WSP Global Q2 2026 Earnings Report

WSP Global EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$2.88
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

WSP Global Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $5.40 billion
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

WSP Global Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/5/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 6, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

WSP Global (TSE:WSP) Inc provides engineering and design services to clients in the Transportation & Infrastructure, Property and Buildings, Environment, Power and Energy, Resources, and Industry sectors. It also offers strategic advisory services. The firm operates through four reportable segments namely, Canada, Americas ( US and Latin America), EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa), and APAC (Asia Pacific, comprising Australia, New Zealand and Asia).

WSP Global Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Q2 results exceeded expectations: organic net revenue growth was 5%, adjusted EBITDA rose 28.8% to CAD 815 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 90 basis points to a record 19.1%.
• Positive Sentiment: Visibility and demand strengthened. Backlog reached a record CAD 20.1 billion, with organic backlog growth accelerating to 5.7%; demand was particularly strong in power and energy, data centers, critical minerals, defense, nuclear, and water infrastructure.
• Positive Sentiment: Management raised its 2026 net revenue outlook to CAD 16.2–17.0 billion and adjusted EBITDA outlook to CAD 3.1–3.18 billion, while indicating the 19%–20% margin target could be reached as early as 2026.
• Positive Sentiment: TRC integration is progressing as planned and the acquired business is performing at or slightly above expectations, with more than 100 joint pursuits identified and strong growth in U.S. utility-related backlog and pipeline.
• Negative Sentiment: Leverage remains slightly above WSP’s target range following the TRC acquisition, while New Zealand remains a softer APAC market and acquisition, integration, and reorganization costs are now expected at CAD 285–305 million.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the WSP Global Inc Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please note that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our first speaker, Quentin Weber, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Quentin Weber, Head of Investor Relations at WSP Global]

Good day. Thank you for joining our call. Today, we will discuss our Q2 2026 results and performance, followed by a Q&A session. Alexandre L'Heureux, our President and CEO, and Alain Michaud, our CFO, are joining us this morning. Please note that this call is also accessible via webcast on our website. During the call, we may make forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ from those expressed or implied. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are listed in the MD&A for the quarter ended June 26, 2026, and the financial year ended December 31, 2025, which can be found on SEDAR+ and on our website. In addition, during the call, we may refer to specific non-IFRS financial measures.

[Quentin Weber, Head of Investor Relations at WSP Global]

These measures are defined in the MD&A for the quarter ended June 26, 2026. Our MD&A includes reconciliations of non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures. Management believes that these non-IFRS measures and other financial measures provide useful information to investors regarding the corporation's financial condition and results of operation as they provide additional key metrics of its performance. These non-IFRS measures are not recognized under IFRS, do not have any standardized meaning prescribed under IFRS, and may differ from similarly named measures reported by other issuers and accordingly may not be comparable. These measures should not be considered as a substitute for the related financial information prepared by IFRS. With that, I will now turn the call over to Alexandre.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you, Quentin. Thank you all for joining us this morning. Today, I'm very excited that this was an excellent quarter for WSP. WSP exited the second quarter with stronger momentum than when it entered the year. Organic growth accelerated, backlog reached a record level, margin expanded by 90 basis points, and TRC is performing as expected. Together, these leading indicators increased our confidence in the outlook for the balance of 2026 and beyond. Let me recap a few highlights from the quarter. First, organic net revenue growth of 5% brought us to the high end of our quarterly outlook range, with every reportable segment contributing. We added roughly CAD 800 million of net revenues year-over-year, a 23% increase, largely reflecting a contribution of our recent highly strategic acquisitions.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Backlog reached a new record of CAD 20.1 billion at quarter end, with organic growth of 5.7% over the last 12 months. Beyond the absolute number, what matters most is that organic backlog growth accelerated to its strongest pace since 2022. In a market where investors are increasingly focused on long-term visibility, we believe our backlog, sub-backlog, and pipeline of opportunities provide a clear indication of future growth potential. Our pipeline tells the same story. WSP is involved in some of the largest and more complex projects globally. For example, our top 20 opportunities alone represent more than CAD 4 billion in potential revenue. Importantly, the strongest areas of demand we see today are directly linked to long-term duration investment themes, including AI-enabled digital infrastructure, power generation and transmission, data centers, critical minerals, defense, and nuclear energy.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

