Stantec - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Transcript

Speaker 3

Welcome to Stantec's second quarter 2025 results webcast and conference call. Leading the call today are Gord Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Vito Culmone, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Stantec invites those dialing in to view the slide presentation, which is available in the investor section at stantec.com. Today's call is also webcast. Please be advised that if you have dialed in while also viewing the webcast, you should mute your computer as there is a delay between the call and the webcast. All information provided during the conference call is subject to the forward-looking statement qualification set out on slide two, detailed in Stantec's management discussion and analysis and incorporated in full for the purpose of today's call. Unless otherwise noted, dollar amounts discussed in today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars and are generally rounded.

With that, I will turn the call over to Mr. Gord Johnston.

Speaker 2

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Before I get into our Q2 results, I'm pleased to announce that on July 31, we closed the acquisition of Page. In early April, we announced the acquisition, and in the interim period, we were working on various regulatory approvals prior to the formal close. Page is a very strong U.S.-based architecture and engineering firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The acquisition complements our buildings business and helps bolster our services in key growth sectors, including healthcare, advanced manufacturing, data centers and mission-critical, academic, science and technology, and civic markets. In addition, I'd also like to highlight that on June 27, we acquired Cosgroves, a 90-person firm expanding our buildings' engineering capabilities in New Zealand. As we previously announced, we acquired Ryan Hanley back in April, bolstering our offerings in the Irish water sector.

I'd like to welcome the 1,500 talented individuals from Page, Cosgroves, and Ryan Hanley to the Stantec team, which has now grown to over 34,000 employees. I'm also pleased to share that Stantec continues to earn recognition through a range of accolades from respected industry and media organizations. We're honored to be ranked the number one architecture firm in healthcare worldwide by Modern Healthcare's 2025 Construction and Design Survey. In addition, Time Magazine ranked us fifth on its 2025 list of Canada's best companies and among the top 50 of the world's 500 most sustainable companies. Now, let's focus on our results. Stantec has delivered very strong results in the first half of 2025, delivering organic growth across all of our regions and business operating units.

Public infrastructure spending and private investments continue to be a key driver of growth in 2025, with strong demand across the water, transportation, mining, energy transition, and mission-critical sectors. In the second quarter, we delivered net revenue of $1.6 billion, up 6.9% year-over-year, which was primarily driven by 4.8% organic growth. Our energy and resources business delivered high single-digit organic growth, and water achieved 12.4% organic growth. With our focus on solid project execution and operational excellence, we grew our adjusted EBITDA by 15%, with an enhanced margin of 17.8%. We also delivered adjusted EPS growth of over 21% compared to Q2 2024. Looking at our results in each of our geographies, in the U.S., our Q2 net revenue increased by 5.7%, which was supported by organic growth of 4.4%. From a trend perspective, we saw improvements in U.S. organic growth compared to the first quarter.

Client demand for mission-critical, science and technology, and civic all contributed to growth in our buildings business. Growth in environmental services was mainly driven by our energy transition, mining, and industrial infrastructure sectors, as well as the continued work for a large-scale utility provider. Growth in water was driven by large public sector water supply and wastewater treatment projects. Energy and resources growth saw the wrap-up of a major hydropower dam project in the Southwest. In Canada, net revenue grew by 6.2%, underpinned completely by organic growth. The continued momentum on major wastewater projects contributed to over 30% organic growth in water. Consistent progress on major industrial process projects drove double-digit organic growth in energy and resources. Solid growth in infrastructure was supported by land development projects in Alberta, and public sector investment in Western Canada drove growth in our buildings business, primarily in our health care and civic markets.

Finally, our global business delivered net revenue growth of 10.5% in the second quarter, with 4.3% organic and 3.6% acquisition growth, as well as positive foreign exchange impacts. Our industry-leading water business delivered double-digit organic growth across the UK, Australia, and New Zealand through long-term framework agreements and public sector investment in water infrastructure. The wrap-up of new projects in Chile and Peru drove double-digit organic growth in energy and resources, as the growing need for energy transition solutions continues to drive demand in mining for copper. We also achieved double-digit organic growth in our German business due to continued momentum on a major public sector energy transportation project and increased volume on transit and rail projects. Now I'll turn the call over to Vito to review our Q2 financial results in more detail.

