Aimia (TSX:AIM) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Aimia Inc. Second Quarter twenty twenty six Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. This

0:26 call is being recorded on Tuesday, 08/11/2026. And now I would like to turn the conference over to Joe Racanelli. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on today's call are Reese Somerton, Aimia's Executive Chairman and Stephen Leonard, the company's President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin with our prepared remarks, I do want to point out that we issued our financial results for the second quarter earlier this morning. All of our materials, including the news release, MD and A and financial statements are available from our website as well as from our profile page on SEDAR plus We will be using a presentation today and for those listening to our discussion by phone, a copy is available on the IR section of our website.

1:18 Most importantly, some of the statements made on today's call may contain forward looking information and future results may differ materially from what we discuss. Please refer to the risks and uncertainties that may affect our future performance referenced in our presentation as well as in the MD and A. In addition, we will be making note of GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation of these items is provided in the appendix of our presentation. And following today's presentation, please reach out to me if you have any outstanding questions or require any clarification of the items that we discussed today. Please go ahead, Rice. Thanks, Joe, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Before we head over to questions on this call, Steve and I will briefly discuss some of the salient highlights of the second quarter.

2:12 Just to kick off with, we were especially active this quarter. We're kind of getting used to being especially active. We've completed several objectives that we set out for in the year. In particular, we closed the sale of Bazetta, which generated net proceeds of $270,000,000. We grew our net book value by 22% to reach $3.74 per share. We completed a tender offer to purchase senior notes due in January 2030, reducing our interest cost materially. We took action to improve Cawthon's ability to capitalize on the opportunities, and we're quite excited about this, which we'll elaborate on more in the presentation and also to grow market share in Cotton.

3:01 And importantly, we started to deploy capital in some investment opportunities consistent with our strategy, And we renewed our buyback program to buy up to 5,000,000 common shares, which will take us through to June 2027. So our performance and milestones completed in the quarter provide clear evidence that we are making progress against our strategy. We have a lot more that we would like to report in the future, and we look forward to doing that. And I'll expand on the outlook and priorities as we go through the presentation. But first, I will ask Steve to review our financial results. Before Steve gets going there, we want to congratulate him for becoming a granddad in the early hours of this morning and still being dedicated to make the call a few hours later. So Steve, over to you and congratulations.

3:59 Thank you, Rice. Good morning and afternoon, everyone.

4:04 Before we look at our financial performance in more detail, I wanted to begin my discussion today by reviewing the key highlights of the Bezzetta transaction and its impact on our Q2 results as outlined on Slide seven. First, it's important to understand that Bezzetta was classified as discontinued operations. As a result, Bezzetta's contributions were excluded from Aimia's Q2 results from continuing operations with the exception of cash flow from operations and net earnings, which are presented on a consolidated basis and include the Zetto's results. Second, the transaction generated net proceeds of $270,000,000 including $1,800,000 received in July relating to our finalization of the working capital and the debt closing accounts.

4:55 Third, the transaction resulted in a net gain of $21,700,000 a total that favorably impacted our EPS and our net book value per share at quarter end. Finally, I should point out that we did not incur any income tax on this transaction as we offset approximately $45,000,000 of the taxable capital gain by utilizing our capital loss carry forwards. Turning to our financial highlights, as you see from Slide eight, our results from continuing operations that is Cortland and the HoldCo segment in Q2 were largely in line with the prior year period. Revenue was $36,400,000 compared to $37,800,000 last year.

5:44 Gross profit was $8,700,000 compared to $8,800,000 in Q2 twenty twenty five. Adjusted EBITDA was $2,300,000 compared to $2,800,000 last year. The modest decline to reflect the impact of geopolitical and macroeconomic developments on our rope and netting solutions business. We expect those conditions to improve in the second half of the year. One positive item to note relates to the continued reduction in SG and A expenses at the holding level. The decrease reflects the benefits of ongoing efforts to reduce holdco costs for items such as insurance, rent and professional services. I should point out that our holdco expenses in particular would have been lower by 600,000 if not for costs incurred relating to onetime strategic initiatives, particularly related to dual listing activities in The UK.

