Stantec Inc

Welcome to Stantec's third quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. Leading the call here are Gore Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Teresa Jang, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Stantec invites those dialing in to view the slide presentation, which is available in the investor section at stantec.com. Today's call is also webcast. Please be advised that if you have dialed in while also viewing the webcast, you should mute your computer as there is a delay between the call and the webcast. All information provided during this conference call is subject to the forward-looking statements qualifications set out on slide two, detailed in Stantec's management discussion analysis, and incorporated in full for the purposes of today's call. Unless otherwise noted, dollar amounts discussed in today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars and are generally rounded. With that, I am pleased to turn the call over to Mr. Gore-Johnston.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'm very pleased to report record third quarter results that delivered in line with our expectations. Our results reflect strong operational performance and the ongoing solid execution of our strategic plan, delivering both top and bottom line growth. We generated a 24% increase in net revenue, reaching approximately 1.2 billion, propelled by the key drivers that we've noted over the course of this year. Aging infrastructure, climate change and sustainability, and the reshoring of domestic production. NatRevenue was driven by double-digit organic growth of 11% and acquisition growth of 13%. We continue to drive organic growth in each of our geographic regions and business units. Notably, water and energy and resources delivered 16% and 17% organic growth respectively. And environmental services continues to have a very strong year. with over 9% organic growth and a 47% net revenue increase overall. Water and environmental services continue to account for 40% of our business, which speaks to the strong weighting of our business towards addressing climate change and sustainability challenges. We achieved solid project and EBITDA margins of 54.1%, and 16.7% respectively. And this performance translated into adjusted diluted earnings per share of 86 cents for the quarter. Looking at our results by region, our activity level in the U.S. continues to increase, driven by momentum in both public and private investment. We grew net revenue by almost 29% overall, with 12% organic growth, 13% acquisition growth, and 4% from the stronger U.S. dollar. Organic growth in water was driven by the ramp-up of public sector and industrial projects, including advanced manufacturing projects, as well as our work on large-scale water security projects addressing water scarcity risks in the western U.S. We also delivered solid organic growth in infrastructure, from work on projects in transportation, as well as in industrial and residential land development activities. and we continue to see activity levels recover in buildings, with investments still flowing into healthcare and science and technology. Of note, our U.S. environmental services business has now grown to match the net revenue generation of our U.S. infrastructure business. Our results reflect how well aligned our U.S. business is to continue to capture the wave of opportunities and funding being made available to address the key drivers and developing trends. Canada continued to perform very well. Net revenues were up 7% in the quarter, all attributed to organic growth. Similar to the US, both private and public spending remains robust in Canada. We saw the strongest growth in environmental services, with continued high demand for permitting work in archaeological services, and in energy and resources, where power transmission and distribution and energy transition work generated continued opportunities. We also grew our infrastructure revenues with ongoing work in community development through the housing market, bridge work in Quebec, and the continued recovery efforts in British Columbia from last year's flooding. Work on public health care and private commercial projects drove growth in our building segment. And our global region continues to lead, with 38% net revenue growth for the quarter, or 44% on a constant currency basis. Global also continued to have the highest organic growth at just over 14%. The strength of our acquisition programs generated additional net revenue growth of 30%. Our water business continues to be a significant pillar for us to capture long-term framework opportunities in both the UK and New Zealand. And we also continue to see strong demand for our services in community development and in mining. So you can see that the themes we've been discussing continue to play out across all of our regions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Theresa to review our Q3 financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. As Gord stated, Q3 was a very solid quarter for us. We grew gross revenue by 26% and net revenue by 24%. Project margin was also up 24%, driven by strong net revenue growth. As a percentage of net revenue, project margin was very solid at 54.1%, in line with our expectations. Our project margin reflects our continued discipline in project execution, our ability to increase rates on certain projects to mitigate the impacts of wage inflation, and increased selectivity in project pursuits. Consistent with the increase in our project margin, we also delivered adjusted EBITDA growth of 24%, and through solid execution across the business, adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.7%, directly in line with Q3 2021. Turning to our earnings, net income in the quarter was $68 million, or $0.61 per share. This was down slightly compared to Q3 2021, primarily driven by acquisition-related expenses. Our adjusted net income for the third quarter was 95 million, or 86 cents per share, an increase of 18% and 19%, respectively, over Q3 2021, reflecting our focus on delivering both top line and bottom line growth. Looking at our liquidity and capital resources, operating cash flows in the quarter were 93 million. DSO was 86 days, largely resulting from the Cardinal integration and two days from the effect of foreign exchange. And net debt to adjusted EBITDA was at 1.9 times. As we approach completion of the card note financial migration, cash flows are beginning to normalize, and we continue to expect cash flows, DSO, and leverage to be at more typical levels by the end of the year. However, the disruption during the financial migration has led to our average debt level for the year being slightly higher than anticipated and this will impact 2022 adjusted ROIC. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Gord.