Speaker 0

Thank you, Gord, and good morning, everyone. Stantec's positive momentum continues, as seen with our second quarter results, positioning us to deliver another exceptional year. In Q2, we achieved gross revenue of approximately $2 billion and net revenue of $1.6 billion, an increase of 6.9% compared to Q2 2024. This was primarily driven by 4.8% organic growth. As a percentage of net revenue, our project's margins remained in line with our expectations at 54.2%. We achieved a very strong adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.8% in the quarter, a 120 basis point increase compared to last year. The increase in margin primarily reflects lower admin and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue due to lower claim provisions and discretionary spending. Our adjusted EPS in the quarter increased over 21% to $1.36.

Our Q2 results build on a strong first quarter, and on a year-to-date basis, our adjusted EBITDA margin is 17%, a full 1% ahead of the first half of 2024. In addition, our adjusted EPS is up a very robust 24.9%. With our year-to-date performance and the closure of the Page acquisition, we are very well positioned to increase guidance across various metrics, which Gord will speak to shortly. Turning to our cash flow, liquidity, and capital resources, year-to-date operating cash flows are up 100% compared to 2024, from $117 million to $235 million, reflecting continued strong revenue growth, operational performance, and continued strong collection efforts. The SO at the end of the second quarter was 73 days, a decrease of four days compared to the first quarter of 2025. This is well below our internal target of 80 days or lower.

Our net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio at June 30th was 1.1 times, essentially in line with where we closed out the first quarter and remaining well within our internal target range of 1 to 2 times. I'd like to take a minute to highlight some recent financing transactions we completed in Q2. I characterize these as being in the normal course of our business and reflecting the significant growth in our operations over the last few years. On June 10th, we issued $425 million senior unsecured notes bearing an interest rate of 4.374% per annum for a seven-year term. These notes were assigned an investment-grade credit rating of triple D by DVRS Limited. Also, in mid-June, we increased our unsecured revolver credit facility to $1.2 billion, up from $800 million, and we extended the maturity date out to June 30th.

Both of these financing transactions were well oversubscribed and reflect the credit community's deep understanding and confidence in our sector and company. We appreciate the continued support. As Gord noted, we closed the Page acquisition on July 31st, and post-closing, our remaining credit capacity is just over $1 billion, and our balance sheet remains very strong. Gord, I'll now hand the call back to you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Vito. At the end of the second quarter, our contract backlog stood at $7.9 billion, reflecting approximately 12 months of work. Our backlog underscores the continued strong demand to support our clients' most pressing challenges. Year-over-year, backlog has grown by almost 10%, reflecting robust organic growth of 9% across each of our geographies, and most notably, double-digit growth in our water and energy and resources businesses. I'd also note that our U.S. organic backlog is up 9.8% year-over-year. This reflects the positive trend in organic growth and continued strength of our business in the region. Growth within our global operations was driven by new project awards in our infrastructure and environmental services business in Europe and AVE8 project awards in our UK water business. This growth is partially offset by a retraction in our Australian business of buildings operations, as well as high burn rates in our water business.

I'll now highlight a few of the projects that Stantec has recently been awarded. A Stantec joint venture was recently awarded a $150 million single award contract supporting the U.S. Navy Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, focusing on the modernization of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine. U.S. Navy shipyards were originally designed and built in the 19th and 20th centuries, and this program will support the upgrade of facilities, utilities, dry docks, equipment, and information technology infrastructure. In the UK, our infrastructure team was awarded a four-year framework with Transport for Greater Manchester, where we will deliver a range of transport, design, engineering, and analysis services, as well as program and project management support. Lastly, Stantec's water and environmental services teams are collaborating on Google's water replenishment project sourcing in Taiwan. This project is part of Google's Global Water Replenishment Initiative.

