Secure Waste Infrastructure Corp.

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

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Secure Waste Infrastructure Corp 2025 Q4 and Annual Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in lesson-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star 0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, February 20, 2026. And I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Chad Magus. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning to everyone who is listening to the call. Welcome to Secure Waste Infrastructure Corps' conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. I'm Chad Magus, Chief Financial Officer. And joining me on the call today are Alan Gratch, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Corey Haim, our Chief Operating Officer. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements related to future performance and refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures disclosed by other companies. Forward-looking statements reflect management's current expectations and are based on assumptions that we believe are reasonable. However, actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our press release, management's discussion and analysis and annual financial statements for the year ended December 31st, 2025, all available on CDAR Plus for discussion of these risks and for definitions and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures. Today we'll review our financial and operational results for the three and 12 months ended December 31st, 2025 and provide our outlook for 2026. I will now turn the call over to Alan.

Thanks, Chad. Good morning and thank you for joining today's call. 2025 was a year that clearly demonstrated the resilience, durability, and quality of secure waste management and energy infrastructure business. Despite lower commodity prices, reduced industry activity, and significant volatility across several end markets, we delivered full-year adjusted EBITDA of $501 million, representing 5% growth year over year on a pro forma basis. Just as importantly, we generated strong discretionary pre-cash flow

and continue to execute on our disciplined in how we allocate capital.

We invest where customers need capacity, where returns are attractive, and where projects are supported by long-term contracts or clear demand and market signals. Turning to the fourth quarter specifically, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $135 million, up 15% year over year, and up 24% on a per share basis. This performance reflects contributions from assets placed in service during the year, disciplined pricing across key service lines, and continued optimization across our network, and the benefit of share repurchases. For the full year, we returned $373 million to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. In total, we repurchased nearly 19 million shares at an average price below $15, representing approximately 8% of our outstanding shares. From a growth and investment standpoint, 2025 was an important year. We deployed $138 million of organic growth capital above our original plan of $75 million as customer demand accelerated and project scopes expanded. These investments were primarily directed toward produced water infrastructure in the Montney, as well as industrial waste processing and continued optimization of our metal recycling business. A key milestone during the year was the commissioning of our first two fully contracted produced water disposal facilities in the Montney. online in March. These are long-cycle infrastructure assets supported by strong counterparties and long-term agreements, and they will contribute meaningful to earnings going forward. In metal recycling, 2025 was a difficult year due to the implementation of a 50% tariff by the U.S. on finished steel, which significantly reduced domestic demand in Canada. In response, we repositioned over 90% of our scrap volumes into the U.S. market. This required building new customer relationships, expanding rail capacity, and working through inventory and transportation constraints. While this transition created near-term headwinds, the strategy is now largely in place and positions the business well for improved performance in 2026 as logistic improvements take effect and inventory levels normalize throughout the first half of the year. Before turning the call over to Chad, I want to emphasize that our outlook for 2026 is grounded in what we see and control. While macro conditions remain volatile, our guidance is supported by contracted projects, infrastructure-backed cash flows, and assets that are already built or nearing completion. With that, I'll turn it back over to Chad to walk through the financial results and an important accounting update.

