Exchange Income Corporation

. . . . . . © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Exchange Income Corporation's first quarter conference call to discuss the financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2026. The corporation's results, including the MD&A and financial statements, were issued on May 11, 2026 and are currently available via the company's website or Cedar Plus. Before turning the call over to management, listeners are cautioned that today's presentation and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and injury reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. For additional information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations, and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements, please consult the quarterly and annual MD&A and the risk factors section of the annual information form and EIC's other filings with Canadian securities regulators. Except, as required by Canadian securities law, EIC does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. Such statements speak only as of the date made. Listeners are also reminded that today's call is being recorded and broadcast live via the Internet for the benefit of individual shareholders, analysts, and other interested parties. I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of Exchange Income Corporation, Mike Powell. Please go ahead, Mr. Powell.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us in today's call. With me today are Richard Waurick, who will highlight our financial results, along with Jake Traynor and Travis Muir, who will expand on our outlook. Yesterday, we released our first quarter results for fiscal 26. Our collective performance for the period was incredibly strong. The results continue to demonstrate the importance of our resilient and stable business model. And looking at the macro environment, the quarter was marked by volatility, high geopolitical activity and trade uncertainty, and rapidly rising fuel prices. and yet our businesses set records in every key metric. What is even more encouraging was the momentum that was generated within our business lines as we exited the quarter. We saw significant strengths across virtually all our business lines. Having a strong Q1 with accelerating momentum gives me significant confidence in updating our guidance. While we did not change our goalposts for the quarter as they remain from 825 to 875, we now anticipate that we will be near the upper end of the range, which is a very positive signal. Should current strength continue, we may revisit the top end of the range in future quarters. On the balance sheet front, we advanced key initiatives that further strengthened our balance sheet. During the quarter, we announced our investment-grade corporate credit rating. and issued 600 million of 4.324% unsecured notes. Originally, we had planned to do an issuance of 400 million, but due to strong demand, we upsized the offering to 600 million. The notes were also issued on March 13th, which was right in the middle of the geopolitical conflict with Iran. The timing of our issuance, coupled with the demand, is external validation of our business model. the dependability of our results that we talked about each quarter and the year end. At the end of the year, we had over $2 billion in available liquidity. Liquidity is important in our business model as it allows us to act decisively when attractive opportunities arise, both on the acquisition front or for organic growth capital investment. I don't want Adam and his team to be constrained by market conditions or have deal execution risk. However, To be clear, this additional capital does not change our conservative view on leverage or change our disciplined acquisition metrics and strategies. Rather, the available liquidity allows us to be incredibly opportunistic in the marketplace. Our leverage continues to be at or near 15-year lows, and having the five-year unsecured notes provide us with significant real cash interest savings when compared to available swap rates. Further, based on today's yield curves, the savings are even more material. EIC is a shining example of how a diversified and resilient business can navigate periods of uncertainty and continue to thrive. Our overall results were driven by a 30% increase in revenue at $867 million in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased at 27% to $166 million. The increases are even more impressive when you consider the translation impact of US dollar results declined by approximately 5% when compared year over year. In our aerospace and aviation segment, the increases were driven by the acquisitions of Canadian North and Mach 2, stronger passenger loads, solid medevac performance, growth investments in the fleet, stronger tempo flying under our ISR contracts, and the addition of a second aircraft to the UK Home Office contract. Canadian North has continued to meet our expectations of profitability and culturally is a great fit with our other air operators. Our maintenance capital expenditures continue to be elevated in the first quarter and will remain elevated for the next quarter or two. However, that was expected and previously communicated to the market.

Excuse me.