It also highlights Stantec's use of nature-based solutions, which include the gravel contact oxidation process for sustainable water treatment and watershed restoration. On the strength of our performance year to date, the completion of two acquisitions within the second quarter, and with the recent closure of Page, we're increasing our outlook for 2025. We now expect to achieve net revenue growth of 10% to 12%, up from our previous guidance of 7% to 10%. Given our strong diversification across geographies, we continue to expect mid to high single-digit organic growth across the businesses. In Canada and global, we continue to expect organic net revenue growth in the mid to high single digits. We continue to see strong momentum in both these regions, with elevated backlog levels in Canada, particularly in infrastructure, energy, and resources, and through high levels of activity in our global water business.

AVE8 continues to ramp up in the UK, and other water frameworks in Australia and New Zealand are ramping up as well. In the U.S., we expect organic growth to accelerate in the second half of the year, and we've moderated our outlook slightly to mid-single digits. The U.S. administration has implemented significant shifts in policy, funding priorities, tariffs, and regulatory frameworks, most notably with the recent passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The ultimate driver of these initiatives is to stimulate investment in the U.S. across all sectors and to strengthen the U.S. economy. In fact, we're already seeing momentum starting to ramp up again. Furthermore, we're also encouraged by our healthy backlog, which positions us for continued positive growth.

On the strength of our operations year to date, we've also increased and narrowed the range for adjusted EBITDA margin to 17% to 17.4%, up from 16.7% to 17.3%. This reflects solid project execution and continued discipline in cost management. With this, we actually expect to hit our strategic plan target of 17% to 18% a year early, with the ability to continue building on this performance. We now expect to deliver 18.5% to 21.5% growth in adjusted EPS compared to 2024, up from 16% to 19%, once again driving earnings well above net revenue growth. Finally, adjusted ROIC is now expected to be greater than 12.5%. As we enter the second half of 2025, we remain firmly on track to deliver another record year. Macro trends of aging infrastructure, data centers, energy security, water and wastewater treatment, healthcare, and reshoring all continue to drive our business.

We will remain focused on delivering strong project execution and operational excellence, and while we have already completed three acquisitions this year, the pipeline of opportunities remains full, and we are extremely well positioned, both from an integration and a financing standpoint, to do more. It's an exciting time for our industry and for Stantec, and we'll continue to deliver compounded growth as we drive towards our 2024 to 2026 strategic plan goals. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

Speaker 3

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one-one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one-one again. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before reentering the queue. One moment as we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question is going to come from the line of Krista Friesen with CIBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if maybe you can just provide us with a little bit of additional color on what you're hearing from your U.S. customers, specifically in the private sector, as you called out, maybe an elevated level of caution right now.

Speaker 2

Yeah, great question, Krista. You know what we're seeing is that in the first half of the year, there was a little bit of trepidation to make that final investment decision and to move forward. As we said in the prepared remarks, we really are looking to see our forecasting our U.S. organic growth to accelerate in the second half of this year. Our U.S. backlog is up 9.8% organically year over year, and it's actually particularly strong in water, energy, and data centers, some of those private sector type work that you're talking about. In the private sector, interestingly, data centers, mission-critical, and so on, we're currently working on over 100 data center projects. It's interesting. We see our, from our even from our July results, we saw an increase in our U.S. organic growth to even at that high single-digit range.

We also, interestingly, saw continued acceleration even in our organic backlog in the July period. We're actually feeling pretty good about that acceleration in organic growth, both in public and in the private sector in the second half of the year.

Speaker 1

Okay, great. Maybe just on the acquisition front, you guys have been busy with a couple of acquisitions recently. How are you feeling on the integration? I appreciate Page was just two weeks ago here, but just any update there?

Speaker 2

Yeah, go ahead. The Ryan Hanley is a firm, a smaller firm, a couple hundred people in Ireland. We've been working with them for years. That integration is going very well. We actually anticipated, I think, to be completed by the end of this year, the financial integration. Cosgroves, similarly, 90% firm, 100% firm down in New Zealand. You know that one is continuing. Page is really interesting. 1,400, 1,500 people, but we've worked with them for a long time. Over the last number of months, we've been working on how do we align leadership, starting to look already at the financial transformation. In fact, that's planned for Q4 of this year. We think we're going to be in pretty good shape, really having wrapped up the majority of the integration and the financial work by the end of the year on all three of these.

