Stella-Jones Inc.

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Stella Jones' third quarter of 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in lesson-only mode. Following the presentation, we will hold a question and answer session. To queue up for questions by phone, please press star 1 and a moderator will contact you. If anyone experiences difficulties hearing the conference call, please press star 0 for operator assistance at any time. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded on Wednesday, November 5, 2025. I will now turn it over to David Callison, Vice President, Investor Relations of Stella Jones. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ina, and good morning, everyone. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release reporting our results for the third quarter of 2025. Along with our MD&A, it can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.stella-jones.com, as well as on CDAR+. As a reminder, all figures expressed on today's call are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated. Please note that our comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking information, and this information, by its nature, is subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on these risks and uncertainties, please consult the company's relevant filings on CDAR+. The documents are also available in the investor relations section of Stella Jones website at www.stella-jones.com. Additionally, during this call, the company may refer to non-GAAP measures. which have no standardized meaning under GAAP and are not likely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other issuers. For more information, please refer to the company's latest MD&A available on Stella Jones website and on CDAR+. Lastly, we have prepared a corresponding presentation, which we encourage you to follow along with during this call. I'll now hand the call over to Eric Vachon, President and Chief Executive Officer of Stella Jones, for a strategic business update, followed by Silvana Trapolini, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Stella Jones, who will provide a more detailed financial overview of the quarter. Eric, over to you.

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. First, as some of you who are joining us virtually may have noticed, Stella Jones recently unveiled a new brand platform. This includes not only a refreshed look and feel, but also an update brand positioning to make Stella Jones the backbone of solid infrastructures for stronger communities across the continent. We are thrilled with this new brand platform, which aligns seamlessly with our focus on building a strong, agile business and on being a partner of choice to our infrastructure customers. Our results reported today reflect another successful quarter supported by the continued strong execution across our businesses. Our Q3 results benefited from the organic sales growth of our pressure treated wood businesses, as well as the contribution of our steel structure division, formerly known as Lockwell. Particularly noteworthy is the continued improvement in volume momentum for utility poles. we remain encouraged that this positive trend will continue and be sustained going forward. Although railway tie sales did not increase as anticipated, the company generated more EBITDA and maintained strong EBITDA margins and cash flows. This allowed us to reduce our leverage to 2.2 times and further enhance our financial flexibility to support ongoing strategic initiatives. The integration of our steel structures product category into our business, and operational investments into the production capacities are well underway, having committed the majority of the planned $15 million capital. We remain on track to complete the expansion by mid-2026, with production ramping up in the second half of the year. We remain well positioned, as quoting is very active for long-term contracts to fill the expanded capacity for major North American transmission projects. Consistent with our focus on creating long-term shareholder value, we were pleased to announce the closing of the Brooks acquisition, which further expands our product offering as we leverage our extensive sales and distribution network to better support the needs of our utility customers. This acquisition provides us with a presence in the wood distribution cross arm and transmission framing component markets, aligning with our vision to make Stella Jones a partner of choice to our infrastructure customers. We look forward to welcoming into our team the group at the Brooks facility as we continue to focus on enhancing growth through acquisitions as a cornerstone of our value creation strategy. I'm pleased to share that we published our latest ESG report in September, highlighting meaningful progress in our sustainability journey across the organization. Notably, we obtained limited assurance of our scope one and scope two greenhouse gas emissions, an important milestone in our commitment to transparency and accountability. We also advanced on our GHG reduction roadmap, launching several impactful projects aimed at lowering emissions throughout our network, such as the integration of heat recovery vents or real-time energy monitoring at select facilities. I want to thank our team for their dedication and hard work in driving these initiatives forward and helping us build a more sustainable future. I will now turn to a performance overview of our main product categories, starting with utility poles. As you are aware, a large part of our business is contractual. and our strong network and focus on quality have helped us secure additional contracts, which we are now starting to benefit from. Our volume growth this quarter is coming from these new contracts, while we continue to see softness in the spot market. Given the additional industry supply, the slower demand has continued to impact spot pricing, which have remained below levels realized in 2024. For the full year, our utility pole sales growth outlook is expected to be in the low single digit range versus 2024. The pipeline of opportunities for volume growth in the utility pole business remains strong and continues to be key for Stella Jones. While the pace of investments will continue to be influenced by our customers capital deployment strategies, we have positioned the business well. to benefit from meaningful investments required by utilities to replace aging infrastructures and increasing grid resiliency. For railway ties, volumes in the third quarter continue to be impacted by a class one customer treating their railway ties internally, as well as a lower than expected increase in commercial volumes. While commercial orders have been helping close the gap in volumes, delays in certain project starts are pushing deliveries into next year. As a result, we now expect a larger volume shortfall to act as a headwind for the remainder of the year, and we are now forecasting a mid-single digit year-over-year decline in railway ties. Despite the lower volumes, our teams have worked diligently to improve margins and profitability. Once we reset this year with the lower external purchase from our Class 1 customer, we continue to expect our railway-type business to achieve a low single-digit sales growth. We remain confident that we can leverage our upcoming Class 1 contract renewals and our customer relationships to develop potential solutions addressing the evolving needs, allowing us to capture a larger share of the industry's volume. The residential lumber business performance was solid with similar quarterly volumes as last year and better pricing in response to higher cost of inventory. In the fourth quarter, we will be focused on building inventory and working to support customers as we see good momentum going into 2026. We continue to anticipate sales in this product category to trend in the 600 to 650 million target range over the long term. As we entered the last quarter of 2025, we are maintaining our financial objective for the year and remain confident in the long-term sales growth trajectory of our infrastructure product categories. The disciplined execution of our strategy will serve us well as our team remains engaged and dedicated to delivering strong customer and shareholder value. With that, I will ask Silvana to provide a more detailed overview of our third quarter financial results.

