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spk01: Good morning and welcome to the GFL Environmental Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Patrick DiVici, CEO and founder. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you and good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to today's call and thank you for joining us. This morning, we will be reviewing our results for the second quarter and providing our outlook for the remainder of the year. I am joined this morning by Luke Pelosi, our CFO, who will take us through our forward-looking disclaimer before we get into the details.
spk13: Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining. We have filed our earnings press release, which includes important information. The press release is available on our website. We've prepared a presentation to accompany this call that is also available on our website. During this call, we'll be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we believe or anticipate may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those set out in our filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. Any forward-looking statement is not a guarantee of future performance, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of today's date, and we do not assume any obligation to update these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events and developments, or otherwise. This call will include a discussion of certain non-IFRS measures. A reconciliation of these non-IFRS measures can be found in our filings with the Canadian and U.S. securities regulators. I will now turn the call back over to Patrick, who will start off on page three of the presentation.
spk02: Thank you, Luke. Our exceptional start to the year continued into the second quarter, allowing us to once again exceed expectations. Specifically, we grew revenue by nearly 40% on a constant currency basis, adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 60 basis points, and adjusted free cash flow more than doubled. Thanks to the tireless dedication and capabilities of our more than 15,000 employees, we were once again able to demonstrate the power of our business model and our ability to execute on our stated growth strategy. In terms of organic growth, the quality of pricing we saw in Q1 continued to accelerate into the second quarter. where we saw solid waste pricing ahead of plan at 4.1%. Improved residential pricing, the recovery of price, attracting commercial volume and strong price retention combined to yield this outcome. We remain encouraged with the path to see more than offsetting rising cost inflation through the underlying pricing opportunities we see in the business. Additionally, the inflationary environment should provide a boost to the pricing we see on CPI-linked contracts, a benefit that we will realize as we roll over into 2022. Solid waste volume growth was well ahead of expectations at 6.3%. The markets that were quick to ease COVID-related restrictions saw the greatest volume recoveries. That being said, our Canadian business, which was subject to continued and in some cases enhanced COVID restrictions through most of Q2, saw a 5.5% revenue increase from non-MERC processing volumes, an outcome that we think bodes well for future periods when existing restrictions are lifted. We're hopeful that Canada gets to such a stage soon, but at this point in the year, we think the benefits will be realized primarily in 2022. Commodity values once again provided a tailwind, although as we've disclosed, our sensitivity to price fluctuations continues to decrease as we progress on our strategic shift toward the fixed-price processing model. Non-Milwaukees commodities will continue to provide a benefit if prices remain at current values for the remainder of the year, and we've updated our full-year outlook on that basis. Our liquid waste business showed significant recovery during the quarter, going organically nearly 14%, as the markets in which we operate began to recover. Consistent with our guidance, we saw significant operating leverage associated with the volume recovery. Our rigorous focus on quality of revenue and cost management drove nearly a 500 basis points EBITDA margin expansion over the prior period and furthers our progress towards the longer term margin profile we expect for this segment. Recall that our infrastructure and soil remediation business posted positive organic growth in the second quarter of 2020 and the nature of the activity in that segment was the last to taper off at the onset of the pandemic. and what we're now seeing is a bit of last stop last to restart as the recovery segment is lagging the broader business by a quarter or two we remain confident that the lag is nearly timing and that while delayed the pent-up demand and additional stimulus from infrastructure spending will drive volume recovery that we expect will benefit us for the periods to come in addition to organic growth the second quarter also saw us advance several of other our value creation initiatives We successfully refinanced our highest coupon bonds and realized nearly $17 million of annualized cash interest savings in doing so. We sold $60 million of non-core low-contribution assets and have identified several high-contribution opportunities into which we intend to deploy the capital. And finally, we continued executing on our M&A strategy. In addition to substantially furthering the regulatory process on the pair of your acquisition, we acquired eight small tuck-ins in a new landfill during the quarter. We expect to close a similar number of transactions in Q3 and remain highly optimistic in our ability to deploy an outsized amount of capital into M&A strategy in the back half of the year, considering the depth and quality of our pipeline. The strong first half results coupled with our confidence in the back half of the year are leading us to increase our full year expectations for the business. Luke will walk through the details, but when you boil that down on a constant currency basis, we're increasing our guidance for revenue in EBITDA by 4% to 5%. We're increasing our adjusted free cash flow guidance by nearly 10%. But perhaps the most relevant of all, we are now guiding to the end of the year with an adjusted run rate free cash flow number of $610 million or better. which we think sets us up to exceed the multi-year guidance we laid out just six months ago. I know we're still a relatively new name for many of you, but this marks our sixth quarter as a public company. But what we've been doing, we did this quarter for a long time in the private markets, setting expectations for the business and meeting or exceeding them. We've set on prior quarterly calls, but we've assembled the pieces of the puzzle that form the foundation capable of consistently producing exceptional high-quality growth. We believe that this quarter's results, again, demonstrate our ability to execute on this growth strategy. I'll now pass the call over to Luke, who will walk us through the details of the financial results, and then I'll share some closing perspectives before we wrap up.