Thanks, Alan. I'll start with a brief review of our financial performance for the fourth quarter and full year. For the fourth quarter, revenue was $372 million, up 10% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $135 million, with margins remaining strong and consistent with our infrastructure-driven model. Funds flowed from operations was $118 million, and discretionary free cash flow was $84 million, supporting continued investment, dividends, and share repurchases. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $501 million, funds flow from operations was $378 million, and discretionary free cash flow was $273 million. While discretionary free cash flow declined modestly year over year, this was primarily due to higher interest expense and cash taxes, and we continued to deliver industry-leading conversion of over 50%. Our balance sheet remains very strong. We ended the year with total debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.1 times, or 1.8 times, excluding leases. During the fourth quarter, we also refinanced a portion of our debt with the issuance of $300 million of senior unsecured notes due in 2032, further extending our maturity profile and enhancing financial flexibility. Turning now to the voluntary accounting policy change we implemented in the fourth quarter related to the presentation of our oil purchase and resale activities and certain commodity-related derivative instruments. Under the updated policy, we now present realized and unrealized gains and losses from physically settled commodity contracts and related derivatives on a net basis within revenue, rather than presenting gross proceeds and offsetting costs. We believe this change better reflects the economic substance of these activities. It also provides financial statement users with a clearer view of Secure's underlying infrastructure-driven earnings and improves the transparency and comparability of our reported results relative to our peers. Importantly, there is no impact to net income, adjusted EBITDA, cash flow, or the statement of financial position for any period. The change affects only the presentation of revenue and cost of sales, and prior periods have been restated for comparability. Finally, in relation to this restatement, and as part of our improving transparency and alignment with our business model, with S&P and MSCI to better reflect our positioning as a waste infrastructure business. With that, I'll turn it over to Corey to review our operational performance.

Thanks, Chad. Operationally, our team has delivered consistent and reliable performance across our 80 location infrastructure network in the fourth quarter throughout 2025, despite a challenging operating environment. Safety and environmental stewardship remain foundational to how we operate. In 2025, we continue to advance our safety performance metrics, invest in environmental controls across our facilities, and strengthen engagement within the communities in which we operate. Sustainability remains embedded in our daily operations and long-term strategic planning. Across the waste management network in 2025, we disposed approximately 95,000 barrels per day of produced water, processed approximately 38,000 barrels per day of liquid waste, recovered roughly 1 million barrels of oil from waste streams, and safely dispose of approximately 3.2 million tons of solid waste. In our energy infrastructure segment, we handle over 133,000 barrels per day of crude oil across 13 terminals and three gathering pipelines. These figures reinforce the scale and critical nature of our platform and the repeatable infrastructure-backed cash flows that underpin our results. Across our waste management network, produced water volumes remain stable, reflecting ongoing production activities. Waste processing, oil recovery, and landfill volumes did see some year-over-year declines, primarily due to reduced exploration activities and lower discretionary spending by our customers. As Alan mentioned, approximately 20% of our business is tied to energy exploration. When WTI oil prices move into the high 50s and low 60s range, we typically see producers become more cautious, slowing discretionary work and pacing activities. That dynamic was evident in 2025 and contributed to volume declines in certain service lines. Importantly, these declines are partially offset by pricing actions, operational efficiencies, and contributions from the new capacity brought online during the year. In energy infrastructure, pipeline and terminaling volumes increased modestly, supported by the Clearwater Terminal expansion and the introduction of emulsion treating capabilities. These assets continue to operate under long-term agreements provide stable fee-based cash flows. From a capital standpoint, we ended the year with a strong portfolio of projects either commissioned or nearing completion. As we think about volumes across the network, it's helpful to consider the broader production backdrop. Western Canadian energy production is expected to grow approximately 2% annually through 2030 and will be enabled by significant investments into LNG projects, petrochemical industry expansions, AI data center build-outs, and baseline energy demand growth. Given the commodity price environment that existed in 2025 and is forecasted into 2026, we believe this is baseline activity and volume for our operating areas due to production profiles and declines in the basin. This gives us a great deal of confidence in the stability of our business, but also emphasizes the future volume growth within our infrastructure as a result of the significant energy investments being made in Western Canada. This growth underscores the importance of network density, pricing discipline, and safe operations. We will continue to optimize performance facility by facility, align capacity with customer demand, and support growth activity, support growth for activity as strongest, while maintaining cost discipline and operational consistency across the system. Our capital deployment continues to be selective and customer driven. For demand exceeds current capacity, we will continue to invest and ensure reliability, and long-term efficiency. These projects are all aligned with customer activity and in many cases supported by commercial agreements that provide visibility into future volumes. With that, I'll turn the call back to Alan for closing remarks.