Thank you, Theresa. We continue to see very strong activity across our business. This is clearly evident in our backlog, which has grown organically by 15% since the beginning of the year and has reached an all-time high of $6.2 billion, representing 14 months of work. As expected, increases in backlog were particularly strong in the U.S., where we had almost 21% organic growth, followed by 10% organic growth in Canada. The projects being recorded in backlog are largely following the themes that we've been discussing throughout the year, driving 20 plus percent organic growth in our backlog for infrastructure, buildings, and energy and resources. Turning to some of our major project wins in the quarter. In the US, we were awarded a bridge and structures project through the Colorado Department of Transportation for construction management, construction inspection, and materials testing. And we're also very active with project awards for our water programs around the country. These include the design of an alternative water source program in Illinois, project management and a biological review for underground and systems hardening in California, and projects for water quality and dam improvements in the western U.S. Turning to Canada, in British Columbia we were selected as the prime consultant for the Cape Horn Pump Station No. 3 for our client Metro Vancouver, and in Toronto we won a continued services and funding contract with Metrolinx in the Greater Toronto Area. In our global region, we are excited to be contributing to the development of the transport corridors in the Horn of Africa. This project will enable increased mobility and trade within Africa and within Europe. and we've been awarded project management services for an airport expansion project in Asia, our first in the region. These highlighted project wins are reflective of the robust funding being directed towards addressing the significant, multifaceted challenges being faced around the world. As we engage with our clients, we continue to see strong advancement of projects despite some of the economic headwind fears. The message remains the same. that the need to address these imperatives continues to outweigh the risk of cost increases and recession concerns. So as we look towards the rest of the year, with the strong performance that we've delivered year-to-date, we are confident in our ability to achieve our 2022 financial targets for adjusted diluted EPS growth, net revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA margin, and adjusted net income margins. As Teresa indicated, we now anticipate delivering adjusted ROIC of greater than 10% for 2022 compared to our previous guidance of greater than 10.5%. Our execution has been solid, and I'm very pleased with the continued growth that we're seeing in all our regions and businesses. We expect this dynamic to continue into next year and into the years to come. In the US, public funding from the IIJA, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act is starting to accelerate and provide more opportunities in these critical areas. Similarly, in the UK, early procurement for AMP8 services is already underway. Spend levels for AMP8 are expected to be higher than AMP7 as they seek to address severe drought conditions that we haven't seen in decades and the continuing need to harden critical water infrastructure. And in Canada, the need for environmental services and energy transition continues to grow at an unprecedented pace. Static is very well positioned to capture many of these opportunities and to create significant value for all of our stakeholders. As we move into 2023, the last year of our strategic plan, we will remain focused on execution and excellence to deliver on the targets that we've set. And with that, let me turn the call back to the operators.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or comment at this time, please press star 11 on your touchtone telephone. We'll pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Yuri Link with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.

Good morning, Gord. Good morning, Teresa. Good morning. Getting towards the end of the year here, so I thought I'd take a stab at just any update on your 2023 goals, particularly around 16% to 17% margin and 11% EPS growth. Just wondering if the inflationary environment, including higher rates, is kind of weighing on your ability to achieve those targets.

You know, I think we're confidence that our 2023 targets are in sight for us. We're working hard towards achieving that. We will formally roll out our outlook for 2023 in February. But there are always going to be pressures and wage inflation is one of them, but we continue to find ways to manage them, to maintain our project margins, to operate more efficiently. So overall, we're confident that those targets that we set for 2023 will be achieved.

Okay. And on the margin front, is it just some of the cost synergies coming through and better absorption of your SG&A rather than gross profit improvements?

