Exchange Income Corp
TSX:EIF
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Exchange Income Corp
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Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Exchange Income Corporation's conference call to discuss the financial results for the 3 and 9 months ended September 30, 2024. The corporation's results, including the MD&A and financial statements were issued on November 7, 2024, and are currently available via the company's website or SEDAR plus.
Before turning the call over to management, listeners are cautioned that today's presentation and responses to questions may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be based on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are implied in making forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements.
For additional information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements, please consult the quarterly and annual MD&A, the Risk Factors section of the Annual Information Form and EIC's other filings with Canadian securities regulators. Except as required by Canadian securities law, EIC does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, such statements speak only as of the date made. Listeners are also reminded that today's call is being recorded and broadcast live via the Internet for the benefit of individual shareholders, analysts and other interested parties.
I would now like to turn the call over to the CEO of Exchange Income Corporation, Mike Pyle. Please go ahead, Mr. Pyle.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Yesterday, we released our third quarter results in 2024. Our third quarter performance was extremely strong, highlighted by our highest free cash flow and free cash flow less maintenance capital expenditures per share metrics and our second highest net earnings per share in our 20-year history.
We also reported all-time high watermarks for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, net earnings and adjusted net earnings. These incredible results were during a period where there was significant geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty in the world. Speaking of our 20-year history, I want to point out that by the end of this year, we will reach $1 billion in dividends paid to our shareholders, which we view as an incredible accomplishment.
Our results were driven by our Aerospace & Aviation segment. However, we continue to see positive signs in our Manufacturing segment based on our near-record levels of inquiries and are starting to see those inquiries being converted into firm fixed orders within our various businesses over the last several months.
With me today are normal participants for this call, including Richard Wowryk, our CFO; who will speak to the financial results, along with Jake Trainor; and Travis Muhr, who will expand on our outlook. Also joining us is Adam Terwin, our Head of Acquisitions, to answer your questions on the Spartan acquisition we announced last night. It's going to be a busy call and we will attempt to be as brief as possible in our opening remarks to leave as much time as possible for your questions.
Before passing the call over to Rich, I wanted to highlight some of the key performance metrics achieved during the quarter. We set records for revenue, adjusted EBITDA free cash flow and free cash flow less maintenance CapEx, adjusted net earnings. All per share amounts were either records or the second best in our 20-year history.
This demonstrates the execution of our strategic deployments of capital, whether it be for organic growth or by the way of acquisition by Adam and his team. Not to be lost in the record results is that we also announced the highly strategic acquisition of Spartan. I had previously spoken about our desire to grow the business in the eastern part of Canada, and we have successfully executed on that strategy with the -- including the acquisition of Duhamel.
The other strategic priority was the expansion of our Environmental Access Solutions business line into the U.S. and finding a complementary composite mat product line. With yesterday's announcement, we have achieved both strategies. We have looked at the number of the players in the U.S. market, but none met our rigorous and disciplined acquisition requirements, then we approach Spartan. Spartan is 1 of the 3 composite mat manufacturers in the United States market. They have a strong management team that will continue on with the EIC family. And the acquisition is accretive for our shareholders on a stand-alone basis.
The timing of the acquisition was perfect as the current owners and management have embarked on a new growth phase with the development of the SYSTEM7-XT mat. They recently added and they recently added significant manufacturing capacity to their plants at Rockledge, Florida. When we met with management, they immediately liked our EIC philosophy, and they will be a great cultural fit within our Environmental Access Solutions business.
We expect to add additional growth capacity as the company adds to its manufacturing capacity in 2025, which will allow the company to grow and reach its lofty goals in later '25 and '26 and beyond.
The company also holds patents and manufactures a construction interest mat solution called F-O-D-S or FODS. Both the FODS Trackout and the composite mats will allow for greater product diversification in our Canadian operations, especially in the transmission and distribution industry segment where the composite mats are primarily used in the United States. I will leave it to Adam to answer any questions you may have later in the call.
One of the more important trends was the continued positive momentum experienced by our manufacturing subsidiaries. We talked about last -- we talked for the last number of quarters, about how we are quoting at record or near record levels. And in the last conference call, I spoke how we booked in excess of $100 million of future projects in our Multi-Storey Window Solutions business line.
That booking momentum has continued through the quarter, and we believe that as the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties continue to abate that the number of bookings will also increase. The largest competitor to our results was our previous investment to the businesses, and we are starting to see the fruits of those investments. Fiscal '23 and '24 were years characterized by several announcements, including our BC, Manitoba and Newfoundland medevac wins, an extension of our Nunavut medevac contract with increased pricing and our new maritime surveillance contract with the European allied nation and of course, our Air Canada commercial agreement.
Speaking of the Air Canada contract, our fifth and sixth aircraft started flying in the second quarter. And more recently, we started flying our first transborder routes from the East Coast into Boston and Newark in the U.S. We continue to execute under the BC and Manitoba contracts.
Aircraft that were previously purchased for the Manitoba medevac were successfully deployed in September. In BC, we recently received and retrofitted our second King Air 360. The deliveries for the remainder of the King Air fleet will be extended through '25 and into '26 because of delays the manufacturer has experienced because of the strike at their plant.
As a reminder, the full impact of the new contract will only be seen where we can redeploy the existing King Air aircraft into other operations, such as the Newfoundland and Labrador contract. On this contract, we remain in negotiations with the government on the final terms of the contract. However, we were very happy to note that the contract includes rotary wing assets, which is a strategic addition from our perspective. These existing King Air aircraft could also be used in the Northwest Territories contract, which we have bid on as well.
We had submitted our proposals for the Northwest Territories and are waiting to hear back, however, on which proposal they will choose. That contract will require us to unseat the long-serving incumbent in the region. We also see confirmation of the extension of our medevac contract with the Government of Nunavut into 2026 with enhanced pricing. Our relations with the Government of Nunavut remain incredibly strong.
I want to give you an update on the other contracts that I spoke about in our first and second quarter calls. The first contract relates to the Future Aircrew Training project. SkyAlyne was named as the preferred bidder last year and we are part of the SkyAlyne team. The contract was formally awarded to the prime, and we continue to be in negotiations to finalize our subcontract with the prime which we anticipate will be completed by Q1 of 2025.
We further anticipate that work under this contract will start sometime in the second or third quarter of next year. We announced the extension of a contract for an allied nation for ISR services. The 15-month contract includes a second ISR asset due to the required flight hours and augmented technical capabilities. We are well underway in modifying the second aircraft and ready for its intended purpose.
