow-up, could you just talk about some of the puts and takes to gross margins associated with thinking about the gross pricing you have in your advanced bookings versus what we're seeing in net yields, which look like they've been a little bit better, and how to think about that maybe into next year? Thank you.

Speaker 7

Sure. Hey, Stephen, this is Linh. What we provide in our booking curves are what generally a guest would book: cruise, land, air, etc. In our net yields, we do include costs, onboard spend, and ancillary revenue. That's how you go from what we have in the curves to what is eventually presented in our financial statements. There will be a difference, as you note, but we've done a good job of being able to keep rates up.

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Elizabeth Dove from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Elizabeth, your line is live.

Hi there. Thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to go back bigger picture to the kind of capacity growth piece. Obviously, as people mentioned, you have some of the best capacity growth in the industry. I suppose looking at long term, even beyond 2026 and 2027, what gives you confidence in kind of filling that capacity at the right price? How do you kind of balance occupancy and price, especially with some of the growing competition that you have in river over the longer term?

Speaker 4

You say we have growing competition. I understand somebody's going to deliver two new ships in 2027. That's a quarter of a year's delivery from our normal fleet, so I don't worry too much about that. It's nice to get some attention to the sector. We've been at it now for soon, soon 30 years, and we're not worrying too much about that. As you know, in the rivers, we have a number of fairly protective things. We own or control 110 docking stations along the river, which I think is nice to have prime docking. That's on that side. On the oceans, I would say that given we haven't seen any indication that it's going to be difficult to fill.

At some stage, we may also need some of those, some more tonnage for a product in China, which we are developing for the Chinese source market, which we are developing, and it seems to be coming along quite okay. At least sitting here today, we're not the least worried about filling that capacity. We're more worried about making sure we have enough capacity. That's more of an issue.

Great. That's super clear. Just following up on one of the earlier questions about capital returns, I think you mentioned in your answer that you would see better uses of cash. I'm curious whether any kind of M&A would be on the cards and what kind of, you know, whether it's stock in acquisitions that you might consider. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah, sure, Lizzie. We talk about our committed order book, so you could see that we have our growth engine as ocean, and while our strategy is to maintain our dominance in the river. That strong cash balance gives us the opportunity to continue to contract these vessels further out with options going out to 2032 and 2033. When we think about M&A, our ROIC is a benchmark that we want to further improve, and we're ready for an acquisition if the right opportunity presents itself. In the past, we've talked about our guiding principles, which is that it's scalable, it's margin accretive, and it's complementary to the brand. India is an example of that, where it is definitely complementary to the brand.

Our guests have largely sold it out and have demonstrated that when we come to market with a new product, they are very willing to book, in this case, two years, two to three years out. We believe that making sure that these three guiding principles are met are really what drives our decisions in terms of acquisition and further expansion. We remain watchful. There are plenty of opportunities and plenty of companies that come up for sale every once in a while, and we do assess them. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that these three principles are met.

Speaker 4

Leah, I would say that everybody in top management of Viking, I think we all, some of us are owners too, but I think we all have the owner's mentality rather than the manager's mentality. We want to, we think about what we're doing for the shareholders, not what we're doing for the management egos. If an acquisition should take place, it has to be a good deal, and it has to fit with those principles. I wouldn't have too much fear.

Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you. The next question will be from Alex Brignall from Redburn (Europe) Limited. Alex, your line is live.

Speaker 4

Thank you very much. Good morning. Just asking a question on a couple of things, I guess both related to the product and new entrants. You talked about the position you have with the shipyards. When you think about where capacity would come from if others were going to want to build longboards or river ships, is that where the restrictions lie? I guess the large, the major cruise lines would talk about their relationship with existing shipyards, but can you just talk about, obviously, you've done a phenomenal job of building a very consistent product to a very, very high standard. It's good for us to understand what the restrictions are on other shipyards that could build river ships. We obviously know how it works in the ocean space a little bit better. Perhaps I'll ask my second one because it's very related.

You have obviously a very consistent product on both sides, and you obviously understand your customer very, very well. Other cruise lines have talked about the evolving demand habits and preferences that their consumers have. You seemingly have consumers that don't change what they like. Do you sort of continually assess that and think about ways that you could, at the margin, evolve the product should that happen, or is it sort of this is the way it's going to be because that's the way that we run the business? Thank you so much. My bet. Could take the second half of the question first. There's one word I don't like, and that's evolve. I think evolution, you know, sneaky evolution is very dangerous. We have been very, very, very tough on anything that could change the product the way it is generally delivered and perceived.