spk13: Thanks, Patrick. I'll pick up on page four of the presentation. Revenue increased over 32% compared to the prior year period. This was driven by outperformance from the 2020 M&A, strong solid waste pricing, and meaningful volume improvements both sequentially and as compared to the prior period. You can see the trend in volume growth over the past quarters on the chart at the bottom left of the page, and I'll circle back to this chart in a minute. Net solid waste pricing was 4.1%, which was better than what we saw in the prior comparable period ending Q1 of this year. As anticipated, the recovery of IC&I volumes coupled with the inflationary backdrop has continued to provide incremental price support for the year and provides us the confidence to forecast that we'll be able to deliver at the high end of our pricing targets for the year as a whole. Resetting of CPI-linked contracts, which tend to lag actual CPI movements, should also provide broad-based support to pricing levels over the next several quarters. Comparable to what we reported in Q1, elevated commodity prices increased revenue 80 basis points as compared to the prior period. The 6.3% positive solid waste volume increase was 5.1% when excluding the MERC processing contracts in Canada that have now lapped in Q2. Excluding these contracts, U.S. volumes were 60 basis points better than Canadian volumes, which while a positive data point for the U.S., we believe also speaks to the underlying strength of our Canadian business, considering we achieved these results when most major Canadian markets continue to be faced with pandemic-related restrictions on activities throughout the second quarter. Although Q3 has seen additional easing of COVID-related measures, key Canadian markets such as Toronto continue to face activity restrictions, which will temper the pace of the volume recovery while they remain in place. Although the lag has become longer than we had originally anticipated, the evidence coming from our southern U.S. markets has further reinforced our views that when the restrictions are eventually lifted, we will see a meaningful acceleration of volumes. On this point, I'd remind everyone that the majority of the revenue we derive from the fastest to open U.S. markets, namely those in the Sun Belt and certain pockets of the Midwest, is coming from our 2020 acquisitions. And the outperformance of these businesses is therefore being presented as incremental contribution from M&A as opposed to additional volume growth. I also just want to remind folks about the cadence of our volume growth over the past few quarters. So if you circle back to the volume trend chart at the bottom of the left, I think it's important to highlight that we're just getting back to slightly above 2019 levels. The volume growth is more a function of the easy comps as opposed to real incremental economic activity growth, which we think is there but not yet fully showing through in the numbers. I highlight this to help provide context for expectations. We were only negative 8% for the low of Q2 last year, and we're actually positive by Q4 of last year. The lows that we're bouncing off are not nearly as low as what some of the others have experienced, so as we talk about the guidance for the balance of the year, I just wanted to remind that context. Moving to liquid waste, this segment showed tremendous growth during the quarter as COVID-related volume declines came back online. The volume recovery was more pronounced in our U.S. business, although the Canadian business recovery was also impressive, particularly considering the continuation of the broad-based pandemic restrictions. Similar to our comments on the recovery of solid waste volumes in Canada, we expect improving strength in the recovery of this segment as restrictions in Canada continue to ease. As Patrick mentioned, the negative infrastructure volumes were in line with our expectations and largely attributable to the tough prior period calm. M&A contributed approximately $288 million of revenue during the quarter, about $16 million of which was from new 2021 M&A, with the rollover from 2020 accounting for the balance, which was above our guidance despite the FX headwind from the predominantly US dollar-denominated revenues of these assets. We continue to identify significant incremental growth opportunities within these asset packages and remain confident in the ability to outperform the original pro forma expectations for these deals. fx was negative 6.4 percent for the prior versus the prior period and about a 25 million dollar revenue headwind versus guidance you'll recall that our fx impact is substantially all translational and that for every one point change in the fx rate our annual revenues are impacted by approximately 24 million dollars on page five you'll see segment results solid waste margins of 30.9 percent were 10 basis points ahead of the prior comparable period despite a 65 basis point headwind from recent m a Although the net effect of elevated commodity pricing was a margin tailwind, this was more than offset by the impact of higher fuel prices and the strengthening of the Canadian dollar. Excluding these macro factors, we saw strong pricing, cost management, and focus on productivity and asset utilization drive 90 basis points of organic solid waste margin expansion, a result we think is quite impressive when considering rising labor and input cost inflation and the delayed recovery of such costs in much of our CPI-linked revenue base. Liquid waste margins increased 480 basis points, substantially all of which was organic and demonstrative of the operating leverage in this segment. The ongoing volume recovery should provide support for better than mid-20s margins to continue through Q3 before the seasonal step down in Q4. Infrastructure and soil margins improved 640 basis points sequentially from Q1, despite the ongoing impact of decreased volumes and the change in mix. On page six, you can see adjusted cash flow from operating activities of nearly 160 million. This amount includes 63 million of proceeds from our asset sale. Note that while inclusion of these proceeds seems lopsided for the current quarter, we intend to redeploy these dollars before the end of the year, and therefore the timing difference will be offset by year's end. Excluding these proceeds, adjusted free cash flow was $97 million, more than double the prior year and ahead of our expectations on the strength of our operating results for the business and continued rigor around working capital management. We continue to expect the working capital investment in the first half of the year to be recovered in the second half of the year, save for any impacts from second half M&A. As previously discussed, we once again demonstrated our ability to reduce our weighted average cost of debt by refining financing our 8.5% notes during the quarter. Repricing that US dollar $360 million from 8.5% to 4.75% reduces annual interest costs by approximately $17 million. We continue to see opportunities for refinancing and will execute as opportunities present themselves. We deployed approximately $200 million into 15 acquisitions for the first six months of the year and almost another $100 million into five additional tuck-ins subsequent to quarter end. We think these acquisitions will contribute approximately $130-140 million in annual revenues and put us well on our way to achieving the M&A targets we laid out at the beginning of the year, even before considering the impact of TerraPure, which we are on track to close by the end of the third quarter. Quickly on page seven, net leverage at quarter end further improved and we continue to have ample liquidity to support our growth goals while de-levering our balance sheet. And as I just said, we continue to assess opportunities to reduce our overall cost of borrowing. On page nine, we've laid out our updated guidance in the form of a revenue bridge. On the strength of the results in the first half of the year, we're increasing our guidance by $100 to $115 million attributable solid waste pricing and volume and assuming commodity prices remain at the current levels. Specifically, solid waste pricing goes to 4%, the high end of our previous range, and solid waste volume goes to the low twos, despite the lingering restrictions in Canada. Commodities add an incremental $20 million on top of the original guide, and the outperformance of the 2020 M&A adds another $20 million. Conversely, with the delays and recommencement of activities, we're now expecting soil and infrastructure to be approximately $30 million less than our original guide. again we think this is entirely timing and when the sector starts back up there will be meaningful volume gains it's just that where we're sitting today it would appear as if the majority of that benefit will be a 2022 event as opposed to 2021. we then have the expected contribution from 2021 m a which reflects our expectations for the businesses we've acquired to date and assumes terror appear closes october 1st a date for which we now have a high degree of conviction The $120 to $150 million presented as contribution from net new M&A is net of the revenue divested as part of the asset sale we completed during this quarter. That takes you to revenue of approximately $5.3 billion, which is presented on a constant currency basis to what we presented in our original guide. The last step on that page normalizes for FX, reflecting the actual FX for the first six months of the year and the assumption of a 1.25 FX rate for the second half of the year. From that revenue, we expect to generate EBIT of approximately 1.410, the high end of our margin range and adjusted cash flow of approximately $520 million or $530 million on a currency, constant currency basis with our original guidance, reflecting a 10% increase over our original adjusted pre-cash flow guidance for the year. So then lastly is page 10, and we think this page is the most relevant. What we've done here is updated our expectations for our 2021 exit run rate. So if you start with the actual expected revenue to be realized in 2021, we then add the rollover of the M&A we've already done so far in 2021, and this brings you to an exit run rate of $5,550,000,000. So this is effectively what the run rate will look like if we don't do anything else for the remainder of the year. At the beginning of the year, we laid out incremental upside opportunities related to M&A, refinancing, and capital redeployment. Excluding TerraPure, we've basically achieved half of our goals in these areas through the first six months. The last step of $150 million represents the incremental expected contribution if we achieve the targets we laid out for in each of these areas by the end of the year, and brings you to an exit run rate of 5.750%. From this revenue, we expect a run rate adjusted EBITDA of 1.545 and run rate adjusted free cash flow of $610 million. So while we're not currently updating our guidance for 2022 and 2023, we think this page should help set the stage. If you take the base business organic growth model of mid-single digits at the top line, mid to high single digits at adjusted EBITDA, and low double digits at adjusted free cash flow, layer in some outside volume contributions that are expected for 2022, some self-funded tuck-in M&A and continued refinancing, we feel highly confident in our ability to exceed the multi-year growth targets we laid out just six months ago. We will formally provide our 2022 guidance on a subsequent call, but just wanted to provide the stepping stones as we know there have been a lot of moving pieces. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Patrick for some closing comments.
