Foraco International Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
March 2, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Foraco reported a record order book of $404 million as of Dec 31, 2025 (with $228 million expected to be executed in 2026) and says current utilization and capacity give it flexibility to meet demand, with 90% of the backlog from tier‑one customers.
  • Negative Sentiment: While Q4 revenue grew ~8% year‑over‑year (ex‑FX) and Q4 EBITDA was flat at $10 million, full‑year revenue fell to $258 million (from $293 million) and EBITDA margin compressed to 18% from 21%, reflecting a market transition and startup impacts.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management has materially increased exposure to gold—now representing over 35% of the 2026 order book—and expects to be fully deployed on three major long‑term U.S. projects by mid‑2026, supporting higher future revenues.
  • Negative Sentiment: Margin and execution pressures remain from ramp‑up costs (about $3 million in Q4), higher depreciation from recent CapEx, rising input costs for drill bits, tightening labor markets, and extended rig delivery timelines.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Financial posture shows mixed signals—net debt rose to $71 million (or $65M at constant FX) with CapEx of $23 million in 2025 and an expectation of slightly higher CapEx in 2026, while working capital improved to $0.6 million and management prioritizes deleveraging toward below half a turn.
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Earnings Conference Call
Foraco International Q4 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Foraco Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you need assistance, please press star 0 for the operator. This call is being recorded on Monday, March 2, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tim Bremner. Please go ahead.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Thanks, Joanna. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Foraco's results for the fourth quarter and full year ending December 31, 2025. Joining me on the call is Fabien Sevestre, our chief financial officer, who will walk you through the financial results and key drivers. Before we begin, please note that our comments today may include forward-looking statements which are subject to risk and uncertainties. Turning to the highlights. Q4 2025 revenue was $66 million, excluding adverse foreign exchange, compared to $61 million in Q4 2024, an 8% increase. EBITDA was essentially flat year-over-year at $10 million and was impacted by the commencement of new contracts in the quarter and the usual seasonal effects, which impaired the performance by about $3 million.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

On a full year basis, revenue was $258 million, compared to $293 million in 2024, with EBITDA margin of 18% in 2025, compared to 21% in 2024. While full year results reflect the market transition we experienced across parts of 2025, Q4 was most certainly the inflection point. We saw significant growth in virtually all regions as market demand surged, and that demand is now clearly visible in our commercial pipeline. As a result, Foraco is reporting a record order book of $404 million as of December 31, 2025, of which $228 million is expected to be completed in 2026. I'd also like to point out that tier one customers represent 90% of our order book.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Importantly, with our current utilization rate, we have the capacity and flexibility to meet this demand while maintaining operational discipline. A key theme for 2025 was positioning the business for where the market was going and not where it has been. Over the year, Foraco significantly increased its exposure to gold while maintaining a disciplined approach during the market transition. Today, gold represents over 35% of our order book for 2026. We have the capacity to put more rigs to work under increasingly favorable commercial terms. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Fabien for the financial review. Fabien?

Fabien Sevestre
Fabien Sevestre
CFO at Foraco International

Thank you, Tim. Good morning, everyone. First of all, as a reminder, Foraco reports in full IFRS and in US dollar. Revenue for Q4 2025 amounted to $63 million compared to $61 million for the same quarter last year. By reporting segment, mining represented 82% of revenue and water represented 18%. By geography, North America revenue amounted to $20 million in Q4 2025, a 13% decrease driven by the completion and deferral of certain Canadian contracts. Asia Pacific revenue decreased to $18 million due to the early seasonal break in drilling operation compared to last year. South America revenue increased 95%, reflecting strong momentum. Operations in all three countries are still not reaching targeted performance level, continue to improve and are supported by growing customer demand.

Fabien Sevestre
Fabien Sevestre
CFO at Foraco International

In EMEA, revenue grew 15% to $6 million, supported by the continued ramp-up of contracts initiated during previous periods. In Q4 2025, the geographical activity split was North America 32%, Asia Pacific 28%, South America 31%, EMEA 9%. During the quarter, gross margin including depreciation was $10 million or 16% of revenue, compared to $11 million or 18% of revenue in Q4 2024. This decrease was mainly driven by an increase in depreciation costs linked to the significant CapEx to execute long-term contracts awarded during the period. SG&A was stable at $5 million, and as a percentage of revenue, SG&A was 8%. As a result, EBIT was $5 million versus $6 million in Q4 2024. EBITDA amounted to $10 million, the same as Q4 2024.