Speaker 1

That's great. Thank you. I'll pass the line. Congrats on the quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sabahat Khan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. Thanks and good morning. I guess just sticking with kind of the outlook commentary, you know it looks like the margin guidance at midpoint's been kicked up a little bit. Maybe we can just get into some of the details around, you know, the progress you did on the margin side and just what are some of the contributors to the margin being pushed up higher for the full year? Thanks.

Speaker 0

Hi, Saba. Yeah, we're really, it's Vito here this morning, really pleased with our progression year to date and what we see for the balance of the year with respect to EBITDA margins. You're absolutely right. We have bumped up the EBITDA margins now from 16.7% to 17.3% to that 17.4% to 17.4% range. Year to date, we're at 17%, which is 100 basis points ahead of where we were a year ago. I don't believe we'll be able to maintain that 100 basis points year-over-year improvement in H2, obviously, because the guidance reflects a moderation to the year-over-year side of things, but continue to see improvement in it. For us, it always starts with just strong project margins. Of course, we don't take that for granted. Your EBITDA margins always start with that, the right customer rent price, excellent execution.

Just a huge shout out to the operations team to continue to focus on that. Our project margins in the quarter were 54.2%, which actually is 0.2% lower than prior year. That really reflects mixed geography. The global business was a higher percentage of our overall business in Q2, and they profiled at a lower project margin. In North America, our project margins were actually up year over year. It starts with strong project margins. You saw that invented marketing costs. We target that as a lower percentage of overall net revenue. Utilization in the quarter was higher. That always contributes. The general nature of our operational scale and leveraging our back offices and growing that at a pace that's lower than our overall revenue growth continues to be a positive contributor, of course. We did call out claims in the quarter for particular Q2.

Claims is always a little bit lumpy, obviously, but in Q2, we did have a favorable settlement of two claims in particular relative to the provisions we had. That contributed, I'll call it 30 to 40 basis points in the quarter. Those are all the drivers. Very, very pleased with it. It's a continuation of a multi-year story for us, as Gord referred to in his opening remarks, hitting the 17, piercing the 17% mark one year earlier than our strap line, just is a strong indication of what we believe is to come here in the next several years.

Great. Thanks for the color there. Maybe the second one for Gord. On the water side, it looks like about a 12.5% organic growth this quarter. The interesting thing there being, you know, it's been several years of good strength in the water market. Maybe if you can just help us think through what drove that, the near-term demand drivers. It sounds like AVE8 might still be at the early stages, so assuming some of the other work is driving. Maybe just give us perspective on, you know, what's driving the strong growth there and maybe, you know, the opportunities on the data center side if some of those are tied to water as well. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Right. No, great perspective. As we've talked about before, and I think everyone on the call is aware of it, we've had strong organic growth in water back to 2019. Every quarter, it just continues to get stronger with our overall water business. You're right, we're still early days with AVE8 wrapping up, although we are already sort of at a level roughly about 50% higher this time of year than we were a year ago. That is already coming, and we're actively hiring people in the UK, expanding our delivery centers in Pune, India, to continue to service that demand. I think we talked about, like, even in Canada, we had 30% organic growth on top of more and more of strong quarters year over year. There's just an enormous amount of work that we see in water treatment, wastewater treatment, advanced manufacturing facilities.

You mentioned the data centers, but also as we're talking to clients about reshoring some of their facilities, it all starts with water. While our water business continues to strengthen, our backlog is even up even further. We see continued strength in that water business for the remainder of 2025 and really for the years to come. No slowing down in the water space whatsoever.

All right. Thanks very much.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Yeah, thanks, folks. Gord, maybe turning back to thinking about the U.S. business, maybe longer term. It definitely feels like a bit of a blip in the quarter because you're talking about, again, like high single-digit type growth in the backlogs and your commentary a little bit about recovery. If I go back a couple of quarters, some of the discussion has been how long could the U.S. market continue to support, frankly, what are kind of above-average single-digit organic growth levels? Any thoughts on how you're viewing kind of the next couple of years on what the spending pace looks like and your comfort level on where we're going? With that, is there any particular sectors that you think that you need to add in order to be able to accomplish or achieve some of that? Yeah. Great question.