spk02: I would like to end our call today with an update on our sustainability initiatives. We are continuing to develop the ESG goals and targets that we will disclose in next year's sustainability report. A focus of our report will be our initiatives aimed at reducing or avoiding GHG emissions. One key area is recyclables. Earlier this month, we announced the formation of the Resource Recovery Alliance This initiative puts GFL at the forefront of the move to extend the producer's responsibility, providing producers with the solutions they need to drive higher resource recovery rates. Another key focus is on renewable energy. We have set up GFL renewables as our vehicles to unlock significant value in landfill gas energy projects at 18 of our MSW landfills that we have identified to date, and to accelerate the conversion of our fleet to CNG. All in all of these trends we are seeing this quarter and the opportunities we see ahead of us, I've never been more optimistic about the future of GFL. I will now turn the call over to the operator to open up the line for Q&A.
spk01: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch tone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your headset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Hamza Merazi from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
spk07: Hey, good morning. Thank you. Could you maybe talk about directionally how investors should think about free cash flow given the update and given the current update for 2022 and 23? And then maybe just tie that back to the investment thesis from the time of the IPO as well.
spk02: Yeah, so I'll turn it over to Luke. But I mean, high level, I mean, it's, you know, I guess the irony of this is last year at this time, we were defending a short seller that said the business had no free cash flow. And we were, you know, estimating 360 million for 2020 as realized. I think when you look today, you know, realizing somewhere between sort of 510 and 520 this year with probably some potential upside to that number. And then you roll that forward into, you know, to a run rate number like Luke mentioned of the 610, you know, you know, there's, very good probability that we continue growing this business at, you know, double-digit free cash flow growth from there. So, I mean, you're looking at somewhere between, you know, 675 and 700 for 2022. And then, you know, when you think about 2023, you're going to be growing at double digits again from there. So I think, you know, fairly conservatively, you get free cash flow in 2023 to sort of, you know, mid-800s. And I think That exceeded what we had anticipated at the time of the IPO, but as the peace of the public continues falling in place, this is really what the free cash flow is driving the business.
spk13: Yeah, I would just add, Hamza, that the numbers Patrick's saying isn't sort of the official guidance for next year, but rather just you lay out the operating model on our exit run rate, and that's the math that you get even before considering some of the incremental self-help opportunities we've identified within the base business, which could be quite sort of meaningful. So, again, I think we're at a very unique inflection point where we start leveraging some of the investment and the capital structure, and you're just going to really see that conversion of what was As a percentage of revenue, a mid-to-high single digits really quickly start approaching the low, then the mid-teens. And then similarly at the EBITDA line, you can take what was a sort of mid-to-high 30s EBITDA conversion into free cash flow is going to go to low 40s and then to high. And, I mean, I think we're just going to keep laying out the building blocks so the folks understand because I think we're talking about a free cash flow CAGR, you know, north of 20%. And, you know, I realize there's a lot of moving pieces and get there. But, you know, that's the story that we want folks to keep sort of focusing on because we believe that that's highly compelling.
spk07: That's great. And then just the second question is just on GFL renewables. Could you maybe talk about the strategy there? Are you separating that business out? Just any broad thoughts on long-term strategy there?
spk02: Yeah. So, I mean, particularly over the course of the last six months and particularly with the increased value of the ring credits, you know, We have significant cubic feet of gas coming through our landfills, and when we've done a study on this really over the last six months, and it's sort of bubbled up for a lot of other companies in the industry that I think are a little bit more mature than us, we have 18 landfills today that we have an opportunity to basically make RNG. When you think about that, we sort of just gave high-level numbers. What I'm talking about now would be all in addition to. Today we have, at today's wind pricing, about $175 million of gas. that could be sold at today's ring pricing. You know, our perspective is that, you know, this gas could add $75 to $100 million of free cash flow over the sort of next couple of years because what we would do is we would partner with, you know, some, you know, there's two companies we're in dialogue with today to build out this infrastructure at our facilities. And it would be with a fairly minimal capex spend. I think the other thing we would do, is we would hedge out that RIN value over 20 years and sign offtake agreements with some others. Now, that comes at a discount to where the RINs are currently trading at today, but it takes out a lot of the volatility out of the RIN values. So, you know, when we look at that, I think that $175 is going to be some economic split with the developers, plus then you've got to discount it back a little bit because we would enter into, you know, a hedge or a pre-sale contract for 20 years with an offtake provider. So at the end of it, you know, we think there's probably $75 to $100 million of free cash flow that comes back to us without a lot of volatility. So it's a big opportunity. I'm also separating it out. You know, there's been some recent transactions where there's been some renewable fuel plays. And, you know, these businesses are trading at, you know, 40 to 50 times EBITDA. And, you know, I think from our perspective... Yes, it'll be a nice free cash flow generator, but hey, if it's a way to unlock value because some of these other players that are in the business want to come in and pay us a big check to buy the rights to that fuel, there's billions of dollars sitting there under our nose potentially, and we just wanted to have that in a separate vehicle. You know, and then the other big benefit from an ESG story is, you know, as we develop these plants, we'll be able to fuel 100% of our vehicles with gas that we capture in our landfills, which we think is a great story as well. So, you know, put all that together, we think this is a very large opportunity. And all added to the plan that, you know, Luke just laid out.
spk07: Got it. Just last question, I'll turn it over. I know you talked about M&A this year, but any thoughts as to the longer-term pipeline, you know, specifically out of the private company revenue that's out there? You know, everybody has their own estimates what that number is in U.S. and Canada, but do you have a sense of what percent of private company revenue fits your book of business today? You know, you can answer it however you want in the U.S. and Canada. Thank you.
