Stantec Inc

Welcome to Stantec's third quarter 2025 results webcasting conference call. Leading the call today are Gord Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Vito Camoni, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Stantec invites those dialing in to view the slide presentation, which is available in the Investors 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 the conference call is subject to the forward-looking statement. Qualifications set out on slide two detailed in Stantec's Management Discussion and Annals 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'll turn the call over to Gord Johnston.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to announce that Stantec delivered robust performance in the third quarter, generating organic growth across all our regions and business operating units. Global trends across water, transportation, energy transition and mission critical sectors continue to drive strong demand for our services. And our diversification across sectors and geographies creates resilience within our operations. Net revenue grew to $1.7 billion in the third quarter, an increase of almost 12% compared to Q3 of last year, driven by organic and acquisition growth, each over 5%. Most notably, our water business delivered almost 13% organic growth. Energy and resources delivered nearly 10%. We grew adjusted EBITDA by close to 18% year over year with a record margin of 19%. We also delivered adjusted EPS growth of 17.7% compared to Q3 2024. Looking at our results in each of our geographies, in the US, net revenue increased over 14% in the third quarter, which was driven by 4.6% organic growth and almost 9% acquisition growth. In our buildings business, net revenue increased by more than 40% in Q3 and over 20% year to date, driven by our acquisition of Page and continued organic growth. The integration of Page is going very well, and already we're seeing many revenue synergies from the acquisition. We expect to have completed the financial integration into our systems by year end. Private and public sector investments, particularly admission critical, science and technology and civic supported growth in buildings. Organic growth was also driven by our water and environmental services businesses. Large public sector water supply and wastewater treatment projects contributed to double digit growth in water and energy transition mining and infrastructure sectors, as well as the continued work for a large utility provider, supported growth in environmental services. In Canada, net revenue grew 7.6% in the quarter, driven completely by organic growth. We delivered double digit growth in our water and energy and resources businesses and high single digit growth in infrastructure. The continued momentum on major wastewater projects contributed to over 20% organic growth in water. Continued work on major industrial process projects also drove double-digit organic growth in energy and resources. Solid growth in infrastructure was supported by land development projects in Alberta, airport sector projects in Quebec, as well as transit and rail projects and bridge sector work in eastern Canada. Public sector investment drove growth in buildings, primarily in our healthcare and civic markets. Finally, our global business delivered net revenue growth of almost 11% in the third quarter, achieving 5.5% organic and 2.8% acquisition growth, along with positive foreign exchange impacts. Our industry-leading water business continued to deliver consecutive double-digit organic growth through long-term framework agreements and public sector investment in water infrastructure across the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The wrap-up of new projects in Chile and Peru drove double-digit organic growth in energy and resources, as the growing need for energy transition solutions continues to drive demand in mining for copper. We also achieved double-digit organic growth in our German infrastructure business, due to continued momentum on a major electrical transmission project and increased volume on transit and rail projects. Now I'll turn the call over to Vito to review our third quarter financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. We are very pleased with Stantec's third quarter financial results, which demonstrate the continued momentum of our business and the resilience of our operating model. Robust demand for our services combined with favorable global trends allows us to continue achieving record-setting results. In Q3, we achieved gross revenue of $2.1 billion and net revenue of $1.7 billion, an increase of 11.8% compared to Q3 of 2024. This was driven by 5.6% organic growth and 5.2% acquisition growth. As a percentage of net revenue, our project margins once again remained in line with our expectations at 54.4%. We achieved an all-time high adjusted EBITDA margin of 19% in the quarter, a 100 basis point increase compared to Q3 of last year. The increase in margin primarily reflects lower administration and marketing expenses, the percentage of that revenue due to our discipline management of operations and higher utilization. And our adjusted EPS in the quarter increased 17.7% to $1.53. Turning to our cash flow liquidity and capital resources, our year-to-date operating cash flows are up 86% compared to 2024, from $296 million to $551 million, reflecting strong revenue growth, strong operational performance, and continuing strong collection efforts. DSO at the end of the third quarter was 73 days, a decrease of four days compared to year-end 2024, and in line with our Q2. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio at September 30th was one and a half times, reflecting the funding of our recent acquisition of PAGE. This remains within our internal range, target range of one to two times, and positions us well for continued M&A. And as we have stated before, we are comfortable going above this range for a period of time, for the right acquisition. Gord, I now hand the call back to you. Great.

