AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Good morning and welcome to Atkins-Realis second quarter 2024 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in a 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 signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Denis Jasmine, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy. Bonjour tout le monde. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. For those dialing in, we invite you to view the slide presentation that we have posted on the Investors section of our website, which we will refer to during this call. Today's call is also webcast. With me today are Ian Edwards, Chief Executive Officer, and Jeff Bell, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to ask everyone to limit themselves to one or two questions to ensure that all analysts have an opportunity to participate. You're welcome to return to the queue for any follow-up questions. I would like to draw your attention to slide two. Comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking information. This information, by its nature, is subject to assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and as such, actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on these assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, please consult the company's relevant filings on CDAR+. These documents are also available on our website. Also during the call, we may refer to certain non-RFRS financial measures. Reconciliation of these amounts, the corresponding IFRS financial measures, are reflected in our earnings release and in DNA, which can be found on CDAR Plus and our website. And now I'll pass the call over to Ian Edwards. Ian?

Thank you, Denis. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'm going to begin today's call by providing an overview of our performance in the second quarter, our continually growing backlog, and our current success and opportunities that we're seeing in the four engineering services regions and our nuclear businesses. I'll then pass to Jeff to provide more detail on our financial results and our updated four-year guidance before we open it up for Q&A. So let's get started on slide three. We concluded the first half of 2024 with another quarter of strong results across our businesses, driven by our ability to capture the growing demand for our services to address the energy transition and an aging global infrastructure. We continue to see robust revenues in our services business across the geographies and in markets in which we operate. This was proven again this quarter by our top-line and bottom-line improvement over the second quarter of last year. Atkins Realist Services' revenue increased 17%, with segment-adjusted EBIT increasing 22% to approximately $204 million. Engineering services regions revenue increased 12% to $1.7 billion, while nuclear revenue grew 42% to $358 million. Backlog at the end of the second quarter of 24 was approximately $15.6 billion, and this represents another record high for the company as it grew 26% year over year. We also continue to successfully welcome high-quality talent in the quarter, increasing our headcount by approximately 740 employees. And I want to thank those who were able to join us in Toronto or view the webcast of our June Investor Day. This is truly an exciting time for Atkins Realis. At the event, we introduced our new delivering excellence and driving growth strategy, underpinned by three pillars. In alignment with these pillars, we highlighted the ways in which we will optimize the business, accelerate value creation, and explore untapped potential. We also unveiled our long-term financial targets, emphasizing our confidence in driving growth, improving margins, and delivering excellence for our customers. A lot of people inside and outside of the company were involved in the process and I appreciate all their support in making it an exceptional day. The results year to date highlight our strengthening position in the marketplace. We are helping public and private entities achieve their net zero goals and address the energy trilemma providing clean, affordable and secure energy solutions. Our historical track record makes us the partner of choice in these endeavors, and we are proud to play a role in providing a better future for the planet and its people. On slide four, you can see our backlog growth across Atkins Realis services. Our 26% growth in the second quarter versus last year was driven by key wins across our core engineering services and nuclear businesses. We continue to capture projects across many of the end markets in which we operate. In Canada, we've been chosen to support the Surrey Langley SkyTrain extension in British Columbia. In the US, we won a multi-year master service agreement with a leading sustainable energy provider, which strengthens our foothold in the growing Northeast region, and secured a contract with the Texas Department of Transportation. Separately, We've won a project with the Highways Department of Hong Kong for design and engineering services. And finally, our capabilities in the UK continue to be recognized as we signed a strategic design partnership on the Lower Thames Crossing project. We are winning more business purposely doing so through our higher margin services that we expect will generate sustained profitable growth into the future. So turning to slide five, our engineering services business continues to generate robust organic top line growth as we witnessed a 12% increase year over year in the second quarter. Our revenue generation was driven by the continuation of our ability to secure new wins across our geographic scope. Segment adjusted EBITDA over net revenue margin was 15.2% during the quarter and represents an increase of 110 basis points over the same period last year. We continued to increase our backlog, which now stands at $12.2 billion, representing a 19% growth versus our backlog as at June 30, 2023. Beginning on slide six, we'll provide an overview of each of our four regions and their performance in Q2. In Canada, We saw a slight year-over-year revenue growth, while segment-adjusted EBITDA was $24 million, representing approximately an 11% margin. Our backlog increased 26% year-over-year, mainly due to the awarded Surrey Langley SkyTrain Extension project, where we deliver the systems and track work. We also won, over the recent months, several notable design contracts. such as the Île-de-Lorraine Bridge Project, the Belleville Ferry Terminal redevelopment, and the expansion and modernization of the Maisonneuve-Rosemount Hospital. While revenue increased slightly this quarter and margins were down, we continue to see a pipeline of full opportunities in Canada, and we are investing more into winning the type of work that will drive sustained profitable growth. We outlined at our investor day that our Canada business is on an improvement journey, and we are focused on optimizing our position across the country. We have a strong foothold and a history of experience delivering services in the Quebec region, but we see a vast opportunity for our offerings in Ontario and British Columbia. As we look at our pipeline, the end markets of architecture and water present significant upside, and we believe our capabilities are well-suited to help our