Thanks, Corey. To wrap up, 2025 reinforced why secure is different.

We are a waste infrastructure business built around long life assets, reoccurring volumes, and disciplined execution. Even in a volatile macro environment, we delivered stable earnings, strong cash flow, and meaningful shareholder returns. Looking ahead to 2026, we are entering a year with solid momentum supported by structural production growth and the densification of our infrastructure network. Canadian crude oil supply is anticipated to increase on average approximately 2.5% per year to 2030, and regulatory-driven reclamation and abandonment programs continue to support reoccurring industrial and landfill volumes regardless of short-term commodity volatility. Additionally, managing significant produced water volumes is a material operational and cost consideration for producers. As water handling remains complex, regulated, and capital intensive, we continue to see a structural shift towards outsourcing, supporting long-term demand for third-party disposal infrastructure. Within the macro backdrop, our strategy remains disciplined. Deploy capital where production is growing, where we can continue to support our customers, and where returns exceed our hurdle rates. Several growth projects advanced in 2025, we will continue to contribute to 2026 results. Metal recycling performance is expected to improve as the logistics normalize, and our core waste network continues to benefit from stable production and industrial activity. For 2026, we are providing adjusted EBITDA guidance of 520 to 550 million. While macro conditions remain uncertain, our guidance is supported by contracted infrastructure, reoccurring production-backed volumes, and assets already built or nearing completion. From a quarterly cadence perspective, we expect the first quarter to be broadly consistent with the fourth quarter of 2025, reflecting similar macro conditions and activity levels. As the year progresses, we anticipate incremental improvement relative to prior year quarters, driven by contributions from projects commissioned in late 2025 and early 26, as well as improving performance in metal recycling as logistics continue to normalize. Our capital allocation priorities for 2026 include investing in high-return infrastructure-backed growth projects, We anticipate spending $75 million in organic growth projects, and we believe we can continue to build on that amount during 2026, including completion of our previously announced projects, incremental water disposal capacity at two existing facilities in the Montney region, and optimization projects and equipment at various facilities, including the investment of a pre-shredding infrastructure for the Edmonton Metal Recycling Facility to enhance throughput and reduce downtime on the mega-shredder. We will also continue to evaluate tuck-in acquisition opportunities that complement our existing business. All of our investing activities, whether organic growth or M&A, will continue to strengthen our core business and create long-term value. Growing our dividend by 5% to 42 cents per share annualized, beginning with the second quarter of 2026 in April. This increase reflects our confidence in the durability of our cash flows and the strength of our balance sheet, while preserving significant financial flexibility to execute on our capital allocation priorities and continuing to grow the dividend over time. Preserving financial flexibility to pursue high-return organic projects and strategic acquisitions in a disciplined and selective manner, focusing on high-quality assets that are strategically aligned creative to cash flow and offering clear integration and synergy potential while continuing to opportunistically buy back shares where we see a meaningful dislocation in our share price. Since renewing our NCIB in December, we have repurchased 1.1 million shares at a weighted average of price of 1710. With the portfolio simplification largely complete and our positioning as a waste infrastructure company firmly established, 2026 will be about execution, consistency, and incremental growth. I want to thank our employees for their hard work and commitment throughout a demanding year and our shareholders for their continued support. That concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we're now happy to take questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star 4 by the 1 on your telephone keypad. And should you wish to cancel your request, please press star 4 by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys.

One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.

Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe the first one on the commodity price. I think there's a clear... evidence of commodity price volatility not having a similar impact on your fundamentals, but the volumes we saw some impact on the waste processing side, as you mentioned. Would you say the impact from those commodity prices be relatively similar on EBITDA as well compared to the volumes, or would it be less?

Morning, Connor.