Thanks, Vito. At the end of the third quarter, our contract backlog stood at $8.4 billion, an almost 15% increase year over year, representing approximately 13 months of work. Backlog continues to grow organically and is up 5.6% year over year. Organic backlog growth has been driven primarily by our U.S. and global operations, which achieved 6.6 and 6.8% growth, respectively. The acquisitions we've completed in 2025 contributed to 6.8% growth in backlog, primarily within our buildings and water businesses. Over the quarter, Stantec was awarded a number of significant project wins across each of our five business verticals. Each project varying in size, scope, and complexity. I'll highlight just a few of these wins. Stantec was selected as owner's engineer for Manitoba Hydro's $7 billion high voltage direct current reliability project. The project aims to secure continuous grid reliability for communities across the province. And we've worked with Manitoba Hydro on power delivery projects in the province for over 50 years. And we look forward to continuing our work with them. Stantec's infrastructures team was selected for a $745 million project to widen the SC90 corridor in South Carolina. Our team will be responsible for shaping the overall project vision and layout, focusing on traffic operations, access management, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and impact minimization. And in Western Australia, our buildings team was selected to deliver specialist engineering services for two hospitals, One of which will be over 94,000 square meters in size and valued at nearly $1 billion. The second project includes refurbishment and expansion work at the Osborne Park Hospital valued at over $250 million. These projects will enhance healthcare for women, children, and families. Given our solid third quarter results, net revenue growth guidance for the full year, while increasing our adjusted EBITDA margin outlook to 17.2% to 17.5% on the strength of our operational performance and discipline in cost management. We maintain our mid-single-digit guidance for U.S. organic growth given persistent slower procurement cycles in the region. However, we remain optimistic that these are simply near-term challenges as we continue to see strong demand driven by the ongoing needs and the priorities of our clients. In Canada and in global, we still expect organic net revenue growth in the mid to high single digits. Growth in Canada is expected to be driven by continued strong demand and elevated backlog levels. Following the release of budget 2025 last week, we're encouraged to see the federal government prioritize infrastructure investments across various sectors. And while we don't expect immediate spending, the budget signals strong long-term support for our industry. In global, growth is supported by ongoing high levels of activity in our water business under the AMP-8 program in the UK and other framework agreements in Australia and New Zealand. Strong demand for infrastructure in Europe and positive demand fundamentals in energy and resources are also supporting growth in our global business. Considering all of these factors, we expect growth in adjusted EPS to be in the range of 18.5 to 21.5% for the year, and adjusted ROIC is expected to be greater than 12.5%. Given our uniquely diversified business, Stantec remains resilient amid evolving market conditions across all of our regions. We continue to progress towards the targets we laid out in our 2024 to 2026 strategic plan, including delivering net revenue of $7.5 billion by the end of next year. And with that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, simply press star 1-1 again. And our first question from today comes from the line of Sahabat Khan from RBC Capital Markets. Your question, please.

Great. Thanks and good morning. Knowing it's kind of close to the end of the year, know good organic print this quarter just wondering if you're able to share at a high level how you're thinking about 2026 just maybe and i know you guys provide guidance at q4 but just you know given some of the moving pieces this year any color you can provide either by major end markets or by region would be helpful thank you great thank thanks abba and certainly this is something we spend a lot of time talking about as well and and you're right we're going to provide our our formal guidance for 2026 in february but

Directionally, we see really strong momentum going into next year. In global, the AMP8 programs in the UK are going to continue to ramp up, as well as the frameworks in Australia and New Zealand. So we see continued strong support in our water business going forward. The need for copper to support grid strengthening, energy transition, keeps continuing support growth in our mining teams, particularly in South America, where I actually was down and visited with our offices last month. Here in Canada, You know, the federal budget that was recently released, you know, provides continued support for infrastructure really across the country. And, you know, we see a lot of opportunities in the major projects that Prime Minister Carney announced last week and even those that he announced previously. And we're already working on a number of those projects and we're in discussions and participating on a whole bunch of other ones. In the U.S., you know, a little period of uncertainty, but we see that the macro fundamentals really are still strong there. Aging infrastructure, climate-related impacts, reshoring of manufacturing, data centers, mission-critical facilities. So all of those things, whether it's global, Canada, the U.S., are strong. And then I think one thing that we've talked about a lot, too, is that around the globe, certainly a lot of discussion for increased spending on defense work. And for us, that's ports, that's dry docks, that's aircraft hangars and runways. housing, all sorts of various types of infrastructure. So we're actually really positive on the prospects and the momentum going into 2026. Great.

And then maybe if you could just dig in on the Canadian side, obviously a large part of your business. Obviously, we saw a few lists come out thus far. Can you just share some thoughts on, you know, is there just kind of the broad infrastructure programs in Canada that the Prime Minister is announcing that you're getting involved with? Or is it more kind of the energy base? I know historically some of the pipeline work in Western Canada was a big part of your business. Are you seeing maybe some of those opportunities as being more meaningful? Just curious kind of where within those buckets is Stantec exposed? Thanks, and I'll pass the line.

