Bird Construction Q4 2025 Earnings Report

Bird Construction EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$0.57
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Bird Construction Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $877.01 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Bird Construction Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 3/11/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, March 12, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Bird Construction (TSE:BDT) Inc operates as a general contractor in the Canadian construction market. The company focuses primarily on projects in the industrial, commercial and institutional sectors of the general contracting industry. It provides construction services such as new construction for industrial, commercial, and institutional markets; industrial maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) services, heavy civil construction and contract surface mining; as well as vertical infrastructure including, electrical, mechanical, and specialty trades.

Bird Construction Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Bird exited 2025 with a record CAD 11 billion combined backlog (up 45% YoY) and says ~54% of that is expected to be recognized in the next 12 months, giving multi-year revenue visibility.
• Positive Sentiment: Profitability is trending up: full-year Adjusted EBITDA margin improved to 6.5% (+20 bps YoY) and management remains confident of reaching the 8% target by 2027 through higher self-perform work and operating leverage.
• Negative Sentiment: Q4 produced a net loss due to a conservative full impairment of CAD 62.2 million related to one customer's receivables and contract assets, with recoveries uncertain and likely to be slow.
• Positive Sentiment: Cash generation and liquidity are strong: Q4 operating cash flow was CAD 192.6 million, full-year operating cash flow CAD 113.1 million, free cash flow CAD 71.8 million, plus CAD 167 million cash and CAD 399 million available credit.
• Positive Sentiment: Strategic moves and sector mix are supportive of higher-margin growth—the FRPD acquisition expands marine/self-perform capabilities, industrial maintenance recurring revenue exceeds CAD 1.5 billion, and management highlights large pipelines in defense, nuclear, and data centers for selective, accretive work.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Bird Construction fourth quarter and full year 2025 results conference call and webcast. We will begin with Teri McKibbon, President and Chief Executive Officer's presentation, which will be followed by a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, analysts will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Before commencing with the conference call, the company reminds those present that certain statements which are made express management's expectations or estimates of future performance and thereby constitute forward-looking information.

[Operator]

Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Management's formal comments and responses to any questions you might ask may include forward-looking information. Therefore, the company cautions today's participants that such forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the actual financial results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from the company's estimated future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information does not guarantee future performance. The company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events, or otherwise.

[Operator]

In addition, the presentation today includes references to a number of financial measures which do not have standardized meanings under IFRS and may not be comparable with similar measures presented by other companies and are therefore considered non-GAAP measures. I would now like to turn the call over to Teri McKibbon, President and CEO of Bird Construction.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our fourth quarter 2025 conference call. With me today is Wayne Gingrich, Bird's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, I want to recognize the many teams across Bird who took part in Women in Construction Week and International Women's Day. These moments are reminders of the meaningful contributions women make across our organization and our responsibility to create space for every voice to be heard. This year's International Women's Day theme, Give to Gain, reflects our belief that when we support each other through mentorship, opportunity, and visibility, we strengthen our business. Our commitment to equity and inclusion continues to shape how we collaborate, innovate, and deliver for our clients.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

2025, Bird strengthened the underlying fundamentals of the business, exiting the year with record backlog, improved margin, quality, and increased visibility into a multi-year growth runway.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

While revenue timing shifted in certain markets, demand did not. Demand across our key strategic sectors remained strong, resulting in more than CAD 11 billion in combined backlog with accretive embedded margins. This reflects growth of 45% over 2024 and provides multi-year visibility underpinning our confidence in our revenue margin trajectory. As we enter 2026, we believe Bird is better positioned than at any point in our history to benefit from long cycle infrastructure investments across our core markets. Full year revenue was CAD 3.4 billion, comparable to 2024. Growth in infrastructure was supported by the ramp-up of East Harbour Transit Hub, a full year of Jacob Bros., and the addition of FRPD. Growth was offset by timing shifts and project starts across several end markets, which we have discussed in prior quarters.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Importantly, momentum in our infrastructure business remains a core driver of our strategy, and we expect that momentum to continue. Margins progressed year-over-year despite the lower proportional revenue in our industrial construction and industrial maintenance businesses. Adjusted earnings and adjusted earnings per share remained strong, though slightly lower year-over-year. Our operating model continues to perform, and structural margin levers remain firmly in place. During the year, we secured CAD 4.7 billion worth of work, underscoring the strength of our client relationships and the robustness of the bidding environment. Our backlog is diversified, risk-balanced, and heavily weighted towards collaborative delivery models. With stronger embedded margins than a year ago, our backlog provides a high-level of visibility and confidence into future revenues and margins. Depth of our backlog continued to build across priority sectors. Defense backlog increased to over CAD 1.5 billion.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

