Mullen Group Ltd.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Mullen Group Limited 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Murray Mullen, Chair and Senior Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Yeah, welcome everyone. To Mullen Group's quarterly conference call this morning, we released our first quarter interim report. That's a nice 53-page document full of details, numbers, and analysis prepared by our team, headed up by Carson Erlacher and Nick Woodworth. This document contains updated information, is available on CDAR Plus and on our website at www.mullen-group.com. I'll remind everyone that today's presentation and commentary contain forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. As such, actual results may differ materially. Further information identifying the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions can be found in the disclosure documents. So this morning, I'm joined here in Okotoks by the senior team. It's an expanded senior team, and I want to welcome Lee Hellyer, who's now our senior commercial officer and has joined the executive team at Mullen Group. In addition, I have Richard Maloney in his expanded role as now president and senior operating officer. So Richard. Carson Erlacher, senior financial officer, and Joanna Scott, senior corporate officer. So that's the senior executive that we have here at Mullen Group. And my name is Murray Mullen, and I am the chair and the senior executive officer. So this morning, we're going to follow the similar format as last conference call we held. And that's all in an effort to make this call as meaningful and productive for everyone as possible. So Carson and I do not have prepared remarks for today's call. These can be found in the MD&A, the press release, and the financial statements. And anyone that's on the line today can use any of their AI tools to query anything. So we'll head straight to the Q&A sessions. There are probably going to be lots of questions about the quarter, most likely about where we see the economy, the state of the consumer, fuel prices, the freight markets, and of course those often talked about nation-building projects. So I like the fact that we generated record revenues and solid profitability even during a period of basically no economic growth. I'd suggest you this bodes well very well when the economic conditions improve. Until then, We will keep a keen eye on costs. We're going to focus on margin over market share. And we're going to look for quality companies to join our network of 44 independently managed business units. Now, I see many of you already joined the queue, so I will now ask the operator to open the lines. Operator?

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. The first question comes from Kevin Chang from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning everybody and thanks for taking my question and congratulations, Richard, on the expanded responsibilities here. Maybe just well deserved. Maybe if I could just focus on the LNW segment. It looks like it put up the best organic growth that we've seen in quite some time. And I know there's some optimism south of the border in terms of what we're seeing in the broader freight economy. Just wondering what you're seeing in the LNW space here, just given the organic growth rate you printed in the first quarter. And if there's anything you'd point to in terms of driving that tailwind and maybe stuff that you know, could have been transient in the quarter or maybe stuff that might be more structural that you would expect as we get through the remainder of 2026 here?

Yeah, that's a good observation, Kevin, is that I think the majority of it was probably driven the performance in the month of March. Carson, we had a, you know, It was a decently strong March, and I can't tell you, Kev, whether that was because everybody was at quarter end and those kind of things, but March was a pretty good month for L&W. Everybody performed reasonably well. Had a couple of real stars that continued to do well. Gleason Group comes to mind. and some others, but I think what that reiterates, Kev, is that's a general economy, is our L&W side, and if the economy gets a little bit of a momentum to it, I think our business and our L&W segment is nicely positioned to capitalize on that. That's a little bit different than the LTL side. It still seems to be still seems to me stuck in neutral. We did okay, but as you could see, if you're not doing acquisitions, really it's still very difficult to grow. That's what we see.

And maybe just on the LTL side, maybe if I could follow up on your answer there, just the momentum you saw in March in LNW as I carried on through the first few weeks here in April. And just on LTL, I guess some of that organic growth rate, that you saw a negative organic growth rate. You saw it seems like you were demarketing some businesses. Is there a way to quantify maybe how much that weighed on the first quarter growth rate?

Yeah, I would say that, you know, Kevin, with respect to the same store sales being down in LTL, a large portion of that would be with respect to demarketing some customers. The other issue that we also saw in LTL in the first quarter, and this was really in the month of January, was some very inclement weather, especially down east, which virtually we had a couple operating days where we had, you know, trucks that barely left the yard. So that was kind of a headwind early on in the quarter that kind of righted itself in March.