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. Sales for the third quarter were up 2% organically compared to the prior year quarter, driven by higher infrastructure volumes, primarily for utility poles. Including the contribution from the Lockwell acquisition, total sales were up 5% or $43 million compared to Q3 last year. Led by higher volumes, EBITDA increased to $171 million, and we continued to deliver a solid EBITDA margin of 17.8%. For utility polls, we generated $480 million in sales in the third quarter, up from $448 million in the same period in 2024. The pace of purchases of some utilities improved, and we benefited from new contracts secured last year. Volumes in the quarter were up 5%. Partially offsetting these volume gains was a 3% decline in pricing, largely driven by ongoing pricing pressures in the spot market. Our utility pulse sales also benefited from a full quarter contribution and better-than-expected sales volume from our steel structure business, whose results are reported in the utility pulse product categories. Sales of railway ties were up $6 million this quarter to $211 million, all attributable to better pricing. Commercial volumes were higher this quarter, but not enough to offset lower Class 1 volumes, which continued to be negatively impacted by a Class 1 customer now treating railway ties at their company-owned facilities. Despite relatively unchanged volume, pricing for ties improved by 2%, supporting margins in the quarter. Residential lumber sales increased to $201 million in Q3 2025 compared to $191 million in the third quarter last year. The increase reflects higher pricing supported by elevated inventory costs from purchases made earlier in the year. Demand levels were largely unchanged from the same period last year. Turning now to profitability. The business continued to generate strong EBITDA and EBITDA margin, reflecting the resilience and strength of our business. EBITDA in Q3 rose by $9 million to $171 million, largely explained by higher sales volume, partially offset by lower pricing, particularly for utility poles. EBITDA margin came in at 17.8% for the quarter and 18.5% year-to-date, excluding an insurance settlement gain. During the quarter, cash generated from operating activities was $198 million compared to $186 million in Q3 last year. Strength in cash generation benefited from a reduction in inventory as we continued to focus on optimizing inventory levels. We expect to end the year with lower inventories. Our prudent and balanced approach to capital allocation provides us with the financial flexibility to pursue strategic growth opportunities as well as return capital to shareholders. Over the last 12 months, we generated cash from operations of over $500 million, allowing us to invest approximately $90 million in a business acquire Lockwell and return approximately $145 million to shareholders with the remaining capital used to reduce our net funded debt. As at the end of September, we had returned $454 million to shareholders out of the $500 million committed for the 2023 to 2025 period through dividends and share buybacks. And yesterday, our board of directors approved a quarterly dividend of 31 cents per share. Our business is highly cash generative, and we continue to view share buybacks as a valuable capital allocation tool, which is why our board of directors had the confidence to authorize a new normal course issuer bid for share purchases for the upcoming year, which we announced in a dedicated press release earlier today. Stella Jones is authorized to repurchase up to 1.5 million common shares for the period starting November 14, 2025 and ending November 13, 2026, representing approximately 2.7% of the common shares outstanding. We ended the year with $780 million in available liquidity and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.2 times down from the 2.4 times at the end of last quarter. In summary, we are pleased with our results for the quarter, which highlight the breadth of our network, as well as the strength of our business and of our teams. Our healthy financial position and strong cash generating ability allows us to continue moving our value creation strategy forward with both organic and inorganic investments. Stella Jones is well positioned for continued growth and success. I will now turn the call back to Eric for his concluding remarks.