Yeah, great. Thanks, Seba. I think in both of those fields, both the opportunities that Prime Minister Carty has announced, and we see great opportunities, but you've seen the really solid organic growth that we've seen in Canada all year. really 8.5% year-to-date organic growth in Canada. And that's, of course, absent any of those projects that Prime Minister Carney had mentioned. So when we look at Canada, we've seen a lot of strength, actually, in Western Canada, in particular in land development. We've seen great opportunities in transportation. You know, a number of the projects working on bridge jobs in Toronto and a lot of sort of roadway projects here in Western Canada. But water has been incredibly strong all year for us. And we see really no slowdown of the both public sector work that we're doing. We've talked about the work we're doing with Metro Van in Vancouver, in Winnipeg and other locations, but a lot of private sector work coming along as well, advanced manufacturing data centers and that sort of work. So that's very, very robust. And then of course, as you said, the energy sector you know we've seen some opportunities there, as well as that group working on a number of industry. The work that we do on industrial projects also comes out of that and we've we've talked in previous quarters about some work that we're doing in eastern Canada on some industrial projects so. Canada pretty strong pretty broad based and you know we're feeling pretty good about the Canada overall when and you know, as we go into next year.

Thanks very much.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Yuri Link from Ken Accord Genuity. Your question, please.

Good morning, guys. Good morning. Great. Gord, I just want to push a little bit more on the outlook. I understand things are strong right now, but that's generally reflecting work that was booked 12, 18 months ago in some cases. Can you just talk about some of your forward-most looking indicators. And I'm thinking, you know, if you look around, you know, Canada, I know there's lots of good headlines, but, you know, the current economic data is pretty weak. Australia is soft outside of water. AMP8, one of the biggest customers there is struggling financially. The U.S. government shut down. You know, there's a whole bunch of worrying data

signs out there so are you seeing any of that in you know proposal or rfp or whatever you whatever you you look at on the most leading edge of your outlook yeah no a great question maybe i'll i'll address a couple of them individually there so you know in the us with without question there's been a confluence of factors that we've seen there caused a little bit of uncertainty and kind of slowed that the procurement cycles i mean certainly that's not unique to santec and You've seen that throughout the industry. So in the U.S., we've and you'll see that our backlog in the U.S. has been flat year to date. And a lot of that is, you know, we've been verbally awarded a number of projects, but we haven't been able to get them signed and contracted. So they haven't showed up at backlog. A little bit slower start on some of the things, you know, environmental services in the U.S. is maybe a little bit slower so far waiting for some of those things to pick up. You know, we're encouraged by the fact that the government is back at work now. We're also keeping a pretty close eye on that. That might only be for a couple of months until we have to go through this again. But, you know, the macros haven't changed in the U.S. You know, whether it is the aging infrastructure and roadways related to, you know, and support from IIGA. And we still see those supports coming to some of the reshoring that we're seeing in the private sector. So, you know, we see some positivity there. You talked about AMP8 and one of the largest customers there certainly having some financial difficulty and we all read about that in the papers, but that really has no impact on our business because they, you know, the way that the AMP cycles work is that the water company commits to doing certain amount of capital spend in order to justify rate increases and so on and improvements in the overall operation. that work has to get done. And people have said, well, what if that particular client was to get nationalized? Well, for us, we wouldn't want to see that happen. But if it did, the work still has to get done. And we've worked with Thames Water and for a number of successor companies for the last 200 years in the region. So we do see that regardless of what shakes out there, that AMP8 work is going to continue. So, you know, it certainly is a little bit of a cloudy environment out there, not all rays of sunshine, but we do see the demand drivers in our business being pretty strong.

The only other thing I'd add to that, Gord, is it's hard to argue with the points that you bring forward. But the diversity of our platform, I think, is an incredible asset, and you see it manifest itself through our year-to-date results, and I think you'll continue to see that both geographically and across our segments. So notwithstanding, you're going to see pluses and minuses through it all. I think that, to Gord's opening comments here, we will be positive moving into 2026, no doubt.

Okay, good to hear. Second and last one for me, just any update on the M&A pipeline? I understand over the last year or two, there's been some large private players maybe working themselves towards a sale. Just any change in the pipeline?

Yeah, it's a pretty robust industry right now. Lots of discussions ongoing. You've certainly read in the papers about some of these private firms coming to market. You also heard rumors about big firms in our space having discussions. And of course, we can't comment on any of those things other than to say we maintain very, very positive on M&A in general and specifically for Stantec. Our board is supportive. Our investor community is supportive. We're supportive and the opportunity set is there. You know, we're continuing a number of conversations and, you know, look forward to bringing something forward at the appropriate time.

Good to hear. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Eric.

And our next question comes from the line of Ian Gillies from Stifel. Your question, please.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Following on. Following on some of the previous commentary and maybe just hit the nail on the head, with organic backlog growth in the U.S. flat year to date, you don't believe that impinges on your ability to generate some amount of organic growth in the U.S. as we go into next year?