That impacts two of our larger business units, our Guardwine Group and Apps Group, which have a pretty significant footprint back in the east, so they got hit in January, February. Decent marches, but... you know, we could hit with weather. We don't like to make excuses too often, but that's a reality is that we just couldn't have any work days, so you can't move freight if the trucks are stopped and people can't get to work.

No, it seems like it was winter everywhere by my observation. And just on L&W, just the April trends, you know, has that momentum carried forward from what you saw in March there?

Not to the same degree, Kevin. I think what we're watching very carefully is was March strong because of a quarter end and everybody tries to get their inventories moving quarter end. What we're unsure of is whether it was that or whether, you know, there's no doubt that this, you know, the situation in Iran and the spike in fuel prices has just caused people to take a little bit of a pause, I would suggest. Right. So we have to watch that, and I've commented on that. Let's watch that carefully. I think it's going to take a little bit of time for people to adjust to that. We're fortunate in Canada that we have our own energy supplies, so maybe price went up a bit, but we have it. Many parts of the world do not have it. So I think let's just see how it plays out. April is not as strong as March. And we didn't expect that because it's the end of the quarter. But let's see what happens here is whether that momentum builds up through the quarter. I think it will, but that's a personal observation.

That's helpful. And maybe just last one for me, maybe a bigger picture question. I'm sure you've seen all the headlines around AI disruption potentially hitting the brokerage business. Just wondering from where you're sitting, what implications you think this might have for your U.S. operations, whether it's holistics or the recently acquired coal group, opportunity threat, maybe what you're seeing on the ground as we see some of the headlines here. Thank you for taking my question.

Richard oversees both coal and holistic, but we're building coal. you know, we're building all the AI tools into our Silver Express platform at Holistic, which is, you know, Holistic is a bit of a, it's a bit of a software tech play and a freight forwarding because we provide the technology to a bunch of agents, right? So I haven't seen, we haven't seen any disruption. In fact, what we think will be the AI tools that our team is, implementing into this is, I think, is going to help them gain market share. Rich, that's just my- Right.

Yeah, absolutely. So, hey, Kevin. It's Richard. Hey, how are you doing? I'll talk quickly about the U.S. and what we're doing there, maybe more broadly on AI from Mullen Group. But down in the States, we have two business units. They have their own separate operating systems with teams that are working and supporting that from an IT infrastructure perspective. But I can tell you that both of them are working at in, you know, on how AI is going to help and support and build out the technology specifically to holistic. We are working diligently on that with our director of IT on that met with them earlier this week, and discuss that with them and just on the helping of coding and doing things like that. And we're not like others, are a hyperscaler. Every time we have an idea about AI, we do a press release. But I can tell you they're very diligently working on many fronts, both at Holistic and CoalUS. Up here in Canada, we have a very similar initiative underway within our LTL space, looking at how LTL will make us better and having some And having, you know, it's like everybody else. You have some wins and some losses, but you learn along the way, and you make it better. And the real focus is how to enhance load factor. And we have a team. We did a presentation to our board yesterday, and we are certainly moving in the right direction on that. But it's not an event. It's a journey, and it takes time to do, and you'll have to stay with it. So we are working, you know, full frontal on that one as well, on AI.

Yeah, I would say this to you, Kev. I think if you haven't built your the AI tools into your technology platform and your service offerings to your customer, I think anybody will be at risk, whether you're a 3PL or an asset-based carrier. So we're just embracing it, and we're building all of that intellectual capital and know-how into our businesses, including specifically in the U.S. I don't think it's going to hurt them. We hope it's an enabler, but we're going all in. And we have to change. We have to adapt. We have to make sure we're ready for the future, and that's what we do in our business here is we make sure our business units are prepared for the next five years, not the last five. The last five are over.

