Black Diamond Group Limited

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to Black Diamond's third quarter 2023 conference call. 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 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jason Zhang, VP Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending Black Diamond Group's third quarter 2023 results conference call. Here joining me on the line is our CEO, Trevor Haynes, and our CFO, Toby Labrie. Also on the call, we are joined by Chief Operating Officer of Modular Space Solutions, Ted Redmond, COO of Workforce Solutions, Mike Ridley, COO of LodgeLink, Kevin Moe, and Chief Information Officer Patrick Melanson. I'd like to forward-looking statements regarding Black Diamond's future results. We would like to caution everyone that forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and that actual financial and operational results in the future may differ materially from these forward-looking expectations. Management may also make reference to various non-GAAP financial measures in today's call, such as adjusted EBITDA or net debt. For more information on these terms and others, please review these sections of Black Diamond's third quarter 2023 management's discussion and analysis entitled Looking Statement and Uncertainties and Non-YAP Financial Measures. This quarter's MD&A financial statements and press release may be found on both the company's website at www.blackdiamondgroup.com and also on the CDAR website at www.cdarplus.ca. Dollar amounts discussed in today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars unless noted otherwise and may be rounded. I will now turn the call over to Trevor Haynes to review this quarter's operational highlights.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. We are very pleased with the strong results for the quarter as the company continues to benefit from the strategic framework initiated a number of years ago. We are well positioned across the business for continued growth into 2024 within our specialty rental platform, as well as our crew travel tech division. Given the strength of our recurring cash flows and management's constructive view of ongoing growth and performance, we have announced a 50% increase to our quarterly dividend. Specific to the quarter, a few notable highlights include MSS setting a 14th consecutive quarterly record high in rental revenue, WFS generating multi-year high EBITDA and rental revenue, resulting in ROA, or return on asset, of nearly 57%, and lodge links continued rapid scale-up, resulting in annualized net revenue in excess of $10 million. On a consolidated basis, third quarter of 2023, rental revenue of $39.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $36.6 million increased 25% and 41% respectively over the comparative quarter. With nearly $129 million in contracted future rental revenue, we believe the quality of our revenue and cash flow stream is as high as it has ever been. We are seeing continued opportunities to compound growth at attractive returns and expect the cadence of organic capital deployment to remain consistent into 2024 with particular strength in education, key infrastructure expansion in North America, and in Australia, where we are seeing robust demand across numerous verticals. In MSS, rental revenue set an all-time quarterly high of $22 million, up 19% year over year. Average rental rates, excluding the effect from an acquisition in 2022, were up 13% year over year. while utilization remained stable across the platform. Adjusted EBITDA of $22.2 million was also another quarterly record and was positively impacted by a $2.1 million item related to the settlement of a previous project dispute. Adjusted for this item, EBITDA for the quarter was up just over 18% year over year, consistent with a growth in poor recurring rental revenue. MSS exited the quarter with contracted future rental revenue of approximately $100 million, a 54% increase over the comparative quarter. We are continuing to see a strong pipeline of opportunities across all geographies in which we operate for ongoing organic growth. Our WFS business continues to benefit from strategy to diversify and broaden our customer base. Consolidated utilization in the quarter of 68% is the highest utilization seen since 2015 and is being driven by customers across varied industries and geographies. In the quarter, WFS rental revenue of $17.5 million increased 35% from the comparative quarter while adjusted EBITDA improved 49% from the comparative quarter to $21.8 million. Australia remains an area within WFS with ongoing opportunities for organic expansion as we continue to deploy capital in this region at some of the highest returns across the entire company. As noted in our previous quarterly report, management is anticipating a moderation in WFS rental revenue on a sequential quarterly basis into early 2024 as certain assets are redeployed from previous contracts. This is expected to result in a relatively flat rental profile when comparing the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2023. The bid and sales pipelines remain robust. and management anticipates a return to sequential growth in WFS in the latter half of 2024 as assets are redeployed in a higher rental rate environment. LodgeLink, our disruptive digital marketplace offering for crew travel, continues to scale with nearly 110,000 room nights sold in the third quarter, up 16% from the comparative quarter. Gross bookings of $20.8 million grew 27%, while net revenue for the quarter of $2.7 million increased 50% from the comparative quarter as higher average room rates and increasing margins bolstered revenue growth. At the end of the third quarter, LodgeLink had just under 14,000 properties listed, representing nearly 1.4 million rooms to serve our corporate customers and their thousands of crew members. LodgeLink's positive trends around growth in booking volumes and revenues are expected to continue with significant opportunities in the U.S. and related to transportation and resource service sectors. The long-term upside potential of LodgeLink continues to be enticing and remains a focus area for our team as we look to build on our successes while pursuing an addressable North American market of approximately $70 billion per year. In summary, we think the third quarter results at yet another very strong data set showcasing the strength of our specialty rental businesses and upside potential of our platform travel tech business. We remain optimistic regarding the future growth potential across all of our segments and expect to continue building on the positive momentum of the last several years. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Toby Labrie, for a closer look at Black Diamond's third quarter 2023 results and the company's current financial position. Toby.