Our aircraft sales and leasing business continues to see robust demand and increasing rental rates for leased aircraft and engines. Part sales and whole aircraft sales continue to be very strong, with significant aircraft monetization occurring during the first quarter based on opportunistic sales. There has been a lot of news about airlines adjusting schedules in response to the price of jet fuel, which was driven by the supply-related uncertainty tied to Iran and other geopolitical events. The customers leasing our aircraft and engines have not been materially impacted to date. Management is proactively monitoring the market and engaging customers to manage any risk. That being said, market volatility also creates several opportunities for our business line, and we may remain ready to execute on any opportunistic transactions that may result from parts purchases or the purchase of engines or aircraft. Lastly, we continue to receive a strong level of inbound interest from governments around the world regarding our world-class ISR capabilities. We recently announced that our proposed ISR bid in Australia was not selected. We have not received detailed feedback regarding our submission or received confirmation who was the successful bidder. As I previously commented, the Australia contract is just one of many that we were actively pursuing. That being said, we were very excited to announce that Air Greenland contract for two missionized surveillance aircraft is nearing completion. This contract was directly sourced opportunity and the PAL Aerospace team had been working hard at securing the project based on a longstanding relationship with Air Greenland. The contract with Air Greenland is one of many solutions that our team has been actively pursuing. We continue to pursue other multiple opportunities, Canada and Europe. We remain confident in our solutions and put forward nationally and internationally, and will provide updates as information becomes available. Our manufacturing segment declined from a revenue and profitability perspective. However, when you look beneath the hood, the real story emerges. The first quarter for the manufacturing segment was all about momentum, and that was gained in both the environmental access solutions and precision manufacturing and engineering business line. Towards the end of the quarter and after the end of the quarter, we saw customer inquiries being booked into firm fixed orders and record amounts of orders in some of the individual businesses. For example, our stainless steel tank manufacturer recorded its largest ever order for stainless steel tanks for a data farm in the United States. The order was in a magnitude of twice their previous largest single order in their long successful history. Our environmental access solutions business continued to see step-based improvements in the number of mats on rent and in the Canadian operations as we exited the quarter. The demand backlog for our U.S. operations composite mats remains extremely robust, with the majority of our existing production capability being sold out for 2026. The second state-of-the-art plant in Saltillo, Mississippi, is progressing on time and on budget. The facility will significantly increase our manufacturing capacity so that we can meet demand for the best-in-class composite mats. From a broader industry perspective, there have been numerous announcements regarding transmission and distribution expansion, along with potential new pipelines and oil and gas development. In the medium-longer term, we see significant tailwinds for the business line and remain very bullish about the business returning to historical highs like we experienced in 2022. Our multi-story windows business line moderated consistent with our expectations. We are seeing some positive indicators at various levels of government when they talked about speeding up approvals and reducing development fees. The demand for affordable housing continues, and we are seeing some successes in various geographies around North America. However, The supply and demand imbalance hangover driven by investor-focused condo development in Toronto and Vancouver continues. We have also been impacted by tariffs in the year-over-year comparatives. Although the quantitative of tariffs is not material to EIC overall, it is less than $10 million on an annualized basis. During the anticipated moderation in our business, our teams have executed our key initiatives, including reducing the physical footprint of our manufacturing and improving efficiencies within the plants, and aligning our capabilities in Canada and the U.S., all of which are now virtually complete. So when the demand inevitably rises, we will be in a position to produce more windows at a lower cost. I remain very confident in this business line. As we return to historical norms in the future, the increase in revenue and profitability will fall directly to the bottom line, as all of the investments have been made, with the exception of investment in working capital and sales rise. Rich will highlight the key metrics for the three-month end on March 31st, but before I turn the call over, I wanted to talk to the additions at the C-suite level at head office. My mantra for EIC has always been, that culture isn't the most important thing. It's the only thing. The culture at EIC is very unique and maintaining that culture long into the future is important for our continued success. The additions to the executive team of Carm, Marley, and Garth are important as they understand what makes EIC successful and they will help us grow and expand. All three have been with EIC for a number of years and are top performers. We welcome them to the executive ranks, and they will continue to drive the EIC culture as we continue the growth trajectory that has made us successful in achieving a 20% return per annum returns for our shareholders over the past 21 years. In addition, Travis and Darwin have accepted expanded roles within the C-suite. Jake and Travis will focus on the outlook for our segments for the second quarter and the remainder of the year. I will now pass the call over to Rich, who will talk about some of the key highlights from the MD&A and its financial statements.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. For the first quarter, revenue was $867 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $166 million. Free cash flow was $120 million. Free cashless maintenance capex was $41 million. and adjusted net earnings and net earnings were 34 million and 28 million respectively, which represented increases of 139% and 287% respectively. Earnings and adjusted net earnings per share were 50 cents and 61 cents respectively, which were increases of 257% and 118%. Free cash flow per share increased by 33% to $2.14, while free cash flows maintenance capex increased by 46% to 73 cents per share. The per share metric increases were even more impressive as the weighted average shares outstanding increased by 11% compared to the prior quarter, primarily due to the conversion of convertible ventures in 2025 and acquisitions executed. All the absolute key performance indicators were first quarter high watermarks. The aerospace and aviation results were driven by strong profitability at each of the business lines due to the acquisitions of Canadian North and Mach 2, strong load factors at our various air operators, strong demand for leases, parts, and whole aircraft and engines at our aircraft and leasing business lines, and the impact of the second aircraft for the UK Home Office and Aerospace that started in the fourth quarter of 2025, along with higher tempo flying under various ISR contracts. Our manufacturing segment revenues and profitability decreased, but as Mike noted, it was a period of accelerating momentum as the quarter closed and continued strengthening after quarter end. In our Canadian environmental access solutions operations, we saw strong results for mass on rent. However, profitability was similar to the prior year as 2025 had strong demobilization and mass movement operations, which were unusual results with the normal seasonality of the business. In our U.S. operations, there was continued robust demand for composite matting solutions. The accelerating demand trends being strengthening Canadian rentals and strong U.S. composite sales continued subsequent to quarter end. During the quarter, we incurred $2.5 million in growth capital expenditures on the new U.S. composite mat manufacturing plant. The project is on time and on budget based on the estimated $60 million budget. Our multi-story window solution business line continued to moderate as expected. The moderation of the business is related to our past project delays and deferrals associated with developer uncertainty. Our teams have completed initiatives which will increase the efficiency of the plant. Affordable housing continues to be a theme, and when volumes ramp back up, we will be in a position to produce more windows at a reduced cost compared to our prior operations. Position manufacturing engineering had a first quarter whereby results and activities gained more and more momentum as we exited the quarter. While first quarter results were relatively consistent with the comparative, the positivity amongst the group is as high as it has ever been due to the significant customer orders at the end of the quarter and into the second quarter. Means capital expenditures for the first quarter were $79 million and were higher than the comparative period by $23 million through the addition of Canadian North, increased utilization of the aircraft sales and leasing fleet, and general increase in fleet size within our aerospace and aviation segments. Growth capital expenditures during the first quarter were $40 million and were primarily driven by three King Air aircraft deliveries for the BCHS contract, in our essential services coupled with investments made for the Air Canada Expanded Commercial Agreement and aircraft modifications and other investments for the Newfoundland and Labrador Metabas contract. From a cash flow and working capital perspective, we had a very strong result as the investment in working capital was nominal when compared to the growth in our financial results. Corporations' aggregate leverage remains near historic lows. During the quarter, we announced that EAC has achieved an investment-grade corporate rating with a triple V low rating and a stable outlook from BBRS. We issued $600 million of bonds, which were significantly oversubscribed at an interest rate of 4.324%, which provides significant interest savings compared to other financing products, including five years' money through interest rate swaps at the time of issuance. With the further increase in risk-free rates, the savings today are even more significant. With over $2 billion in available liquidity, we have significant dry powder to execute on acquisitions and invest in our current businesses for future growth. Having available liquidity is critical for EIT as it lets us be an opportunistic acquirer while minimizing deal execution risk for Adam and his team. Our philosophy for acquisitions and growth capital investments has not changed but having a strong balance sheet and available financing means that we can execute on sizable transactions when the opportunities arise. Our M&A pipeline remains very strong. Adam and his team executed on a strategic investment in the first quarter with Mach 2. We've always wanted to diversify our cash flows and provide another avenue for growth for Regional 1. Regional 1 has built the data infrastructure and architecture that is capable of scaling into other aircraft types, and now with the Canadian North 737-DAS, data, and the narrow body and wide body data from Mach 2, along with the experienced personnel at Mach 2, we can realize on significant opportunities in that space. 737 and narrow body business is the world's largest aftermarket parts and leasing business, and therefore we have a unique opportunity to leverage our strengths to create meaningful returns for that business line long into the future. In terms of other acquisition opportunities, our pipeline includes opportunities in both segments, which are similar to our existing businesses. We have a great foundation of businesses, and to the extent that we find ancillary opportunities to expand our competitive modes, we are always interested in those accretive opportunities. As a reminder on the seasonality of our business, the first quarter is our seasonally slowest quarter because of the impact of winter roads and weather-related impacts for our air operators, coupled with reduced demand for our environmental access solutions business line in Canada as the ground is frozen and doesn't require the same level of matting protection. The third quarter experiences the highest level of activity across our businesses, and the second and fourth quarter would approximate the average for the year. The first quarter set a solid foundation for the remainder of the year. I will now turn the call over to Jake, who will provide an update for the second quarter and remainder of 2026 for aerospace and aviation segments. Thank you, Rich.