These are complex engineering-intensive programs that require multidisciplinary expertise, regulatory capabilities, and large-scale project delivery capacity. our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 90 basis points year-over-year to 19.1%, reflecting our continued and disciplined focus on margin improvement. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 28.8% year-over-year and exceeded our quarterly outlook range. As we continue our journey on margin expansion, it is becoming increasingly apparent to us that scale creates operational leverage. fourth, our power and energy platform delivered another quarter of double-digit organic growth with global net revenues from our top 40 global power clients rising 30% year-over-year. TRC's integration remains on plan for completion within the next six months. The acquisition is doing exactly what we acquired it to do, strengthen a position in one of the fast-growing and most strategic end markets globally.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Let me now provide you with a few comments on our regions, starting with Canada, which delivered on every measure this quarter. Organic growth reached 5.1%, and backlog grew by a robust 14.2% over the last 12 months, an outstanding performance. The pipeline in Canada is exceptionally deep, and the momentum is broad-based. In defense, we hold a position few can match. WSP is the leading direct provider of engineering and environmental services to Defence Construction Canada, with hundreds of projects underway nationwide and over 25 active master service agreements. Our pipeline has doubled in the past year, positioning us as a strategic partner on major current and upcoming opportunities. In mining, our recognized global leadership with more than 5,000 professional worldwide helped us convert several major opportunities. Capital keeps moving toward critical minerals driven by AI, electrification, grid expansion, and energy transition.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

This high-margin business has averaged double-digit organic growth over five years, with hard backlog up roughly 25% in the past 12 months. In power and energy, we see a significant increase in demand for our engineering services. Our energy sub-sector is well ahead of budget, delivering 70% growth year-over-year. We expect market conditions to remain strong for the remainder of 2026 and into 2027, with increased investment across the energy market in Canada. in nuclear, WSP is Canada's leader in siting and permitting consulting. We are leading or supporting every impact assessment for proposed new nuclear generation in Canada. Nuclear-related revenue has tripled year-over-year and backlog in this market is at a record. Defense, mining, transportation, power and energy, and nuclear together make up of one of the most compelling growth profiles in our portfolio in Canada and globally, and we expect that to continue.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Turning to the Americas, the depth of our accessible hard and sub-backlog, together with a robust opportunity pipeline, position us well for accelerated growth in the second half and beyond. For example, our U.S. sub-backlog on net revenue basis reached CAD 10 billion and is up approximately 9% versus Q1 2026, pointing to substantial potential for future revenue and a meaningful portion is expected to convert to accessible work by year-end. In addition, approximately 86% of that sub-backlog sits in framework agreements, which are pre-approved contract vehicles that let task order convert quickly to revenue once client authorize funding. Power and energy continues to expand rapidly in the U.S., supported by heightened bid and proposal activity with investor-owned utilities. In this market, net revenues and hard backlog from our top 40 global power clients in the U.S. increased 15% and 20% year-over-year, respectively.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Our portfolio of clients now include the top 60 U.S. investor-owned utilities or IOUs, covering the vast majority of the U.S. market. TRC continues to deliver, with its hard backlog and sub-backlog up 30% and 35% year-over-year, respectively. We have also identified more than 100 collaboration opportunities where WSP and TRC teams are combining expertise, resources, and client relationship to better serve clients. One of them resulted in a significant award from a large IOU to support its CAD 78 billion five-year capital plan with line of sight to more than CAD 10 billion of potential future work. This highlights the scale and the opportunity in power and energy, where our expanded platform positioned WSP to capture larger, longer duration mandates. Data centers delivered another period of rapid expansion, with revenues up more than 20% year-over-year in the first half of 2026.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Our data center sales pipeline is approximately 30% higher than a year ago, reflecting deeper client relationship, broader account penetration, and rising demand for integrated delivery solutions. Ranked number one in data center design by Engineering News-Record, WSP now support more than six sites with more than one gigawatt of compute power capacity and is a trusted partner to the 70 clients we serve in this sector, which has doubled in the last year. In advancement manufacturing, clients are engaging us across the entire project life cycle, from early planning through design, delivery, and operational readiness, drawing on our integrated multidisciplinary capabilities. WSP is supporting over 200 industrial clients and the backlog is up 29% year-over-year. The platform continues to deliver strong momentum with revenue growth of more than 20% year-over-year. Nuclear in the U.S. is scaling just as quickly.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