Lastly, we are continuing to see significant interest around the world for our aerospace services. We see significant opportunities in Australia, in Europe and expanded opportunities in Canada. We are very bullish about the future opportunities and these type of contracts are right in line with our core capabilities and our business model as they generate consistent cash flows throughout the term of the agreement.
Stepping back and looking at EIC from a global perspective, our subsidiaries' performance have allowed us to pay a consistent a dependable dividend to our shareholders. In fact, the fourth quarter will enable us to surpass over $1 billion in dividends paid, which is an incredible achievement that I would never have thought possible 20 years ago. That figure is a credit to our business model, our subsidiaries, our management teams and most importantly, our employees.
Jacob Travis will focus on the outlook for our segments for the remainder of 2024. However, prior to passing over the call, I want to speak about our 2025 guidance. Based on all of the contract wins and organic growth initiatives and the acquisition of Spartan, I am confident that our adjusted EBITDA will be between $690 million and $730 million for the next fiscal year. Our strategy has proven itself over the past 20 years and our future is bright.
I will now pass the call over to Rich.
Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Revenue was $710 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $193 million, and free cash flow was $136 million and free cash flow less maintenance CapEx was $81 million, all were quarterly high watermarks.
Revenue in our Aerospace & Aviation segment increased by $19 million or 5% to $433 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased by $31 million or 25% to $155 million. Revenue increases are primarily related to the Essential Air Service business line, while the increase in adjusted EBITDA results were driven by Essential Air Services and Aircraft Sales & Leasing business lines. Adjusted EBITDA in our Aerospace business line was slightly down when compared to the prior year, primarily due to changes in business mix.
Looking at the Essential Air Services business line, the improvements were driven by 4 key factors. First, previous organic growth capital expenditures in the Aviation businesses over the past number of years, including our rotary wing business. Second, our average load factors improved, which has a direct improvement on adjusted EBITDA. Third, the impact of the routes flown on behalf of Air Canada and finally, the impact of the BC and Manitoba medevac contracts.
Our Aerospace business line revenues were lower when compared to the prior period. However, adjusted EBITDA did not declined to the same extent. This was due to 2 offsetting reasons, a greater tempo flying within our higher-margin ISR business, which was balanced by a reduction in our lower-margin training business due to the timing of contract starts and stops. The product mix shifted, which resulted in profitability and margin expansion even with net revenue declines. The revenue reductions are expected to be moderate as the company transitions to new contracts from legacy contracts in the training business.
Lastly, our Aircraft Sales & Leasing business line revenue declined from the prior period due to fewer large asset sales that occurred -- sorry, due to a few large asset sales that occurred last year, lifting the comparable period. Those large asset sales are lumpy and generally lower margin transactions. The reduced large asset sales more than offset from an adjusted EBITDA perspective by contributions from a continued step-up improvements in our leasing portfolio.
The net result was a significant increase in adjusted EBITDA for the business line. Revenue in our Manufacturing segment increased by $3 million or 1% to $276 million. Adjusted EBITDA decreased by $3 million or 5% to $51 million. As previously communicated, the comparable periods for our Environmental Access Solutions business line normalized during our third quarter, and our revenues were 13% higher than the comparative period, while adjusted EBITDA increased by 3%.
This is primarily due to a change in product mix as this quarter had a higher amount of asset sales as opposed to mat rentals, which have a higher EBITDA contribution percentage. Our Multi-Storey Window Solutions business line revenues decreased slightly compared to the prior period. However, adjusted EBITDA decreased by 27% due to changes in product mix as the business line completed more third-party installations than in the prior period, which generated lower adjusted EBITDA margin. This, coupled with operational inefficiencies as certain projects pushed out of the quarter as requested by our customers, reduced adjusted EBITDA.
Lastly, we also made a strategic decision to retain experienced staff to meet the future demand. Finally, revenue in our Precision Manufacturing & Engineering business line was slightly ahead of the prior period, while adjusted EBITDA declined by 4%. The decreases in adjusted EBITDA were primarily due to the changes in sales mix and customers deferring capital spending due to the U.S. election and macroeconomic uncertainty.
Other items of note during the quarter were -- that interest costs were approximately $5 million higher due to increased benchmark borrowing rates compared to the prior period, coupled with increased debt outstanding due to various growth capital expenditures funded. Our free cash flow less maintenance capital expenditures payout ratio was 60% compared to the prior period of 58%, while dividends increased by over 7% when compared to the prior period.
As interest rates continue to decline, this will be beneficial to our payout ratios and earnings per share number. Based on where our interest rates are now compared to average rates throughout the year, year-to-date impact is about $6 million. And as the rates continue to decline and are forecasted to decline over the next 12 to 18 months, our earnings will continue benefit from the reduction in benchmark borrowing rates.
Depreciation on capital assets increased by $10 million due to the growth capital expenditures and acquisition activity we've undertaken. Our effective tax rate increased slightly when compared to the prior period. However, it is within our expected range of 27% to 29% on an annualized basis. Free cash flow increased by $19 million to $136 million, while free cash flow less maintenance capital expenditures by $7 million to $81 million.
Maintenance capital expenditures increased by approximately $12 million, primarily due to the timing of certain overhaul events, coupled with the increased activity within our Aerospace & Aviation segment. From a working capital perspective, we had an investment in working capital for a couple of reasons. The most significant reason is the seasonality of the business with the third quarter being the strongest quarter, and therefore, necessitates increases in working capital, which ultimately reversed in the fourth quarter. Secondly, our Aircraft Sales & Leasing business made several inventory purchases during the quarter in order to part out and sell in the future. Lastly, there was an investment in AR due from customers on construction contracts throughout various subsidiaries.
We actively manage our working capital and working with each subsidiary to convert the increase in working capital into cash prior to year-end, consistent with prior years. Our total average -- our senior leverage ratio decreased slightly to 2.87x. We managed our leverage ratio during the quarter despite it being our seasonally busiest quarter and significant opportunistic investments within Aircraft Sales & Leasing. The increase compared to historical periods is primarily due to investments in growth capital expenditures.
As we previously noted, organic growth results in a lag between with the time investments are made and when returns become evident in our financial results. We anticipate this ratio will decline as growth capital investments impact the bottom line with an improvement in our Manufacturing segment EBITDA -- sorry, along with an improvement in our Manufacturing segment EBITDA relative to our comparative results.
The acquisition of Spartan will not have a significant impact on our leverage ratio. And after completing the acquisition, we continue to maintain strong liquidity and are not contemplating an equity offering for the foreseeable future.
