Atlas Engineered Products (TSXV:AEP) Q4 2025 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, everyone. Thank you. Welcome and thank you for joining Atlas Engineered Products Q4 and Full Year twenty twenty five Earnings Call. I am Jake Bulma, an IR consultant for AEP. Today on the line discussing AEP's Q4 and full year twenty twenty five financial results and company highlights are the company's President, CEO and Founder, Hadi Abassi and CFO, Melissa McCray. Following their remarks, we will open up the call for an analyst Q and A session. Before handing over the call to Hattie, please note that information we present today could contain forward looking information that is based on management's expectations, estimates and projections. Please consider the risk factors, including those in the filings made by AEP on SEDAR when reviewing this information.

0:49 Also, all amounts discussed will be in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted. Hadi, please proceed with your remarks. Thank you, Jay. Hello, everyone, and welcome to AEP's earning call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year of 2025 performance. We are excited to be with you and thank you for your time and thank you for joining us. I'm proud of the team as we delivered top line growth in 2025 despite the tough market condition, especially in both Ontario and British Columbia, driven partially by a lack of affordability and people not being certain about their future because of all the political stuff going on in the last few years and lack of home sales.

1:41 Revenue increase of 12% for the year and 17% in the fourth quarter, driven by both acquisitions and continued organic growth momentum across all product lines was no easy accomplishment with the current economies of these two provinces. Additionally, across Canada, we faced varying political factors at home and from other countries and changing tariff announcements heavily impacting key markets in Ontario with the steel and auto and British Columbia with the forestry and construction. Despite these factors, we were able to increase our revenues and market share while fighting it out in the market to ensure our success. One of our original goals when we first went public was to have a national footprint across Canada to ensure a geographic and economic diversity, which is providing proving a successful strategy in light of the current market across Canada.

2:42 The acquisition this year of Trustworthy and Pentrust have expanded our national footprint, and we are focused on integrating our newest operation, strengthening our sales capabilities and leveraging automation and scale to improve efficiency and capture additional market shares in a competitive environment. AEP is also nearing completion of the first robotic truss manufacturing facility in Canada in Clinton, Ontario. The building is in its final stages of interior painting and office setup. While the equipment has been shipped and is anticipated to be operational at the beginning of July two thousand and twenty six. There were a slight delays of two to three weeks due to the shipping process from impacts of the war.

3:33 Additionally, impact of the war in Iran. Additionally, we continue adding and strengthening our sales and design force and getting ready for the future expanding into a different market areas in wall panels, floor panels, and floor testers and trusses. We have seen high coating volume since early twenty twenty five with over 80,000,000 in coats in Q1 twenty twenty six. Because of coating activity has been significantly higher, all the volumes have also been increasing, reaching over $21,000,000 in Q1, up from more than $11,000,000 in the same period of 2025.

4:23 However, shipping during this period was challenging and lower as much of Canada experienced more severe winter weather compared to prior years. We continue to drive organic growth by expanding our wall panel manufacturing and being able to supply customers with a full package of roof and floor trusses and wall panels and engineered wood products as needed for their project. This organic growth will increase revenue per order and help mitigate potential recession impacts. While macroeconomic factors remain outside of control, we aim to gain market share through a scale, agility and a strong balance sheet. On the M and A front, we are actively evaluating opportunities across Canada in the truss and wall panel industries.

5:11 With industry conditions stabilizing post pandemic, we see a strong pipeline of deals providing an opportunity for significant value creation for shareholders over the medium to long term. I would like now to introduce Melissa McCrae, CFO of AEP to provide commentary on our financial performance and position to Q4 and the full year 2025. Thank you, Hattie. Results for our quarter four, the three months ending 12/31/2025 include revenues of $17,600,000 gross profits of just under 3,600,000 and normalized EBITDA of just under $2,400,000 Results for the full year ending 12/31/2025 include revenues of $62,600,000 gross profits of just under 12,200,000 and normalized EBITDA of just under $7,400,000 Overall, revenue has increased due to acquisitive growth and organic growth related to the walls from the beginning of the year and an increase in roof and floor trusses this year.