We are now supporting 22 new sites across the U.S., spanning site selection, licensing, design, and construction support, and we recently won a role in the primary design of an industry-first gas to nuclear SMR project with Blue Energy at the Port of Victoria site in Texas. Few firms can operate across the full cycle of nuclear program, and that is precisely where the market is heading. Lastly, on water, business is up 20% year-over-year and is another fast-scaling part of our portfolio. Client demand for water infrastructure shows no signs of slowing, with WSP water pipeline up 61% year-over-year as communities invest in aging infrastructure PFAS, water quality mandates, and climate resilience. In Q2, WSP captured a major program contract with Seattle Public Utilities worth CAD 100 million.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Taking together our hard backlog and soft backlog pipeline of opportunities and newly secured mandates set us up to grow faster in that market. The CAD 7 billion we deployed in power and energy in recent years to position our U.S. business strategically is really starting to pay off. Turning to EMEA, we delivered organic growth in net revenues of 8.1%, and the future is bright as our backlog grew organically by 10.4%. Of special interest, the quarter saw another standout performance from our U.K. business, which delivered yet another quarter of double-digit net revenue organic growth. Elevated growth is supported by strategic targeted markets such as power and energy, nuclear, defense and security, aviation, and healthcare. EMEA is increasingly winning from the breadth of what it can offer, and with a healthy organic backlog growth profile, the region has the visibility to sustain this trajectory.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Finally, in APAC, the region returned to growth for the first time in six quarters, right on plan, powered by a notable turnaround in Australia. In New Zealand, the government's national land transport plan has reduced project investment. While this is expected to have some impact on our business, we are taking steps to mitigate its effects. Overall, the efforts we deployed to recalibrate the business in APAC are showing up in the numbers. In summary, this was an exceptional quarter and more importantly, clear evidence that our strategy is working and momentum is accelerating. With that, I will now turn it over to Alain, who will walk you through our financial results.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

All right. Thank you, Alex, and hello, everyone. I'm pleased to report this morning on our strong financial results for the quarter. Let's start with growth. For the second quarter, revenues increased by approximately 20% year-over-year, while net revenue increased by approximately 23%. Organic net revenue growth reached 5%, with all reportable segments contributing. The U.K. posted double-digit organic growth. EMEA outperformed expectations. APAC returned to growth a quarter ahead of plan, and the outlook for the U.S. business improved in the quarter. Backlog reached a new record level of CAD 20 billion as of the end of June, up 23% over the last 12 months, representing 11.6 months of revenue, with organic growth standing at 5.7% over the same period.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Moving on to profitability, adjusted EBITDA in the quarter grew to CAD 815 million, compared to CAD 633 million in the second quarter of 2025, representing an increase of 29%. Exceeding management's quarterly outlook range of CAD 770 million-CAD 810 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter increased 90 basis points, reaching 19.1% compared to 18.2% in the second quarter of 2025. The improvement was driven equally by productivity gain and lower rightsizing costs versus the prior years. 19.1% is the best WSP Q2 margin ever recorded. Adjusted net earnings for the quarter reached CAD 389 million, or CAD 2.88 per share, up CAD 82 million, or CAD 0.53 per share, compared to the second quarter of 2025. This represents a 23% increase over the prior year.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

As for our cash position, cash inflows from operating activities were CAD 554 million for the six-month period ended June 26, 2026, compared to CAD 822 million the corresponding period of 2025. This mainly reflects timing. The prior year period benefited from CAD 195 million of inflow related to the sale of the eligible trade receivable under the factoring arrangement, and in addition, sorry, a portion of the POWER Engineers incentive awards were paid during the quarter. Adjusted for those two items, cash generation is in line with last year and is expected historical level of conversion over the balance of 2026, consistent with our usual seasonality. Free cash flow was CAD 255 million for the six-month period ended June 26, 2026, and trailing 12-month free cash flow amounted to CAD 1.4 billion, representing 1.5x net earning attributable to shareholders.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

DSO at the end of the quarter stood at 71 days compared to 69 days last year and is in line with our expectation. While the leverage ratio remains slightly above our target range following the recent acquisition of TRC, we generated approximately CAD 1.4 billion of trailing 12-month free cash flow and remain confident in our ability to deliver through earnings growth and cash generation with a return to our target range by year-end. Turning to our 2026 outlook. The financial outlook issued in February 2026 and revised on May 6, 2026, is reiterated except for the increased net revenue and adjusted EBITDA range, which now are expected to range between CAD 16.2 billion-CAD 17 billion for net revenue and between CAD 3.1 billion-CAD 3.18 billion for EBITDA.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

