Mullen Group Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Mullen Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$0.15
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Mullen Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $533.88 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Mullen Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/12/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 12, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Mullen Group (TSE:MTL) is a public company with a long history of acquiring companies in the transportation and logistics industries. Today, we have one of the largest portfolios of logistics companies in North America, providing a wide range of transportation, warehousing and distribution services through a network of independently operated businesses. Service offerings include less-than-truckload, customs brokerage, truckload, warehousing, logistics, transload, oversized, third-party logistics and specialized hauling transportation. In addition, our businesses provide a diverse set of specialized services related to the energy, mining, forestry and construction industries in western Canada, including water management, fluid hauling and environmental reclamation. The corporate office provides the capital and financial expertise, legal support, technology and systems support, shared services and strategic planning to its independent businesses.

Mullen Group Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: 2025 was "challenging" across all four segments with essentially no organic growth and downward pricing pressure, forcing business units to tighten operations to mitigate market weakness.
• Positive Sentiment: Management completed two acquisitions in 2025 (including taking full ownership of Thrive) that contributed to record revenues, and says the balance sheet is positioned to support further targeted M&A.
• Neutral Sentiment: Industry dynamics differ by region — the U.S. is showing tangible capacity tightening and spot-rate improvement, but Canada has not yet seen meaningful tightening and management says March will be a key month to gauge recovery.
• Positive Sentiment: The 2026 plan targets roughly 10% top-line growth driven mainly by recent and planned acquisitions and timing of prior buys, with management forecasting flat LTL, growth in logistics/warehousing and US 3PL, and modest improvement in Specialized/S&I activity.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Mullen Group Ltd. Year-End and Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press Star then 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 Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer, and President. Please go ahead.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Thank you. Welcome, everyone, to the year-end 2025 conference call. Now, this morning, we released our results for 2025, along with the annual financial review and audited financial statements, which is a nice 120-page condensed document that's full of detail, numbers, and analysis, prepared by our team, headed up by Carson Urlacher and Nick Woodworth. So, we also uploaded the annual information form. That's a 60-page detailed document relating to Mullen Group. Now, these documents contain updated information and are available on SEDAR+ and on our website, www.mullen-group.com. So, this morning, I'm gonna 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.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

This morning, I'm joined here in Okotoks by the senior executive team. That's Richard Maloney, Senior Operating Officer, Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer, and Joanna Scott, who's a Senior Corporate Officer. My name is Murray Mullen. I'm the Senior Executive Officer. On today's call, gonna change things up. In an effort to make this call as relevant to you as possible, we are gonna head straight to the Q&A session because there's nothing new that we can add about 2025 that you haven't already heard, we haven't discussed, or we haven't disclosed. So, why repeat what we pre-released on January 19th, 2026? Nothing has changed. 2025 was challenging. Across all four segments, no growth, basically... Which basically meant pricing came under pressure. So, what did we do?

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Well, our business units had no choice but to tighten up, a measure that mitigated the downward pressures that we felt in the market. At corporate, we completed two acquisitions. The net result was record revenues. When the economy rebounds, when Canada and the U.S. come together again as friends and business partners, and when Canada finally lives up to the nation-building commitments, we will achieve record earnings. Okay, enough about 2025. Some of you have joined the queue, and I don't want to keep anybody waiting. Besides, I do not like to waste people's time, especially this morning. So operator, let's open the Q&A session, please.

[Operator]

Thank you. To join the question queue, you may press Star, then One on your telephone keypad. You'll hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset and any keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then Two. The first question comes from Cameron Doerksen with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

[Cameron Doerksen, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. I guess I wanted to, you know, ask about the industry dynamics. One of the things you've kind of highlighted, both, in your 2026 outlook a few weeks ago, but also today, is some industry capacity tightening. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about what you're actually seeing out there in the market. You know, are, are you seeing some actual tangible evidence of this happening with the, you know, increased enforcement and maybe some financial difficulties with other players? Just any color you can provide on what you're seeing in the marketplace.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Yeah. You know, Cameron, we, when we were preparing for this meeting, we, we, we thought that might be the question. You know, one of the questions that would come from, from the analyst community is, what is really happening out on the ground today? And, you know, we, we highlighted that these, these things have to happen for supply and demand fundamentals to change. So, January is, is really difficult to, provide a full measure on, Cameron, for, first of all, you're coming out of the, you know, out of starting the year, and everybody's on a, a spending diet after spending everything in December. And so January is always a difficult month to judge. Secondly, you had some nasty weather back east that really impacted a lot of business, and, so not a good judge.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

But I don't think we've seen anything up north that would tell us that capacity has tightened in a meaningful way, and we're waiting to see what will happen later. I think March is more of a telling quarter, Cameron, to be honest with you. January is a difficult month. February is a short month. We would need to see some meaningful recovery in demand in March. I think everybody's saying the same thing. Now, let me just pivot for a second because we were down with our logistics folks down in the U.S., and it's a different story down there, Cameron, than up in Canada. There's no doubt capacity is tightening in the U.S., and there's no doubt that they have a stronger demand fundamental. So-...