6:21 The company has seen an increase in has continued to see an increase in manufacturing metrics, but due to the competitive market, sale prices are still lower than in the same periods in 2024, resulting in reduced profits. The company has been working hard to gain market share and keep staff busy even in the competitive market, which means sacrificing margins and profits at this time in order to be better prepared for the turnaround in the market when it comes. This hard work has shown in our fourth quarter and year end results as we continue to work hard into 2026. Normalized just a heads up that normalized EBITDA for the year does include adjustments to one time costs for legal and consulting fees related to the new automation facility in Clinton, acquisition projects throughout that twenty twenty five year and credit facility update.

7:12 No adjustment has been made for some other costs associated for future automation, which would be ongoing moving forward, but incurred now to prepare for the future expansion in organic growth. These costs include expansion of the sales and management teams. Additionally, there are no adjustments for management labor costs related to the two acquisitions completed in Q2 and Q3. After the acquisitions, continued deposits on automation equipment and a significant portion of the construction of the new facility complete, The company still has cash at the end of the fourth quarter of $2,400,000 with access to enough capital through the line of credit facility and the $4,000,000 federal grant recently announced to finish out the Clinton facility project and scale up with the increased capacity.

8:01 We were excited to announce the grant finally, which was almost a couple of years of hard work to apply and move through all the phases of the grant process until we were finally selected for the grant. Having this financial support to increase our manufacturing capacity, minimize lumber waste, enhance precision and improve overall operational efficiency in the manufacturing of roof test is fantastic and we are very grateful to have received it. I'd now like to open up the call for your questions. Operator, please provide the appropriate instructions. Thank you, Melissa. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session for the analysts that we invited. Please raise your hands if you have a question and we will address each analyst in order.

8:49 If there's any outstanding questions at the end of this call, the company will be happy to take them by email. Alright. The first question is from Nick from ATB. Nick, you can go ahead. Nick, your mic has been unlocked. You can unmute yourself and go ahead with your question.

10:04 Gonna wait for a few more seconds. Okay, Nick. Feel free to raise your hand again. I'm gonna, give the return to Frederick for now, and feel free to raise your hand, later. Thank you so much, Nick. And then we have Frederic from Desjardins. Frederic, you can go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Adi and Vanessa. Hello, Nick. First question was on just the pricing environment. And what are, I guess, general views on pricing outlook as we get into the busier construction season? Do you think there's potential for pricing to improve? Or would we potentially remain in tough environment on that front?

10:58 Historically, as the market picks up, and the winter weathers are over, the pricing will improve. And that's been the trend in the industry is as long as I remember it. However, in the last few years, it just it hasn't been a normal condition now that you deal with the up and down the industry, and you deal with the percentage of the home sales and starts everything there. Right now, in the last few years, we're dealing with a lot of outside elements that affects our industry or any industries out there. So from what I see, the prices will improve.

11:44 And from what I've seen is I am open to many, many surprises out there. So what we decided to do, we find out our sweet spot to be aggressive, gain market share and protect your clients and still make money, and then we will just go at that, Frederic. So and if the prices improve, we will improve too there. And it's just it's just a staying on guard with our industry at the moment and see how it goes. Because in certain provinces, we are doing good like expanding our footprint and expanding our operations and doing the automation and everything. We expanding and we are gaining market share. There are lots of companies in trouble at the moment that they are not surviving because of being just in single provinces or in single towns.

12:33 So it's just there's a lot of elements. It's not like the old days that was simple. Winter is over. The ice is gone. The snow is gone and we're getting busy so everyone's gonna raise the price. It's not like that anymore. We got some people that every five seconds get on the Twitter or get on the social media and shoot their mouths up and it affects everything in the world. So we deal with that right now. And so to answer your question, the trend is it will improve and the last few years, who knows what will happen. We just got to control what we can control in our own and at the moment. Okay, thanks for that. And just one more before I get back in the queue. You did mention some severe winter weather in Q1.