Overall, we're expecting another strong year of growth from our aerospace and aviation segment, as the trends highlighted in Mike and Rich's sections are expected to continue through fiscal 2026. The growth investments made in the past, including the second aircraft for the UK Home Office, the acquisition of Mach 2, the commencement of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medevac contract midway through 2026, and the expansion of the Air Canada Commercial Agreement will all contribute to the increase in revenues and profitability. I will specifically focus on the growth factors by business line. Our essential air service business line will see growth driven by a multitude of factors when compared to the prior period. The most significant impact will be the inclusion of Canadian North with second quarter with no comparative in the prior year. We also expect that the strong load factors experienced in Q1 and growth across our network will continue into the second quarter and throughout the remainder of the year. Other increases include the expansion and extension of the Air Canada commercial agreement, which will see the aircraft starting to fly midway during the year. Lastly, we expect continued growth in our medevac business, including the start of the Newfoundland and Labrador medevac contract, which is anticipated to start operations in mid-2026. Offsetting some of these gains is the continued inflationary pressures on labor, aircraft parts, consumables, and overall costs. The aerospace business line is expected to see growth due to the continued strong flying tempos for the second quarter and for the remainder of the year, along with the financial impact of the second aircraft for the UK Home Office, which will have quarter-on-quarter effects as that aircraft started operations in the fourth quarter of 2025. As Mike mentioned, we're excited about our work with Air Greenland and the Danish government. Building on our relationship with Air Greenland, we have been selected as their missionization partners. There are still some details to be worked out with the Danish government when it forms, but we're planning a two-aircraft surveillance program complete with an integrated ground center based on CARTNAV's Ames C4 mission system. Obviously subject to sovereign negotiations, this creates an exciting opportunity where we now have much of the Arctic and North Atlantic covered by nations using the CARTNAV system. I'm trying to paint a picture here where we have Canada, Greenland, the UK and the Netherlands in the North Sea environment, covered by the CARTNAV operating, CARTNAV system operating for friendly nations. This concept falls directly in line with our Prime Minister's message of collective defense, shared security and resilience with other Arctic and Nordic nations. Separate and aside from this, we're also actively engaged with the number of opportunities emerging in Canada, Europe, the US, and Asia. Our aircraft sales and leasing business is also expected to experience growth as the investments made in aircraft and engines during 2025 are leased to customers. As Mike commented, there is a potential risk of fuel shortages impacting our lessees. However, to date, we're not aware of any material impacts. Wherever there is volatility in the aviation market, history has shown that it does create unique opportunities. Aircraft sales and leasing remains an opportunistic buyer and stands ready to complete transactions that are accretive to our portfolio. The demand for Regional 1 and Mach 2 remains robust as evidenced by increasing lease rates and shortages of critical parts across the industry, and we expect that trend to continue. On a long-term basis, we expect maintenance capital expenditures to increase consistently with the increases in the adjusted EBITDA in our aerospace and aviation segments. which is the biggest driver of our consolidated maintenance capex. We anticipate an increase over Q2 2025 due to the inclusion of Canadian North, coupled with increased flying due to our recent investment in aircraft over the past few years. Lastly, we continue to invest in deferred maintenance at Canadian North and anticipate those investments to continue for 2026. Growth capital expenditures are expected for the second quarter and for the remainder of fiscal 2026, we anticipate receiving the last King Air for the BC EHS contract around June or July of this year. There will be capex related to the modifications of aircraft for the Newfoundland and Labrador Medevac contract, along with the acquisition of aircraft for the Air Canada Expanded Commercial Agreement during the second quarter. Regional 1 is always working on opportunistic aircraft and engine acquisitions, which may result in growth investments being made in the aircraft sales and leasing business. I'll now pass it off to Travis to provide some commentary on the manufacturing segment.

Thanks, Jake. So looking at the second quarter and the remainder of 2026 from the manufacturing point of view, we saw significant momentum in our business lines as discussed by Mike in his introductory comments. We expect that Q2 manufacturing results will be stronger from a revenue and profitability perspective, and that trend will continue for the remainder of the year. Our multi-story Windows business line continues to experience strong levels of inquiries. As we expected, performance is moderated during 2026, and that will continue throughout the year on a relative basis with the comparative periods. Tariffs impacted Q1 2026 versus the 2025 comparative. It's important to highlight that the recently announced U.S. government changes about how tariffs are calculated will add additional costs for goods shipped from Canada to the U.S. Previously, it was based on aluminum contents, and now is computed based on the value of goods shipped. We're able to mitigate the tariffs with our capability to manufacture windows in the US. We're starting to see positive commentary from various levels of government to encourage development of affordable housing through reduced or frozen development charges and faster approval processes. Further, we continue to see positive signs in various regions around the US and in Western Canada. However, developers remain on the sidelines due to excess supply of small investor-focused condo units, especially in Toronto and Vancouver. Our environmental access solutions business line is expected to generate stronger returns for the second quarter and for the remainder of the year. We saw continued step-based improvements in the number of maps on rent as we exited the quarter, and the demand for composite matting remains robust. and the plant continues to operate at maximum capacity with the vast majority of 2026 output already sold. Our Canadian operations are expected to be a major driver for the business as we start to see strong results in the fourth quarter from a rental perspective, and that continued during the first quarter of 2026 and will continue into the second quarter. Further, we anticipate that long linear projects will commence in the latter half of 2026 or into early 2027 across several industries, including transmission and distribution, pipeline, and oil and gas. The medium and longer term prospects of the business are very robust, as there will be material investments in transmission and distribution across North America due to growing electricity demands from homes, vehicles, and more importantly, AI and data farms. The precision manufacturing and engineering business line is expected to improve from a revenue and profitability perspective for the second quarter and for the remainder of the year based on significant momentum achieved. This business line is very diversified with exposure to the defense industry, technology industries, including data firms and telecommunications, and those specific industries are driving the growth factors of this business line. As Mike had mentioned, we've been receiving record-forward bookings in certain of the businesses, and that will drive the year-over-year results for the remainder of 2026. The anticipated maintenance capital expenditures are expected to be higher than the prior year due to the timing of replacement activities because of the demand profile for the business line. We're also anticipating growth capex to be incurred for each of the business lines, but they should be relatively consistent with 2025 with the exception of environmental access solutions. Growth capital expenditures will be outlaid for the new state-of-the-art composite plant as well as further investment in the Canadian rental fleet based on expected market demand. I'll now pass the call back to Mike.

Thank you. The first quarter of 2026 was a very strong start to the year and has allowed me to update our guidance to be near the high end of our previously disclosed range. I'm extremely confident in the future of our company. EIC is at the intersection of a number of critical themes and trends. We have remained true to our principles and our business strategies, and those will continue to drive our long-term success. Thank you for your time this morning, and we would now like to open the call for questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you do have a question, please press star forward on number one on your touchstone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised, and your questions will be pulled in the order that they are received. Please ensure that you leave the handset if you're using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Thank you. And your first question comes from the line of Matthew Lee from Caneco Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Good morning, Matt. Thanks for my question. Hey, morning. I know it's a bit early to have this conversation, but just given the momentum you're seeing in ANA and the fact that it sounds like manufacturing should improve sequentially each quarter, did you guys have any conversations about raising that guidance beyond the 875 range? Is that just conservatism or maybe something I'm missing?

Have you got bugs in our office, Matt? Yeah, there was a lot of discussion about what the right number was for our guidance. And at the end of the day, we decided to move our sort of guidance to the top end of the range and not move the range. And the reason for that was really simple. The uncertainty in Iran is causing jumps and starts with oil supply and with oil prices. And while it has had no impact on our regional one business to date, and we see nothing imminent, we didn't want to increase our target and then have something dramatic happen there and then have to back it back down. So you're staying on the trends you're seeing with our business. It's not hard to add up to a number that's higher than 875. We'll promise that once the world situation settles down just a little bit.

Okay, that's helpful. But in my understanding that you guys generally pass across fuel costs. So if that's the case, what's the biggest area of risk that could prevent you from reaching that 875 or exceeding that? And then maybe what businesses do you think could be most impacted?