Fabien Sevestre
Fabien Sevestre
CFO at Foraco International

On a full year basis, revenue amounted to $258 million compared to $293 million last year. The full year gross profit was 18% compared to 21% last year. The full year EBIT was $27 million or 10% of revenue compared to $43 million or 15% of revenue in full year 2024. As a percentage of revenue, EBITDA for the full year was 18% compared to 21% in 2024. As at December 31, 2025, working capital requirement were $0.6 million compared to $10 million in 2024. CapEx amounted to $23 million in cash compared to $18 million-$19 million last year. This CapEx was mainly related to the construction of new proprietary rigs, the acquisition of new rigs and ancillary equipment, and roads to support new contracts.

Fabien Sevestre
Fabien Sevestre
CFO at Foraco International

At December 31, 2025, our net debt, including lease obligation, was $71 million or $65 million at constant exchange rates compared to $61 million at December 31, 2024. I will now hand the call back to Tim for his closing remarks. Tim?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Thank you, Fabien. Stepping back, what we're seeing today is a much stronger market demand across our core regions. This demand is being driven primarily by record gold prices and continued structural demand for copper, which remains central to electrification and grid investment globally. Water remains a key market that we continue to develop. We're also seeing growing customer interest and increasingly funded programs in commodities such as tungsten, antimony and rare earth metals. These metals have rarely been in such high demand, and the driver is clear: geopolitical tension and supply chain uncertainty, with global supply often highly concentrated and in many cases dominated by China. This demand is being strongly supported by the capital markets, with record levels of investment flowing into exploration and development across multiple commodity groups.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Against this backdrop, we have deliberately focused on significantly increasing our exposure to gold and other commodities in high demand, particularly in the United States. We continue to ramp up and deploy rigs there. We expect to be fully deployed on three significant long-term projects by mid-year. In South America, our business has recovered well, demonstrated by 95% year-over-year growth in Q4 2025 and supported by a robust order book. Our focus now is to keep improving operational performance and execution as our activity scales. As always, a brisk market comes with challenges. Foraco is prepared. We are seeing price increases in rock cutting tools driven mainly by higher input costs for silver and tungsten, which are widely used in drill bits. Labor markets are tightening across all regions. We expect this to translate into somewhat higher labor costs over time.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Rig demand has increased meaningfully, pushing delivery timelines out compared to what we saw in 2025. Foraco anticipated these dynamics early. In 2025, we moved more than 20 drills around the world to align our capacity with opportunity. We also placed orders for new drills, and we're taking delivery of that equipment now and in the coming months. We also remain disciplined with our crews despite a very competitive labor market, which helped us to retain and attract experienced crews as we return to higher activity levels. Finally, our disciplined approach to the market, while it impacted our top line in 2025, was definitely the correct strategy. As we tender new projects today, we are doing so at rates that incorporate the increased costs we are expecting as activity continues to ramp up. In closing, we believe Q4 marked the turning point in demand.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Our order book is at a record level. Our utilization rates give us room to go. Our mix, particularly our increased exposure to gold, positions us very well for 2026. Joanna, we can now turn the call over to questions.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the 1 on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. If you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. The 1st question comes from Donangelo Volpe at Beacon Securities. Please go ahead.

Donangelo Volpe
Donangelo Volpe
Analyst at Beacon Securities

Hey, good morning, guys. Congratulations on the record backlog. Just wondering how much of the backlog is tied to multi-year contracts versus shorter duration programs and kind of what the expected margin is of the executable backlog compared to 2025 margins?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

you know, as we indicated, Donangelo Volpe, $228 million of that is going to be executed in 2026. you can do the math and see what the remainder is in, spelling out beyond that. The majority of that is for tier one customers. you know, which by nature indicates that, you know, there's going to be continuity and increased work following on the work that we're doing, as opposed to being in the spot market for the juniors, which represents only about 10% of the current order book. as I said, we've still got capacity. We've got rigs available. The tender pipeline is still very brisk. we're being quite selective about the new opportunities we take on.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

When it comes to the margins, as I mentioned, we are anticipating that some costs may increase, and we are in a position now where we can tender work at improved commercial terms. This would indicate that margins may improve. We're also working on execution and performance in areas where the margins have been not as good as we would like, and we're seeing that trend improve. That would indicate that, you know, margin profile would be reasonable or sustained or possibly improve a little bit going forward.

Donangelo Volpe
Donangelo Volpe
Analyst at Beacon Securities

Okay. I appreciate all the color there. Final question for me, just, would it be possible to provide any CapEx expectations for fiscal 26?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Sure. I'll let Fabien address that.

Fabien Sevestre
Fabien Sevestre
CFO at Foraco International

The CapEx will be in correspondence with our order book and very in line with what we already expensed in at the end of 2025. It should be a little bit higher compared to 2025.

Donangelo Volpe
Donangelo Volpe
Analyst at Beacon Securities

Okay. Thank you. Congratulations on the quarter, guys. I'll hop back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Frédéric Tremblay with Desjardins. Please go ahead.