13:18 Can you maybe expand a little bit on the impact that this had on your ability to ship and deliver products in Q1? And if you see that sort of normalizing in Q2? Yes, basically, in most of the areas like past British Columbia, we deal with the winter and then there are certain products that you can pre manufacture and keep everybody working to when the clients are ready because these are all signed contracts. These are not all wishful thinking. So you manufacture as much as you can, but majority you can't go ahead of time because of certain measurements and design involved. So what we will do, and we are used to it, you will go back to Q1 and the weather is not very good, then you go to Q2, Q3 and Q4, and all of those orders ramp up and basically you wrap you get ready and ramp up your production and whether you need second shift or third shift and you just deliver in it. That's the good news.

14:19 That's the kind of thing we are used to handling that once we get busy overnight and maybe just go, we do whatever it takes to ship the product. And so what will happen is for the amount of orders that we didn't ship in Q1, the balance of it will be included Q2, Q3, and it will compress it. So we have to work harder and longer hours to deliver all of that stuff there. That's what will happen because now the weather is warming up pretty good. Understood. Thanks, Adi. And that's it, Frederic. Like, I was absolutely very, very pleasant to you, me and Melissa. We were surprised at the amount of booking. Honestly, I was caught by surprise. I did not I like you go to Salesforce to make that happen, and I didn't think there was demand in the marketplace for it. And I was pleasantly surprised.

15:14 Thank you. Thanks, Adi. Thank you. Thank you, Cedric. And next we have Russell from Beacon Securities. And Russell, your mic has been allowed. Good morning and thanks for the question. I was just following up on your comments around quoting the 80,000,000 in the quarter. How does that compare to quoting levels from Q1 of last year? Just trying to understand the lift you saw. Good morning, Russell. I don't have the exact Melissa, can you help out here the exact number? I don't have the exact number, but it was about 65,000,000, I think. The difference being though a little bit that we did do an acquisition during the 2025 year.

16:02 That's why I figured there was about 18, like 15, dollars 18,000,000 more than last year. Well, that's helpful. Great to see that lift. Just on Clinton, Melissa, thanks for the color around the sufficiency of capital. Guess, can you elaborate on how you expect the cadence of payments around the $4,000,000 government program to work and I guess talk to how much CapEx is left on Clinton in order to get through ramp up as of year end? Definitely. So, the 4,000,000, actually got in, in the last quarter of that round of funding.

16:52 So we've just finished applying for the payment of the $4,000,000 grant. So we're not quite familiar at this point with how long it takes to get the grant out, but we have finished all the paperwork to get it as of now. So it worked out that they're applying it against all the payments we made basically from the signing of the contract date to the end of March thirty first of twenty twenty six. So and then the round was done and now we're moving into further rounds and hopefully further grants eventually, but we'll see what projects we can come up with. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, the we have about 3,500,000 left between the payments in the equipment and the final little pieces of the building, which is mostly holdback amounts throughout the year. So once we get the final construction sign off and occupancy, then that all goes through over the next I'm going to say this quarter is the vast majority, we will have some payments from the equipment into quarter three, just the way our contracts are that we have to be fully commissioned and operational and tested fully.

18:16 Okay. You talked to additional programs, I guess that was my last question for the moment. Congrats on that $4,000,000 win, but can you, I guess, talk what other opportunities there might be? Obviously, the $4,000,000 win was something that you've been cultivating for quite some time. So, I'd love to hear whatever opportunities there might be out there for Alice on that front. Yeah, I mean, the same program has started a new round. Not to say we're not, you know, nothing has been approved or discussed really, and we can't discuss more, but there is a new round of that funding. There are other grants available provincially and federally.

19:02 There's some that were, you know, they're one time use grants or applications. We're saving for certain bigger projects down the road, like, as you know, we kind of have those 42 acres in Colburn that eventually need to be developed. And we're kind of eyeing areas that we struggle with labor significantly to help support with robotics and automation, and whether some of these bigger projects we can put together and get some more funding for between federal and provincial governments. That's great. That's all for me for now. Thanks for the questions. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you so much, Russell. And that marks the end of our question and answer session. So the company is available post call to answer any questions that you may have and with the contact information that's on the screen right now. So you can email us at infoalisab.

20:05 Ca or you can go on to our website which is alisab.ca and you can submit a form or reach us by the phone number that's listed on that website. We thank you for your interest in Atlas Engineered Products for participating in this call. And at this time, you may disconnect. Thank you so much, and have a great day. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.