6:45 Cortland results for the second quarter are presented on Slide nine. In Q2, Cortland generated $36,400,000 of revenue, down $3,700,000 from last year. The year over year decline was due to lower sales volume, particularly in projects for the offshore energy sector and lower demand across the broader market due to higher selling prices. Cortland revenue decline was partially offset by pricing surcharges implemented in response to the rising raw material and freight costs, which have impacted which were impacted by the rising oil prices related to the geopolitical events in The Middle East. Cortland's adjusted EBITDA in Q2 twenty twenty six was 4,400,000 down from $4,900,000 last year.

7:32 The decline was mainly due to lower sales volume. To capitalize on emerging opportunities, we implemented a number of changes at Cortland aimed at improving sales, strengthening relationships with customers, improving operations, and consolidating leadership. In part of these efforts, Thomas Cherian, a finance leader with more than thirty years of experience, will join Cortland CEO, Wolfgang Wandl, as CFO in our Houston office. Given the increased focus on growing sales and building customer relationships, We are optimistic that Cortland is prime for a stronger second half of the year pending the easing of tensions in The Middle East. We ended the quarter with 294,500,000 of cash on a consolidated basis, up from $100,300,000 at the end of March.

8:27 Slide nine shows a waterfall of cash movements in the quarter. The key driver in the increase in liquidity was $268,200,000 of cash proceeds from the Buzzetto transaction. And as I mentioned earlier, we received another $1,800,000 in July related to the closing of working capital and the debt balances. Other increases in Q2 include $2,700,000 of cash flow from operations. The increase in liquidity was offset by an outflow that included $22,600,000 of principal repayments on facilities prior to closing, dollars 25,000,000 of Bizzetto's cash at closing, dollars 7,500,000 of interest payments, dollars 4,300,000 of investments in property, plant and equipment, 1,800,000 towards the buyback of shares and $11,800,000 in net marketable security investments.

9:24 Looking at our liquidity more closely on Slide 11, you see a breakdown of our cash position by segment at the end of June. Our consolidated liquidity includes $268,800,000 of cash held at the holding segment and $7,700,000 at Cortland. Looking ahead, we plan to deploy the capital towards investment opportunities consistent with the strategy outlined previously. Over the next twelve months, we anticipate that holdco expenses will approximate 7,000,000

9:57 Earlier, we mentioned the key development in Q2 was the completion of the offer to purchase our senior notes that mature in January 2030. The purchase offer was triggered by the sale of the Zettle. The offer expired on June 26, and we made a payment of a 131,400,000 for validly tendered notes and interest owing on July 3 after our reporting period.

10:24 In the entrance of transparency, Slide 12 illustrates the impact of the tender offer on our liquidity on a pro form a basis. When taking into account the senior notes repayment, our pro form a liquidity was $173,200,000 which consisted of $163,100,000 of cash, dollars 12,000,000 of marketable securities, less 2,000,000 of other current borrowings. Post pay down of the notes tendered, we have a balance of 11,200,000 in principal notes outstanding through the maturity in January 2030. That concludes my prepared remarks. I'd like to turn the call back to Rice for his closing remarks. Rice?

11:11 Yes. Thank you, Steve. Well done. So going to Slide 14. Previously, I mentioned that one of our strategic objectives was to grow intrinsic value, and it's up to each investor and those that are interested to kind of calculate the intrinsic value of Aimia. But the net book or net asset value per share does indicate the trajectory of it. And if you measure net asset value per share, you'll notice that we increased this by 22% to $3.74 after the sale of Pizzetta. We don't expect similar gains to come through regularly or on a quarterly basis. Obviously, this was episodic.