Thank you, Silvana. To put our results in perspective, we had a very good quarter as stronger utility pole volumes help offset lower than expected railway tie volumes and margins remain strong overall. We generated good free cash flow and lowered our leverage while continuing to invest in our business. As we move into the final quarter of the year, our guidance for the year remains intact and we are encouraged by the progression we are seeing in our business. Additionally, we look forward to sharing our updated views on the opportunities ahead at our upcoming Investor Day on November 20th to be held in Toronto. Before I conclude, I would like to welcome our two new board members, René Laflamme and Sean Donnelly, whose wealth of experience and perspective will strengthen our board and support the company's long-term success. René brings over 25 years of experience in financial services and insurance with a strong track record of introducing change and innovation to create value, including digital transformation and artificial intelligence. Sean's tenure as president and CEO at ArcelorMittal DeFasco, his experience in metallurgical engineering, as well as his experience on the board of a utility company, will provide valuable insight. This concludes today's prepared remarks. I will now open the line for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to queue up for questions by phone, please press star, then the number one. And if you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Tafomi from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Michael. Eric or Silvana, there were some minor changes in the language around 2025's outlook commentary for utility pools in the MD&A. You're saying ex-Lockwell, you're now calling for marginal year-over-year growth in utility pools for the full year. I don't think the language was sort of quite framed like that last quarter. So I guess the question is, is there a change in your views around the full year expectation for growth in pools that marginal Year-over-year growth, is that consistent with last quarter or has there been a bit of a change there? Just not clear to me.

Thank you, Michael, for the question. If I look back, last time we reported results, our H1 views were that we were behind in the first half of the year on volumes for utility poles and that we would have some positive momentum in that year to finish more or less flat. Now, as we look at our results in the third quarter and looking at the pickup in momentum and volume demand, we think for the year we'd be slightly up. So obviously a low single digit in H2 that more than offsets the H1 lower volumes, if that's helpful for you.

Yeah, no, that's helpful. So it sounds like a little bit of an improvement. So would that then mean you're still on track and expecting to get back to that? mid single-digit utility pools organic growth by year-end 2025 as you had previously expected?

Yes, sir. Exactly. Okay.

And then maybe just one more here on polls. I think in the commentary, Silvana just talked about the pace of purchases of some utilities improved, but you're still calling out in the MD&A macroeconomic challenges. you did see some continued pricing pressure in the spot market. So it sounds like there's sort of different dynamics at play, some of which are a little more encouraging and again, then, you know, still calling out some challenges. So, I mean, notwithstanding your answer to the earlier questions about a slight uptick in your expectations for the year, can you try to frame up sort of what you're seeing in the market now and, and, know how you think about uh some of the things that were holding utilities back previously in the spot market pricing pressure like when we can kind of overcome some of that and and start to see more of the positive side of what you're describing uh really come through here right okay thank you michael so as a rinder for for everyone you know 75 of our total utility pole sales are under long-term contracts and the other 25 is uh in the spot market and

