AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Atkins Réalis second quarter 2026 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listener only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. Please be advised, today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Denis Jasmin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sarah. 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 in 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 are 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 filing on CEDAR+. These documents are also available on our website. Also during the call, we may refer to certain non-IFRS financial measures. Reconciliation of these amounts to the corresponding RFRS financial measures are reflected in our earnings release and MD&A, which can be found on CEDAR Plus and our website. And now I'll pass the call over to Ian Edwards.

Ian? Thank you, Denis. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm going to begin today's call by providing an overview of our performance for the second quarter before I pass it to Jeff to provide more detail on our financial results. We executed another strong quarter, driven by significant nuclear growth and consistent demand for our end-to-end engineering services capabilities. Total revenue grew 10% year-over-year, or 8% on an organic basis. We also grew adjusted EBITDA by 14%. to a quarterly record high of $293 million, which translated into a 20% increase in adjusted EPS year over year. We ended the quarter with a total backlog of $20.2 billion, including a new record high in our engineering services of $13.4 billion. It's particularly pleasing to see the momentum continuing to build As evidenced by the Canadian government's recently launched nuclear energy strategy, which reinforces CANDU as a world-class Canadian energy technology, applicable both at home and around the world. In the second quarter, we began the formal licensing process to bring CANDU to the U.S. market. Another important step in expanding its role internationally, following our success in Romania. We'll share more on our growing confidence in our nuclear outlook shortly. Strong demand and efficient operations across the Group led to a second consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow, which we utilized to support our value-focused capital allocation priorities. In the quarter, We repurchased a significant number of shares and continued to advance our land and expand strategy through three announced acquisitions. In Australia, we entered into agreement to acquire WGA and Corus Solutions. These additions strengthen our local presence and technical capabilities in high growth opportunities across defense, transportation, water, and power and renewables. Additionally, in Ireland, we recently closed our acquisition of Tobit, which will expand our presence in the region and solidify our market-leading position in engineering and project management across the infrastructure and transportation markets. We are also continuing to invest internally to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence across our business. AI is enhancing how we design, deliver, and manage projects, improving safety, quality, and productivity and predictability, while enabling our teams to develop more innovative solutions for our clients. Across our global operations, we're embedding AI into engineering workflows and corporate functions, while making AI training a core component of learning and development This is strengthening our competitive position, increasing the value we deliver to clients, and supporting our continued focus on operational excellence and margin improvement. As part of our focus on maximizing the value of our AI investment, we recently welcomed Amy Bunzel and William Wu. to our board of directors. Both bring extensive experience scaling technology-driven businesses and deploying AI-enabled solution in industries closely aligned with our core markets. Their expertise will help guide Atkins Realis as we continue to integrate advanced technologies across our operations and service offerings. Year two. of our Delivering Excellence and Driving Growth strategy is performing as planned, and we continue to showcase our value creation opportunities for all stakeholders. Turn into slide four. Second quarter revenue in our engineering services regions business increased 5% year over year. On an organic revenue basis, engineering services regions grew 2% year over year, excluding EMEA, Thank you very much. A record high backlog of $13.4 billion as of June 30, 2026, mainly driven by growth in UK&I, USLA and EMEA business. Beginning on slide five, we provide an overview of each of our four regions and their performance this quarter. In Canada, revenue in the second quarter increased 13% organically year over year. while segment-adjusted EBITDA grew to $43 million with an 18% margin, a roughly 300 basis points improvement year over year. Performance comes on the heels of strong margin growth during the first quarter, highlighting our initiatives in cost optimization, enhanced bid discipline, and more efficient project delivery.