That's very helpful. Congrats on a solid start to the year here, despite all the weather issues. Thank you, guys.

The next question comes from Konark Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Morning, everyone. Marie, just first question, you know, in the absence of prepared remarks. Marie, I think in the press release and the documents that you guys talked about, you know, the capacity is, coming out of the system gradually. I think it's more of a U.S. trend than Canada seems. Correct me if I'm wrong. And the demand seems stable, but the rates have yet to move up. I'm just wondering, like, you know, when you talk about March being strong and, you know, I think everybody's kind of talking about how the spot rates are continuing to move up. Just curious, what are you seeing in the pricing environment for you guys? I mean, organically, obviously, your margins were not expanding in Q1 yet. But I'm wondering if there's expansion opportunity down the road. So curious your thoughts on pricing and margin.

Yeah, I think, you know, once again, that's a pretty good observation is that, Conor, the U.S. market, I think everybody needs to differentiate the U.S. market from the Canadian marketplace, and you're spot on. They're tightening quite rapidly as they implement English proficiency rules and remove certain carriers' drivers from having a CDL, which takes capacity out of the system because you don't have the drivers. So U.S. is tightening. That also translates into the cross-border market tightening. So any freight that's moving cross-border, that's tightening. But the Canadian market is, it's not tightening, but the regulations and the safety standards and the government is really enforcing things a lot more diligently than what they did, that they've done for quite some time. So that's not getting rid of capacity, but it's forcing some discipline... in those that didn't follow the rules quite as much. So that will help pricing and take the pressure off in the Canadian market. So if you get any demand push, any, like we saw in March, it'll be okay. If you get demand push in the U.S. with a reduction in supply, boy, that could be an outsizer in terms of That's how we see it.

Okay, that makes sense. And the other side of the coin, I guess, is if the U.S. administration keeps pushing out these drivers from the pool, and I think the numbers are quite staggering if you look in some of the studies, would you expect or would you see some sort of wage inflation or maybe not so much given your drivers are still sticky. I mean, you don't have any retention issues. What do you think about the wage inflation potential here?

Well, that will not impact our U.S. operations because we don't have – our business really isn't company truck fleet operations. It's all 3DL. and the use of owner-operators on cross-border. So the owner-operators, they will benefit if the rates go up because generally they get paid a percentage of the transaction. So I don't think it'll impact us from that standpoint, and we don't see any wage inflation in Canada right now at all until you see a demand push. If you see a demand push, which may or may not come, I'll let you decide. opine about that, but I'm not too worried about the wage thing, to be honest. Now, if I'm a U.S. carrier, you're going to see some stress points there, but those costs are going to be passed onto the rates. But I think the rates have to go up before anybody moves on wages. And the spot market's moved, but the contract market has been a bit stubborn. I challenge anybody to go ask Amazon or Walmart or Costco for a rate increase. Like they're just not embracing that at the moment.

Okay, thanks. And maybe last one for me before I turn over. On M&A, I think you made a note in the M&A talking about, you know, you're increased reliance, I guess, on M&A until you see a structural organic tailwind. When you're looking into M&A, and I know you guys have done recently some tuck-ins in the S&I segment, are you pivoting to S&I now given structurally maybe higher oil price at least for some time or the Canada nation building focus in Western Canada. Any thoughts on where would you like to spend the incremental dollar here with respect to your segments?

Well, I think it's evident. We did two acquisitions in the first quarter, and both of them were in the S&I segment and specifically tied to energy. And I would tell you, Our basic thesis here as a senior group is that I doubt if you're going to get any, we doubt that you're going to get much economic stimulus going on in Canada unless we really get on these nation-building projects and start creating great jobs and get capital flowing again. So we're buying the thesis that is being messaged by the governments that nation-building projects are going to go ahead. So we're positioning as if it's going to. The timing of it is a little less certain to us. But Canada needs to get its act together in the world scene and start making our vast resources available to the world that need it. We can't just hog the puck and say, no, you can't have access to it. They need it. So we're buying that thesis. The timing, it's Canada, you've got a lot of issues you've got to work through, but I think longer term that's a real growth potential, so we want to make sure we're well positioned. You know, we haven't invested in the energy sector for over 10 years. Basically, we really de-invested for 10 years. But over the last bit, we've just been adding really good flat companies into our network that do okay in this market, but if the If the capital flows back into that sector, they will do outstanding.