Yeah, that's absolutely correct, Ian. We do not envision our year to date backlog being flat as an indicator of organic growth going into next year. We'll be positive in organic growth next year. We'll give guidance again at the appropriate time, but our expectations at this time, and you heard Cord echo opening comments around the U.S., including the U.S., we feel pretty good about it. Factors that are contributing to the year-to-date, first of all, backlog is generally lumpy, and obviously we expect it to build here as we move into the first half of the year. Our year-to-date backlog, though, even in the U.S., our year-to-date backlog which is probably a better comparison or equally important comparison. Excuse me, our year-over-year, thank you, is up 6.6%, I believe it is, or over 6%. So overall, notwithstanding the confluence of factors that we've talked about, that our peers have talked about, we clearly expect organic growth in the U.S. as we move into next year.

Understood. That's very helpful. And Maybe along similar lines, and most of the other engineering firms have been asked about this, so I'll ask as well. Do you have any concerns about IAJA funds not being released with some certainty? For instance, does your U.S. team still feel quite confident that the bulk of those funds will come out over the next, call it, four to five years and should continue to be that long-term tailwind and not be canceled?

Yeah, and so. I think our answer would be similar to what you've heard from some of our from the others who have reported as well that you know we we have no indication that that program like the IAGA would be cancelled or funds would be withheld. We still see the, you know, continued momentum on that and no, we we think that you know that program remains intact.

Perfect, thanks very much. I'll turn the call back over.

Thank you.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Krista Friesen from CIBC. Your question, please.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just thinking about your margin, obviously a pretty impressive quarter and raising and narrowing the guide for the remainder of the year. Can you speak to what's changed on that front relative to the beginning of the year when you first issued your guidance?

Hi, Krista. Yeah, it's Vito. You're absolutely right. We are really pleased. A lot of hard work across all of the teams, of course, across our organization in delivering an EBITDA margin year-to-date, 17.7%, 100 basis points ahead of the prior year, or more than that, actually. So really, really pleased with it. It all, you know, I sound like a broken record a little bit with this, but it all starts with project margins. So, you know, right customer, right project, right pricing, right risk profile. You know, we spend a lot of time with that and our professionals are excellent in the delivery of that. So our project margins year to date are 0.1% ahead of where we were last year. So without that, that's the fundamental. And then what you're seeing, of course, is admin and marketing as a percentage of NSR come down. So on a year to date basis, 37.6%. versus 38.6% last year. Again, 100 basis point improvement. And that's driven by a number of things. Clearly, scale is a big part of that. So as we grow, and organic growth is a significant component of that, the ability to obviously deliver against that base in a more efficient way, that's important for us. And that's contributed meaningful to our year-to-date results. Our utilization. Our utilization is another area. that has contributed positive to it. Our occupancy costs are also contributing positive to it on a year-to-day basis. So, you know, net-net, you've got, you know, this business has significant operational leverage attached to it. And with continued organic growth, continued acquisitions, contributing to obviously, you know, the net revenue growth, it provides a continued opportunity for EBITDA margin expansion going forward. While at the same time, very importantly, ensuring we continue to invest, invest in our people, invest in our offerings, and invest in the market. That's equally, if not more important as well as we move our way through here.

Thanks. That's great, Culler. And just a last one from me here. You mentioned the page acquisition integrations progressing well and starting to realize some synergies there. Can you just provide us with a little bit more detail there? Thank you.

Yeah, not much more to add to Gord's commentary. You know, we knew Paige very, very well coming into this acquisition. We work with them and, you know, we have to say that everything post that close of the acquisition, has just reconfirmed just an incredible team and really hit the ground running from an integration perspective. I think the pace to which we're seeing some of the opportunities both in market and some of the efficiency reflects the fact that we knew each other so well and had spent a fair bit of time in these sorts of discussions well in advance. But Gordon, any other show comment on the page?

as we've really started working through the integration, you know, everything that we thought was there has really shown itself to be true and then some. So it's actually been very, very positive. A lot of great project-based and pursuit-based synergies there. So actually feeling really good about PAGE. I wish we could find another five pages to join us.

Thanks. Appreciate the commentary.

Thanks, Krista.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Benoit Parier from Desjardins. Your question, please.

Yep. Good morning, Vito. Good morning, Gord. And great performance on the margin front and also great color that was provided on the previous question. So, looking at 2026, could you provide maybe some comments whether the pace of improvement we've seen so far this year is sustainable going into 2026, and what are the puts and takes when looking at margins going into next year?