Yeah, so when we think about the volumes in 2025, when you have a lower commodity price, specifically with debt of the year, you generally see our customers slow down in their activity. That's not a surprise to us. We do have a portion that is centered around the exploration activity. When they slow down, they're going to have less discretionary spending, they're going to do less exploration, and they're going to be focused solely on optimizing their infrastructure. You know, we saw that, you know, on a pro forma basis, we saw that on our landfill volumes specifically tied to that. With that, what I would consider the trough of the cycle, when you look at break evens for not only the Canadian Basin, but in the US, I mean, you're in the 50s, mid 50s. And so when you get a, you know, a high $50 WTI price, low 60, you know, you can imagine that, you know, they're optimizing what they currently are producing. And so when I think about EBITDA and where EBITDA kind of changed year over year, I mean, it's reflective of the pricing increases we did in Q4 of 2024. And we saw that contribute in 2025. And then we came out with some price increases in Q4 this year as well, which will contribute to EBITDA growth in 2025, 2026. So, yeah, so I think, you know, generally, and I'll maybe pass it over to Corey to give you a little bit more intel on the volume space. start 2026.

Yeah, Konark, you know, volumes in 25 reflected everything Alan just mentioned around lower exploration activities and decrease in discretionary spend, but that production-based volumes, which is really the backbone of our network, remained pretty stable, specific to produce water volumes at about 95,000 barrels per day in the quarter. It truly reflects the resilience of the production-based volumes in our network, and And when you do get into that mid-50s, you're starting to lose some of those services. But that's exactly what we would expect in that 20% of EBITDA that is tied to exploration-linked services. So these volumes that we saw in the $50 WTI environment, we see these as close to baseline volumes. So it just gives us a lot of confidence in the stability of the business as we look forward.

Thanks for that. On the metal recycling side, it sounds like your additional rail cars helped you broaden the reach to the U.S. market. I think I heard 90% of the volumes are now going to the U.S. In 2026, as things probably stabilize from an inventory perspective, Do you see some sort of, you know, balance into the green market or you're still kind of waiting for clarity given the tariff situation here?

Yeah, Konark's Corey again. You know, I would characterize the back half of 2025 as performing through some volatility. As you mentioned, we shipped 90% of our volume to Canadian-based mills up until middle of 2024. We had to pivot pretty quickly. to find new markets. And through Q3 into Q4, we shipped all of that volume or 90% of the volume into US markets. And the investments that we made in the rail cars through 2025, and we took on an additional 50 rail cars in Q4 has helped to normalize our logistics and help us work through the inventory that had built in the back half. So we see that inventory that was built sort of get back to normal levels by the end of the second half, beginning of the end of the first half of 2026. And this improvement is a combination of both just normalized throughput and better operating efficiencies. But we don't really have any sort of clear expectations when Canadian mills are going to get it back up and running. It really depends on Canadian steel manufacturing and federal government projects. We're pretty comfortable with the rail car movements and logistics into the U.S. mills, and we're obviously keeping our finger on the pulse of all the developments in that market.

That's great, and last one for me before I turn over. On the CAPEX side, I think you guys pulled forward some CAPEX in December on the two produce water facilities you're building. Any sense as to, you know, what led you to do that? I mean, was it more required based on demand or was just the timing of the activity levels, et cetera? And then are you waiting for any incremental growth prospects subject to green lighting by any of your customers?