In the 2025 to 2027 global strategic action plan, we set an ambition to reach an adjusted EBITDA margin of 19%-20% by 2027. Given the progress achieved to date, we continue to see a path to get to that target range, as early as 2026. For Q3 2026, we expect net revenue to range from CAD 4.15 billion-CAD 4.35 billion and adjusted EBITDA to range from CAD 850 million-CAD 890 million. Lastly, our acquisition integration and reorg costs are now expected to range between CAD 285 million-CAD 305 million, mainly due to non-cash accounting impact following the disposal of non-core activities, as well as costs related to ongoing M&A and integration activities. I'd like to remind you that our outlook is intended to help analysts and shareholder refine their perspective on our performance, and using this information for other purposes may be inappropriate.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Actual results may differ and such differences may be material. Also, our selected financial outlook does not include any acquisition, transaction, or disposal that may occur after today. Overall, this quarter's result, organic growth across all segments, a record backlog, expanded margin, and increased outlook gives us real confidence for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. Our financial position remains healthy and provides solid foundation to support our priorities going forward. On that, back to you, Alex.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you, Alain. To close, we delivered an excellent second quarter. Net revenue grew 23%, adjusted EBITDA rose nearly 29%, margins expanded by 90 basis points to 19.1%, our best second quarter ever since our IPO, all while delivering 5% organic growth with every segment contributing. What excites us most is not any single number in isolation, it is the direction of travel. Organic growth accelerated, organic backlog growth accelerated, margins expanded, TRC is performing as expected. Bottom line, our confidence increased. Taking together, these results reinforce our belief that WSP is uniquely positioned at the intersection of some of the world's largest investment teams: energy sovereignty, AI infrastructure, critical minerals, defense resilience, water, and power and energy sectors. When we look across the portfolio today, we see a business with stronger momentum exiting the second quarter than when it entered the year.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Before taking questions, I would like to briefly now address Arcadis. As previously disclosed, we have submitted two friendly non-binding proposals to Arcadis. As outlined in our 2025-2027 global strategic action plan, M&A remains an important component of our long-term strategy to deliver shareholder value and continues to be part of the fabric of WSP. Consistent with that strategy, we continue to believe that a combination with Arcadis would be highly strategic, create substantial value for the stakeholders of both companies, and accelerate the growth ambitions of the combined organization. We have approached this dialogue in a constructive and respectful manner for many months and continue to view it as a potential friendly transaction between two great companies. At the same time, we remain disciplined in our approach to capital allocation and acquisitions.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Importantly, regardless of the outcome, WSP growth outlook, strategic priorities, financial objectives, and capital allocation framework remain unchanged. Our business continues to perform very well, as demonstrated by the results we reported today, including accelerated organic growth, record backlog, and expanding margins. Beyond that, we do not intend to comment further on Arcadis today so that we can keep our focus on WSP's second quarter results and outlook. With that, we will now open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Once again, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. This will take a few moments. Once again, please press star one one if you have any questions or comments. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. Please ask your question.

[Frederic Bastien, Analyst at Raymond James]

Good morning and good quarter. I do appreciate the level of granularity you provided around your target markets, quite helpful. First question. I was under the impression that the America's margins would be down slightly year-over-year as you fold in the TRC business, but instead we saw pretty impressive gain. Can you elaborate on what drove this? Was it strength in the underlying business, a better-than-expected performance from TRC, or both?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

It's a bit of everything, Fred, to be honest. As you know, we've been pushing hard on continued improvement and efficiency, productivity, project performance. Yes, we've made good progress with TRC as well. It's a bit all of the above. We're very proud of the margin expansion in the U.S. and Canada also, and across the patch.

[Frederic Bastien, Analyst at Raymond James]

How do we think about sort of the potential for margin improvement in the back half in the Americas specifically?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

As we stand right now with the outlook, Fred, that we put together, it kind of indicate at midpoint a 60 basis point improvement versus last year. As stated before, we even see a path to even deliver a bit better and get into our 2027 target range of 19%-20%. As it relate to the U.S., we'll continue to push hard, and that will be at 50% of the business. You could imagine that this will be part of the story to support that 60 to 70 basis point improvement over prior years.

[Frederic Bastien, Analyst at Raymond James]

Great. Thanks, Alain. Alex, you started and finished your prepared remarks by saying WSP is in a better place today than it was six months ago. Should we interpret that as a broadly based improvement across the organization? Or are there still certain countries or in markets where conditions remain more mixed?