As we look forward in the remainder of this year and the rest of next year, we mentioned already that we need organic growth in backlog in the U.S. Then you look at some of the other drivers. We've done a lot of talking before in the industry about IIJA. Only about 40% of that, less than 40% of that has been spent. There's a lot of opportunity to continue to come there in the next couple of years to allocate some of those funds before they're not eligible for allocation at the end of 2026. That part feels strong. You look at the One Big Beautiful Bill, and there's some additional supports for infrastructure, state and local government there. Data centers, mission-critical, those continue to grow.

It's interesting there, I mentioned to Krista's comments, we've been working on over 100 data center projects right now, from 20 megawatts up to a gigawatt in size. The addition of Page to our team even strengthens our already strong group there. There's just a lot of opportunity across, whether it's transportation or water, buildings, energy, the transition, mining. We see really, really strong strength going forward. I think that what we've seen in the first couple of quarters of this year, not just us, but the industry overall, it's just a little bit transitory. We see good fundamentals going forward. We did lower our organic guidance for the year to 5%, but that's really just a function of mathematics. We're sitting at 3.3% year to date, 3.4% year to date.

As we thought about just wanting to be clear and state our expectations, when we were saying mid to high single digits, everyone goes to 6% to 8%. If we're at 3.4% for the first half of the year, that means we'd almost have to be double-digit organic growth in Q3 and Q4 in order to get into that range. We see continued acceleration, but I'm not sure that we're going to get to 10% double-digit organic growth in both quarters. We just wanted to be clear with everyone and confirm our expectations. Just to confirm, though, we expect acceleration of organic growth in the U.S. for the second half of the year and through 2026 and beyond.

Speaker 0

Yeah. Gord, I'll add that. I'll give you a couple of things there. Chris asked whether there were any particular areas of potential gaps for us in the market or areas of focus. Chris, we remain incredibly bullish about the U.S. market. I just, and we, you know, aging infrastructure, you know, U.S. remains incredibly behind in that, building resilience, heated weather events, so on and so forth. The macro factors just continue to be extremely buoyant. When you look at this administration's focus, frankly, and what they're investing in and what their areas of policy enforcement are with the OBVA and whatnot, it just speaks to increased focus and support for much of what we're describing.

Anything on the gaps, Gord, for the other thing? No, okay. Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 2

Yeah, thanks. One other question I just had on margins, and this maybe goes back to the investor day and talking about the implementation of technology across the platform. I'm kind of listening to some of the comments about SG&A leverage. Can you just talk to some of the AI and other technologies you guys were referencing and how they're playing into this margin profile at this point? Are you actually seeing them have any sort of impact or change, I guess, in the trend on revenue per head type metrics or earnings per head metrics at this particular point, or is it still kind of too early to be able to point to anything definite? Yeah. I think, overall in the industry and Stantec included, we're still early days.

How far we can push is interestingly, though, our entire C-suite went down to the Microsoft campus in Redmond a couple of weeks ago, spent a day with their technology folks and our folks really talking about their journey, our journey, what are some of the areas that we believe that we could make use of AI and other digital tools. We're working very, very closely with them on some co-investment sort of ideas there. As we look at our side of Stantec, we've deployed over 10,000 licenses of Microsoft Copilot throughout the organization. We're looking at it from a number of perspectives, Chris. One is, what can we do to make our back office more efficient, whether that's HR or accounts payable, expense account review, those sorts of things that we can make the back of house more efficient in reducing some of the SG&A costs.

Proposal writing, how can we get speed to market on those sorts of things? Also thinking about on the design side where we can start optimizing and automating some of the design processes. I think it's still early days. I'm not sure that you're seeing it too much in that margin expansion yet, but certainly I think we'll see it playing more of a factor in the years to come. Okay, that's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Yuri Lynk with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys.

Speaker 2

Morning.

Just back, Gord, on the acceleration and organic growth in the back half of the year. The comps are kind of interesting in terms of what you're lapping there. Q3 is 5.5% and then a 10% comp in Q4. Fair to say that that should help shape our expectations for more organic growth and bigger organic growth improvement in Q3 versus Q4.