We entered a development phase agreement for the Peel Memorial Hospital, secured successive awards on large capital projects, mobilized new work at the Pickering Nuclear facility, and significantly expanded our industrial maintenance portfolio. Importantly, the factors that muted near-term revenue in 2025 did not reduce demand. That demand is firmly embedded in our backlog, pending backlog, and recurring revenue programs that extend well beyond 2026. Looking ahead, approximately 54% of our backlog is expected to be recognized over the next 12 months.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

This is further supported by a record CAD 1.5 billion of recurring revenue contracts, with industrial maintenance and other recurring revenue expected to contribute over CAD 500 million per year, along with the continued conversion of pending backlog. Bird's record combined backlog with stronger embedded margins than a year ago demonstrates the underlying momentum of the business and supports our confidence in Bird's long-term trajectory. We do not see the opportunity sets slowing down, and as major projects advance, we expect the volume of opportunities to continue to increase, allowing us to be selective in pursuing the projects best suited to our capabilities. Turning to margins.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Quarterly margins were down modestly year-over-year, reflecting the project delays and deferrals in industrial construction and industrial maintenance. On a full-year basis, our adjusted EBITDA margin was 6.5%, an improvement of 20 basis points over 2024.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Given that from 2022 to 2024, Bird expanded adjusted EBITDA margins by 200 basis points, we remain confident in achieving the remaining 150 basis points within 2 years to go in terms of our current strategic plan time horizon. The next few slides outline the deliberate and incremental drivers already at work across the business to support the continued progress of our strategy. Large capital investment projects remain a core pillar of Bird's long-term strategy. These programs are inherently multi-year, providing scale, duration and opportunities for margin expansion, driven by complexity and higher self-perform content.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

2025, Bird moved into the execution phase of the East Harbour Transit Hub, expanded scope on Dow's Path2Zero project, secured additional awards at BHP's Jansen potash project, mobilized new work at the Pickering Nuclear facility, progressed operations at Woodfibre LNG, and entered the development phase of Peel Memorial Hospital. Successive awards demonstrate Bird's ability to engage early, execute effectively, and expand participation over the project lifecycle. This track record continues to strengthen our reputation and positions the company well for sustained demand across Canada's evolving nation-building energy and infrastructure investment programs. There is significant depth across Bird's end markets, with near-term tailwinds supporting demand across energy, defense, healthcare, data centers, transportation, and trade infrastructure. We are increasingly being pulled into new opportunities early and across more geographies as clients prioritize safety, delivery certainty, self-perform depth, and proven execution.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Demand remains resilient across nuclear, LNG, petrochemicals, and potash. We were pleased to hear how Dow recommitted to the Path2Zero project, where Bird's work remains weighted to the second half of 2026 and 2027. Our industrial maintenance portfolio remains a key differentiator, providing strong base of recurring revenue. New MRO awards and MSAs secured in 2025 increased pending backlog to over CAD 1.5 billion. The largest of these awards resulted directly from the NorCan acquisition, demonstrating the value of cross-selling and the effectiveness of integrating acquisitions into the Bird operating model. The nuclear sector remains active, representing approximately 10% of our revenue today, and we expect that exposure to grow.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Additionally, we've recently achieved new credentials that enable broader participation in the sector. This is timely as we prepare for new build activity to ramp up in the coming years.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Our backlog remains robust across healthcare, defense, education, and long-term care. Peel Memorial Hospital is a significant milestone award and a strong validation of our healthcare expertise and collaborative approach. As referenced, our defense portfolio continues to accelerate. We're actively tracking over 200 defense-related projects, including substantial investment in the Arctic infrastructure, where Bird has a deep experience and a proven track record. Many of these projects are part of the Department of Defense's plan, CAD 100 billion in construction over 10 years, which includes CAD 40 billion in the North over 20 years. We continue to see strong, sustained activity in the data center market. As the sector evolves, delivery partners are being selected based on skills, schedule certainty and the ability to self-perform critical path scope. Bird is well-differentiated here with integrated civil, electrical, mechanical, and project delivery capabilities.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Bird offers end-to-end capabilities in this fast-growing sector from land selection and power coordination and sourcing through site development, full electrical, mechanical, and structural delivery. Critical path in data center construction is electrical scope, and Bird's position as the country's largest electrical employer enables us to support clients coast to coast with scale and schedule certainty. We're currently tracking more than CAD 20 billion in data center opportunities and see momentum continuing to build through 2026. In infrastructure, the acquisition of FRPD has meaningfully expanded our self-perform capabilities in marine construction, dredging, and land foundations. FRPD's strong reputation and a 115-year track record spanning coast to coast to coast brings deep expertise and a differentiated platform for delivery. This has unlocked new cross-selling opportunities with Jacob Bros., our industrial group, and across the broader organization.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Timing of this acquisition couldn't have been better given the breadth of opportunities developing across all geographic regions in Canada. The momentum is building rapidly, and we expect FRPD to be a significant catalyst for growth. Taken together, strong sector demand, long duration nation-building investments, Bird's execution capabilities, record backlog, position the company well for sustained disciplined growth and value creation through 2026 and beyond. In 2025, infrastructure continued to expand, creating a more balanced revenue mix between industrial buildings and infrastructure. Infrastructure growth was supported by a full-year contribution from Jacob Bros. Construction, an initial contribution from FRPD, and strong execution across transit, hydroelectric, utilities, and mining programs, including continued momentum from recent acquisitions and our commercial systems and utilities group.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Infrastructure with its high proportion of self-performed work will continue to support margin progression as it increases its share of our revenue mix.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