It's really all of the above. All of those things that we look toward in driving to an EBITDA margin, looking for, as I mentioned in my comments, being selective on the projects that we take on with the pricing and acceptance of margins, the pursuit of rate increases to capture the higher wages that we've seen. And synergies, of course, but just, again, continuing to operate as efficiently as we can throughout our organization. We've seen a continued uptick in the use and the buildup of our delivery center in Pune and now in Manila as well. And that's an important part of our overall cost strategy. And as we move into 2023, again, you know, some specific targets around how we intend to continue to grow the use of those services. So it's kind of a, you know, there's not one major thing. It's lots and lots of things.

Okay, that's fair. I'll leave it there. Congrats on a nice quarter.

Thanks. Yeah, thank you.

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Devin Dodge with BMO. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks.

Good morning.

There continues to be good development in the backlog. It's great to see. But can you comment on the efforts to expand the workforce? Just wondering if you've seen net additions in Q3, and should we expect headcount to push higher again into Q4?

Yeah, you know, we definitely have seen continued headcount development in Q3. an increase in Q3. You know, we've seen our voluntary turnover rates sort of stabilize. You know, they were up a little bit in Q2. Q3 remained the same. But I think, you know, in Q3, we actually had some of the highest number of new hires that we've had in history, really. So, we're bringing on a lot of new people. So, absolutely, the headcount continues to increase. Now, when you look, you know, You talked about Q4. We'll continue to hire people in Q4, but seasonally our workforce sometimes comes down in Q4, depending on how soon winter hits for us here in Canada. So some of our field programs may start to wrap up, depending on cold and snow and so on. So we'll absolutely continue to be hiring, but seasonally our workforce does come down in Q4 typically.

Okay. In the outlook, there was mention that year-to-date figures were near the upper end of the guidance ranges, but I think you're expecting Q4 will bring them down closer to the midpoint. Given the seasonality you just mentioned, I think this makes sense for EBITDA margins and net income margins, but does this comment also apply for net revenue growth, either organically or just overall net revenue growth?

Yeah, I mean, net revenue for Q4, you know, should continue to be very strong. We do expect to continue to see good growth in Q4. And of course, you know, because so much of our business is weighted towards the U.S., you know, we're getting a nice tailwind from exchange rates as well. So net revenue, you know, will it push past the upper bound of our range? Possibly. But overall, you know, I think we want to draw attention to our overall profitability, whether that be EBITDA margin or EPF, and we do expect that to be, you know, within the range.

Okay, makes sense. And if I could just sneak one more in, a question for you, Teresa. In the cash flow statement, I think there was about $100 million usage for investments held for self-insured liabilities in the quarter. You know, looking back, I don't believe we've seen anything close to that magnitude. Just can you give some color for the drivers behind that cash out flow?

Yeah, for sure. So over the course of this year, actually, we changed the management of our portfolio for our self-insured liabilities, equities, I should say. And so we did have a big outflow, as you note, in the quarter of about $100 million for a purchase. But if you look at the line below that on the cash flow statement, you'll see that a corresponding almost purchase of $75 million. And then further for the year to date, The purchases were an outflow of $144 million, but then there was a sale of $179. So it has moved around a little bit. The numbers on a gross basis are higher than you would typically see because of the movement and sale and transfer of these investments. But net-net, the impact isn't that significant.

Okay. Thank you. We'll turn it over. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Jacob Bout with CRBC. Your line is open.

Good morning. Morning, Jacob. Strong backlog and organic revenue growth in this quarter. Can you talk geographically if you're seeing any signs of weakness? It seems like Canada lagged a bit, U.S. and global, and do you think it's improving Canada?

Yeah, you know, I think we're feeling pretty good about our operations in each of these locations. You know, the U.S. was kind of unfolding the way that we had thought. You know, as you recall, as we were kind of coming through the last part of last year, it was getting a little bit – it was slower to rebound. Canada rebounded quicker, you know, coming out of last year than the U.S. did. So that's why, you know, when you look at our Canadian organic growth is against the higher comp from last year, whereas the U.S. is really unfolding as we thought. You know, a lot of these projects started to come in, and the buildings group in particular, a lot of the big healthcare projects were coming. And so, you know, the backlogs are up, the organic growth is up, so we're feeling really good about that. And then global, the same, you know, great growth in global, and it really has been, you know, all year. And we continue to see that, you know, that will continue into next year as well.

Are you seeing any change in customer behavior as you move through 2023?