11:59 There will be some lumpiness in the periods ahead. But as I wrote in the Chairman's letter, what you should expect over time is that this net book value per share should appreciate if we do if we make the right decisions. And we would hope that, that would outperform any of the

12:20 benchmarks that are out there, like the S and P 500. That's what we regard as what would be par. So we want to do a bit better than that over the long term, and that will benefit all shareholders.

12:33 Going on to Slide 15. As you have heard on this call, the second quarter was particularly active. And as I said, I think that's something that we're getting used to. We will be active going forward. Our focus on the coming months will be to continue this momentum. In particular, our priorities in the near term will center on continuing and following through on the improvements that we are seeing at Cortland from both a sales point of view and operations. That's starting to already

13:06 bear fruit. We continue to identify and work very hard at identifying target investment opportunities. We're deploying the capital in a very disciplined way with the ultimate goal, as always, to enhance shareholder value. And finally, we will complete the listing in The U. K, which will be a secondary listing on Aim. But over the longer term, which is really an important part, our focus will be, as I said, to grow the net book value or net asset value per share, which will benefit all of us. So with that, thank you for your time

13:40 thus far. We'll open to questions. Joe?

13:48 Thank you. Ladies and will the operator Apologies on that. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have any question, please press star

14:12 session. And your first question comes from the line of Surinder Thind of Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thank you. A few different questions in a few different areas. I'd like to start with Cortland. Given the changes that you guys are making at this point, from your perspective, like what would constitute success over maybe the next twelve to twenty four months? Is the idea the focus on the top line, the margin components or anything else? And then maybe just what is the time frame that we should be thinking about that you're trying to benchmark yourself over so that the changes that you're making are kind of visible to the front?

14:58 Yes. I'll take that, and Steve might want to add on afterwards. But let me just give you some context around Portrait, which might be useful. When I got involved in Aimia just over a year ago, we reviewed the portfolio of investments. And since I've been involved, there have been multiple opportunities where we could have taken the opportunity to exit Cortland and

15:27 turn that into cash and raise a lot of money from it. It's been my decision to turn that down. And the reason is that I see a lot of opportunity to make Cortland into a long term kind of serial acquirer or growth platform, if you like. And the building blocks that we put in place thus far, are are just the start. So and and I appreciate, you know, you kind of want a time horizon about when you will start to see the turnaround and how to quantify it, and I'll get there. But what I would say is that we've you know, there's such low hanging fruit to improve Cortland that the changes that we've made, even just in this very early stage,

16:14 are easy things to do, and you'll start to see the improvement, we believe, in the second half of this year already. So we don't ask you to look even twenty four months down the road for that improvement. We think you will start to see them already. And we are seeing that coming through in the forward load and in the numbers on a weekly basis. Now we want to make sure that that's sustainable, and that's the important part. So we will I think it's very likely, barring some geopolitical issue,

16:47 you will see the improvement coming through. Now over the longer term, what's the opportunity for Cortland? And this gets really exciting, is that if you take all the opportunities around where Cortland perhaps doesn't have a presence or could

17:04 be enhanced with local on the ground participation, you'll start to see that there's opportunities for Cortland to grow. So we have world class manufacturing out of India. We can improve distribution. We're improving sales already, and we can improve the product delivery around all of that. And if you put all those points together, I think that you will see, both in the short term and the longer term, a vastly improved Cortland as a group. Would it require us to make some bolt on acquisitions along the way? Definitely. And I think what those acquisitions do is they're small, but they improve our geographic coverage, and they also

17:58 make the overall business less reliant on a few key markets. So we want to be a global player in this, and I think there's a real opportunity for Cortland to get there. So to answer your question, short term, we think you'll see an improvement. Longer term, I think you'll see that Cortland becomes a very important part of Aimia going forward.

