Harsh reception of Danish giants' annual reports – here are three disappointments and one rare positive surprise.

Investors have made their views clear about major Danish companies that have recently released their 2025 financial reports, leading to a series of stock market crashes.

After a few years where the annual reports of large companies were generally well-received and positively viewed by investors, this week has seen a brutal reckoning at the cash register on the stock exchange, says DR’s business correspondent Jakob Ussing, adding:

It is particularly the expectations for 2026 that have caused the market downturn.

Let’s round up three of this week’s stock market disappointments and one pleasant surprise.

(Photo: © Mads Claus Rasmussen, Ritzau Scanpix)

We start with the biggest disappointment, which unsurprisingly is Novo Nordisk.

There is simply no over or underestimating the scale of Denmark’s pharmaceutical giant, explains Jakob Ussing:

Unfortunately for Novo Nordisk, this time investors did not greet the company with applause but rather a significant downturn. The reason is primarily that Novo Nordisk expects a substantial decline in both sales and profits in 2026, once again disappointing the market as it has done so many times in recent years.

The main cause of Novo Nordisk’s expected decline in 2026 is an agreement with President Trump to lower prices for the company’s best-selling products in the economically crucial U.S. market, as well as pressure from competitors.

Novo Nordisk reported a profit of 102 billion Danish kroner for 2025, but even that was far less than what the pharmaceutical giant had led investors to expect just a year ago.

Novo Nordisk’s CEO, Mike Doustdar, has dismissed the idea that the company is in crisis to DR. According to Doustdar, it is a temporary setback before Novo Nordisk will once again become a growth machine.

(Photo: © Liselotte Sabroe, Ritzau Scanpix)

Demant, a company operating in the hearing aid sector, also received a harsh response.

They got a proper knock-down after the financial report earlier this week, which included a disappointing forecast for 2026 and a cost-saving plan involving the closure of 700 positions due to the uncertain global situation, says Jakob Ussing.

In the following days, the stock continued to fall.

Demant, like many other Danish giants, has the U.S. as its most important market, and negative signals from the U.S. were also heard from Demant.

To MarketWire, Demant’s CEO, Søren Nielsen, explained that it is global uncertainty affecting the hearing health market.

It impacts us because what we deal with can easily be postponed to tomorrow. We have seen this globally, but we are also experiencing it particularly in the U.S.

Similarly, Demant’s Danish competitor GN also faced a tough reception on the stock market on Thursday, as the company, like Demant, issued muted expectations for 2026. The GN stock dropped by 12.8 percent.

(Photo: © Mads Claus Rasmussen, Ritzau Scanpix)

And then there’s Maersk, which also took a hard hit after releasing its annual report. (http://annualreport.dk) The stock opened Thursday more than six percent lower but did recover somewhat during the day.

The company reported a profit of over 18 billion Danish kroner in 2025, and although that was roughly as expected, the outlook for the future was grim, explains the business correspondent.

Not only could Maersk end up with a loss in 2026, but the company also warns that container shipping prices could remain subdued for several years.

The good news, however, is that this is not due to global trade slowing down, explains Jakob Ussing, but rather because the world’s oceans are being flooded with new ships.

There are simply too many ships for the volume of containers, and thus container shipping prices are falling.

As a result of the situation, the company has announced the closure of around 1,000 administrative positions globally, with a significant portion in Copenhagen, where its headquarters are located.

Fortunately, the annual reports also brought some positive surprises.

In light of the somewhat concerning messages from the U.S. that some companies have shared, it is worth noting that Rockwool, the insulation giant, was rewarded for a financial report that showed strong performance in the American market.

Rockwool has faced many challenges, not least with its Russian business, which President Putin recently stripped away with a decree. While the Russian headache was well-known, Rockwool had good news from the U.S. in its report, which showed impressive strong performance in the company’s U.S. operations, says Jakob Ussing.

Among the large Danish companies that are not listed on the stock exchange, Grundfos, the pump giant, also reported positive trends in the U.S., where the company has otherwise been hit by Trump’s trade hammer.

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