You know, we've been, yeah, you know, we've been talking to all of our business leaders and the people who are closest to the clients, you know, are we seeing projects, you get delayed and increase of projects that might be getting canceled. And we're really not seeing that in any of our business units or in any of our geographies. And our customers have not been telegraphing concern for Q4, haven't been telegraphing concern for 2023 either. So I think we feel pretty good about the backlog that's there, that it's valid and that we'll be drawing upon it as we move forward.

And strategically, as you think a bit longer term, as far as geographic mix, I think in the quarter it was roughly 50% U.S. and then 25% each for net revenue global in Canada. Is that kind of the right geographic mix strategically or where do you think you would be outside there?

You know, we've talked a little bit about overall from an M&A perspective, you know, where we might be looking to deploy capital and to continue to grow. So, you know, certainly there are continued opportunities for us to grow headcount through M&A activity in the United States, but also a lot of opportunity. You know, if you look at the UK, you know, things are a little challenged there right now, certainly, but, you know, we continue to look for good long-term opportunities there. I think we could, you know, double or triple our size in the UK. We're still looking at, as we've been messaging consistently, looking up into the Nordics, and, you know, Scandinavian countries to continue to look for opportunities there because we really aren't present in those geographies. And then, you know, additional opportunities down in Australia. So I think, you know, the mix in general is comfortable, but I think you'll see a change, you know, over the years to come based on these acquisition growth opportunities.

I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Thanks, Jacob.

One moment for our next question. The next question comes from Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets.

Thanks, folks. Good morning. Maybe following on that question, I was curious about if you guys could spend some time maybe talking about the UK business a little bit more. It's certainly been through a bunch of changes in government, some delays. Gordon, I think you mentioned AmpAid is coming. But, you know, we go back a couple years and, you know, historically you've been pretty much a water-focused firm in the UK, but there was some talk about bridging into maybe other areas. Can you just maybe give us some more thoughts around how you're seeing the UK market evolve? And I think you alluded to the fact that you think you could double or triple through M&A in that market. You know, is all this disruption that it's going through right now, is that creating opportunities for you and maybe accelerate that plan?

Yeah, so as we look at the UK in particular, we've talked before that we're the number one water firm there, and we continue to be so. So that work is stable, not impacted by some of the inflation and the economic challenges that we're seeing there. Water work continues. AMP8, as we've talked about, should be even a higher spend just because of some of the drought and so on. But I think one of the things that we have been talking about is our move into planning. So, you know, Peter Bratton Associate had a very, very strong planning group. But with the acquisition of Barton Wilmore earlier this year, we're the number one planner in the UK. And certainly, you know, I was there just last week or the week before, still continued discussion about a shortage of housing, shortage of affordable housing in particular. You know, the various housing authorities around the UK continue to search for ways to... to move that forward. So we're active on a number of those large-scale planning schemes. So that's good work for us because we do the planning work. And then, in many cases, we can go in and do the actual new community design work as well. So that continues to support that. And then we've talked about the building side. And certainly, Peter Brett and Associates had a very strong buildings and infrastructure group as well as planning. So you've seen, we've talked a little bit in previous quarters about some transportation, some highway projects that we've received that we wouldn't have got without the addition of the folks who joined us from Peter Brett. So I think we're building a really good, solid multi-sector business in the UK. And so to your point about some of this inflation and economic challenge presents some opportunities, the firms that we're talking to are really solid tier one players. And so You know, while we've been talking about, you know, multiple compression and so on, I think they understand that multiple compression on M&A activity is coming, but it seems to be lagging just a little bit because these are good firms who have been through downturns before and come back again. So, you know, we'll just stay close to them, and when the timing is right, we'll act.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks. My next question, maybe more for Teresa. Teresa, as we've gone through Q3 reporting, a number of companies have talked about changes in taxes. I guess there's been a lot of changes in U.S. regulations. The U.K. has been whipping around tax rates. Maybe early days, anything to think about cash flows? Is there any potential for one-timers that we should be thinking about or any material change to tax rates or cash taxes next year that we should maybe be aware of?

Yeah, I mean, cash is particularly on it when you operate on a global scale like we do. It's always tricky because there's so many moving parts to it. At this stage, you know, I would not say that there is anything in particular that I'm aware of that will require, you know, an unusual cash outflow. We will have better guidance for you in February. But, you know, there's always going to be kind of puts and takes. this global minimum tax of 15% that has been discussed. There are two pillars under it, and I won't go into the details. I'm sure you're familiar with it. But the first pillar we don't expect will have much of an impact on us. The second may, but we don't think that it'll be material. So they're all things that we monitor very, very closely. And as I said, in February, we'll give as much clarity as we can on that. But You know, nothing that I see on the horizon that will be, you know, kind of a big material cash outflow.