The dynamics that we're seeing currently in the market for pricing are in that 25% category, which is, again, the spot market business. There is still some spotty demand in certain areas in North America. There is healthy inventory levels. So we are seeing, as a whole, some pressure on pricing in the market. So that's when we compare 2024 to 2025. So far this year, you know, if you compare the trend quarter to quarter in 2025, it has more or less stabilized. So happy to see that sort of leveling off if you want. And then, you know, we'll see how that overall market demand trends into next year. We are very fortunate that, you know, we're seeing this volume increase that I was talking about into your previous question be within our long-term contract customers. So obviously, We have a very long list of great customers that are the North American utilities and those who have the long-term contracts, as far as we can observe, have been deploying capital strategically for the infrastructure upgrade or grid upgrade, if you want.

can't say that it's moving that fast across the entire um the uh the the entire industry but i do believe that you know there is some positive momentum to come here for the whole industry coming into 26 and 27. okay that's very helpful and maybe just one last one uh just as it relates to the the spot market pricing pressures um based on the visibility you have like do you expect to see ongoing pricing pressure in that market for some some period of time here is there any is there any kind of light at the end of the tunnel as to when we could kind of whether it's the comps getting easier or there were some of the improvements you know in the industry maybe excess inventory getting soaked up etc like is there any visibility on that or should we be assuming continued spot market pricing pressure for some time well you know

it's it's difficult to predict you know i think what's encouraging as i described if i look at you know q1 q2 and q3 of this year you know we've seen that pressure subside and flatten so hopefully that is the the lower level of of where we stand today um and obviously you know it's you know we're normalizing, I guess, versus 2024. So now we're, we're now at, I would say hopefully a healthy run rate and, you know, any uptick in demand would just help that dynamic going forward. I guess something else to keep in mind without going too much into the weeds is what are the type of products our customers are looking for. So I have mentioned in previous calls, you know, as we, we look at the demand profile over time. Our customers are demanding or ordering more and more larger size bowls, which are harder to procure, harder to find. And then again, there's where our customers can find what they need at Stella Jones versus an operation that has one facility and one procurement team and that is, you know, in a given geographical area, doesn't have the access or the network we have as a company with the breadth of our network. So I guess that is also, I guess, potentially something that would be good for us going forward because we do have access to, you know, large quantities of inventories with, you know, profiles of poles that are what our customers are looking for.

Perfect. I will turn it over. Thank you. Thank you, Michael.

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

Hey, thanks for having me on. I had a question on the railway tie segment. You kind of flagged some potential share gain into 2026. Can you just talk about what's driving that? And then just as a quick follow up there, can you just talk about where you're at in terms of renewing some of these railway tie contracts and potentially passing on a higher price?

Yeah, so obviously, I guess one of the comment is, if I understand your question, with the pullback of a given class one is now treating at their own treating facilities, it's a reset this year. So going forward, as we conclude 2025, I would expect 2026 to resume our low single digit sales increases. We are looking at the contract renewals right now with a few class one customers. So two things there, obviously each time we have an opportunity to renegotiate our long-term contracts, you know, we're always, you know, shooting shooting for the most volume we can get from them and i think what we need to do it's not you know it's the service that we do is the quality of the product but it's also how we can help them solve certain of their of their needs maybe logistically uh you know maybe with with new services so we're definitely looking into opportunities you know from that perspective um And then with regards to price increases, I think we've been clear in previous calls that we are coming to the table and discussing with our customers to find mechanisms to adjust the pricing and ensure we preserve or improve margins over time. Obviously, as you can understand, customers never want to pay more for the product, so we need to come up with a value proposition. And our whole team is very much focused on that aspect and seeing how we can be that go-to supplier, I guess, for the rail infrastructure business.

And then I think there was four contracts that were coming up for renewal. Is that still the case or have any of those been negotiated recently?