During the third quarter, EIC made growth capital expenditure of $93 million. These growth capital expenditures primarily relate to the Aerospace & Aviation segment and were driven primarily by investment in additional aircraft in our Aircraft Sales & Leasing business line, the second King Air purchase, along with its related interior modifications for the BC medevac contract, additions for the full motion King Air simulator and additions in Aerospace for the second mission at ISR asset to be deployed in the allied European nation ISR contract, along with other growth capital throughout our Essential Air Services.
Growth CapEx in our Manufacturing segment, primarily related to Environmental Access Solutions business line. Maintenance capital expenditures for the third quarter was $55 million compared to $43 million in the prior year. In our past conference calls, we've indicated that we anticipate maintenance capital expenditures to increase in line with our adjusted EBITDA.
However, there were some maintenance events that fell outside of the quarter that will be funded in a later period. Maintenance capital expenditures for the Manufacturing segment were slightly higher than the comparable period. That being said, we remain confident and reconfirm our 2024 guidance provided in our Q2 2024 conference call.
With that, I will now turn the call over to Jake.
Great. Thank you, Rich. Travis now will split up the outlook section. I'll provide some focus on the Aerospace & Aviation segment, and Travis will provide some context for the Manufacturing segment.
Overall, we're expecting another strong quarter from our Aerospace & Aviation business as the trends highlighted in Mike and Rich's section are expected to continue into the fourth quarter. Our Essential Service -- our air business will see growth driven by a multitude of factors when compared to the prior period. These include the full deployment of the Q400 aircraft for the quarter to provide services under our agreement with Air Canada.
As mentioned previously, we have now expanded destinations into the Northeast United States. We also expect to continue to see improving load factors and growth across our network when compared to 2023. And lastly, we expect continued growth in our medevac businesses both with the long-term BC and Manitoba medevac contracts contributing -- are continuing to contribute to financial results in the quarter and the enhanced pricing under the Government of Nunavut contracts.
As a reminder, the BC medevac contract returns are expected to be muted until we redeploy the existing aircraft currently being used to service that contract. The redeployment opportunities could include the recently announced medevac contract with the government of Newfoundland and Labrador, perhaps with the Northwest Territories or other routes or ISR opportunities throughout our network.
Offsetting some of these gains is the impact of continued labor shortages and supply chain challenges, although we're not seeing a worsening of these dynamics, the challenges still remain. The Aerospace business is also expected to see growth due to the tempo of flying for our surveillance aircraft. However, the revenue increases are expected to be offset by revenue declines in our training business as we transition between contracts.
We anticipate the adjusted EBITDA to be slightly better than prior Q4 as the ISR contributions will offset the temporary training reductions. Our Aircraft Sales & Leasing business is also expected to experience growth. This anticipated growth is driven primarily by increases in leasing revenue. We continue to see step-based improvements in the aircraft on lease and anticipate that, that will continue into the fourth quarter. With respect to maintenance CapEx, expenditures. For Q4, we anticipate seeing levels higher than last Q4 as certain maintenance events have shifted into this Q4, plus we've continued to add to our fleet.
On a longer-term basis, we expect maintenance CapEx to increase roughly consistent with increases in our adjusted EBITDA in our Aerospace & Aviation segment, which is the biggest driver of our consolidated maintenance CapEx. Growth investments in Q4 are primarily for the Aerospace & Aviation segment and include capital expenditures for the expanded scope of ISR assets, continued construction of the Gary Filmon Indigenous Terminal and continued construction for the King Air simulator. Also Regional One is always working on opportunistic aircraft and engine acquisitions, which may result in growth investments being made in the Aircraft Sales & Leasing business.
I'll now pass it off to Travis for commentary on the Manufacturing segment.
Thanks, Jake. We're anticipating a consistent revenue for our Manufacturing segment during the fourth quarter compared to the prior year. All of the businesses within the Manufacturing segment are experiencing a strong level of customer inquiries. However, the closing ratio of inquiries continues to be below historical trends.
As Mike commented, we are seeing that closing ratio improving throughout our various business lines. We have noted significant increases in our backlog in our Multi-Storey Window Solutions business. However, as a reminder, those contracts entered into today will be manufactured in 18 to 24 months, so they'll really impact 2026. The bookings during the quarter and subsequent to quarter end were across several geographies and customer segments. We're seeing these positive leading indicators for the vast majority of our businesses within the Manufacturing segment.
Our Multi-Storey Windows Solution business line adjusted EBITDA is expected to be lower than the prior year due to customer-requested delays in project starts and from additional costs incurred as we integrate the businesses. When integrating the physical footprint of the locations, there will likely be some disruption in production, but we're proactively managing the production schedule. We are seeing lots of opportunities for efficiencies from our integration efforts led by Darwin Sparrow as we continue to rationalize the production, but we do anticipate some incremental costs from integration, which may offset some of those profitability gains in the shorter term.
Quoting in Canada in the U.S. continues to be extremely active. We remain very bullish on this business as the longer-term fundamentals, which drive demand remain incredibly strong. Our Environmental Access Solutions business line is expected to generate returns slightly higher than the prior year, assuming no unusual weather impacts. As we previously talked about, we anticipate the normalization of the business when comparing to the historical comparative periods starting in the second and third quarter. The team is working on incorporating Duhamel into the Environmental Access Solutions business line, and we already seen the benefits of the business with potential customers in Eastern Canada.
We'll be working on the integration of Spartan over the next number of months. There have been some very positive strategic discussions held between Spartan and Northern Mat, and Adam can talk about the acquisition, specifically in the Q&A.
The Precision Metal & Engineering business is expected to improve over the prior period. Similar to our Multi-Storey Window Solutions business line, we're experiencing a significant number of inquiries and the interest rate reductions in Canada and the U.S. bode well for increased optimism for our customers. As an example, we're seeing the recent release of capital from our telecommunications tower customers as they deploy capital for towers and network improvements across the country.
We noted some deferrals of purchases in the third quarter from customers due to the economic uncertainty but remain poised to meet the deferred demand in the fourth quarter and into 2025. The anticipated maintenance capital expenditures are expected to be slightly higher than the prior year due to the timing of replacement throughout the year. We're also anticipating growth capital expenditures to be incurred in each of the business lines within the Manufacturing segment but they should be relatively consistent with the prior year. The growth capital expenditures, specifically in the Environmental Access Solutions business line, depend on market dynamics as they continually reassess their fleet based on expected future market conditions.
I'll now pass the call back to Mike, who will talk about our acquisition pipeline and wrap up our prepared remarks.