Yeah, you're bang on, Matt. We really don't have much of an impact on our business from increasing fuel prices. we have the ability to pass those on to our customers. And the fact that we're an essential service, demand doesn't change much with fuel price surcharges. I think our biggest concern would be if fuel shortages got so bad in certain parts of the world that they stopped flying or flew less, that would reduce demand for parts. So it's really more a matter of fuel supply in certain parts of the world North America really doesn't have a potential fuel shortage. We make enough in North America to look after ourselves. So we don't see that as an issue. It's more just of a worldwide aviation potential issue if there were a shortage of fuel.

Matt, it's Jake. Keep in mind, Regional 1 leases aircraft across the globe. So that's the exposure. And to be clear, we've had no issues thus far. Exactly. There's no indication, but again, just out of conservatism.

Okay. That's all, guys. I appreciate it.

I'll pass it on. Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, Steve. Yeah, good morning, guys. Thanks for the time. Mike, I wanted to go back to your comments around the accelerating momentum on manufacturing. I think, you know, you and Travis had some good commentary there and there's some mention of record orders. I mean, just wanted to ask specifically, like, what do you think is driving that? And I think the bigger question is, do you think that's a sustainable thing through the balance of the year? The old commentaries seem to suggest that they're trying to understand the underlying drivers a bit better. And maybe if you just give a little bit of additional context around, you know, how you're seeing that from the customer side. Thanks.

Yeah. I mean, the interesting thing, windows aside, We're seeing it across the board in all of our manufacturing. In the matting business, in the U.S., it's clearly driven by transmission and distribution. The utilities need to increase capacity. We're just in the beginnings of that. That's going to go on for years, if not decades. And so I have no concern about the long-term nature of that. In Canada, we're probably a year and a half behind the Americans. And we're starting to see those projects, particularly in Eastern Canada. And there isn't a day that doesn't go on without discussion of a new pipeline, whether it's the president of the U.S. talking about expanding the pipeline there or us going to the coast with natural gas or bitumen. So that's very strong. And... Then when we look at some of the other manufacturers, like our stainless business, that's never really had a role in data centers before. All of a sudden, the farms they're building are so large that they need actual refrigerant. They used to cool them with air. Now they're cooling them with water. We're getting massive orders to deal with that. we're actually at a stage where we're sharing production capacity because we can't keep up in our existing plants. And so the window companies have shared some space, both in Canada and the U.S. with our manufacturing guys to allow us to keep up with the demand. You also see it in our precision metal guys in Ontario, Ben Machine. They're building some stuff that's Super high precision, driven by space demand, if you can believe that. We're building satellite equipment. It's across the board. And the interesting thing is it's accelerating. It's not like it's been good. To be honest with you, in January, I thought it was a little bit slow, and I was a bit concerned about our manufacturing business, with the exception of Madding. It's been strong all year. And since then, it's just one thing after another, and we're busy trying to find enough equipment and enough geography to put the equipment into.

And maybe, Steve, I'll add on top of that. So, you know, we've talked over the last year or so about the strong level of inquiries. And what we were just seeing is, you know, customers were punting that decision down the road. And I think recently in the U.S., there was a small and large business survey where you saw capital goods orders increase in March. And to be honest, that's what we really saw. So those historical inquiries and decisions are now coming to fruition. And we believe that, you know, it's going to continue throughout 2026 because there is a built-up, pent-up demand for the goods and services provided by those business lines.

And Steve, you've got a couple other dynamics driving this. One of them is, I'd call it reshoring of some of the production. And that's in line with what Mike was talking about, some of the space work we're doing, but it's also with some of the aircraft manufacturers. We're making more aircraft parts domestically than we have in the past. And then the second driver is, again, we've mentioned about the data centers and some of the manufacturing areas. But part and parcel with that is with our wireline services, we're seeing more uptake in plowing fiber and installing long-distance fiber, which again is the connectivity between the data farms.

Super helpful, guys. Thanks. I'll jump back in the queue.

Thanks. Thank you. And your next question comes in the line of James McCarrickle from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning, James. Good morning. Thanks for having me on. Also, good to see the promotions for you guys. I just wanted to ask how you're thinking about growth into 2027. Not asking for 2027 guidance, but on the aerospace side, we have Skyline, Greenland, further Canadian North integration, higher returns from the BC aircraft. Can you help us frame how should we be thinking about the growth there? And then on the manufacturing side, we've got the new plant, new projects and matting, a potential recovery in windows. Just trying to piece all those things together and just trying to frame how we should be thinking about the 2027 outlook.

Yeah, I'll do my best to avoid numbers here because we haven't given 2027 guidance. But we're really bullish on 2027 simply because of the capital we've already invested. You're going to see, as an example, the Newfoundland Medevac contract give us a full year of revenue. You're going to see the continued growth of the matting business. I think that's super exciting in Canada. We have great visibility when you start to bid the projects in advance. And we're a big player in the market. We don't win all of them, but we win them. We certainly win our fair share. And with the amount of stuff we're bidding, I'm highly confident we'll have more mats on rent in 27 than we do in 26. And we'll have more in 26 than we did in 25. So I see growth there. You've got the fact business that that will add in the future in 26 or 27, I'm sorry. The continued integration of Canadian North is going to continue to help as we move forward with our Combi aircraft model and the things we're doing there. And I think the other thing that maybe we should talk a little bit about, and I'm a bit surprised we're seeing it already, but our passenger loads in Nunavut are growing. And they're growing faster than the birth rate, which is not normal. And I think that's the very beginnings of as the government's investing in the north, that people are traveling up, whether it be professionals or construction workers or all those things, the way up there is on our aircraft. And so we're seeing a bump there and I anticipate that will continue on. And then we've expanded our work on the medevac business. So as that grows, we'll have all the planes in place in BC. We're in discussions with them to grow the number of routes we're flying for them in addition to what we're already doing. And so there's a whole bunch of things. And then, of course, the Air Canada contract as well. Those routes will all be flying by then. So we're in a position where there's a whole bunch of what I would call structural growth that's already paid for. And Adam doesn't sit on his hands for very long, so I'm pretty sure we'll have some other stuff come from that. Well, I'm not promising anything. That billion-dollar number isn't far away.

I appreciate the call. And then just one quick follow-up here. On the contingent consideration gain from Canadian North, can you just kind of talk about what drove that downward revision to the earn-out estimate? You know, anything there from the growth trajectory change versus your original deal assumptions? You know, I guess we usually see that when something's going wrong. So any color you can provide there?

Yeah, I really appreciate the question because unequivocally, the progress of Canadian North is well in excess of even our most rosy forecast when we bought the company. Things are going great. We had an earn-out number based on resigning a contract for the Northern Charter business related to... the natural resource part of their business. One of the projects has been delayed, and as a result, the company wasn't able to enter into the new contract, which meant that we didn't have to pay out under that piece of the earn-out. It was something that our acquisition team identified as a risk. Now, I don't think that business has gone anywhere. We talked about when we bought the company, we weren't... We had to make sure we were making money in the charter operations, and we've made great progress there since we started. But the gain relates to one payment we don't have to make simply because there was a contract that couldn't be signed within the time frame it needed to be signed within for us to have to pay the vendor. So it was a pickup based on the delay of that contract. In no way does it reflect a – disappointment or any underperformance of the acquisition. Quite the opposite.

Appreciate it. And I'll turn the line over. Thanks.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Krista Friesen from CIBC. Please go ahead. Hi.