As our record backlog converts, we expect to benefit from operating leverage across our platform, supported by scale and disciplined cost management. At the same time, we continue to make smart investments to further improve execution and efficiency. In 2025, Bird reached a major milestone with the rollout of our ERP platform, establishing a scalable digital foundation and unified project delivery system. Building on that, we are advancing predictive analytics digital tools to enhance planning, productivity, and safety. Early progress is improving visibility into potential project risks and enabling more proactive data-informed decision-making across the project lifecycle. Together, these capabilities support earlier risk identification, more effective resource allocation, and more consistent execution across complex projects, reinforcing margin resilience as the business continues to scale. Across the business, multiple deliberate levers are already at work.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Mixed improvement as infrastructure scales, higher self-perform and equipment-related revenue, operating leverage and disciplined project selection within collaborative lower risk delivery models. These are not new initiatives. They reflect execution already underway, tangible project progress supporting our path to the 2027 adjusted EBITDA margin target of 8% and further revenue growth. We are confident in this trajectory and the backlog and demand environment provide the runway to execute. With that, I'll now turn it over to Wayne to walk through our financial performance in more detail.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Thank you, Teri. Bird's fourth quarter and full-year 2025 results demonstrate continued execution of our strategy and the resilience of our operating model. Despite uncertainty impacting near-term revenue timing, we delivered solid margins, adjusted earnings and cash flow. As anticipated, construction revenue in the fourth quarter was CAD 877 million, lower year-over-year, reflecting the timing related to project delays that we highlighted earlier in 2025. Gross profit margin in the quarter was 11.1%, a full 1% higher than in 2024. Margins benefited from a higher proportion of infrastructure work, which typically carries greater self-performed content and from disciplined project execution. These positives were partially offset by delays in project starts, where we continued to carry personnel and equipment costs in anticipation of future mobilization.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was CAD 66.2 million compared to CAD 71.9 million last year, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.5% compared to 7.7%. Given the softer industrial work program and mix impacts in the quarter, this remains a solid margin outcome. Turning to earnings, net loss in the quarter was CAD 14 million or CAD 0.25 per share, compared to net income of CAD 32.5 million or CAD 0.59 per share in the fourth quarter of 2024. This decline reflects the CAD 62.2 million impairment on accounts receivable and contract assets related to creditworthiness concerns for a single customer that was previously disclosed. The sole project for this customer is substantially complete and no further costs are expected. This impact was partially offset by the CAD 7.6 million bargain purchase gain on the acquisition of FRPD.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Adjusted earnings in the quarter was CAD 31.8 million or CAD 0.57 per share, compared to CAD 37.3 million or CAD 0.67 per share last year. Adjusted earnings excludes both the bargain purchase gain and the credit impairment, which are non-recurring items. Operating cash flow in the fourth quarter was CAD 192.6 million, up CAD 55 million year-over-year. This reflects resilient underlying cash generation that would have been materially higher absent the one-time customer credit impairment. For the full year, revenue totaled CAD 3.4 billion, essentially flat compared to 2024. Growth from the full-year contribution of Jacob Bros. Construction, the addition of FRPD, and organic growth in infrastructure, including mining work programs in the East Harbour Transit Hub, was offset by lower industrial and buildings revenue.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