18:22 That's helpful. And then maybe could you expand upon the near term outlook in the sense of as you expect things to get better, is that primarily a reflection of the macro getting better? Or maybe what are the conditions you're assuming, that are leading to things getting better in near term or in the back half of '26? I think, Serendi, that

18:48 Sorry. Okay. Go ahead, Grace. No. No. You you guys, Steve. You you go. No. I think I think what we're seeing is, you know, what happened as we as we came into '26, what what happened coming, like, mid q one to end of q one with what happened in The Middle East and impact on oil. That rippled through the cost structure. We we made some changes as you've seen in our prepared remarks on

19:16 adjusting our selling prices, and this wasn't just Aimia or sort of Cortland. This was other competitors as well doing that. And and some of the downstream, you know, users of these products were making decisions on drawing down inventories and and and delaying purchasing decisions with an expectation that things would improve. And we've seen some of that happen, you know, as it depends on on the week or the day, what's going on with the geo geopolitical events. But we are seeing, as Reese said, stronger orders in the second half. So we're seeing some of that, you know, ultimately, these downstream users of these products still need them.

20:02 So, you know, the delays that they made in the second quarter are starting to get pulled through in the second half. So that's one thing we're seeing. And then, obviously, you know, another area that we we expect to be improving is on the margin side, both on gross margin and EBITDA. We you know, so you should see an improvement of that in the second half.

20:26 That's helpful. And I'll just add Yep. There Sorry. If I if I would just add, you know, the the the way to look at Cortland, you know, Cortland in the past, and and we see this a lot with with different businesses. You know, you get businesses that are simply accident prone. So what do I mean by that? I mean that

20:46 whatever event happens in the world, they seem to have it seems to have a negative impact on them. And what that really means is that a business isn't resilient. There's no backup. It doesn't have this built in resiliency that we want. So the changes that we've made in Cortland is to make it a lot more resilient and defensive against kind of macro events that happen. We don't want to be necessarily exposed each and every time there's some kind of issue in the world. Cortland needs to stand on its own and to be able to deliver good results almost in spite of the environment around it. And the way we're going to get there is by diversifying where we get the revenues from a lot more and relying on the management team, which are now in place and operating very well to deliver.

21:42 Thank you. And then maybe I'll sneak in one more.

21:47 When we look back at maybe the Buzzetto acquisition and maybe talk about, the lessons learned there or maybe how this is gonna influence kind of the the future acquisition framework? Any color there there would be helpful. And then maybe the any areas that maybe are off limits from an industry perspective and areas that you're definitely interested in. So Yeah. That's a good question. So so, obviously, know, Bizzetta was kind of before, my time. And, you know, when when, you know, I reviewed what was in Aimia, obviously, we knew what was in Aimia before we even got involved.

22:33 And what we realized about Poseto is that it was an asset that had really good management. It was operating as well as it possibly could be operating, but it lacked one crucial thing for Aimia as a permanent capital vehicle. There was a there would be a struggle, and it would be the wrong thing to take cash away from Boseto and to use that cash to pay down debt all the time. So I would say the mistake that was made, at least from an outsider's point of view, is that it was you know, the gearing was too high on on Boseto at an Aimia level, and it meant that, you know, we were then having this 9.75% debt at the holdco level, which needed to be serviced.

23:26 And so you were kind of starving the Zeto of cash that it could use to make acquisitions and grow simply because you were trying to fuel a holdco in Aimia. So the key lesson, I think, is and obviously, we all know this, is when we look for acquisitions, we are looking for things that are not going to take up large amounts of funding.

23:54 Everything that we've looked at thus far has got net cash on the balance sheet. And we now have cash at the center, and we will deploy it into opportunities where we will enhance our cash balance rather than reduce our cash balance. And we really don't want to get into the game of taking on big debt at the Aimia Holdco level. If I had to say what was the key takeaway, that would be the primary one. The secondary one is that anything we buy, we have to make sure that management teams that we acquire understand that we will make the capital allocation decisions.

24:43 We will allocate the capital that they generate. It's not up to them to allocate the capital. So those are really good points that, I guess, Aimia has learned. I would also probably say that the motivation to do some of those acquisitions in the past is not the same motivation as today. Today, I'm a significant shareholder directly, indirectly. The Board of Aimia has, I don't know, close to 45% of the shares. And every acquisition we is reviewed by the Board. Even before we buy 1% of it, it gets reviewed by the Board. So there's a lot of alignment. We're not trying to rush to do any acquisitions, but we're very excited about all the acquisition potential that's out there because there's just so many.

