ADF Group Q2 2027 Earnings Report

ADF Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$0.10
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

ADF Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $95.03 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

ADF Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2027
• Date: 9/10/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, September 10, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

ADF Group (TSE:DRX) is a North American leader in the design and engineering of connections, fabrication, including the application of industrial coatings, and installation of complex steel structures, heavy steel built-ups, as well as in miscellaneous and architectural metals for the non-residential infrastructure sector. ADF Group Inc. is one of the few players in the industry capable of handling highly technically complex mega projects on fast-track schedules in the commercial, institutional, industrial and public sectors. The Corporation operates two fabrication plants and two paint shops, in Canada and in the United States, and a Construction Division in the United States, which specializes in the installation of steel structures and other related products.

ADF Group Q2 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong revenue and EBITDA growth: Second-quarter revenue rose to CAD 95 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased to CAD 8.4 million from CAD 3.7 million year over year. Year-to-date revenue and adjusted EBITDA were up 79% and 91%, respectively.
• Positive Sentiment: Record backlog supports future activity: Backlog reached a record CAD 693.7 million, including CAD 243.3 million at Groupe LAR, with 64% tied to Canadian-based projects. Management expects margins to improve as the lower-margin legacy LAR backlog is completed.
• Negative Sentiment: Reported earnings were reduced by non-cash and foreign-exchange items: Share-unit mark-to-market costs lowered net income by CAD 4.3 million in the quarter, while foreign-exchange losses reduced it by CAD 1.8 million. A CAD 20.2 million revenue and CAD 5.3 million gross-margin benefit from a customer-claim settlement also boosted the quarter and was non-recurring.
• Positive Sentiment: Cash generation and expansion remain strong: Cash and equivalents rose to CAD 91.4 million, supported partly by a CAD 25 million claim-related inflow, while year-to-date operating cash flow reached CAD 47.1 million. ADF said its LAR expansion is on time and on budget and plans more than US$10 million of investment to expand and modernize its Great Falls facility.
• Neutral Sentiment: Tariff exposure remains uncertain but limited so far: Management said the new 50% U.S. tariff and latest U.S. proclamations do not currently directly affect ADF products, and relief is expected from Canadian counter-tariffs. However, steel costs and an approximately 10% charge on some Canadian-fabricated products shipped to the U.S. continue to pressure margins.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ADF Group Inc results for the three-month and six-month periods ended July 31st, 2026 conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, September 10th, 2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jean-François Boursier, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to ADF's conference call covering the second quarter and six month ended July 31st, 2026. I will first update you on our quarterly and year-to-date results, which were disclosed earlier this morning by a press release, and then proceed with a quick update about our operations, including the impact of the latest U.S. administration proclamations. First, a word of caution. Please note that some of the issues discussed today may include forward-looking statements. These are documented in ADF Group's management report for the second quarter and six months ended July 31st, 2026, which were filed with SEDAR this morning. I'll start by saying that we are the victim of our own success. I'll provide more details later, but the DRX stock increase since the beginning of the year had a significant negative non-cash impact on our financial results.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Revenues for the quarter ended July 31st, 2026 at CAD 95 million were CAD 42 million higher than last year. Year-to-date, revenue stood at CAD 194.3 million, compared with CAD 108.5 million, or 79% higher than the six-month period ended July 31st, 2025. It is important to recall that following the then new tariffs uncertainty impacts, a work-sharing program was implemented at ADF's plant in Terrebonne, Quebec and remained in place for virtually the entire quarter ended July 31st, 2025, thus reducing fabrication hours and consequently revenues for the same quarter and year-to-date. We closed the second quarter ended July 31st, 2026 with gross margin of 18.7% as a percentage of revenues, slightly down from the 20.7% margin of the quarter ended July 31st, 2025.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

While the year-to-date gross margin as a percentage of revenues at 21.5% were basically at the same level as last year, which then stood at 21.3% for the six-month period ended July 31st, 2025. The variation in margins, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of revenues, is explained by the higher revenues contributing to a better absorption of fixed costs. The positive effect thereof was, however, mitigated by higher input costs, including the price of steel and the recent changes in tariffs. ADF revenues and gross margin for the quarter ended July 31st, 2026 were both positively impacted by the final settlement of a claim against a customer of Groupe LAR. The corporation had taken a cautionary approach to this settlement, and the cumulative impact is reflected in the second quarter's results.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

