Nel ASA Puts Finance Chief in the Driver's Seat as Orders Surge and Revenue Collapses
Published on 10/22/2026 at 06:11 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Nel ASA will hand the chief executive's chair to its finance director on an interim basis, the hydrogen equipment maker said, buying itself time before incoming CEO Morten Holum formally takes over by 1 May 2027 at the latest. Kjell Christian Bjørnsen steps into the top role on 1 November 2026, and the transition ripples through the finance function as well: Torbjørn Berg, previously Vice President Finance, becomes interim chief financial officer.
The two-track arrangement is worth parsing carefully. Holum's appointment is settled, but his start date is not immediate, so operational responsibility sits with the interim leadership for now. Nel is leaning on internal managers to bridge the gap rather than reaching outside the company.
That handover lands in the middle of a difficult stretch. A leadership succession, however tidy on paper, is no evidence in itself that trading has improved — the real test is how operations perform under the transitional team and, later, under Holum.
A quarter of two halves
The third-quarter 2026 figures, published roughly a week ago, lay out the scale of the challenge. Revenue from customer contracts fell 63% year on year to NOK 112 million, while EBITDA came in at NOK -93 million. The weakness was concentrated in the alkaline business.
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Orders tell a different story. Order intake jumped 339% to NOK 253 million, and the order backlog reached NOK 1,314 million. That gives Nel a larger foundation for future revenue, though the size of the backlog alone says nothing about how quickly it will be converted or how much will land in any single reporting period.
The PEM segment provided a counterweight: revenue there climbed 65% to NOK 89 million, and PEM order intake rose 473%. Still, that strength should not be mistaken for a group-wide recovery — the divergence between the divisions is precisely why a turnaround thesis looks premature.
One concrete illustration of the timeline came in a US order reported about a week ago. Nel Hydrogen US won a contract worth roughly USD 12 million from an unnamed global technology company headquartered in the United States. The deal covers several containerised PEM electrolysers from the MC series plus associated services, with delivery expected in 2027.
What investors should watch
For shareholders, the takeaway splits cleanly in two. More orders and PEM growth brighten the outlook; the steep drop in total revenue rules out calling this an operational turnaround just yet. The new leadership team inherits responsibility during a demanding period, and whether that translates into business progress will hinge on execution — not on the announcement of a succession plan.
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