Frédéric Tremblay
Frédéric Tremblay
Analyst at Desjardins

Thank you. Tim, you mentioned some ramp-up costs. I believe you said $3 million in Q4. You know, as you look at your backlog and project startup schedule for 2026, can you give us maybe a bit more visibility on ramp-up cost in the next couple quarters, and when you expect sort of that dynamic to maybe normalize on an EBITDA level? Thanks.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Sure. Good morning, Fred. Yes, there was some ramp-up costs that we experienced in Q4 as we started new projects in Latin America. You can appreciate that when you equip a drill rig or a number of rigs to go out for a long-term project, there's the need to scale up at the beginning and your expenses are higher at the beginning rather than, you know, when you're maintaining. This is happening in Latin America. It's also happening in the U.S. As I indicated, we are continuing to scale up in the U.S., there will continue to be those startup costs there, and that would have some impact on margins.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

You know, once our utilization rate increases, and we get to kind of the cruise level that we're expecting for 2026, those ramp-up costs will mitigate. We won't, you know, unless we continue to find new opportunities, we don't expect those ramp-up costs to mitigate much beyond the end of Q2.

Frédéric Tremblay
Frédéric Tremblay
Analyst at Desjardins

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Just on the utilization rate, I think it was 40% in Q4. Sounds like you're getting busier and which is, which is great. Any color on your expectations for utilization in the near term, where you're at now or where you see the company, going near-later this year?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Sure. Yes, we were at 40%. We're currently just over 50%. We're still mobilizing rigs, so you know, that figure will increase. I don't wanna speculate on where it's going to go for the full year, but it's certainly a much improved utilization rate from prior year.

Frédéric Tremblay
Frédéric Tremblay
Analyst at Desjardins

Yeah.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

As it's indicated, we do, you know, we have a lot of capacity or, you know, that we can deploy, and we put the rigs in the right place to take advantage of the improvement in the market.

Frédéric Tremblay
Frédéric Tremblay
Analyst at Desjardins

No, that's great. It's great to hear. Speaking of putting rigs in the right place, I was wondering if you could comment a bit on the geographic nature of the backlog. You know, South America seems to be doing quite well. Is that also reflected in your backlog, or do you see other geographies kind of picking up steam?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

The backlog is healthy in all of the main jurisdictions, including South America. You know, it's a significant improvement. We still have other projects that are up for renewal and that we're very optimistic about. But, you know, you can't announce that backlog until those outcomes are known. There, the backlog is quite healthy, especially in North and South America.

Frédéric Tremblay
Frédéric Tremblay
Analyst at Desjardins

Great. That's all I had. Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Steven Green with Ordinance Capital. Please go ahead.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

Good morning. Good morning, Tim. How are you?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Hey, Steven. I'm well, thanks.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

I think, just on the topic, I wanna give you, give you personally a lot of credit, for sticking to your strategy of tier one profitable business. I know we had a couple of tough quarters for more than a year. You stuck to your guns. I guess the price of metals helped, but you really it's starting to pay off. I also wanna say that you turning Latin America around, or South America around from a real negative to a positive, which seems to be really gonna be growing quickly here profitably is really, really a credit to your fortitude and to changing the management and so forth. I'm thankful as a shareholder. Also, just one question.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

As you guys start getting more profitable and generate more cash, do you see your net debt levels, do you wanna decrease them? What's your optimal capital structure? I know you wanna keep maintaining some debt.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

First of all, thanks for the comments. We've got a great team here at Foraco, so it was a group effort on improving the performance in South America. You know, the net debt has increased slightly, but this, you know, is not to be unexpected when you see the return to growth or the investment that we made in the last quarter. Our strategy and our intention is absolutely to reduce the net debt. That is the number one priority of capital allocation, it will continue to be so. I think I've indicated in the past that, you know, we want to deleverage the balance sheet to somewhere under half a turn.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Maintaining some debt is fine, but we want to have the debt at a level where the business is sustainable, despite of, you know, potentially unexpected changes in the market. We are disciplined on reducing debt.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

Well, that's great. I'm not sure what your high water mark was for revenue, but do you see us surpassing setting records for revenue in the near future?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Well, I think our high water mark, I'm just going from memory, so don't. I think it was $377 million in 2023. Remember that included jurisdictions where we no longer operate.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

Right.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

That represented, you know, a significant portion of our top line. You know, as we invest in new rigs, and grow the business back up, you know, we've been there before. All we just need is sustainability in the market, for a long enough time. Yeah, it's entirely possible to get there.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

Well, that's great. I think, I mean, you can comment on this is really an inflection point for the model, cause I think that the leverage of the model really for now, as we get to these higher revenue rates, is really gonna start to show because it seems like your margins are expanding even as you get more revenue, which is great. I'm excited about the model. I guess the last thing I'll say before I go is besides thank you is it's nice to see other people on the call and interested in the company again. For a long time, I asked the only question. I'm glad to see we had more people on the call than just me.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Yeah, we thank you for your unwavering support, Steven. It's been very important to us and it's nice to have a call under a much better environment.