Yes, still four that are outstanding. One might get just renewed for a one-year period. Obviously, I don't want to start calling out names, but yes, we're still discussing with all four customers. Some of them are later into next year, so some of them are well-advanced and some of them are really preliminary as we're positioning ourselves, but I guess it'll be an ongoing topic here through 2026.

okay appreciate the color there and then just one more on the the railway tie segments then i can turn the line over um just on cn's lowered capex you know they meaningfully reduced their their capex uh you know when they reported q3 results um you know it seemed to be that the maintenance would be intact which i assume is where the ties um you know would fall in that that would impact your business but any uh

risk there to your tie outlook into 26 on the back of that uh announcement for from canadian national and uh i'll turn the line over after that thank you thank you uh thank you james so you know with regards to the cn you know we're we've obviously done all our work you know planning next year's program volumes are similar year over year so we're not impacted by this I guess, this capex reduction announcement. So we're definitely, you know, part of that maintenance piece of it. And, you know, our discussions with the CN just are reflecting flat volumes year over year.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Benoit Perriere from Desjardins. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, Eric. Good morning, Silvana. Just to come back on the railway ties questions, obviously, any thoughts about the non-class one customers these days and what do you foresee from those segments?

You know, I think we had a reasonably good year for an industry as far as the demand goes. You know, we have a certain, you know, Contracts or POs or bids that we know we have in hand that we're seeing the delivery dates being pushed now into next year. I'd like to think that we're past the comments or review by the US federal government on different programs. If you remember in H1, there were a lot of reviews on different subsidy programs and things of the like. created a bit of uncertainty as far as the funding for our, I guess, you know, the short lines in particular, I think that's behind us. So I'm actually feeling positive about what's coming, you know, in 2026. With regard to that, that having resumed. Yeah, that would be my comment there.

Okay. Looking at utility, Eric, American Electric Power and Qantas Services unveiled this morning a $72 billion partnership on a transmission extension. I was just wondering, given you're obviously well-connected, well-positioned with the utilities, is it something that we might see down the road from you guys?

Meaning as far as benefiting from that announcement?

Exactly. Is it something that will benefit Stella Jones?

So I believe that last quarter, you know, AEP in their public disclosures had put forward 70 billion dollars in capex in the next five years. So the announcement of quanta actually puts, you know, more. actionable or meaningful actions towards executing on that CapEx. I know in the past eight, nine months, they've given a good look at their capital structure to be able to deploy and invest in their network so we're very pleased with that we're very well positioned with uh aep they're one of our key customers uh and obviously from a distribution pole a transmission pole business and now with the lattice our lattice or steel structure division you know i think we we have opportunities here to bid on upcoming projects that we'll be putting forward

Okay. And looking at your NCIB, Sylvana, it has been renewed, but lower amount versus the previous two years. So just wondering, should we see that as a signal that the fact that you foresee more growth opportunities ahead, any color, with respect to the share buyback envelope?

Yeah. So I guess two comments on that, Benoit. The first is even though we had bigger programs, as you probably saw over the last two years, we did repurchase probably more in the 1.2 million shares. So, you know, reducing it is almost, you know, being more consistent with the actual usage of the program over the last two years. And, you know, definitely, we are definitely very mindful of all the, you know, the potential investment activity going forward. Definitely that is part of the mix.

Okay, and maybe last one, a quick one for me. In terms of working caps, Ivana, anything to call out going into Q4 and 2026?

Yeah, so into Q4, as we typically see, we would expect, particularly for residential lumber, build an inventory in that last quarter of the year, but more than offset by the decrease that we would expect in ARR just because of the seasonally lower sales in the Q4 versus Q3. So I think we would expect either a neutral or a pickup in the last quarter of the year in terms of our working capital. So adding already to the inflow that we have year to date and going into 2026, I guess the color that I could give around that is that, depending on the expected increase in sales that you put forward, you know, we always say that we probably, you know, 40% of that increase is needed in terms of build of working capital for that additional sales growth.

Okay, that's great, caller. Thank you very much for the time.

Thank you, Benoit.