Thanks, Travis. I'm sure Adam is happy to announce the Spartan acquisition. I've spoken numerous times about our strategy to expand the business into the U.S. and add a composite matting solution to our product line. Adam looked at a number of potential acquisitions and is likely tired of me constantly asking him whether each one was a perfect strategic fit.
Fortunately, for Adam, he finally found the perfect [ DIC ] company and our team at Northern Mat agreed. Although Adam and his team have been working some late evenings to conclude the signing of the purchase agreement for Spartan, they continue to be busy working on a number of other active pursuits. We are continuing to see more high-quality opportunities and that has continued through the quarter. We are seeing these opportunities in both Manufacturing and Aerospace & Aviation segments. But consistent with our 20-year history, we will only execute on transactions that are accretive and meet all of our acquisition criteria.
We are very encouraged by the state of our business. There are a lot of positive underlying trends driving the business into the longer term. Thank you for your time this morning, and we'd now like to open the call to questions. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Steve Hansen from Raymond James.
I'll start with Spartan first. It sounds like a great fit. I'm just curious about how you view the outlook here. We've had obviously an important political event here recently in the U.S. And it sounds like it's going to be favorable from an oil and gas side, but maybe just give us some context for the current sort of mix of customers and where you see that growth pipeline that I think you described in your prepared remarks, that would be helpful.
It's really, really, really dangerous for me to extrapolate what we've seen in the last 3 days, but I'm going to do it anyway. We've talked about in the past how, particularly in 2016 and 2020 immediately after the election. And in those 2 instances, they were won by different parties. The outcome was still the same, a return to normal, people tired of the uncertainty, and it resulted in, particularly in the Manufacture side of the business, a bit of a pop.
Again, realizing this is very early times. We landed a significant window project in California for the first time in several months, immediately following the election with someone who had delayed proceeding. We've won work in the Precision Metal business that had been deferred. So pretty bullish on where this goes. Although I am cautious about extrapolating something on such a short amount of time.
In terms of the matting business, we looked at that on a much longer-term basis. There simply isn't enough electricity available to be delivered and with a capability to deliver it. So we know that there's going to be distribution lines built. And it's that belief that drove the business. Now there are other customers in oil and gas and other things. And I think one of the best kind of predictors of what they think of the opportunity post-election is a couple of our competitors of Spartan who are public saw 7%, 8% increases in their stock price immediately following the election.
So we're bullish, but I would really say the words didn't really buy it on what's going to happen in the next year or 2, more about what we expect to happen over the next prolonged period.
And this is Adam, Steven. The one thing I would add is that the composite mats and the wooden mats are a competing product. They can be used on the same jobs, right? So the composite mats, there's much more traction within the T&D space, and that is where we would expect them to further grow. But even if you said the expectation is there's going to be more drillings, potentially pipelines, things that may be the composite mats aren't used for to the same degree. They still take that demand away from -- and there'll be less supply of the overall wooden mats, right, creating more opportunities and a bigger space for the composite mats to further grow.
So -- and you guys obviously do your research, and as Mike said, there's really only 3 composite mat manufacturers and the other 2 are public, and they're kind of pure-play composite. So -- and you can see what the market thought of that.
Just the one thing, I think Jake got's -- want to jump in here as well. But the one other thing I would point out about this is that we've seen a trend toward using composite solutions on the transmission side. And in particular, with the [ entrance ] mats that they have at Spartan where they've got a means of cleaning vehicles as they go on and off construction job sites, they're kind of on the cutting edge of the business. and we're excited about having that product available to us in Canada. Sorry, Jake, I cut you off.
Yes. No, just one other thing, and Steve, great question was to think about Northern Mat's kind of revenue profile in different categories of activities. If you think of pipeline revenues, oil and gas projects and then transmission and distribution, it's almost a 2:1:1 ratio. So strong footprint in all. So we're going to benefit from tailwinds in either oil and gas or the electrification side.
Okay. That's great. That's helpful. And not to dig into the weeds too much, but just trying to understand the capital deployment in and around this business. It sounds like there might be some manufacturing capabilities you're going to further augment. And just curious because the mats are -- sounds like they're longer lived being composite not wood. Does that change the working capital profile of the business relative to Northern Mat?
Yes. The working capital business is different, but not necessarily because of the composite nature of the mats, but because they're a pure production company. So they're building the mats and selling whereas Northern Mat, while they do sell mats, they're predominantly a rental company. So they have thousands of mats in inventory or in their fixed assets, which Spartan won't have. So that part's very different between the 2 companies, and we anticipate that being that way for the foreseeable future.
As relates to the shutdown, they began an expansion period last year. And we -- they've told us there's some more work they want to do. We anticipate doing that this year, and we want to be clear that we expect we may shut the plant down for a month or 2 to accomplish that little short-term pain for long-term gain. But that's incorporated into the guidance we've given you. So there's no negative hanging out there that's included in what we've told you. Adam, anything else?
Right. The one thing I would add is before we did the acquisition, as Mike said, they've invested a considerable amount into the facility. So looking into 25 and into '26, there's a little bit of fine-tuning, which will take a not significant dollars, but the plant will be down for a couple of months to increase the throughput and to increase the reliability of the plant to meet what we are seeing as the expected demand.
The one thing as it relates. So there's not going to be significant investment required or capital needed. The one thing right now is Spartan, they don't have any significant rentals. And so as we go forward, there's a potential for them to grow their fleet. So we grow their rental fleet, then we will put CapEx into growing that.
And your next question comes from the line of James McGarragle from RBC Capital Markets.
Congrats on the quarter. I just wanted to get some color on the 2025 guide and some of the macro assumptions that are included in the Manufacturing outlook, a lot of the transports we cover are kind of [ flag ] in are really tough industrial backdrop. They expect that to persist into 2025. So I guess kind of a bad for longer type of outlook. With that context, what are some of the underlying assumptions in your Manufacturing outlook? And what are you kind of modeling for the things to start to turn there?
That's a really good question. When we look at our 2025, we are starting to see orders open up and I strongly believe that the order book when we talk again in February is going to be higher than where it is today. But with Manufacturing, particularly in the windows, but even in some of the other areas, there's lags between when you get the order and when you deliver it.
So our expectations for 2025 are modest. We'll see some growth in our mat business. We'll see strengthening in some of our older Precision Metal businesses. But we don't see a real turnaround in that probably until the beginning of 2026 and that's reflected in the guidance we've given. So it's kind of the good news and the bad news.
We still expect to grow and grow significantly, and we've still got on the horizon that coming. I talked about during -- on our last call that we had booked $100 million in window business in the 6 weeks between the end of the quarter and when we reported. I can tell you we did the same thing in the last 6 weeks.