spk02: Yeah, I mean, from our perspective, where we sit today, the M&A market is extremely active. And, you know, I think we're fortunate in a few markets where we've become the acquirer of choice because some of those competitors, you know, are family businesses that fit very well with us and sort of our culture. But they also fit from a perspective that, you know, given the length of the DOJ processes that people have been going through as they've tried to get deals approved, you know, has led to some delays. And, you know, we were part of that on the ADSWM transaction, and I know Republic's gone through a few with with their recent acquisitions. And I think there's some sellers that are concerned about where capital gains are going, and that position is very well because some of the markets will, you know, we don't think we have a very difficult time getting through DOJ, and that's made us an acquirer of choice for some of those businesses. But I think it will be an outside year. But, I mean, when we look at our pipeline today, you know, over the next sort of, you know, 12 to 16 months, I mean, you know, from our perspective, there's easily another, you know, 500 to a billion of revenue that we can get our hands on you know relatively seamlessly over over that period great thank you so much our next question comes from michael hoffman's people please go ahead hey thank you very much um this is a little bit in the weeds luke but uh
spk13: what's the quarterly contribution of tariff here for the fourth quarter so we get that progression right yeah so so michael what we've modeled in as of now is about 80 to 90 million dollars of revenue and the reason that's going to be arguably a larger range than normal is on the basis that with the reopening in canada i think we're going to see a bit of a shift in the typical seasonality pattern that one would expect with delays So there's a bit of a moving target there. But it's around that $80 million to $90 million at the top line is what we've included. And keep in mind, it's at a lower margin than the blended, you know, what we underwrote for the business as a whole, just, again, because the typical sort of seasonality pattern in Canada. So it's in the low 20s as opposed to that high 20s that we expect for a full 12 months of tariff here.
spk03: Okay, that helps a lot. Thank you. And then when you think about your comment on Canada and this sort of progressive reopening, but you also have a seasonal issue. Again, how do we think about being back to even 2019 levels? What's your sort of sense about the timing of that relative to Canada?
spk02: Yeah, I mean, I think we're... Well, you know, vaccination rates are there. I mean, I think the full reopening plan is planned for, you know, phasing through September and November. And when I say that, it's really sporting events, you know, it's office buildings, it's schools, et cetera, which have been shut for a long period of time. And I think if you see all the guidance that everyone's put out across Canada, it's now, okay, we've got to live with the virus and they're going to phase that in between September and November. I mean, we're getting pretty close to 2019 levels today as luke mentioned you know earlier in the call so i think we turn positive um you know start by the end of the year and then certainly going into 2022 will be back to pre-pandemic levels okay that helps too and then on the renewables business and then wins are a little over three dollars right now long-term average is sort of a buck fifty to two
spk03: Is the intention to sort of hedge down into that long-term average, and that's the point? You're not introducing another point of volatility in the model?
spk02: Yeah, that's my perspective. And, you know, particularly, hey, we'll look to lock in probably 65% on that so we don't get volatility on 55% of the rain. And then, you know, the other way we would do it, we'd have a natural hedge internally because we would take a third of that fuel to fuel our trucks. So we'd be virtually 100% covered.
spk03: Okay. That helps on that. And then on the EPR program... Can you talk a little bit, you know, that's a unique issue relative to the United States. We do it at a state level. I doubt it ever happens at a federal level. So what is a particular strength to GFL given this national rollout, the stewardship programs, buying in the nonprofit? What do all those combine to create within your natural strengths a competitive advantage?
spk02: Yeah, so if you look at it today, British Columbia was the first province to enact it. We currently manage that program for producers and for the province. I mean, we have a lot of experience, firstly. And I just think, and this is dealing with municipal curbside volumes, so we're not talking about the IC&I sector here. And today, the producers pay 50% of the cost of the recycling of those materials. That is moving to 100%, and they are responsible for the actual collection processing, and the municipalities actually have to opt out. So I think, you know, the value we bring is, you know, I think our asset base, given the amount of collection contracts we already have in Ontario, layering on together the processing facilities we already own, and then coupled together with the experience we have in BC, and then, you know, buying the CSSA, which actually has the regulatory reporting and compliance tool. So we put that all together. You know, I think it's a very compelling offer for producers. And, you know, at the end of the day, Ontario is moving away from a single model to a multiple model. pro model and all the pros are going to have to work together. So, you know, we think us working together will give us the right seat at the table to structure all these contracts properly and utilizing our assets to the best of our abilities.
spk03: Okay. And then within the context of the pre-cash flow outlook, all of the numbers you're giving are still sort of around a high 30s cash conversion of your EBITDA? So what's the prospect of moving the conversion ratio as well, not just the overall growth of it, but moving the conversion ratio back up into a mid-40s or better level?
spk13: Yeah, Michael, I think... Naturally, the conversion improvement driven by the margin improvement that we're talking about is going to fall through. But I think where you're going to get the most torque, and it's something we've spoken about before, is by leveraging that interest line. So if you think about the sort of $300 million-ish interest line that's currently in my free cash flow walk, Pivoting into next year, I mean, we really turn into the self-funding model and you start leveraging that line. And I think it's through that that if that represents sort of mid-single digits of our revenue. you today, you know, as you grow thereafter, you're going to really see that sort of number, you know, getting leverage off of that. So, as you said before, the plan was, you know, from 2020 IPO year to 2025, we thought we could take at a percentage of revenue up from high single digits to sort of mid-teens. And if you roll that into the EBITDA conversion ratio, you're taking from that mid-30s to high 40s. So, you know, we think that we're demonstrating that, and you're going to continue to see that. But the capital structure component of it, I think, is a unique opportunity for us where we're at in our path that's going to, you know, provide extra torque at that conversion ratio.
spk03: Okay. And to put that in context, the peers are 2% to 3% of revenues is their interest expense. You're higher than that. And this is an absolute dollar reduction in it or an accelerated growth of the REVs and, therefore, the compounding for the profits?
spk13: Well, the latter in the near term and then the former in the longer term, right? As you get beyond sort of 2023 and you start having, you know, an excess free cash flow thing, that's when I think you actually start reducing the quantum of the dollars. But in the nearer term, we have just leveraging the fixed amount of dollars. Okay.
spk03: Thanks. That's great. Thank you for taking the question.
spk01: Our next question comes from Walter Spraken from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
spk08: Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to come back to the landfill to gas conversion. Patrick, you mentioned that you're at an opportunity right now of $175 million, but the ability to grow significantly beyond that. Can you give us a little bit of sense of what it would take to grow, what level it could get up to? And I think you said a modest capex spend, a little bit more elaboration on the capital required to get up to a higher run rate on your landfill to gas conversion.
