CEO and President Carsten Mortensen's speech of thanks

At The Danish Society of Financial Analysts’ Annual New Year Event Dinner NORDEN was Monday presented with the Information Award 2009. 

CEO and President of NORDEN Carsten Mortensen:

Thank you, Jens, for the kind words.

Naturally, I’m proud of accepting this award on behalf of NORDEN – and I’m immensely proud of my employees who deserve the credit for us coming so far in terms of communicating what we do in the Company.

We don’t allocate endless resources on IR and financial communication in NORDEN. Far from it. On the other hand, I believe that we have the right resources, and that we employ them sensibly … - and I guess that this award can be seen as proof hereof.

We have a small team who are dedicated and know their metier. And as this team is positioned centrally in the organisation in terms of strategy, reporting, operations, markets and business development they know what is going on – and why. They are therefore very qualified to service analysts and portfolio managers. And they are also able to make the necessary communicative prioritisation. The art is not to simply inform stakeholders of every little detail – the art is to be able to select and deselect information in order to inform stakeholders of the important matters required to assess a company.

Unfortunately, I was not able to participate at today’s debate between the 3 Peters – Straarup, Engberg and Schütze. But I will venture a guess that the 3 gentlemen also talked about risks and volatility… I can divulge that these are topics also known within shipping….. I can illustrate this by example of the rates on the largest bulk carriers – Capesize – last year alone these fluctuated between 5,000 and 100,000 USD!...... 5 and 100,000.

It is evident that if your sales prices and markets are this volatile in a period, and if, at the same time, you maintain an unchanged long-term ambition of having fairly stable and sound earnings, you have to act decisively and consistently. We have done so. We have adapted business, capacity, costs, organisation and investments significantly this past year. I think it’s fair to say that we have succeeded in most of our efforts – perhaps not in all, but in most. We have sought to inform the share market as openly and honestly as possible of our efforts and performance. And we have sought to keep focus on the dialogue, although I may admit that at times it has been difficult to find the time to do so.

Therefore, I am particularly happy that The Committee for Accounting Standards finds that we have maintained the level through the crisis. It is my belief that we can’t afford to do otherwise. Running for cover costs credibility, and you can’t get enough credibility.

If my oldest son of 13 was here, he would probably say that this award gives NORDEN street cred or street credibility…. I would put it this way: we have a good idea of where we are today information-wise – and we are happy that this is recognised both in receiving today’s fine award, but also in increased attention and improved dialogue with our stakeholders… That being said, we are also aware that there are areas in which we can improve. We discuss these – and we address these. Today’s award is a very motivational factor in our efforts to raise the bar within the right areas – not in all, but within the right ones.

So once again thanks to The Committee for Accounting Standards for the honour – and for the well-intentioned push in the right direction…. have a pleasant evening!