This reflected less favorable weather early in the year, maintenance work deferred into 2026, and client decisions that slowed certain work programs and delayed the start of new projects. Revenue of all the company's businesses in 2025 was impacted by delays in the start of contracted projects resulting from economic uncertainty. Despite flat revenue, profitability continued to improve. Full-year gross profit increased to CAD 356.9 million, representing gross margin of 10.5%, up from 9.7% in 2024. Margin improvement was driven primarily by higher relative growth in infrastructure and the continued shift toward higher-margin collaborative work. These results reflect disciplined project selection, strong execution, expanding self-performed capabilities, and effective cross-selling across the organization.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was CAD 222.1 million, up from CAD 212.8 million in 2024, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.5%. This places Bird within 150 basis points of our 2027 margin target, even in a year where higher-margin, self-performed industrial work was temporarily deferred into 2026. Net income for the year was CAD 47.4 million or CAD 0.86 per share, with the year-over-year decline primarily attributable to the fourth quarter impairment. Adjusted earnings for the year was CAD 107.7 million or CAD 1.94 per share, compared to CAD 111.3 million or CAD 2.04 per share in 2024. Cash flow generation remained a core strength in 2025.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Full year operating cash flow was CAD 113.1 million, which is a strong result despite the one-time customer credit issue and demonstrates the underlying strength of Bird's cash-generating business model. Free cash flow totaled CAD 71.8 million or CAD 1.30 per share. Our balance sheet remains strong, providing both resilience and flexibility. Adjusted Return on Equity was 25%. Adjusted net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 0.22x, and the current ratio was 1.26. With CAD 167 million of cash and cash equivalents and an additional CAD 399 million available under the company's syndicated credit facility, Bird has ample liquidity to support working capital, project-driven capital expenditures, and accretive acquisitions to further expand our service offerings and self-perform capabilities.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Overall, while revenue in 2025 was impacted by uncertainty, Bird delivered strong margins, solid earnings, and robust cash flow supported by a record backlog with higher embedded margins. Bird remains committed to a balanced and disciplined approach to capital allocation, supporting both profitable growth and consistent shareholder returns. Our priorities are clear and unchanged. We continue to invest in our business through capital expenditures and equipment and technology to support execution. We remain active and disciplined in M&A, pursuing tuck-in acquisitions that enhance our capabilities, expand our footprint in key markets, and are accretive to margins and cash flow. We also continue to return capital to shareholders through our monthly dividend with a long-term payout ratio target of 33% of net income, recognizing that the ratio may fluctuate year-to-year.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Bird operates with low capital intensity, and our strong balance sheet and consistent cash generation provide flexibility to execute our record backlog while pursuing opportunistic growth. We remain focused on opportunities that deliver outsized value through our cross-selling and our OneBird operating model. Taken together, this disciplined approach continues to support long-term value creation through clear priorities, smart investment, and a conservative financial profile. With that, I'll turn the call back to Teri.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Thank you, Wayne. With 2025 behind us, we enter 2026 with momentum and greater multiyear visibility. Bird programs are expected to materialize as anticipated with revenue growth accelerating in the second quarter. Recent industrial maintenance awards that added more than CAD 1 billion in pending backlog further support multiyear visibility. Our teams continue to win new work at a pace that drives future revenue growth as the book-to-bill ratio has been consistently greater than one, reaching 1.4x in 2025. The bidding environment remains highly active across defense, nuclear, data centers, healthcare, trade, and transportation. With risk balanced, record backlog of more than CAD 11 billion, with average margins higher than a year ago, Bird has strong visibility through 2027 and clear momentum towards its strategic plan growth and profitability targets.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Supported by a strong balance sheet, disciplined capital allocation and ample liquidity, Bird is well-positioned to execute its record backlog, invest in growth, and continue delivering shareholder value. I'll now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator]

As a reminder, to ask a question, analysts, please press star one one on your telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, you may press star one one again. We will now begin the Q&A session. Our first question comes from Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Chris Murray, Managing Director at ATB Capital Markets]

Yeah, thanks, guys. Good morning. Maybe just starting with the outlook in 2026. Certainly 2025, as you noted, had some challenges in it. I guess what I'm trying to understand is how should we be thinking about year-over-year revenue growth? You did mention, you know, kind of starting to ramp back up Q2. The backlog is, you know, pretty sizable to have to work through. So just trying to get an idea of how we think of this. I know at one point you were sort of thinking about a 10% year-over-year growth, but it just feels like next year just coming off a lower base, we're gonna be a lot higher than that.

[Chris Murray, Managing Director at ATB Capital Markets]

Just how this kind of pattern you think happens and any commentary about, you know, where you thought you were gonna be for 2027 based on what the original strategic plan would be, would be helpful. Thank you.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Yeah. Yeah, I think for 2026, the way the year is shaping up, I think is consistent with how we tried to frame it in Q3 and again here at year-end. I think, you know, Q1 is still gonna be a little bit muted. Like we're gonna have some of the project deferrals that we talked about last year that's still gonna impact you know Q1, particularly in the industrial program. I think we're gonna see Q2 ramp up pretty significantly towards the end of Q2. Then in the second half of 2026, I think we're gonna see very robust growth.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

I think 2026 overall is certainly gonna be double-digit growth and could be, you know, depending on how certain of our market sectors, you know, play out, you know, could be stronger into the low teens, even. We have record backlog. 54% of it's gonna be put in place in 2026, but we also win and execute work throughout the year, and we expect that to continue. Looking ahead to 2027, we've got more visibility into the two years out than we've ever had with our CAD 11 billion pipeline backlog.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