All right. That's helpful. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Sabatakhan with RBC. Your line is open. All right. Great. Thanks, and good morning.

Gord, I think earlier in the conversation you talked about the kind of backlog build in the U.S. One of your U.S. peers provided some early commentary on the 23 outlook there with when kind of the IIJ is expected to kind of flow through. I guess at this point, what is the funding that's driving some of the demand? Because it feels like some of the bigger bills probably come through in 23, but the backlog on the U.S. side is building up quite a bit. Can we just walk through kind of what's driving that? Which end markets are you seeing more funding in? And also, Maybe your thoughts on when some of the bigger U.S. bills they are exposed to will start to flow through. Kind of the impression we got yesterday was more kind of calendar Q2 onwards, but I wanted to get your thoughts.

Yeah, so I would agree with that, that a lot of the big IIJ funding and some of the IRA funding, I think we'll see coming in the future. We have some of that in backlog now. We're generating a little bit of backlog, but really nothing material, just some early releases. I do think we'll see more of that coming sort of Q2, Q3 of next year. That'll just continue to build on our already strong backlog in the U.S. But when I look at the U.S. overall, we've had backlog growth in each one of our business units. You know what? In particular, we've seen great backlog growth in our building segment, and we've talked about some of the healthcare projects and some of the logistics center work and things that we've been doing, big backlog there. The largest backlog growth actually is in our energy and resources group. A lot of transitioning to renewable energy and these things, so we saw great growth there, as well as in infrastructure overall. But, again, you know, we saw backlog growth in each one of our business units in the U.S., and I do think that's just going to continue and even strengthen as we move into 23. All right, great.

Thanks for that. And then, you know, as you kind of look over the next year, you know, I think you talked about, you know, kind of the margin profile a little bit earlier on. I guess, how are you thinking about, you know, kind of the drivers of this margin improvement? Do you think it's going to be sort of the larger scale post-cardinal, kind of the end markets? Sure. Can you just maybe walk us through how you think about your margin progression over the next few years, kind of post-Cardinal?

Yeah. I mean, you know, Cardinal's business is very similar to ours. We've talked about having achieved synergies already. And, you know, of course, we'll continue to look towards continuing to look for efficiencies amongst the businesses as we combine them. But, you know, it's really, as I noted earlier, Saba, that The levers that we have available to us on our EBITDA margin largely center around good project selection, good project execution, ensuring that we are growing our use of our delivery centers in India and the Philippines. This year, I had talked earlier about investments in our back office systems and so on. And again, it will be bringing to bear sort of the efficiencies that have come from that investment, continuing to drive and draw on our innovation to do things efficiently. So it's all of those things. And as we look toward next year, the 16% to 17% margin target is in sight. And it is what we're driving toward. And beyond that, as we enter the next stage of our strategic planning for the next cycle, we'll start to consider where there may be additional kind of step change opportunities. But again, in our business, it's largely these incremental improvements that we're able to make as opposed to one big button that we can push.

Okay. And then just one last quick one. I think there was some discussion earlier on kind of some of the tax changes. And I think we heard from your peers that there was a U.S. tax change around expensing R&D. So maybe we could take this offline. But I guess for you guys, that wasn't an impact in the quarter, I guess. And maybe you don't do a lot of R&D in the U.S. Just trying to understand if there was an impact from that change in tax policy in the U.S. side.

Yeah. So it did affect us because we do have, you know, a healthy R&D program. For us, for the year to date, I think it led to incremental cash taxes around $20 million, and we would expect maybe another $10 for the rest of this year. But having said that, as I noted earlier, there's always puts and takes, and so when we looked at our overall cash flow as it related to our U.S. taxable income in particular, there were offsets, and so it really didn't feel like we needed to call it out just

Perfect. Thanks very much for the call. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Maxim with National Bank Financial. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning. To respond to the first question for you, if I may, when we talk about working capital sort of free up and normalization in Q4, Can you provide maybe directionally the quantum of that improvement that we should expect for Q4?