That's a sneaky way of asking me for guidance already there, Benoit, but we'll do that in February. I mean, I think when you look at the last several years, there's been steady year-over-year improvement, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5. This year, to your point, a little bit outpacing our historical track record, which is wonderful. One of the big factors in EBITDA margin expansion clearly is connected to a lot of what this call has been about, which is the pace of organic revenue activity in the business. So that is a big driver of obviously what you can deliver bottom line. But when you sort of zoom out, notwithstanding EBITDA, Where we may be here in 2026 and whatnot, which, again, we feel fairly comfortable with at this point, and you look at a two- or three- or four-year picture with the macro demand and whatnot, I think you can expect, obviously, continued EBITDA margin expansion. We're just going through, you know, we're entering our third year of our three-year strat plan where we committed to 17 to 18. Obviously, we're in the higher end of that range as we sit here in 2025. We expect to be at these levels or better, obviously, as we move into 2026, and we'll refine that next year. But it's the commercial activity that enables, in large part, for us to really lean into these margin expansions, and we expect that to continue.

Okay, that's a great caller. And maybe, Gord, you made some great comments about the opportunities you foresee in terms of defense. So, I would be curious if you could expand on on what is your exposure to defense right now and how material could it be given the opportunities you see out there? I would be curious to see how it would compare to the opportunities with the data center, let's say.

Yeah, no, that's great. You know, the beauty of the Stantec model is in that diversification piece. And so, you know, when you look at even in the U.S. where we do a lot of, you know, dry docks and aircraft hangers and those sorts of things, our exposure to the U.S. federal government overall is still in that five-ish percent range. And so it's, you know, that's the beauty of the diversification model. I think you would see, you know, in other countries around the world, it's probably sub-five, you know, what we would be doing in that. But again, a lot of this is just our bread and butter infrastructure work, just, you know, with a little bit different instead of a hanger for a commercial aircraft, it's for a military aircraft. And so, you know, this is stuff that we're all very, very comfortable with. And, you know, we don't expect that while, you know, there's been a lot of commitments to increasing spending on, on defense and some of these infrastructure things, we don't expect it's going to pop right away. It's going to take a while to build and, and that's fine. We're spending a lot of time with our clients and, and ensuring that when we know when they get the budget in, in their, you know, and they're ready to go that they're thinking of us top of mind. So, you know, I think we'll see it continue to grow, but I'm not sure that we'll see it being material.

Okay, that's great. And maybe last one for me in terms of free cash flow, Vito, very strong performance in the quarter. It looks like that you were able to maintain DSO while typically they go up a bit sequentially from Q2 to Q3. So just wondering what is the matter of a stronger collection efforts? Is it a matter of business mix or What about the expectation, let's say, for Q4? Was there some pull forward in terms of free cash flow? I would be curious to get some thoughts around the strong free cash flow performance.

Yeah, and again, Benoit, I take you to the right. Free cash flow can be lumpy quarter to quarter, and this Q3 was outsized year-over-year gain, but clearly the trend has been incredibly positive for us. As you heard in my commentary, our prepared commentary, our year-to-date numbers are up significantly. That's driven by, of course, the business and the expansion of the business, first and foremost. But clearly, our working capital management has remained to be seen, but it looks like we've made a significant one-step change. one-time sort of move here that is continuing to stay with us. Our DSOs now are at 73, 74. You know, we had an internal target of 80 for the longest time. I think we're getting pretty comfortable saying that perhaps the mid-70s is the new starting point for us. But, you know, we'll give ourselves another quarter before we do that. And, you know, I just think, you know, we've made some changes internally. It's an area of focus for us primarily. And, you know, Just a huge shout out to all of our project managers across all of the entire network that are managing aggressively to that while obviously keeping our commitments to our clients and whatnot. So really, really pleased with it. Might give some back in Q4. You know, I'm not worried about that in any way, shape or form, but full year will continue to be well ahead of where we were in prior year. So very pleased with our work in capital management.

Okay. Kudos and thank you for the time.

Yep. See you, Benoit. Thanks. Thank you. Once again, if you have a question at this time, please press star 11 on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Tapone from TD Cowan. Your question, please.

Thank you. Good morning.

Morning.

Gord, you've talked a fair bit about the water business, obviously over time, but also mentioned it this quarter, very strong organic growth. often talk about the contribution from the UK's AMP program and what that's meaning for your organic growth. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about what you're seeing in Canada and the US. I think you've touched on it a little bit, but I'd be curious what kind of organic growth rates you're seeing in water in those regions, and maybe if you can talk a little bit about the drivers you're seeing as well.