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

I mentioned that New Zealand is a little bit more mixed than it's doing better than a year ago, but it's still a bit more mixed. With the exception of New Zealand right now in our portfolio, I'm looking at the contribution of all our geographies and all of our sectors, and everybody's contributing positively. What I said, I have strong conviction. I feel very good about where we're at now compared to six months ago. I would say, just going back to the U.S. business, Frederic, five years ago, 60 months ago, we had 9,000 people in our U.S. business. Today, we have 28,000 people, 60 months later. Sometimes you need to pause and reflect on what we've accomplished in the last 60 months and the amount of capital that we've deployed in the country. As Alain just indicated, it's 50% of our business.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

I think we are now starting to reap the benefit of what we've built over the last few years with the POWER Engineers acquisition, with the TRC acquisition. Obviously, earlier in the decade, we bought Golder and Wood E&I, but we completely transformed our U.S. business in the last five years. Five years ago, 80% of our revenue was generated in transport and infrastructure. Today, 35%-40% of our business is in power. We needed a bit of time to digest the transformation. Now I'm looking at the pipeline of opportunities, and I'm looking at the sub backlog, and I'm looking at the collaboration between our sectors, and I'm very excited about the future prospect of WSP in the U.S., but globally for that matter. You look at Canada, with the backlog growth of 14.2%. I've not seen that in a long, long time.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

I'm quite pleased with the results, and I think it bodes well for the future.

[Frederic Bastien, Analyst at Raymond James]

Great. Okay. Thank you both.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Thanks, Fred.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes on the line of Sabahat Khan from RBC Capital Markets. Please ask your question.

[Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Hi, this is Bhavin] on the line for Sabah.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Okay. Good morning.

[Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. My question was more on the organic growth in the U.S. market this quarter. It was pretty good. What I wanted to know more was about how has that evolved since last year, and do you have a view on that looking forward into the back half of the year?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah. Well, we're very pleased with the performance in the quarter. I'll start with that. I think an important point to mention about the U.S. business, if you look at the underlying business in the U.S., and you take TRC as organic contribution, the business is delivering roughly 6% in the first half. I think that's a pretty good performance. We continue to see accelerating momentum in the U.S. Our recruitment engine is firing on all cylinders. We've been growing head count, and you've heard all the backlog growth, pipeline of opportunities in key areas of growth, including power and energy, that are all pointing in the right direction. That's beyond any specific quarter, I could tell you that we feel increasingly more comfortable with the U.S. increasing pace. The leading indicators are all pointing in the right direction.

[Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it back. Thank you.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Benoît Poirier from Desjardins. Please ask your question.

[Benoît Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

Good morning, Alex. Good morning, Alain. Congrats on the solid quarter. Maybe first question in terms of APAC. Obviously, it was nice to see that you turned positive in terms of organic growth. What could we expect in the second half in terms of organic growth for APAC in light of your backlog?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah. APAC, obviously very pleased with the performance, returning to overall growth a quarter in advance. We had called for Q3 for that. This is largely explained by Australia. That's over-performing on expectation right now. As Alex pointed out, on the flip side, there's a bit of softness, if I could say that way, New Zealand, despite being a much better performance than last year. All in all, we're still targeting to be in line with our outlook for the region, which was a flat contribution. We'll continue to push, obviously, and if Australia continue to deliver like that, maybe we'll have good surprise, but for the time being, I think similar revenue than last year is still our expectation.

[Benoît Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

Okay, that's great color. Maybe for Alex, could you provide an update on your M&A pipeline?

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Look, we continue, Benoît. We have a three-year plan to deliver. We've been enormously active, I would say, in the last 24 months with POWER Engineers, with TRC, with Ricardo. All of them are progressing extremely well. We continue to have informal and formal discussion with smaller-sized firms, mid-size firms. The answer is yes, we have a good pipeline. I've said it in the past, and I'll say it again, we don't use the market as an excuse, WSP, we've always found ways to be opportunistic in good time and more challenging time. It's not because our company is now trading at 2 turns below the industry peer that we're not finding and we're not going to find opportunities for us to create shareholder value.

[Benoît Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

Okay, that's great. Maybe last one for me. Could you provide an update on the number of employees you now have in India?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

I could. India continues to be a fantastic story for us. 6,500 is our overall GCC platform. It's about 8% of our total platform. If you remember, Benoît, not so long ago, we were talking about 5%, 6% of the overall platform. It continues to be a significant lever to growth. We're very proud of progress. Probably 1,000 net new people came in already year to date, 20%+ growth. That doesn't mean we don't hire elsewhere. We have roughly 7,000 open position right now for technical position. As I said in the U.S., but it's relevant across the patch, our recruitment engine is firing on all cylinders right now.

[Benoît Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins]

Thank you for the time.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Thanks, Benoît.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you, Benoît.

[Operator]

We are now going to take our next question. The question come from the line of Maxim Sytchev from National Bank Financial. Please ask your question.