I think that's exactly right. When you look at the Q4 comp, already up 10%. That's again one of the reasons why we lowered our guidance to that 5%, that mid-5% type range. It's just because the comp in Q4 is a bit tough. We just wanted to set reasonable expectations of where we saw it. We do see, I think we mentioned like in July, and of course, one period does not make a quarter, but it's a very, very positive trend that we saw, high single-digit organic growth in the U.S. in the quarter, sorry, in the period in July, as well as a backlog, organic backlog acceleration as well. We're still feeling really good about that. Of course, consolidated, we still have mid to high single digits. We only have made that one adjustment on the U.S. side.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I think the fact that obviously the U.S. represents half of our business, but on the consolidated, we're still at mid to high. It just reflects, I think, Gord, and our listeners, the diversity and the strength of our global business, including, of course, North America.

Okay. Just thinking about the U.S. water business and one of your customers in financial difficulties there, wondering if that might have any impact over the next year or so.

Speaker 2

Yeah, in particular, you're thinking, talking about Thames Water in the UK?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, no, exactly. That's pretty public, I think, for everyone to see that they are in financial difficulty. What's interesting with Thames Water is we've worked for Thames Water and their predecessor organizations for almost 200 years in the UK. Discussions that we're having is whether the government, and we have no indication of anything would happen, but if that were to be nationalized for some period of time, the work still needs to be done. All of our discussions with our client are the work needs to be done, can continue. We're having no payment issues at this point. We don't see that really as an impact to our business from a negative perspective.

Yeah, not at all. Okay, good to hear. I'll turn it over. Thanks for the time.

Thanks, Yuri.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question is going to come from the line of Michael DePoel with TD Cowen. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning.

Speaker 2

Morning.

Gord, it's pretty clear from your comments that you expect an acceleration in U.S. organic growth, which is great to hear. I guess my question is, the factors that you called out that in the shorter or nearer term here have been weighing on organic growth. In the public sector side, you talked about some slower procurement, and on the private sector side, some of the issues in the larger capital project side within the private sector. Have you overcome all of these, or are you seeing hiccups in other areas that are allowing you to offset those headwinds? It's just trying to get a sense if you've sort of fully moved past all those issues and those are now behind you and behind the industry, or if those are still there, but you're seeing strength elsewhere.

Yeah, I think what we're seeing is that the issues are diminishing a little bit. I don't think that they're passed. Michael, it's interesting. One thing that we've been hearing from some of our business leaders is that from some of the agencies that we're working with, particularly in the U.S., a number of people took early retirement when it was offered and those sorts of things. It's taking a little bit longer sometimes for them to get new people in those roles, to get the projects out the door and such. We see that diminishing. I think we saw, not just us, but the industry overall, a little slower organic growth in the U.S., Q1, Q2, as we're working through some of these items. I think that they're diminishing. In no way would I say that they're off the hook.

As we think about the acceleration of organic growth in the U.S. going forward, we still feel very positive about it, even with the diminishing issues that we called out there previously.

Speaker 0

Yeah, Michael, five sectors, I mean, thousands of projects, thousands of clients across multiple industries, obviously. I just echo 100% of what Gord has described. You still see pockets of it, but overall diminishing as we move forward. Very few cancellations, if any, right, Gord? I mean, these aren't cancellations we're talking about. We're just talking about some delays and pausing.

Right. That's very helpful. Thank you. As we look beyond this year, maybe you can just comment on how you're feeling about the multi-year organic growth guidance you'd put out for over 7% organic growth that extends through 2026. Is this level of activity that you're seeing here, including the pickup in the U.S., how does that make you feel about the period beyond 2026 as we're getting closer, I guess, to the point where you're going to start to think about your next three-year plan?

Yeah, Michael, maybe I'll chime in and Gord, you can add your sentiments on that. Obviously, you know, we'll come up with our three-year plan, our revised, updated three-year plan post-2026 in due course. There is absolutely nothing that we are seeing that would be fundamental in nature. I think across all of our markets, including, of course, the U.S., those micro-factors that we're describing support that level of growth activity for what we believe at this point in several years to come.

