Nel ASA Hands Holum the Top Job While Its Order Book Still Hinges on Execution
Published on 10/22/2026 at 03:01 | Editorial boerse-global.de
Nel ASA has named Morten Holum as its next chief executive, but the appointment does little to settle the question that has dogged the hydrogen specialist through a bruising stretch: whether its swelling pipeline of orders can be converted into revenue. The leadership handover, announced yesterday, opens a transition period rather than an operational reset.
Håkon Volldal will step down from his executive duties at the end of October 2026. Chief financial officer Kjell Christian Bjørnsen takes interim charge from 1 November 2026, with Holum due to start no later than 1 May 2027. That timetable gives investors two separate yardsticks — the orderly succession on one side, the unresolved business risks on the other — and only the second will determine whether the new man inherits a firmer footing.
The most telling gauge is the quality of the backlog. In its results presentation about a week ago, Nel flagged NOK 568 million of its order book as carrying substantial risk of delay or cancellation, against a total of NOK 1,314 million at the close of the quarter. Those figures sit alongside a striking divergence in the headline numbers: order intake for the third quarter of 2026 jumped 339% year on year to NOK 253 million, while revenue from customer contracts fell 63% to NOK 112 million. EBITDA came in at minus NOK 93 million.
PEM Growth Cuts Against a Weaker Group Top Line
The PEM business offered a partial counterweight. Revenue there climbed 65% to NOK 89 million, and order intake for the segment surged 473%. Strong as that is, it should not be read as a group-wide recovery — the gap between orders and recognised revenue remains the central caveat for anyone tempted to call a turnaround.
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Within the at-risk portion of the book sit the delayed Hydrogen Solutions projects to supply two PEM systems of 20 MW each. Their progress is a concrete test for both the interim leadership and Holum himself: firmer delivery schedules would reduce uncertainty over future earnings, while further slippage would undercut the credibility of the reported backlog.
Fresh business is arriving, though its payoff lies further out. Nel Hydrogen US, a subsidiary, won an order worth roughly USD 12 million from an unnamed US-headquartered global technology company for several containerised MC-series PEM electrolysers plus associated services, with delivery expected in 2027. It is a genuine marker of demand — and not yet revenue.
What the Transition Can and Cannot Prove
A benign outcome would not require an immediate reversal. It would be enough for Nel to carry the handover through without fresh operational strain and for work on existing projects to steady. Holum would then begin on more dependable ground, and the succession would amount to more than a change of name at the top.
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The bear case is a continuation of project trouble through the interim period, forcing the incoming chief to build confidence in his own stewardship while coping with an earnings base that is still uncertain. A tidy handover at the top would not offset that drag. If at-risk orders slip or fail to materialise, operational improvement could take longer to arrive, and a rising order intake would not automatically dispel the risk — investors would need to distinguish newly won business from capacity that can actually be relied on.
The next fixed date is 1 November 2026, when Bjørnsen is scheduled to take over. That step concerns continuity of leadership, not evidence of a business inflection. Holum's start, by 1 May 2027 at the latest, is the following anchor. Until then, the question for shareholders stays the same: can Nel make the execution of its orders more dependable?
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