Atco Ltd

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the first quarter 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast for ADCO Limited. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may reach an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Colin Jackson, Senior Vice President, Financial Operations. Please go ahead, Mr. Jackson.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased you could join us for ACCO's first quarter 2026 conference call. On the conference line with me today, we have Katie Patrick, Chief Financial and Investment Officer, and Adam Beattie, President of ACCO Structures. Before we move into today's remarks, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the numerous traditional territories and homelands on which our global facilities are located. Today, I am speaking to you from our Aquapark head office in Calgary, which is located in the Treaty 7 region. This is the ancestral territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy, comprised of the Sissica, the Kainai, the Pagani, and the Tsutina Nation, and the Stony Dakota Nations, which include the Chiniki, Bears Paw, and Good Stony First Nations. I also want to recognize that the City of Calgary is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Districts 5 and 6. We honor and respect the diverse history, languages, ceremonies, and culture of the Indigenous peoples who call these areas home. Today's remarks will include forward-looking statements that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. For more information on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our filings with the Canadian Securities Regulators. During today's presentation, we may refer to certain non-GAAP and other financial measures, including adjusted earnings and adjusted EBITDA. These measures do not have any standardized meaning under IFRS And as a result, they may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other entities. And now, I'll turn the call over to Katie for her opening remarks.

Thanks, Colin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Despite the ever-changing geopolitical landscape across the world, we continue to execute and deliver on our strategy across the ADCO portfolio. Some of you may have seen our refreshed brand launch, which rolled out last week. energy, housing, defense. It's hard to think of three more relevant trends in the world today, and ATCO has a long history and is extremely well positioned in each. Our long-term investment-focused and diversified nature of our assets positions our businesses to drive growth for the total portfolio, generating stable earnings and dividends for shareholders. We often talk about our strategy related to housing through ATCO structures, and energy through Canadian utilities. But today, I thought we would begin by talking a bit more about the defense opportunity ahead of us and how ATCO is positioned. In particular, as you can see outlined on the slide, there is a landscape of growing opportunities in Canada's north. The federal government has shared its commitment to invest in Canada's defense sector with a significant focus on the Arctic. This includes $35 billion of funding towards defense infrastructure upgrades, new northern operational support hubs, modernizing and upgrading Arctic airports, civilian infrastructure, and key economic hub developments. Aligned with our expertise, we see Canada's north as a critical development opportunity. ADCO has a demonstrated history of success in what we feel are the four critical elements to success. First, Arctic experience. Second, defense experience. Third, construction experience. Fourth, and most importantly, indigenous participation and partnerships. For close to 40 years, ATCO Frontec has operated in the most remote parts of North America's Arctic. We are a trusted defense partner who operates and maintains critical defense infrastructure like the North Warning System, a joint Canadian and United States radar network monitoring Arctic airspace, and the Alaska radar system, where ATCO Frontec provides comprehensive operational support, site services, facility maintenance, and logistics. We also have trusted Indigenous partnerships built over the course of many years operating in the North. To be specific, across ATCO, we currently have 73 partnerships, MOUs, and arrangements with Indigenous groups. This is something we are incredibly, incredibly proud of. aligns with our history and ongoing commitment of collaborating with Indigenous communities. As a demonstration of the types of investments we are talking about, in March, we announced a $10 million investment in West Kitikniyat Resources, or WKR, who will develop the Grays Bay Road and Port Project in Nunavut. This critical project is highlighted in the federal government's nation building projects list. While it is very early days, Today, this partnership should be thought of as a growth investment. We believe WKR will one day develop into a strong foundational investment for ADCO. The Graves Bay Road and Port Project strongly aligns with ADCO's existing expertise and strategy in the north, while building on our growth-oriented assets across the housing, energy, and defense sectors. Now, moving to the quarter's results. ACCO achieved adjusted earnings of $165 million or $1.47 per share in the first quarter of this year. This is up 3% year over year and in line with our expectations for the quarter. Results were driven by growth in the utilities as well as increased sale and leasing activity in Canada at ACCO structures. The quarterly results reiterate the benefits of our diversified portfolio of investments. Looking at the specific businesses, ATCO's investment in Canadian Utilities Limited delivered adjusted earnings of $127 million for the quarter, up $5 million year-over-year. Higher adjusted earnings were primarily driven by growth in rate base at ATCO Energy Systems, as well as higher rates and favorable CPI adjustments at ATCO Gas Australia. As mentioned on this morning's CU call, there is significant momentum across our utility assets in Alberta. and we expect earnings growth on a full year basis. Atco Structures and Logistics delivered adjusted earnings of $28 million, up 4% year over year. Adjusted earnings at Atco Structures were driven by the space rentals portion of the business, along with earnings from our Stibnite project, which Adam will speak to in his remarks. Looking at the full year, 2026, we expect to see strong organic earnings growth across the portfolio of investments. With that, I will now pass the call over to Adam to discuss our Atco Structures and Logistics business.