So we continue to see improvements. It's measurable, it's regular. There's lots of room to go. But in line with us in the past, we're not going to overpromise. So the business -- our guidance reflects a more modest view of Manufacturing. And quite frankly, Aviation is crushing it and there's no reason it's not going to crush it, maybe crush it a little more than we are now into 2026 or to 2025 driving that guidance. I reiterate that we've got -- we've built in a closure of the plant into that guidance at Spartan.
Yes, I appreciate the color there. And then just turning to the Aviation side and on the Regional One business. The things are looking like they're going pretty well there. But just 2 questions on that. You kind of highlighted in the past a recovery to 2019 levels by the end of the year. That's kind of on a lot bigger portfolio, pointed to some potential room to grow into 2025. Is that the right way to think about it?
And then just a follow-up on that, too, is EBITDA is probably not the best way to evaluate this business. Can you just remind us some high-level commentary on how EBITDA translates into free cash flow there?
Well, I got to think about how to answer the second question, but while I'm thinking, on the first part, we continued to invest in Regional One through the challenging periods in Aviation. So our lease fleet is materially higher than it would have been in 2019.
I'm excited that we hit our all-time best revenue -- leasing revenue quarter in Q3, but that's nowhere near finished. We expect with the assets we have that, that will continue to grow into next years we continue to increase both our lease rates, but also the deployment of the assets. It's really a free cash flow business is what you look at, James.
And so EBITDA is one part of it. But then you have to take out the maintenance reinvestment. Because bear in mind, we aren't a leasing company in the airport's traditional sense. We aren't out there saying, "Hey, look, we can borrow money cheaper than you can. And so we'll add some leverage on a little bit of equity and earn, borrow at 3 or return 4 and make a spread." That's not the business we're in. What we're doing is taking aircraft that have a limited amount of time, 2, 3, 4, 5 years to a major overhaul event and we're burning that green time off. So we're buying that green time at a lower price.
And you almost have to think of our leasing business as part of the liquidation business. One of the things we sell is green time. And then when we get to the end of the green time, we'll decide do we want to reinvest in this particular aircraft, put money back into it? Or do we want to tear it apart and sell it off as pieces.
And so it's really a mental set that this is a whole part of the aftermarket supply of those types of aircraft. And I'd reiterate, we're good at certain aircraft, and we don't play in the aircraft we're not good at. If we don't have enough knowledge to be able to game the system, we're not going to play.
James, the other thing I'd say just as a dynamic is we're starting to see pricing on engines as well start to vary where in some airframes, the prices of engines are outstripping the price of the whole airframe and it allows us another angle to trade on these assets.
And your next question comes from the line of Cameron Doerksen from National Bank.
I guess a question I wanted to ask, I guess, sort of a big picture. It's been sort of a topical one in the last few days post the U.S. election result. It's really around, I guess, how your business might be impacted broadly if, in fact, we do get a bunch of tariffs put on imports and exports. So maybe you can just discuss how you're positioned there and what the impact could be if that happens.
Sure. I think I would be less than honest if I didn't say I was a little unnerved when the election came in and one party won by so much, particularly one that's talking about tariffs on everything around the world. From an EIC point of view, it's really not a big deal. You'll recall that during the last Trump administration, there were discussions about tariffs and we built a plant in Dallas.
So we are now fully capable of manufacturing our American windows in an American plant and our Canadian windows in a Canadian plant. Quite frankly, right now, it's the opposite. We manufacture in Dallas or Canada. So as Darwin puts the 2 plants together and we build our new plant in Canada, that will fully enable us to be -- if there's a tariff wall at the border to not be impacted by that in a material way. The balance of my companies don't export a lot. There are some -- and some of it's indirect where we may sell product to a Canadian company who in turn sells it to the U.S. So I don't want to give the idea that we would be immune from tariffs.
But I would say for a company that's in manufacturing, we're relatively well positioned to deal with it. And we'll take the steps we need to, including maybe moving if a particular product is going to be a challenge, we'll move it into a U.S. facility, we have them. So -- but with the Dallas plant, we're in a pretty good state.
Okay. No, that's great. And maybe the second question, you came up in the prepared remarks a couple of times just around on the Aviation side, the impact of some loss of business in the training business. Can you just go into a little more detail what's going on there and what gives you confidence that, that's going to reverse in the next couple of quarters?
Sure. It's not so much the loss of activities. What it is, is some of the dynamics around the renewal of the training contracts and particularly with some of the ones we see with some of the governments that we gain margin growth as the contract matures due to really gaining efficiencies through the contract.
As the contracts reset, these are typically bid in a competitive environment and we lose those efficiencies until the contract gets underway again and starts to mature to gain that back. And so just with the sense of timing, we've had several of these contracts come up in the second half of 2024 with a reset.
So as those contracts kind of mature, you can, I guess, claw back that margin as they mature?
That's really about us getting good at each contract as it gets back into service. It's the normal ebbs and flows of the contract training business in the U.S.
And your next question comes from the line of [indiscernible] from [ Benton ] Capital Markets.
Congrats on the results. I was wondering if you could give us a bit of color on how you envision integrating Spartan's Mats business with Northern Mat. I wonder if it will be as involved, I guess, as integrating your window businesses, maybe some thoughts there.
Yes, good question. And Mike talked that we've been looking at the U.S. market for a long time, and he's been talking about it on the various analyst calls and my job overall is to make sure Mike looks good and we didn't necessarily know that he could look this good. So we're pretty excited about the acquisition. And the Northern Mat team has been involved since day 1, but it is a different market.
And so that's why we've always looked at it that we wanted to acquire, and composites as a much different business than what the Northern Mat team does. And so they are separate businesses, and they will remain separate. We really see that there is a good opportunity to bring some of the Spartan products into the Canadian market. There -- primarily right now, the overall Canadian market is wood. There's very little composites.
But in the right geographies and for the right work, there's a good opportunity to bring these products up. So that's what we're going to see more is the Northern Mat team bringing those Spartan products into the Canadian marketplace. So that's going to be the key piece of overall integration. And they work on strategy, but you won't see something similar to what's happening in our window business.
Fantastic. So cross-sell. And maybe like with Adam, like as we approach 2025, like how does exchange anticipate the pace of M&A activity compared to 2024? I know these things are always very hard to predict. But I just wonder, given the pipeline you have relative to the same time last year, should we anticipate a more aggressive sort of capital allocation strategy into M&A in 2025?