What gives us confidence in the margins is that the margins embedded in our combined backlog are higher today than they were a year ago or at any point, to be honest, in the last ten years. That's why we're confident that we can continue to see margins still improve through 2026 and 2027. Then from a volume perspective on 2027, you know, the range we came out with in our strategic plan back when we did the investor day in October 2024 was CAD 4.6 million-CAD 5.1 million, and I think the midpoint CAD 4.85 million. We still expect to be in that range of revenue for 2027.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

The pipeline that we have, and Teri can go into this more in a bit here too, but the pipeline of projects that we're pursuing right now line up very well to support this growth on top of the record backlog.

[Chris Murray, Managing Director at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay. That's helpful. Maybe a housekeeping question on the impairment. You did note it was one client, project's complete, but it was tied to a specific asset. Just in terms of recoveries, does this mean that you know, you either have a claim on the asset or there's some other mechanism that'll be in place for recoveries? You know, any idea of timing on recoveries and whether or not this is fully impaired or there's an expectation that you'll only come out whole at the end?

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

We took a full impairment in Q4 for the CAD 62.2 million, you know, made up of again, receivable and in-contract assets. We're not carrying a recovery on the books at this time. We are gonna pursue recovery, but you know, we decided to take a pretty conservative view of it. You know, it's certainly nothing is gonna be imminent on any potential future recovery, and we're just gonna follow the normal course there. You know, just with how the facts are playing out in this particular instance, it's not something that we can really go into a ton of detail on at this point in time.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

I guess, the key point here is just know that we're gonna pursue, you know, a recovery, but it would take time before you ever see anything, from that, we think.

[Chris Murray, Managing Director at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay. I'll leave it there. Thanks, folks.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Your line is open.

[Frederic Bastien, Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James]

Good morning, guys. Around this time last year, you were preparing for some turnaround activity that ended up getting pushed out. What indications are you receiving from oil sands clients today that may indicate things will go back to normal this year?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Yeah. We're certainly feeling highly confident in the programs. The programs will be in all cases with all our major clients fall turnarounds. You know, that has moved around a bit in prior years. There's been spring turnarounds, but in our case this year they're all fall. That's sort of the end of the window for their flexibility in terms of when they do these, you know, these turnarounds. There's regulatory compliance they have to meet. We expect them to be of considerable scale, and we have some new opportunities that we're potentially positioned for, and we'll see how they materialize as well. We're expecting a very strong back half of 2026 with the large fall turnaround program.

[Frederic Bastien, Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James]

Okay. Great. Teri, you sound pretty pumped about FRPD. Can you speak to some of the cross-selling opportunities that you expect to deliver from that acquisition? I know you kinda hinted at some, but any specifics that you can point to?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Yeah, I don't think in my entire career I've ever been involved in an acquisition with our team that was more timely than this one. This one is just, you couldn't script it any better the way it's playing out. We've got, you know, the Western, you know, ports, you know, all getting, you know, increased, you know, spending levels to increase throughput. That's, you know, a lot of the ports on the West Coast, you know, and very visible. We're on one of the three teams that are qualified for the Roberts Bank terminal, which is a large opportunity. As you know, in the West Coast, there's large scopes of work being done with, for example, the Massey Tunnel, you know, which is a tunnel under the Fraser.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

We're well positioned to support those kinds of projects. You've got northern, you know, Arctic bases, things that are developing. You know, lots of discussion around Churchill. These are all places that FRPD has worked in the past. You've got you know, the LNG side with both the second phase of LNG Canada. You got Prince Rupert LNG. These are all in. There's not a lot of marine capacity in Canada. A lot of international capacity. It's very expensive, you know, to use that. We're just really well positioned for that business. They've been running at breakneck speed in the last few months with the opportunities as they're coming in. We're really feeling good about that.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

I think as Canada looks at its east-west trade corridors, any of that work involves, you know, significant enhancements of ports, and we're well positioned to support that, you know, as we go through. We're also starting to see mining opportunities where, you know, mining companies are talking to us about going in and coming in and dredging tailings ponds to reactivate mining in those reserves that, you know, at the time they were shut down, they were not cost-effective, but they are in today's market. We're seeing those opportunities evolve. It's kinda unique, and it's not something you see or have historically seen, but those are also, you know, certainly happening. It's a very busy time for FRPD.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Obviously we're starting now in July on our new dredging contract as well. The dredging contract we have with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. Yeah, exciting.

[Frederic Bastien, Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James]

Awesome. That's great, color. Thanks, Teri. I'll turn it over.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ian Gillies with Stifel. Your line is open.

[Ian Gillies, Managing Director at Stifel]

Morning, everyone.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Morning.