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

We've heard, evidence already that there's been some quite a, quite a significant change in the spot market pricing, not on contract pricing yet, but on spot market pricing down in the U.S. I haven't seen that in Canada yet. Hopefully, that helps.

[Cameron Doerksen, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

No, that does. I'm just wondering about maybe on the pricing front in Canada, I mean, obviously still under pressure in the fourth quarter, and it sounds like you're not seeing any major change yet. But, I mean, I guess any conversations you're having with some of your customers about what their expectation is for pricing in 2026, I mean, does it feel like it's, you know, potentially gonna get better, or are we, at this point, sort of thinking that it's gonna be more flattish?

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

No, I, Cameron, I honestly think that everybody's still kind of like the deer in the headlights scenario. We just don't know what to do because there's no clarity. So, I'm concerned about that. You know, we can't get anything from our customers. Richard, Joe- Everybody's sitting on their- Yeah, everybody's just sitting and waiting. We're waiting for something to happen rather than making things happen in this country, and I can understand why. I think everybody knows the- all the dynamics that are going on. We don't have to beat that one to death. But I can say to you, in discussions with our peers and with our customers and whatever, there's more optimism that's gonna change. And maybe that's hope, the, but maybe hear that that changes. But for right now, it hasn't changed yet.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Everybody's still sitting on their hands. You know, that's in Canada. It is significantly different down in the U.S. market. And of course, most of the data that we all look at, all of this comes from the U.S. market, you know, all the Sonar and everything. But up here, it's still pretty loose up in Canada, Cameron.

[Cameron Doerksen, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

Okay. All right, that's great. I appreciate the color. I'll pass along.

[Operator]

Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. The next question comes from Konark Gupta with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Thanks, Morning, Murray and team. Yeah, you mentioned, Murray, about the capacity situation in Canada and U.S. I mean, I understand obviously, U.S. had moved a little bit faster, maybe because they also saw the big surges in capacity, you know, over the last few years. So, it's a bigger peak and then a deeper trough in that sense. But for Canada, like, the driver situation seems like the government is trying to address that. I don't know how far they got there. But what's really the sticking point in Canada on the capacity side? I mean, like, did we not increase capacity so much that we don't have to decrease a lot, or is it something else?

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

It would have. I would think that, you know, the U.S. system is, it's more geared toward animalistic instincts. I mean, they. If you're not surviving, there's been a lot more bankruptcies down in the U.S. than there has been in Canada. Now, that, I mean, there's. It's a bigger market, so you would expect that there would be more bankruptcies and more consolidation, but it's happening quiet, quite regularly and quite frequently in the U.S. That tightening the capacity, just because it has been very, very competitive, and there have been a lot of failures down in the U.S., that tightness capacity. At the same time, you know, they're addressing, you know, the English proficiency test and, you know, some other things that, you know, we're not doing. We're not gonna do that in Canada. That's not the way we do it.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

So I suspect, you know, the capacity won't tighten quite as fast in Canada as it will in the U.S. That's my expectation. But you need capacity to tighten to get rates up, Konark. That's just the reality. So, is capacity gonna tighten because we have a really strong economic growth in Canada? I don't think your firm or any firm that I've seen is predicting huge economic and growth in Canada in 2026. So, is it gonna tighten on the supply side? We've seen some failure. Not many, but a few. Yeah, but not like you down in the States. Then it gets recycled, right? They come in and see us, and they talk to us when they get into trouble. But, you know, we haven't seen enough.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

I think that capacity, we need to see a lot of tightening, and you know, if we're waiting for the federal government and the governments to tighten the capacity, I'm not holding my breath on that, they you know from that. But it's gonna tighten this year. There's no doubt about it. I can't predict exactly when, but it is gonna tighten because it is tough as nails out there on a lot of our competitors.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

Makes sense. Thanks, Murray. And then, on your 2026 outlook that you guys put out last month, just want to understand how you're parsing out, you know, the top-line growth drivers there. So, I mean, I think you are assuming about, call it 10% top line growth, give or take, in 2026. And I think a good chunk of that maybe, you know, 400 basis points or so, is coming from the acquisitions that you have done last year, right? So, the remainder about 6 points of growth this year, is it more dependent on new M&A or it's a market recovery that you're betting on?