25:35 And so we're very excited about the opportunity set. Reese, before we go That's on to really helpful. Other I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Reese, before we go on to other callers with questions, I have received a couple of emails since the start of our presentation. And so one question to you in in particular. You mentioned that you're excited about Cortland's opportunities for growth. How much of Aimia's cash are you willing to deploy towards funding its growth instead of investing in new companies? That's also a good question. I would say that bear in mind that Cortland is cash flow generative already. So we think that the bulk of acquisitions that we would look at in Cortland would be self funded by the business. Also, Cortland has some cash and has no debt.

26:36 So there's a potential to take on some gearing in Cortland if the acquisition opportunity presented itself. But the opportunity that we've looked at so far wouldn't require cash from or significant cash from Aimia from the holdco at all. We would try and self fund it from the courtroom level. Should we be using net book value as the main metric to measure Aimia's progress? I think that net book value per share, it's important to stress the per share part because we do have a share buyback program, which executes virtually daily. So net book value per share is would indicate the direction of travel of the intrinsic value.

27:28 There are some swings and roundabouts. There's some positives and some negatives to what I would perhaps estimate intrinsic value is, but that's not something we will share. For investors, it might be a good heuristic to use net book value per share. And certainly, the change in net book value per share, I think, would be a very useful metric to measure Aimia's success on. In fact, I would think it would be unlikely that net book value per share would grow and intrinsic value per share would not grow along the same kind of path as the book value per share. So it's a useful metric. It's one of the useful metrics. But obviously, every investor must decide for themselves what metric they use.

28:20 And your next question comes from the line of Rob Byrd of Zoos Capital. Please go ahead. Hi there, everybody. Two for me, please. Can you talk a little bit more about the reasons for the further listing in The UK and perhaps give a little bit more color on the sectors or industries you're going to be focusing on? And is this just UK or are you going to be looking at the wider European sort of market? And then my second one was, I guess, closer to home, just on Cortland. You talk in your statement about price surcharges. Could you talk a bit about how frequently you can adjust price? Is this a sort of quarterly or annual process?

29:09 Thank you. Thanks. I'll take the first one. And Steve, I don't know if you'd answer the second one now and then I can revert back to the first question. Yeah. I'll I'll do this I'll do that, Reese, and then you can come back. Yeah. Cortland has a dynamic pricing model with its clients where with the implementation or the impact on the on the input pricing, mainly on raw materials, they were adjusting their pricing. And that is it's not daily, and it's not annually. It's more on a more frequent two or three times a month that they're looking at this in terms of pricing.

29:58 Yes. On your first question, most of the opportunities that we are looking at are in in The UK, and so it it does make sense to have a a listing in The UK for opportunities that might present themselves. I think we've discussed this on on on prior calls as well, but we're certainly not going to have listings in every place that we want to make acquisitions. But where the bulk of the acquisitions may fit, we'll probably have a listing there. But I would say that if you had to look at Aimia maybe ten years from now, I I would expect the primary listing to be in in The US and and not anywhere else.

30:43 So so that that's kind of the the direction of travel, how we get there. We'll have to do a little bit of an excursion into The UK. And obviously, we do have a listing on the JSC as well. Now the opportunities that we see at The UK, there are so many and so attractive that we don't really see a need to look at Europe. We're kind of not fans of socialism that much. So we've avoided Europe. We've actually exited Europe with the sale of Buzzetta. So to go back there would be pretty interesting. It would have to really, really, really be attractive. But just to give you some flavor about the opportunities that we've looked at and are looking at, we are looking at things in Canada, The U. K.