spk02: Yeah, so I think when you look at it today, what I said is there's roughly $175 million today at today's wind pricing, give or take. There's probably some on us on being conservative on that. The question is, you know, we would, our perspective is today we're going to joint develop them. We're not going to develop them on our own. I think our time to realize those dollars would just be quicker doing it with someone that knows how. So we're going to give up some of the economics of that fuel to somebody else on a revenue sharing arrangement. But if you look today, today you can sort of lock in some of these forward gas contracts and effectively hedge out the win at somewhere between $1.80 and $2. So you'll take a third of that off. And the revenue share, I think, you get to somewhere between $75 and $100 million. I think the total cutback spend to do that... portion of it would be 125 to 150 is the rough number. The interesting part is, if you enter into these hedges that we're contemplating doing, or these offtake agreements, we will be signing these offtake agreements with an investment grade utility. We could get investment-grade bonds to basically finance 100% of the build-out if we did 60%, 65% of the offtake with them. So I think from an equity perspective, it's very minimal. And obviously, from an IRR perspective, it's 40-plus. I mean, I don't think there's a better use of capital anywhere today. So that is what's going. And that's why I sort of use the number of 75 to 100 over the next sort of two to two and a half years.
spk08: That's great. And dovetailing that into non-core operations, you made a divestiture just recently. Are there other divestitures that you could then deploy into some of your core areas? frame out how much of non-core are you currently looking at or could possibly look at? And would landfill-to-gas conversion be, if it gets big enough, and would you look at that as something to spin out and redeploy into some of your cores, or is that something you want to kind of keep in-house?
spk02: You know, from my perspective, I'm a shareholder first. You know, my priority here is to make money. I'm a single largest shareholder. We kept it separate for that reason. I mean, these renewable plays, like I said, you know, there's been a recent one that's just, you know, come out with $40 million of EBITDA that's gone public at a $2 billion value. There's one recently in Canada that I think it had $7 or $8 billion of EBITDA, and it's trading at a billion-dollar value. You know, we're going to have 75 to 100 sitting in here, and, you know, I think... If someone wants to pay us, you know, multiple billions of dollars, I mean, we're happy to take that money. And I think we'd make a lot of people happy with the level two story, maybe some form of dividend or distribution. You know, but that's all we've got. So I don't want to just keep it. I mean, you know, we think these businesses are trading at 25 to 30 times free cash flow. So, you know, it potentially could create, you know, three plus billion dollars of value. over the next little while. So one way or another, we think it's going to create significant value, whether that's kept internally or whether longer term, we sell the rights to that gas to someone that's got a crazy multiple in the public markets.
spk13: And, Walter, the gas component aside, just the broader redeployment of capital or non-core, at the beginning of the year, we said there was $50 million to $100 million of potential sort of asset sales to complete. What we did in Q2 was about $50 million U.S. that we sold. What we put in the incremental upside opportunities in terms of the guide is just that remaining $50 million. So saying that, you know, we still think there's – in this year $100 million in the non-core that we're going to sort of execute on and take those dollars to sort of redeploy into other higher growth and return initiatives.
spk02: I think that's a conservative number as well, so you'll probably see us do a little bit more than what we put in the guide on that front.
spk08: Yeah, it sounds like a good optionality for sure. I appreciate the time as always, guys. Thanks. Thanks, Wilson.
spk02: Thanks, Wilson.
spk01: Our next question comes from Kevin Shang from CIBC. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I know you're not officially adjusting your 2022 and 2023 targets, but if my math is correct, I think you're applying something like a low 27% EBITDA margin out in 2023. But just given the 2021 update, which kind of gets you almost a 27% already, just wondering how you think of the cadence of EBITDA margin expansion over the coming years here. Do you see a higher upside relative to maybe what you saw six to seven months ago when you put out that outlook initially?
spk02: Yeah, I think from our perspective, you know, we're taking the under-promise and over-deliver approach. You know, I think when we talked about at the time of the IPO, I think we're, you know, probably a year ahead of plan on terms of, you know, margin expansion. But, you know, certainly, you know, our plan is to continue expanding margins and, as Luke said, get, you know, move somewhere between 28% and 29% as we move out into sort of 2023. Luke, feel free to type in.
spk13: Yeah, Kevin, what I'd say is the quantum of the margin expansion, period over period, last year was sort of unique. Coming into this year, the idea was to take it up to high 26s, 26.7, 26.8, I think was the guide. I think you're right. There could be a path that does a little bit better than that, which is then setting you up next year. I think what you'll see in the guide when we talk for 2022 is we're able to battle these cost inflation this year without having the benefit of the CPI resets, right? Because again, that's really going to be a 2022 benefit. So we're eating it for the first two or three quarters of this year before we get the benefit. That's going to likely probably add even more. So, you know, I think you're right in thinking about the original target has probably now been accelerated. The exact timing and new sort of goalposts, you know, you'll have to sort of stay to about it in the right context. Okay. That's helpful.
spk06: And then, you know, as you sit here today, you're obviously punching above or have a schedule, as you mentioned, Patrick and Luke. Can we just get an update on when you think cash taxes start flowing in to you? And then with this accelerated free cash flow generation, does that change your priorities? Do you push more of that into M&A? Does deleveraging become more of a priority with with this excess free cash flow here? Just wondering how you think about that.
spk13: I'll touch on the cash taxes quickly, Patrick, speak to excess cash flow considerations. On the cash taxes, look, You know, it's largely the growth in the U.S. business is what's going to drive the, you know, the cash tax payments starting. And as of now, that's sort of a little bit in 2024. And then you get into, you know, more of a full payer in 2025 and then a real full payer in 2026. But that's absent continued strategies to sort of mitigate that, which we're constantly evaluating. And certainly the incremental deployment of capital to M&A helps with that. So, Kevin, to your point, I think, yes, on the base plan, the – Outperformance is accelerating that. However, the counter is, you know, excess outperformance in M&A deployment, which I think kind of provides a bit of a sort of buffer. So we continue to evaluate. I think that holding the 2025 as the year still sort of holds true, but know that we are, you know, actively engaged and continue to be as strategic there as possible. In terms of what we do with the excess free cash flow, Patrick, I'm sure you have sort of commentary on that.
spk02: Yeah, I mean, I think from our perspective, like we've always said, we're going to continue deploying capital into smart, accretive M&A. We think, you know, where we are in our growth cycle, that's going to continue to be, you know, You know, as the free cash flow really starts building between 2022 and 2023, I think, you know, you're going to move to, you're also going to move to sort of a dividend policy, you know, when the PUs come off and, you know, you're going to put it sort of, you know, back to a nominal dividend and some of those PU interest payments go away. And then sort of coupled together with a share buyback at some point. But, you know, I think there's a lot of M&A and a lot of great M&A that can still be done. You know, significantly lower value than we're trading at today. So, I mean, I'm not of the mindset today to buy back our own stock at significantly higher value than I can buy some high-quality assets privately today for. I mean, over time, that's what's going to create a lot of value for us. I mean, we've been doing this for 14 years. Like I said, all I want to do is take my $800 billion to a billion of equity in my options that I have and continue just driving the value of those forward. I mean, if you look at the recent output plan that the NEO signed up for, I mean, no one is getting anything until the stock clears through $50 and then clears through $60 U.S., So, you know, that is our conviction around, you know, where we believe, you know, the equity value of this business is going, which is, you know, almost 2x where it is today. So we are very sort of comfortable in the plan that we've laid out. And, you know, I think from our perspective, just each and every one of you building blocks about how we're going to get there. I think it's been six quarters of us, you know, articulating exactly what we were going to do, even at the time of the IPO, living through COVID and where we are today. And, you know, we'll just continue delivering and executing on that plan. And, you know, eventually we're going to fill up the box with investors. And, you know, that will start driving things forward and getting this trading where we all believe it will be.