Sure. You know, we're actually just putting the finishing touches on our October monthly results, and we have seen positive movement in our working capital, DSO now down a couple of days from the end of September, and moving closer toward our target of 80 days. You know, we're seeing things unfold as we expected, and so that's positive. And, of course, you know, you can't ever take the pressure off. We need to keep driving that to achieve our typical 80-day target. And so that is, you know, that is sort of the movement that we are working toward for the end of the year. is to get back to where we generally are in that 80-day range. And it's really – we've talked a lot about Cardano and the impact of the financial migration. I do want to note that when you look at our revenue growth, that also has an impact because these are the same people that are managing, accounting for, managing the projects, managing the growth that are also supporting – some shape or form, the cardinal migration. So, like, overall levels of activity are much higher than usual, and that, you know, leads to things taking a little bit longer on the invoicing side, on the collection side, and so on. So, it's, you know, it's a number of things that have driven our working capital to where it is all, I think, quite typical given levels of activity. But as I said, you know, we are seeing movement in a positive direction, and we expect that to continue through to the end of the year.

Okay. So do you think it's going to be possible to get leverage maybe down to, I don't know, like 1.6, something around that? Because, again, like some of the stuff is, you know, one-off free-ups?

Yeah, for sure. For us, that's our goal, to be somewhere around that, you know, 1.5, 1.6 range. It is absolutely possible, and we're doing everything we can to push towards that.

Okay, thank you very much for clarifying. And then another question for Gord, if I may. I think in the past we spoke about some semiconductor opportunities. One of the things that I'm more sort of curious about is, I guess, if you can attach sort of any materiality to those things. and maybe talk about sort of the attach rates of additional services that you're able to introduce to those, I presume, you know, new clients. So maybe just any comment on that vertical, please.

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, I think we mentioned last quarter that, you know, we're currently working with five of the top ten manufacturers around the world. And in addition to the work that we have on going max We have in our opportunity, our sales pipeline, we have $1 billion in fees for opportunities. Now, we're not going to get all of that, you know, to be sure. But this is a huge opportunity for us, not just in the United States, but we're also seeing opportunities in Europe and in other locations with these clients will often take you, you know, with them to these different locations. So, you know, in terms of the types of services that we offer, You know, typically everything from zoning and, you know, site selection, zoning, water, transportation, master planning, you know, those sorts of things. We do a lot of advanced water and wastewater treatment for these locations. And that actually truly is often our way in the door, is on the water and wastewater. But then once you're in there, there's a lot of, we call it balance of plant. So there'd be... You know, there's parking lots, there's office buildings, there's, you know, site security, all these sorts of things. So it really touches almost all of our business lines when we look at a big facility like that. And I think that's why you've seen, you know, as I mentioned, our fees in our opportunity pipeline are, you know, roughly a billion dollars. Now, again, I want to confirm that's not backlogged, and we're not going to win it all, but it's a huge opportunity.

All right. And then in terms of, you know, talking to some of the stuff in Europe, I mean, like, is this more of a, I don't know, 2024 sort of timeframe? Or how should we think about it in terms of timing?

Yeah, you know, as we're talking with the firms, you know, we are looking for sites now and these things. So you're probably right. It's probably, you know, that material revenue generation would likely be sometime in, you know, Some in 23, but it would likely be a bit of 24 as well. Okay.

Excellent. Thank you so much. That's it for me.

Great. Thanks, Max. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ben Walpour. You're with Desjardins. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Gord. Good morning, Teresa. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, Gord, you provide great color about the impact that we've seen so far with the US infrastructure bill, obviously unfolding the way you thought you'll be finishing the year with strong organic growth. I was wondering if you could, based on your comments about the timing for the US infrastructure bill, whether it would be fair to expect an acceleration in organic growth in 2023 or too early to look at the organic growth expectation.

You know, we haven't really, you know, as you know, of course, we haven't put out our guidance yet for next year. But I think if you were to look at the macro environment, certainly, you know, the speed and the number of projects that we'll see coming out of IAGA, particularly in the infrastructure space, you know, will look to accelerate. Now we're going to be coming off a higher comp as well. But, you know, certainly I do think that there's going to be some great opportunities coming for us in 2023 in the U.S. infrastructure space, absolutely.

Okay, perfect. And on the water side, you provide some color about the upcoming M program 8. Could you provide an update on the M7 program so far and maybe more color about the expectation for the forthcoming M program and maybe the timing?