Yes, and it's a good question. But you're right, it is a hard question to give you a perspective on. I'd say it really depends on the day that you asked me. Sometimes, we're out there and we're working on deals and like if we close all these deals, it's going to be -- and they're all good and they're -- and we've closed these all, it's going to be the biggest acquisition year ever. And then as you go through and you work on them and you do diligence, that can often change.
So again, the pipeline is really over the last couple of years, it's been strong, and we're seeing good quality deals, and we're seeing -- as EIC grows too, you see us playing with some potential bigger deals. So -- but what's going to happen for the next year and the actual deployment? I think that's always a difficult question to answer.
And your next question comes from the line of Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets.
Just, I guess, a couple of questions on the Aerospace or the Aviation business. Turning back to Regional One and just the lease portfolio. So big step-up there. But you've also made the comment that you think it's sustainable and can grow. Can you give us some color on the type of leases that you've got out there? And there are, I know a number of regional aircraft that are -- might be available on storage. Any thoughts on growing that? And kind of what the terminal value looks like in terms of the portfolio right now?
Yes. Two really distinct questions there. One is on the leasing portfolio, what we see is that the Aviation business has returned to normal. We talked a lot over a couple of years after COVID about pilot shortages, and that's really not driving behavior anymore. And so we've seen in the regional jets and in the bigger planes that we don't play in as well, that there's delays in deliveries of things.
And so airlines are looking at different strategies to deal with the fact that Boeing and Airbus is struggling to get new aircraft. And we've seen that just as an example with the recent announcement in the U.S. about the CRJ550, which for those of you who don't deal with this every day. That's the old CRJ700, which was a 70-seat aircraft that to make it compliant with the rules they have for their unions, they're going to take it down to a 55-seat aircraft.
And we've seen in the U.S. where -- help me here with who's doing it -- SkyWest has signed contracts. There's essentially no CRJ700s left in the world, they've all become 550s. Well, that's great for us because we own engines, we own parts, all of those things that extends the life of that airframe. That's awesome for us, and it's bullish. We see that happening to the 900s as well because they've run out of 700s, so they'll take the 90 seaters and do the same thing, again, strong for us. What's a little different in this lease improvement is about -- it's not just about aircraft.
With COVID threw the whole schedules of engine overhauls off so bad, there isn't enough surplus capacity in the world to catch up as quickly as you would think. And so engine leasing is a big part of what we've got. Hank and his team saw this coming. We -- our portfolio of engines has grown. And quite frankly, we bought a number of aircraft knowing that all we really need out of them is the engines because we can make a profit just on the 2 engines, and then we'll park the rest out, and that's where the gravy comes from.
So long answer to get to the thing that's saying it's growing, it's strengthening in the stuff in the areas we're in. It's easier to lease than to buy right now. It's easier for us to monetize what we own and get more. But that's the typical pendulum of this business, either it's a buyer's market or a seller's market, it's leaning towards a seller's market at this point.
And then on your second question about terminal value, it's really important to understand that's where we're different than everybody else. I lease assets to get them when they're used up. That's how I get parts. That's how I make sure I have a landing gear and engine parts and everything sitting in storage.
So while a typical leasing company that's effectively a finance business, at the end of it, they go, I don't want this thing, what am I going to do with a 25-year-old aircraft. We're going -- give it to us. That's the game we play in. And so as the market has strengthened the value of those parts strengthen. And so all of Regional One's business looks good. Certain aircraft are better than others. But to speak in generalities, the demand and the terminal values are both good.
Okay. And then my other question is just around the medevac renewal. I guess there are some other contracts that are also out there for bid in medevac. You just won Newfoundland as well. Can you talk a little bit about kind of the landscape, both on that renewal and what else is out there? And actually, kind of how pricing -- we've seen a lot of wage increases from a number of pilots groups, including your own. There's some other inflation pressures. Just kind of curious about if the medevac contracts that you've both signed and are looking to sign take all that into account.
Yes, that's a really good question and particularly good insight. One of the challenges we've had is our medevac contracts all include escalation clauses. But because for the last long period of time, Aviation inflation looked like inflation in the general economy, we were covered off. In the last post-COVID period, that's clearly not the case.
Our wages and some businesses are up 40% or 50% than what they were when these contracts were signed. And so our margins in our old medevac contracts, Nunavut, in particular, had really skinnied out. And in some cases, we were close to breaking even on those.
Quite regularly, governments want to just extend existing contracts. They're happy. They don't want to go through an RFP. And for 90% of our history, the answer was sure, just to extend it on the same terms and conditions. This time, when we talked to Nunavut, we said, we're glad to look after, we're glad to extend it, but we simply can't extend in 2025 and 2026 on 2018 with pilot wage prices. Government of Nunavut did a bunch of work to confirm we were telling them the truth. They were the great partner. They always are. They said we want you to look after this. If you extend it, we'll give you a price increase commensurate to the inflation you've incurred.
And I think you'll that see as other things come up for bid. Everybody's got the same wage issue. And so when RFPs come, it gives you a chance to reset the pricing. We may change in new contracts, the wording of how cost of living is defined to avoid a situation like this in the future. But because of our long-standing relationships with the government, we've been able to negotiate reasonable terms and conditions. Dave White and his team did a great job on that.
Your next question comes from the line of Tim James from TD Cowen.
I just have one question. It's kind of broad, and it actually ties into Chris' question and renewing contracts and your ability to get higher pricing because that's the environment we're in, and everybody is dealing with it. As you look across your business lines, do you see any where you're have any concern, maybe that's a strong word, but where -- there's a need to improve the cost structure because of the competitive environment. Anywhere for whatever reason it might be, are there any initiatives in the more material business operations to get costs lower from -- in order to remain competitive?
Yes. I mean across our business, we've been dealing with that. The medevac business, quite frankly, is simpler. There's not a lot you can do to run it more efficiently. You can't fix your schedule, you can't fly with less people. You can't schedule it better. You're looking after really sick people. You've got to be there. You've got to be ready and you got to have the equipment.
So that business is relatively speaking, straightforward. Where this is a bigger issue would be in our scheduled business. We've had the same kind of -- if you look back to pre-COVID and to now, say, our Northern business in Nunavut, our scheduled business, our costs would be up 30-something percent maybe even 40%. And our inflationary increases will be less than 20%.
