Dexterra Group Inc

TSX:DXT

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Dexterra Group's Third Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Denise Achonu, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

[Denise Achonu, executive]

Thank you, [ Galine ], and good morning. My name is Denise Achonu, Chief Financial Officer of Dexterra Group Inc. With me today on the call are Mark Becker, our CEO; and our Board Chair, Bill McFarland, who will provide some brief introductory comments. After a brief presentation, we will take questions with the call ending by 9:15 Eastern Time. We will be commenting on our Q3 2024 results with the assumption that you have read the Q3 earnings press release, MD&A and financial statements. The slide presentation, which supports today's comments is posted on our website, and we encourage participants to access the slides and follow along with our presentation.

Before we begin, I would like to make some comments about forward-looking information. In yesterday's news release and on Slide 2 of the presentation that we have posted to our website, you will find cautionary notes in that regard. I will not cover the content of the cautionary notes in detail, however, we do claim their protection for any forward-looking information that we might disclose on this conference call today.

I will now turn it over to Bill McFarland for his introductory comments.

[R. McFarland, executive]

Thank you, Denise. Q3 was another strong quarter for Dexterra and management is making good progress on delivering its 2024 priorities, including strong execution in both of our businesses and by closing the sale of the Modular business. We are well positioned to build on this foundation through profitable organic growth in both business segments and through acquisitions in IFM. We will be disciplined and invest when opportunities arise that provide long-term shareholder value.

Returning capital to shareholders is also a key priority. This will be achieved by maintaining the dividend and by buying back shares. Dexterra has a very strong balance sheet, a supportive major shareholder in Fairfax and the Board is excited about the company's prospects and is confident we are well positioned to capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead.

I will now pass it over to Mark Becker for his comments.

[Mark Becker, executive]

Great. Thanks very much, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Very happy to report this quarter, we generated strong results across our IFM and WAFES business, driven by strong execution, a focused eye on profitability and operational excellence.

Consolidated revenue in Q3 was $269.7 million, an increase of 1.5% compared to Q3 of 2023 and an increase of 6.4% compared to Q2 of this year. Q3 2024 adjusted EBITDA was $32 million compared to $38.2 million in Q3 of last year and $29.3 million in Q2. Overall, the primary drivers of our results in Q3 were continued strong market activity and new long-term contracts on stream for WAFES. Organic growth improving margins and the contribution of CMI acquisition within IFM. These positive developments were partially offset by a more normal wildfire season in 2024 compared to the unprecedented activity levels that we saw in 2023.

We also closed the sale of the Modular Solutions business at the end of August, this divestiture is allowing us to focus on a more simplified business model, built around our capital-light support services business and will greatly enhance the reliability and predictability of our operating results.

Speaking more specifically about our business units, starting with IFM on Slide 6. IFM had a good quarter with revenue of just over 25% or revenue growth of just over 25%, compared to the same quarter last year. This increase is primarily related to the acquisition of CMI plus the addition of new contracts across the IFM business. As expected, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenue improved for the quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 6.2% in Q3 compared to 5.8% in Q2. These improvements are primarily the result of managing inflationary labor costs, refining our mix of business, post-secondary education food service contracts ramping up as the full term for universities began in September, and the positive impact from the CMI acquisition.

We expect to maintain adjusted EBITDA margins over 6% going forward in the last quarter of 2024 and into fiscal 2025. While we're seeing inflationary pressures abate across many supply commodities, we continue to manage labor wage inflation proactively through our contract terms and negotiations in partnership with our clients. Our pipeline of new sales opportunities remains healthy in IFM both in Canada and the U.S., supporting our priority to deliver strong organic growth, which is about 6% on an annualized basis for 2024.

The addition of CMI is expanding our pipeline of government service IFM opportunities south of the border as expected. We also continue to evaluate acquisition opportunities in the IFM space, through the parameters of managing our balance sheet prudently and providing long-term shareholder value. The timing of acquisitions is difficult for us to predict, however, our key goals around that effort remain adding more capability and scale to the IFM business with a strong strategic and cultural fit.

Moving on to WAFES on Slide 7. Increased revenue and adjusted EBITDA for the WAFES business in Q3 of $170.1 million and $31.8 million, respectively compared to the previous quarter for revenue and EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA is driven primarily by continued robust market activity, including camp equipment and access matting asset utilization, greater than 90%, as well as new long-term workforce accommodations contracts and mobilizing Q2 that are now fully onstream.