Conarch, I think it's important to point out those acquisitions we did, one with Black Labish Transport, right, and their clear water play. The other one is water management tied to upstream fracking and so on. Now, those were all done and closed prior to the war starting and the spike in commodity prices, and that would suggest or should suggest, too, everybody that again, we're looking at where the puck will be going. So these were done prior to all these elevation and commodity prices, whether they stick or not, who knows? I'm not smart enough to figure that out. But Murray just said it. At some point, Canada is going to have to say, we got to do something here. And I think these puts us in a, solidifies ourselves in some key plays.

Yeah. So these are really good acquisitions that are doing well. In this current market, and if there's any growth in the capital that goes into the energy space, they'll do better than just good. They'll do very good. So that's our thesis. We've de-risked it because they're great companies. And so we'll continue to look at those kind of opportunities, Connor, when we see them come up. I think that's what we do. There's acquisitions available everywhere. Like we're one of the few companies that can do them. But as I say, we've got to look through the rock pile and find these gems. We don't need to just grow to grow. We need to grow by adding value, whether that's a consolidation play and market so we can reduce costs or just get great quality companies. And that really hasn't changed in our acquisition strategy. It's in our DNA in this organization.

I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

The next question comes from Cameron Dorkson from National Bank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Just kind of following up on, I guess, sort of the commentary around the nation-building opportunities that might be out there, I'm just wondering if you were actually having any specific discussions with some customers on potential opportunities, or is it all still sort of more theoretical at this point, just trying to gauge you know, I guess maybe the timing of when some of these things might move forward and are we at that stage yet where, you know, some of your customers might be actually doing some planning?

Cameron, I would love to be able to say that in Canada we're having constructive discussions and everybody's excited, but everybody's still sitting on their hand and waiting for, you know, I guess the governments to say let's go rather than let's talk. In fact, I was going to open this call with a song about what we need is a little more, a lot more, a lot less talk, a lot more action. I think Canadians are begging for it, but it still seems to be in the consultation phase. I don't know how much longer we have to consult, but that's outside of our pay zone, and we're not in charge of that file. I can tell you... that we're having active discussions on a major energy project in Alaska. Alaska LNG, Richard, is the project and the name. So we're actively engaged with the customers on that when we're at the bidding table, and it appears that that project may go before the projects in Canada. And we will participate if we're fortunate to get the bid, folks. But we're having active discussions with the customer up there on that. But not in Canada. We all sit around and we say, when are we going to go? When's it going to happen? How much talk are we going to have? That's the frustrating part for Canadians and for good jobs in Canada. And what can I tell you? We're waiting.

And we're waiting for the capital. And, you know, you've heard of the meeting that's being convened four or five months from now in Toronto. And I'm not sure what they're intending to do there, but a lot of these projects that kind of are in play have been approved at some point or other. I know, Joanna, at one point you worked for the law firm that actually went through an oil pipeline that was going to get approved to the West Coast. It's been done. So when that money starts coming back, private capital – which we have not heard, and we're waiting to see what happens on that. And as it stands today, it's kind of a hurry up and wait. We're not – we've been accused of being pessimistic. We're not optimistic. I think we're realistic. And we'll go to where the nations are building for now, and that's the commentary on the LNG Alaska. We're looking hard at that.