This adjustment had a cumulative positive impact of CAD 20.2 million and CAD 5.3 million on Groupe LAR's and ADF Group's revenues and gross margin, respectively, for the quarter and six-month periods ended July 31st, 2026. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter ended July 31st, 2026 at CAD 8.4 million, compared with CAD 3.7 million for the same quarter ended a year ago. While year-to-date adjusted EBITDA stood at CAD 26.9 million, compared with CAD 14.1 million for the six months ended a year ago. We therefore closed our second quarter with net income of CAD 3 million, or CAD 0.10 per share, compared with CAD 0.9 million or CAD 0.03 per share for the corresponding quarter a year ago.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Year-to-date, net income stood at CAD 15 million, or CAD 0.52 per share, compared to CAD 9.6 million or CAD 0.34 per share for the same period ended July 31st, 2025. As previously mentioned, our results for the quarter and six-month periods closed on July 31st, 2026 were severely and negatively impacted by the cost associated with our deferred performance and restricted share units, mostly coming from the mark-to-market impact following DRX stock price increase since January 31st, 2026, and also by our foreign exchange loss.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

DSUs, PSUs and RSUs had a negative impact on net earnings of CAD 4.3 million and CAD 5.6 million for the three and six-month periods ended July 31st, 2026, respectively, and therefore CAD 0.15 per share and CAD 0.20 per share for the same periods. While the foreign exchange loss had a negative impact of CAD 1.8 million, or CAD 0.06 per share, and CAD 1.4 million, or CAD 0.05 per share, for the same periods, respectively. We closed the second quarter with CAD 91.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, up by CAD 28.7 million compared with the January 31st, 2026 closing balance.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Working capital stood at CAD 109.5 million as of July 31st, 2026. As noted earlier, the claim settlement generated a CAD 25 million cash inflow just before quarter end, which positively impacted our ending cash balance. Year-to-date, operating cash flow reached CAD 47.1 million for the six-month period that ended July 31st, 2026, while CAD 15.5 million were used to acquire property, plant, and equipment, and intangible assets, including the modification of a fabrication bay at ADF's Terrebonne complex, Groupe LAR's plant expansion, and our ERP upgrade. In light of the continuing trade uncertainty, we will also invest just over $10 million U.S. to increase our Great Falls facility output and add new equipment to further improve efficiency.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

We now expect our full-year CapEx to total just over CAD 40 million. Yesterday, our board of directors approved the payment of the second semi-annual dividend of CAD 0.02 per share. This dividend will be paid on October 15 to shareholders of record as of September 25th, 2026. Finally, we closed the quarter and six-month ended July 31st, 2026, with yet another record high order backlog reaching CAD 693.7 million. This total also includes Groupe LAR's order backlog, which stood at CAD 243.3 million at the same date. It should be noted that the corporation's order backlog as of July 31st, 2026, does not include the five-year extension option on the long-term contract announced on July 23rd, 2025. It is also worth mentioning that 64% of our consolidated order backlog is for Canadian-based projects. We cannot escape from the adverse impact of the U.S. tariffs on our year-to-date results.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

As of now, we can confirm that the new 50% U.S. tariff announced a few weeks ago are not impacting ADF's products. We can also confirm that we will be getting relief from the impact of the Canadian counter-tariffs that became effective earlier this week. Additionally, and based on the information available as of now, ADF will not be directly impacted by any of the proclamations signed by the U.S. President Tuesday night. Although the latest changes have limited direct impact on ADF, they are definitely increasing the uncertainty. This said, and as ADF has proven over its 70 years of existence, we are resilient. As previously mentioned, our Q2 results were negatively impacted by the strong performance of our stock following the accounting of our share units and by a FX loss.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Once we understand this, it is important to look at the fundamentals which, for ADF, are the backlog growth, the backlog geographic diversification, and the strength of our balance sheet. To say the least, we can say that these are strong and are the foundation to our continued growth. Our capital investment in the Lac-Saint-Jean region for Groupe LAR's facility expansion is on time and on budget. We will soon start a plant expansion and equipment upgrade at our Great Falls, Montana facility. Our balance sheet strength, along with the soon-to-be-finalized additional financing, are enabling ADF to maintain and even improve its fabrication capacity and efficiency. Finally, and on a personal note, the process to find a new CFO following the announcement of my end-of-year retirement, as announced in May, is going well, and we are confident that an announcement will be coming soon.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

As a reminder, I will retire on December 31st, 2026, after more than 16 years of service with ADF, but will remain as CFO until that date. Then, starting January 1st, 2027, will serve as a strategic advisor until the date to be confirmed to ensure a smooth transition. Thank you for your interest and confidence in ADF. I will now answer your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw from the queue, please press star followed by the number two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before pressing any keys. One moment please while we compile the roster. Your first question comes from Nicholas Cortellucci with Atrium. Please go ahead.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

Good morning, JF. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on another strong quarter here. I just want to make sure I heard something correctly. On the percent of the backlog that was from Canada, was that 45%?