Thank you, Katie, and good morning, everyone. I'll focus my comments on Atco Structures and how our first quarter performance reflects the operating metrics you see in today's material. Atco Structures delivered $27 million of adjusted earnings in the first quarter, making our fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year earnings growth. This performance reflects the durability of our diversified model across space rentals, workforce housing, and permanent modular construction, and is a credit to the teams across our operations. Earnings in the quarter were supported by strong space rentals activity, permanent modular construction sales, and contributions from our progress on the Stibnite Gold project. Importantly, our results continue to be underpinned by disciplined execution and a focus on deploying the right mix of rental fleet and manufacturing capacity to meet our customers' needs. During the quarter, we increased our global space rentals fleet by 5% while maintaining our desired utilization target. The average rental rate increased by 7%. 7% year over year to $863 per month on average, reflecting price discipline across our key geographies. The improvement in fleet performance contributed to the $65 million of adjusted EBITDA generated in the quarter, which grew 5% over the prior year. The modular industry continues to benefit from demand for fast delivery, high certainty on schedule, and quality versus traditional construction, particularly in affordable housing, education, community infrastructure, and resource development. ACCO Structures serves these areas well because of our scale, our ability to offer end-to-end solutions, and our established branch and manufacturing network that keeps us close and responsive to our customers. Additionally, this quarter, ACCO Structures invested in the launch of a national advertising campaign throughout Canada, showcasing our expertise across multiple modular residential, commercial and industrial construction applications. This campaign garnered considerable positive feedback and generated an increase in inbound leads for our Canadian operations. I'll pause on the scale of our platform. because it is a meaningful differentiator in the modular industry. Globally, we operate 44 branches and 13 manufacturing locations across five countries. Over the last several years, we've expanded our operations and manufacturing footprint through organic growth, targeted acquisitions, and investment in lean manufacturing process optimization, leveraging the scale and efficiencies we have increased our ability to serve customers globally better than ever. The integration of NRB modular solutions is another good example of how we can add capacity and capability efficiently and strengthen our reach and serviceability for existing and new customers. We are also advancing the expansion of our Grimsby Ontario manufacturing facility. This factory expansion has been designed to increase our throughput and create operating synergies across our vertically integrated business segments with a more efficient production flow and an expanded product mix and nearly double the production capacity. Our integrated model, which includes design, manufacturing, delivery, installation, and in many cases, ongoing operations and services, allows us to provide turnkey solutions that customers value, particularly with speed, safety, cost and delivery certainty and logistics complexity matter. The mix of offerings also supports a more resilient earnings profile across cycles. The Stibnite Gold project remains a key execution priority for our US business. This is our largest dollar value contract in the US to date. and it showcases our industry-leading ability to deliver complex, large-scale workforce housing solutions. As a reminder, this scope includes a 1,000-person turnkey workforce accommodation village and associated office facilities in Idaho. Manufacturing is well underway with approximately one-third of units already built. We continue to execute to our budget and quality standards with work progressing across design, manufacturing and site readiness in coordination with the customer. The next phase involves completing the remaining manufacturing scope and advancing site installation and service tie-ins. As we move through these stages, our focus remains on safe execution, scheduled discipline and managing interfaces to support a smooth project handover process. Beyond Stibnite, we continue to see healthy bid activity and customer demand across our key markets, and we converted a number of those opportunities into awards during the quarter. With this secured backlog entering the peak construction season in North America, which has seasonally heightened demand, we see clear opportunities to continue our growth profile. In the first quarter, we secured $113 million of new projects across our key geographies, including Canada, the United States, and Australia. These awards reflect continued demand across our modular products, manufacturing, and service capabilities, and they are a selective representation of the type of work we execute day in and day out. In Canada, we continue to see opportunities supported by government commitments, such as increased financial commitments to defence, housing, Buy Canada initiatives and customer demand for high-quality, quickly delivered homes and community spaces. With our Canadian origins, scale, geographic footprint and experience delivering modular solutions, we believe we are well positioned to compete. During the quarter, we secured multiple contracts in Canada, totalling $73 million in highlighted awards. Of note on the slide, you can see a rendering of the second affordable housing contract we've secured with Attainable Homes Calgary. In the United States, while we continue to progress works on Stibnite, we also secured an additional $23 million in new sales and lease contracts during the quarter. These awards reflect opportunities across industrial infrastructure and energy-related end markets. Moving to Australia, our platform continues to benefit from demand in both Queensland and Western Australia, and our expanded manufacturing presence supports our ability to respond. In the first quarter, we secured $17 million of nominated contracts in the region, and we are seeing increased demand for housing, energy, infrastructure, and resource opportunities. I'm very proud of our team's work to continue to drive growth and secure new opportunities for our business. Our teams continue to secure opportunities aligned with the sectors where modular delivers clear advantages. Subsequent to the quarter end, we were awarded a new $55 million contract to design and construct a 400 person accommodation village in Western Australia. We also received a limited notice to proceed for early stage works, including infrastructure planning, camp design, and securing manufacturing line time for a large mining development in Western Canada valued at approximately $45 million. Together, these conversions underscore ongoing customer demand and the breadth of our capabilities across our geographies. I'll wrap up my remarks by reiterating what differentiates ACCO Structures in a modular industry that continues to expand as customers look for speed, certainty, and quality. We deliver quality, custom modular manufacturing solutions, catering to customers' needs and market demands. And as shown on this slide, compared to peers, Atco Structures is differentiated across the spectrum of products and services, and we pair that with a track record of delivering. We're proud of a demonstrated performance of executing projects, both large and small in scale, on time, and on budget. We have the modular advantage with the capacity and capabilities needed built from 80 years of proven industry-leading performance. And with that, I'll now pass the call back over to Katie.