Okay, no, that's great. At least there's some projects moving forward, whether they're in Canada or not. So that's good to hear. Maybe just a second question, just on, I guess, sort of the financial targets that you put out earlier this year, the $2.3 to $2.4 billion in revenue and $365 million in EBITDA. Are you still, I guess, comfortable with that? And is there, I guess, any changes on how you're going to get there if you are still comfortable, at least by segment, from what you originally expected?

Carson, I'll confer that to you, and then I'll make a final comment on that.

Sure. No change to the guide right now, Cameron. As we're coming out of the first quarter, I would say by segment everything is largely in line with what we articulated back at the beginning of the year. So I would say no material changes to that. to the guide that we kicked out in January. If March holds and we continue on that trend, I don't see any... Yeah, I mean, if the March trend was sustained, we'd be above.

And I think the other thing is, Cam, is that we didn't plan any nation-building projects in our plan and our budget for this year. So if those start to go, that's on top of what we said we would do. And that doesn't include any acquisition? And no additional acquisition. So we've got a couple things that we're going to do. you know, maybe go ahead and beat that. But, you know, that's not built into the plan that we put forward. We just said, look, this is what we think our existing business will do, and so far we're on track for it.

Okay. No, that's great to hear. I'll pass the line. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Ken.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and congrats, Richard, for your new role. Thank you. Yeah. Talking about the opportunity in Alaska, the LNG project, could you maybe provide more color about the potential size of this opportunity? And is it your understanding that there's a limited number of companies that could handle such a project?

The project itself, Benoit, is that project, in Alaska, probably bigger than all the nation-building projects that have been announced in Canada. It's upwards of $40 billion U.S. dollars. So, you know, how much are we going to carve out of that? We will be specifically, you know, right now we're at the table on the hauling of pipe for the 800, I think it's 800 miles from Robay down to Anchorage. And that will be a big LNG project. So, you know, it's pretty sizable. You know, we're going to be in the final bidding phase here in the next couple days. It appears that it's got all of the presidential support, and I think they're waiting for the governor of Alaska and a couple other things, but that one's probably... got the best chance of going in the short term. And, you know, if we get passed and we get chosen as the bidder with our partner, then we'll come out with more firm numbers. But just suffice to say, this is not just a couple million dollars. This is pretty big. Okay. I think we just need to, you know, it's kind of sensitive right now, so we'll just I don't know, but I can tell you we've got a great partner up in Alaska. We've done business with them for 20 years, and there's a short deck of how many suppliers can do this project, and we're one of them.

That's really a great caller, Murray. And regarding the SNI segment, with the increase in oil prices, have you already started to see a pickup in drilling and other activity from customers, and are our customers beginning to try and lock up capacity for the months ahead?

No. I think what everybody's sitting, it's so new, right, and everybody sees the price increase, but most of our customers, the oil and gas companies, are just saying, look, we're We don't know if it's going to be for how long, so they haven't made capital commitments yet that long. I haven't seen it yet. We channel check. We talk, but we haven't seen that translate into any increased demand for drilling or for other services. And by the way, you still need to have the pipelines built. whether it's for LNG or if it's crude oil. Otherwise, there's no sense adding capacity. We don't need any more natural gas unless we get an export customer. So we've just got to be – it hasn't changed yet.

One data point, Ben, was that the active rig count is still below what it was last year.

Yeah, no, it's the same. Okay, great caller. And on the M&A, you made some comments before, but any thoughts on the current landscape and what about the deals that are crossing your desk these days? What segments are seeing the most seller activity and have you seen any change in the seller expectation given the encouraging signs we see across the industry?

Oh, yeah, that one's all over the map. I can tell you that the industry and our peers, everybody's waiting for that inflection point. And we talked about whether March is going to be sustained or not. And if it is, then I think that would be really supportive for the whole industry. There's no doubt about it. But on the M&A front, once again, we're just Being very, very selective as to which ones fit into our self. You've got to be a self-managed business unit. You've got to be profitable. You've got to be well-run to be added into our group. And so we're being very selective. But that hasn't changed. We've never changed that.

OK.