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

64%.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

Okay. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So a slight step down from Q1, it seems like.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

From Q1, yes. You might recall, we had some announcement at the end of June, mostly for U.S.-based projects. So obviously adding those reduced, I think we were at 72% at the end of Q1. So that is why we are slightly lower. For us, anything that looks like 50/50 or close to 50 is really good. But still at 64% of Canadian-based content, definitely considering the environment we are in, definitely better than the 5% of Canadian content we were in back in April 2025, just over a year and a quarter ago.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

Yeah, understood. Okay. With gross margin, we had some moving pieces in the quarter with the work Terrebonne did for LAR. But what do you see as the normalized gross margin for you guys going forward? Maybe how does that change going into next year?

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Yeah. Well, as you know, we don't necessarily provide guidelines going forward. But to your point, I think on its own, we shouldn't look at Q2 as a good indication because there were a lot of moving pieces. Year-to-date, we're at 21.5. That does include the downward impact, as we already explained in previous calls, the downward impact of the LAR backlog, which we still need to sort of go through, which definitely we're not at the ADF's historical level, if you want, from a margin standpoint. That will still happen in Q3 and Q4, as long as we still have to get through the LAR's legacy backlog. This said, our regular jobs and on an ongoing basis, the year-to-date margin of 21.5 are a pretty good indication of what's coming.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Obviously, we are impacted by the tariff indirectly, as we already explained, by the higher cost of steel. So it does increase our cost base. So it has an impact. The tariff, although limited, but they do have an impact. We are paying since the beginning of April 2026 proclamation, approximately 10% of the commercial invoice on the Canadian fabrication of U.S. for U.S. projects. So that obviously also has an impact on a portion of the project fabricated in Canada going to the U.S., so that lowers the margin. But these are already factored into the margin as they stand. So as I said, without going into too much detail, but the year-to-date margins are a pretty good indication of what's coming. And we do expect also improvement as we're getting rid of the legacy backlog.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

So maybe you can expect to see margins creep up in Q2 and Q3 and Q4, barring any other announcement on the tariffs front. As I confirm at the end of my text, really the latest changes, either the counter-tariff or the proclamation from Tuesday night, as we understand now, won't change that 10%, so no impact. But God knows what will happen in the next days, weeks, and months. We're obviously in a situation where the relationship is different. But based on what we know now, that's what we see for the coming quarters from a gross margin standpoint.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, understood. And what about just an update on the CapEx plans? How are things progressing? Are you guys on time with the LAR expansion?

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Yeah, things are going really well from that standpoint. We're on time, on budget for LAR. As I also mentioned, we've actually even started since the end of second quarter to work on an expansion in Great Falls also. It's not a huge investment, but it will add capacity and bring in additional newer equipment and additional equipment. The plant has been up and running for 12, 13 years now, so the equipment was still good, but obviously a lot of hours on those, so it's going to be good to bring new equipment and further improve efficiency, but also add some operating changes that will facilitate the work in Great Falls and also add capacity in light of everything that's happening now. Things are progressing well, no issues. Definitely no issues at Gopher, much more advanced. Structure has started to go up.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

We're on time, we're on budget. The equipment has been all order. The schedule still good. Actually not only tracking to budget, but actually even slightly better than budget, which is great news.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

That's it. Okay, very good. Just last one, if I could squeeze it in, would be on the SG&A, increase for the impact of the DSUs and the RSUs. What are you just generally seeing with the SG&A line in terms of inflationary increases, salaries, labor, that kind of stuff?

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Yeah. Well, our SG&A, excluding the DSUs or the share units variation, but the core, the SG&A per se, besides just inflation or salary increases, the base of this SG&A should not change drastically. Obviously, year-over-year, and again for Q2, last year, we didn't have LAR consolidated into our results, so obviously there's an impact on our SG&A just from the consolidation of LAR. When we'll publish Q3, actually September 18 is going to be the one year anniversary of the acquisition. So Q3, the comparable quarter, will include a portion of SG&A, but the base of the SG&A for us, even if volume is increasing and our revenue are increasing, we don't need to drastically increase the SG&A to meet these additional volume or the increased backlog.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

From the core of the SG&A, again, excluding share units variation, the SG&A should be pretty stable, besides the usual, obviously, a lot of salaries included in SG&A, so the yearly salary increases, which are around the 3% level or should be around the 3% level for the coming year also. Besides that, there's no real need to increase SG&A to meet the expected revenue growth in line with the backlog.

[Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium]

Fantastic. Okay, that's all for me. Thanks for answering my questions.

[Jean-François Boursier, CFO at ADF Group]

Thanks, Nick.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions on the phone line, Mr. Boursier.

Participants

Executives

• Jean-François Boursier, CFO

Analysts

• Nicholas Cortellucci, Analyst at Atrium