Speaker 2

When you look at some of the recent funding programs that have been announced around the world, the UK put out another 10-year infrastructure plan, £725 billion, very supportive, an additional tailwind for us. In Ireland, where we just acquired Ryan Hanley, another €102 billion, €100 to €200 billion there from infrastructure. Very, very supportive. We feel, when you look at the One Big Beautiful Bill and some of the supports that that does, certainly the increase in defense spending around the world. For everyone's on the line, we don't do anything related to hot weapons, but the work that we do would be infrastructure in support of hangars for aircraft, docks, and ports, and in improvements to barracks and hospitals and such. Whether it's defense spending increases or just increased infrastructure spending around the world, that all point to a pretty solid multi-year macro for the overall industry.

Thank you for that. I'll turn the line over.

Thanks, Michael.

Speaker 3

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one-one. Our next question is going to come from the line of Maxim Sytchev with NBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Morning. If it's possible to get a bit more of an update in terms of what you guys are seeing on the ground when it comes to FEMA and whether some of the federal work is just being shifted to kind of state and local, just trying to get the perspective better. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you know, absolutely. As you look at some of the disaster preparedness work in particular, Max, that is looking to be shifted to some of the states and local governments. We had a number of those on-calls with FEMA at a national level, and we absolutely are in discussions now with a number of other state and local government agencies about how we could respond to support them. That still is, you know, in a transition phase. We're absolutely engaged in those discussions.

Okay, that's great to hear. Is it possible to provide a bit more of an update when it comes to the M&A environment? I mean, obviously you mentioned your capital capacity, but what are you guys sort of seeing on the ground from a service perspective, etc.? Thank you.

Yeah, the environment is actually, I would say, becoming increasingly active over the last quarter, and I think will be for the second half of the year, certainly within North America, but we're seeing globally as well. There's a number of assets that we've been talking for a while that we thought were going to be coming to market in kind of a 12 to 18 month timeframe. I think those are probably shortened by half a year now. Probably in the next six months to a year, some of these assets will be coming to market. Wherever possible, we're having proactive meetings with individuals before our process would start just to be sure that we're well positioned. I think you'll see increased activity over the next 6 to 12 months.

Okay, great to hear. Thank you so much, Krista Friesen.

Great, thanks, Maxim.

Speaker 3

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Benoit Poirier with Desjardins. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0

Yeah, thank you. Good morning, Gord, and good morning, Vito. We saw an update on Section 174 being removed following the approval of the Big Beautiful Bill. Vito, could you talk a little bit about the boost we might expect on free cash flow going forward? With respect to the delays that we are seeing temporarily in the U.S., I'm just wondering if customers were waiting for interest rates to decline and whether lower interest rates that could come could accelerate spending when talking to customers. Thank you. Yeah, no, with respect to the recent changes, Benoit, good morning. With tax deductibility on R&D, I believe that's what you're referring to. That's overall a positive factor. Of course, these are domestic R&D expenses incurred in the United States that basically affect it for 2025 and now are 100% deductible in the year incurred.

Actually, the provisions allow you to go back to 2022 through to 2024 and accelerate that deduction as well. Overall positive. Too early to tell at this point on our end what the impact would be from a timing perspective for cash flow. We're modeling that through. There are some complexities, particularly being obviously a foreign jurisdiction and other taxes such as B taxes and whatnot that we need to work our way through. I would say neutral at worst and positive from a cash flow perspective for us.

Speaker 2

Okay. Just for follow-up, with respect to the Global Technology Center in Pune, could you maybe provide an update on how many employees right now and maybe how do you track and whether there's a potential to exceed the target of 2,000 people by the three-year period?

Speaker 0

Yeah, we're about 1,400, 1,500 people right now, Benoit. We're really pleased with the progress. We see huge opportunity. Such an engaged, knowledgeable, motivated team over there working across not only supporting our corporate functions, but importantly, obviously supporting our operations as well. We see huge opportunity, continued opportunity across both those layers and both those segments. In fact, we've got trips planned for the business here in the back half of this year where they'll get up and close to personnel. Optimistic, continue to be optimistic about the growth of the global delivery centers and in servicing. Obviously, that continues to be a lever not only in margin expansion, but importantly in high-quality delivery for our customers on a timely basis as we continue to see across several of our markets very robust demand.