Thanks for taking my question. Morning. I was just wondering if we could dig in a little bit more just on the jet fuel side. Based on the contracts that you have where you can pass it through, What's the sort of lag that we should expect there?

Yeah, it's less than a month. In places like Manitoba, the Maritimes, where it's largely done at market, we can pass it on as quickly as we can go tell the customer. And there's pre-sold tickets, so there is some impact, but it's nominal. In most of our Medevac contracts or our Nunavut contract, this month's fuel is next month's price. So you get a 30-day lag on some of that stuff. But conversely, when it stabilizes or ticks down, we get a 30-day pickup. You can see in the first quarter, even though fuel ran up pretty hard in the back end of the period, like from the end of February to the end of March, the margin compression was minimal. And on the ISR business, most of that is billed straight through to the government. We don't even actually pay the fuel bills. The government pays the fuel bills direct, so there's zero lag on that.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just wondering if you can give us a little bit more color on the integration of Mach 2. It seems like it's been off to a pretty good start, just despite you having only acquired it very recently. So any additional color there and the demand that you're seeing? Thank you.

Yeah, we built, we just finished, in fact, yesterday, an expansion of our offices at Regional 1, which will allow Mock to join them in the same facility. We're busy entering Mock's data into Regional 1's proprietary database that we've built, which will help us pick our spots. It's really important to understand as we dip our toes in the 737 market, we're not getting into leasing long-term, those kinds of things. Those are finance games for banks. We're taking, uh, aircraft at the edges that are nearing the end of their life. And we'll start by parting them out. And ultimately we'll lease out pieces of them, but it's a regional ones model combined with box, uh, industry, uh, knowledge and EIC's access to capital. Plus, we're a natural consumer for some of those parts with our Canadian North business. They fly 737s. And so the more we buy from ourselves, the more we learn the market.

Thanks. I appreciate the color. I'll pass the line.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Cameron Dorkson from National Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Cap. Yeah, thanks. Good morning. So, Mike, you talked a little bit earlier about starting to see a pickup in some of the passenger activity into Nunavut. So my question, I guess, is how you see things evolving there over the long term as far as demand for air and aviation changes. into the north. I mean, we've seen the federal government, I think, since our last call, you know, announce a fairly significant investment in new infrastructure. We've seen some support for some new resources projects in the north. Are you at the stage yet where you're actually having some conversations with governments or with potential resources customers about supporting some of the growth there? And, you know, do you have any kind of like timeline where you'd like to see you know, more of a pickup in activity? I mean, obviously you're seeing it already, but maybe a more substantial pickup in activity based on some of these investments that are going into the north.

Yeah, I mean, there's a wide range. The government stuff is underway. We're in discussions with them on a number of things, whether it be surveillance work, whether it be other projects. There's going to be things that we don't directly do, like building military bases, those kinds of things. We've seen an increased demand for charters up there already. We're in discussions for the iron ore development in Baffin Land. There's increased exploration for critical minerals on Baffin Island out of Iqaluit. It's pretty pervasive across. It's hard for me to give you, well, this is the second quarter of 2027 or anything. There'll be things It's building. I'm shocked that we saw it in our passenger numbers this fast. We did not anticipate this. And because we fly in enough different places where it's an essential service, we can take a look at its volumes compared to, say, the First Nations in Manitoba. And when we see a marked difference in increase in revenues, We know what it's tied to, and so we're at the beginnings of that. They haven't started building the new runways they promised. They haven't started building the new buildings they promised or the military bases they promised. So we're not even in the first inning. They might have thrown out the ceremonial first pitch, but that's about where we are in the baseball game.

Okay, no, that's helpful. If I could just quickly follow up, I guess, just on the executive appointments and some of the realignment issues. with roles at the senior management level. You know, I obviously congratulate everybody for that. I'm just wondering, I guess, what you feel from a realignment of roles with Darwin and Travis. I guess, what's the objective? What's their mandates with, I guess, sort of the new roles that they have?

As we grow, there's more and more, as we add new businesses, there's more financial support. oversight required on budgeting forecasting and those kinds of things and Travis has a remarkable background in that area so he'll take on additional responsibilities on that part and Darwin is really our acquisition whisperer bringing people into EIC and teaching them how to function in a new conglomerate he has been remarkable in his period here and He will continue to focus on that. He'll still have operational responsibilities, but we're asking him to do more on the integration side, and Travis will do more on the numbers, budgeting, forecasting side. The bigger we get, the more Richie gets grumpy. If he gets numbers he doesn't expect. So we're working on the forecasting to keep Richie happy.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks very much for the time.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jeff Fenwick from ATB Cormark. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Mike, I wanted to start off first on the CapEx, maintenance CapEx. You provided some good commentary there at the beginning of the call. But when I look at the last couple of quarters here, a bit of a step down into Q1 versus where you were at Q4. I'm just trying to get a sense of what's the right, maybe those are the goalposts we should be looking at for this year. have you kind of settled into maybe a more normalized maintenance CapEx now that the Canadian North is, is, uh, in, you know, more settled in the mix now, or how should we think about that?

Yeah. Um, I would say that Q1 was lower than I would have anticipated the slots we could get for engines and some of those things, um, uh, resulted in less stuff getting done in January. Uh, I think that's a little bit of an anomaly. The rolling 12s are really the better forecasters of what's going. Q4 was higher. Q2 is going to be higher again. We do have some stuff that will roll through this year that was kind of deferred things in Canadian North, but it'll remain elevated through the balance of the year. Q1 was just probably abnormally light just because there were a couple of of engine events that got pushed because we couldn't get slots. So they're sitting on our floor waiting to get overhauled.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks. And then I just wanted to ask about the Air Greenland agreement there. You said that you had a pre-existing relationship with them. Was that on the leasing front or maybe you could just characterize that for us? And was this like a cross-sell opportunity because of that relationship?

Yeah, thanks, Jeff. It really was a cross-sell opportunity. Um, how, just given the proximity to Greenland on the East coast has done the heavy maintenance for air Greenlands dash a fleet for years. So, uh, you know, it's that preexisting relationship and whether it was parks, technical expertise over time. And that's how that conversation started.

Okay. And then I did want to ask, I saw, uh, an announcement on, on, uh, pal aerospace's website about, um, receiving some funds from the regional defense, uh, investment initiative. It wasn't a huge amount, but maybe you could just articulate how that fits in with the ongoing discussions, what the dollars there were for, and how that came to be.

Sure. You know, that was through the, as you said, the defense initiative. And that was really to support the research and development with regards to CARTNAV, some of the modifications to the Dash 8 400 that we're looking at, obviously, within Canada and some other jurisdictions around the world. So, you know, again, that's the federal government's efforts to try to develop capacity in our country, both for internal and export purposes.

And I guess we should read that as a strong indicator that they want to work with you on larger contracts going forward, fair to say.

Well, absolutely. They recognize, obviously, we're, you know, PAL is a huge employer in Atlantic Canada, a world leader in technology. A lot of positives that the Havilland Dash 8, obviously, is a Canadian aircraft. So tons of Canadian content in there, Pratt & Whitney engines. So again, you know, it's just that global attempt at the Canadian government to reinforce the Canadian competitiveness and generate the capability at home.