These long-term contracts with key customers have replaced the completion of the Coastal GasLink project contracts completed in the prior year. Lower revenue and adjusted EBITDA compared to the same quarter last year is a result of more normalized wildfire support activity in 2024. In Q3, we also had a positive forestry season with about $26 million in revenue for this year. The adjusted EBITDA margin was strong at 18.7% and reflects the high utilization rates for equipment that I expect -- that I mentioned and is expected to continue to exceed 15% on an annualized basis.

Our market and client indicators point to these higher activity levels continuing for the foreseeable future and our growth and market share capture over the past few years, will deliver strong profitability into 2025.

With that, I'll turn things over to Denise.

[Denise Achonu, executive]

Thank you, Mark. I'll speak about our financial position and capital markets on Slide 9. Our free cash flow in Q3 was $11.9 million, an improvement compared to $10.2 million for the same quarter in 2023. This improvement reflects reduced working capital requirements as we continue to manage our balance sheet. These positives were partially offset by increased seasonal working capital for the quarter due to higher summer business activity. Adjusted EBITDA conversion to free cash flow is expected to continue to exceed 50% on an annualized basis, with Q4 being highest for adjusted EBITDA conversion to free cash flow.

Effective October 16 this year, the Dexterra Board approved an amendment to the existing normal course issuer bid program, increasing the maximum number of common shares that we can -- that can be repurchased by the company to $3.2 million. Fairfax also agreed to sell its pro rata portion of shares to keep its ownership interest at 49% until the company has utilized its tax losses.

The NCIB expires May 22, 2025. We are actively buying back shares in the market as we believe our shares are still significantly undervalued. Since the beginning of the year, we have spent $3.6 million repurchasing about 617,000 shares. Debt at September 30, 2024, was approximately 1x adjusted EBITDA or $102 million compared to $140 million at Q2 2024. The decrease from Q2 was primarily due to the proceeds received from the sale of the Modular business, offset by increased seasonal working capital requirements for the quarter due to business activity.

We intend to continue to manage our balance sheet prudently and have significant unused debt capacity and flexibility under our credit facility for acquisition opportunities. As mentioned last quarter, we are in the process of reorganizing our business from an operational and reporting perspective. This reorganization will help streamline our businesses with similar economic characteristics and provide clear strategic direction and focus. It will also help investors better understand the key drivers of our business.

Starting in Q4, we will be aligning our external segment reporting with these changes with the 2 new segments being support services and asset-based services. Support services include our capital-light solutions that we provide to build assets and infrastructure in the public and private sectors. Asset-based services will include our workforce accommodation structures, access solutions and space rentals.

These changes should provide greater clarity around the size and scale of our growing support services business, and I look forward to sharing more details with you in our Q4 report.

And finally, Dexterra declared a dividend for Q4 of $0.0875 per share for shareholders of record at December 31, 2024, to be paid January 15 next year.

Now I'll turn it back to Mark for closing comments.

[Mark Becker, executive]

Thanks very much, Denise. In conclusion, we are pleased with our progress in 2024. Our strategic focus going forward is the delivery of continued strong profitable growth and predictable results, with return on equity for shareholders in the near term of 15%.

The keys to achieving this will be driving continued profitable IFM organic growth as well as identifying the right IFM acquisitions that add scale and capability and provide strong support for continued loss organic growth and market share gains across our breadth of market sectors from natural resources to infrastructure. Our capital allocation priorities are to maintain the dividend, support prudent sustaining and accretive growth capital investments, which should approximate 1.5% to 2% of revenue, buying back shares under the NCIB, while pursuing long-term accretive acquisitions and maintaining a strong balance sheet.

We believe our efforts have created a good foundation for future success and believe we're on the right course to see continued improvement in our business results in 2025. I'm very proud of the progress we've made, and I believe that our streamlined business will also mean greater opportunities for our people and our clients and will further enhance total shareholder returns.

Thank you to our employees and our clients that make our plans happen, and I look forward to sharing more as we continue on this journey in upcoming quarters.

With that, I'll turn it back to you, [ Galine ], for our Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets.