spk06: I appreciate you taking that question. Thank you very much. Thanks, Kevin.
spk01: Our next question comes from Mark Neville from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
spk12: Hey, good morning, guys. Morning, Mark. Good morning. Morning. Maybe first for Patrick, maybe just going back to the renewable opportunity, maybe just walk us through sort of timelines and sort of milestones to watch for in terms of signing up developers or partners. Maybe just help us with that.
spk02: Yeah, so we're well along the line, and I think the first engagements will be signed sort of in the next, you know, four weeks. um and then you know you're basically between sort of 15 and 16 months out to to build some of them some of the series are already built they just need to be modified because they've been used for cogen and power so i think pretty you know conceivably we can start seeing the realization of some of the dollars going into early 2022 but you know then seeing the real dollars as we get into later 2022 and starting into 2023 through to 2024.
spk12: Thanks. Maybe, Luke, just a point of clarification on the CapEx. It sounds like gross and net for the year will sort of net out to the same number if you can sort of spend all that money. But maybe just give us – maybe just help on the guide for the CapEx fund for the year. Thanks, guys. Yeah, Mark, so the –
spk13: You're right. It's, you know, the proceeds from disposal are going to offset any incremental spend. So if you think about the original guide, it was sort of a 510 number. With the M&A, there's another sort of 10. So maybe think about it as a net 525. To the extent we can redeploy the capital this year, you know, we'll be sort of doing so. But we're going to average out to a net number of 525 million. We'll only spend proceeds to push investment above and beyond that. So while the gross number could be north of that, towards, say, 600, we'll make sure to manage to that net number of the 525. And it's dependent on how quickly we can deploy some of this capital into a whole host of growth opportunities we've identified in the existing base business and net new things like the landfill gap that Patrick's talking about.
spk12: Got it. Thanks for taking the questions.
spk01: Our next question comes from Jerry Ravitch from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
spk00: Hi, this is Adam on for Jerry today. In addition to landfill gas, you folks have a broad set of ESG opportunities. So just wondering if you could help me think about the annual CapEx associated with green initiatives. And is it possible to break that out? between landfill gas, recycling, and any other key initiatives?
spk02: Yeah, so we don't separately break out a bunch of our ESG-type initiatives. I mean, that all gets sort of modeled in our maintenance in growth capex for the year. That sort of sits at around 10%. But I think, you know, realistically where we're sort of sitting today is, you know, we're deploying anywhere on a given year roughly $50 million on, you know, recycling-type initiatives. A year ago it was closer to 100 just because we had a large organics build-out and a large recycling facility, but I think 50 today is probably a realistic number that we're using. as we've developed those over the last number of years. On the landfill gas, like I said, I think our spend is going to be somewhere between $125 and $150 to capture that over the next 24 months. But given these creative way to finance it with these investment-grade type bonds, with these off-take agreements, from an equity perspective, it shouldn't eat up any of it. From an IRR perspective, I don't think we'll find something that can produce any IRRs that are much sort of higher than that internal opportunity.
spk00: Okay, great. That's really helpful. And then other solid waste peers have talked about gradually shifting their index price contracts to water, sewer, trash away from traditional CPI. I was wondering if you could provide any color into the makeup of your index contracts and if you see that evolving from current levels.
spk13: Yeah, Adam, it's Luke. Yeah, what I would say is we welcome the shift, but our very early days in our personal sort of participation in that. So if you look today, we have roughly $800 million, most of which is in residential, but you also have some in processing, landfill, and transfer that's tied to a CPI-type index. um very little the minimus of it is tied to one of the what i'll call better indices like sewer water main or utility or some of the others that the majors in the industry have uh you know been converting to um we are you know supportive of the change and think it does better reflect the cost structure of these businesses But we just see that as opportunity today because we are still sort of pegged to the old way, if you will, of sort of CPI. But that being said, we think even the CPI-linked contracts are going to provide a very nice pickup, you know, for the next, call it, four to six quarters. as those things sort of reset. I mean, I think the print in June in the U.S. was north of five, and Canada sort of mid-threes. And I think as we now get the resets, a lot of which happened in the back half of the year, we're going to enjoy that benefit going. But I think longer term, pivoting and migrating our portfolio of index-linked revenue to these higher indexes is just an even larger opportunity that's out there for us.
spk00: Great. Thank you very much.
spk01: Our next question comes from Tim James from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
spk11: Thank you very much. Good morning. I just want to go back on the question, Patrick, on your comment regarding Kind of the change in revenue guidance and where some of that originated from it. Was I correct in understanding that the solid waste impact on guidance is primarily originating from acquired businesses and the assets in the Sunbelt in particular?
spk13: No, no. Yeah, what we tried to break out there was, you know, the pieces of the outperformance. I mean, what we're saying in the base guide, we're taking up price. Before we said price was sort of going to be, you know, three and a half and take that up to the high end of the range. We're taking up volume. Before we said volume would be like, you know, sub one. Now taking that up to sort of low twos. And then the other piece of volume is in the M&A bucket, the rollover, but now saying the volume experience we have in that rollover M&A is greater than thought. So that's coming up again by another sort of point to two points. So I think it's broad-based across all of the buckets. as opposed to saying, you know, the new M&A. The new M&A was that separate bucket if you look at the bridge. So I think all of the revenue drivers are sort of coming up. Sorry, commodities was the last one I didn't mention. And, you know, in the quantum, you know, I just articulated it.
spk11: Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then I'm wondering if you could just talk a bit about what you're hearing from your construction project customers in particular in terms of getting back online. Are there any notable and remaining impediments to returning to normal levels of activity in the back half of the year? Again, notwithstanding, I guess, any retrenchment in reopenings. and maybe in particular the lower uh volume soil remediation customers um a bit of an update there i know that's continued to be slow here in the second quarter yeah so i think it's coming i think everyone is highly encouraged final restrictions came on i mean this is really an ontario business for us i mean it's clever to
spk02: you know, significantly GTA, and I think as most of those restrictions came off at the end of June and beginning of July, people are now ramping back up to, you know, but they do take a few months to get these sites ramped up, just given they've been, you know, so that's why I said, Luke, I think what Luke said earlier with the bulk of this is, The real upside we're going to get is for 2022. When I look at the amount of contracts we've bid and the guys are talking about going, you know, as early as August and as far out as sort of earlier next year, I mean, there are some significant projects. And, I mean, tens of billions of dollars that the provincial government is canvassing now and looking for work to be done. So all of that's going to come. I just think, you know, like we said, it's the slowest to wind down and it's the slowest to sort of pick back up. We now have visibility on what's going to be good, and I think 2022 is going to be a very, very big year for us.