But there will continue to do M&A. Which ones will we do it in? It depends on what segment. We're happy to do it in any one of the segments, but it has to be the right opportunity. And we love all four segments the same. If we can find a great LTL company, we're going to put it in. And S&I, our door is open, and we talk to a lot of people all the time.

Okay. And just on the CapEx side, it seems to came a little bit lighter in Q1 at 12 million, but Class 8 orders in the U.S. are starting to inflect. So any thoughts on the need or timing to replenish your fleet?

We don't think so. I think we're on target for that. That was a That was a steady-as-you-go kind of a capital CapEx budget. I think what the senior team is talking about here is that I think we're going to know this next quarter. We'll see whether the Canadian economy continues to build momentum. If it does, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't up our CapEx for the last half of the year. but I need to see the Canadian economy being sustainable. We're just on standby, but so far that was a little bit of timing as to when we order and those kind of things, but we're still on target for our CapEx for this year. We'll have more to say on that in our next quarterly call because we will know whether the Canadian economy is really caught, is catching a little bit of a bid here in the second quarter.

Okay, and maybe last one for me very quickly. You mentioned, Marie, that the LTL is still stuck in neutral. What are kind of the key indicators that you're looking at? We've seen capacity tightening in the TL, so is it kind of the signs that you're looking at, expecting that the natural LTL volume will flow back to the LTL market that could provide some help?

Look, I think the LTL is... We tell all our business units is that, look, you can't wait. We'd love to see a nice demand push come. But realistically, there, Benoit, we're really working hard on operational efficiency being the best in the markets that our business units are at and trying to gain market share through efficiency and, as we say, new A to I tools. That's one.

Technology.

Yeah. You know, we... We're working really hard with our business units to make sure that they're gaining market share. If they gain market share, it's because they're the best in the market. We can't rely that the marketplace is going to get significantly better in the short term in our view. So it's still a good business, Benoit. Like LTL is one of our core businesses. But I don't see huge growth, but there's huge opportunities. to run more efficient businesses and that's what we're focused on that's great thank you very much great golf thank you very much thank you the next question comes from tim james from td securities please go ahead morning tim i think good morning thank you very much for your uh for your time

My first question, we touched earlier on the demarketing of customers, noted in a couple of segments. I'm just wondering if it's unusually significant, the demarketing that's sort of been going on since the start of the new year, or is this kind of normal conditions that we would have seen last year or would see on a normal run rate basis?

I think most of the demarketing really happened last year, Tim, and it just showed up in the quarter. Like last year in the energy space, in the production services, we had some big oil companies that wanted us to do it for free.

And we said, the capital market in the quarter four of last year said they don't show up now.

That capital is too expensive to replace. Like you're asking us to do it for nothing. Like give it to somebody else. So Really, it just showed up on a year-over-year comparison basis. I don't think we really demarketed too much in the quarter, per se. Correct.

Prior year.

Yeah, prior year demarketing. There was maybe one, I think, our Highway 9. We demarketed some truckload.

A couple in the LTL space we did. Again, it's unrealistic expectations. And then a couple in the oil patch. But, you know, you backfilled it and Isn't it interesting along the way maybe your margins improve a little bit too? And yeah, so it wasn't significant.

We did do a little bit in container world where anything to do with freight forward and coming across the ocean, you know, some of the, you know, the beverage businesses got very competitive and, you know, some of the product that's coming in from overseas, They wanted you to do it for nothing. Well, we're not doing it for nothing. I mean, you know, so we demarketed a little bit there. You know, we're happy to give all of the underperforming customers and nobody pays to our competitor. Go for it. We don't care.

Okay. So the pace of demarketing then really is slowed down this year. This is primarily a 25 issue. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. For sure. Yeah. And then I was actually going to ask you, you touched on it, the container world, there was some weakness called out in the quarter. Is that primarily what we're talking about, is some of the ocean freight? Like, I'm just wondering what... Yeah, it's about imports coming in. Okay.