I'll stop short on whether we're going to hit the 2,000 and whatnot because I don't have that tip of my fingers. Overall, obviously, it continues to be a very important strategic part of our efforts.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much for the deadline. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Devin Dodge with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

All right. Thank you. Good morning. I wanted to start with a question on Page. The purchase price was, I think, a bit more than we had expected. Just wondering if you could provide a bit of color on, say, the revenue the business generates, organic revenue growth it's been having the last couple of years, and how maybe margins stack up to the Stantec company average.

Speaker 0

Yeah, you would see us disclose, we disclosed the purchase price as $525 million U.S. You saw that in the notes to our financial statements. I'm surprised to hear you say it was a little more than you would expect. I think when the reports of, you know, what the analyst community sort of reported out, I think it was in that range. Obviously, translated to Canadian dollars. You know, we'll stop short about, you know, also just speaking to what our revenue does the Page bring to the table. Obviously, we closed the deal July 31. The teams are incredibly excited about the strategic value. We're happy with the multiple and the value that that business will bring forward to us. Gord, I don't know if you had much more to add to that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, no, you know, they're roughly a $300 million U.S. net revenue company, a high, high, you know, average net revenue generation per employee. We also are really impressed with them in terms of just the amount of synergy that we've already seen from a client perspective and a project perspective. Certainly on track or even a little bit better than we thought we were going to see. Particularly pleased with that one.

Okay, thanks for that. Second question, Gord, I think you mentioned in the past about capping your exposure to the more cyclical markets. I think it was around 15% of revenues. Historically, I think that cyclical exposure has been more focused on oil and gas and mining, but I think you've also hinted that maybe data centers could be part of that cyclical basket. Just wondering if you could provide an update on where you view your cyclical market exposure now, and just based on backlog and bidding activity, where you think this could be over the next couple of years.

Yeah, great question. You know, our data centers for us are at 2% to 3% of net revenue. You know, are they increasing? Yeah, they're going up. I think that, you know, we still feel really comfortable that we're that sub 15% when you look at, you know, mining. You said that, you know, as you say, oil and gas. You know, data centers, like right now, we're seeing pretty continuous growth there. Again, it's only 2% to 3% of the overall. I think that we're still well within that 15% range that we've talked about. Yeah, I think we're comfortable where we're at.

Okay, excellent. I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Devin.

Speaker 3

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Goldman with Scotiabank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, team, and thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just to start off, is there any risk with the slower growth environment in the U.S., even if it does prove temporary, that there could be some pressure on pricing?

Speaker 2

We haven't really seen that yet. Even though organic growth has been a little bit slower for the industry over the first half of the year, we haven't seen a deterioration in pricing in any way. Now, should it go on for a couple of years, we might see that, but we're not expecting that to be the case. As we said, we see accelerated organic growth going forward. We're still actively hiring, as are others in the industry. We haven't seen pricing pressure at this point, which would then translate to project margin pressure. As Vito said, that's really been holding up well for us.

Speaker 0

Now, we very much see a strong demand market where, frankly, we're picking our customers and many of them have been with us for obviously several decades and whatnot. I don't anticipate that at all.

Okay, that's good color. You did talk about the M&A environment previously in the call about the activity levels. On valuations, have you seen any change in multiples, whether higher or lower?

Speaker 2

I think it's very similar to how we've seen in the market for the last little while, that if larger firms have a little bit of a higher multiple, firms in power and data centers have a little bit of a higher multiple. In general, we haven't seen trends either moving higher or unfortunately lower over the last little bit. We're seeing things being stable, really from where I would say that they were even a year ago.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I agree 100%. Gord, that just reflects the continued strength of the overall markets and the macro factors that we've been speaking to.

Speaker 2

Good point.

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 0

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the conference back over to Gord Johnston for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. If you have any follow-up questions after today's call, please reach out to Jess Nieukerk, our VP of Investor Relations. Thank you again for your time and look forward to connecting with many of you soon.

Speaker 3

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.