customers address these aging infrastructure needs. In the UK and Ireland, we continue to capture key wins utilizing our end-to-end capabilities, particularly in our power and renewables, industrial, and building and places customer end markets. Organic revenue grew 6% versus the second quarter of 2023, while segment-adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of segment net revenue grew 13% to $80 million. We saw continued backlog growth during the second quarter to more than $1.7 billion, primarily from new work orders in the transportation, water, and rail signaling businesses. We continue to demonstrate that we are partners of choice with Heathrow Airport and Network Rail, as we bolstered our contracts with each of those entities to support growth expansion plans. Additionally, as we mentioned at our investor day, we see significant upside in the water end market. This past quarter, I'm proud of another key win in this growing market as we are contracted with United Utilities for our design and engineering capabilities. Our long-standing position in the UK market leaves us well-positioned to take advantage of key commitments by the public sector towards a cleaner future. The AMPATE investment cycle sees significant new capital investments out to 2030 in the water industry, while other government-backed strategic investments in defense enable the demand for our consulting and digital capabilities in this end market. Turning to slide eight, In the US and Latin America, we saw continued growth trajectory led by our work in transportation. Organic revenue grew 12% year over year, while segment-adjusted EBITDA increased slightly to $44 million. The backlog increased 3% year over year as we continue to make progress with our land and expand strategy. And as you heard during the investor day, we have deep relationships with several departments of transportation across the U.S., and we are methodically increasing our presence in the U.S. Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. And I want to highlight one of our wins with the Florida Department of Transportation last quarter. Under a five-year contract, Atkins Realis will provide project and construction management services, including all project administration, design phase review, day-to-day management and construction inspecting, materials testing and project documentation. This is a great win for our business and highlights the opportunities we see in the growing U.S. market for our services. As major cities continue to address their aging infrastructure, we continue to provide support to them. No matter the result of the upcoming elections, The opportunities are expected to remain fast through the public sector's infusion of capital. We have a line of sight of opportunities that fuel our targeted growth metrics. In EMEA, revenue grew organically by 45% versus the second quarter of 2023, as we saw volume pick up for the gigaprojects that we are contracted for in the Middle East, such as Neon, The Line, and The Macabre. and continued delivery on many other mandates. This work also led to segment-adjusted EBITDA of $42 million, representing a 20% EBITDA margin over net revenue. Total backlog in EMEA grew 19% as we continued to capture opportunities in our pipeline, particularly in the Middle East and Asia, in the buildings and places and transportation and markets. Increased focus by the Hong Kong government on uplifting their transport system is leading to growth opportunities for Atkins Realitas in consultancy work, and we're seeing strong win rates in the region, which also are aiding our continued backlog growth. I'd like to now move to slide 10 and the results of our nuclear business. We continue to demonstrate significant growth. with an organic revenue increase of 41% in the quarter compared to the quarter of 2023. Our nuclear backlog is at $1.7 billion, which represents a 57% growth versus our backlog as at June 30, 2023, driven by higher bookings primarily related to the can-do refurbishment work. segment-adjusted EBITDA grew 32% to $43 million. As a percentage of segment revenue, segment-adjusted EBIT was 12% in the quarter. On slide 11, we highlight the achievements across our nuclear can-do and services portfolios. The demand for our expertise in nuclear was emphasized again this quarter as we signed key wins and made continued progress on projects across each of the regions we serve. In Canada, we continue to garner support from the public and private sector as we onboarded additional key stakeholders for our Canadians for CANDU campaign. Additionally, in June, an independent report conducted by the Conference Board of Canada showed that the construction of a four-unit CANDU Monarch nuclear power station would boost the Canadian GDP over the life of these four units by $90 billion and create thousands of jobs. In Asia, we recently secured a refurbishment contract in Quinshat, which highlights the opportunities for can-do support and life extension in the region. As a reminder, we highlighted at our investor day the pipeline of opportunities for Atkins Realis and refurbishment and life extension. This contract win, while sizable in its own right, is just a small portion of the potential opportunity we have for these projects as we have a line of sight into more than $15 billion of awards over the next decade. In Europe, we continue to make good progress on new-build contract negotiations for the C3 and C4 Cernoboda plants in Romania. We also signed a joint agreement with Orlean Synthesis, Green Energy, ACOM, and GE Itachi to support the potential deployment of small modular reactors in Poland. In the UK, the UK Atomic Energy Authority appointed Atkins Realis to deliver and design one of the world's first isotope separation systems, which will strengthen research into sustainable fusion delivery. Our results this second quarter A 41% revenue organic growth and the continued winds across the world highlight the demand and potential of our nuclear expertise. General market conditions for new build and new nuclear look increasingly positive every day as we are incredibly well positioned to support public and private entities in achieving their evolving power needs and net zero goals. So now moving to slide 12 and our links on LSDK and capital businesses. Our links on segment saw 29% year-over-year organic revenue growth in the second quarter, continuing its momentum from the first quarter and realized an operating margin in line with last year and Q1. Backlog of $1.7 billion at the end of the second quarter was 73% higher than the second quarter of last year. Commissioning and testing on our Ontario LSTK projects is continuing as planned. Our backlog decreased by 40% to $251 million at the end of the second quarter, and this primarily representing the REM project, which continues to progress well. As we finalize the LSTK projects for our clients, we continue to pursue claim recoveries that we believe we are owed, and these discussions remain ongoing with our clients. On capital, we received $10 million in dividends from High Road 407 in Q2, as traffic patterns continue to improve year over year. They also recently announced a dividend for the third quarter, which will be $15 million for Atkins or Ellis. With that, I'll now turn it over to Jeff to discuss the financial results.