Nel ASA's Leadership Vacancy Casts a Long Shadow Over an Improving Order Book
Published on 09/04/2026 at 08:01 | Editorial boerse-global.de
The Norwegian hydrogen equipment maker finds itself in an unusual holding pattern. Chief executive Håkon Volldal announced his departure in June but remains at the helm through a six-month notice period while the board hunts for a successor. That search now overlaps with a pivotal stretch for the business, one in which incoming orders are finally gathering momentum even as the income statement tells a far more sobering story.
Investors have had little fresh corporate news to trade on since the second-quarter figures landed on 15 July, leaving the market to digest a report that offered conflicting signals. The headline numbers from the April-to-June period show why Nel's next earnings release, scheduled for 21 October, carries such weight: revenue from customer contracts slipped 12 percent year on year to NOK 153 million, while EBITDA swung to a loss of NOK 155 million — a sharp deterioration from the NOK 100 million deficit posted in the first quarter and the NOK 86 million loss recorded a year earlier.
Part of that damage was self-inflicted in the accounting sense. A settlement with Iwatani Corporation of America, announced in June, weighed on the quarterly result to the tune of NOK 70 million, resolving a US legal dispute for $7.5 million. Strip that out and the underlying operating picture, while still negative, looks less alarming. Total revenue including other income actually improved sequentially, climbing from NOK 152 million in the first quarter to NOK 182 million in the second.
The brighter chapter of the report concerns the order book, and it is here that the bull case for Nel now rests. Order intake for the quarter reached NOK 230 million, a 224 percent jump against the NOK 71 million booked in the same period of 2025 and a 171 percent improvement on the preceding three months. The PEM electrolyser business drove virtually all of that momentum, accounting for 96 percent of incoming orders and lifting the segment's backlog by NOK 147 million to NOK 990 million. Group-wide, the order book stood at NOK 1.213 billion at the end of June, up 9 percent quarter on quarter and just 3 percent below the year-earlier level.
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Two US orders struck in April — each worth roughly $7 million, one from a public utility and one from Mesure Process, a subsidiary of Synqo Energies — hint that demand is broadening rather than resting on a single large contract. Whether that represents a durable recovery or a one-off surge from a handful of big-ticket wins is the question that will define Nel's trajectory in the months ahead.
Management has not been idle on the cost side. Headcount has been trimmed 13 percent against the second quarter of 2025, and the balance sheet retains a comfortable buffer, with cash reserves of NOK 1.328 billion at the period's close. That liquidity position was reinforced by an EU grant of NOK 118 million earmarked for commercialising the new generation of pressurised alkaline electrolysers — the PA-Series platform unveiled in May, for which Nel is pitching a turnkey full-cost price of under $1,450 per kilowatt on a 25-megawatt installation.
The industrial groundwork for scaling that technology is already being laid. A decision taken in December 2025 to build up to one gigawatt of manufacturing capacity at the Herøya site, backed by the EU Innovation Fund, gives the company the means to convert order momentum into production volume. Should the intake recovery persist, Nel could arrest its revenue decline without resorting to further job cuts.
Yet the bears have plenty of ammunition of their own. An EBITDA loss of NOK 155 million against a backlog still trailing last year's level is a reminder that orders do not automatically translate into profitable operations. The leadership question compounds that uncertainty: until a permanent successor to Volldal is named, the market cannot be certain whether the incoming chief executive will stick with the current strategy — focused on PEM and the new alkaline platform — or pivot in a different direction.
The share price reflects that caution. The stock trades at EUR 0.1926, roughly 47 percent below its 52-week high of EUR 0.3655 set in May, though still 11 percent above the February low of EUR 0.1731. Technical indicators point to a market without conviction: the relative strength index sits at 42.2, in neutral territory, while the share price runs about 4.4 percent beneath its 50-day moving average. Nel's market capitalisation stands at approximately EUR 351 million.
A modest insider purchase in April — board chair Arvid Moss acquired 100,000 shares at an average price of NOK 2.2547 — could be read as a signal of confidence from within, though a single such transaction hardly constitutes a turning point.
The path forward hinges on two variables. If PEM order intake remains robust and the Herøya capacity ramps up as planned, Nel has a credible route to more stable revenues beginning this year. If, however, the booking trend falters or the CEO search drags beyond the six-month window without resolution, the uncertainty hanging over the stock is unlikely to lift. The October report will provide the first concrete evidence of which scenario is playing out.