Steven Green
Analyst at Ordinance Capital

Yeah. Well, good. Congratulations, and thanks again.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Thank you, Steven.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As a reminder, if you have any questions, please press star one now. The next question comes from Dan Ellsworth with World Micro. Please go ahead.

Dan Ellsworth
President and CEO at World Micro

Yeah. Congratulations on a great quarter and it does appear to be that inflection point that we're seeing. Given the backlog and that you mentioned a current 50% utilization rate, how should we be looking at the, you know, an impact or, you know, are you comfortable giving some guidance around, you know, year-end like cash flow or EBITDA, a year from now? The second part of the question was on the utilization rate, since we've been so selective in terms of not taking bad deals and just really being strategic about being patient, and that's great. We're at all-time highs in the metals, so that strategy's worked. What is a good utilization rate to kind of bake in come year-end? Is it something like...

Dan Ellsworth
President and CEO at World Micro

I assume you could sign deals all the time, but the question is, are they good ones? Does year-end look like a 75% utilization rate or 85% or 60% or just maybe a little color around that, you know, what we may be talking about, you know, a year from now?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Sure. Sure. To the first part of your question, Foraco does not provide guidance, I won't be able to respond to that part of the question. The maximum utilization rate the company has had was in 2012, when we peaked at 74%. You know, really, that is maximum utilization. To go any higher than that is virtually impossible. I state that because there's, you know, there are interruptions in the business at year-end. There's mobilization periods where rigs are being moved, and there's also maintenance. In order to get much higher than 74% is truly unrealistic.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

This year, I can tell you that 67% of the fleet is gonna be used at any given time, and that's a significant figure for us. You again, when I say, you know, 67%, that's across all types of rigs. You know, certain rigs are site specific. For example, you can't put a rotary rig on an underground project and vice versa. You know, we see the utilization rate continuing to improve and getting to very healthy levels.

Dan Ellsworth
President and CEO at World Micro

That's good. I think the last part of the question is, I'm not sure if anyone's done this analysis, any guess on what the barriers to entry would be for a new player to walk into this industry and have the number of rigs that you do and the, and the location set up, the infrastructure, you know, baked out? It, it seems like we're just, we're at the right place at the right time, of course. Any thoughts around what it would take to start something like this?

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Sure. We can respond to that. There's, you know, there's really two dynamics to our business. There's the junior market, and then there's the work that the tier one and the mid-tier companies do that are generally much more involved and much more technical. If you wanna go and buy a couple of core drills to service a local area that might be pretty active with junior activity, realistically, the barriers to entry are low. That's why we focus our business to be diversified, including our water business, which is strategic. It's very technical. It's very capital intense. You cannot find a crew that can do that type of work easily. It takes years and years to train them.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

In that regard, that's why our rotary business to us is strategically important, and we're continuing to focus on growing it. The demand is constant over the commodity cycle for water well work, and the barriers to entry are significant. When it comes to new competitors in the tier one space for exploration and development, that too, there are some natural barriers. There's the scale of the size of the competitor because these projects generally require, you know, a number of rigs. The requirements of the customers are quite steep, either in terms of health and safety or technical in that the holes must be drilled exactly to where they want them, or the ground conditions are challenging. Core recovery is the most imperative aspect of the program.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

You can't start a drilling company, just go hire people off the street and in all of those elements to satisfy a tier one customer. There's those natural barriers to entry there. That's the space that we've positioned ourselves in to be able to supply the tier ones with our service.

Dan Ellsworth
President and CEO at World Micro

Very good. Appreciate you guys. Congrats.

Operator

Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Tim Bremner for closing remarks.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Thanks very much, Joanna.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

Joanna?

Operator

Yes, please continue. It seems like your line did cut out there for one second.

Tim Bremner
Tim Bremner
CEO at Foraco International

The line cut. All done.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. We thank you for participating. We ask that you please disconnect your line.

Executives
    • Fabien Sevestre
      Fabien Sevestre
      CFO
    • Tim Bremner
      Tim Bremner
      CEO
Analysts
    • Dan Ellsworth
      President and CEO at World Micro
    • Donangelo Volpe
      Analyst at Beacon Securities
    • Frédéric Tremblay
      Analyst at Desjardins
    • Steven Green
      Analyst at Ordinance Capital
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