So we had to find ways to be better to maintain profitability. You can see it in our statement, we've been able to do that. It is a 0-sum game. There's only so much you could do before you hurt your service. And that's why when the contracts come up, we'll negotiate and we'll get where we are. I think that in some ways, it actually strengthens our hand. And the reason I say that is because we built a whole bunch of Northern infrastructure. That is the cost of replacing our Northern infrastructure even for us would be double or triple or quadruple what we paid to put it there. So when someone wants to bid on me on one of my existing pieces of work, their cost is inherently going to be higher than mine and we fine-tune what we do for a long time.
We're pretty proud of our track record of customer service because nothing else matters if the customer is not happy. So I'm pretty comfortable on that. And then one of the things I told my team, and it hasn't happened yet, but I really emphasized for them, we don't need to have any contract. I mean there are certain things that are really important, like our Nunavut passenger contract. That's something that's always going to be part of us. But we've got smaller contracts where we move judges around or we service a gold mine. And if any of those reach the stage where we can't get the return we want, we just won't do it.
We've got tons of opportunities. We're really good at what we do. And so we've got to be confident enough to our customers to say, hey, this is what it's worth. And if you want to test the market, you should. But if you test the market, RFP price might be higher than the negotiated increase. And we've had great success with that.
I think the other thing that would be important to note, when we look at investments we make in technology and -- we're still in the early days of what that may mean from an efficiency perspective. But we see consistently because of the investments we make, not only in cybersecurity, but in business intelligence that when we go to these RFPs, we know that we have a leg up on a lot of our smaller competitors.
And while it may not be an inherent cost advantage, it may, at some point, be a cost advantage. It's really a function of the service and the whole package that different customers get as being part of the EIC business, and we would stack up our IT team against any ones in the country.
And from that perspective, could there be benefits from a cost perspective later on as kind of the technology develops, it's possible. But I think right now, it's really a benefit from our perspective when we go to these tenders and the types of things that we can do.
Okay. That's helpful. And I think you've addressed the kind of the air services part of the business. Can I expand that question? And again, maybe there's nothing really to discuss, but to the rest of the Aerospace & Aviation and on the Manufacturing side, are there any sort of businesses where there's a particular need to or push on to get the cost structure down for competitive reasons? Or do you feel you're pretty well positioned across the board?
Systematically, I'm pretty comfortable with where we are. What you're talking about, Tim, though, is very relevant is -- I talked about it a few times. The holy grail of the ISR business is the Australian contract which we're bidding on now. And we don't have an infrastructure there. So we're starting behind. And so we spent a lot of time with the benefit of a blank slate saying, what's the appropriate aircraft fleet to do this? What's the best way we can do it and then be able to differentiate ourselves? And maybe hand it to Jake to talk about that, but we're seeing those needs to talk about changing our cost structure is more about gaining new business than it is with our existing contracts.
Yes. And I also think, especially on the Aerospace business is the contracts that we compete on prices but only one factor. Outcome and capability delivered is really the key metric for some of these critical activities we undertake. So yes, we have an eye to cost, obviously. We look to figure out how we not only optimize but factor in abilities to expand the relationship with the customer. We've got a great track record, getting -- winning a contract and then expanding those contracts to add extra capacity or extra service and then move forward.
And your next question comes from the line of Konark Gupta from Scotiabank.
I want to kind of come back to Spartan for a sec here. So first, I want to clarify, the 2025 guidance, Mike, does it include the full 12 months of Spartan?
No. We've made an allowance on the guidance for the fact that we anticipate closing the plant for a period. Now I want to be clear that we may be able to build up enough inventory before we close. So it doesn't impact the business. But giving guidance, I don't want to give the most optimistic possible way of looking at this.
So we'll see how we time it, we'll see whether we have enough mats and inventory, while we're closed that we actually don't have an income hit. But to be perfectly transparent, we have included in our guidance, less than a full 12 months of the operations of Spartan.
Okay. That makes sense. That's fair. In terms of the business itself, can you share some like historical information on this business in terms of -- what has been the growth profile since pre-pandemic on this one? And what's the growth looking like under your umbrella?
Thanks, Konark. Yes, that's a good question. And so Spartan composite is of the 3 players in the composite mat manufacturing industry, they're the newest. Now while they're the newest, they're run by industry veterans that have a lot of experience. So they started their journey in the composite mat back in 2018. And really, post-COVID they've experienced significant growth.
If you go to their website and you see the top video is the new SYSTEM7-XT mat. And so that mat is really the version 2 of their original SYSTEM7 mat, and they're pretty excited about the new technology and the new characteristics and the overall performance of the XT mat, and that was just released. So overall, with what we're seeing of the trend in the industry, the growth that Spartan has had historically and the new XT mat, we're pretty bullish on the future.
Adam, maybe you could just give a little background information on composite versus wood the cost profile at lifespan and ease of use because I think some of the -- we talk about it because we're in this business. I think some of the people might find it interesting to understand the differences in how they're transported and those kinds of things, if could you give us 2 minutes on that, I think that would help.
For sure. Yes, the biggest difference with the composite is the -- 2 really is the life expectancy of it. If we look at it, it all depends on what the mat is being used for. But traditionally, if we look at wooden mat, it's 4 to 7 years. And if we're looking at composite mats, there's different numbers out within the industry. But generally, it's going to be over 10% for sure.
And most likely, it's being used within T&D and that we expect it to have significantly longer life. It's also about half the weight of what you have for your wooden mats, and where the big difference there is that the ability to move those mat. So your transportation cost comes way down. And especially if you look at that over the life of mats and you have a significant cost savings. Now the mats are more expensive upfront.
And if we look at the U.S. market in particular, there's a lot of customers who like to rent. There's some who prefer to buy. And when we look at where Spartan has played historically, even though some of their customers would like to be able to rent they haven't really done that on any significant scale. So they're looking forward to the partnership with EIC.
They have a strong -- a great team there, industry veterans. and having the EIC's balance sheet and be able to potentially build out that rental fleet for their customers who want that is another good opportunity for...
That's really great color, guys. And then if I can follow up, just like a 2-part question on Spartan. How does the market share look like versus the other comps, new park and signature? And any opportunities for synergies outside of the cross-selling you mentioned?
Yes. In terms of market share, I think, first, if we look at market share, we talk about within the mat industry, what's the market share of composites. And they've been growing. They've been growing -- gaining traction over the last decade right now, but still a smaller piece of the market. There's no industry numbers out there, but based off our market research, and we think it's roughly 15%.
And so there's plenty of room for composites to grow. And as I mentioned, Spartan composites is the newest player to the composite industry. And so they would be -- would have the lowest market share of the 3. But we're definitely excited about the -- what development they've done over the last 5 years, the new XT Mat, just a great leadership team with plenty of experience. And so we think that, that will be increasing.