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

... Well, Carson, I think, yes, it's, we've got to do some M&A, and on that note, we've already started with that. There's no, Cameron, or Konark, we've, we've said for the last little bit, the only viable way to grow when the economy is not growing until capacity tightens, is you got to do acquisitions, which we did last year. I suspect we'll have to do some more in 2026. And guess what? We, we put the balance sheet in a really good position, Carson, to make sure that we could, we could grow at the corporate level, even though the economy is not giving us anything, and we did a couple already this year, Carson.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Yeah, we did, and both of those were being in the S&I segment, whereas we were not aggressive with doing acquisitions in the S&I segment in 2025. I think with respect to the guide that we came out with, Konark, that was really based on same-store sales. And if you kind of go division by division or segment by segment, you know, LTL is, you know, we're projecting relatively flat year, you know, 2026 versus 2025. Logistics and warehousing is gonna be up, and that's really due to the timing of when we acquired Cole and the Cole Group. Specialized, we're showing a little bit of growth going into 2026 versus 2025 for a couple of reasons.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

You'll see there's a lot of CapEx that we put into that segment in the latter part of 2025 with our Envolve Energy group to increase the capacity of our disposal facility. You know, in 2026, we're projecting that there's gonna be some additional turnaround work that was nonexistent in 2025, that producers basically pushed off. Our Canadian Dewatering group within the S&I segment, we're also you know positive with them on mining projects and the like, with going into 2026. So, those are types of the differences that we're seeing. Our US 3PL segment, obviously some growth in there as well, too, and that again is due to the timing of the acquisition of Cole.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

So most of it is growth that you know we're not seeing from new acquisitions. We've done a couple. We've done some tuck-ins that we in verticals that we like with fluid management with our Thrive group, and a nice tuck-in in an area that we see is conducive to greater drilling activity going forward.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

On Thrive, I think, you know, investors, shareholders will recall that we were an investor in Thrive.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

We were.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

We completed the rest of that transaction with Brian, Eric, and rest team and the shareholder group, and they joined our group. So, we're now 100% holder of that business, and they're in the water management business, primarily tied to some industrial, but to the oil and gas sector.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

More upstream related.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Yeah. So, we really like... These folks did a fantastic job of growing that business. That was one of our better private investments that we've ever done.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

That's right.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Just a great team. In fact, on that note, Brian is gonna join our corporate team, and he's gonna head up all of our water, and fluid, initiatives that we've got going on, 'cause that is a vertical that we think is investable and has good, fundamentals to it. So we wanna accelerate, our investments in that sector. So we welcome the Thrive team, and we welcome Brian-

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Brian, yeah.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

To head up those initiatives on behalf of our organization. He's a pure entrepreneur because he built it from nothing. So, we like, he joined us, so we were really happy with that. If you look back at last year, we said: Okay, you got to... The segments that we have, we held our own in LTL. I think we'll hold our own again this year in LTL. L&W acquisitions drove that growth. US 3PL acquisitions drove that growth. In the S&I segment; we didn't do any acquisitions. And guess what? It was tough as nails, and it was down. Well, this year, we've already done two acquisitions in S&I.

[Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Correct.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

So, we know that acquisitions is the way to position for the future. The key to acquisitions is it backfills revenue, as I said. It, it gives us revenue growth, but you're positioning for the future when it, when it does tighten, when it does turn, when capital, nation-building projects go to work in capital. That's when our shareholders will really benefit, and they'll see the wisdom of why we did the acquisitions that we did. So that's coming, but you gotta, you gotta get ahead of the curve, and we have, and thankfully, we have the balance sheet to do it. So, we'll continue to do really thoughtful acquisitions this year, and that will drive our growth. And our business units that we've got, our existing 42, up to 44 now, they'll be out there, and they, they, they're gonna grind it out.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

They're in contact with them all the time. They know what the game plan is for this year until the market gives us a little bit a better lift. Until then, you just gotta grind it out, Konark.

[Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank]

No, that, that's great, good team, and all the best for 2026. Thanks.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Thank you very much.

[Operator]

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Mullen for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

[Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President at Mullen Group Ltd.]

Okay, thanks, folks, for joining us. It was a quick meeting today, but as I said, everybody's—we've debated the issues for too long. Everybody knows what's going on. We're 100% focused on what we have to do this year, and we look forward to chatting with everybody and giving an update in April as to how the first quarter worked out and how the rest of the year does. Until then, thank you very much for joining us.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Carson Urlacher, Senior Financial Officer
• Murray K. Mullen, Chair, Senior Executive Officer and President

Analysts

• Cameron Doerksen, Analyst at National Bank Financial
• Konark Gupta, Analyst at Scotiabank