[Chris Murray, analyst]

Just moving on and maybe thinking about longer term, now that you have Modular behind you, I went back and I was going through some of the presentations from the AGMs, I'm thinking about kind of what the longer-term targets were. And Mark, I appreciate you talked about kind of a 15% ROE but it used to be for Dexterra as a whole, it was sort of like looking at kind of, call it, $1 billion in revenue, $100 million in EBITDA, and we're certainly there now. Can you frame how you folks are thinking about kind of the next 3 to 5 years and where you want to take the company?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. Chris, good question. I think how I'd characterize things in that time frame that you're talking about. I think 2024, and if you look at the organic growth profile that we've had over the last few years in both our support services businesses, has kind of got us to the point that you mentioned of kind of $1 billion and over $100 million EBITDA.

And going forward, I think 2024 really sets a bit of a baseline for us. With the exception of Q1 or a new baseline for us with the exception of Q1, we had new contracts in WAFES coming on stream that weren't on stream in Q1, so they will be on stream next year. But with that new baseline and thinking about kind of the go-forward plan around organic growth, I think our focus is around our pipeline and earning organic growth.

And we see continued growth organically across both businesses into 2025. Some of it can be lumpy in IFM for example. But overall, we see kind of a continued profile of growth. And then, of course, acquisitions are another possibility and opportunity that we're active on, on those fronts to bring on additional growth capacity.

But of course, we don't pick the timing related to that. The opportunities come as they come for accretive strategic opportunities that add capability and scale to our IFM space. So I think with the combination of that, we don't want to get focused on exact numbers where we're going. But if you look at where we've been around organic growth, we see that continuing. And also, I would say, the combination of our acquisition and organic growth going forward is the way I would characterize it.

And I think the last thing I'd mention is I think where our balance sheet currently is, gives us a lot of flexibility around being able to execute that based on opportunistic acquisitions.

[Chris Murray, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And then just my second question is just on IFM and the margin profile. I know we kind of feel like we've had some false starts here. But now starting, it feels like maybe a little more stable. So talking a little bit around 6% kind of in Q4. Historically, this has always been kind of at least the target was sort of 7% to 8% margin business. Is there anything that you're seeing right now that complicates getting to that level over time, call it, the next 12 to 18 months with existing contracts or as you layer in new contracts?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. So what I would say about that, Chris, is I think in terms of our 6% expectations and target, we see that continuing in the IFM space. Hence why we're guiding to that. I think we do know and integrated FM opportunities, integrated opportunities where you're doing a broad range of services for our clients, Canada, U.S.A. tends to be a higher-margin business. So we see that as 8% and more. I would say, Chris, the way to think about it is, I think our current mix of business supports a 6% or greater margin. And then as we bring on new IFM contracts, that mix of business will change over time. And even IFM acquisitions, that makes a business over time kind of causing our overall margin to increase is how I would think about it.

Our resegmentation as well will tie into this in terms of how we're going to resegment the business as Denise talked about between asset-based services, and support services coming together. Obviously, that will have an impact in terms of what the overall support services margin would be. And I know we discussed that at some of our recent conversations with you and others.

[Operator]

The next question is from Sean Jack with Raymond James.

[Sean Jack, analyst]

So just looking to the release, I saw that you guys mentioned that there was some roll-on of defense contract project work. I assume that this is related with the CMI acquisition. I wanted to know what -- how the dynamics are developing for that new kind of vertical and what sort of the opportunities there for 2025?

[Mark Becker, executive]

And I guess the answer to your question is yes and no. We definitely did have project-related work and within the IFM space, we do see it, like when you do integrated work, part of that integrated model, working for clients on an integrated basis, actually a good part of that model is really doing ongoing project work within those businesses, and we see that kind of wherever we do have IFM opportunities.

So I would say within Q3, we've had it in some of our defense-based contracts here in Canada as well as we did see it within the CMI space in the U.S. on the government services, which -- we don't do defense bases in the U.S., it's more government services facilities.

In Canada, it's more bases. But both of them had project-related work. Onboarding of CMI has done really well, and we actually got our first contract -- first new contract coming on board in the U.S. with an additional new contract with one of the big government services agencies. So we're really happy to see CMI continuing on the growth profile and helping us build that platform of government support services in the U.S.