And then coming back to the integration question. But I think we really -- I know what we're doing on the window business. And if you look at the history of EIC, that's not really what we do, right? We don't buy companies, we don't integrate them. We buy companies that are really good at what they do who have great leaders, and that's what this company is. And so they're going to continue to execute within the U.S. market.
Obviously, Northern Mat and they are going to have a perspective and they are the industry leader within Canada. So working on strategy together, they definitely talking about the overall market and talking about opportunities, but they will not be integrated and it's really helping Northern Mat with their portfolio of products and also for Northern Mat too, if we look long term and something happens with the overall fiber supply, having Spartan composites with their expertise in being able to supply Northern mat an alternative product will be essentials.
That's really great color, Adam. I appreciate the time and congrats for the acquisition.
And your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Mossiagin from CIBC.
While a great business, the matting business has been a bit lumpy in the past, do you expect the Spartan acquisition to smooth this out? Or is this typical for the industry?
That's a good question. What I would suggest to you is that the downside of the industry is that it's a big part of what drives it are big projects. And big projects don't -- aren't always linear, and that one starts when another finishes. So I don't think we see that going away.
But having said that, the particular part of the market that Spartan is in and the United States has less weather exposure. And the projects are very long term in nature. When you're building a new electrical distribution line, it can be months or years long.
And so while there'll still be a certain chunkiness to it, because we're not really exposed to the oil and gas business in a material way at Spartan, it's not quite the same as our Canadian business, which is -- does have an oil and gas/pipeline exposure. Both of them will have more T&D every period we report. But it will definitely be less chunky than our Canadian businesses.
And add to that as well is the Northern Mat business sometimes can be impacted by overall weather, right? And so this provides a great diversification for the overall new geography.
[indiscernible] look to continue to bolster your matting business in the future through M&A? Or are you happy with the size and capabilities of the business as it is today?
I don't think I would ever say I'm happy. We're ecstatic with the company we bought. Our experience in our portfolio is we're trying to find industry leaders. And when you can go back to the beginning of our first few acquisitions. I mean, Perimeter is a leader in Northern Aviation, SFI is a leader in stainless tank production, Water Blast in pressure systems is the leader. And so we think we found our leader, but that doesn't mean we're not going to fill it up with some troops. And so there's more to come in this business. We've done a lot of research and spent a lot of time on the segment in the future of matting as it relates to the transmission and distribution business.
And regardless of who's in power, we need more electrical power. If we're going to drive Teslas, you've got to be able to get electricity to the house. California right now, they've got rules about how many electric cars need to be sold and put on the streets, but they've also told the people, please don't charge them during large parts of the day. Well, those don't work. Ultimately, you got to build the distribution. And so we see a 10-, 15-, 20-year runway as far as you can see for this business. So expanding it makes sense.
But the other thing I would say is I hope the fact that it took us 2 years to find Spartan and cut the deal shows that we're not going to buy for the sake of buying. Adam looked at a lot of deals and his team and dealing with Northern Mat's team. We're very disciplined in what we chose. And that's why I think we got the cream of the crop.
And your next question comes from the line of Jeff Fenwick from Cormark Securities.
I know we're getting long here, so I'll try to be quick. I wanted to talk about the ISR opportunity. Obviously, good to see the expanded contract and renewed contract over in Europe. Could you just maybe provide us a little bit of an update on the sort of bid activity you're seeing out there? I mean this is obviously a growth industry, you did reference Australia. But any color there on what's a on the horizon?
Yes. I mean it's I think it's safe to say with instability in the world drives opportunity on the ISR segment. We're seeing larger contracts for longer-term opportunities being out there. We're also seeing, I'd say, a shortened sales cycle to some extent where there's some opportunistic opportunities popping up that we're working with. So I'd say as general answer to your question is we've got some tailwinds in that market segment, typically being driven by the instability we're seeing.
And is the Australian opportunity something that will be decided upon in '25? Or is that further out?
That's our expectation. But you've got to keep in mind, obviously, we're dealing with governments and the procurement cycles and decisions can be stretched out. This is a very big and complex bid. So the evaluation period is going to be extended as well. So I would expect the latter part of '25 for a decision, but then I wouldn't be surprised if that slid into '26 for a host of factors.
Yes. That contract is the super bowl of the ISR business. I mean it's a very unique -- without getting into detail, that you're not really that interested in hearing. It's a very unique contract opportunity because they -- for the first time in our experience, they didn't tell us what they wanted. They didn't say give us 6 of those or 3 of those or run these bases. They said, you need to cover this area of ocean. You need to be there this many times a day or just many times a week. Tell us how you're going to do it. And so our team has been doing -- going through a matrix of turboprops, jets, fast jets, long-range jets. And so a big part of this is coming up with a solution problem.
We are 1 of 3 people, 3 or 4 that have qualified downstream from much more than that. I like our position. It's not somewhere where when you're going to win, we have to take it away from somebody, which is we know that's challenging. But we've got some really cool ideas on this and we bid in December, right, Jake?
That's right.
So we're about a month away from submitting and then the hard part, it's like a kid on Christmas is waiting to see what Santa brings you.
That's helpful. And maybe one follow-up here. Just is this an area where you could benefit from some acquisitions that might bring in some expanded capability sets or technology or something like that? Or is this more about partnering with the right people and using your existing expertise?
I would say, absolutely, there's opportunities. I mean, we bought -- Jake, maybe let's talk about our software acquisition a few years ago and what that means in our current bidding.
Yes. I mean, we bought CarteNav systems years ago, and that's really been a centerpiece of having the ability to integrate data coming off the aircraft, deliver the data smoothly into the decision makers on the ground. But now more importantly, as we're seeing AI and we're seeing -- it's about delivering insights from that data. And that's been very powerful for us. And as I say, we see that seamlessly through a number of our contracts and having that in-house capability has been a real differentiator for us.
And so if we find something else like that, we'd be all over adding it to our internal.
Absolutely. And that said, as well, as you mentioned, partnering is key. And I would say the aerospace and defense sector somewhat unique in that you can be partners with firms across the world, big firms. And in other markets, you could be deadly competitors against one another. So that's -- it's an area of interest on how the dynamics work in that market.
Operator?
There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Mr. Pyle for any closing remarks.
I just want to thank everybody for their patience on a long call today. We're really excited. We feel like we had a great quarter, and we've added more to the fire for future periods. Our success has always been driven by investing in the future.
And I'm pretty proud of what my team has put together for us to lead into 2025 with. So have an awesome day, and I look forward to talking to you in February when we give you our year-end results.
Thank you.