spk11: Okay, that's great. Thanks very much, and congratulations on a good quarter. Thank you.
spk02: Thank you.
spk01: Our next question comes from Tyler Brown from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hey, good morning, guys. Morning, Tyler. Good morning. I got a call waiting right whenever I turned over. But hey, I know the call's been long here, but Luke, on slide nine, I really appreciate it, but I want to make sure that I have it. So of the incremental 110 to 115 in solid waste, only 20 of that is from commodities and the rest is just kind of core, a core delta.
spk13: yeah that's right so if you think about what we said the beginning of the year year over year the original guide provided plus 10 a commodity based on what we've seen throughout this year and now the expectation for that for the balance of the year saying there'll be another sort of plus 20 on commodity and again while that's muted compared to what others may be sort of saying you got to remember that You know, for every dollar the commodity goes up, I give sort of, you know, 40 cents of it back to the guy. And so I'm getting less of an impact as I move. So there's $20 million macro commodity. The rest is really outperformance on price and volume.
spk09: Okay. And on the price and volume, I'm assuming that's largely a positive delta in the U.S. I mean, it sounds like you have pretty reserved comments on Canada.
spk13: I mean, I continue to have reserved comments on Canada, but the opening guidance was also reserved on Canada. So it is positive in both, particularly on the sort of pricing, moving both of those up, getting to a higher number than in the original guide. But, yes, it's the U.S. business for which we have a better line of sight because, again, our Canadian government seems to be a little bit more uncertainty in terms of timing. Yeah.
spk09: Okay. And then, so on the free cash, and I just want to make sure I've got this because I'm a little confused. So you booked the $50 million of asset sales in the quarter. That is in your guide, correct?
spk13: The $50 million is really just going to be an offset for incremental capital, growth capital that we'll redeploy. So I have it in there today because by the time I get to year end, I'm probably going to have redeployed those dollars, and I want to get to that net normalized capex of 525. So by the end of the year, if I spend 585, I've only done spend that extra 60%. by virtue of having those proceeds. So it kind of creates a wonkiness for this quarter individually. I'd back it out for this quarter, but know by the time I get to year end, I'll have deployed it, and therefore its inclusion normalizes CapEx to that right 525 level.
spk09: Okay, that's helpful. So it's a normalizing on CapEx. So then if we just do the simple EBITDA to free cash walk, I'm assuming it's, again, something like 1.4 of EBITDA. You've got $300 million or so of cash. get your capex of call 550 a little bit more, and then closure, post-closure, and that's pretty much the walk?
spk13: Yeah, that's right. Working capital will be sort of net neutral. You've got the cash interest in that 300. You've got the capex at 5.25, closure, post-closure in that sort of 55 range, and, you know, the 8 to 10 for cash taxes. And you do that walk, and you should get to the sort of, you know, that 510, 520 range.
spk09: Okay, and on the balance sheet, is it safe to assume that about half of the refis have been done and the other tranches will just come as the call premiums ease?
spk13: I'd say about two-thirds of the 2021 opportunity has been done, and we anticipate being able to execute on the full opportunity, and then the balance of the balance sheet becomes 2022, 2023 opportunities. Right. Okay. Okay.
spk09: All right, guys. Appreciate it. Thanks, Tyler.
spk01: Thanks, Tyler. Our next question comes from Rupert Murr from National Bank. Please go ahead.
spk04: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning, Rupert. Back to GFL renewables again. You've got a very well-developed organics business. I'm wondering, are you looking at any opportunities for conversion of organics to R&G with AD systems? And if you can give some thoughts on what the economics of that might be.
spk02: Yeah, I mean, I'm not as bullish on the anaerobic digester fund, particularly in North America, just because the consistency of the stream that needs to go through those digesters, you know, And that's why we've sort of chosen the other path for now. I mean, we all know where we stick in our organics bin from time to time, and particularly Ontario. I mean, it only gets worse as you go into parts of the U.S. So we're going to stick with that. So, no, we're not anticipating going into the anaerobic digester business any time soon.
spk04: All right, great. Thanks. And on the last call, you highlighted some royalty agreements on landfill projects. Gas operations that are up for negotiation in the next three to five years. How does that play into the strategy? Do you buy those out or do you need to expire?
spk02: That's part of it for sure on some of the electrical contracts, which is all sort of well underway and telegraphed in that number. We think that will happen relatively quickly. Those aren't really money-making opportunities for the actual utility, so a lot of them are happy to get out of them as we move through this venture.
spk04: Great. And just finally, can you give us some thoughts on the timing of investment that's going to be needed to convert to CNG vehicles?
spk02: They don't follow the normal course, for sure. I mean, what we're looking at doing is sort of just rebalancing our fleets, moving diesel trucks into markets where, you know, from existing areas that don't have CNG, and then we spend our maintenance capex dollars deploying those into areas where just CNG makes more sense. So I don't think you'll see any outsized capex come from it. It'll be a rebalancing and shifting of where those dollars get spent.
spk04: Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you.
spk01: Again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question comes from Adam Leiden at ADW Capital. Please go ahead.
spk10: Hey, Patrick. Congratulations on a great quarter. You know, I think my question is more qualitative in nature. If you kind of look back, you guys went public, you know, in early 2020, you know, at the depths of COVID. I think, you know, you would obviously have some challenges taking the asset to market. And, you know, look, you guys navigated COVID extremely well. You've executed on exactly what you said you would do. You know, you've got the two platforms. You're divesting assets. Leverage is coming down. The refinance story is happening. I would say that for the last year and a half, you basically delivered on everything that you said you would do and exceeded all kind of numerical expectations. That being said, the rest of the industry trades at a substantially higher multiple and arguably has what I would argue inferior unit economics on an incremental basis from an ROIC and all the rest. And so you as an insider and the largest shareholder, unlike the rest of your peer group, are faced with a question or something to ask yourself, which is the public markets are resisting the way you deploy capital, even though it is far superior to your peer group and you trade it at a significant discount to your peer group. I mean, at what point do you pull other levers to kind of tease out the value? Obviously, your concentrated shareholder base could make it easy to tap the capital markets. Again, interest rates are obviously very, very low. Could this company get re-LBOed? Could you do a sale lease back on your real estate? That obviously – Industrial real estate is at very, very low multiples. The way we see it, you're trading at almost a 10-plus percent yield out a year and a half, and your real estate's trading at three, your peers are trading at three. How do you think about that? from an owner's perspective, from an IRR perspective, the types of levers you can pull and at what point you say, look, this is a waste of my time. This is enough. We're not creating value fast enough from an equity perspective relative to the business performance.