Yeah, well, so in the US, you know, really, really strong growth in water as well. Just trying to look for the number here, but it's definitely well into the double, was it 20% in the quarter, Vito? In the U.S.? But, you know, we'll grab that. Yeah. Yeah, no, I've got certainly double digit growth in the U.S. in water. And what's interesting, whether it's, and it's over 20% in Canada, But what's really interesting is that, you know, we've talked about it in sequential quarters, like we've had continued in our organic growth in our water business, like all the way back to early 2019. And it just continues and continues to strengthen. So in... It was 10% quarter rate. 10%, okay. In the U.S. So like in Canada, the type of work that we're doing are big, you know, public sector wastewater projects and water projects and Metro Vancouver, where we're working on the Iona Island relocation there, a big biosolids project in Winnipeg that we've talked about a billion dollars. So there's just a lot of big projects like that. Toronto continues with basement flooding enhancements and such. In the US, we see the same of a lot of it is municipal type work, water supply, water treatment, water scarcity type issues in some areas. And in the Gulf, certainly it's flooding and excess of water. And so it's all just that sort of that core fundamentals that just keeps going with our water business. So whether it's not enough water and we're working on water reuse and recycle, too much water and flooding. And so we're doing big projects like the big pump station we did in New Orleans several years ago, or currently working on shoreline protection type work, sea level rise. type work. Regulation like PFAS, you know, continues to provide opportunities in the short, but more so in the longer term. And then just the advanced manufacturing and reshoring of some of that, that, you know, of course you read about in the papers all the time. And very, very often the first thing that clients need is water, access to water, water allocations, the treatment of high purity water for manufacturing processes. So really, really strong drivers in water, and we don't see them slowing down in any way.

Thank you for that. That's very helpful. The second question I wanted to ask is just about data center activity. Wondering if you can provide a bit of an update on activity levels in that area. I guess also curious what percentage of the revenue of the company is that represented by today? and how you see that evolving and looking into 2026 as far as, you know, share of revenue contribution relative to 2025.

Yeah, so we're currently working on, you know, over 100, you know, data centers, mission critical facilities, ranging in size from 20 megawatts all the way up to a gigawatt. So, you know, a lot of projects on the go, but a pretty robust pipeline as well. I think right now it would represent, you know, I'd say like 3% of, Two or three percent of the overall net revenue of the company. And do we see that growing? Yeah. I mean, that's growing at a bit of an outsized. But, you know, would it get to four, maybe five? But we don't see that we'd want it to go a lot more than that. We don't want to become 15 percent exposed to any sort of a, you know, a high growth area like that, because, you know, it just in the as we've talked about our diversification over time. So we feel good in that 3% to 5% range if data center is mission critical, we're in that area, but certainly a high growth area for us.

That's perfect. Thanks for the time.

Okay. Thanks, Mike. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Your question, please.

Yeah, folks. Good morning. You know, you mentioned earlier the three-year financial target sitting in guess a seven and a half billion by the end of next year and so uh maybe just a couple thoughts here i mean i'm looking at consensus right now it's about seven two um you know which means that uh you probably have to find some acquisition growth i don't say in a hurry but soon um but there's also you know i guess some questions we kind of heard on the call about know the whole idea behind uh being able to maintain a seven percent kegger because even if we go back a couple years ago um and what we've actually experienced over the last couple years hitting seven percent next year on a three-year kegger is going to require just a stupid lift um which is probably not reasonable so i guess the question i've got for you is is you know the rest of the other metrics that we're seeing up and down you know things like the trustee diva does and the financial metrics are all looking okay Um, you know, are you, I guess the question I've got for you is like, are you married to that seven and a half as a target or is it just more, you know, kind of aspirational and we can kind of think about, you know, how the, how the game is going to play because, you know, the environment is shifting and, you know, we could be heading into some, uh, some choppy water. So just, just thoughts on, on how those targets are set and, and, and how you're actually aiming at them.

Yeah, Chris, maybe I'll take that one and Gord, you can jump in if you, uh, know the seven and a half was established 7.5 billion was established obviously years ago based on exactly what you're describing chris it was just it was based on a kegger of seven and a half seven percent organic and uh and then obviously the rest of it filled in by acquisition you know you you're right when you when you look at that seven percent kegger now uh relative to obviously what we did and we're doing here in 2025 uh it's gonna be hard probably for us to get seven percent or get a tagger but Obviously, again, we'll stop just short of 2026 at this point. We'll see how the next few years. Clearly expect organic growth next year and expect a good year there. We're not married to the seven and a half. It's not something that at the end of the day we're linked to. This company is all about just obviously continued diversification, organic growth, and M&A strategy. When you look at the pace of our M&A, You sort of say we expect to obviously be in market, expect to continue to do acquisitions. And as a result, that's what contributed, I think, to Gord's comment around our ability to be in that seven and a half range. But I would say, you know, that the number itself isn't driving our activity. It's our strategy that's driving the activity. And it's proved out really well at this point.