[Maxim Sytchev, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. I was wondering, Alex, if you don't mind providing a bit more of an update on TRC integration and some of the operational priorities that the management team is focusing on for this asset specifically. Thank you.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Yeah. Max, things are progressing extremely well. I think the business is performing as expected, if not exceeding slightly our expectation. The goalpost for us is January 1st to convert TRC in our system now that we have one global platform. We are working on that. What is more important and what I've been spending a fair amount of my time and the team has been spending a lot of time doing is really the client-facing activities, is where we have devoted most of our energy right now. I mentioned it, we have now 100 joint pursuits that we're pursuing WSP and TRC. When we acquire a company, we always start with the client-facing activities. There's nothing like winning work together to have two organizations coming together, and that's true for all acquisitions. We have done that. Salary benefits, harmonization, it's substantially complete.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

We have a roadmap. I think the last milestone will be the conversion. Not really a point to do this mid-year. We're already in August, might as well waiting at the end of the fiscal year. That's why we chose to do it January 1st. Otherwise, we could have done it much quicker, but there's no point in doing that. It's progressing very well, Max.

[Maxim Sytchev, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

In terms of the opportunities, I guess thinking about geographies, I presume it would be kind of U.K. where you could combine and leverage both companies' expertise and relationship. Is that how we should be thinking about this?

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

You mean for TRC?

[Maxim Sytchev, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

Kind of on a pro forma basis

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

On a pro forma basis, we're going to see the most runway and the most exciting things coming out of the company will obviously be in the U.S., Max. We work with most, if not all of the IOUs in the U.S., so we cover the territory entirely. We're by far, in transmission and distribution, the largest player in the U.S. territory. There's not one project we cannot tackle. We have a strong gen capabilities as well, generation capabilities. I'm very excited, and as I said early on, we needed time to digest the two acquisitions that we completed. Now I'm really starting to see the activity level accelerating, and I'm looking at the size and the scale of the bids in that sector, and it's quite exciting.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

I was not in a position to talk about a win more officially on the call, but we have secured a very important win after quarter end, that hopefully I'll be able to provide more detail about in the next quarter. Very excited about that. In Sweden, we have also secured a very important win in power, in the quarter, or soon after the quarter, I should say. Sorry about that. That will be reflected in the backlog next quarter. Also in power. Obviously we are using our center of excellence now in the U.S., and we want that domain expertise to travel borders and travel the world, and we are right now seeing the benefit in Sweden. You're right in stating the U.K. and other locations.

[Maxim Sytchev, Analyst at National Bank Financial]

Okay. That's great to hear. Thank you so much. That's it for me.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Please ask your question.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

Thanks, folks. Good morning. Maybe turning to margins, a few pieces of this. Alain, you'd mentioned you were thinking at a baseline 60 basis points of improvement this year, but line of sight maybe to that 19%-20% range, or getting into that longer term number. A couple questions on this. Normally we'd assume just with the growth rate that you're seeing, that we'd have a natural lift on margins. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about this, well, couple pieces. One, how should we be thinking about cadence? Because you would think year-over-year, we should see a lift in Q3, maybe come back in Q4, but 2026 has some, I guess, some timing issues into Q4, so maybe some thoughts around that.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

On top of the volume that you're seeing, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about pricing, especially in context of some of the discussions we have around the impact of AI on the business, and how you're seeing pricing fall into margins. That would be helpful.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

There's a lot of content in that question. Do you want to take a stab?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

That's a first class.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Yeah. Look, first of all, I agree with you. We believe in scale. We believe scale matters. I think the reason why you're seeing that our margins are expanding and are going up, and as I said on the call, it's our best margins performance in any Q2 quarter since our IPO, including the old days. We're proud of that. It's because we're now a leading firm in most of the geographies in which we operate. Having scale is relevant and having scale is allowing us to make sure that we have a strong brand in the marketplace, that we can better choose and select the clients we wish to work with, and also the projects that we wish to pursue. When you have a leading position, you are in a position to do that, and it's obviously affecting your pricing.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

There's no doubt about that, in our case. As it relates to productivity and profit and increased lift in our margins, clearly, the tools that we're using, the fact that we have one platform now, the fact that we continue to transform our corporate functions, the fact that we are able to use our scale to do more with less, it's obviously assisting us. That's why I've always been quite vocal in our strong conviction that scale would matter at the end of the day. Anything else you want to add there, Alain?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

I think it covers the key point.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Yep.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

I guess the other piece to that question, is just as we go into the second half, just thinking about the cadence. Is there anything to think about