And I think the other thing I want to jump in here on is I'd be honest if I didn't say I wasn't a little bit frustrated when we announced Australia that we weren't successful there, but we'd won in Greenland. And I think there's a few people who didn't understand the ISR market is huge. We're not going to win everyone we bet on. but we're going to win some of them. And we're building a beachhead in Europe and the Nordic countries that provide tons of growth. With us working now with the Danes in Greenland, in the Netherlands, in Great Britain, hopefully in Canada, there's other countries that are going to be tied into that joint defense and Canada's new tighter relationship with Europe. And while I'm We are in discussions now that I'm under NDAs that I can't describe who with. I think there's very much a trend emerging here as us as a leader in that marketplace and working with different parts of the government. I mean, the irony is in Canada, our contracts with the fisheries department, notwithstanding most of the work we do isn't for the fisheries anymore. Or in the Netherlands, we're working with the Coast Guard. And the Marines in Britain were working with people trying to limit illegal immigration through Homeland Security. It's different departments in each of these governments. But as they start talking more and more, the ability to have software that talks to one another and then share their data with their partners in other countries puts us in a great spot. And that's why I'm so bullish on the longer term version of ISR, not what we win this month or next quarter. We might do something like that, but it's more about the longer-term market we're developing. Where we are now compared to where we were five years from now is remarkable, and that's going to continue to grow.

Yeah, that's great, Keller. And then maybe just one last one, bigger picture here on the M&A front. With so much balance sheet capacity now, does that change the lens or the focus of where you're targeting opportunities? I mean, you can obviously write much larger checks on the back of that. Do you start to look outside of even North America if you saw an interesting airline that fit your parameters or something like that? How is that evolving now?

The short answer to that is yes. The slightly longer, I think more relevant answer to that is that we're not the highest payer for acquisitions. We're competitive. We never pay enough to convince someone to sell just because of what we're going to pay. We pay market. But we want to make it easy to deal with them. So liquidity has always been a huge part of our strategy. Rich has done a great job with our bond deal and with our new bank deal. So we've got the capital available. But I want to be clear that we're not changing our parameters of what we're paying. The ability to pay doesn't mean you should pay more. The fact that we're trading higher doesn't mean we should pay more. Now, if we found a great company that was really large, was it creative, something we wanted, would we pay right down to our 15% return? Sure. But we're not going to do 12% deals just because we have capital. I want to assure people that we've gotten a 20% return for 20 years by sticking to what we do, and we'll stick to what I do. We've added people to Adam's department, and it probably means we've got to do more $100 million deals. I'd love to do $500 million deals. There aren't that many of them. So we will remain active and we'll stick with what's made us successful. Hopefully just do more of it. And then the other piece, quite frankly, is investing in our business. If we had won Australia, that could easily have been a half a billion dollar investment. If we win in Canada, that could be in the hundreds of millions. So you've got to have the liquidity to be able to back your opportunities.

Appreciate the color. That's all I had. Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, should you have a question, please press star 4 by the 1 on your telephone keypad. And your next question comes from the line of Conor Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Morning, Conor. Morning, Mike and team. And congrats on everybody's appointments here. Maybe the first one, I guess, going back to the meting business. In the first quarter, it seems like the U.S. meting business was up. from last year, the Canadian demand was slattish, but the EBITDA in that business line was flat. I'm trying to understand what is the real mixed issue here.

It's even a touch more nuanced than what you talked about. Let's start with the US. It did about the same as it did last year in round numbers, but that is actually a stronger performance than you think because coming into 2025, We had material inventory on the ground to finish goods. This year, we had no inventory going into the year we had sold it all in Q4. And so we were able to reach the same number simply by tweaking the plant and getting a little more production out of it. The team at Spartan have done a remarkable job of maximizing what we can produce. And the redetermining step right now in Spartan is just how many mats can we make. We can sell everything we could make. We could sell more than what we've got now. I can't wait to open that second plant so we can keep up. In Canada... Well, the number, the aggregate return looks similar. That's very misleading. We had a bunch of decommissioning work, which by its nature doesn't continue. So it strengthened Q1 of last year, but the number of mats on rent was much lower than it is now. So we know where our revenue is going forward, and we know the other stuff we've bid going forward. And so, well, the quality of earnings is what I would say is in Northern Matt was much better this year, year over year, even though the numbers are very similar. And it makes us bullish going forward because if I'm not going to use real numbers for competitive reasons, but say we had 20,000 bats on rent at the end of last year, the last first quarter, and I had 40,000 now. day one of Q2 starts much stronger than where we started last year. And so that's why we're confident in talking about growth. Now, there's lots of room to go. We got lots of mats and we talked in our outlook that we're probably going to build some more. We think we're going to need more inventory for our rental pool. And I think you'll see us invest in that in Q2 and beyond. But when you look at the results, Notwithstanding, EBIT does flat. The business isn't flat.

I think the other thing to point out is that the Canadian dollar was materially weaker this year. Yeah, materially weaker this last year. So the translation of Spartan's results, which make up a larger portion because of the seasonality for the Canadian operations in Q1, were impacted this year by foreign exchange rates.

Which was millions of dollars just in that business.

Okay, that's very helpful, Kala. Thanks so much. And some of the guidance for this year, I want to understand the key puts and takes, I guess. $25 million increase from the midpoint to the high end, call it. Is it mostly coming from the large asset sales? I mean, it seems like they're doing very well. They're obviously, they're lumpy too, right? So How would you parse out the large asset sales versus underlying strength and some of the other areas of the business?

Yeah, I would say that I think the large asset sales disproportionately affect your revenue and they give you some EBITDA and it's a part of how we make money. But the core parts of the business are parts and leasing. And our leasing revenue makes up most of the growth in terms of EBITDA. And that's why it's a higher quality growth. I always caution people about worrying too much about revenue in the aftermarket business because of large asset sales. The key driver of the business is part sales, which are remarkably predictable. and our leasing revenue. And the reason the leasing revenue is going up is because we invested a bunch of money last year. And so we're putting those planes into service and we anticipate them staying there. And quite frankly, if there is any uncertainty in the business going forward, we've told Hank the checkbook's ready to be aggressive and go get the stuff because it's very hard to buy equipment in a bull market. And so if there are any slowdowns in certain parts of the year, we'll be glad to step in and build our company on that weakness.

Okay, that's clear, Mike. Thanks. And last one, if I may, on the S-232 tariffs, I just want to understand it a little bit more. The change that was implemented by the U.S. government on Article 6 laws, there will be a 25% duty on full customs value of derivative products. Previously, it was just 50% duty on the metal content. What parts of the businesses would be subject to this tariff? I think it seems like window business, you have some transaction cross-border. I don't think you have much stainless business cross-border from Canada to the U.S. at least. Any sense on the S-232 implications for your businesses?