[Sean Jack, analyst]

Okay. Awesome. That's helpful. And then just switching quickly to WAFES. So obviously, there's a large amount of camp assets that rolled off this past year from the Coastal GasLink. I wonder just how you guys are finding pricing right now out in the market. Obviously, you guys have been able to stay highly utilized. I'm just wondering if you could kind of talk about the dynamics there, assuming that demand stays stagnant or it stays constant right now. Are you guys happy right now with pricing? Or do you think that there's opportunity for it to move up?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. As you pointed out, I mean, I think we've done really well coming off Coastal GasLink like others out there. We all had a lot of equipment on Coastal GasLink that's come off. I think compared to others, we've signed on new contracts in a broader context, even outside energy for that equipment. So it really drives our utilization high. The other thing I would say, Sean, is those contracts are all long term in nature. So as it relates to pricing, we're kind of getting good, I would say, good pricing for it because up until very, very recently, there wasn't much gear out there to Coastal GasLink completed. So we're happy with the pricing, but it's long-term pricing in nature. We're not really dealing with short-term pricing related to that. So that's the feedback I provide.

[Operator]

The next question is from Zachary Evershed with National Bank Financial.

[Zachary Evershed, analyst]

So would you say that IFM is caught up on inflation and contract pricing now? And how evident or to what degree do you think we'll see seasonality in IFM with the post-secondary activity?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. I may answer the second one first, but we'll still see seasonality in IFM just because of the amount of post-secondary service that we do provide. So there is a seasonality profile to IFM as we observed this year in 2024, I would say that kind of the lower profile during the summer was probably lower than normal because of what was going on kind of at the campuses this year. So I think that's how I would sort of characterize that. I forgot your first question. I'll answer the second one, I forgot the first one.

[Zachary Evershed, analyst]

And do you think you caught up on inflation in your contract pricing now?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. Sorry about that. Yes. I would say in this environment, we've certainly seen commodities leveling off in terms of inflation, which has been positive and helpful certainly, and I think everyone can see evidence of this, we are seeing labor profiles continue to -- labor cost increases to continue to go up. And so we're continuing to manage, I think, labor increases over the next 2 to 3 years.

I would say, Zach, I'm very happy with how we're managing that across all our businesses. And I think we will keep up with it, but I think we're going to have to still keep up with it, if I can put it that way because we're still seeing labor contracts, we don't have a huge amount of union within our business, but we do have some. And even our nonunion, the environment is higher labor rates. So we're continuing to make sure we have the contract terms in place as well as work with our clients on a partnership basis to try to manage that through pricing. So we expect to continue that, but we probably expect the, I guess, what I would say is the good job that we've been doing around staying ahead of that as best we can to continue.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And we have a follow-up from Zachary Evershed with National Bank.

[Zachary Evershed, analyst]

So there's a statement in the MD&A that explicitly calls out the shares is undervalued. Could you tell us a bit about how you're approaching valuation of your own stock and weighing that repurchase option against acquisitions?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes. Good question, Zach. I think we've been pretty clear around our capital allocation priorities, and we do know we're undervalued in the market. And I think where our balance sheet is, I mean, as I mentioned, you really can't plan acquisitions even though we're very active on that front. They're going to have accretive acquisitions that fit our strategic model are going to be there when they're there. I think where our balance sheet is at currently kind of gives us flexibility to do both.

And certainly, with what we've done with the NCIB renewing that, giving us additional capacity gives us opportunity to continue doing share buybacks. And really, we're thinking about the balance sheet maintaining and managing that very prudently kind of in that 2 to 2.5x range over the long term. So for me, it's not so much of a either/or a priority, it's a little more, I think we have the flexibilities to both.

[Zachary Evershed, analyst]

Makes sense. And then with the expiry in May and what you've done so far, should we expect a systematic use out to the expiry? Do you think it will be faster or will it be more tactical?

[Mark Becker, executive]

Yes, I think we need to play that ongoing, I would say. As we've always talked about, we want to stay opportunistic on this front. And I think it kind of depends on the market profile and the price profile, but I think if you look at where the market values our stock and where it currently is out, there's some room there for sure. So we'll continue to kind of evaluate that or evaluate that as we go along, Zach is how I put it. But I think we put that mechanism in place to take good advantage of it.

[Operator]

As there are no further questions, this concludes the question-and-answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.