[Wayne Gingrich, CFO at Bird Construction]

Morning, Ian.

[Ian Gillies, Managing Director at Stifel]

Teri, I think you specifically mentioned the defense backlog in the commentary, but I was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about where the nuclear backlog is today, whether it be in absolute or percentage terms, and where you might hope to see that in 12 months or 24 months time, just so we can get a better understanding of how impactful you think that space may be to your business.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

You know, a good portion of the nuclear backlog is flowing through our, you know, our MSA framework. You know, you've got all that remediation work that we do for CNL and other clients. You have the nuclear lab up in Chalk River that's, you know, that is advancing construction, which is certainly a large scale opportunity. I'm not in a position where, you know, we can disclose, you know, those values of that type of work, 'cause it's something that's with our clients is confidential. You know, we still have a large program underway with Bruce. We've got a large program underway with OPG.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

You know, with that, we're building 5 facilities for OPG right now at the Pickering Nuclear facility. We've got some more work that's evolving, you know, in some of the, you know, the other nuclear facilities in the country. Decommissioning is still at a very high pace. Some new opportunities that we're in procurement on for that. I'd say, like, it's certainly a robust area. I can speak to it more, you know, in terms of overall percentage of revenue because of the MSA aspect of it. You know, we'll run probably around 10% of our revenue, even with our anticipated growth in 2026 in nuclear-related activity.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

I think longer term, you have the new builds, you know, which are going to be significant scale, you know, both at Bruce and at Wesleyville. The scale of those will take considerable capacity from the market that have nuclear credentials, nuclear capabilities. You know, we're building, you know, essentially a weapons-grade uranium testing facility that is, you know, the same nuclear grade concrete and things like that as you'd have on a SMR or a large scale nuclear program. The resume we're developing is quite strong, and now we have the required certifications and licenses to essentially do it end-to-end in nuclear. We just have to build out our resume a bit stronger, and we have the contracts in place to do that when we're working on a reactor phase.

[Ian Gillies, Managing Director at Stifel]

That's very helpful. Maybe switching gears to the margin side. You know, you look at Q4, which was very strong, and you think about adding scale to that through 2026 and 2027 and getting leverage on G&A. Is the 8% EBITDA margin target, is there a potential you think you could exceed that or even beat that based on what you see right now?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Yeah, it's tough to get ahead of that right now and get over our skis a bit on that. I think it's an achievable target. I think as we see the momentum build, you know, in Q2, you know, into Q3, we'll have a little more clarity as to how that's evolving. You know, the world we live in today has got certainly some volatility. We're pretty confident on this, you know, the backlog and the kinds of projects we have. These are going ahead. We've tried to position ourselves with you know, with blue chip clients and, you know. The exciting part of our business, to be honest with you, is when you have a you know, such a large scale of new work that's evolving, you know, both in defense and in data centers.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

The scale of these opportunities in those two areas, which has not really been, you know, in historical times a very strong position or percentage or, you know, it'd be a very small percentage of our historical revenue. You start to see those things layer in. Yeah, it's pretty exciting, especially when you have your core markets that we've been working on are very strong. You know, puts us in a really nice position for the next five years and beyond.

[Ian Gillies, Managing Director at Stifel]

That's helpful. Thanks very much. I'll turn the call back over.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Again, that is star one one to ask a question. Our next question comes from Krista Friesen with CIBC. Your line is open.

[Krista Friesen, Executive Director of Equity Research at CIBC Capital Markets]

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just to follow up on the last question on the nuclear portion. Are there targets that you would be evaluating for M&A to help boost your resume within nuclear or your product offering? Or is 'cause that's not something you really see much of in the market right now?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

You don't see much of it in the market in Canada, and we're focused, as you know, in Canada, so you don't see much of it. You'd have to almost be moving towards, you know, a manufacturing kind of framework, and it's not really what our core business is. No, I think we have a very strong resume in large scale projects with, you know, things like LNG, where you're building these massive foundations and large concrete type of mobilizing workforces. We have a really strong resume, and we're continuing to develop our nuclear resumes so that our clients are, you know, confident to award those programs. You know, a small acquisition in that space. It'd have to be small because there's nobody that's got any real scale in it.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Wouldn't really do much for us. Like I said, we're focused on the resource development. We're also doing some large scale. We got a large scale hydroelectric project underway with OPG, and that's going well, and those all, you know, enhance the scale question about, you know, our capability to handle large scale projects.