Yeah, I think I can really simplify this. The basic thing is Windows is the only business that's impacted by it. Virtually everything else we do is Kuzma, and so they transfer back and forth on a tariff-efficient basis. In Windows, there's no doubt that change costs us money. We used to be able to ship Windows across the border and pay tariffs based on the metal part of the window. under the new rules is we pay the tariff based on the entire value of the window. And so it makes it virtually impossible to make money manufacturing in Canada and selling in the U.S. Now, fortunately for us, we've got plants in both countries. So we just have simplified our production. American windows are built in the U.S. and Canadian windows are built in Canada. But even with that, that tariff program creates some challenges because Virtually all of the aluminum starts in Canada and gets extruded in Canada. And so whether we build a window in Canada or the U.S., the extrusions come from Canada, not because we are having aversion to buying aluminum in America. It's because they don't have it. And so when it crosses the border, even when we build in the U.S., we're still paying tariffs on our raw material, the aluminum. Having said that, so does everybody else. It's not a competitive disadvantage. We actually have a competitive advantage against our Canadian competitors like State, who are big sellers into the US. Well, they got to manufacture it in Canada, so they have a way bigger problem than we do. But all that being said, the tariffs still cost us money, and they still make the business less efficient. So we're looking forward to when that gets straightened out, even though it does give us a competitive advantage in the U.S.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for the timeline. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Gary Ho from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Morning, Gary. Morning. Sorry, I jumped on the call late. So I just want to put a finer point on the data center discussions. And we're seeing data center build out green shoots across multiple industries. There's some mention in the MD&A and I think Q&A so far. Can you elaborate on what you're seeing across the portfolio companies and do you see this as a bubble at all or is there long-term opportunities that you can potentially pursue on the M&A side?

I'll take the last question first about whether it's a bubble. I think unequivocally it's elevated. We've gone through surges in businesses before and I think at some point, whether it's five years from now or seven years from now, we will see this business mature. And that's why I think it's so fundamental. We see some of our competitors abandoning their core areas to jump both feet into this. And while we're growing and taking advantage of the data center business, in each of our businesses, we're making sure we don't lose track of our core customer. In terms of the... The areas we're seeing the opportunity, there's four main areas we're seeing it, other than the growth of the electrical grid, because the growth of the electrical grid grabs our matting business. That notwithstanding, because the growth of the electrical grid is more than data centers. It's electric cars. It's all kinds of things. And that's going to keep going. We don't see that as a bubble at all. So excluding the matting business, we are doing cooling systems for these massive server farms. I said earlier in the call, we had an order, the biggest we've ever had in stainless fabrication, north of $3 million US for one facility. We're doing fiber plowing where we're digging and burying big, massive fiber cables, not like the sort of baseball-sized table you see going into people's houses and those kinds of things. These are a foot or more wide, and we're building long trenches of these and burying the stuff from northern Alberta down to the U.S. border. We're building rackets to put computers on. And we're also, strangely enough, they're actually using some of our FODs at the construction sites, some of the matting. So We see it across a number of our businesses. Guys, did I miss anything there?

Yeah, and maybe I'd add on, like, it also creates opportunities for our hydronic heating company, as odd as you may think that is, but, you know, for concrete curing, as well as commissioning the chillers. You know, you have to test the chillers, and so you have to put a load on the chillers. So that creates opportunities for that business line. As Mike had mentioned, you know, we also see, you know, others putting, you know, realigning their, their customers and focusing on data centers, which creates ancillary opportunities for us to continue grabbing market share in more traditional areas as well. So, you know, it's a, It's a net positive we see from an overall perspective across our portfolio of companies.

Yeah, there's also, we're actually doing a job for the first time. I think it was the first building cladding that we're doing, the window guys are doing, but without glass. So we're putting up, obviously, metal cladding on buildings, which, again, is just pivoting a little bit our windows team into other lines of business. But we're seeing that as well, so.

That's part of the technology we've put into our window factories that let us build. It started with high-rise apartments or condos where they've got to make things interesting. They're using aluminum largely or ceramic cladding to make the building look interesting instead of using stone. Well, we can take that and actually clad an entire building in it. So it's one of the new areas we're working on.

Okay, great. And then my second question, AI has been very topical. It's now even trickled into industrials and manufacturing companies, management teams, talking about AI helping with dynamic pricing, et cetera. Just curious if your team has spent time on this and how we can improve operations and or efficiencies, whether that's in head office or within your portfolio companies.

We have... groups of teams within our various businesses looking at how it's applicable. I would say that we probably have at the lower end of most companies of what we can do with AI. It's very a human being centric, whether you're flying a plane, doing maintenance, building pipelines, building like the things we do all require people. Where we do see some of the AI capabilities is in places like CTI where we can build better, faster training systems by utilizing AI to help us do it. Or in our ISR systems, there's a lot of stuff where AI can provide better, stronger, faster data. So it's buried inside. So really what we see AI as in most of our cases is improving the quality or the speed or the capability of our product. It's not the cost reduction that you see some other people talking about. I mean, you could fly airplanes today without pilots, that technology exists, but we don't think that's happening anytime soon. And so it's really not impacting the operations. Do we use AI to work on parts and what things we could change the schedules for repairs and stuff? Absolutely. but it still requires people to go turn the wrenches. And so for us, it's not as big a driver as it is in some businesses.

I would say it's not disrupting our businesses. It's improving our businesses sort of at the forefront on the administrative side, whether it be in the Windows companies with quoting and making things more efficient. But our businesses are durable. and they will not be disrupted by AI. It's ancillary and a net positive for us. But we are looking at it from an administrative perspective and how to do things more efficiently and better.

Yeah, I mean, it's the first time I think one of the investing acronyms has really fit us. But the whole halo investing idea of high assets, low obsolescence, really, really speaks to almost everything we do outside of ISR and training. And essential demand.

Yeah. All three.

I think the other area where we see the benefit of it, and we've been doing it for a number of years, is just using the predictive abilities of AI to help with safety and, you know, developing our own internal safety management system on the aviation side to, you know, really ensure that we're doing everything we can and we're at the forefront of safety and, you know, making sure that anything that we can do to make sure people are safer, we're investing money. So that was probably our first foray into it.

Okay, great. Okay, thanks for those comments. Appreciate it.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Team James from TD. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good morning, everyone. My first question, just regarding the M&A environment, Mike, I'm just wondering if you could comment what you're seeing in terms of competition out there for M&A. Is there any sort of retrenchment in the number of of companies that are competing for businesses? Are buyers more inclined to pay up here or is the opposite happening and they're getting a little bit less aggressive? I'm just wondering sort of from a pricing standpoint what you're seeing in the market.

It's hard to make this comment across every segment because it's very product area specific. Generally speaking, we still see less deals than we saw pre-COVID. There's less lower quality transactions. And so the top of the funnel is smaller. But having said that, the quality of the things we're looking at is better. And I think Adam and his team have done an exceptional job on improving our capabilities, working with our subsidiaries to kind of find our own acquisitions. looking at competitors, looking at suppliers, looking at geographic expansion, and approaching people who may have thought they were for sale and working on transactions. Mach 2 is a good example. Canadian North is a good example where those are businesses that we found determined were a good fit with us. Where the issue of pricing really comes in is where we get something that's unrelated to us. And private equity is aggressive, but I would say no more or less aggressive than they have been for the last two years since we've come out of COVID.

Okay, thank you. My second question just turned into multi-story window solutions. You know, it's a long lead business. Can you look towards 2027 and just provide any kind of early thoughts on You know, with the book of business you've got today, and I realize that the kind of interest rate environment and everything can kind of impact things. But as you look at that year, given what you know today and what's in the backlog, I mean, could 2027 be another down year? Could it be flat? Could it be up? Just what are your early thoughts there?