It's Alan here. Yeah, so let's start with 2025. And I think we came out last year when we put out our guidance. We announced that our capital program was $75 million and it would grow. I would say that similar situation exists for 2026. As you progress through the year, as you're talking with your customers, you're working through your engineering and your scoping. And so it's of projects in the hopper that we continue to work through this quarter and through the rest of the year. So you'll see updates every quarter as these projects get closer to what we call sanctioned and get board approval on, we will announce. When I think about what we wanted to spend, obviously we raised our 75 in 2025 to 125. And that was primarily consisted of these two both of them in the Montney. One of them came online in Q4. The other one's going to come online here very shortly. There's very little capital we've spent on that project here in 2026. We also have Redwater phase one and phase two, and we decided to do it all as one tranche. But I would characterize it as the phase one is now completing now, and part of our capital program here in 2026 is completing that phase two. So that has industrial facility, which will come online in Q2. And then we bought some rail cars and equipment. And so the pre-investment, this $13 million that we invested in December, it was primarily access to equipment. You know, things are tied up long term. And if you can get access to equipment to be able to access and drill these disposal wells. So we drilled two disposal wells in December, got access. We were planning on doing it in Q1. So it helps. advance getting those wells drilled already. And so there will be a pipeline and basically some other infrastructure and equipment required to tie all that in. And we'll provide more clarity throughout 2026 as we get there. But essentially, you know, I think, you know, we were very successful, 125 million capital deployment, you know, very contract backed. And then as we think about, you know, the program here for 2026, got two expansions and then we we've invested in some uh pre-shed pre-shred equipment so this would go in front of the mega shredder in edmonton and the purpose of that is just to run through some some of the scrap material in advance of it hitting in the mega shredder we want to make sure whatever goes into the shredder has already been processed to a certain point where it does or maintenance because of a large piece or because of certain components that might make their way in. So we're pretty excited about the growth opportunities. I said the hopper is quite large here for us as we think about 2026 and more to come on that as we progress through the year.

Yes, and that's helpful. Thank you so much and all the best for the 26th. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for the time. I know it's not disclosed specifically, but can you just make like really rough magnitudes in terms of how big of a hit the metals business took in 25 on an EBITDA basis? Like was it down 10%, 20%? We just want to get a rough flavor of magnitude as we think about the recovery.

Yeah, so on the metals business, I think there's a couple things that we work through. You know, we were obviously repositioning some of our what we call hub and spokes. So we were moving some of our metal products. into Edmonton to utilize the mega shredder. So we had some synergies that we were working on in integration. At the same time, we had to balance that with, you know, some rail cars that we needed to move that product into the U.S. And so I would say, you know, roughly, you know, 10 to 15%. would have been impacted by not only what we saw in Q3 and partly into Q2 as well, but really, you know, we were building inventory and then you've got transition time that takes you from, you know, your cycle time of what you can get your inventory processed and through into the U.S. just over 30 days. And as we've said in the past, we don't like taking commodity risk. We want to process our inventory and ship it out on a 30-day basis. And so that's what Corey and his team are going to work on here through 2026. We're in a slower period for metals in the winter month as spring hits and you start to see more scrap metal roll into the yards. We want to make sure we've got our logistics balanced and at the same time monitor the Canadian market to see whether or not these mills are going to get operational again. And there will be some opportunities for us there. But I would say that that would be my rough estimate of the magnitude. And so we'll get some of that back here into 2026, which is great.

That's great, Colin. I appreciate that. As it happens, copper and some of these other metals have rallied quite nicely in the meantime, so perhaps there's some benefit there. Just wanted to circle back to Conor's earlier question around the volume side. And it's more just that recognizing you've already been given some pretty good color so far. But, you know, how have you seen the pattern shift, if at all, as we started into 26 here? Crude's not at 50 anymore. So I'm trying to get a sense of you're starting to see that recovery and activity take place. Or is it probably more of, you know, maybe a second or third quarter type benefits?

Yeah, I think if we can see sustained mid-$60 TI, we'll see some slow improvements. But right now, you know, we're a month into 2026. There hasn't been a whole lot of change from the activity levels that we saw in Q4.

Okay, very helpful, guys. Appreciate that. Thanks.

Thank you.

And your next question comes from the line of Arthur Nagourney from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good morning. Maybe just starting with the 2026 adjusted EBITDA guide, can you maybe give us some perspective on what your assumptions might look like between the high and the low ends of the range?

Yeah, good morning, Arthur. It's Chad here.