No, absolutely right, Vito. And, you know, Chris, you know, Well, you're right. If organic growth does slip below that 7% CAGR, you know, there's some great optionality on the acquisition side that, you know, we would never rush anything or do anything that we didn't feel was the right thing to do long term in order to hit that 7.5 target. But it's a pretty robust environment right now. So, you know, feeling optimistic about some things that could happen there.

Okay, that's helpful. The other question, and I know this is something that we haven't looked at in a while, but Vito, I'll throw it out at you, is just getting back into the market and maybe buying back stock again. We haven't really seen that. I know that the multiple has been fairly high, but now it's starting to come maybe back to what I would call a more normal range. Is maybe getting into a regular cadence on the NCIB something that you guys are maybe more open to? or is that something that you're just going to stay kind of full-blown pressed on M&A as a use of capital?

Yeah, no, I take you back to our capital structure objectives. Obviously, we're going to generate a significant amount of free cash flow. We will continue to do that. You know, our capital allocation priorities are obviously first and foremost funding our internal capital needs, which are fairly modest. You know, our capital expenditures have been in the area of $100 million on an annual basis. This year will be actually fairly below that. And then obviously, you know, we have a dividend in place. We'll continue to respect that dividend and, you know, likely grow it as we have in the last several years. And then the NCIV, there's an M&A. Again, we see an incredible opportunity for this organization going forward with the right acquisitions, a fragmented market to prioritize acquisitions. and that also contributes to organic growth, right? I mean, acquisitions are a big part of also across the revenue synergies and whatnot to drive an organic growth. But M&A is lumpy. Like when you're looking at M&A, over the years, you can't sort of predict it. So clearly, we'll continue to use the NCIB. You're absolutely right. We have been muted on share buybacks the last couple of years, I think now. But we'll continue to use the NCIB and have it on the shelf as required. And opportunistically, we wouldn't hesitate to get in the market and buy back our shares if required. But M&A is, we think, a really significant value creator for this organization going forward, as is our stock buyback program.

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks, folks.

Thanks. Thanks, Chris.

Thank you. And our next question comes to the line of Maxim Sychev from NBCM. Your question, please.

Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Gordon, maybe the first question for you and just turning back to the U.S. I mean, one of the things that we're hearing is that the procurement methodology has changed a little bit from the federal government, that it's a bit more book and burn, sort of less visibility, but work is still coming through. Is this also something that perhaps explains that dichotomy between backlog and organic growth, which still remains pretty robust? So just any call you can provide there would be super helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, you know, without question, the overall procurement cycle and process for, you know, for a number of federal, state and local governments have changed with some of the executive orders that have come from President Trump. And so that was a little bit slow in the first part of the year. Now, you know, we've been awarded a number of projects and we're just waiting to get them signed. And certainly the shutdown slowed things down there. So I think as we see, hopefully folks start to come back and begin to work through the, they work through the backlog of paper on their desk. We get some things signed, and then that'll turn into backlog for us and others in the industry. So I think we're still long-term bullish on the U.S. market. There are a lot of good opportunities, and we'll just keep working on it.

Yeah, for sure. And then do you mind providing a bit of color in terms of the environmental services, organic growth? I mean, we're seeing a bit of a slowdown while water is actually accelerating. So do you mind maybe talking about the puts and takes in terms of what explains that divergence as well?

Thank you. Yeah, you know, absolutely. So a couple of things there. One is that even more than other groups, our ES group has got a number of large US federal projects that we've been awarded just waiting for waiting for signatures. So we do see those coming. No, no question of discussion of cancellation or deferral. We just need to get them signed that we can get them going here early in the early in the new year. So I think longer term, you know, we see both in Canada, Canada. We've got some good projects that are going to be starting up in the near term as well in the in the US too. So I think we've seen a little bit of a slowness in ES. this year or organic growth really quarter over quarter has been kind of low single digits. I do think we'll see a bit of an acceleration in that as we move into 2026. Okay, super helpful.

Thank you so much. And then last question, if I may. You called out the German market, which is obviously sort of a recent beachhead for you guys, seeing very nice growth. Do you mind maybe talking about what is driving that? I presume some of that is defense, transport, but any incremental call would be super helpful. Thank you.

Yeah. So our group in Germany, incredibly well managed with lots of opportunity, particularly since the government took off the debt break there and investing another 500 billion euros. So some of the work that we're doing now, in addition to the typical work that we do, which is... roadways and bridges and rail projects. We're working a lot of folks on right now on a big electrical transmission project. And there's a real north-south need for electrical transmission in Germany as well. And that's a market that we've just begun to move into probably over the last six to nine months. So I see a lot of growth there. So in addition to the strength of our existing business, which is growing really, really well, You know, we're absolutely looking for other opportunities to bolt on to, you know, to the beachhead, the foothold that we've got now in Germany and continue to grow it. You know, good market, predictable, well-run companies. So we're looking to look for opportunities to continue to expand.