Thank you, Adam. With Adam highlighting the growth within ACCO Structures and its competitive advantages compared to peers, we believe that ACCO Structures continues to be undervalued by upwards of $2 billion on a sum of the parts basis when compared to peers. Overall, ADCO's results were in line with our expectations, and again, the results highlight the strength of our diversified portfolio of investments. That concludes our prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back to Colin.

Thank you, Katie, and thank you, Adam. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to two questions. If you have additional questions, you are welcome to rejoin the queue. I will now turn it back to our conference coordinator, Asha, for questions.

Thank you, Colin. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question comes from Rob Hope with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. I appreciate all the commentary on the opportunities in Kansas North and do acknowledge that the government is keenly focused on this area. When you think about your opportunity set here, it does appear that everything is relatively longer dated. Or when you think about how your earnings could grow in this region, are there some more near-term opportunities we should be looking to?

Yeah, thanks, Rob. I do agree. A lot of these investments will be longer-term, longer-dated. That being said, I think the government has a pretty aggressive stance, particularly on upgrades to some of the existing defense facilities that they have in the north, and they have committed to fast timelines for the RFP process for that. So I think there is some opportunity for near-term earnings, but this is certainly for Canada and for ourselves a longer-term investment in upgrading the North that will take quite some time to fully roll out.

All right, appreciate that. And then I guess in the spirit of the new corporate branding and the focus on defense, you know, you highlighted a number of the opportunities also in the North, but when you think about the broader opportunity in the defense sector, anything incremental that you're looking at in terms of business lines or geographies?

No, I mean, I would just highlight, you know, at GoFrontKets, Frontec, as I said in my remarks, has had a long history of operating in the defense sector. So, you know, and it's done a variety of different things on a facilities operations and maintenance for a long time. We have a very diverse resume, so to speak, of the different types of operations that Equifrontec can handle. So I think, you know, stay tuned, but I think there's a lot of different ways that Equifront can help in the defense sector. And also, I should add, sorry, that there's clear opportunity and maybe I'll let Adam talk to that on the structure side from a defence perspective as well.

Yeah, hi Rob. Yeah, there's certainly also a lot of defence opportunities below the Arctic in terms of defence housing and just bases across Canada upgrades. and that will also drive i think there's seven and a half thousand houses uh required across 25 bases within canada so that's another opportunity for us all right thank you for the color appreciate it the next question comes from ben fam with pmo please go ahead i want to follow up on that last question on the

aquasorbent strategy, you categorize it as a growth investment. Can you remind us that bucket, what that means versus your yield and balance categories?

Ben, sorry, you were breaking up just a little bit for some reason. I wonder if you could just repeat the question. And I don't know if this will help, but maybe you can just lean into your microphone a little bit.

Okay, I'll try it one more time. And maybe because I'm unplugged the the cord there. My question is, that's all right. It's better now. Okay. Yeah, my question is on the northern strategy. You categorize it as a growth investment. Can you remind us what a growth investment is defined for actual and how it compares to your yield and balance categories?