Yeah, so, you know, we're well into the five-year AMP7 program. Really, it's unfolding as we had expected with the work that we're doing for our clients really throughout the UK there. But, you know, some of them are beginning to talk about re-procurement for AMP8 already. And, you know, typically the way that that works is not quite yet, but soon they'll put out their plans to the regulator. in terms of their capital spends. And so when the regulator then reviews them, because based on that capital spend is one of the things that would impact water rates to the user community. So they'll be looking at, you know, drought resistance, leakage reduction, you know, regulatory burden, overflows, and what's the capital program that needs to be put in place in order to deal with these over the next, the AMP8 cycle. From that then, you know, they'll work with the regulator, confirm what those are and get back to us. So We're not quite at that stage yet, but many of our clients are beginning to look at it. So, you know, the wisdom on the street is that the AMP 8 spend will be higher than AMP 7, but I couldn't quantify it quite yet.

Okay, perfect. And maybe last question for Teresa. You provided great color, great explanation about the 86 days for DSO. Obviously, Outlook still very robust looking at 2023. I'm just wondering whether the target of below 80 days is still achievable, or you could go back up above 80 days, let's say, looking forward beyond Q4 on the back of the strong market environment.

You know, my personal preference is that we would stay at 80 days or below, and I do believe that that's achievable. And so that is certainly what we're going to strive for. I'm not seeing any reason, once we get past this big push in the fourth quarter and sort of get to a steady state on Cardinal, that we shouldn't be able to achieve 80. And so I'd say for now that's what we will be aiming for.

That's great. Thank you for your time.

Thanks, Benoit. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Michael DeFome with PD Securities. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning.

Good morning.

Gord or Teresa, wondering if you can talk about your confidence in the outlook for your global geographic segment. And I guess specifically, I'm looking at the change in organic backlog growth for global this quarter. It does sound like you remain upbeat, but curious about the year-to-date organic backlog growth in that region moving down to 3.2% in Q3 from 13.4% in the second quarter.

Yeah, you know, the one thing also, so firstly, just to say, we're not overly concerned with that backlog growth. You know, there's a number of big pursuits that are in the pipeline. And so, you know, sometimes these things are a bit lumpy. So we're not overly concerned with that. Also, global had our highest organic growth at just roughly 14%. So we're chewing through, we're consuming a lot of that backlog as well. So I think when you kind of look at the overall growth, it's a combination of just some lumpiness in terms of when some of these awards will be made and that high organic growth consuming that backlog. So not overly concerned with it at this point.

Okay. Secondly, pleased to hear that you're not seeing any slowdown in production. overall activity to any degree, any material degree due to the rising rate environment and inflationary pressures. I think I can understand why that would be the case as it relates to public sector work. But on the private side, I guess if you can just confirm that that is in fact true, you're not seeing sort of anything on the private sector side either. And why do you think that might be? Like how are clients How are they dealing with the rising rate environment and higher costs for projects? How are they contending with that and where are they finding additional funding if needed and so on and so forth?

To answer your first question, I think your statement is right. Certainly, that is the case on public sector projects. As we've queried our various business leaders specifically about the private sector, we haven't seen any really uptick in projects being delayed or canceled. And so as to why that is, I just think that there's still a lot of underlying fundamentals. We've talked about some things like the big logistics center that we're working on in Southern California. And so we've had you know, interest in that facility is still very high. We've seen no indications of slowdowns there or from other similar type projects. So, you know, if interest rates go longer, you know, higher for longer, if the economy slows, perhaps we'll see something going forward, but we're really not at this point.

Yeah, I think the other thing that we're seeing, you know, and this is specific to the US, Michael, but The IRA funding is helping to support private investments, so perhaps where you know, project proponents would have maybe pulled back a little bit with this funding that's being made available to them. The IRA funding is what we're seeing driving pretty significant investment in energy transition. And so much of that work is supported by the funding that's going to be available. And so these stimulus programs are working to drive investment the way that they were intended.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then lastly, just a question about the sustainability of the strength you're seeing in energy and resources. It's been one of your better performing business units on a year-to-date basis, but it was, I think, the best performing business unit from an organic growth perspective in the third quarter. Gord, I think you mentioned some of that's being driven by renewables activity, and so I can appreciate that there's probably a you know, a long tail on that type of work. But as it relates to the oil and gas piece, has that been a major contributor? And given that's a more cyclical area, how do you see that looking going forward? And again, just a question on the sustainability of that strength.