31:38 And other markets, other kind of Western countries as well. It's really driven by where we see the most value. And we are completely agnostic. Now eventually, though, eventually and we don't want to take too much time with getting to the eventually, We want to utilize the tax losses because that's where there's real value. So the sooner we get to utilize those losses, the better. Now we use a little we utilize a little bit of that with the sale of Bozzetto, and we'll utilize a little bit more in the first in the third quarter. But the way we want to get to is to be able to utilize those tax losses, having made good acquisitions along the way, that will generate lots of free cash flow for Aimia to continue compounding.

32:40 Star one to join the queue. And we have another quest Sure. Reese, we received a couple other email, questions. One relates to Clear Media. What are your plans for Aimia's investment in Clear Media? Clear Media is is is turning around. The results are are definitely improving, year on year. I still think there's a long runway to go, with that business, And this would be the wrong time to monetize that investment. At the right time, we will obviously have something to report back to investors. But for now, it's turning around, the results are improving. So we're kind of happy sitting with that going along for the journey to recovery.

33:37 Sorry, Joe, was there another question? One more question, and I noticed there's, someone else in the queue. So can you talk or explain the process that you're using to identify investment targets? Yes. So that's a good one. There's where can Aimia compete? That's the real question. At the moment, you're finding a lot of companies are getting acquired by private equity, and they're obviously looking at the same kind of companies that we are. But Aimia can compete in a slightly better way, I would say. And that is that if you take an average sort of competitor of Aimia or somebody else looking for opportunities or acquisitions, they're going to screen the market, start doing due diligence and knock on the company's door and make an offer.

34:36 What we try to do is look for hidden value that might be in some of these companies that the rest of the market hasn't seen. And so far, we've been able to identify situations that really are neglected by the market. There might be very low interest from existing investors. You can kind of see that with AGM turnouts. You can see that some shareholders are kind of suffocated in that share register and that they might want to get out for whatever reason, but they can't. And we can help them raise liquidity by buying their shares. And it gives us the opportunity to actually buy into these companies at far more attractive prices than what private equity can buy into these companies at.

35:30 Private equity sort of makes these premium offers and then sees what happens afterwards. With us, we can build equity stakes beforehand, which may or may not lead to an offer, depending on what happens to the share price. And the other thing that is in our favor is if we start building a position in an investment or a target, we there's nothing stopping us from reversing course and exiting that investment. So for example, if we buy into a company and the share price rallies and we no longer think it's all that attractive, we can exit that investment at a realized profit. So there's multiple reasons why we should be able to execute better than what our competitors are doing. But and when it comes to actually screening the market for ideas, I don't think there's any substitute for hard work.

36:31 And we are visiting companies, meeting with companies, reading annual reports, doing all the things that know, just the basic due diligence would require to, develop a framework of you know, and find opportunities. And and, you know, like I said earlier, there are there are multiple opportunities that we are looking at. And your next question comes from the line of Konrad Sherkogle of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. The Perzetto transaction is interesting because it's Italian based. And despite that, might maybe Steve or Reese, you can give me a bit of accounting lesson.

37:20 The when the transaction was finalized, you were able to utilize the the tax losses, the capital loss carry forwards. How did that come about? And then linked to that and also linked to your previous response fees where you said if you make an investment and there's a capital gain or it it is the stock price, if the stock remains listed, I would assume, is has moved beyond intrinsic value and you exit. Will you always structure your transactions in such a way that in the back of your mind, because this capital losses now has become alive, it's a real number we can look at because it's being utilized, that that can be utilized, or it's going to be very rule based depending on geographies where you make your investments.

38:12 And I bring back previous questioners, the question about UK listing, is that part of it is to be structured in such a way that if you upstream dividends or cash flow, again, that these tax losses can be utilized? That's my one question. The second question is just on I noticed that there's 12,100,000 of securities that that has come about, if you can give us a little bit of detail on that. Thank you. I'll answer the tax question, please. Answer the first yeah. Yeah. You go. So yeah. So, you know, Aimia, as we've disclosed in our notes on the on the tax losses, the the the capital losses that we which represent about half of our losses that we've quoted, so about 500,000,000 Canadian, Those losses, are held, by the, Canadian Aimia Inc. Company in terms of the structure.