Okay. And so does that imply sort of inorganic growth as well? That's how we should be interpreting this?

Yeah, I think we certainly was going to see a lot of organic growth, and we're absolutely looking at inorganic opportunities as well. Okay, thank you for clarifying. Great, thanks, Max.

Thank you. Once again, if you have a question at this time, please press star 1-1. Our next question comes in line of Jonathan Goldman from Scotiabank. Your question, please. Hi, good morning, team, and thanks for taking my questions.

Hi, Jonathan.

Good morning.

Good morning. If we think back to the commentary on the last call, I think in the U.S. you called out in July you had seen high single-digit organic growth. I'm just curious how things progress sequentially through August, September, October, November, and if there's been any reversal in the trend, because I guess with the 4.6% in the quarter, it does seem like things deteriorated August and September.

Yeah, Jonathan, you're absolutely right. We did call out, obviously, that July number. You know, we ended up where we ended up, which was just under 5% there. So, you know, it wasn't a big drop from July. And I wouldn't say there's further deterioration at this point. You know, all the commentary with respect to the U.S., we sort of made it here today. I don't have anything else to add. The only other thing, you know, one small tidbit here, it's not a bigger picture piece, is clearly as we go into Q4, we have a very significant comp. that we're cycling here with Q4 for the year. And U.S. Organic was a part of that where I believe we were 10% or so last year or just under 10%. So that's just the reality of what we need to cycle. But overall, no additional commentary in the U.S. as we've mentioned. And we wouldn't say there's actually deteriorating, if anything, over the last little bit.

know the last little few weeks a month or whatnot uh it may be just a bit more buoyancy quite frankly and and you've seen that reflected in our commentary okay that's good color then i guess maybe switching to the margin guidance if you take the full year guide and by my math if you back it out it looks like you're implying q4 margins would be down year on year something in the range of 30 to 40 basis points clearly that's not the year-to-day trend obviously there's moving pieces but Why would margins be down, um, year to date, given all the improvements in the business you've undertaken?

Yeah. You know, I, I don't know that margins are going to be down going into next year. That's not necessarily what we're predicting. Obviously you do have, uh, uh, we, we, we will see the page integration, uh, manifest itself fully next year with, uh, next quarter with our, uh, with our financial integration, you always can have some ups and downs with the financial integration. Again, nothing concerning, but that could impact margins. And the only other thing I'd say is back to the consolidated organic growth that we had last year. Clearly, depending on where we're at, just cycling a big quarter, that ends up manifesting itself through a margin back to operational scale and whatnot. But no, we're very, very pleased with our margins and don't expect any significant pullback in the trends and thematics that we've talked about when it comes to EBITDA margin expansion.

Okay, that's helpful, Keller. And I guess last one, if we're looking at M&A, at this point, I guess maybe relative to other periods, what would be the main bottleneck at the moment? Is it valuations, culture fit, maybe a paucity of attractive targets? And how does the cycle time from identification to closing relate now versus other historical periods?

Yeah, sure. I'll start and then Vito will be up in a minute if you like. But, you know, I think, Jonathan, there's really nothing slowing the process down right now. It's just very robust, a lot of conversations on the go. Cycle times vary from discussion to discussion. You know, sometimes we work with a client or a company partner with them for five or more years before we finally decide, hey, you want to do this? And then because we know each other really well, you know, it can proceed pretty quickly. Other times there's an established process that can take, you know, three, four, six months. Six would be an outlier, I would think. But, you know, so they're really, they're all over in terms of timing and where we would see them. But certainly, you know, a number of ongoing discussions and both exclusive and through processes that are, you know, in play right now. So, yeah, I think it's just a normal cadence here. And when the time is right, If the stars align, we'll be glad to share news with you guys.

Not much more to add there, Gord. Each one has a life of its own.

Anything to say on valuations? I think, Gord, you referenced maybe slow organic growth could also translate into a silver lining on valuations. But how have those trended year-to-date versus, I guess, last year or maybe the last couple of years?

Thanks. Yeah, no major changes on valuation. I mean, obviously, it's sometimes a little bit sector-dependent, and significant areas of growth in one sector obviously have a higher valuation, which is quite obviously expected and implicit, obviously, in the valuations of us and our peer groups. So I don't think valuations in any way, shape, or form occur are an issue. We look at these things clearly from a strategic perspective, always about value creation over a reasonable period of time, revenue synergies, but valuations isn't getting in the way at this point for us. Okay, thanks for the color. I appreciate the time.

I'll get back to you. Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Gord Johnson for any further remarks.

Great. Well, thank you, Operator, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. You know, we're really pleased with our Q3 results, and certainly if you have any follow-up questions following the call today, please reach out to Jess Newkirk, our VP of Investor Relations. So thanks again, and look forward to catching up with everybody in the next little while.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.