[Krista Friesen, Executive Director of Equity Research at CIBC Capital Markets]

Okay, great. Then maybe just on the data center opportunity, you've identified a TAM of CAD 15 billion here in Canada. Are you seeing much work right now? Maybe specifically, what are you seeing in Alberta in terms of projects actually starting to move forward on the data center front?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

You know, we've historically had experience here in smaller data centers in the province, like small, predominantly on the electrical side. Currently, I can't talk about, you know, who the clients are. It's a very secretive industry. Currently, we're just at the tipping point here on large scale. There's some large scale ones that are in procurement right now that have, you know, and the scale of these things is just really significant, and it'll take out a lot of capacity, to be honest. You know, the secret weapon for us is a large electrical army that we have and a number of those resources here in Alberta.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Alberta has got something like 40 individual companies that are in discussions with the government to develop data centers. There's, you know, potentially 40 projects. You know, they all won't get built. They all need power. You know, the government sort of mantra here has been, "We've got the gas. Bring your own power, and we'll, you know, work closely with you to develop these." You know, if that continues, I think you'll see Alberta as a major hub in North America for data centers at the scale of these that are evolving, you know, are massive. Some of them are further along in procurement than others. We typically aren't, you know, in the early stage of a project.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

When a client is going out, you know, to get an approval from a municipality to do something, we may or may not be involved at that point. Some companies will go ahead and do that on their own and then engage us after. In other cases, we're working really early on in working with potential clients to identify opportunities, land opportunities and identify power opportunities and working with them collaboratively on the power applications and that. We have a pretty good sense of where everyone is and where they're all evolving. The major markets for us would be Alberta and Ontario. You know, we've got data centers underway right now in Manitoba. There's emerging opportunities in Saskatchewan. We've got emerging opportunities in Atlantic Canada.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

It feels like we're just getting towards the tipping point after a few years of a lot of planning. It's, you know, as you can well imagine, the impact these have had in the U.S., you know, on companies like us has been tremendous impact in terms of performance and scale. But it feels like we're three or four years behind the U.S. development. These companies have a track record, and they know what they're doing, and they know the critical path is certain aspects, you know, of those projects like electrical is critical.

[Krista Friesen, Executive Director of Equity Research at CIBC Capital Markets]

Thanks. I appreciate the color on that, and it sounds like a very big opportunity. If I could just sneak in one more. I appreciate early days since we've seen so much volatility in the price of oil. Are you hearing anything about potential delays in the maintenance work, just given where the price of oil is and maybe customers looking to push out as much as they can right now?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

It would be our opinion, despite the press yesterday on this, it would be our opinion that there isn't any ability to defer any of these large turnarounds another year. It wouldn't meet the regulatory obligations, and it wouldn't be a good decision, you know, given that we have already extended some of them a year. That's just our opinion. We have reached out, you know, based on that article that came out yesterday, and have confirmed, you know, that there is no anticipation of a delay, you know, of these turnarounds. There's a lot of planning goes into these. They're big. I guess it's anybody's guess when things settle down, whether things are settled down by the fall. That's the timing of those.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

They're not spring turnarounds as they sometimes were historically. They're all fall turnarounds this time around so.

[Krista Friesen, Executive Director of Equity Research at CIBC Capital Markets]

Thank you. Appreciate it. I'll jump back in the queue.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, analysts who wish to ask a question may press star one one on your telephone. Again, that is star one one to ask a question. Our next question comes from Maxim Sytchev with National Bank Financial. Your line is open.

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Teri, Wayne, good morning. I just wanted to circle back, if I may, to the data center space. I mean, I presume obviously right now your electrical capacity is sort of, you know, fully utilized. I'm assuming some of these big opportunities do come to fruition in terms of. I mean, are you thinking about any pinch points, in relation to accessing labor? Or, Teri, I guess, how do you envision those things evolving, let's call it, over the next 24 months? Thanks.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Yeah. One of the benefits we have, Max, is we have an accordion-like capability that, you know, is massive in scale when we ramp up and ramp down for, you know, the turnaround side. We have, you know, teams of people that that's all they do. As we enter into the planning stages of some of these projects, you know, it's a really nice feature that we have, and it's a nice. We carry a regular base, you know, of. What we will be doing as these things materialize is, you know, diverting attention to these away from some of the other, you know, traditional markets that we have. We have the ability to ramp up, you know, considerably, to handle one of these.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

We've a proven track record of building these for clients. You know, just, the scale of these and the speed of these is really increasing.

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Okay. Is there some sort of tangible capacity? I mean, I realize that you were not doing, like, a ton of Resi work, but is there some spare left in that bucket or not? Or were you just sort of talking about overall?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Yeah. I'd say that, you know, you, if you start to develop, you know, significant backlog in the data center space, you start to steer away from other opportunities that you have in other markets that we service. As you know, we have a very large commercial electrical capability, and we have a very large industrial electrical capability. Both of those have accordion-like features. We have bases all over Canada, so we can draw from those bases. The thing about the data centers is largely about speed. Those types of projects can, you know, carry the travel costs and the premiums that are associated with attracting that type of capability.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

I was told by one of my close friends in the U.S. that runs a very large construction company that if we had these, this army of electricians available in the U.S., we would have, you know, opportunities that would just be daunting to simply enter into because there's so much demand. We're dealing with clients that are very aware of the complexity of to deliver these projects with speed, you've got to have the resources. It's typically the first thing they look at is where's the electrical capacity?