Thank you. Once again, should you have a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. And your next question comes from the line of Martin Cradiere from Beretta Investment Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. My first question is about building material. I thought that the prices were up during the quarter, but the wood price declined. And you mentioned that there is a delay between when this gets into the sales. um what is what kind of delay are we looking at i mean when are the lower prices of wood going to impact um you know yourself on the road well thank you martin for uh for the question so you know so

Maybe as a reminder, when we start a year, or as the industry calls it, a season, we have a large build-up of inventory. With our key customers, we set the price for, in this case, for 2025. We have not adjusted, and you're completely right, the price of lumber has declined somewhat since January of this year. But we've also built a program for our customers and when we negotiate a price, we need to hold it through. So we have not adjusted prices so far this year, slightly a bit here or there in the third quarter, but nothing that you could probably notice through our financial results. I do expect these prices to hold till the end of the year. We'll negotiate them again, revisit those prices when we start the new year here with our customers. We're actually currently through November and December of this year is when we sort of set the programs for 2026. So we're discussing pricing now. So there might be a slight decline. We're trying to see where the market is trending right now. Obviously, there's a lot going on and to consider with duties and tariffs and curtailment of capacity. I do believe that a lot of sawmills in Canada are you know, are having a tough time financially because of the lower prices of lumber. And I do believe that their intention is to see that price go back up to make it worthwhile for them to operate. So, you know, if there would be an uptick here in lumber prices, you know, in the next three months, you know, I think it wouldn't be that much of a decline in pricing next year. So hard to predict, but something that we monitor daily.

Okay, thank you. And my second question was, you know, I was quite impressed with railway ties sales in this quarter, which was positive. And you come from two years of two quarters of last 10% negative. But my understanding is that the next quarter is going to be negative again because there were a lot of sales in Q4 last year. And you're saying that some of these programs are delayed and then going to go to 2026? Is that the right way of thinking about it?

Yes, I think you're thinking about it, right? Q4 is typically a slower quarter. We see sometimes orders straggle Q4 of this year and Q1 of next year, but the way we're looking at it is, as you just expressed it, it'll be slightly lower, so we will conclude the year down in the mid-single digits. I think that's what you were expressing.

Okay. Thank you very much. That's good for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Michael Tafomi from TD Cohen. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Eric, I just wanted to ask you if you could comment on the Brooks acquisition. I haven't talked about that much on this call just in terms of you know, what you see that acquisition adding in terms of expanded product offering and whether you can roll that out more broadly across the network or if further acquisitions would be required in order to have that expanded product offering more broadly available. And then also just maybe just if you could comment on the M&A pipeline in general.

Certainly. The Brooks acquisition brings, you know, a few things. One, obviously, as Lockwell, a bit of a diversification of our product offering, although mainly treated wood, but in the cross-arm space. So, you know, very happy now to have a larger catalog, to have, you know, more in-depth discussions with our utility customers. We have acquired also, you know, a team with a skill set and knowledge about this industry. So cross-arms are unique dimensions with very particular procurement dynamics because of those dynamics. So we've acquired a leader in this space with some good knowledge. So the next steps to your question is obviously there are customers that Stella Jones have that Brooks was, I don't know if they they didn't have much exposure to or we can definitely you know make new introductions or reintroduce them um i do believe that there might be an opportunity for us to consider if there's a if we can bring this into the canadian market as well because brooks has no exporter to the canadian market um i believe they would have enough capacity and slash we would also uh internally in canada in particular uh to be able to consider you know expanding that offering to uh to to our customer base so you know We're obviously now that we have full access to the team and the assets, first integrating the group, and secondly, thinking about that strategy going into 2026. With regards to the acquisition pipeline, Michael, I'll go back to start with the basics. There's still some targets in wood poles and railway ties that are of interest of Stella Jones, and we keep monitoring those opportunities. Definitely interested in expanding or growing our steel structure division. So obviously with Lockwell or the Candiac facility, we will be doubling the capacity, as I said, for mid of next year. But I do think there's some other opportunities for us to keep growing that division. We've had a lot of positive feedback from our customer base. interested in understanding how will Stella Jones be able to support these massive projects that are upcoming here. So one of the previous questions, for example, on AEP, when you think about $70 billion, obviously they're generating assets in there, but there's also a good part of the money going there for transmission lines, which would in most part be steel, and not to forget the maintenance of the entire network to which we're exposed. So definitely some thoughts there. And as we keep exploring opportunities, and as we make these acquisitions, We get introduced to new relationships and discover new opportunities of businesses that service the utilities or the rail space that have attractive margin profiles and would be a good fit. And they're actually looking for a partner to come and help them grow the business. But when I say partner, it's really selling the business to us because with our access to capital, as we did with Lockwell, for example, we were able to invest and increase the capacity and get to that critical mass where certain customers are now taking notice. So I guess that would be how I need to think about the pipeline going forward.