Yeah, it's a similar range size to last year, and when we take a look at the macro and all of our different service lines of what can change obviously you know what we've seen in the past and that we are still um i'd say have a a little uncertainty around it is just metals um uh operations and what happens there with tariffs and and and how we've been able to uh acquire more rail cars and the logistics around that and even if we could acquire more rail cars um you know that can help in field activity is the biggest impact, especially with new drilling and completion activities that can have an impact. Obviously, we saw that decline in 2025, so that obviously can swing the ultimate range of what we come in at.

Yeah, I mean, so right now we're at the midpoint, and I think all signs are pointing to a very similar first half. 2026 to the back half of 2025. So you're going to have that kind of being consistent. I do think a lot of our customers, they came out with their budgets in December and a lot of them are calling for 3% to 5% growth. And a lot of them have planned out what they wanted to do with Q1 and Q2. So even though you've seen the uptick in the commodity, it doesn't really change what they planned on doing. I think that's more of a back half story. So I think depending on where we see that going, they can make changes and shifts in what they want to do in Q3 and Q4. That's primarily you get out of spring breakup and they can start to get access to some of these locations and we'll see activity pick up. And that's our expectation. And so you'll see us go above that midpoint when that activity level starts to percolate. And so we'll have more clarity on that as we get through Q1 and get into in the back half of 2026.

All right, that's helpful. And then I believe you mentioned you took some price near the back half of last year. Have you completed your pricing discussions already for 2026? And if so, can you give us an idea of kind of what that looks like across the business lines?

Yeah, we have had multiple discussions with our customers. I mean, when you look at inflation in Canada, it was up over 3%. A lot of our price increases on one, you want to cover your, you know, inflationary costs, but also, you know, we We want to make sure that we're cognizant of where our customers are at. And so it was a bit of a balanced approach, I would say, in Q4. And we were selective on certain service lines where we felt like we needed to increase prices more significantly. And it was a lot of detailed conversations with our customers, but we did manage to get that done in Q4. We don't plan on doing anything in the near term here. I think all those discussions have been settled. For us right now, our primary focus is on operations, getting this facility commissioned here in the next couple of weeks in the Montney, and then obviously turning our attention to some other growth projects and some tuck-in M&A. I think I've talked about M&A in the past. There's a few more metal recycling locations we're looking at, and so that might come have some other complementary businesses that I think would fit well into Secure's network. And so we're looking at those as well. And so you'll see a balance of our focus on some of the growth capital, but also on some of this tuck-in M&A that we think could be very complementary to 2026 and 2027.

Got it.

And then maybe on the metals recycling business, you mentioned the kind of inventory that you're working through, given the disruption. from last year. And just wondering kind of, I guess, where you're at with that. And maybe as a follow-up, I think near the end of the year, the Canadian government announced some measures to support the Canadian market. So just wondering if you're seeing any improvements in the domestic market yet, and maybe how you're thinking about your go-forward position in giving some of these changes.

Yeah, a couple of questions there. The first one would be your really around how are we working through our inventory. As I mentioned previously, I think we'll get through back to normal inventory levels and inventory turns by the midpoint of this year. So everything's going to plan. With respect to what are we seeing in the Canadian markets, we haven't seen much demand pull into the Canadian mills as of yet. There has been small orders here and there. But I think what we've done in our business with the rail car infrastructure, when and if there are buy signals from Canadian mills, we are well positioned to ship to Canadian mills as well as the U.S. mills. So now we have a lot of outlets for that scrap.

So we feel very comfortable where we're at today. All right. And then last question for me.

Just curious. how the specialty chemicals business did in Q4, if you can give some perspective on maybe volume or pricing, or revenue, sorry.

Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, on the specialty chem side, you know, we're continually seeing, you know, more of our production chemistry companies being really a useful tool specifically on the paraffins, on the wax side of things. And so we've got quite a few programs now where we're assisting some of our customers with taking some of that wax out of their production streams. And so we saw a continuation of that in Q4. That's a patent that we do have that we're quite happy to promote with our customers. Activity levels, I would say Q3 over Q4 were relatively similar on the fluids and the equipment side. It wasn't really much of a change. I think it was really just as expected of what our customers wanted to do in the last quarter. But I would say we got the benefit on the production chemistry side, and that side continues to perform very, very well as we roll out some of the new emulsion breakers and scale and that seems to be going very, very well. I don't know, Chad, do you want to add anything?

Yeah, just looking at kind of year over year again, I think similar to what Alan said, just probably up a couple percent Q4 versus Q4 of the prior year.

I think you would have also noticed as well, we had disclosed this lawsuit that we have with CES and And really, we're at the point now where it's gone through the federal courts and the Supreme Court recently concluded that we own this patent. And, you know, we we put into our disclosure the potential claim of a hundred million. And that's really based off of this goes back to 2018 and really the sale that relates directly the sale of flu. well as, you know, did you get the work because of that patent? And so the $100 million claim, I think that's something we're going to pursue here over the next couple of years. And it's really going to go back to what will the courts do in terms of the timing of when that patent was concluded as secures, as well as are we including just the sale of the patent or also

That's also ongoing. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of John Gibson from BMO Capital Markets.

Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just in terms of the growth capex for 26, how much of it will be focused on your energy and markets versus more of the metals, recycling, conventional waste businesses? And is this mix materially different than last year?

No, the mix will be relatively similar. I think it's primarily weighted to our waste management business. On the metal side, we're calling it around the $10 million level. We've got the pre-shred and some equipment, and then we've been leasing some rail cars. But primarily it's related to waste expansion at our facilities. You know, when you look at certain areas like the Maundy, it's busier. We haven't spent a lot on expansion capital here over the last few years. A lot of the capital we've directed more in closer to production areas. within a specific customer. And so this is now looking at some of our facilities where we're getting to the point where it's almost a bottleneck and we need to expand to allow more volumes to come in. And so you see a little bit more of expansion capital in 2026, just because we're at that point in certain facilities that will need that required capital.

Okay, got it. Just in regards to your move, to ship steel products to the U.S., what is the incremental cost on doing so? And I guess you mentioned the business was impacted by roughly 15%. Just wondering how much of this you can recapture with these improved logistics if volumes are similar.

Yeah, good morning, John. There is obviously an incremental cost. It's just moving it further by rail. However, we've been able to recoup some of that by getting a better price by having a bigger market to ship it to. I think when you net those two, there's maybe been a percent margin erosion, but we're continuing to work with markets to try to improve that.

What was the second part of the question? No, that's great. That answers it. I appreciate it. Alternate packs. Thank you.

Thank you.

And your next question comes from the line of Maxim Sidchev from National Bank Capital. Marker, please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. I had one quick follow-up on metals recycling, if I can. There was some speculation that perhaps some of the tariffs would be, you know, rolled back and administration sort of walked that down. But in case of the were to happen, can you maybe walk through how much of a tailwind that could be for the overall business right now you have fully built out the capacity in the US and Canada, obviously on the metal side of things. Thank you.

Morning, Max. Yeah, I think, you know, we've been monitoring what's been happening in the US and we've got a lot of relationships with a lot of the mills. And we figured out the turnaround times and logistics for our rail cars. And so, you know, if the Canadian market remains challenged, that's really giving us a competitive advantage over our, you know, our competitors here in Western Canada. A lot of them don't have rail cars, which we do. And so the fact that we're already 90% gives us that competitive edge. And you know, from our standpoint, when we factor in the additional transportation costs to, you know, to obviously get the scrap further down into the U.S. markets, we have to, you know, reduce the price that we're willing to pay across the scale because we want to maintain our margin spread. And so, you know, from our perspective, at some point that will turn where you're going to see, you know, that inventory that we may have paid a lower value for being realized in the shipping cost is going to go down and you're going to realize some of that. I think that's kind of what you're driving at. Difficult to predict. I mean, it's just been, you know, we haven't seemed to make any ground on where we're going to go with the tariffs here in the US. And so our focus is really about getting the scrap in, getting it processed efficiently and turning it around into the US. I mean, this whole electric arc furnace change has been substantial, but demand for scrap, we've seen it And I think Steve made the comment just on the commodities on copper on the non-fair side is very strong. And I think even on the fair side, we're just seeing more and more demand for it from our perspective. And so I think the market is getting very, very robust, which is really, really good. And I think there will be a moment in time here as things play out where I think some of the things will be on the benefit of our side as we think about inventory levels and how activity is going to progress throughout 2026.