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Right.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

That's how they get evaluated. We've had a lot of inbound requests from different companies, and it feels like we're heading into a nice phase of strong demand. We've got a track record of delivering these things end to end. We'll do the site developments. We'll do the, you know, we'll do electrical, mechanical, do the structures. We'll do, you know, underground utilities. We'll do all of that, you know, with our own companies. That's what clients are kind of looking for.

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Yeah. Can you remind us in terms of the margin generation there? Is there any differential versus kind of the core construction activities on the electrical side of things?

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

I think it's the turnkey capabilities. You know, if you look at companies in the U.S. That trade publicly that just do site development, you know, the speed of that site development will give you know, a higher margin opportunity, for companies that are more electrical, you know, and that trade publicly in the U.S., and you can see the margin profile that they're generating. It's definitely higher across the space because of the speed and because the quality and because of the, you know, the expectations and the confidence level of these clients to get these things done on time.

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Okay. That's super helpful. Then you had a slide, kind of, you know, highlighting some of the digital tools deployment that you're doing across the company. I realize it's probably, you know, very early days, but Teri or Wayne, if you want to opine on these developments and how that could be perceived, whether in terms of, you know, margin uplift or just critical path, you know, staying closer to that, any comments would be helpful. Thank you.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Well, it's certainly, you know, I think, again, that sometimes you're lucky with your timing. It's for us to put a new, you know, advanced ERP in place that has the latest, you know, technology and the latest capabilities, and it can be enhanced and expanded upon in many new areas. Predictive analytics is something that, you know, we've been working on now for 18 months, and now we're able to, you know, evaluate projects. You know, it's a very powerful tool in the sense that, you know, I've been in construction my whole career, and you do develop an eye for, you know, productivity or an eye for progress on a project.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Despite all that, despite you've been in the business for a long time, and you're a seasoned, you know, project superintendent, project manager, when you can give those individuals leading indicators of issues that you know you wouldn't normally be able to detect. It's not just, you know, if you're dealing with an individual project manager and you're thinking about his particular career, you know, he will only know what he knows through his particular career.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

If you're dealing with thousands of projects, thousands of leading indicators, and you have all that in your database, which we have, we're able to generate predictive flags, you know, at a very early level, sometimes 10% or 15%, which you normally would be, you know, catching up to till you're sort of midway through a project, maybe 50%. You know, as you know, we work a lot with clients, so we're able to share that, you know, that predictive ability with a client.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

You know, if you're working collaboratively with clients and the types of contracts we have today, clients are, you know, they wanna be fully aware of anything that's giving them any concern around schedule and anything they can do to, you know, enable, you know, whether it's moving utility or, you know, the utility relocation gets delayed, what is the impact on the project? With this kind of power that we have now in our new system and arming all our leaders in the field with these tools is very powerful.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

It's, you know, then you add to that a digital twin where you've got a model now, you know, that it will be controlling all of the projects in, you know, in terms of progress and design and, you know, constructability and workface planning and safety and all these aspects. It's really gonna make a difference, you know, in so many areas that project predictability will be considerably higher. In particular, I'm excited about what it's gonna do for safety.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

Because if we can, you know, ensure with the monitoring that we'll have capabilities to do that every individual worker is first and foremost, you know, in a position where they're qualified to be in, you know, but also working efficiently and with the right tools and the tools from the right place and, you know, that's gonna make a huge difference as the company moves forward.

[Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial]

Okay. Well, that sounds very exciting. Thank you so much for incremental color.

[Operator]

Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I will hand the call back over to Mr. McKibbon for closing remarks.

[Teri McKibbon, President and CEO at Bird Construction]

In closing, our foundation is stronger, visibility is greater, and the opportunity set is significant and multi-year. We remain focused on safety, our people and disciplined project execution, and we are increasingly confident in the trajectory of the business and energized by what lies ahead. Thank you all for joining us this morning.

[Operator]

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

Participants

Executives

• Teri McKibbon, President and CEO
• Wayne Gingrich, CFO

Analysts

• Chris Murray, Managing Director at ATB Capital Markets
• Frederic Bastien, Equity Research Analyst at Raymond James
• Ian Gillies, Managing Director at Stifel
• Krista Friesen, Executive Director of Equity Research at CIBC Capital Markets
• Maxim Sytchev, Managing Director at National Bank Financial