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

for Q2?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

There's a couple of things on cadence. The first half, we need to keep in mind that the comparable figures last year included quite a bit of right-sizing activity. There's less in H2 of 2025, your comps are, you don't have the same lift in H2. That's why the 90 basis points, we're expecting more like the 60 basis points for the full year. The second piece that offset that a little bit is the Ricardo acquisition, which is a great acquisition, amazing brand. We should start to see an improvement on having less margin dilution from this deal going forward. I would say those are the two pieces, but the biggest one is the right-sizing of last year.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

Okay, great. Then I guess if I can just sneak in a modified part of this. You're talking 60 basis points, but what's the delta into the extra, call it, 20-30 basis points that gets you into that 19% range? Is it just some things going right, some project timing?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

What else do you think it gets there to hit that 19% number?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah. I wouldn't call any particular element, Chris. I think it's good old-fashioned focus on all the levers that makes us efficient and on pricing and all these things. Just we're pushing hard everywhere, so I wouldn't call anything specific.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

I would also say that I think we've made smart investments in recent years. We have seen a great margin uplift in POWER Engineers. We are seeing already an uplift in TRC margin profile. Ricardo will take a bit more time. Sooner rather than later, I think once we're done with the transformation of our Ricardo business, I expect also a margin uplift there. I think this is, as Alain said, and I've said that many times in the past, increasing and expanding our margin profile is not one thing. It's multiple levers that you need to pull. That's what we're doing right now.

[Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets]

I'll leave it there. Thanks, folks.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thanks, Chris.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with the next question. The question comes from the line of Ian Gillies from Stifel. Please ask your question.

[Ian Gillies, Analyst at Stifel]

Morning, everyone. Productivity seemed to be a key theme throughout the quarter, and I think everyone's been a bit myopic on it being focused on AI tools. Could you elaborate maybe a little bit more on what some of the other strategies you're pursuing on that front? The follow-on beyond that, I suppose, is if there are any updated views on whether or how AI tools are making your employees more proficient rather than making them redundant.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Look, to start with, AI tools are, as you just mentioned, a tool. They are going to continue to support our engineers to hopefully at some point in time provide more efficient design more rapidly. I can tell you that at this point, the uplift in productivity, I would tell you that the AI has very little to do with this. Of course, it's going to be a contributor in the future, and we continue to believe that, and we're not complacent about it. At the same time, if you go on our website, we have right now 7,000 open positions that we are actively pursuing. When we talk about productivity, it's to make sure that we manage a very, very fluid workforce, as fluid as it can be at the moment in the market.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

The market is quite buoyant in most of the geographies in which we operate. As Alain said on the previous question, we're pulling multiple levers to increase our margin profile. More importantly, we have a culture of performance. We take great pride in what we do, and we take great pride in translating revenue and quality earnings. It starts with that. It's toned at the top, and it trickles down in the organization, and our employees are extremely proud at providing projects in time and on budget. Again, we're seeing the benefit of that in this quarter. The reality is that we've been seeing that benefit for five, six years in a row now. WSP has consistently improving its profitability over the last six, seven years.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

During COVID, during good times, during bad times, during challenging times, during bullish time, we raised the bar, and I'm extremely proud that we reached a 19% milestone in Q2 this year. We said in our plan that we wanted to get to 19%-20%, and we have now a sight on this, actually, we may think we may do it quicker than originally planned.

[Ian Gillies, Analyst at Stifel]

Understood. That's very helpful. I'll turn the call back over. Thank you.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thanks, Ian.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The question comes from the line of Avi Jaroslawicz from UBS. Please ask your question.

[Avi Jaroslawicz, Analyst at UBS]

Thank you. Good morning.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Good morning.

[Avi Jaroslawicz, Analyst at UBS]

Power is continuing to drive the growth really in the U.S. What are you seeing in the U.S. markets outside of power? Any sector that is more of a drag on growth at the moment and what are your expectations for growth in the Americas in the second half? Should we be expecting an acceleration as we go through the rest of the year?

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

No, I would say our other sectors are performing as planned at this point, so we don't have any disappointments. Like I said, and Alain said, a lot of it has to do with the timing of the awards and accessing it. We're feeling good about it. WSP, we've never wanted to put all our eggs in one basket. We love the diversity of our offering, and I think it makes it one of the most resilient platform out there. That's why I'm pleased that we had a laser-focused strategy to build one sector at a time. More recently, it's been power and energy, and we're very proud to have done those acquisitions, and frankly, very timely. Sometimes you need a bit of luck, and I feel that we've been very fortunate to be in a position to welcome those two firms to our group.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

As I said, it has taken us two years to really digest and assemble the team that we have. As I said, I'm looking at the pipeline of opportunities that we're pursuing in the power sector, and I'm excited and I'm impressed, to be honest. I'm very impressed with the scale of the bid that we're pursuing right now. More to come in that regard, but as I said, we're feeling better today than we felt when we entered the year, so it bodes well for the future.