And, you know, there's been a buy... I think it's a combination of... Really, there's been this buy Canadian push, which has been really helpful for Canadian producers of wines, of spirits, of beer... at the expense of foreign buyers, whether it's U.S. or international buyers. So, you know, we're busier with some of our local customers, but not so much with the foreign customers. Just as consumers have really gone to buy Canadian, and they're very price sensitive today. And it's expensive to bring stuff in from across the ocean. So I think the foreign... It's working overall, not bad, but it changes your supply chain, and we have to adapt to that.

Okay, that's helpful. Just returning to the strength that you saw in March, and I don't want to beat this one up too much, and I know it's difficult for you to have a lot of confidence in what the implications are from the March strength, but Is one possibility that it was kind of catch up from earlier in the quarter? And so, you know, by the time we get to Q2, we might think of Q1 overall as a bit of a better indicator, or do you feel fairly confident that March strength was more of an indicator of an actual step up in business conditions overall?

I would have said it probably would have been a better indicator, but, you know, once You know, the things happened, you know, over in the Middle East and kind of the disruption in the energy markets that could have an impact around economic activity. I think people are sitting on their hands a little bit. People just don't know how it's going to play out, and uncertainty is not good for capital allocation and for people getting aggressive. So we're just in a wait-and-see to see how that plays itself out. It might push off that economic activity. you know, growth a little bit as people just take a pause here to see what's going on. So, you know, that's what we sense. But we were very optimistic going in. But, you know, this fuel thing scares people. And I don't know if it's headlines or if it's whatever. People are, you know, quite concerned about it. That's what we're hearing. No, I can't tell you. I'll be honest with you, Tim. I cannot tell you whether what we're hearing is the excuse or the reason. I think there's two different outcomes here, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. If they cut back, either as a consumption or in being aggressive on bringing in inventories or in capital deployment, you're going to have the same result. it slows down a little bit. So I see a little bit of a pause, but I think the long-term trend is going to be more March-like. And boy, I'll tell you, if we get a bunch of marches for the rest of this year, we're going to do very well.

Okay, that's helpful. My last question, just around fuel and fuel surcharge revenue, is it reasonable to assume that You know, when we get into Q2, just because of the timing of the increase in fuel prices, that there's a bit more weight there on earnings or drag because of the time lag between fuel surcharge revenue and the expenses. Would it be a bit more of a headwind in Q2 even relative to Q1?

We talk about that here all the time because fuel is our second biggest expense after labour. And so we're on top of it. And I think our business units did a pretty good job of mitigating that rapid rise. It wasn't that fuel went up. It's that it spiked up. And then you're behind the curve on that. But, Karsh, you did some really deep analysis on this. What are we finding?

Yeah, so you kind of have to, you know, take a look at what the fuel surcharge program is. And it's been going on for, obviously, decades. And really the program is set up to reimburse transport companies for the excess cost. So really it's a cost recovery program. The most recent guide that I can give to you is to kind of look back at our 2022 results. So in 2022, obviously we knew that fuel prices spiked due to the conflict in Ukraine with Russia. Normally, our fuel surcharge revenue hovers around $50 million a quarter. Well, back in 2022, that jumped, that spiked up to about $70 million in fuel surcharge revenue per quarter. So up quite significantly. And if you look at the timing, it was almost identical. Both conflicts happened in the month of February. So we saw this little bit of a lag because of fuel surcharge lagging. and it didn't really impact our first quarter results significantly. But then as you look towards the remainder of the year, you know, our fuel as a percentage of revenue went from about 7% at the beginning of the year, which is where it is right now, 7% as a percentage of revenue is what I'm referring to, and by the end of the year it was up at about 10%. So it would not surprise us if that trend holds because, again, In a cost recovery mode, if you're increasing the numerator, which is fuel expense, at the same time you're increasing the denominator, which is surcharge revenue, you're recovering the absolute dollar, but as a percentage of revenue, it goes up. So that's kind of the trend that we're seeing, and just to kind of put some numbers here, March of 2022, we did about $19 million of fuel surcharge revenue in that month. And in March of this year, we did about $22. So we're a bigger company now than we were four years ago. So I would suspect that our new trend is not $50 million a quarter in fuel surcharge revenue. It's going to be north of that, all things considered, if the conflict continues in the Middle East.