Great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Hamir Patel from CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Eric, your poll business looks like the wood prices were down close to maybe mid-single digits in the quarter. I know you mentioned the spot markets about a quarter of your mix, so that kind of suggests the spot pricing was down maybe mid-teens year over year in Q3. Is that a fair interpretation? And, you know, just wondering how much of that is mix and if you could comment on how much lower is the spot market versus your typical contract price.

So I think you're not quite there, Amir, but I'll let Sylvana sort of cover that for us.

Yeah. So Amir, so in the quarter, we said that our pricing accounted for a 3% decline in sales. And we said most of that was the spot pricing, but there was also, you know, some mix in there for our contract. So, you know, like year to date, you know, our pricing slash mix kind of decrease, you know, is less than 1%. So we're still, you know, expecting for the year that the spot pricing will remain below 2024. And as Eric said, you know, there's some normalization there because the spot pricing last year was almost in line with our contract pricing. So, you know, we do expect that decrease to continue into the last quarter when we compare to the same quarter last year. and that the contract pricing, as we always mention, is really we would have just expected, as we have seen so far, just contractual kind of increases that we have about, you know, mostly inflationary, like 2% to 3%. But we have, and I believe Eric must have mentioned, but we have seen sort of the average spot pricing pretty much be in line with what we saw in Q2, in Q3. So we have seen, you know, some stabilization, if you want, between Q2 and Q3.

Okay, great. Thanks. That's helpful, Savannah. And any sense yet as to how we should think about CAPEX for 2026 and, you know, where you stand with potential greenfields on the steel side in the U.S.?

Yeah, so maybe I'll answer the CAPEX piece and I'll pass it over to Eric. So we continue to expect, you know, based on the on our current asset base, probably the higher end of our range, probably in the $85 to $90 million. And this does not include the expansion capex expected for Lockwell, which part of it is being done this year, but it will spill over into next year. It will only be ready probably mid to second half of next year. So you have to keep that in mind to add to our regular capex spend.

And I'll follow or conclude on that topic, Amir. So with regards to the expansion of our steel structure division, definitely focused right now on ensuring we properly execute on that expansion capex and roll it out. It's a big change because we're changing out the entire shop floor of the facility. I think we're well on our way. I had a few meetings in the last few weeks on the planning of that and how we're going to execute in the first six months of next year. But that being said, is there potential for another greenfield facility in the US or Canada or in North America? Definitely looking into this and having discussions with customers obviously do not want to build a facility that has no orders on the books. So we're seeking for commitments, but still working on the project. And we'll be discussing more at the investor day. Perfect.

Fair enough. And just the last question I had, Eric, I know the RTA recently helped their annual conference. What were the sort of volume trend expectations that you were hearing out of the various class ones? And I know you already kind of commented that CN was tracking flat, but I'm curious about the others.

Yeah, pretty much flat for everyone, Amir. There's no big, you know, intention of increasing maintenance programs as far as we've heard. We obviously have the UP and DNS that are a bit prudent as they can't talk to each other necessarily, but the UP is expecting to close this transaction next year. I think out of that, there could be some different views, but that would probably spill into 27 at that point in time. I would say most class ones that were there or all of them were indicating similar volumes year over year.

Great. Thanks, Eric. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Amir.

Thank you. We have no further questions in the queue. Please proceed.

Well, thank you, Ina. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. And we look forward to updating you when we release our fourth quarter results. Make it a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.