spk02: There's a lot of, I guess, a lot of statements in the lecturing. So, I mean, I think it's fabulous. I mean, I think from our perspective, you know i think as a private company we never really want to focus on the mark of the equity right and the mark on the equity is really only relevant if you need the equity to sort of fund your plan and i think at this point that plan is largely self-funded so we don't that being said you know we do think there's a very compelling opportunity to own this name at a you know relatively inexpensive cost and you know correlation to some of the other peers but you know i think we've been at it for six quarters you know publicly obviously a lot longer time privately and you're all right you know um i do am the largest single shareholder and at the end of the day you know i'm going to keep being the great steward of capital that i've been over the last 14 years and we started this company with you know, $250,000 and, you know, broke it up significantly over that period. And I think one way or another, the value will be unlocked, you know, at some point. And, you know, whether that's private, whether that's another M&A transaction, whether that, you know, is just continue executing on what we do best, we'll unlock the value over time. And, you know, we're giving everybody the roadmap now Uh-oh, where we see the value. And like you said, you look out a couple years. You know, everybody wants to focus on the quarter. I mean, you can't build great businesses quarter to quarter. You've got to take, you know, a three- to four-year view on what you're going to do from a plan perspective and a business perspective. And that's exactly what we're doing. And like I said, a year ago, we were defending that the business didn't have any cash flow. And the equity was worth zero. And I think, you know, we just put our head down, didn't really respond, continued doing that, and have grown cash flow at a 40% CAGR. ever since. And we're saying we're going to continue growing free cash with a 15, 20% CAGR here for the next, you know, three plus years. So, I mean, we've given, you know, I have no interest in saying that other than saying, okay, wait and see. I mean, watch what's going to happen. And if you want to own it today, own it today. If you don't want to own it today, don't own it today. But, you know, this is exactly what we're going to do. And I think we have a history of beating expectations. And that's my focus. And like I said, one way or another, and we'll get to them at the removal side. Hey, we found, you know, this potential gas opportunity that could yield, you know, a significant amount of free cash flow, and we want to lock the value from that, whether that's keeping the cash flow and trading at the 25 to 30 times free cash flow that we trade at today, or, you know, you want to lock the value with someone else that's trading at 30 to 50 times free cash flow. So we'll do that, and we'll just keep doing the things that we think add value to our own equity.
spk10: Okay, that's very helpful. Last question. So if you think about the GFL historical strategy, you guys have approached the waste management consolidation somewhat differently than your peers, albeit better. You buy a very well-run platform. in local, you know, you don't buy their trucks, you sell their trucks, you keep their trucks, you do consolidation. You know, it might be helpful for me and perhaps others on the call to kind of, you know, walk folks through, you know, what a typical tucking transaction to your hub and spoke. So you buy $5 million of EBITDA, you know, and put it into your system, you know, what multiple EBIT is. Because at least from our understanding, and I think it might be helpful for others, is that you know, when you buy a platform, you're buying the structure, but when you buy these things and you plug them into your roots, you know, there are substantial CapEx savings and substantial G&A savings. So, I mean, it might be helpful for me and others to kind of say, okay, when we buy things at five or six times EBITDA, you really should think about them as a multiple of cash flow or EBIT. So it might be helpful just to kind of layout how that works because it feels like that's where this business is going. You've gotten those two big platforms. And so, you know, the vast majority of your time going forward is kind of emblematic transaction.
spk02: I would say it's no different in Canada. Look at the margin for what's happening in Canada. Canada was a low 20s margin business. Today is high 20s margin business. And how that happened is we built out the platform across Canada. When you build up the platform, you get all the SG&A requirements, the operating facilities, and you have teams in the existing markets. And it's no different than what we're doing now in the U.S. And when you look at what we do, I say we have a lot of the great pieces of the puzzle already in place. We have an amazing fixed facility and fixed cost base. And now when we acquire these smaller collection-only businesses, that we can tuck into our existing geographies and utilize that fixed cost base and utilize those post-collection operations like transfer stations, recycling facilities, and landfills, you know, those become highly accredited. And when you can put them on those routes on the back of your existing routes, obviously you're eliminating a significant amount of SAPX. And you're just increasing revenue on your existing book of business, which drives higher margins and drives higher free cash flow margins. And that's what we've been doing for 14 years. And that's why our margins have gone from high teens to, you know, moving to high 20s, approaching 30, right? And then for the solid waste business, you know, in excess of 30. So, you know, while that theme will continue, we won't deviate from that strategy anymore. You know, we're not elephant hunters. You know, the Wyoming that Luke said, you know, the number of opportunities we've acquired this year, 20 plus. If you look at the relative size of those, again, tiny. And, you know, we think over time those will add the most value to our equity.
spk10: Sure. And how do you think about CapEx as a percentage of sales from where we are now? Like, where do you think it could be in five years? I mean, if you continue to execute on this. I mean, your CapEx percentage of sales has come down a lot. I mean, where do you think it could be in five years?
spk02: Yeah, I mean, we were, you know, early days, we were 15%. And, you know, look, today it's, you know, in the 10-inch to 11-inch zip code. You know, where it goes as you keep going from there, I think, you know, could it get to 9 to 10? Sure. I mean, it just depends where we are in the growth cycle and how we want to think about our business four or five years out. But, you know, you're right in saying that when you look back in time, if you look at the perspectives, cap actions, we haven't had to make those investments, has come down as a percentage of the overall revenue.
spk10: Yeah, I mean, you know, look, I'll leave you with this. That, to me, is the most exciting part of this story, you know, that, you know, obviously you're thinking about it as a business owner and you've got to buy these good platforms, and that's why you've historically played for multiples for these big platforms. But, I mean, you know, what you do is you get this great foundation and you bring in these little guys and you don't duplicate the trucks and you get shared procurement. I mean, it feels like you think about where we are in the cycle with these two platforms, you know, these deals that you're buying in four or five, six times EBITDA, you know, the multiple of EBIT is considerably lower. So, you know, to us, you know, that's the most exciting part of the story. So I look forward to seeing it. And thank you again for all the hard work and a great quarter.
spk02: All right, Adam. Thank you so much.
spk01: This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Patrick DiVici for closing remarks.
spk02: Thank you, everyone, and we look forward to speaking to you when we report our Q2 results. Thank you.
spk01: This conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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