I think the other thing that I'll comment about fuel surcharge, Tim, is that fuel surcharge is in response to a fuel price increase. It's not in anticipation of a fuel price increase. So we're always behind the curve on that. But unless the fuel price continues to go up in March, it should be neutral in the second quarter.

Correct. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Once again, if you have a question, please press star 1. The next question comes from Walter Spracklin from RBC. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much. Good morning, afternoon, everyone. Focusing on your outlook for this year and coming back to that question you got there and Just comparing it to where we were three months ago when you set your outlook, I guess I can understand you don't put in the nation building, you don't put in the acquisitions, you don't put in Alaska. But just looking at your commentary, I think clearly you're saying that the outlook is better now than it was then. In your press release, you pointed to market conditions showing signs of improvement, demand holding steady, supply tightening. So it seems that we're hearing all of the same things from your counterparts north and south of the border. So if there is a better top line emerging here, I'm just curious why you wouldn't see that coming through in the bottom line. I don't know if you're suggesting it might be a structural capacity issue or is it just caution right now at this point, but Again, looking back three months ago, I think things seem a lot better now than they were then, and just pressing you a little bit on why you wouldn't change your guidance here for the full year.

Probably because of the spike in fuel and the impact that it might have on the economy and business and consumer psyche. That's probably the number one reason, Walter, that we're just let's just wait and see we don't want to get ahead of our skis on that and uh you know that's something that we hadn't anticipated three months ago i don't think anybody did so um you know nobody knows how what that ultimate outcome will end up being in terms of their i think structurally it was getting a little bit better uh but you know now it's I think people are taking a bit of a pause. Let's see what happens in the second quarter. Then we can talk about the last half of the year. But so far, we came out of the first quarter spot on with what we anticipated. And, you know, March was very nice. And let's see if March continues on. I hope it does. But I have to hedge it by being upfront on... this spike in fuel could impact consumer psyche.

Okay. And then when you look at your M&A strategy and you kind of peek over to the truckload sector, you see a lot more, certainly a bigger rebound going on there. Some of the demand characteristics look a bit better as well. And I know when you focus and zero in on Canada only, there's certainly not as many opportunities specifically in LTL out there. Or are there? Are there enough that you don't need to go to truckload? Or when you peek over there and you see what you're seeing in truckload, does that entice you at all, Murray, to go into that segment at all in Canada? Just curious on how you're looking at that.

Zero chance that we'll go into truckload in Canada. It's not an investable business. It's a job business. Walter, but it's not an investable business from a capital, you know, from a return on capital basis. So we'll focus on where, you know, where it's a little more difficult, where it's these gems that we talk about. We don't go after the rock pile. We go after the gems. We look at where there's opportunity to generate free cash. So you've got to be very thoughtful and, you know, I can just tell you truckload's not where it's at. Now, you might consider the cross-border as a little different animal now, and we've got to think that one through because that market's going to tighten significantly. Any demand push when the U.S. drivers are not going to be readily available to come to Canada, that one could be interesting. We'll watch that one carefully, the cross-border movement.

Okay. Okay, that's great.

I appreciate your time. On the long haul, Walter, we love intermodal long-term. Yes.

Okay. That's great. Thanks very much for the time.

Excellent. Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Mullen for closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us, folks. It's been a full morning already. Everybody's busy. Thanks for everything. We had a pretty good quarter. We were working hard to make sure that we continue to produce great results, and we look forward to chatting with you at the end of September. So thank you for joining us.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.