I believe a little bit in revolutions, not evolutions. I think we've gotten the model right. We have the dockings, as I said. We also have some of the design elements that are very, very unique. We have these asymmetric corridors where we have a patent on that and a few things like that. Of course, we feel we have the first call first. We are the employer of choice. I feel that you don't have any guarantee for that, but we feel we are. The way we treated our staff during COVID, I think has paid off in manifold sense because we treated them like part of the family. We had that lockdown. The experience that our team has, you know, it's not so true. It's easier to operate an ocean ship than a river ship. A river ship, you had to be awake 24 hours a day.

On an ocean, you can put it on autopilot, and it normally goes well. I think we have captains and engineers with huge skills, and they like to work with Viking. We probably try to, we'll cement them even more to us. I think we have all that, the relationships along the rivers. I think it's fine. There are yards that can build river ships, but it's not so easy. I'd say you had to be very cost conscious. If you give it enough years, people can get a slice of the market. I'm not too worried about it. Famous last words.

Speaker 5

Brilliant. Thank you so much for the detail. Thank you. Our final question today will come from Conor T. Cunningham from Melius Research LLC. Conor, your line is live.

Hi, everyone. Thank you. Nice to see that the 2026 river pricing moved up like it did. On new markets like Egypt and India, you talked about how you've seen a lot of demand already. I'm curious if those new markets or new markets in general are dilutive to the overall pricing strategy. Maybe if you could just talk about how you go about assessing new markets in general. Just as my second question, during the IPO process, you mentioned a lot about moving a point of sale away from the opportunity set outside of the North American market. Tor, you talked a little bit about China. I was just hoping you could level set a little bit on that strategy and where things sit today. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think when we move to new, call it destinations, new destinations, it's quite, you know, typically we then go with smaller vessels, and smaller vessels do need higher prices. We had to make sure that we don't do anything stupid. I think what we've done, for example, in Egypt is exceptional. Nobody comes near the vessels we are building there in quality. I think similarly will be India. We had to take care of that. The market research, I joked a bit about it. I said we do a lot of market, I do a lot of market research in the morning when I shave. Maybe that's a bit, we do a lot of formal market research too. I have the benefit that I know, I feel I know what our guests want, quite frankly, and so do my colleagues. We can really assess it quite well.

You know, it's clear that people want to go to interesting places. I mentioned to some guests on board that next World Cruise will go to Lagos in Nigeria. Many people say, "Oh, that's so dangerous." Of course, people like to go to a new place where they haven't been before. They say, "We like to go with Viking because we know that we are safe." That's really the theme throughout. I think we'll find some more places like that. You know, the map, when you look at our map in our brochure, we are pretty much everywhere, quite frankly. We have even now the business we have in the U.S. on the Mississippi. We had some startup issues. I think that has also come quite right in terms of the quality of the product. China, as we all know, is a huge potential market.

We currently have four river ships staffed by Chinese speakers. We are marketing. In the same fashion as we do in North America, we market directly to the Chinese consumer. People said, "You must be nooks." I said, "No, we don't want to go through tour operators or other people who brand over us." I think we are seeing, it's taken a long time, but I feel we're coming through that. There will be hopefully some real things coming out of that. There are these obvious expansion opportunities. China is the biggest one, of course. I know that answers the question. Leah, there was one point you should have made. Do you want to make the point before the last question gets picked up, or should we shut up?

Speaker 7

No, we just wanted to point out that, you know, we talked a little bit about it during the scripted portion of the call. You know, we do have two euro-denominated loans. They're ocean loans. They're disclosed in the financial statements. We did experience unrealized FX losses related to them. We calculated, and it translated to an $0.11 adjusted EPS impact to our adjusted EPS $0.99. What we did was we converted U.S. dollars to euros to create a natural hedge. We don't expect that unrealized loss to recur throughout the rest of the year. We did want to point that out. As the euro starts to strengthen, you know, the fact that we did that, and also we are hedged for a portion of our 2025 and 2026 results, we feel we are able to manage through the currency exposure.

Speaker 4

I think that's important because our philosophy has always been to finance our vessels in dollars. On this occasion, there was some issue, and we then said we had to do it in euro. We're probably a little bit slow in converting or in having a matching euro deposit. That has that negative impact both on Q1 and Q2 this year. That should not be a recurring event for those who like to look to the future. I think that's important. We don't want to take unnecessary currency risks. There are enough other risks we can exploit.

Speaker 5

Appreciate all the things you're willing to tack on.

Speaker 7

That was exactly the point. Thanks, Tor.

Speaker 4

Okay, sorry about that. I think it's important because, you know, somebody, I think some famous investor from Omaha used to call EBITDA the result before expenses. There are some things below EBITDA too, which one should look at. We do look at the bottom line.

Speaker 5

Thank you. I will now turn the conference back over to Torstein Hagen, Viking's Chairman and CEO, for closing remarks.

Speaker 4

Can I thank everybody for joining in today's call? I thank you for the support and interest in Viking. We'll see what the future brings. Thank you very much all.

Speaker 5

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.