Yeah, I think this is one of the first quarters where we actually don't have the pyramid that kind of highlights the way that we think about our portfolio from a financial perspective. So just a reminder, at the base, we have the foundational investments, which include our utilities that provide stable cash flows. And then in the middle of the pyramid, we have what we would call value investments that would have a balance of faster growth than potentially the utilities. with some yield that is dividends coming from that. And in the top, and this is where you're going to, I think, Ben, we talk about our growth investments. And really, when we talk about our growth investments, those are investments that do require some capital and commitment before they start to deliver cash flow generation back to us. So as it relates to the North, I think the North is definitely a growth area, just generically the term growth, but potentially Grays Bay, I would put in that growth investment category where obviously there will be some required investment and cash flows going into that to yield long-term stable foundational cash flows in the longer term from that particular investment.

Okay, so it sounds like I'm just unpacking a bit. It sounds like you have a timing difference on investment versus... but is there differences on returns or size, the opportunity in that category?

No, not necessarily. In that top category, we could have things that could have very quick return profiles, but they need capital investment in the short term, or they could be much longer term with potentially more infrastructure-like returns. We don't necessarily differentiate there.

Okay. Okay. And as you think about building this northern strategy out more, which you already have a presence there, is there anything you need to do in a manufacturing side, setting up new sites for manufacturing or redeploying human capital in terms of just positioning that from a long-term perspective?

I can just generally talk to ACCO and I'll let Adam talk to ACCO Structures. As you would know, the north is pretty remote. There's not a lot of industrial activity right now. So at least in the near term, overall, from an ACO perspective, I think a lot of what we would be doing would be leveraging our strong base in the south of Canada to try and provide the services and products that we need to help build the infrastructure in the north. But maybe I'll turn it over to Adam, specific to structures.

Yeah. Hi, Ben. As you're aware, we've got five manufacturing facilities across Canada. So our geographical placement on where our manufacturing capacity currently sits is well positioned to service the north, both from road access and also access to ports as you ship in product and demand. So I think with our expanded capacity over the last few years, we're very well positioned to provide competitive logistical, and manufacturing capacity to access the north. And as you're well aware, probably is there's limited labour force that currently resides within the Arctic. So there's going to be, as these projects progress over time, there's going to be a huge demand for workforce accommodation and probably side offices within that region as these projects start to formulate over time as well. So we think both our fleet position and manufacturing locations to access those regions are very well placed.

Okay, great caller. Thank you.

The next question comes from Maurice Chui with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. If I could start with your investment in WKR. You mentioned this could be a foundational investment for ADCO. Should we view this in the same way as what Nelto made ports mean to Adco? Or if this is different, can you paint us a big picture view about what this platform could be for you, say, in 10 years?

Yeah, for sure. I think we wanted to be very clear. This is a $10 million investment for a 40% stake in the company. So this is not a big investment, obviously, at this time. But right now, the projected spend is $1.5 billion to develop out what's being talked about there in terms of the airport, the road, and the port. And that could be more, obviously. So I think this obviously will be a large capital project, and we probably will have other partners involved. But If you think about that, and this is out to 2035, right? So this is a long-term investment. But once that is operational up and running, it very well would look similar to some of the Nel Tume ports investment that we have. Obviously, it's going to be a... The intention is to have it be a joint defense and commercial operation. And so I think there's a lot of opportunities. There's a lot of... critical minerals in the north there that need access to ports, and so there's been a demand developing to try and get that port built so that those miners can get their minerals out. So I think there's a lot of good things around it. As I said, it's been referred to the Major Projects Office, and I think the federal government is very committed to trying to get that moving, and we are working closely with them to try and advance it. Long story short, yes, it could be a large infrastructure project that in the long term has strong foundational benefits for ATCO.

Understood. If I could just have a quick follow-up to that. I appreciate that you mentioned the critical minerals element in that region. WKR, if I'm not mistaken, also is involved with a portfolio of mineral properties. So is your relationship and investment in WKR limited to just this road and port project? Does it involve those mineral properties, or is it just isolated to this and other infrastructure?

Yeah, no. We are investing in the WKR entity, and yes, they do have some smaller investments in some of the mineral activities in the region. But the primary... benefit that we add is helping them to advance on that project, but that's not necessarily going to be the end of the relationship in that entity, and we'll see where things develop. But that's obviously where we have the stronger interest is in the infrastructure development.

So I shouldn't take this as being that ATCO is moving into that side of the business, specifically on minerals, mining, so on and so forth.

No, I wouldn't necessarily. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily, no, this is not a diversification expansion as a mining company for ATCO. I think it's part of their portfolio, but that's not, as I said, was not the primary driver of our interest in that investment.