Yeah, no, no, great, great, great observation. So with the renewable side of it, absolutely, you know, that has been growing, and I think that'll continue to grow. We're also seeing from a power perspective, A lot of work coming from grid hardening or the movement of taking above ground power lines, putting them underground. So there's a lot of power grid type work that's coming out of that power group as well. We're also seeing strength in the mining sector. While we've seen a little bit of softening recently in copper and iron ore, a lot of the investment decisions have been made and those projects that we're working on are still continuing to move forward. So renewables are strong, power in general is strong, mining is strong. From an oil and gas perspective, you know, we've seen that those fees as a percentage of our overall net revenue have sort of continued to decline over the last several years. You know, recall that for us, our oil and gas is really a midstream pipelining work, business, And so we're still active on a number of those. But, you know, as those projects continue to wind down, you know, I think we've seen the oil and gas work sort of being, the percentage of that reflecting in our backlog continues to sort of trend downwards. The one thing that we are, though, supporting a number of our oil and gas clients is with some transitional type work. You know, we're looking at, you know, a pipeline for the most part is a pipeline, whether it's carbon sequestration, or natural gas. So we're talking to clients about sort of moving in those directions. So the question will be going forward, is that still called oil and gas? Because it's an oil and gas client, even though it's a carbon sequestration pipeline. So those are some of the things that we're working through there. So I think we're seeing good long-term tailwinds for that business.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ian Gillies of Stiefel. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. It's obviously been a very challenging hurricane season in the U.S., and I know Stantec has a long history of disaster recovery work and helping there. Can you maybe remind us of how long work like this typically tends to show up in the backlog and whether it tends to be material or not to the

the growth profile yeah so um you know absolutely after some of the the recent hurricanes that have come through um we're we have uh crews that are are on the ground virtually immediately assessing damage you know as an example would be in puerto rico with some of the uh you know the electrical grid um you know issues that we had there i think we had 14 or 18 crews out you know in different areas of puerto rico looking assessing damage and then coming up with remediation plans. Similarly, in the mainland of the United States, there's drainage pump stations, sewage lift stations that are knocked out, so we're typically involved in working with some of those things. In terms of it being material, it can be significant, but we don't see it really being material to our overall portfolio. But one thing to note is the length of time that some of these projects take. We've talked previously about the big lift station, the PCCP lift station that we put in in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And we commissioned that pump station roughly 10 years after Katrina. So first there was the hurricane and the flooding, then there's the recovery from that. Then there's the design of the new pump station, the construction and the commissioning. So a lot of these projects take multiple years as we work through them. Now, 10 years for Katrina, that was probably a bit on the long side, but it's not particularly, it wouldn't be completely unusual that we'd see that sort of thing. So absolutely short-term recovery work, but then long-term design and commissioning work also.

Okay, that's helpful. And then The backlog is obviously very, very healthy. You're adding headcount. But, Gord, is there any increased level of concern that you're not going to be able to add people quick enough and you could end up with some disappointed customers just because you can't quite get to the volume of work?

Yeah, that's something that we look at on every pursuit that we chase and that if we can't deliver it, with the quality that we want along with the timeline that we've promised, then we'll either look for partners who can help us get it done, look for sending additional work to our delivery centers either in India or Manila, look for other ways to make it happen. But, yeah, we specifically, though, we won't go and take projects if we don't have a clear site to how we could deliver it on time.

Okay. Okay. Maybe if I could sneak in a quick follow-up to a point you just made. Is there any intention or are there any plans to add additional delivery centers in international jurisdictions in 2023?

I think what we'll really be focusing on is continuing to grow our existing. Over the last year or so, we've added a touch over 20% in terms of headcount to our delivery center in Pune, India. And we're still, it's early days for us with our delivery center in Manila. But, you know, by all accounts, a good group there. So I think what we'll be doing is focusing on how to grow those existing centers before we would be looking to add additional centers.

Okay. No, that's helpful, Culler. Thanks very much. I'll turn the call back over.

Great. Thanks, Ian. And I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I turn the call over to Gort for any closing remarks.

Okay, well, thanks, Lydia. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us today, and I look forward to engaging with many of you throughout the quarter. So if you have any follow-up questions, please feel to reach out to Jess, our Vice President of Investor Relations, and have a great day, everyone.

Thanks, everyone.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.

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