Excellent call. Thank you so much. That's it for me.

Thank you. And your last question comes from the line of Konak Gupta from Scotiabank.

Please go ahead.

Thanks for excusing me. Just a few follow-ups. On the tuck-ins, I just wanted to clarify, the EBITDA guidance, the range does not embed any of the tuck-ins that you might do this year, right? That's correct.

Yeah. No, it does not. It does not prevent any tuck-ins at this point. And that's something that, because you never really know if you can get to a definitive agreement and get everything tied up the way you want. So, you know, as that progresses and as we get potential opportunities coming across our desk, that's when we'll, you know, start thinking about, okay, what is this going to contribute to 26? So we, I guess, long story short, we'll provide guidance when that, Okay, great.

Thanks. And on the cash flow side, I don't think I heard too much today. So just in terms of any outlook for ranges, etc. I mean, EBITDA at the midpoint is up 35, I think, and CapEx, total CapEx is down about 65. So that's 100 together. I mean, should we simply add that 100 to the cash flow or should we consider any of the factors this year, like taxes, etc.? ?

Yeah, I mean, I would say the remaining items will be relatively in line with what we saw in 2025. I think, obviously, cash interest will change a little bit depending on our leverage ratio. And then cash taxes, we're still kind of in a transition year in 2025, so it'll be slightly higher as a percent if you look at it, I guess, on adjusted EBITDA, slightly higher in 2026. but still probably not above that $60 million mark for the full year. And then when we just look at the conversion ratio, we're still going to come out higher than 50% discretionary free cash flow conversion from adjusted EBITDA.

That's helpful. Thanks. And last one, on the GICs, I heard you guys talked about the S&P and MSCI discussions. I mean, with the accounting change, I mean, that reduces a substantial portion of your sort of commodity revenue, right? And what would be some of the gigs options that might be available to you? I mean, like, I know you cannot choose, but, you know, what you might qualify for, do you know, at this point?

Yeah, thanks, Clark. Yeah, good question. It's in the past. You know, we can make certain recommendations, but obviously they ultimately decide. But it'll definitely, it should result in a change. Next steps will be, you know, all of our information will be updated. I definitely think they will change it. Don't know how long it will take to change it. But, I mean, more of an industrial-type GIX code. There is, when you look at all the different waste piers, there is a number. we think any of those would be more relevant than where we are today.

I think too, this accounting change will be very helpful for investors and shareholders. I think when you go on Bloomberg and you're looking at our financials, you're now looking at all of the margins are, you know, where they need to be. And, you know, we've got the highest margins out of all of our waste peers. We've got the highest discretionary precast low per share return on capital. You know, we've increased the dividend as well. I'm just showing that, you know, you come out of a trough year like 2025 and we've got the conviction to not only push up the dividend, we've been buying back stocks is showing that the value of the business is, is, There's more to go. And when we compare to some of our waste peers and you look at some of these key metrics, we stack up very, very well. So we're pretty excited. We're happy that we came off of 2025 and here we go in 2026.

So that's a lot. Yeah. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. That ends our question and answer session. I want to hand the call back to Alan Crunch for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you for your time today and your continued support of SECURE. We look forward to talking with you again at the end of April with our Q1 results.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. May we all disconnect.