39:16 So when we, are placing investments or doing certain activities on the investing side, Our preferred approach in the structure, unless there's other good reasons to do it differently, but in the case of Buzzetto, we held the, Italian business under the Canadian company parent, which had the, taxable losses, capital losses. So when we realized the taxable capital gain, even though the business is located in Italy, the owner of the business of our that 94% in Bisetto was Aimia. So the gain, taxable gain, would be mitigated by the utilization of the capital losses.

40:04 And that's we applied 45,000,000 of our capital losses against the Buzzetto gain. That was the tax gain on the transaction. On the investments that we're making, it's a similar scenario where in the first course, we'll invest through the the parent company that has the capital losses. And then subsequently, when we sell those businesses, we would use those losses against taxable gains. I hope that answers your question on the tax piece. And then if you can just expand on debit dividends and cash flow that's been upstreamed? Yeah. So, I mean, you know, there's different there's different elements tied to certain sources of income.

41:00 Dividends, you know, we would we would look to use the operating side of the so, again, the Canadian business, Holdco, has Canadian operating losses that we can mitigate. And likewise, if we we put a downstream loan into one of the businesses, that's another way where you have interest income coming up to the parent company and you can mitigate. So there's different ways you structure things in terms to utilize your tax attributes efficiently, and we look at all of those when we're looking at our structures. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. The this is it's a good point because when people talk about serial acquirers and what makes a good serial acquirer, they always mention it's the sort of autonomous management structure, and then they go next and talk about this long runway of potential acquisitions, etcetera, etcetera. But one of the real things that you need to look for in a serial acquirer is having a advantaged tax base.

42:17 And that's what Aimia has, which really is why it's such an attractive business for me to look at. We're running NOLs of 1,100,000,000 which we can utilize through different ways. One will be utilizing them for acquisitions that we make eventually in Canada and The U. S. And also through any other profitable transactions we enter the rest of the world. So rest assured, we will utilize it, and it's a real strength of Aimia as a serial acquirer. I think your other question was about the $12,100,000 in marketable securities. Correct. Yes. Obviously, we're not going to talk talk about that.

43:03 Yeah. These are, you know, investments that we've made, and, you know, it's it's kind of a little bit like getting your toes wet with your socks on. They're they're really preliminary investments in in companies that, we think are very attractively priced and, ones that potentially we would love to own eventually. Now that very much depends on the price that we're able to acquire those companies at. If the share prices rally away from the price that we paid, clearly, they're not as attractive as they were. And so we will reevaluate each time. And that's why I say we have enormous flexibility, and that's something that we must never lose in in Aimia. We must maintain and and even enhance the flexibility we have to be able to pursue transactions.

44:03 So I I would I would caution against, trying to work out what Aimia is kind of wanting to do next with the investments that we make because we might swing around and change given price changes. I would say, though, that the opportunities there are really good opportunities, which we are starting to deploy the capital into. And I think each one of them each one of the cool ones, I'm I'm I'm very excited about. I I just hope we can we can execute on it. Okay. Thank you very much. But in in essence, when I'm not after names, it was more sort of see that you now start to learn the one of the four parts of the strategy, the underlying investments in undervalued assets.

45:00 Absolutely, Raj. Yes. We want to they're in marketable securities, so that's very much the strategy to build stakes without paying premiums. And that's really why I caution against you know, trying to work out what what we might may or may not do because, you know, we don't want to be paying, premiums if we do decide to buy out a company. So, you know, investors are way better off being invested in Aimia, I think, because that's where the benefit should ultimately, flow into. It's not going to flow into kind of the private equity model of 30%, 40% premiums on an acquisition.

45:56 And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Joe Racanelli. Please continue. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. And as I've mentioned earlier, if you do have any follow-up questions or if we didn't address any issues that you would like for us to expand on, please do reach out to me. We'll make ourselves available. Have a good day, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.