That's good to know. And if I could just finish off with a big picture question about your themes, defense, housing, and energy. When you look out the next five years and think about your incremental earnings growth, for ATCO, is there a way to split it in terms of percentage what each of these three categories would be?

I don't think we've necessarily quantified that. As you know, I think as you can see, Structures has, especially when you look at the denominator base, has a more rapid growth profile than our energy portfolio. Um, and so you'll see structures continue to grow as, as, as percentage of the overall portfolio. Um, it should be relatively obvious from our financial statements that at the moment, the defense sector is a smaller portion of our overall portfolio, but it certainly has on a percentage basis, the greatest ability to increase quickly. Um, right now, I think we're about roughly two thirds energy, one third, roughly housing. And I think you'll see, you won't see defense, you know, start to get near to those levels, but it certainly does have an opportunity to grow relatively quickly in the next few years.

I understand. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from John Moult with TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Hi, morning. Maybe just coming back to the Grays Bay road and port project. The $10 million equity stake in WKR, and I appreciate that's gradual over time, is this kind of equity stake something we could see more of in northern infrastructure investment opportunities from ACCO's perspective, or should we view this as more of a unique case where this kind of structure, you know, was important in advancing the initiative more broadly?

Yeah, no, I would say... I think absolutely we would be interested in doing something similar to help expand the North and to help get things going related to everyone's ambitions to really have nation-building projects for the Arctic. So, you know, there's nothing immediate canonally on the radar right now that would mimic that, but we would absolutely be open to similar type structures for opportunities that are complementary to our existing portfolio businesses.

Okay, thanks for that. And then maybe just in the broader structure and logistics, Uh, pipeline, um, you know, you did flag a hundred million of committed contracts in April. I know there's no specific backlog, but, but just sort of directionally has the balance of the year shaping up in terms of additional firm contracts. And what does the potential dollar figure broadly compare? Uh, like how does it look compared to where things stood at, at Q1, uh, last year, just in terms of trying to think about the trajectory for the balance of the year.

Good morning, John. Certainly, look, I think the good thing is that conversion rates and these few projects that we've highlighted here are isolated really outside of our normal course of business. So we're seeing the activity pick up in terms of pipeline opportunities. So I think the $213 million that we've nominated here what we've highlighted here, compounded with the Stibnite project, the $179 million contract, certainly bodes well for a good backlog of opportunities to compound on what's already been awarded both into the back half of this year and then also pushing into 2027. So I think there's, I would say, a similar trend that we're seeing coming in the next quarters in terms of project pipeline, and we're seeing increased pipeline activity, and I'd say recently significant increase in pipeline activity on this time last year.

Okay, great. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Mark Cherry with CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Just wanted to follow up on the last question in slide 13. It's encouraging to see the breadth of the opportunities. Adam, just curious if you think that continues here, if there's certain sort of end markets, whether it's geographic or industry markets, you feel like are even accelerating more than others at this point?

Sorry, can you just repeat that last bit there, Mark?

Yeah, just curious if there's certain geographies and or end markets you're seeing even faster acceleration in terms of pipeline activity and conversion rates?

Yeah, certainly. Look, I think the resource sector is very robust in all of our geographies at the moment. Critical minerals, iron ore in Australia, some expansion down there. Gold is very strong. We're seeing, as we've highlighted in the US, a lot of data centre infrastructure investments and nuclear investments there. We've got some large Elements like the Olympic games expenditure in Southeast Queensland in Australia, that's driving some infrastructure spend and a lot of government initiatives around housing funding. And certainly some commanding compounding demand in that sector, both in Canada and Australia. So I think those are key sectors that we're seeing and the interesting things that we haven't commented on defense there, but that's a building pipeline. And the interesting thing about defense, as you look at this build out of infrastructure, it really bodes well for both workforce housing and also housing itself and also our space rentals business. So I think you've seen a tick up in terms of our space rental utilization. And I think we can see that that's going to be strong, a continuing strength in our space rental utilization as well.

Just given those trends, Adam, utilization and also sort of diverse, broad and markets, how would you frame sort of where margins can trend from here? Does it feel like the mix of business coming in is very similar to what you would have executed over the last 12 months and therefore margins should have largely hold steady for here?

Yeah, I think our margins will stay pretty consistent. So while the price of goods may go up, there'll be some slight increases in cost. You've seen some of that pass through with some fuel price increases. So I think that's very manageable, but the margin percentage will probably stay very consistent.

Okay, thanks.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Colin Jackson for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ashia. And thank all of you for participating today. We appreciate your interest in ACCO and we look forward to speaking with you again soon.

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.