[Avi Jaroslawicz, Analyst at UBS]

Okay. I appreciate that. Just want to also ask about EMEA. It sounds like the U.K. was a main driver of the growth there. You mentioned a big win in power in Sweden. Just broadly speaking, outside of the U.K., what are you seeing across the sectors, and do you think that the organic growth rate can stay at around this level through the second half?

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Yeah, we'll see for the second half. Definitely the momentum in the U.K. continues to be strong. Part of our comments about feeling better than beginning of the year and a year ago, is what we see in the Nordics. It's a market that has improved. Still being competitive, but we're winning our, I would say, more than our fair share of the market out there. Sweden is improving. Beyond that, across the space, Middle East is fairly stable and it doesn't move the needle up or down at this point.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

In U.K., we're gaining market share as we speak, and have been gaining market share in the last two, three years. Looking at our peer group, I'm saying that with very strong conviction that we're growing in the U.K. at a much faster rate than any of our competitors right now. A great team and a great business. As I said, we're gaining market share. That's the secret here in the EMEA.

[Avi Jaroslawicz, Analyst at UBS]

Got it. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the time.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Thank you, Avi.

[Operator]

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The next question come from the line of Yuri Lynk from Canaccord Genuity. Please ask your question.

[Yuri Lynk, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Hey, good morning, guys.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Morning, Yuri.

[Alain Michaud, CFO at WSP Global]

Morning.

[Yuri Lynk, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Been looking at your net revenue per employee over time, and continues to grow. Wondering if you think about it that way, how much of that growth would be just your typical fee inflation? How much of that might be growth in non-labor derived revenue, perhaps new service offerings, data offerings, stuff like that?

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Actually, I'll surprise you by what I'm going to say, it's an important metric, I'm not waking up in the morning saying we need to do more per employee. I'll explain to you why. Had we not built our earth and environment and geotech platform a few years ago, our fee per employee would be even higher at this point, Yuri. In environment and water and earth sciences, typically, the fees that are being generated are typically lower. This is not a good reason not to be a leader in that space and that vertical. Truthfully, the reason is that I think we have a much stronger brand today than we had 10 years ago. We are now in a position to select the clients we wish to work with. We are more selective also on the projects that we wish to pursue.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

That undeniably is having an impact on our pricing, clearly, and the quality of the projects that we wish to pursue. I think I've said in the past, the more complex the assignments are, the more excited we get, because we have the technical knowhow and the domain expertise to tackle those projects. That's where we typically do extremely well. Number one. Number two, I mentioned it a few times today, scale matters. As we grow as a company, we are in a position to the economies of scale and are in a position to reduce our cost structure. In any given country, if you're a dominant player or a leading firm, you are in a position to have a more effective cost structure.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Again, I mentioned the word fluid workforce, I do feel that over time as a company, we are in a position to run a very tight ship. You combine that with the performing culture that we have internally, and that's why you see our fee per employee going up, that's why you see our margins going up. There's no real secret about it. It's, as I said before, multiple levers that you need to pull. That's why over time you have seen the fee per employee going up. It's just that these are probably all of the factors I just mentioned.

[Yuri Lynk, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Okay. No, that's helpful. I'm asking about it because investors in the last nine months have kind of keyed in on AI being a potential threat to fee revenue. You would think that that might be one of the first metrics that it would show up in, but it's not what we're seeing.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

No, exactly.

[Yuri Lynk, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity]

Okay. Thanks, guys. I'll turn it over.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions now showing, I'll now hand back to you for closing remarks.

[Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO at WSP Global]

Well, thank you very much for attending this call today. Again, very pleased with the quarter, We look forward to updating you with our Q3 results soon. Meanwhile, we wish you a good end of the summer. Take care. Bye-bye.

Participants

Executives

• Quentin Weber, Head of Investor Relations
• Alexandre L'Heureux, President and CEO
• Alain Michaud, CFO

Analysts

• Frederic Bastien, Analyst at Raymond James
• Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Benoît Poirier, Analyst at Desjardins
• Maxim Sytchev, Analyst at National Bank Financial
• Chris Murray, Analyst at ATB Capital Markets
• Ian Gillies, Analyst at Stifel
• Avi Jaroslawicz, Analyst at UBS
• Yuri Lynk, Analyst at Canaccord Genuity