I think it's most likely to be flat to marginally better. This year, this last quarter, if you strip out the difference in the exchange rate, our book-to-bill was flat, and that's progress. We're really starting to see little pockets of strength in the U.S. It's getting better faster than Canada, and so I think we will see improvements in the bookings. We'll talk again in three months, and we'll see whether we're above even on the book to build, which is the best indicator for the future, because bear in mind, like when we take an order, it's generally 12 to 18 months before it's in our numbers in terms of revenue. The slower part, quite frankly, is still Toronto. Like the glut there is slowing development, but there's still big demand for multi-bedroom apartments. And so the developers have to get their head around how they build those. And we're really bullish about the government's plans with HST and development fees because that can add up to a 20% difference in their building costs. And that's a real difference in building a long-term asset.

And the one other thing you're seeing, and we mentioned that with the data centers, is just a mix. of both the moving towards more commercial and institutional style buildings, plus some product mix in terms of, we talked about the panels for the data center. So again, we're diversifying away from pure residential high rise build into some other areas that is certainly, you know, gives us a little bit more brighter horizon. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Freddie Hassan from Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.

Morning. Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Most have been answered, but just two quick ones here. On the aerospace side, Mike, could you maybe just talk about other contracts that are up for bidding? I think in the past you mentioned Great Britain. So any color on anything that's actively up for bidding at this point? Sure.

This is difficult now because there's a lot of the countries are trying to avoid the Australia situation where it's very public and they aren't comfortable with that process, particularly in places where they aren't RFPs. So what I would say is that there's opportunities. The greatest spot is in Europe. It's not the only spot, but I would say the most active and the farthest along discussions would be European and Canadian. Although there is some stuff in Asia, but less developed. Jake, anything?

Yeah, you mentioned just briefly about the UK Home Office, and that's something we have disclosed. We responded to an RFP in 2025. We're expecting the results of the RFP in kind of mid to later part of 26, and we're the incumbent there. So, again, you know, we've got a great partnership with the UK Home Office, and we're, again, feeling good about our position, but anything can happen.

Okay, that's great. And then maybe just one for Travis. I just wanted to confirm, I think for the growth capex for 26, did you say it was going to be in line with 25 levels? Just want to get that right.

No, likely to be higher, and that's really driven in the manufacturing side by the new Spartan plants, the composite plant in the U.S., and then as we talked about with the accelerating demand profiles for the Canadian operations for environmental access solutions, there will likely be investment in the fleet just because of the demand signals we're seeing.

The growth capex in the aviation, there's less projects than there were last year. We've got the Air Canada project where we're buying planes, but we're coming finally to a close on the BC Medevac contract. I wish I was in the plane manufacturing business where I could deliver things three years late and people would still love you, but we're coming to the end. So those capex have ended and I don't know if everyone noticed, but we put out a press release in Kuwait a few days ago. They finally were certified on all types of King Airs in our full movement simulator. So that's going to be great for our own pilots, but also for other Canadian pilots so that they don't have to go down to Texas or Kansas to get their training done. And it's also great for CapEx because I get to stop paying for installing it. Right. That's exciting for the future piece as well. That's great, Collin.

Thanks. I'll leave it there.

Thank you. And your last question comes from the line of Michael Goldie from BMO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Michael. Good morning and thank you for the question. To the extent that you can, can you unpack Australia a bit more and share what you learned through that process? Were there any capabilities or solutions that you realize could be valuable to add to the portfolio over time?

I think you were in my board meeting yesterday because I got the exact same question from my board chair. The short answer is I can't because they haven't even made it public who won yet or what they awarded. Whether they awarded a whole contract, part of the contract, whether they extended a piece of it, we just don't know. So by the time we get to our Q2 meeting, I'll be able to answer that a lot more intelligently Because what we've gotten from Australia, and this is not exaggeration or hyperbole, is a three-line letter saying, thank you for your bid. We will not be proceeding at this time. If you'd like to meet with us, please let us know. And so we've let them know, and that's really all we know. We believe we know who won, but it's conjecture. It's not fact. So it's hard for me to answer that for you. We will know and we will share the issue once we have it, but I don't want to guess.

Okay. And then for my second question, within R1, has the macro started to impact the value of assets yet? How much longer do you think energy prices need to remain elevated? for discounted opportunities to start appearing, and then how have asset values performed in past energy shocks?

So far, there's been no impact. We've seen nothing. There's a worldwide shortage of engines on many of the planes we use, the CF-34 and stuff, and that has not changed at all. as airlines like United want to move into the 550 model and things like that. The demand is super high. So I don't see anything in the near term. I think you'd have to see a fuel shortage. I don't think prices will do it. I think it's fuel shortages that would cause a problem where people can't fly and then levered airlines have trouble. And then that would create assets, purchasing opportunities. We're not there yet, and it's part of the reason we're still bullish on the rest of the year. We've seen no deterioration in our lease portfolio at all.

And just to make one comment, in the past, historically, energy shocks will typically drive or shrink purchases of new aircraft, which drive demand for used aircraft, which is our portfolio. Used aircraft, solutions for engines, whatnot. So Again, that further adds color to Mike's comments here.

Maybe one other thing. In this market, it is also a very relationship-driven market. Hank has very strong relationships with numerous fleets around the world. Coupled with, as Rich and Mike talked about, our liquidity that we have available, we're able to execute on transactions on a moment's notice. which gives us a massive strategic advantage compared to some of our other competitors in that regional market. So, you know, we're ready.

We're prepared to buy without knowing what we're going to do with them yet. One of the great trades the company made was during COVID, an airline wanted to get rid of all their Q400s. And Hank brought me the deal and I went during COVID, I think we really want to put this much money out during this much turmoil. And he talked me into it. We bought them. I only wish I had told him to go find some more. We bought planes for the price of about half an engine today. And so when those opportunities come, that's where that liquidity risk provides helps a ton.

And if I can squeeze in one more, like, are you using AI yet in R1 data? I imagine... there's just so much information and there's an opportunity to better sort through it with this technology and find opportunities.

Yeah. I mean, the key, the whole piece on AI is you have to have the right data to mine and it's not a third party process with them. We built a massive, our own proprietary system, which is, I mean, we didn't call it AI, but it's effectively AI that we built where we build the data. I mean, our guys literally know where every engine on a Bar J 700, 900 is in the world. We know roughly when they're going to need to be overhauled. We know where all the ERJs are and what the parts value is. And that is what drives why we can get the returns we get in regional one. And it's also the reason why we bought Mach 2. They've got access to information on other models that we have never been smart enough yet, didn't have the data to participate in. Well, that will let us grow ourselves into those and grow the effective size of the swimming pool we can compete in.

Awesome. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will hand the call back to Mr. Powell for any closing remarks.

I'd like to thank all of you for joining us today. It was fun to talk about a quarter like that. And I really hope I get to see a lot of you in a couple hours at our AGM, a couple of videos and some fun stuff to talk about. So I'll either see you this morning or we'll talk again when second quarter is done. Have a great day.

And this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.