Dear fellow shareholders, This year marks three decades since I first met Kjell Inge Røkke, a milestone that prompts reflection on the importance of governance and decisive leadership, particularly in times of uncertainty.

Dear fellow shareholders, In times of geopolitical shifts and macroeconomic uncertainty, it is essential to stay the course. History has shown that Aker consistently demonstrates its strength over the long term and through different cycles. This historical performance remains our ambition for the future.

Dear fellow shareholders, Aker is at its best when we couple our Norwegian advantages and industrial capabilities with global megatrends. However, growth doesn’t occur in vacuum, nor is it linear. It is shaped by external factors, such as geopolitics, market forces, technological advancements, and public sentiment. We remain committed to our core strengths: lasting partnerships with global champions, leveraging transactional capabilities, and maintaining financial strength and flexibility to seize opportunities. This context sets the stage for our fourth quarter results and guides Aker’s strategic responses to the complex challenges and opportunities of today's world.

Dear fellow shareholders, Aker ended the third quarter with a more streamlined and cash-generative investment portfolio. This enables us to pay an additional NOK 35.50 per share in cash dividend and enhance our dividend policy to 4-6% of NAV annually. Despite a decrease in our Net Asset Value this quarter, primarily due to lower oil prices, these actions reflect how we are playing to our strengths, including active ownership and transactional capabilities, to drive value creation.

Despite persistent uncertainty in the geopolitical landscape during the first half of 2024, the global economy continued to hold up relatively well. Although inflation has declined, the speed and extent of interest rate cuts are still widely debated. Even so, the first half of 2024 was a dynamic and productive period for Aker, as we continued to execute on our strategy, streamline our portfolio, and deliver value to our shareholders. As we highlighted in the first quarter, Aker’s approach moving forward will be more focused, however our commitment to long-term industrial development and shareholder value creation remains firm.

Dear fellow shareholders, the first quarter of 2024 saw strong performance in financial markets with several equity indices reaching all-time highs. This was to a large degree driven by growing optimism for a soft economic landing and easing interest rates, along with the ongoing positive momentum related to AI and the major tech companies. Despite continued geopolitical uncertainty, Aker closed the first quarter of 2024 with high activity across the portfolio and continued momentum for growth.

Aker’s course charted towards long-term industrial development remains firm, albeit with greater focus; concentrated on fewer and bigger portfolio companies, prioritizing investments that provide current returns and upstream cash. Not only does it increase our ability to seize investment opportunities, but also ensures continued reliable dividends for shareholders in the years to come.

Dear fellow shareholders, Aker demonstrated progress across several key metrics in the final three months of 2023 and delivered positive value to shareholders through both share price appreciation and dividends. Thus, we ended the year with positive momentum for growth, despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges and a fractured geopolitical landscape.

We are approaching the end of a year where both markets and companies have veered between optimism for the future and more pessimistic recalibrations of strategy and outlook. At Aker, we are continuing into the final months of the year executing on growth projects, driving progress towards higher and even more sustainable energy production, leveraging new and existing partnerships, and continuously finding ways to develop and deploy innovative digital solutions and technologies.

Continued inflation concerns, an ongoing war in Europe, regional bank failures, a debt ceiling debate, fears of recession and a wave of optimism surrounding AI – it has certainly been an eventful first half of the year for capital markets. For Aker, the share price in the first half of the year ended down 13.3 percent, adjusted for paid dividend. However, neither market uncertainties nor energy price headwinds stopped Aker portfolio companies, like Aker BP and Aker Solutions, from experiencing one of the strongest operational quarters on record. Looking ahead, I am confident in Aker’s strong portfolio composition, powered by evolving trends and robust long-term trajectories.

We close the first quarter of 2023 with remarkably high activity across the portfolio, both within conventional energy, renewables and other segments. Oil and gas production reached a new record level at 453 mboepd, with industry-leading and record low emissions intensity.

The fiscal year 2022 has come to a close, a year that will be regarded as a hinge in history – marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. We turned a corner on the first global pandemic in a century, saw major war return to Europe, and experienced the sharpest tightening of monetary policy since the 1980s. While we may have closed the books for the year, 2022’s events will undoubtably contribute to what will be an uncertain and divided decade. Through the turmoil, Aker is maintaining a steady course and our long-term strategy stands.